Spanikopita (Spinach Pie)

My mom claims that my brother developed a love of spinach because of his childhood obsession with Popeye. I don’t have any such stories, but I also am a huge fan of spinach. Especially when it’s baked with cheese in a flaky phyllo crust. And especially when you haven’t slathered every layer of phyllo dough with butter, so you don’t feel so bad about eating one more.

Spanikopita are traditionally Greek, but I’ve seen them at Middle Eastern restaurants, too. I guess everyone has their own variation on the theme (the Italians have the spinach and cheese calzaone). I suppose my version isn’t totally authentic, what with the mozzarella cheese in there, but I didn’t have enough feta so I had to add what I had on hand. Also, I don’t add dill to mine, as many people do, because I seriously hate dill. So add dill to yours, use all feta cheese, add other herbs or cheeses – whatever floats your boat. I’m sure it will turn out great.

Green Rice (Rice with cilantro and roasted peppers)

I made this rice to go with the enchiladas I made the other night. I used to just make plain rice with enchiladas, but this is way better and is what is always served with enchiladas now.

This starts out being made like risotto but ends up like regular rice: I sauté onions and garlic in oil, toast the rice, and then add the hot cooking liquid – all of it at once – and then I cover the pot and leave it alone over low heat. And yes, I’ve tried making this without heating up the cooking liquid before adding it to the rice, but it ends up taking more time to cook and the rice comes out more separate.

Yeah, it’s a little more laborious than plain rice, but not that much more so if you do some prep in advance. Besides, it’s way better than plain rice and therefore totally worth the extra effort.

Kiwi Cupcakes with Lime Frosting

Although I’m not really a summer person (I can’t stand the heat!), one of the things I love about summer is the wonderful fresh fruit that it brings: peaches and berries of every variety are abundant and are perfectly juicy and sweet. Unfortunately, fruit in the winter tends to be limited to apples and bananas – blah. However, it’s summer in the southern hemisphere right now, which means that kiwis are plentiful and cheap, to boot.

I recently bought a ton of kiwis with a new cupcake recipe in mind. 

Unfortunately, my first attempt at it was a bit of a failure. Kiwis have a lot of water in them, and their flavor is really subtle, so my addition of a healthy dose of kiwi puree resulted in wobbly cupcakes with a fair amount of kiwi flavor. I decided that the solution would be to reduce the kiwi puree so as to get rid of a lot of the water and intensify the kiwi flavor. 

Great Tastes

I'm such a procrastinator - I was supposed to post this a few days ago...

Tomorrow is the Great Tastes Expo. It's taking place at the Tremont Grand Hotel in downtown Baltimore, and it features lots and lots of food - vendors, demos, and panels. At 3 pm, a panel of Baltimore food bloggers (I'm one of them!) will convene to discuss...pretty much anything we want (so long as it's related to food).

Joining me will be:

John of The Baltimore Snacker
Xani and Erin of Black Coffee and a Donut
Dara of Dining Dish
Rachel of Coconut & Lime and Food Maven
Andrea of Kitchen Goddess
Kit of Mango & Ginger
Meg of Pigtown Pigout
Dan of The Hungover Gourmet
Jake of Unique Culinary Adventures

In addition to all of the great food (I'm really looking forward to sampling stuff from Cinghiale and Dangerously Delicious Pies), there are tons of beer, wine, and spirits available for tasting (I should probably hold off on that until after the panel...) as well as demonstrations (I'm avoiding Warren Brown of CakeLove but I really want to see Michael from last season's Top Chef).

So, if you're in the Baltimore area and you're free tomorrow, come on down to the Tremont Grand to check out the Great Tastes Expo.

Click here for Baltimore Metromix's photos from the event.

Sanguine Salad (Roasted Beets, Blood Oranges, and Pomegranate)

I made this last week as part of dinner for Valentine’s Day because, although it is red, it is comprised of a variety of components that are all a deep, bloody shade of red – perfect for a dinner made by someone who hates Valentine’s Day!

Jalapeno Cheddar Buttermilk Cornbread

I’m on the fence about cornbread. When it’s good, it’s soft, fluffy, and slightly sweet, and I totally love it; when it’s not, it’s grainy and dense and I really have no desire to eat it. That being said, I really like cornbread with chili, and I’ve always made a jalapeno-cheddar version to go along with it. However, I’ve never been really thrilled with the cornbread recipes I’ve used – they’ve all produced a dense and crumbly cornbread that, while tasty, wasn’t quite right texturally.

So, of course, I had to come up with my own, and I think it worked out great – the cornbread come out soft, fluffy, just slightly sweet, a little tangy, kinda cheesy (in a good way!), and slightly spicy – cornbread perfection!

Vegetarian Three-Bean Chili

I don’t know why people can’t make chili without meat. Seriously, what’s so hard about it? Something must be, because the very few versions of vegetarian chili I’ve had weren’t so great. They were basically a flavorless concoction of every vegetable known to man thrown into a pot – I’m sorry, but that’s not chili, it’s some sort of tasteless vegetable stew.

So because I can’t find chili that bears any semblance to the version that is loved by carnivores, I had to resort to making my own. The first version of this came about a few years ago, and, over the years, the list of ingredients has grown to include chipotle peppers and dark chocolate (to evoke the taste of a mole sauce). Don’t be daunted – this is seriously the easiest thing to make. Serve it with some jalapeno cheddar cornbread (recipe forthcoming) for a really easy and totally comforting meal – perfect for a cold and icy night like the one we’re having here in Baltimore.

Perfect Red Velvet Cupcakes

I hate red velvet cake. It looks totally creepy, what with it being a scary shade of deep red, and it doesn’t really taste like very much – I know there’s cocoa in it, but its flavor is rarely discernible. I made some red velvet cupcakes over the summer because they were requested for a party, but I was not satisfied with them – they were not even remotely chocolaty, the color was frightening, and they were a bit dense. 

A few days ago, I wanted to make cupcakes and since I was being stared down by the carton of buttermilk in my fridge, I decided to revisit red velvet cake, albeit with a few revisions in mind. 

Love and Death by Chocolate

Love and death: a weighty theme for this little food blog of mine, isn’t it? Don’t worry, I promise it will lead to a recipe.
Love and death are a popular and enduring pair: amongst their many appearances are their unbilled star turn in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, in Sara Teasdale’s poetry of the early 1900’s, and in indie rock from the early 2000’s (in particular, on the debut album of one of my favorite bands, The Stills). It’s fairly easy to see how these two are linked; some people will do anything for love (just look at what Juliet did).

Dark Chocolate Glaze

This glaze is part of Love and Death by Chocolate.

Chocolate Mousse

This chocolate mousse is a part of Love and Death by Chocolate, but it's also great on its own.

Cocoa Meringues

This meringue is piped into discs for Love and Death by Chocolate. You can also pipe it into small spirals to make meringue kisses.

Pink Peppercorn Ganache

This ganache is a part of Love and Death by Chocolate.

Fudgy Brownie Rounds

These brownie rounds are part of Love and Death by Chocolate. You can also pour this batter into a small pan, or double the recipe for an 8"x8" pan.