I was so happy when peanut butter powder finally hit the market! It’s gotten popular the past year or so, and I love being able to find it just about anywhere. I first experienced it as peanut flour, which is essentially what it is, sometimes with salt added. (And sometimes sugar, but I avoid the added sugar version.)
I’ve started stirring it into my homemade granola and the results are excellent!
I’ve been wanting to try this shake for months. I could even show you the little spot in my planner where I jot down recipes. It’s right there, several months back.
I finally got around to making it.
And its as good as I hoped it would be so I’m sharing it with you.
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When I worked in a bakery in high school and part of college, we used to make the best berry cream cheese scones. They were more like a soft, sweet drop biscuit than traditional European scones (although I love those, too!).
During the summers, I used to arrive at 5:00 am and bake off the scones. Occasionally, I’d make the dough, too, but it was in gigantic portions that were mixed in an industrial size electric mixer so I never had the chance to translate it into something attainable for a small kitchen.
I miss those scones.
Happy October! My favorite month of the year has arrived once again.
I’m slowly beginning to build my collection of winter squash. I have a long way to go to reach the standards of previous years, but there is still plenty of time.
I decided to break into the season with a batch of muffins. Not just your ordinary winter squash muffins, but double ginger winter squash muffins.
Extra ginger makes all the difference, in my opinion.
I’m happy to say that Fake Food Free has transitioned to the Substack Newsletter called Every Corner of the World.
I hope to see you there.
My plan was to get figs and peaches at the farmstand last week. I found them and filled my bag, but as I was turning towards the checkout stand, something else caught my eye.
I have an on-again, off-again relationship with melons. It’s not unlike my relationship with shakes and smoothies, now that I think about it.
Watermelon is in last place. I can have a few bites of it for the summer, or not, and I’m good.
A super ripe cantaloupe is second. I buy at least a couple each summer.
I’ve narrowed down my favorite to honeydew melon. That being said, I’m not sure if you’ve had a tasteless honeydew from a salad bar like I have, but if so, then you know that a good one is hard to find.
But this time, I didn’t find it. It found me. More accurately, I smelled it.
We have a banana problem in the mainland U.S.
They are all the same.
I find that many people are surprised to learn that there is more than one kind of banana. The size, flavor, and texture of the bananas in our supermarkets have engrained in us that there is only one fruit that can be called a banana.
I was always amazed by the many varieties of bananas we had access to in Brazil. The tables at the farmers market were always loaded with short, fat, long, skinny, and just about every other shape and size of banana.
Each had its own flavor, too.
Some were drier and starchier, others soft, and sweet. Very few tasted like the large bananas that we get in the U.S., most often from Central and South America. They grew those were we lived in Brazil, too.
Every now and then, I see a few bunches of a different type of banana in the international section of our supermarkets. Occasionally, I pick up a bunch to see how they compare to the varieties I know from Brazil.
I feel like every time I get my hands on some figs, I want to stuff something with them. The fig and lavender cookies I made last year are a good example. There is just something that about that sweet, jammy interior that is so good when it’s warmed up and discovered inside something unexpected.
Well, it’s fresh fig season in California once again, and I was lucky enough to have several leftover from a photo shoot to afford me the opportunity to experiment with them.
When you have a party there is always one thing that no one ends up eating or drinking. At least there always is for me. It’s usually that thing I bought just to make sure all the bases and guests preferences were covered.
During our 4th of July party a few weeks ago it was the lemonade I bought to make sure those who weren’t drinking alcohol had some options. It was just a jug of organic Trader Joe’s lemonade, but once the party ended it went back in the fridge unopened and has been in there ever since.
I expected I’d use it in cocktails or something later this summer. Then we walked past a coffee shop during our trip to the Seattle area this past weekend, and the whiteboard out front caught my attention.
Lemonade lavender smoothie.
When we travel abroad and find ourselves at a hotel breakfast, one thing I always have my eye out for is muesli.
Up until food bloggers in the U.S. started recreating it as overnight oats, it had never caught on in the States. And it’s still not something you are going to see out much.
In other places, it’s a continental breakfast standard. And despite the fact that I’m usually not huge on soaked, mushy things, it has always been a welcomed find.
I’m not sure what prompted me to make up a batch last week. It was either the hot summer weather, or that I’d made a round of homemade almond milk and wanted to use it up.
Either way, I found myself inspired to make a new muesli creation.
This twist on one of my favorite brunch meals pairs Crab Cakes Benedict with the crisp 2013 Oak Knoll Chardonnay sent to me this month from Cultivar Wine.
We were at least a year into our time living in the Bay Area before I discovered Crab Cakes Benedict. To be honest, I’d probably only started eating regular Eggs Benedict not long before that.
The crab cake version, though? Well, it blew the old standby away. In all honesty, I can’t say that I was a super huge fan of the original anyway. The Canadian bacon on the English muffin didn’t do much for me, nor did the sauce.
But Crab Cakes Benedict is a whole different story.
