In The Odyssey, Odysseus must choose between facing the man-eating monster Scylla or the ship-destroying whirlpool Charybdis. A tough choice no matter how you slice it, but these Greek pinwheel sandwiches are an easy choice: truly delicious and easy to make! A recipe that I originally found on Hello Healthy, they’ve got all the flavors you’d expect in a classic Greek salad (feta, cucumbers, peppers), plus some surprises (like herbed cream cheese). I love the way the feta incorporates into the cream cheese, and the roasted peppers add just the right touch of crunch.
Siren Notes on the Rocks: Basil Music Note Crackers and Tropical Hurricane Cocktails
Happy August, everybody! Our new book of the month is The Odyssey! That’s right. We’re taking the term “classic” to a whole new level this month. Maybe the hot weather’s had me craving a sea voyage. 😉
It’s All Comin’ Up Roses: New Theme, New Nephew, New Tea, and a New Book of the Month Hint!
As you can see, we’ve got a new look around here! You may recall my special post a few days ago, where I explained that some unexpected problems with my previous blog theme had me hunting for a new one. This gorgeous new theme (courtesy of Nose Graze) caught my eye right away, since it’s so customizable. Unfortunately, it took me almost three whole days to get it set up, but I promise I have a good reason:
This awesome little guy is my brand new nephew (and soon to be godson!). I’ve been staying at my sister’s place the last couple days to help out with the new baby, which hasn’t left much time for blogging…but it HAS left lots of time for baby cuddles and playing pretend with my 3-year-old niece. The toddler and I even colored some leftover sugar cookies (from my Candied Flower Cookie recipe) with some special food markers I had on hand.
Secret Garden Bonus Post: Candied Flower Cookies
Since July is extra long, we get to do a Secret Garden bonus post! Garden-themed menus leave so many great options for dessert, so I decided to make a companion dessert to go with our Lavender Lemon Eclairs. I’ve been DYING to make candied flowers for this menu, so sugar cookies with lemon icing and candied violets sounded ideal. Like most of our bonus recipes, I’m keeping this one simple, so we’ll mostly just cover how to make the candied flowers (in the ingredients list, I’ve included links to the cookie and icing recipes I used). You can make your own cookies and icing, but if time is of the essence you can totally go with store bought. That’s what I love about this recipe—it can be as involved or as easy as you want!
Please Pardon Our…Blankness
As you can probably tell, things are looking awfully monochromatic around here. Up until today, I was using a Mojo Marketplace blog theme called Writer. The theme creator sent out an update today that changed the whole theme to something much more “minimalistic”…and much less customizable. It got rid of header menus, backgrounds, pretty much everything. As you can imagine, I was not a happy camper. So I disabled it, and we’re currently sporting a free WordPress.org theme until I find a replacement (still pretty minimalistic, but at lease this one shows menus! Yay!).
Hopefully, I’ll have something strikingly gorgeous ready for you by tomorrow. For now, I’m settling in for a long night of unexpected theme browsing. Three cheers for the caffeine that’s going to get me through it all!
Lavender Lemon Eclairs
For our Secret Garden menu, I wanted to make a truly elegant dessert. Eclairs (one of my greatest weaknesses) immediately sprang to mind. Of course, they needed to fit the theme of the story, and what better way to tie in the garden than adding a little floral touch? Thus, these lavender lemon eclairs were born! I’m not normally into flower-flavored things, but I found these to be light, sweet, and fragrant in all the right ways. The lavender-infused pastry cream perfectly complements the lemon glaze. I used a pate a choux (that’s pastry dough) recipe from Flavor the Moments and made a variation on a pastry cream recipe from Ricón Cocina. Enjoy!
Happy National Ice Cream Day!
The Mister and I differ greatly on what makes the perfect ice cream. He’s a plain vanilla purist, while I usually view ice cream as an excuse to combine 12 kinds of candy and cookies together (I’m slowly learning to pace myself). But when I found out that today is National Ice Cream Day, this Raspberry Cordial Ice Cream I posted last July immediately came to mind as a crowd pleaser.
In which Paper Fury sums up my reason for blogging better than I ever could :)
Source: Why Books Should Always (Copiously) Mention Food | Paper Fury
So there’s this book blog called Paper Fury that I follow religiously. The author (Cait) is hilarious, quirky, clever, and original…and she blogs about books, which automatically makes her awesome in my world. Anyway, she recently published a post entitled Why Books Should Always (Copiously) Mention Food, and I love it because she basically sums up my reasons for book-and-food blogging. She has this to say about the book/food relationship:
Hot Cross Buns: Mrs. Sowerby’s Currant Buns
Have you ever had one of those days: a day when you’re convinced that every power on earth has conspired to make everything go wrong? I had one of those days on Monday when I made these buns for our Secret Garden menu. My plan was to get up early to allow for the dough’s two long rising periods, so I started the day off right…by sleeping through my alarm. I also planned to make authentic British hot cross buns with golden syrup and flour paste crosses. Instead, the sugar for my syrup absolutely refused to caramelize (I tried 3 different ways), and the flour paste crosses spread into nothingness when baked. Long story short, I used an Americanized recipe instead. Add in the fact that I managed to lock myself out of my apartment halfway through taking pictures, and it’s really no surprise that 3 pm found me drinking a giant glass of wine.
Still, I have to admit, these guys are pretty darn delicious. 😉
Misselthwaite Manor’s Young Fowl with Bread Sauce
In The Secret Garden, the cook at Misselthwaite Manor creates some darn tasty dishes, but she admits to pulling out all the stops when she makes this young fowl with bread sauce. We recreated the dish here by pairing thyme-seasoned roasted chicken with traditional English bread sauce (adapted from this recipe). An entree fit for a true English manor!