A Life in Food by real-life Chef Cheryl Bennett
Roasted fingerling potatoes with togarashi spice and charred shishito peppers are a tasty way to change up boring side dishes. This Asian-spiced potato dish will be a new family favorite.
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This easy classic gingerbread cake recipe is my grandmother’s recipe. It’s the perfect holiday treat to have on hand when friends and family come around. It gets an added boost of flavor from using strong brewed tea instead of water.
Miso glazed eggplant has been one of my favorite ways to eat this particular vegetable since the first time I had it about a decade ago. The flavors are an obvious match made in heaven and the Japanese eggplant makes a perfect canvas to soak them up.
This side is perfect for entertaining, as it is easy to make a big platter in no time. It is a simple dish, but has amazing flavor.
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The Kitchen Prescription. This tea has been my “go-to” for years when I’m under the weather. Lemon, mint, ginger and honey tea soothes your throat and warms you up to get you get through even the worst colds. Winter in most of the northern states is serious. Temperatures hovering in the single digits for weeks on end, plummeting to -20 at night, leaving you so cold that you simply can not shake the chill no matter how many layers you pile on. I hate winter, let me rephrase: I loathe winter. I loathe the snow and ice, the freezing temperatures, the slipping and sliding down sidewalks that haven’t been cleaned, chipping an inch of ice from the windshield, car doors that are frozen shut… You get the picture.
And then you get sick. Watery eyes, stuffy nose, scratchy throat and a cough that rattles your insides like gunfire. You have been taken down by the common cold. Once it gets you, it takes weeks until you start to feel human again.
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For weeks I’ve been craving cake… so, enough talk and a little more action. I decided that since I had been to the farmer’s market and had eaten a relatively healthy lunch that cupcakes were definitely in order.
If I’m going to make cupcakes, more often than not I would go all in. Chocolate. The darker & richer the better… however since it is spring and this weekend marks the “un-official” start to summer I wanted to lighten it up a bit and do something a little different.
If you are anything like me, sometimes you forget all the little treasures you have stashed in your kitchen. I buy things that interest me and then put them away for when the mood strikes, but the unfortunate truth is that occasionally they are forgotten until I stumble upon them (usually when I’m looking for something else).
Well, the latest treasure to be unearthed was candied ginger. I thought it might make an interesting garnish for the cupcake and that was basically my jumping off point.
(well, that and my persistent sweet tooth…)
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I am starting to think I missed my calling as a mixologist… I enjoy coming up with new drinks and playing around with flavors to see what the end result is and there is no pressure to get it right because I’m just having fun. Luckily there have been no casualties as of yet and surprisingly no bad drinks either.
The “Thai One On” post featured the flavors of Thailand and I adore those flavors. They are complex yet so clean and they hit every part of your palate. I thought “Why not make a drink with that flavor profile?”
So I started thinking of what goes together and what flavors I enjoy… It is fairly straight forward, nothing too complicated, yet unusual.
This is a drink I plan to break out when I want to impress. It is light and goes down quite easily… perhaps a little too easily.
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