I tested this recipe several times. The first time I made it I strictly followed the original pound cake recipe so that I could get an idea of the flavor profile of the pound cake by itself. As with most pound cakes, it tasted good but definitely needed one or two additional ingredients to jazz it up a bit. One of my favorite flavor combinations is blueberries paired with lemons. Those two ingredients combined with a little drizzle of some lemon glaze transformed the pound cake into a dessert that bursts with flavor.

Check out my guest post on A Culinary Journey with Chef Dennis to read more about the recipe!

My grocery list usually consists of a long list of items that almost never include meat. I typically wait until I have an opportunity to go out to eat to dine on a meat dish. This month, as part of the Secret Recipe Club, I was assigned the fabulous blog This Mama Cooks! Of course, as usual, upon receiving my assignment I immediately scoured the assignment site for ideas. I noticed that Anne-Marie, the lovely author behind This Mama Cooks!, has a recipe for Carne Asada Marinade that she touted as the best ever. I was intrigued and wanted to give it a try.

I am pleased to report that her recipe rocks! It’s easy to put together and filled with ingredients you most likely have in your pantry. There are also various ways to cook it which makes it easily adaptable to your tastes. I used the marinade on a piece of flank steak. My butcher told me it would also taste great on hanger steak or skirt steak.

Head over to This Mama Cooks! and check out the rest of her recipes. Anne-Marie specializes in sharing healthy recipes and lifestyle tips for busy moms and their families. You will definitely find something that you will love and feel good about serving to your family.

Carne Asada Marinade

With several different ways to prepare this dish along with a list of ingredients you'll find in your pantry, this recipe is easy to put together and easy to execute.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup malt vingegar
1/3 cup lime juice or lemon juice
1/3 cup orange juice
1 cup water
2 tablespoons peeled fresh garlic, minced
1 tablespoon white pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon Mexican oregano
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 orange, sliced
1/4 bunch cilantro, chopped

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and whisk to combine.

Place meat in gallon sized freezer bag, in the bottom of a shallow baking dish, or a non-reactive (plastic or glass) storage container with a lid.

Pour carne asada marinade on top of meat, cover dish or close bag, and marinate overnight up to 48 hours in the refrigerator.

Grilling the marinated carne asada:

Take meat out of container and grill until just cooked through. (Rare to medium rare.) Cut cooked meat into strips.

Place meat and favorite toppings (salsa, cheese, guacamole, avocado slices, tomatoes, shredded cabbage, grilled sweet peppers, etc.) in a tortilla to make into tacos or burritos. You can also serve meat over rice for a carne asada bowl.

Slow cooking the marinated carne asada:

After marinating for one or two days, place meat and marinade in a slow cooker.

Slow cook for 10 to 12 hours on low.

Meat should be extra tender and can be shredded with a fork.

Place meat and favorite toppings (salsa, cheese, guacamole, avocado slices, tomatoes, shredded cabbage, grilled sweet peppers, etc.) in a tortilla to make into tacos or burritos. You can also serve meat over rice for a carne asada bowl.

Coconut flour has quickly become one of my favorite flours to play with. I wanted to create a recipe that featured this versatile flour in something savory. It works great in a lot of sweet treats but I wanted to see how it would shine in something other than cake or cookies. I was thrilled with how these scones turned out.

I used Bob’s Red Mill Coconut Flour. I am a huge fan of their products including their coconut flour. As they indicate on their blog:

Coconut Flour is a delicious, healthy alternative to wheat and other grain flours. It is very high in fiber, low in digestible carbohydrates, a good source of protein and gluten free. It lends baked goods an incomparably rich texture and a unique, natural sweetness. You can replace up to 20% of the flour called for in a recipe with Coconut Flour, adding an equivalent amount of additional liquid to the recipe.

I served these with our dinner. Not exactly the time I would normally serve scones but they were a great substitute for a traditional biscuit or roll. I intended to top them with a little bit of butter but they really didn’t need it. The flavors are very pronounced. No additional garnish was needed.

They are not the texture of a normal scone. They are dense and somewhat chewy. It may sound odd if you are used to flaky scones but it translates really well. Trust me.

Check out the recipe here.

Disclosure: I was provided with samples of Bob’s Red Mill products in order to develop this recipe. However, the opinions expressed in this post are my own.

For this month’s Secret Recipe Club, I was assigned Suzanne’s blog Thru the Bugs on My Windshield. I love her take on life. The quote on her site says it all: “Life is like a windshield. There’s gonna be a few bug splats along the way.” Suzanne loves spending time with her ever-expanding family, taking pictures that make people smile and cooking traditional comfort food.

I was immediately intrigued by the fact that she enjoyed making comfort food. As with each Secret Recipe Club assignment, I wanted to find something I had yet to make. Biscuits are considered a treat in our house. They are not something I serve often. We usually have them with breakfast and they have always been from a package.  I was excited to see that Suzanne had a recipe for a savory biscuit that can be served with a hearty dinner.

They are incredibly easy to make. I had all the ingredients on hand, which made this recipe even more appealing to me.

Cheesy-Garlicy-Peppery Biscuits from Thru the Bugs on My Windshield who adapted it from Betty’s Stir ‘N Roll Biscuit recipe.

Cheesy-Garlicy-Peppery Biscuits

Yield: 16

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 12 minutes

Total Time: 22 minutes

Savory biscuits that serve as the perfect accompaniment to a hearty dinner.

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 tsp fresh ground pepper or 1 tsp Hatch Green Chile powder
1/3 cup olive oil
2/3 cup milk
1 cup grated cheddar cheese

Directions:

Heat oven to 450 degrees.

Put dry ingredients in mixing bowl first and stir around to mix. Then, pour in wet ingredients plus the cheese. Stir until mixture cleans the side of the bowl and forms a ball.

Turn the dough onto a piece of wax paper and knead using another piece of wax paper about 25 times, or until dough has some elasticity and looks smooth. Pat or roll out to about 1/2″ thick between two sheets of wax paper. Using a biscuit cutter, cut out biscuits and place on ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 450 degrees for about 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Our local food community is very active. We find various ways to get together and hang out. One of my favorite gatherings is our local food swap. The event, hosted by Philly Swappers, is part silent auction/part village marketplace/part fun-loving open house where your homemade creations (breads, preserves, special concoctions, canned goods, etc.) become your own personal currency for use in swapping with other participants.

Attendees bring an assortment of homemade edible specialties (think pickles, preserves, baked goods, honey, granola, pasta, fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, yogurt… you name it!) to exchange for other handcrafted delights. I’ve been to every swap to date and I can say that the last one was definitely my favorite so far. Check out all the amazing things I snagged!

Cookie Truffles

Chocolate Covered Potato Chips

Caramelized Onions and so much more!

For this swap I traded my strawberry balsamic jam, drunken cherries and cherry marmalade. If you are new to food swapping and need ideas for what to make, check out the recipes below for some of the items that were traded:

The Cozy Herbivore: Lime-Chipotle Finishing Salt

Feed Me Lee: Caramel Rosemary Popcorn

Manifest Vegan: Chocolate Covered Potato Chips

Mother Nature Network: Homemade Pizza Sauce and Slow Cooker Caramelized Onions

I would also be remiss if I did not tell you about another amazing thing that is taking place in this area. A new community I am a part of, aptly named Counter Culture PHL, has formed as a way for food professionals and enthusiasts to come together for sharing, collaborating, cooking and professional development in a respectful and social environment. Counter Culture Philly welcomes both food professionals and amateurs (writers, cooks, bakers, photographers, bloggers, nutritionists, event planners, etc). Our passion is in the kitchen and on the counter, and we celebrate the culture of the local culinary world.

If you live in the area and would like to find out more about Counter Culture PHL feel free to email me: wendy@laphemmephoodie.com or counterculturephl@gmail.com directly. We would love to have you join us!

Avoiding eggs can be a real challenge sometimes. Almost every recipe I found for cocoa roasted almonds called for using egg whites to coat the almonds before adding the rest of the ingredients. I was even more frustrated by the fact that many of the recipes used artificial sweetener instead of sugar.

I’m trying really hard to avoid artificial sweetener. It’s been pretty easy with the exception of a few recipes here and there. I set out to replicate the cocoa roasted almonds I’ve been buying from the store because the store brand I’ve been buying contains artificial sweetener.

I’m not including the recipe I used because it did not turn out. As you can see in the pictures above, the recipe I used did not include the appropriate baking time. The almonds scorched a bit before they were truly roasted. Also, the coating was not nearly as tasty as the packaged almonds I’ve become addicted to.

My pantry is freshly stocked with a couple pounds of raw almonds so that I can play around with the recipes I’ve been working with. Wish me luck!

There is a world of produce out there to experience. Until last year, I had not savored the crispy bite of an endive spear. I wasn’t avoiding it but I wasn’t going out of my way to look for it either. A friend recently served some for brunch and I was instantly hooked.

The wonderful people at Discover Endive! recently sent me a box of fresh California endive to play with. There are so many ways you can use endive. I made the spears in this recipe. I also used the spears as a “scooper” for tuna which was very similar to a lettuce wrap. In addition, I also used some chopped endive in a salad. I’m looking forward to using it in my cooking adventures.

What is endive? As indicated by Discover Endive!, “endive is a member of the chicory family, which includes radicchio, escarole and curly endive. It is often called the queen of vegetables and is prized the world over. It has a crisp texture and a sweet, nutty flavor with a pleasantly mild bitterness — great served raw or cooked.”

Health benefits:

• a good source of beta-carotene, which the body coverts into vitamin A
• a good source of heart-healthy potassium — one head of endive delivers over 50% of the potassium found in a banana
• high in complex fiber

I plated the spears with some of the lemon garlic hummus I recently made but I must admit I never touched the hummus. The spears did not need any additional ingredients.

Disclaimer:  I received a box of endive for free from Discover Endive; as always, opinions stated are my own.

Blue Cheese Endive Spears

Yield: 8 (2 stuffed leaves)

Endive is incredibly versatile. You can substitute the blue cheese with goat cheese and/or the pecans with walnuts to adapt this tasty appetizer to your liking.

Ingredients:

16 slices endive leaves

1/2 cup Maytag Blue Cheese, crumbled (substitute with goat cheese if desired)

1/2 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped

Honey

Directions:

Arrange endive leaves on a serving platter.

Add a few crumbles of cheese to the base of each endive leaf.

Add a sprinkle of nuts on top of the cheese.

Drizzle a little bit of honey over the cheese and nut mixture.

Serve.