Author: Nicole

I have to admit that pecans are probably my favorite nut to put into a cookie, judging by the fact that I use them more than any other nut, but I can go for anything from walnuts to macadamias to pistachios. This time around, I decided to use hazelnuts to add some crunch to a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Hazelnuts and chocolate make a great combination – as evidenced by the popularity of Nutella – and hazelnuts tend to be a little bit crunchier than some other nuts because they’re a little less buttery and tender on their own.

I used lightly toasted, whole hazelnuts for this recipe, so they had a nice nutty flavor going into the cookies. Some recipes that use hazelnuts call for their skins to be removed first, but that is not necessary for these casual cookies because flecks of brown hazelnut skin won’t stand out (or look bad, even if they do) against the golden brown cookies. To further emphasize the hazelnut flavor in these, I also incorporated a little bit of Nutella into the cookie dough.

The cookies have a crisp edge and a slightly chewy center to them. When they are fresh from the oven, you can really get a great Nutella flavor from both the small amount of Nutella in the dough and the warm chocolate surrounding the hazelnuts. They retain their chewiness after they’ve cooled and store, in an airtight container, well for a couple of days.
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Cookbooks tend to have one particular format that goes something like ingredients, instructions and photos. I can buy a cookbook on the recipe titles alone, but sometimes the same old thing gets a little, well, boring. That is not the case with Bite Me: A Stomach-Satisfying, Visually Gratifying, Fresh-Mouthed Cookbook. How many cookbooks can you think of that include a photo of a cookie crushed over the head of a luchador action figure as an illustration for a recipe? Not many others, to be sure.

This cookbook lives up to its subtitle as a fun, yet satisfying, book to read and tool to use in the kitchen. Visually, it is very appealing, with lighthearted and dramatic images of gogo dancers, action figures playing with food and Elvis impersonators. There are plenty of great photos of the food, too. The book covers a wide range of recipes, from appetizers, soups and salads, to sides mains and desserts, and offers colorful commentary in addition to the colorful photos. For instance, you might find a quick conversation between the two sister-authors introducing a recipe, or a few reminiscences about childhood favorite foods. There is so much going on in the book, that it is actually very difficult to boil it down to just a few words!

Getting past the visuals, the recipes are very good. They’re in a large font (as some readers always like to see in books!), with well laid-out ingredient lists and clear, numbered directions. They’re easy to follow along with, but the recipes don’t take shortcuts. You’ll be making Caramelize Onion and Goat Cheese Pizza with fresh cheeses, fresh veggies and fresh herbs, and Gooey Monkey Bread with Caramelize Glaze with a from-scratch dough. There is a lot of variety, both new and familiar flavors, and it’s easy to have fun cooking along with this book. And it is always nice to be able to have fun in the kitchen.

What is a Puka Dog? It’s not your ordinary hot dog, that’s for sure! Puka dogs are Hawaiian-style hot dogs served at, of course, Puka Dog in Poipu on Kauai. “Puka” is Hawaiian for hole – as in puka shell necklaces, where many small shells with holes in the center are strung on a necklace. Puka dogs start out with large buns that, instead of being sliced down the center as traditional buns are, have a hole poked lengthwise right in the center. Each bun is closed at the bottom, to hold in the hot dog and all the relishes topping it, and open at the top so everything can fit inside.

The toppings are what make these dogs unique. The dogs themselves are polish sausages (or veggie dogs). They are topped with one of three sauces – mild, medium or spicy – one of a variety of tropical relishes, as well as with mustard. The relishes include coconut, mango, banana, papaya, starfruit and pineapple. They are all very sweet, very tasty and very tropical. You can even get a tropical mustard if you choose the lilikoi option (passionfruit) over yellow or dijon.
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Gluten free baked goods seem to be getting more popular all the time. This means that there are more products out to help you bake gluten free things than there were, say, five or six years ago. For instance, you can now easily pick up a bag of gluten free flour, such as the Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Flour I keep in my pantry, and use it in a variety of recipes much as you would use regular all purpose flour. This is exactly what I did with this recipe, adding gluten free flour to a recipe that can easily use regular flour.

These banana pecan muffins certainly did not suffer for being gluten free. Indeed, no one I served them to had a clue that there wasn’t a speck of gluten in them! The muffins are moist, soft and very tender. Some of that tenderness comes from the lack of gluten in the flour, but they were not crumbly or mushy (as some bad GF baked goods I’ve tried have been). They had a great mixture of spices that really complemented the bananas, and of course the pecans added a great crunchiness. I usually like to used roasted and salted pecans in my baked goods for that extra sweet-savory flavor, but regular toasted pecans are just fine, too.

These muffins taste great when they’re fresh, but are so moist that they keep well for a day or two when stored in an airtight container. They’re a great alternative to a banana bread, since muffins take so little time to bake, and make a great breakfast treat with a cup of coffee in the morning if you make them the night before.
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Driving up towards Hanalei Bay from Lihue, right around mile marker 24 and the Kahiliholo intersection, you might catch sight of a roadside sign reading Ice Cold Coconuts out in front of a small fruit stand on the right hand side of the road. If you do, stop by. This fruit stand is packed with all kinds of fresh tropical fruit and you can’t get much more tropical than drinking right out of an ice, cold coconut on a hot, humid day.

For $5, you get a whole coconut, which is tapped for a straw as soon as you order. Hang out by the fruit stand while you sip up the slightly sweet coconut water inside (very refreshing and much better than any bottled coconut water sold in “gourmet” grocery stores), then get your coconut halved with a machete so you can scrape out the coconut flesh with a little plastic knife (works better than a regular knife for some reason). Plus, stopping by a cute little roadside fruit stand makes for some great photo ops.

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Sometimes when I’m traveling, I take note of some restaurants that were recommended in guidebooks, by friends (and bloggers!) and on sites like Yelp. Sometimes I don’t and have to rely on what I spot while I’m driving around. My visit to Island Taco in Waimea, Kauai was the result of the latter approach. I saw the sign, I saw a couple of other diners and I pulled in. Plus, I have a soft spot for tacos of any kind.

Island Taco immediately appealed to me. It had a great menu, nice open seating area and – even better – a very enthusiastic staff that was more than happy to tell me all about their food. They have ahi, mahi mahi, ono, pork, chicken and tofu, all in tacos, burritos, quesadillas and salads. They have both vegetarian and vegan options. There are even fat free options if you’re really health conscious. That said, I think that super-fresh ahi is a great choice if you’re looking for a healthy lunch. Everything is made in-house, including the flour tortillas that they serve their tacos and burritos with.

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Another great breakfast near the South shore on Kauai is the Kalaheo Cafe and Coffee Co. I liked it so much, that I actually ate there twice on my visit (and it was a quick trip out there!). The place is just a few miles from Poipu and is right off the main highway, so it’s easy to find. It can get pretty busy in the morning with both locals and tourists, but there is a large parking lot and the service is quick.

Going inside, the restaurant is very cute with a great Hawaiian, coffee shop feel to it. Peruse the menu, order at the counter and take a seat so servers can bring your order out to you. There is also a take out counter for bakery and coffee items. The menu features lots of egg dishes, omelettes, pancakes and french toast. If you want something a little lighter, there are also egg breakfast sandwiches available, like the Longboard, which was like a BLT with egg and provolone cheese added to it.

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There are two shave ice places called Jo Jo’s in Waimea on Kauai. One, on the main street, will be busy and is full of tourists. The other, just off the main street and about 100 feet away from the first shop, will also be busy but it will be packed with locals. The latter is the one you want to go to. Jo-Jo’s Anuenue Shaved Ice is a hole-in-the-wall shop that makes delicious shave ice. Shave ice (often said in Hawaii without a “d” on “shaved”) starts out with a big block of ice (not ice cubes) that is run over a sharp blade to create powder-fine ice that is the perfect vehicle for fruity, tropical sauces. The syrups at Jo Jo’s are homemade and come in every flavor you could want, from cappuccino to coconut, from blue raspberry to li hing mui.

According to my guidebook, the shave ice shop down the street from this one was originally owned by Jo Jo herself. She sold it to some (again, according to the book, non-locals) without including her secret syrup recipes. That location remains popular with tourists, but Jo Jo opened this new shop and, since locals know who runs it, it is busy with fans who know the real thing. That story in the guidebook was enough to have me double checking the location and I wasn’t disappointed.

The shave ice was great, and the syrups were fantastic. I got a scoop of macadamia nut ice cream topped with mango, guava and coconut shave ice and dusted with Li Hing Mui powder. The fruit flavors were vibrant and fresh, and the ice cream was a nice match for them – especially when the last of the shave ice was gone and I was left with ice cream in fruity syrup. Li Hing Mui is a salty-sweet dried plum that is popular in Hawaii, often ground into a powder and sprinkled on sweets or fruits. I always make sure to get some when I have a chance, and I liked the savory element that it added to my shave ice, as well as the way it made the ice look like a little volcano.

Pono Market is one of my favorite places on Kauai. The family-owned and run market is a small storefront on the main street in Kapa’a on the west side of the island, just a few minutes north of Lihue. Inside, you’ll find a big deli counter, an espresso bar and some of the friendliest people on the island. It’s not a big restaurant, although they do have an extensive menu. This is a local’s spot that definitely caters to local palates. It is a must-stop spot if you’re interested in trying a Hawaiian plate lunch. They serve real Hawaiian food – and all of it is exceptional.

When you walk in, there will probably be a line of people (especially if you come between 10:30 and 12, when most of the locals are off of work for lunch). Jump in and check out what is in the deli case while you wait. Someone will definitely pipe up to tell you the specials. Everything is made fresh every day and most of it sells out by the early afternoon. You can choose a couple of entrees to make a plate lunch, served with a side of rice. Bear in mind that they might be sold out of their homemade lau lau and other signature items if you’re not early, but you’ll definitely find plenty of tempting things to choose from regardless. Don’t miss the ahi poke, which is not only flavorful, but is made with some of the most tender, freshest ahi you can find anywhere. My three-item plate below consists of sesame ahi poke, fried chicken (all dark meat and soaked in a flavorful marinade), kalua pork and white rice, with a side of macaroni salad.

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The only bad thing about staying in on the South shore on Kauai in Poipu is that breakfast options outside of the on-resort restaurants are a bit limited. This time around, I found Joe’s on the Green. Joe’s is located at the entrance of the Kiahuna Golf Course, serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, and – best of all for an early riser like me – opens for breakfast early.

The menu is pretty varied, with a good mix of local favorites like Moco Loco and Spam Musubi, as well as banana mac nut pancakes, fresh fruit, eggs and french toast. It’s all reasonably priced, (a good thing considering this is a tourist-heavy area and prices can reflect that), with a good mix of small items and bigger dishes. Naturally, I wanted some dishes with local flavor and immediately set my sights on the Moco Loco. Moco Loco is a breakfast dish that consists of a hamburger patty on rice, covered in gravy and topped with a couple of over-easy fried eggs. Joe’s version included mushrooms, onions and cheese, too. The dish is amazing and is a great way to wake up if you had too many mai tais the night before. It’s hearty, so don’t plan on hitting the beach right away unless you split a serving with someone.

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I just got back from a quick trip to the island of Kauai. The trip was a little bit last minute, but there is no such thing as a bad time for a trip to Hawaii as far as I’m concerned. I didn’t do any posting about the trip while I was away. I did, however, do a lot of relaxing, sightseeing and – of course – eating while I was out there and have plenty of posts on some great foodie spots on the island to catch up on in the next couple of days. First, however, I can’t resist sharing a couple of snapshots of the island first.

The above photo is of Hanalei Bay, on the North side of Kauai. Definitely a great photo spot and place to spend a relaxing afternoon watching people fish on the pier.

It’s impossible not to look at these blue waters and wish you were right there on the beach – especially since the water is warm all year round. This is a shot from Poipu Beach, on the South side of the island.

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It’s nice to have a cake around the house. It’s nice to have something to slice and serve when the neighbors come over for coffee or when family drops in, but it’s equally nice to have a little something to treat yourself with when you’re at home and looking for a snack. I tend to think that a good, moist bundt cake or tube cake is the way to go, since they don’t need any frosting and often keep a little bit better than layer cakes do because they are much easier to wrap up with plastic wrap and keep fresh (no worries about squishing the icing!).

This cake is just that kind of everyday cake that you want around the kitchen. It’s a Lemon Buttermilk Pound Cake that is moist, tender and – most importantly – very flavorful. The lemon in the cake and the lemon glaze keep the cake light and fresh tasting, perfect for an afternoon snack.  Without the glaze, which has plenty of fresh lemon juice, the lemon flavor in the cake is fairly subtle. I baked this cake in a tube pan, the same type of pan that I would use for angel food cake. It is easy to get a cake out of this sort of pan, since the sides are removable, but my favorite thing about it is the fact that you still get to see the beautiful, high-rising top of the cake, with all it’s little nooks and crannies just waiting to be filled with a drizzle of icing.

When you’re mixing up this cake, don’t worry if the batter seems thing. Pound cake, although it is tender in the end, is dense compared to many other cakes and really requires a thick batter to achieve this texture. The butter in the cake lends a nice background flavor to it, but the vegetable oil that I added in is what helps keep it moist for several days after baking.
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With crackdowns on what goodies you’re allowed to eat in schools these days, it can seem like the days of the school bake sale may be numbered – but even if that is the case, the classic treats that are bake sale staples will still be around for years to come. In The Best Bake Sale Ever Cookbook, you get a whole collection of recipes for sweet and savory dishes that will make any bake sale a success.

The book is divided up into chapters according, roughly, to bake sale category. It starts off with Cookies; Bars and Brownies; Breads and Coffee Cakes; Cupcakes, Rolls and Muffins; Cakes; Pies and Something Extra. All of the recipes are straightfoward, and most are fairly simple so you should have no problems following along with them. There are “Bake Sale Tips” scattered throughout the book, offering additional suggestions on how to package baked goods or customize them to suit tastes and/or a holiday season.

The book has a big selection of recipes, so you won’t have any problem flipping though the pages and finding something that appeals to you. You may have to judge on names alone, however, because there is only one small insert in the center of the book with photos of the included recipes. The photos are great, but definitely leave you wanting more, just as you might want to see a full spread laid out on the table at a bake sale, not just have someone tell you the names of the dishes you haven’t put out, yet. Still, there are lots of great ideas in here and you won’t have a problem kicking off a series of bake sales with these recipes.

I like to make Easter eggs at the last minute, usually the day before Easter Sunday. Like so many of you, I usually make my eggs hard-boiled, and I don’t want to leave them sitting around for too long before Easter so that they are fresh enough to eat (should anyone be so inclined to peel a pretty egg along with their breakfast). I like all kinds of eggs, so this year I decided to make a variety pack. I made solid eggs, eggs decorated with wax and eggs with patterns taped on to leave a white design behind after they were dyed. I also made swirled eggs, a favorite of mine.

Swirled eggs are made by adding a little bit of vegetable oil to a cup of egg dye – made with white vinegar, water and food coloring. As the egg goes into the dye through the oil, some of the oil adheres to the eggshell and prevents dye from sticking there. Add a little bit of oil, and you get eggs that are mostly solid swirls. Add a lot of oil and you get eggs that are mostly white with smaller splashes of color.

To make swirled eggs: Combine 1 tbsp vinegar, 1/2 tsp food coloring and 1/2 cup boiling water in a glass or deep, narrow bowl. Add 1/4 – 1 tsp vegetable oil to the top of the dye (use only 1/4 tsp for brighter eggs, more oil for more subtle eggs, as pictured here). Amounts can be doubled or tripled if you are going to make a big batch of eggs and prefer to use a larger container. Lower the eggs into the dye, swirling them very gently as you enter the water. Remove when desired color is reached.

Lemon and blueberry is a great combination in baked goods because the two flavors compliment each other very well. The lemon seems to bring out an extra sweetness in the blueberries, which are sweet on their own but don’t have the tart aspect to them that other berries, such as raspberries, can have to set off their flavor. Lemon and blueberry often meet in a batch of muffins or in a quickbread, but they came together for me in a batch of fresh scones this time around.

These Lemon Blueberry Scones are light, tender and have a great overall flavor to them. The scone dough has both fresh lemon juice and fresh lemon zest in it, as well as plenty of blueberries. Although I used fresh lemon, I actually used frozen blueberries for these scones. Fresh will work, but frozen berries hold their shape better when you handle the dough. I always knead my scone dough before cutting it to give it some extra flakiness and frozen berries are much sturdier when it comes down to it. And both fresh and frozen berries taste great. A light lemon glaze drizzled over the top of these before serving is what really makes that lemon flavor pop out and makes the scones even sweeter.

If you’re going to be serving these to company, or to any group, for breakfast, there is an alternative to glazing the scones that makes for a nice presentation. You can double (or triple) the glaze amount and put it in a small bowl with a small spoon or knife, then let guests drizzle on as much as they want while they’re eating. You can also mix a bit of the glaze into some softened butter to make a nice, sweet spread for these scones. They don’t need the butter to make them flavorful, but I’ve never had anyone complain about the opportunity to spread extra butter on a warm, fresh scone.

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Cake mixes are convenient, to be sure, but no matter how convenient they are, it’s not worth using one if it’s not going to taste good. The Ad Hoc cake mix I tried recently is very tasty, but at $14 per box, it is priced way above a regular grocery store cake mix. How do those mixes stack up? Good Housekeeping put a few more widely available yellow cake mixes to the text in a recent issue (April 2010) to see.

They tested a total of 11 brands, but ended up only rating their top three finishers. The winner was King Arthur Flour’s Golden Vanilla Cake Mix. This mix was described as not-too-sweet with a homemade flavor, but some tasters noted that it was “a tad dry and ‘a little gritty.’” The runners up were Betty Crocker SuperMoist Golden Vanilla Cake Mix, which had a light, fluffy texture and a well-balanced, buttery flavor, although it was knocked down slightly for having a slightly artificial vanilla flavor to it. Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Butter Recipe Golden Premium Cake Mix was close behind, also with a light and moist texture. The buttery flavor of this cake tasted artificial and “buttered-popcorn-like” which did not earn high marks with the tasters.

So, all had their drawbacks, but had enough high points (light, fluffy textures) to make they worth it in a pinch, especially when they all came in under $5 per box. I have to guess from the descriptions of the “winning” cakes that the Ad Hoc mix was better than all of these, as I had no reservations about the flavor or texture of the cake, but since I still do have reservations about its price, I’m not sure that I would put it in my pantry as a backup before any of these.

A few weeks ago, I picked up a couple containers of Ad Hoc Milk and Dark Chocolate Frosting from Williams Sonoma because I couldn’t resist the chance to try some of chef Thomas Keller’s famous goodies in my own kitchen. At the same time, I picked up a box of Ad Hoc Yellow Cake Mix to go with the frosting. After all, gourmet frosting calls for gourmet cake, doesn’t it?

When you buy the Ad Hoc jarred frostings, you’re paying about $20 for a big container of (delicious) premade frosting. When you buy Ad Hoc’s Yellow Cake Mix, which is also available exclusively at Williams-Sonoma, you’re basically paying $14 for the recipe to Ad Hoc’s yellow layer cake. The box comes with two bags inside of it: a bag of sugar and another bag containing flour, baking powder, vanilla and salt. You need to add all of the other ingredients yourself, including butter, vegetable oil, eggs, egg yolks and buttermilk. You’re adding more ingredients than come in the box. The upside is that you get the feeling of making a cake from scratch, but a mix is supposed to make things easier and this cake took just as much work as a cake made completely from scratch. This is why I say that you’re paying for the recipe, not for the convenience of a mix.

That said, this is an excellent recipe and it makes a great yellow cake. The cake is very tender and has a light, fluffy, even crumb. The texture is very similar to that of a less expensive cake mix. All of the color in it comes from egg yolks, not from artificial coloring, so the cake has a very slightly yolky flavor and (for me) might have done well with a little bit more vanilla to balance it out (if I’m going to be as critical as I can). All in all – it tasted like a cake mix cake – a good one, but still a cake mix cake. I’d save the recipe on the box, weigh out the ingredients in the bags and give this a go completely from scratch next time. The jump start on measuring ingredients is nice, but not nice enough for the price tag and because the mix doesn’t save me any time in the kitchen.

Like other premium gourmet items, it does make a fantastic gift for a baker, cook or Thomas Keller fan because it makes such a good product and is a “wow” item (who knew he made cake mix?!) to unwrap and look forward to trying in your kitchen. And if yellow cake isn’t your thing, you can also try Red Velvet and Chocolate Layer Cake Mixes from Ad Hoc, too.

When I baked up my Chocolate Coconut Easter Cupcakes and topped them with green coconut grass, I wanted to add a little decorative touch to finish them off. One option that I’ve used in the past is little chocolate candy Easter eggs. Premade eggs are easy to find and I particularly like the look of light pastel eggs with little dark speckles on them. This time around, I wanted to make something chocolate of my own and opted for some simple chocolate bunnies. I drew these freehand on a piece of wax paper using some melted semisweet chocolate. If you’re not confident in your bunny drawing ability, print out a nice small photo of a bunny, lay your paper over it and fill the outline in with chocolate. Make the chocolate fairly thick (at least 1/8th inch) so that the bunnies will be sturdy and won’t break when you press them down into frosting. Let the bunnies set up in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes and you’re ready to use them as decorations.

Raisins might be the go-to dried fruit for a batch of oatmeal cookies, but I’m fairly certain that other berries aren’t off limits because of it. The variety of dried fruit in these cookies makes them taste lighter, maybe even a bit fresher than your average (if still tasty) batch of oatmeal raisin cookies. I purposely did not include any spices, like cinnamon or cardamom, in these cookies so that the berry flavors would really stand out. A little vanilla to accent the very buttery oatmeal background was all these cookies needed to make them very tasty.

The cookies come together just like any other cookie dough. Sometimes I’ll find that some of the berries want to stick together more than they want to stick to the cookie dough, and if that is the case, simply give the dough balls a little help with your fingers as you shape them and place them on the baking sheet.

My top choice for dried fruits for these cookies are raisins, cranberries and blueberries. You can feel free to use other dried fruits. I’d stay away from things like dried raspberries, which tend to have a lot of seeds even though they have a nice, sweet flavor to them. I like how the chewy fruit matches well with the chewy cookie here, so I didn’t break that up by introducing nuts to the recipe, either. Again, if you want to throw in a handful of walnuts or pecans to add a little crunch, feel free to play around with this recipe!
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Samoas cookies are great, but when you can’t have the real thing, a pint or two of Samoas Ice Cream, which Dreyers/Edys makes, can be a good stand in. The ice cream is vanilla caramel, with chunks of Samoas cookies and a fudge swirl. The flavors are basic – vanilla, caramel, coconut, chocolate and shortbread – and it’s easy to put them together into a homemade version of the ice cream.

Homemade Samoas are just too good to sacrifice into ice cream – although some might say that you’re just combining two of a good thing into an even better thing – after you take the time to make a batch from scratch . I prefer to put these flavors together in pieces because you get all the same flavors and it’s a whole lot easier. So,  I used homemade vanilla ice cream as a base for a caramel and toasted coconut swirl and chunks of chocolate-dipped shortbread pieces.

The ice cream is a no cook recipe that uses milk and sweetened condensed milk. The sweetened condensed milk adds just about all the sugar that the ice cream needs, and also adds a hint of caramel flavor to the ice cream. If you don’t want to make this from scratch yourself, you can also start this recipe with about a half gallon of your favorite brand of vanilla ice cream.

I toasted the coconut, mixed it into some homemade caramel sauce and swirled it into the ice cream. For this particular batch, I actually used shortbread girl scout cookies that I dipped into melted dark chocolate. Again, any type of shorbread or butter cookie will work here. Stir the cookies into the softened ice cream along with the swirl. Let everything set up for a little bit in the freezer and you’re ready for a big bowl of Samoas.

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