Spring Grilling and a twist on unbaked cheescake

We’ve been having unseasonably warm weather lately (upper 70’s, usually we’re in the low 50’s) and I’ve used this opportunity to get acquainted with the massive gas grill and rotisserie that my parents gave me for Christmas (spring grilling is much more fun than spring cleaning). I’ve done chicken breasts with just salt and black pepper, ribeye with salt, pepper, and smoked paprika (a new favorite), and this weekend I tried out Elise’s Smoked Paprika Chicken on my rotisserie.

The chicken, and the whole meal, turned out great. I supplied the chicken and green salad, while Katie brought some sun-dried tomato and rosemary bread. She also brought some fresh mozzarella and cherry tomatoes to make a tasty and simple bruschetta.

The real reason for the night’s festivities though, was for me to tryout a recipe that I came up with after seeing the Lavender and Lemon Verbena Limeade on A Fridge Full of Food. I remembered a recipe I tested a couple of months ago for Leite’s Culinaria, that involved replacing some of the cream cheese with yogurt in an unbaked cheesecake (I would attribute it, but apparently the recipe didn’t make the cut and I don’t have a copy anymore, leave a comment if you know the author and cookbook and I’ll update this post). [...]

5 Things…

So, anyone who visited my blog soon after my launch and then recently has noticed that I sort of stopped posting for a few weeks. Then on Sunday I posted as part of the fun blogging event known as Sugar High Fridays. What you don’t know is that I did have several postings planned during that intermission, but, despite the best of intentions, I never actually finished any of them (I started writing two of them, but stopped because I couldn’t get photos that I was happy with).

So a couple of weeks ago (by which I mean nearly a month ago) I was tagged by the blogger formerly known as D-Man of Sourdough Monkey Wrangler (who is a hilarious writer – so says my fiancé Dana and I must agree) to write about 5 things you don’t know about me. So here goes, in no particular order: [...]

SHF – Raw Chocolate

Soon after discovering the varied and compelling world of food blogs, I discovered Sugar High Fridays (SHF), as created by the Domestic Goddess (who recently wrote a great two part contemplation on good food requiring effort). Now that I have my blog up and running I decided that it was time that I participated, so I hopped over to Is My Blog Burning (a great resource for food blogging events and a quick history if you don’t have any idea what I’m talking about) to find out who was hosting this month’s SHF. My timing must have been preordained because I happily discovered that Emily of Chocolate in Context is hosting SHF #29: Raw Chocolate. It just so happened that I had picked up some raw cocoa nibs recently and had been inspired to use them in an adaptation of Michael Chiarello’s recipe for Cocoa Caramel Panna Cotta from The Essence of Chocolate. [...]