Anything that involves pastry intimidates me, but this recipe looked so tasty, I (temporarily) forgot my fears, and added it to my list for May’s Project Food Blog Cook-Off. Last Friday, I bought all of the ingredients and returned home excited to make my first ever galette. (What is a galette, you ask. Food Blogga explains. Visit her site. Link below.) I started with the pastry dough. I’ve made enough of it now that I don’t panic, but the process is still a source of anxiety. Will the butter cut in? Will I have enough ice water? Will I make a gluey mess? Luckily, the dough turned out fine, and I didn’t have any problems. I divided it in two, put each in plastic wrap, flattened them into disks. So far, so good. My problem came when I went to make the galette. The recipe says to roll the dough into a 12 inch round. But I had two disks! There was no top and bottom. Just one round. So why two? Honestly, I still don’t know. I joined the two, rolled them out, and made one galette. But see. This is why pastry freaks me out. I should know why the dough is divided. I should, but I don’t. Sigh.

The goodies that go inside the galette I can handle. Sausage, fennel, smoked cheese. Mmmm. And then there are the sundried tomatoes. I absolutely love this touch. I think I’ll add a few more the next time around. The fennel was surprisingly benign. I’ve had fennel in dishes where all you can taste is the fennel. I swore off fennel for a while after that. But here, it works just fine. The presentation is beautiful, too. I made this for supper, but I could easily imagine it for an elegant brunch.

Visit Food Blogga and get her recipe for Savory Sausage and Fennel Galette. Link here.

Eggplant is a vegetable, er, fruit, that is often overlooked. I can understand why. Order an eggplant dish in a restaurant and you’ll likely get a fried, oily, mushy mess. But cooked properly, eggplant is creamy and earthy, even a tad sweet. The key to cooking eggplant is to first pick a young eggplant. If it looks healthy and feels heavy for its size, you’re probably good to go. Young eggplants have less seeds, which is what gives the eggplant its bitter taste. Even in a young eggplant though, you’ll still have some seeds. Salting the eggplant slices, or dices, and letting them drain, will remove the bitterness as well as moisture. Then, toss the eggplant with a bit of olive oil and roast in a hot oven until the flesh breaks down. The result? Utter yumminess.

I like Amy’s Eggplant Parmesan recipe because she knows what’s up. She bakes her eggplant slices (vs. the standard fried), and she makes her own sauce. Hooray! I dislike fried food, but I especially dislike fried eggplant. I find the texture creepy, and the end result is, as I said above, an oily, mushy mess. Bleh. I’ve never once made eggplant parmesan with fried eggplant. I’ve always baked mine. I have to admit I’m a bit partial to my recipe, but Amy gets huge points for freshness and flavor. Love that carrot and celery in the sauce!

Head over to Amy’s blog, Cooking With Amy, and get her recipe. Click.

On a final note, the picture I took of the dish was out of focus. Thankfully, there is Wikipedia Commons, where I found this lovely image. Here’s the link.

Oh my god in heaven! Talk about YUM! I’m going to go back to the nineties and say this recipe is THE BOMB. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I’d think about it. It looked good. It sounded good in theory. My one experience with plantains, however, didn’t turn out great. They were okay, but they didn’t make me want to prepare them again. Plus, I don’t cook seafood very often, as my husband doesn’t care for it. Luckily shrimp are very easy, and one of the few water creatures he’ll eat.

So I set out to make this one night, not really in the mood to cook, and not at all sure if I’d like the results. When I took that first bite, however, I was blown away. I looked across at my husband and he was nodding his head. The dish wasn’t only good, it was phenomenally good. And the prep and cooking time is so minimal, I almost didn’t believe something so easy could taste like it did. I did end up baking the plantains longer than the recipe says, though. The batch I had was pretty black, but probably not black enough. In any event, the end result was a semi-sweet plantain with a semi-soft texture. It worked perfect for us.

I’m making this dish again on Friday for guests. I have a feeling they will love it as much as I do.

Head over to Bitchin Camero to find the recipe for Basil Lime Shrimp with Plantains. Click this link and it will take you there.

There are few food items that really gross me out, but canned cheese is one of them. Whenever my husband goes to the store with me, he wants to buy that processed cheese gunk that you *spray* on crackers. What the f**k is that? I give him the look, and luckily he gives up. I don’t really like the stuff they sell in jars, either. You know—that spicy cheese dip you find in the chip aisle? It’s only a small step up from the spray cans, or Velveeta Cheese slices. Ick, ick, super ick. I *do* like the idea of spicy cheese dip, or chile con queso, but I’ve never had one that satisfies me. Luckily there is Homesick Texan’s version of *natural* chile con queso. Yay!! I’m definitely digging this recipe. Unfortunately, my jalapenos had little to no kick. Don’t you hate when that happens?! So, next time, I’m hoping I’ll get a spicier batch. To go along with the chile con queso, I made homemade corn tortilla chips, which I like because they actually taste like corn. Imagine that! My husband has also been enjoying this dip. I’ve packed containers of it for his lunch all week.

Visit Homesick Texan and get the full recipe. Click, click.

Smitten Kitchen is right—these are dark, crazy moist muffins! They’re the kind of muffins that you take outside on a warmish spring morning, along with a cup of hot, hot coffee, and eat in the patch of sun on your porch. While you listen to the birds chirp, and watch the flowers open, of course.

I love that she uses whole wheat flour and fresh apples in this recipe. And that brown sugar topping—oh, yeah! If you like hearty muffins that aren’t heavy as lead, this recipe is for you. It’s also for you if you like muffins that aren’t too sweet, but sweet enough. I found them to be best within the first couple days, and I’d definitely eat them within four. After that, the brown sugar topping gets a tad mushy. They are also perfect for that mid-morning snack in packed lunches.

Visit Smitten Kitchen to view this recipe.

I had a bit of a stumble with this recipe. I went to three different grocery stores and could only find chorizo made from beef. Since I don’t eat beef, I panicked for several days, thinking I wouldn’t really be getting the truth of the recipe. In her notes, Julie did mention a few alternatives to chorizo, so I finally decided I’d go with one. I ended up with a bistro style pork sausage that I didn’t care for, however. It tasted too much like hot dog. And I’m quite sure that’s NOT what Julie had in mind!! So, I will try this recipe again when I run across the type of chorizo I like. I know it’s out there! Still, the combination of mango, chicken, cilantro, and cheese is great. (It must really be fabulous with that spicy chorizo…) Mango and chicken just go together. Mango and cilantro just go together also. In fact, mango goes great with a lot of foods you wouldn’t think it would. So, if you haven’t hopped aboard the mango craze, I’d do that right away!

Julie is right—quesadillas are a great alternative to standard nachos for a Super Bowl snack. Plus, I think this recipe is a great way to introduce people (read: guys) to new foods. My husband claims to hate mangos and cilantro, but he eats these just fine. Must be that “out of sight, out of mind” thing working. Shhhhh.

May’s Project Food Blog Cook-Off kicks off with Banana Cookies from Simply Recipes, one of my all time favorite food blogs. Let the festivities commence!

We buy a bunch of bananas every week, and inevitably, it seems a couple from the bunch get too ripe for eating. We are green, green banana fans, after all. The minute they turn yellow, we consider them with disdain. And spots of brown? Forget it. The bananas will sit there untouched until I break down and bake something. But what can you make with overripe bananas? Bread, of course. Muffins. I’ve experimented with cakes, too. But my repertoire stops there. Which is why I immediately printed off this recipe when it showed up on Elise’s blog in March. The recipe is courtesy of guest blogger Garrett McCord, who runs the Vanilla Garlic food blog. Originally, it came from his grandmother. Thank you to both of them.

The texture of these cookies is amazing. They are light, fluffy, airy. I didn’t expect them to be this way, as the batter is sticky as hell. But they have lift, by golly! And McCord has a special trick for this… I love the flavor of the cloves, too. It gives the cookies a nice spice, without being overwhelming.

Click here to read more and view the full recipe.

First, a note about the photo. Clearly the cupcakes have yet to be baked. Sorry about that, but I made these for a friend’s birthday, and we ended up getting together earlier than I expected, so I had to take them to her house to bake them. I know! Tacky, right? But with good friends you can get away with stuff like this.

Okay, that’s out of the way, so here we go.

Last but certainly not least in April’s Project Food Blog Cook-off contest is Key Lime Cream Cheese Frosting (and Coconut Cupcakes) from the Coconut and Lime website. Key lime pie is my all-time favorite dessert, so when I saw this recipe, my mind went wild. I don’t bake a lot, hence I don’t frost a lot, and the only way I eat cream cheese is in frosting or as a garlic and herb spread, so I would have never thought to make something like this. But thank goodness I did. Seriously, these two recipes could turn me into a baker yet. I love, love, love these cupcakes, and the key lime frosting is so good, I’d take a spoon to it and eat it alone. Both are very easy to make too, which I especially appreciate, being a non-baker. I did end up adding a splash more key lime juice to fit my tastes, but I couldn’t imagine messing with the cupcake recipe. It’s divine.

Click here for the Key Lime Cream Cheese Frosting recipe.

Click here for the Coconut Cupcake recipe.

One final note: Almost every supermarket in the United States (I don’t know about abroad) carries Key Lime juice. You can find it next to the other lime and lemon juices, typically in the juice aisle.

And that’s a wrap, folks. Stay tuned for the winner announcement, and a list of May’s recipes.