One of my favorite recent recipes was ^^^ Summer Pasta Salad with Shrimp Tofu from the July/August Everyday Food issue. I couldn’t find the recipe online, so they probably post this month’s recipes in August.

{circa 2009}

{circa 2010}

{*fingers crossed* future strawberry shortcake} Recipe: everyday food

I spotted a link to some Irish car bomb cupcakes last week that looked a little too similar to a Smitten Kitchen recipe that I’ve been meaning to try for ages! So I’m not going to copy her recipe, if you actually want to make these lovely cupcakes go check out Smitten Kitchen’s recipe. The only change I made was making a cream cheese frosting instead of a butter cream frosting. I thought it would have a smoother texture and go with the Baileys, whiskey, Guinness combo better.

Baileys Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

• 8 oz of cream cheese (room temperature)
• 3/4 cup – 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 3-4 TB of Baileys (usually you would add vanilla, but it isn’t needed with the Baileys)

1. Mix the cream cheese and confectioners’ sugar together with an electric mixer

2. Add in the Baileys (you might need a little more sugar at this point).

3. Nom, nom, nom

This was my first time making a chocolate ganache filling, so it was fun to learn something new. I also improvised a little on the filling instructions. I don’t have a 1″ cutter or piping supplies, so I used one of my new insanely sharp knives and then a butter knife to pop the round out. And then to fill them, I just used a plastic bag with the corner cut.

So I love these cupcakes, although I think they’re quite possibly the most unhealthy cupcakes of all time. :)  They’re a brilliant concept though, and they go so nicely with Liberty of London trays. :P What next… maybe mojito cupcakes, or pastis cupcakes, or pink gin fizz cupcakes…

What would make an awesome drink cupcake?

The first time I made them, I made 24 mini cupcakes — which was good, but 6 massive cupcakes are way more fun. Plus, with only 6 you get to say “mmmm…. I just ate a third of a stick of butter! mmm…” every time you eat a cupcake!

What have you been cooking lately?

Cherry Tomato & Feta Orzo with Dill – {for 1!}

Ingredients

• 1 TB olive oil
• salt & pepper
• 2 TB fresh dill (or 1 tsp of dried dill)
• 1/4 tsp lemon zest (orange or lime zest works too!)
• 1 cup of golden and/or regular cherry tomatoes
• 1/3 cup orzo
• 1/2 cup feta cheese (2-3 ounces)

Directions:

1. Start boiling water for pasta.
2. Mix together oil, salt, pepper, and chopped dill (dried dill works fine too) in a medium bowl.
3. Cut tomatoes in half and add to the oil mixture.
4. Cook orzo in pasta water as directed, usually about 8 minutes.
5. Drain orzo and mix with the tomato and dill.
6. Crumble feta cheese into the orzo and tomato and mix
7. Eat!

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You can also add random ingredients to this one fairly easily, such as: 1/4 English cucumber, chopped; 1/8 red onion, chopped; substituting 1/2 TB oil for balsamic vinegar etc.

Although there are probably a lot of great crepe recipes out there, I really loved the simplicity of this one. After putting all the ingredients in the blender, you just put it in the fridge overnight — and voilà it’s ready in the morning… other than the “making them perfectly thin” part. Next time, I think I’ll try savory crepes.

I forget that so many people hate fish. I should start a pescatarian club! What’s your favorite fish dish?

What have you been cooking lately?

As usual, the recipe is available online at Martha Stewart. I haven’t been to Brazil, so I don’t know how authentic the recipe is (anyone?), but it was quite delicious and reminded me of all the rice and beans I ate in Costa Rica! You start with dried black beans and beets and let them cook for about an hour, before taking the beets out and cooking the beans longer. So you end up with beans over rice with diced beets and cheese on top. This recipe is more of a weekend meal, since it takes a few hours for the beans to cook. Delicious!

What have you been cooking lately?

For starters, this recipe is no small task, it took a few hours, because there are so many steps and you’re essentially making two soups and a topping. It was totally worth it, though! I’m not usually a big soup fan during the summer, but with the serano pepper/sour cream topping it had a cooler feel to it. I could seriously  eat this soup everyday. If I was say, Jennifer Aniston, I would totally ask my two chefs to make me this soup every day for lunch. ;)

What’s your favorite soup?