Our friends Chris and Erin, from The Olive Notes host a weekly community potluck dinner for all their friends, here in Saint Augustine. It is a way for all of us to get together on a regular basis. You don’t have to RSVP, just be sure to come with a dish, dessert or a drink based on a pre-determined theme. Sometimes these Tuesday night Community Dinners fall on a holiday, and today was one of those times. So of course the theme for tonight was Mexican.

I really didn’t know what to make. I hadn’t gone to the grocery store in about a week, so I started rummaging through the pantry. Originally I thought I would fall back on beans and rice. However I saw a can of coconut milk and a can of sweetened condensed milk. I had a mango in the fridge, so I thought about making a mango-coconut ice cream. That was until I pulled the mango out and realized it was still hard. However, next to it was a papaya that was very ripe.

When I pulled out the can of sweetened condensed milk, I read the back and the recipe was for flan. Lo and behold, on the ingredient list was also a can of coconut milk and a few other ingredients I had on hand. I was in the mood for ice cream so I decided to use all the same ingredients for the flan, but instead make ice cream. I cut the papaya into rounds, took the seeds of of the middles, sprinkled them with sugar and popped them under the broiler for a few minutes. Once they got caramelized, I took them out, squeezed a fresh lime over top and sprinkled the papaya liberally with cinnamon.

I made the ice cream, while the papaya was cooling, and once it was blended and still soft and creamy I scooped a big dollop of ice cream and placed it in the hole of each papaya slice. I also put a fresh mint leaf on top – and it was almost the color of the Mexican flag! Then I put it in the freezer to harden.

This was a nice cool treat to end a meal of spicy Mexican dishes! Happy Cinco de Mayo Everyone!
I am a bit late with this, but I dedicate this dish to Peter and Christey of FotoCuisine, who picked the ingredients for this month’s Royal Foodie Joust, which were the colors, Red, White and Green.

Voting closes tomorrow, so be sure to cast your vote for your favorite overall, best photo and most unique interpretation of the dish. Stay tuned to the LOQ blog to find out the winners!

(*still to come – the last of Italy – Rome)

Caramelized Papaya with Flan Ice Cream

INGREDIENTS:

1 can of coconut lite milk
1 can (from coconut milk) of whole organic milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk
3 large organic eggs
1 tsp Tahitian vanilla extract
1 large papaya cut in rounds and de-seeded
sprinkling of sugar
juice of 1 lime
dusting of cinnamon
fresh mint leaves for garnish

METHOD:
Peel papaya and cut the papaya into rounds, take the seeds of of the middles, sprinkle rounds with sugar and pop them under the broiler for a few minutes. Once they get caramelized, take them out, squeeze a fresh lime over top and sprinkle the papaya liberally with cinnamon.

While the papaya is cooling, make the ice cream. In a large bowl blend 3 milks, eggs and vanilla until smooth. Pour into ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer’s instructions. Once the ice cream is blended and getting frozen, yet still soft and creamy scoop a big dollop of ice cream and place it in the hole of each papaya slice. Garnish with a fresh mint leaf and serve.

That is right folks, the Leftover Queen and her King celebrated one year of wedded bliss yesterday. It is hard to imagine that our wedding, and Jamaican honeymoon were that long ago.

Seems like yesterday in some ways, but after reminiscing last night about all that we have accomplished in this year, it is amazing how much has happened in such a short period of time. This is one of the things I have enjoyed about getting older – how an event can seem both long ago and really recent depending on the angle you see it.

We spent the day re-living our wedding day as much as possible by going to the beach where our wedding ceremony took place, collecting sand and shells, and taking a 4 mile walk. The weather was gorgeous and we feel so blessed because looking out the window as I write this, it is dark and raining.

That walk came in really handy a few hours later, because we had dinner at the same restaurant where we had our wedding reception and we had an amazing meal, guilt free! The restaurant is called La Cocina and it is located in the Castillo Real Hotel right on the beach in Saint Augustine, Florida. We have been to a lot of the restaurants here in Saint Augustine since moving here almost 2 years ago. But La Cocina has always been good to us. These guys are masters at food styling and presentation. Every dish that comes out looks gorgeous…but how about the taste? The taste is also top notch. Their menu is varied and sophisticated, but also not the ordinary, which makes it such a great place to go.

Last night we enjoyed Shrimp and Scallop Ceviche as an appetizer. I fell in love with ceviche when we were in Jamaica, eating it at every opportunity. So last night, Roberto ordered it in my honor! Not only was it beautiful, but so fresh tasting. A great way to get the taste buds going!

For an entrée I had New Orleans Salmon with was a salmon steak on top of a potato cake, topped with shrimp Étouffée and a chive cream sauce. I don’t even know where to start with this one. Everything was cooked to perfection, and all the flavors worked together like a magical symphony, right out of Ratatouille, the movie (if you don’t know what I mean, go see the movie)! It was served with grilled asparagus. Since a baby greens salad comes with all entrees, I only ate half. But I also only ate half so that I could enjoy it again today!

Roberto loves sea scallops. So he had Sea Scallops wrapped in Orange Roughy and grilled topped with Beurre Blanc and served with a side of mashed potatoes, that were served piped in a beautiful tower formation. Again, the dish was delicious.

At the end of our dinner, we were brought out a special surprise from the kitchen, a nice piece of cheesecake with the words “Happy Anniversary!” written on the plate with raspberry sauce (which was exactly what they did when they served our wedding cake – except on that day it said “Congratulations!”). It was a wonderful way to end the evening…except that the evening wasn’t over. After dinner we had to slice into our year old wedding cake!

A rum cake with custard filling – and it was still good. The only thing that didn’t really keep to its original flavor was the icing, so we didn’t eat that part. But the rest of it was great. Our cake was made by DeFores Cake Design which is phenomenal!

So now onto our second year of bliss….”They” always say “Find your Bliss” and I feel very lucky to have already found mine!

Stay tuned, more Italian Adventures are on their way!

This year we had a nice Christmas holiday with my family down in Ocala, FL. After hosting our own festivities to celebrate the Winter Solstice, we were pretty cooked out, so it was nice to go down to mom’ s and be her sous chef for the holidays.

On Christmas Eve we enjoyed dinner al fresco. Keeping with the season we made pork chops with a pomegranate-balsamic vinegar glaze, baked sweet potatoes with pecan-cinnamon butter and brussel sprouts with bacon, mustard and vinegar.

For dessert was orange cookies and cuccidata (fig cookies) washed down with rummy egg nog.

A plate of cookies, clementines and eggnog were also left out for Santa ….:)

The next day Christmas day, we started the day with cranberry scones and mimosas. Later we had a Floridian Christmas at my cousin Melanie’s house. We had our feast outdoors, and it was so hot that her husband actually had to put up sheets to block the sun and rig up some fans. Unfortunately the dish I decided to contribute to our holiday pot-luck was Rømmegrøt, a Norwegian sour cream porridge that is a holiday favorite this time of year. it is traditionally served in one of these beautiful carved wooden bowls.

(I borrowed the photo from this website)

It is traditionally served sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, and butterfat as an evening meal with dried meat and flat bread. Rømmegrøt is certainly hearty fare and was a little too rich for the Florida heat. But since living in Norway I have come to look forward to this special treat every year. I have tried several different recipes in the past, but I used one from The Son’s of Norway this year and I think it was one of the best ones yet.

On the buffet there was ham, turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, roasted potatoes, Greek style green beans (my mom’s contribution), scalloped potatoes, pasta salad, soups as well as other things I am probably forgetting. Dessert was awesome as well – chocolate fondue, my cousin Mel’s homemade pumpkin cheesecake with a maple glaze and pecans. There was also cookies and cupcakes. I am sorry I didn’t take many pictures. I guess we were too busy eating and talking! It certainly was a feast and fun to spend a casual day with family.

I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday with your family! We are still visiting with my mom. See you all in the New Year!

(Me, my cousin Michelle, Erin, Sunshine and Brenna)

I always love celebrating the seasonal changes at the solstices. It is a way for me to stay connected to the natural cycles and the seasons especially now that I am living in Florida and we don’t have as many stark seasonal changes as we did when we lived in New England. We have made some good friends here in Saint Augustine over the past year and I really wanted to give thanks for new friendships and old by hosting a gathering on the Winter Solstice which is historically a time to celebrate new beginnings, since it is a day to mark the lengthening of the days and shorter nights.

Winter is also citrus season here in Florida, and so I recently got a load of delicious Meyer lemons to make limoncello at the farmers market. I started the limoncello about 2 weeks ago and it is still steeping, but once I removed the rinds from the lemons, there were all these lemons that I needed to do something with. So I started thinking ahead and towards this party.

Lemons are yellow and their taste is bright which I felt corresponded nicely with the holiday we were celebrating – the coming of the sun.

So I focused my menu on lemons and made Limoncello Cupcakes filled with fresh lemon curd and topped with creamy limoncello icing. We also served some signature drinks called “Sunshine in a Cup” made with lemon basil and lemon lavender syrups.

There was Gløgg, a Nordic spiced wine that is traditionally served during this time of year, Eggnog with rum and Panettone which is a common cake served in Italy during the holiday season. We also had roasted chestnuts, and a cheese plate. People also brought treats like spinach dip with olive bread, white bean dip with pita chips, spiced gingerbread brownies, tapenade and of course lots of wine. We had a great time with our friends and I think it would be great to make this a yearly tradition.
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****Forgive me, but I have to pack a lot into this post about all sorts of events and wonderful giveaways and contests going on this month! So please read through this whole post if you don’t want to miss it!!!****

Again, I would love to congratulate all the participants of this month’s Royal Foodie Joust!

The Royal Foodie Joust is an awesome monthly peer voted competition that is hosted on
The LeftoverQueen/FoodieBlogroll Forum! It gets better each and every month as the competition gets stiffer as Jousters try to outdo each other each month! It is also one of the friendliest competitions I have ever seen. So please don’t be intimidated to come and join us this month! We don’t bite, unless of course there is real food in our faces.

The only rules for the competition is that each Jouster create one dish and each entry must feature 3 ingredients in common. This competition has been referred to many times as the “Iron Chef” of the Food Blogosphere. Each month’s ingredients are chosen by the previous month’s winner. The winner of each Joust not only wins the Queen’s favor, bragging rights and a cool icon to put on their blog, but is also awarded with a super awesome personalized apron!

(However, starting in February we are going to be changing things up a bit and making it even BETTER! So be sure to check that out!)

So what are you waiting for? Come over and join us this month!

This month’s ingredients were chosen by last month”s winners over at Eating Club Vancouver and they were coffee, black peppercorns and honey, ingredients that had most of us stumped for a while…do we go sweet or savory, or what??? But the result were delicious entries. So be sure to check them all out on the forum! Although all the entries were at the highest standard, there can be only one winner.

The Winner of this Month’s Joust is Billy from atablefortwo with his Latana.

This dessert not only sounds delicious, but looks absolutely stunning. A sure winner. When this entry came up on the forum, some people even conceded, so there is no doubt that this was a show stopper! Congrats!

Second Place goes to Maybelle’s Mom over at Feeding Maybelle with Coffee Blackpepper and Honey Duck Bacon!

Wow does that look good or what?

Third Place goes to Rachel, The Crispy Cook, with her Mocha Pepper Sandwich Cookies!

Love her take on a spiced holiday cookie!

They were all great entries, so please check out all the other great entries this month, please click here

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This month we have a very special Joust! My good friend Cynthia, from Tastes Like Home is coming out with a cookbook within days called My Caribbean Cookbook, Tastes Like Home.

She has been kind enough to offer a free copy for the winner of a RFJ Contest. We decided that the Joust should focus on Caribbean cuisine and ingredients, and the winner will get her awesome cookbook. How cool is that?????

So what this means is that for the next Joust, Jan 2009, we will be doing a special edition of the RFJ. The winner for December 2008 – the Joust that just ended, will then pick the ingredients for Feb 2009. So basically we are just skipping a month and doing the Caribbean Joust in January. So I really hope that everyone will join us for this awesome oppurtunity to win Cynthia’s awesome cookbook!

The Ingredients for this special edition Joust are: Coconut (or Coconut Milk), Rice and Bananas
So please come over to the forum and post your entries here, for a chance to win My Caribbean Cookbook, Tastes Like Home!!!!

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Also, please be advised we have an awesome Foodie Blogroll Giveaway going on right now with The Ginger People who will be giving away an awesome gift basket to the winner of a holiday cookie contest going on! So be sure to check that out too!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, and for those of you who didn’t celebrate, I hope you still had lots of good food. I am sorry I am just getting around to my Thanksgiving Day post, I can see that the blogosphere is already into the Winter Holiday mode. But between traveling and the terrible cold I picked up, I have not been up to my regular blogging schedule. But I think now things should get back to normal soon.

Thanksgiving really is a food lover’s holiday which is why it is one of my favorite holidays. I also love the sentiment behind it, it is not a day to give out lots of presents, and I feel that it is the least “Hallmark-y” of the holidays. It is essentially a day to give thanks for the many blessings in one’s life and to spend good times and good food with family and friends. Something many of us need to do every so often, especially this year. Despite the negativity that surrounds the invention of this American holiday (I’ll skip the whole Pilgrim and Indian Story), I like what it has come to represent for my family.

We spent Thanksgiving with my Dad and Stepmom this year in Annapolis, MD at their home and it was truly awesome. We had about 12 of us there, including two adorable little girls, and of course it was all about the holiday favorites – Turkey (both roasted and smoked), stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, gravy and a Baltimore, MD traditional dish, sauerkraut and fresh kielbasa. This was certainly a departure from the Thanksgiving meals of my childhood which consisted of all of the above (minus the kraut and kielbasa) plus Italian wedding soup, Ravioli and my Nana’s famous sausage stuffing. But the meal was great and it was really nice to spend time getting to know my stepmom’s family. There was also a cocktail hour which included my dad’s bloody mary’s or gin and tonics served with MD crab dip, a cheese plate and a sweet and spicy dip over cream cheese served with crackers. Pretty good spread.

So on Thanksgiving, I didn’t do too much cooking, just helped wherever help was needed. BUT, the next day was my big day. My dad and stepmom arranged for 10 of their friends (including my biggest fan, their longtime friend, Gloria – in the above photo) to come over and enjoy a Leftover Queen, Leftover Thanksgiving Dinner.

I thought this was a fantastic idea and so Friday morning, after taking stock of the leftovers from the night before and what was in their kitchen pantry and fridge, I set to work on a menu. We ended up having a Southwest inspired salad with smoked turkey and honey-lime dressing, potato croquettes with marinara sauce, mini turkey sandwiches with turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing and gravy, as well as sauteed green beans with almonds and shallots. There was also leftover kraut and kielbasa and plain ‘ol roasted turkey as well. With the obligatory pumpkin pie for dessert!

We all had a great time and I even learned another term for Leftovers, from Gloria, “Mustgoes”. She said she learned it from a friend of hers and usually when she asks people if they have ever had “mustgoes” they don’t know what she is talking about!

At the end of the night we had an impromptu Scotch tasting. Roberto and I are both big fans of single malts and we brought a bottle for my dad. But it turns out he prefers bourbon. However, my stepmom who is a wine distributor also carries a few selective single malts and there were a few people there who also enjoy single malts, so we had a good time talking about the various types and distilleries and trying a few varieties.

So thanks Dad and Kayzie for coming up with this great day after Thanksgiving celebration. It was a lot of fun and I think is a great tradition!

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Hello Everyone!

I just wanted to post this lovely dish I made last year to celebrate the Winter Solstice. It was so good, I decided it was worth entering in the POM Wonderful Featured Blogger Contest going on this month. If you have not heard about it, food bloggers can submit an original recipe featuring pomegranates and have a chance to win $5000 from Pom Wonderful!

Now that is what I call wonderful!

As an incentive to Foodie Blogroll members, in conjunction with the lovely POM folks, we are giving away cases of POM Wonderful products for the next 2 weeks, while the contest is going on. For more details on how you can enter to win either of these contests, please check out the Foodie Blogroll/ Leftover Queen Forum!

Now onto my recipe! This chicken dish was prepared in a cast iron skillet, first browned over high heat and then finished off in the oven. The chicken breasts were so juicy and tender coupled with the tartness of the pomegranates that explode in your mouth after being heated up, mixed with the salty pistachios and green mint was a wonderful unexpected flavor combination! This dish is simple to prepare, yet so elegant. This is also a great dish for the season, that is sure to impress at any holiday gathering.

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I am back from vacation and I will soon be back to posting! But in the meantime, enjoy these pumpkins that we carved today!
Hope everyone has a happy and safe Halloween!

Also check out Judy’s blog at No Fear Entertaining for a great way to use those pumpkin seeds!