Adventures at IFBC!

Last September, I headed up to Seattle to spend three days at The International Food Blogger Conference with Louise. We had fun sampling different eats, drinks and spending time with local blogger friends as well as making some new ones!

Opening breakfast

IFBC mixed meal periods with sessions, with each breakfast and luncheon being accompanied by a talk, while dinner periods were set up like a party with hors d’oeuvres and drinks. During the day, you could pick between sessions on food and blogging topics, and there was an expo hall on the second night that gave attendees a chance to network with the brands in attendance.

Duck slider

Breakfast was at 7 AM on the first day, with a full morning of sessions before lunch at 1 PM. Because of the length of time between meals, all of us foodies in the conference room were getting mighty hungry; and when the final session was a cooking demo from The Chef In the Hat Thierry Rautureau, we were all drooling as we could smell the delicious dishes he was preparing on stage. When it was finally time for lunch, I piled a ridiculous amount of food from the buffet onto my plate and chuckled at the irony of being so hungry during a food event. πŸ˜‰

Pile 'O Lunch

Lunch was hosted by Ninja Kitchen, who brought out celebrity chef Devin Alexander from The Biggest Loser to give us a demo of what the Nutri Ninja Blender DUO With Auto-IQ could do.

Ninja Demo

One of the big highlights for me was that a selfie I posted for Ninja’s #AddMoreGood contest won me a Nutri Ninja Blender DUO! Talk about an amazing prize!!!

Wine tasting

My favorite session was the wine tasting hosted by Bordeaux Wines. There was a talk going over the basics of pairing food and wine, and then we were broken up into teams and challenged to guess the flavors in the wines we were tasting.

I shouldn't give up my day job to become a wine sommelier, clearly. πŸ˜‰ #ifbc #ifbcbordeaux

A photo posted by Beeb Ashcroft (@beebashcroft) on

Obviously, I did not win any trophies in this department, but the great thing about wine is that the biggest reward comes through the act of tasting itself. πŸ˜‰

Another amazing aspect to IFBC was the amount of swag given out in our goodie bags. This is what I came home with:

Swag closeup
I've got swag

And no, I’m not a greedy swag hoarder! As often happens at local conferences, those of us who don’t have to fly home can often take back more than others in attendance who are constrained by flights. You should have seen the pallet of peaches that Louise was given with an enthusiastic, “Here! Take these!”.

And what you see pictured here isn’t even all that I was given, as I gave quite a few boxes away on the train ride home. You see, I had a layover in Portland where I met up with family, so I loaded them up with some Krusteaz mixes and Aneto broth. I was quite a sight to behold as I sweated in my business suit, slowly lugging suitcases and bags full of heavy chicken broth through the train station! At one point, a nice man on the street saw me struggling as I walked towards my sister-in-law’s car, and offered to help carry my bag. I thanked him with a box of chicken broth, naturally. πŸ˜‰

All told, IFBC was a fun and memorable adventure. I most loved the “Taste of Seattle” expo hall on the second night, where I had a chance to meet and network with the different brands in attendance. The sessions weren’t necessarily on topics that related to me personally, although I appreciated all of the speakers; but I attend conferences primarily to meet people anyway. There were a few organizational snags, as there tend to be at conferences; for example, our attendee handouts emphasized that all conference-goers are warned not to drink to excess, but during the networking event the second evening, there was no water or non-alcoholic beverages anywhere – not even a fountain. At one point, I asked one of the brands at a booth if they knew where I could get some water, to which they replied, “I don’t think there’s any water, but here – have a glass of wine!” So wine and martinis were our exclusive source of hydration, which was fine with me, but I did find amusing given our warning about drinking. πŸ˜‰ And if you hadn’t guessed already, you should be reading my blog with a tongue planted firmly in cheek!

Having a great time with @momstart at #IFBC!

A photo posted by Beeb Ashcroft (@beebashcroft) on

Have you been to IFBC before?

Heading to IFBC!

International Food Blogger Conference 2014 Seattle

I’m heading to Seattle tomorrow to attend 2014 The International Food Blogger Conference! I’m excited for some great eats, great drinks, and neat sessions on food photography, recipe development, social media, and everything else blogworthy. I’ll be recapping what I learn right here on Cooking Catastrophe, so if you won’t be there, you can get a “Taste” of it through my blog. But if you’re anywhere in the area, you should check it out and say “Hi” to me in person! Tickets are available at Foodista.com/IFBC and are $95 for bloggers.

Will you be at IFBC this year? Leave a comment and let me know if I’ll see you there!

Paleo Brunch Recipes

Paleo Brunch Recipes

Food, recipes & goodie bags provided by Natural Grocers.

Jai and I were recently introduced to some new paleo brunch recipes during a sampling event at Natural Grocers in Gresham. Although neither of us follow the paleo diet, we’re always up for trying new food, and I did spend some time looking up paleo freezer recipes last summer just for something quick and easy to make. I wanted to share the recipes for the paleo brunch with you if you’d like to try something different for yourself!

This paleo brunch menu has been designed to feed 6 people for around $7.55 per person.

Prosciutto-Wrapped Mini Frittata Muffins

Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients

  • 2 TBSP coconut oil or ghee
  • 1/4 C plus 2 TBSP olive oil
  • 1/2 medium onion, finely diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 lb. cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced
  • 1 package Organic Girl Baby Kale
  • 8 eggs
  • 1 large tomato, thinly sliced into rounds
  • Two 4 oz. packages of Applegate Natural Prosciutto
  • Sea salt to taste
  • Cherry tomatoes for garnish

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 12 cup muffin tin and set aside.
  • Heat the coconut oil or ghee in a medium sized skillet, add the onion and saute until translucent. Add the garlic and mushrooms, cook until the mushrooms are soft and moisture has evaporated. Lightly salt the mushroom-onion mixture; spoon mixture into a bowl and set aside.
  • Line the muffin tins with prosciutto, covering the bottom and sides completely.
  • In a large bowl, beat the eggs and olive oil together. Add the kale and salt to taste, then stir in the mushroom mixture.
  • Spoon the frittata batter into each muffin cup and top with halved cherry tomatoes.
  • Bake for approximately 20 minutes - allow muffins to cool in tin for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Notes

Recipe by Karen Falbo.

https://www.cookingcatastrophe.com/paleo-brunch-recipes/

Turkey Bacon Sauteed in Coconut Oil

Ingredients

  • 2 packages turkey bacon
  • 4 TBSP coconut oil

Instructions

  • In a large skillet over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons of coconut oil. Open one package of turkey bacon, separate bacon strips, and lay each in the pan. While cooking, turn bacon often, moving the pieces around to support even browning. As bacon becomes lightly browned, remove strips from the pan and set aside on a plate. Cover with foil to keep warm and cook the second batch.
  • NOTE: Turkey bacon can be prepared a day or two before the brunch and warmed in the oven.

Notes

Recipe by Karen Falbo.

https://www.cookingcatastrophe.com/paleo-brunch-recipes/

Paleo Yogurt

Yogurt-Berry Parfait

Yogurt-Berry Parfait

Ingredients

  • 4 cups plain full-fat yogurt
  • 2 1/2 C fresh or frozen berries
  • 1 C toasted pecans, chopped
  • 4 TSP vanilla extract or flavor
  • 1 full dropper stevia

Instructions

  • In a large bowl, stir together yogurt, stevia, and vanilla. Using 8 small wine or parfait glasses, spoon in a layer of yogurt, top with berries, then add toasted pecans. Continue alternating layers to fill glasses.
  • NOTE: Stevia can be used in place of sweeteners for things like tea, lemonade, plain yogurt, smoothies and baked goods. Oftentimes the licorice aftertaste of the whole herb as well as the bitter aftertaste of the steviosides disappears when used in the proper amounts. Although stevia can enhance flavors in some dishes (Like yogurt), it may not work at all in others.

Notes

Recipe by Karen Falbo.

https://www.cookingcatastrophe.com/paleo-brunch-recipes/

Green Tea-Coconut Water Lemonade

Ingredients

  • 1/2 C hot water
  • 3 green tea bags
  • 10 drops stevia
  • 1/4 C lemon juice
  • 3 1/2 C cold water
  • 1 can coconut water

Instructions

  • Steep tea bags in hot water for 3-5 minutes. Add all other ingredients, stir and serve over ice.

Notes

Recipe by Karen Falbo.

https://www.cookingcatastrophe.com/paleo-brunch-recipes/

We also enjoyed Vegetable Latkes with this brunch – you can find the recipe for that by clicking here to visit MarksDailyApple.com! You can also find a ton of paleo and other recipes on NaturalGrocers.com.

Have you ever tried a paleo recipe before? What did you think?

Chicago Culinary Adventures

Cucumber Salad

Travel, accommodation, and most food provided by The Chicago Auto Show. Pizza provided by me. πŸ˜‰

Earlier this month, I headed to the Windy City for the Chicago Auto Show. As tends to be the case when I travel, I sampled all kinds of interesting food during my trip!

When I arrived at the airport, I was met by a limo which took me to the hotel. It was stocked with beer and Tootsie Rolls – my kind of ride!

I stayed at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, where I found a package of Terry’s Toffee: Lemon Paradise waiting for me. I love toffee and I’d never had a citrus variety before. Yum!!

To welcome us to the auto show, Nissan hosted a reception the first evening that featured a variety of appetizers, taco bar, and a slider bar.

Gyro Cone

These were the first appetizers I tried when I arrived – yes, it’s a terrible photo, but I was too hungry to care. πŸ˜‰ The dim, red lighting in the building made it so that I really couldn’t tell whether the little cone the waiter handed me was a mini chocolate ice cream, or a savory cone filled with Gyro meat. I shrugged my shoulders and said, “We’ll see” – and it was indeed beef and not ice cream. It was delicious, and also hilarious to not know whether I was about to taste meat or chocolate!

Beer Van

Beers on tap

Nissan beer van

Another memorable part of the night was the fact that they had a beer van on hand!

Toyota

The next morning, I attended a breakfast hosted by the Chicago Automobile Trade Association and the Midwest Automotive Media Association. We dined on a breakfast buffet including red velvet muffins while listening to a number of talks, including one from Robert Carter, the Senior Vice President of Automotive Operations for Toyota Motor Sales, USA Inc. He discussed everything from Toyota’s 2014 sales forecast to why you should never let a NASCAR driver borrow your car.

Toyota Test Track

Toyota Highlander 2014

After breakfast, I had a busy morning full of press conferences and displays to view at the Chicago Auto Show Media Preview, from the Toyota Test Track and Muppets SUV to the debut of Captain America’s car. This helped me work up my appetite for the Economic Club of Chicago Luncheon.

Salad

We were served a pretty cucumber salad, some chicken that I wasn’t crazy about, and dessert. No one seemed to like the hazelnut macaroons but me!

Hazelnut Macaroon

The main speaker for this luncheon was Joseph Hinrichs, Executive Vice President & President of The Americas at Ford Motor Company. I also heard him speak during a lunch in December when I attended a Ford News Briefing in Dearborn, Michigan.

Ford

After lunch, I spent some time gawking at the million dollar car, and then stopped for a mid-afternoon snack from Chrysler!

Chrysler

The Chrysler 200 Snack Break celebrated the 2015 Chrysler 200 by importing 200 snacks from Detroit. They offered goodies from Sanders Fine Chocolates including chocolate covered espresso beans that kept my energy up during the trip home and yummy chocolate fudge bumpy cake that was a big hit with everyone! I also brought home a bag of pistachios as a souvenir for Jai, and unfortunately I’m not sure who made those since we threw out the bag.

Later that day, several friends and I decided to get a cab to Giordano’s Pizza for dinner. I was excited to see another tiny piece of Chicago during a packed trip, and I couldn’t wait to have my first taste of real Chicago pizza!

Giordano's Pizza

I ordered a traditional deep dish Chicago-style pizza, and it was everything I could have hoped for! So, so, so good! The thick crust was truly a “Pizza pie” and smothered in so much cheese – heavenly! I was absolutely, positively stuffed after one slice, but I insisted on a to-go box even though I wasn’t sure if I’d have room to take it home. You know how much I hate wasting food!

The day closed out with the Subaru Sweet Home Chicago 2014 party. This shindig had snacks by the barrel-full – and I mean that literally:

I was sorry that I was so unbelievably stuffed from the pizza, because they had so many delicious-looking goodies on hand! As the evening went on, I eventually made room to try a Subaru lollipop:

Or to be more accurate, a gluten-free, caramel-coated chocolate lollipop with sea salt. I’ve never been too big on the idea of salt and chocolate, but this was so good that I had seconds even though I was still full from the pizza. I also had an RC Cola Chocolate Cupcake!

After a late night at the party, I got about an hour of sleep and then got ready for the WOMMA “Driving Engagement” Award Ceremony & Breakfast. The most memorable part of my breakfast was the fact that it ended up all over the floor! There were no tables, and trying to eat off your lap while listening to a speaker and taking notes/photos = awkward. The disaster actually occurred before the ceremony started, when I put my plate down on my chair, since there was no where else to put it, and left the room for a minute. The chair appeared to be a flat surface, but apparently after I turned my back, the plate slid right off and splattered all over the floor! Several other media cleaned it up and Louise fixed me another plate, so when I got back I had no idea what happened until they told me. I sure know how to make an impression!

We had a little more time to look around, and then it was time to head back home. Since Louise and I had flights leaving around the same time, we had time to get lunch in the airport. We decided on Chili’s, and I had a very memorable adventure in the middle of the meal. I asked the waitress where the restroom was, and she said something about it being around the corner, but I looked and couldn’t see anything. I had to ask a second time, and she pointed across the restaurant to the rest of the airport, where I spotted a men’s room sign. I made my way out of the restaurant and towards the sign, and I saw that the men’s and women’s rooms were divided by a revolving door. So, I walked through the door, used the ladies’ room, and then headed back for the door when I saw a security officer who said, “You can’t go back through there – you left the secure area. You have to go through security again.” What?! As it turned out, there was yet another restroom that was hidden around the opposite corner that the waitress was talking about, but since she was pointing at a different sign to a second bathroom on the other side, I didn’t realize there was more than one. And for whatever inexplicable reason, the airport thought it was a great idea to split up the restrooms so that the men’s room was inside the secure area, but the women’s room was not. As I discovered later, there was a sign on the very opposite side warning that you were about to leave the secure area, but since there wasn’t one near the revolving door I exited, I had zero idea. I was panicking about having to go through security again since the first line had been so long – will I miss my flight? What is Louise going to do, stuck inside the restaurant with my suitcase? All I can say is thank goodness I took my purse with me, or I wouldn’t have had my ID and boarding pass. Mercifully, the second time through security was way faster and I made it back over to the restaurant in maybe 20 minutes. My food had naturally arrived by then and was a bit on the cold side, but it was still pretty tasty. πŸ˜‰

That day proved to be very adventurous all around, since I arrived back in Portland to a freak snowstorm that made the roads impassable. Since Jai couldn’t come to pick me up – as the storm continued, Portland ended up issuing an emergency warning advising everyone to stay home because it was so dangerous – my awesome soon-to-be-in-laws ended up braving the road in chains so that I could stay at their house until the snow melted. I ended up snowed in Portland from Friday night until Monday morning! It was crazy – the only clothes I had with me were thin business suits, so I ended up having to borrow clothes from my sister-in-law so I wouldn’t freeze. When the roads cleared enough on Monday morning that the busses started running again, I layered pajama pants with one of my suits so I wouldn’t be cold on the way home! πŸ˜‰ But the funniest part? I did manage to take my Giordano’s leftovers with me, since my suitcase conveniently has a pizza-box size pocket. I ended up eating my delicious leftovers over the course of several days while I was snowed in the house. Pizza: The perfect sustenance for snowstorms! πŸ˜‰

My Appearance on Simple Kitchen With Missy Maki

KPAM AM 860

This morning, I had the pleasure of appearing on Portland radio station KPAM AM 860 as a guest of Simple Kitchen with Missy Maki. Missy is a local food blogger who talks about everything food on Sunday mornings. This year, Simple Kitchen hosted its first-ever Holiday Cookie Bake-Off, asking listeners to send in their recipes for a chance to win a gift basket with prizes including goodies from Tillamook Butter, LaGrima Vanilla, Wild Friends Peanut Butter and Bee Local. Out of the hundreds of recipes submitted, they chose a handful of favorites to be baked and brought into the station, enlisting a group of area bloggers to serve as both bakers and judges. I was assigned Chocolate Spice Crackle Cookies with Gingerbread Caramel and whipped up a fresh batch last night to share with everyone at the studio. I couldn’t wait to see what the other entries were!


Bake-Off Cookies

Cookies at the radio station

There we so many treats to taste, from yummy Pistachio Cranberry Christmas Crisps made by Marisa to Rebekah’s tasty White Chocolate Cherry Almond Teacakes, which was eventually crowned the winner by our votes. But the prize for “Most original/insane” cookie has to go to Brandie, who was assigned the task of making a cookie using pine needles and Parmesan cheese as ingredients. You know, like pine needles from a tree? Brandie actually had to get a trimming from a pine tree and told of her adventures trying to chop up pine needles in a food processor. (Spoiler alert: It doesn’t work.) She did an awesome job baking such an unusual cookie!

Beeb on the radio

I was the first guest on air, and I discussed the process of making my assigned cookie and what I thought of it. This is the first time I’ve been on the radio – unless you count the time I called into a local station in the 1990s and won a Flintstone VHS tape for answering a trivia question, but I’ve never been a real guest before. πŸ˜‰ You can listen to the full show online at the KPAM website:

Hour 1 of Simple Kitchen With Missy Maki: Holiday Cookie Bake-Off – my segment begins at the 12 minute mark.

Hour 2 of Simple Kitchen With Missy Maki: Holiday Cookie Bake-Off

This was a very fun experience and I’m so glad I had a chance to take part with these lovely bloggers and DJs!

Fruitcake Stuffing. That’s Right, Fruitcake Stuffing.

Fruitcake Stuffing

Travel, accommodation and insane fruitcake challenge provided by Kenmore!

You guys know that I’m an experimental cook. However, I’m not good at cooking (Or thinking) under pressure. So when I was at the Kenmore Blogger Summit in Chicago this weekend, I had to chuckle when they announced an “Iron Chef” style cooking competition where bloggers would be asked to create and prepare a dish in 30 minutes flat. But there’s a Cooking Catastrophe twist: The key ingredients in our dish were “Horrible Hostess Gifts” – things that everyone supposedly hates getting when they host a party, such as cheese trays, boxed wine, fruitcake and Royal Dansk butter cookies. Me? I’d love some cheap boxed wine, but I understand why most don’t! I was assigned to a team with several other bloggers, and we were dreading the fruitcake, as everyone does. I mean, what can you cook out of fruitcake? And of course, we got the fruitcake as our secret ingredient. And as an added twist, we were required to use a mystery Kenmore appliance in our meal prep – and our assigned appliance was a grill. So we had to figure out a way to incorporate both fruitcake and grills into something edible!

Master planner Kimberly had asked me what kind of savory dish could we possibly make from fruitcake. In a flash of twisted inspiration, I said, “We could use it to make stuffing,” and everyone else liked my insane idea. So off we went, grilling fruitcake to make a stuffing!

As I mentioned in my recap on MomStart, my group was the most amazing example of teamwork. Once I threw out the stuffing idea, they all ran with it and suggested genius additions, ingredients, and morphed it into a full blown Christmas dinner with a side of chicken and veggies. I couldn’t believe the creativity, quick hands, clean-up skills – yes, we were judged on that too! – and cooking mastery that came out! The team took an idea that could have been gross and created something fabulous. So fabulous, in fact, that it was actually crowned the winning dish by a panel of judges, including chef Kari Karch! I couldn’t believe it!

This is the kind of challenge that seemed custom-made to stress me out – I thought I’d be a hot mess running around in circles, and I WAS, but it was actually productive! I had so much fun and have much love for Team 2 and their incredible culinary skills!

PDX Food Bloggers Tapas Competition & Wine Tasting Event

PDX Tapas Event

Complimentary admission, refreshments & goodie bags were provided!

Yesterday, I attended a local food blogger event at the Pearl District Whole Foods Market in Portland. This fun gathering included a wine tasting and tapas competition. Each blogger brought their own unique tapas dish to share, and the dishes that received the most votes from attendees would take home some fun foodie prizes. I had already planned to be in Portland this weekend because I was throwing my sister-in-law’s bachelorette party on Friday night, so when I heard that this event was taking place on Saturday afternoon, I just had to go since I am crazy like to make the most of my trips. Marlynn of Urban Bliss Life said, “You look way too rested for having been at a bachelorette party last night!” I told her that I just wear good makeup. πŸ˜‰

Going to a foodie event should have been intimidating, especially since I’ve never made a true tapas dish before. But my goal was merely to make a nice dish and enjoy myself, so I wasn’t worried about it being perfect or winning a blue ribbon as long as it tasted good. After some Googling, I decided to make Aceitunas a la Sevillana, since it was a fairly traditional tapas dish that is meant to be served at room temperature. This was important, because I knew that if I had to travel with something that had to be served hot or cold it would be a mess. I paired the olives with a loaf of my homemade bread:

My olives and bread
Since I was staying with my in-laws for the party, I brought my breadmaker along and baked a loaf the morning of the tapas event so that it would be fresh. I also made a second batch of the olives and had a conveyor belt of bread going all weekend for the bachelorette party, so it all tied together nicely! I was satisfied with how my simple dish turned out, although I was face-palming afterwards when I realized that I forgot to bring the giant slab of butter I bought specifically for this event. Duh! I suppose people could put the olives on top of the bread, but it would have tasted about 10x better if I had actually brought the butter. I suppose this wouldn’t be Cooking Catastrophe without something silly happening, right? πŸ˜‰ Still, everyone was really nice, and Pechluck from Pechluck’s Food Adventures even gave my bread a sweet shout-out on her blog. Aww!

Pouring wine
The event started off with a lovely wine tasting. Whole Foods wine expert Justin spoke with us about different types of wine, including facts about “Sherry law” that I found interesting. Did you know that “Sherry” is a protected name meant to only be used for wine produced in a specific region of Spain, and the only reason that you’ll see American-made bottles called “Sherry” is because “Sherry lawyers don’t have as much money as the Champagne lawyers”, as we joked at the event. This might explain why they Sherry I tasted at the event was so different than what I’m used to – it wasn’t extremely sweet, like the bottles my family and I traditionally pick up around Christmastime.

Whole Foods wine tasting
The Spicy Bee gives a tapas talk
After the wine tasting, Bee of The Spicy Bee talked about the history of tapas. Bee and I sat next to each other, which was fitting and also caused some funny miscommunication when people said our names since “Bee” and “Beeb” are so close phonetically!

Top Tapas!
As I expected, the event was full of amazing food. There were so many delicious and unique tastes, from spicy stuffed peppers to berry crisps to a cronut stuffed with meat. A “Cronut” is the newest food craze that people are lining up to taste – a combination croissant and donut. I can’t think of anything more Portland than a meaty cronut! Every single thing I ate was absolutely divine – and all the appetizers were so big that it was like eating a full dinner! I took so long eating that I accidentally missed the voting period, but I was actually glad because I don’t know how I could have chosen a favorite.

It was so fun meeting new bloggers, connecting with some “Face-to-face” for the first time, and even discovering some unexpected connections. I was chatting with Rachel of Tossing The Script, who said, “So you’re from Seaside – do you know (Name of one of my dear friends)?” I said, oh my gosh, I do! It turns out that Rachel knows my friend because she went to school in France with her. (This is the same friend who was waiting for her flight when I made my sugar-free fail!) I visited this friend twice while she was living in Poitiers, so Rachel and I realized that we must have met briefly all those years ago. Is this a small world, or what?!

Gift bag
As we were leaving, we were provided with fun gift bags as a thank-you for attending. They included decorative toothpicks from the organizer of the tapas event, Jenni at A Well Crafted Party; a free coupon for Black Rock coffee; a box of Pukka Licorice & Cinnamon tea (I brewed a cup of this today and it was nice!), and some yummy Goodness Knows Snack Squares. The bag was topped off by a cute card from Tiny Prints, who provided all kinds of cute napkins and placecards for the party. Appropriate, since the business cards which I brought to the event are also by Tiny Prints!

Goodness Knows Snack Squares
If you’d like to make your own simple tapas spread, here’s how I made mine:

Aceitunas a la Sevillana

Aceitunas a la Sevillana

Ingredients

  • 16 oz jar of green olives
  • 2-4 anchovy fillets
  • 4 TBSP. white balsamic vinegar
  • 4 cloves of garlic
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 tsp. rosemary leaves
  • 1 1/2 tsp. oregano leaves
  • 1 1/2 thyme leaves
  • 2 tsp. crushed red pepper
  • 1/2 tsp. cumin

Instructions

  • Adapted from this Spanish Marinated Olive Tapas recipe on GumboPages.com
  • Strain the olives over a bowl, reserving the water; place the olives back into the jar. Peel the garlic and add to the jar along with the anchovies, seasonings, and vinegar. Pour reserved water back into the jar until filled, screw on the lid, and shake the jar. Place on a counter to marinate for about 4 days, then store in the fridge for at least 3 days. Serve at room temperature.
https://www.cookingcatastrophe.com/pdx-food-bloggers-tapas/

Super Fast & Tasty Homemade Bread

Super Fast & Tasty Homemade Bread

Ingredients

  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 TBSP. butter
  • 10 1/2 fluid ounces water
  • 2 tsp. yeast

Instructions

https://www.cookingcatastrophe.com/pdx-food-bloggers-tapas/