Roasted Potato and Corn Chowder

After making my roasted garlic and roasted new potatoes, I was left with a lot of leftover roasted potatoes. I can only manage to eat so much of them by myself as leftovers, so I decided to make a big batch of potato soup that I could freeze for later.

It took awhile but I finally found one that sounded pretty tasty at The Repressed Pastry Chef. Of course, I had to change it up a little bit based on what I had in the fridge and pantry. I used my roasted red potatoes in place of the uncooked potatoes. I also used my roasted garlic instead of the raw garlic. In place the canned corn, I used frozen.

This was one delicious bowl of chowder. Most chowders that I've had, were extremely heavy and kind of blah. The addition of roasted garlic and the roasted potatoes really took this chowder to a whole other level.  Every spoonful was bursting with flavor.  I made this on a cold rainy day and it fit the bill perfectly.  I served it by itself but it would be wonderful with a grilled cheese sandwich.

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Pioneer Woman's Good Ol’ Basic Chocolate Chip Cookies

Last year, I posted Christine's Absolutely Amazing Chocolate Chip Cookies that my good friend Christine created. They are pretty much the best chocolate chip cookie that I've had. But that's not to say that I'm not on the look out for even more yummy chocolate chip cookies. So when I saw this recipe from The Pioneer Woman, I had to try them out.

At first glance, they look like your basic chocolate chip cookie. At your second glance, you see the instant coffee addition as well as the flax seed. hmmm...the coffee wasn't all that surprising. I've seen that before and liked it. Coffee brings out the chocolatey-ness of the chocolate. The flax seed was the surprise. I don't think I've come across that in a chocolate chip cookie before. But if the Pioneer Woman puts both in her cookie, it has to be good right?

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After my study abroad semester in London, a group of us went on a two week tour around Europe. One of my favorite stops was Venice. How could you not like Venice? Seriously. It was gorgeous. And the food...absolutely delicious. I had the best gelato ever there (fresh strawberry) and also one of the best pastas I had ever tasted. What was it? Pumpkin Pasta.

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Daring Bakers: Macaroons

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

I think I may be one of the only bloggers out there that hasn't had a french macaroon or dreamed of eating the perfect one. They are not something that I grew up eating. We always had the macaroons that are made mostly out of coconut. Even though I'm not familiar with the french version, I have seen them every where in the food blogging world. I thought they sounded interesting but I wasn't going to go out of my way to make them.

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Roasted Garlic and New Potatoes

New potatoes are my go to potato. I like the texture and size much better than their russet cousins. And the beautiful reddish purple skin is a nice pop of color over the dull brown of the usual baking potato. I nearly always keep a bag of red potatoes in my pantry for an easy vegetable side dish and I almost always roast them. Typically, I just toss the quartered potatoes with olive oil, salt, and some pepper and roast until crispy. This time I decided to do something a little different after seeing this recipe from The Pioneer Woman.

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