Tasty Tuesday

Tasty Tuesday–A Dessert 11 Years in the Making

This is a story about not giving up, at least not permanently. Taking a break for over a decade is a different matter, however!

I am no stranger to making cream puffs. As a matter of fact, we’ve made them in school with a recipe from The Little Women Cookbook, and I’ve made a special version for May the Fourth, too. A Pâte à Choux dough is just not that intimidating to me.

But there is one presentation of cream puffs that has eluded me since 2013…the Croquembouche. Back then, I wanted to make the fancy tower of cream puffs for Christmas dessert. But I couldn’t get it to hold together, so we had plain old cream puffs instead.

I’ve thought about this dessert off and on over the years, and I’ve thought about making it again many times, but the thought of failing at it again always put me off. I knew though, when Paris 2024 came around, I would have to give it a try, and this time, I was successful!

It took me a long time, but the point is, I didn’t give up, and we were rewarded with a delicious and fancy dessert!

Tasty Tuesday–Captain Picard Day

My fellow Star Trek fans might know that Captain Picard Day is traditionally celebrated on June 16, but it’s been a busy summer, so we just got around to it last week. I made 10 new recipes from The Star Trek Cookbook, starting with Andorian Spice Bread (a sweet bread with the unexpected but delicious addition of cumin), with either Raktajino (based on the recipe for Swedish egg coffee) or Spiced Enyak’s Milk (a type of chamomile tea) for breakfast.

During the day, I worked on a Delvan Fluff Pastry, which is a type of puff pastry dough, for our dessert.

For dinner, I made a Lingta Roast (pork tenderloin with pears), which I served with Fettran Sauce (a sweet and sour sauce flavored with sage).

The side dishes I chose were Leola Rice Pilaf and Argelian Coleslaw, both of which were excellent and paired well with the pork.

Our beverage of choice was Slug-o-Cola, which had both orange and cucumber juice, and a dash of both turmeric and anise extract. It looked a little scary, but was surprisingly delicious!

Finally, for dessert, I used the Delvan Fluff Pastry to make Uttaberry Cruffins, a fancy type of croissant, which were accompanied by homemade blueberry jam.

This was the second themed meal I’ve put together using recipes from The Star Trek Cookbook, and I’ve been pretty impressed with everything we’ve tried so far!

Tasty Tuesday–Sonic the Hedgehog: The Official Cookbook

We’ve been working our way through Sonic the Hedgehog: The Official Cookbook for a few months now, and we’ve been been very impressed with everything we’ve tried, including four different types of “chili” dog (only two actually had chili, and the other two were a bit controversial featuring tuna and egg salads as toppings, but even though they were different, they were good!). This cookbook also gave me an excuse to finally try my hand at making tortillas, which was a lot of fun!

  • Piko Piko Slammer
  • Villain Subs
  • Blue Hydrocity
  • Sonic’s Signature Chili
  • Knuckles’s Fruit Punch
  • The Perfect Chili Dog
  • A Rival’s Chili Dog
  • Perfect Note Waffles
  • Catch O’ The Day Dog
  • The Perfect Eggdog
  • Charmy’s Sweet Treat! 
  • Charmy’s Other Sweet Treat!
  • The Garlic Collector 
  • Imperial Tea
  • Unlimited Potential tortillas
  • Burrito Blasts
  • Island’s Bounty Salad 
  • Cream in a Sweet Conclusion

I’m looking forward to continuing to try more recipes from this book!

Tasty Tuesday–Oktoberfest in July

It’s been quite a few years since we last had a German feast for the Fourth of July, so that’s exactly what we did last week. The menu was somewhat different…this time around, we made all of our Oktoberfest favorites, starting with pretzels:

And pretzels call for fondue for lunch, which I served with pickles and brats as well:

The main course was schnitzel:

I served it with family favorites such as spaetzle, red cabbage, pickled beets, and sauerkraut:

It’s one of my favorite dinners, no matter what time of year it is!

The real star of the feast in my opinion, though, was the dessert. I decided to deconstruct the components of my Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte recipe, and serve Black Forest sundaes. They were so delicious, and I’m pretty proud of my culinary creativity!

It’s fun to plan an unexpected meal for a holiday every now and again!

Tasty Tuesday–Universal Yums

I’m guessing by now you’ve heard of Universal Yums or a similar international snack box subscription. For his birthday at the beginning of the year, I got Ryan a basic six-month subscription to Universal Yums (the “Yum Box,” which has five to seven snacks each month, plus a booklet with fun trivia unique to that month’s country), and for our anniversary last month, we decided to renew the subscription and also upgrade to a “Super Yum Box” (15-18 snacks, including a drink unique to that month’s country), and that’s what I’m going to take a look at today.

We got lucky with our first Super Yum box…it took us to the United Kingdom!

The scorecard for the snacks is huge compared to the ones that came with the Yum Box!

There were expected snacks like Jammie Dodgers and salt & vinegar crisps:

And lots of candy options!

Here’s a look at the beverage for the month:

Hands-on activities were included, too…in addition to the booklet, which has trivia plus recipes, we received a Yorkshire pudding and pancake mix so we can do some cooking at home!

We tried three of the more unusual items first…Purple Vimto, a fizzy beverage flavored with grape, blackcurrant, and raspberry which was delightful, rhubarb and custard bon bons, which were very popular, and pickled onion rings, which I liked but were overall pretty controversial.

We really look forward to seeing what country we’ll be visiting each month…with the first subscription, we got to experience Thailand, the Baltics, Ukraine, France, Poland, and Spain, and after the United Kingdom, I can’t wait to see where we’ll go for the remainder of the year!

Tasty Tuesday–Lavender Lemonade Milkshakes

I am on a major lavender kick, so of course I had to buy the lavender-lemonade whipped cream at Target the first time I saw it…but then I had to figure out what I was going to do with it! Since we love lavender-lemonade to begin with, I thought why not make lavender-lemonade milkshakes, and use the whipped cream to top them? It was just as delicious as I hoped…perfect for spring! I’m sure they would be good with regular whipped cream, too, since the special variety is a seasonal item.

  • 4 cups vanilla ice cream
  • 12 oz. frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
  • 1 tsp. lemon zest
  • 1/2-1 tsp. dried lavender

Add all ingredients to blender and blend until combined. Top with whipped cream and additional dried lavender, if desired.

Tasty Tuesday–The Perfect Flavor Combination for Spring

I always figured that if I was going to have a full-on Starbucks addiction, it was going to be because of some kind of new coffee creation. Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that the best drink I’ve ever had there is actually tea based!

The Iced Lavender Cream Oatmilk Matcha is my new favorite. I’ve always been kind of obsessed with lavender as a flavor (I’ve made lavender lemonade and lavender shortbread, and I’ve been considering adding it to a rub for meat), and I love matcha, so I’m kind of ashamed I never though of pairing them before. As soon as I saw this item on the menu, I knew I had to try it, and I’m embarrassed to think of how many of them I’ve had since. It’s a bright, floral, (and yes, possibly even grassy) beverage that’s absolutely perfect for spring! I love it so much, I don’t even mind the oatmilk (although I have gotten it with plain old whole milk, too), and I was inspired to recreate the flavor at home with matcha milk boba tea topped with lavender lemonade whipped cream from Target:

I know Starbucks seasonal flavors don’t stay around forever, and I’m already dreading the day this one leaves the menu, but maybe it will come back next spring!

Tasty Tuesday–Boba at Home

I’ve shared my love of boba tea before, but like all good things, you just can’t afford to go to a shop and buy it all the time. So I started trying out the different J Way boba kits you can buy at the store. While they’re still more expensive than making it from scratch, they’re way cheaper than going out for tea, and we’ve gotten to try a lot of different flavors. So far, my favorites are the matcha (no surprise there, because I love matcha!), and the taro, which was kind of a surprise to me, because I didn’t really even know what taro was before we tried it! They also happen to be the two prettiest, in my opinion, in lovely, bright shades of green and purple. We’ve also tried some other milk tea flavors, and a fruity one, too, and they’ve all been delicious!

I would like to get to the point where I make my own boba pearls, but that still scares me a little, but I did get a bag of taro boba at the international market, and tried a recipe I found online for iced hot chocolate boba tea, which was really, really tasty! Next up, I’d like to try some pre-packaged popping boba, because I have some ideas how I’d like to use them, too.

Do you have a favorite flavor of boba tea?

Tasty Tuesday–Breakfast Burritos

I’ve been on something of a burrito kick recently, and one of the types of burritos I wanted to tackle was breakfast burritos, because Turkey loves the kind they sell at McDonald’s. I think I included all of their standard ingredients in my first attempt other than pork sausage, and Turkey said that I didn’t even need to include that in the future…but he wouldn’t mind if I tried them with chorizo!

  • Tortillas–I used the “Extra Grande Burrito” size
  • 1/4 cup shredded cheese of your choice per burrito
  • Scrambled eggs–(About three per burrito–I made a total of 18 for six burritos)
  • Diced tomato (I used one large tomato for six burritos)
  • Diced green chilies, drained (I used two small cans for six burritos)
  • Browned pork sausage or chorizo (optional)
  • Burritos toppings (sour cream, hot sauce, melted cheese, avocado, etc.)

Preheat oven to 375. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Spread 1/4 cup shredded cheese in the middle of a tortilla. Mix scrambled eggs with tomatoes and chilies, and place a portion on top of cheese. Top with meat, if desired. Fold the tortilla in the traditional burrito style, and place seam-side down on baking sheet.

Bake at 375 for 12 minutes. Serve with your favorite toppings.

Tasty Tuesday–A Trio of Berliner for Fasching

Making donuts during the Karneval season is no longer a surprise around here (I started by trying my hand at Pączki in 2021, and then moved on to Berliner, which I’ve been making ever since), but I’ve never made three varieties at once before! This year, I decided to make a double batch of Zitronen Berliner (lemon donuts), and since I had 24 of them to work with, I thought we should try some different fillings. I started with homemade lemon pudding, and dusted the donuts with powdered sugar:

Next I made a homemade vanilla custard filing, and also a chocolate glaze for the top:

And finally, an old classic, filled with plum jam and sprinkled with granulated sugar:

They were all delicious, and honestly, I’m not even sure which ones I liked best, but I’m always thinking of even more tasty fillings!