Tasty Tuesday

Tasty Tuesday: The Top Five–Food Photos of 2022

It’s time to take a look back at 2022, starting with my favorite food photos of the year (minus desserts and drinks)!

Let’s start in February, with this beautiful quiche I made for the tea party we had to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the throne:

A lot of my best food photos this year occurred during our “Disney Dinners,” like these Moana’s Motunui Sliders:

Some of my other best food photos came from my adventures in German cooking, like this Bavarian Obatzda with homemade pretzels:

We had a lot of fun with The Nightmare Before Christmas cookbook…I love how colorful this “Snake and Spider Stew” was!

More German cooking…this time, a whole dinner plate featuring homemade schnitzel:

And a bonus picture, because nachos at the ballpark just photograph so well!

I took a lot of food photos this year, so stay tuned for specialized lists focusing on desserts and drinks, too!

Tasty Tuesday–Baking Day

If there’s any day that rivals Pie Day for making our house smell like a bakery, it’s my annual Christmas Baking Day.

Yes, I’ve already been doing some Christmas baking…German cookies for Christmas School, lussekattes for Santa Lucia Day, other various treats here and there. And we’re saving the gingerbread and sugar cookie baking for the week after Christmas. But there’s always one day prior to Christmas each year when I bake all my “fancy” Christmas cookies, and that’s what I did on Saturday…28 dozen of them!

I baked our old favorites (raspberry-almond thumbprints and chocolate peppermint). I made some newer favorites that will probably be old favorites in a few years (chocolate crinkles and linzer). I tried a few new recipes that looked interesting to me (meringue kisses and peppermint meltaways). And I tried to recreate an old, store-bought favorite with decent success (a duplicate of Keebler’s anise-flavored Jingles).

Yes, there was a point when I couldn’t find our kitchen under all the cookies. And yes, it feels like we’re living in a bakery. But I love organizing pretty plates of Christmas cookies, and sampling some along the way!

Tasty Tuesday–More German Cooking

I’ve continued to try German recipes since the last time I shared a look at the German cooking I was doing. Most are new to us (and many of those are recipes I was introduced to through the monthly recipe share in the Rare Dirndl First Looks Club Facebook group), but I also made some old family favorites for Oktoberfest.

  • Schnitzel
  • Rhabarberkompott 
  • Kaiserschmarrn
  • Labskaus
  • Frikadellen
  • Käse-Sahne Torte
  • Eiskaffee
  • Sauerbraten
  • Rotkohl
  • Pflaumenkuchen
  • Toast Hawaii
  • Bavarian Obatzda
  • Dutch Baby
  • Brezel
  • Krautsalat
  • Vegane Fleischpfanzerl
  • Spaetzle
  • Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte
  • Baked Fall Spätzle

I have really enjoyed connecting to my heritage this way, and I’m looking forward to trying even more new German recipes in the future!

Tasty Tuesday–The Nightmare Before Christmas Cookbook

For the month of October, Ladybug and I decided to make recipes from The Nightmare Before Christmas cookbook. Our goal was to make one dinner a week (three total recipes each, from either drinks, side dishes, main courses, or desserts), plus a special Halloween meal. We met our goal, and made a few bonus recipes, too! Not only did we make something from each section of the cookbook, we made all of the drink recipes! Every single thing we tried was excellent, and we have some new family favorites that we’re looking forward to making again!

  • Vampire Brothers Bloody Party Punch
  • Snake and Spider Stew
  • Oogie Boogie Meringues
  • Frog’s Breath Floats
  • Cucumber and Mint Limeade Love Potion
  • Jack Skellington Shepherd’s Pie
  • The Mayor Two-Faced black and white cookies
  • Jack Skellington Black Bean Dip
  • Full Moon Queso Dip
  • Igor Cheesy Breadstick Bones
  • Worm’s Wort and Frog’s Breath Soup
  • Lock, Shock, and Barrel Spiral Peppermint Cookie Pops
  • Mummy Boy Dogs
  • Oogie Boogie Bag of Bugs
  • Christmas Town Gingerbread Snowflakes with Spiders
  • Homemade Christmas Eggnog
  • The Mayor Chocolate Pretzel Spiderwebs 
  • Halloween Town Band Zombie Mocktail
  • Oogie Boogie Pasta Worms
  • Oogie Boogie Double Chocolate Dirt Cake
  • Witches Cauldron Brew
  • Christmas Tree Empanadas
  • Sally Patchwork Layer Cake

This has been a really fun cookbook to work our way through, and I’m looking forward to trying even more of the recipes in the future! Eventually, I hope we’ll get around to some of the craft projects in the book, too!

Tasty Tuesday–A Look Back at Disney Dining

For the last few months, I’ve been sharing all of the Disney Dinners I’ve made…here’s a look at each dish we tried from either a Disney cookbook, or an online resource with copycat Disney recipes:

We also tried quite a few thing while we were at the Disney parks (my favorite was the Dole Whip!):

And we enjoyed one very special dinner at the Hollywood Brown Derby:

This wraps our summer of fun Disney dinners, but I’m looking forward to trying (and retrying) recipes from our Disney cookbooks in the future, and I’ve already pre-ordered The Official Disney Parks Cookbook, which is scheduled to come out next February, so we’ll have even more new recipes to try!

Tasty Tuesday–The Twelfth Disney Dinner

For our final Disney Dinner of the summer, I didn’t use any of my cookbooks…instead I turned to the internet, where I first found a copycat recipe for violet lemonade like they serve at the EPCOT International Flower and Garden Festival, something we were able to attend on our trip. The drink had a lovely floral quality, and was such a pretty color!

The Disney Parks Blog had a recipe for Totchos as served at Woody’s Lunch Box in Toy Story Land at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The recipe included a simple, thick chili as a topper, and while it wasn’t my famous three-meat chili, it is perfect for things like totchos, hot dogs, and baked potatoes, so I’ll probably make it again!

For dessert, we had classic but simple Mickey Mouse cupcakes with Oreo ears! I know I saw a picture of this idea online somewhere, but it’s not like you need a recipe to make it happen.

While we’ll continue making recipes from our Disney cookbooks (we’re already looking forward to getting The Official Disney Parks Cookbook, a companion volume to Delicious Disney, when it comes out next year!), there was something really special about this summer of Disney Dinners that I’m really going to miss!

Tasty Tuesday–The Eleventh Disney Diner

For our penultimate Disney Dinner of the summer, I turned to Delicious Disney for all three recipes. We started with the seasonal old fashioned from the Enchanted Rose Lounge. Yes, an old fashioned is by nature an alcoholic drink. But what my children were most interested in was the combination of fall flavors like cranberry and rosemary, so I substituted apple cider for the alcohol, which paired well with the other flavors in the drink.

For the main course, I made honey spicy crispy chicken from Nine Dragons Restaurant, a fine dining establishment in the China area of Epcot’s World Showcase. I don’t usually deep fry chicken, but I made an exception, and I’m glad I did, because this was one of the best recipes we tried all summer!

For dessert, I made Amorette’s recipe for pumpkin crème brûlée topped with sable cookies. This was kind of a disaster, because I dropped mine on the floor, breaking the ramekin in the process. I’m told it was good, though, and it kept with the “fall flavors” theme of the meal.

Stay tuned for our final summer Disney Dinner!

Tasty Tuesday–Disney Drinks and Dessert, Part Two

The first time we had just Disney drinks and dessert, it was because the dinner I had made to go with them was a failure. This time, I made just drinks and dessert just for fun! The Lava Smoothie from Leaping Horse Libations at Disney’s BoardWalk Villas tasted like the tropics in a glass!

And because we just haven’t had enough Mickey Mouse-shaped food, I made Mickey Mouse Rick Krispie treats that were extra special because they were topped with white chocolate and m&ms!

This was a fun way to sneak a few more Disney-themed items into our summer!

Tasty Tuesday–The Tenth Disney Dinner

Our tenth Disney Dinner was all about taking a second chance on the rib recipe that didn’t turn out earlier in the summer, but before we get to that, a drink I put a lot of effort into coming up with, the Frozen Sunshine from Disney’s Beach Club Resort. The more Disney Dinners we had, the harder it was to find drink recipes that didn’t include alcohol, or that could at least have the alcohol substituted out. I went through pretty much all of the recipes in our cookbooks, so I turned to the internet for copycat recipes, which is where I found this Creamsicle in a cup!

I was still upset about the “Disney Disaster” we had previously, so I gave the hoisin chili sticky ribs from Delicious Disney based on Chef Morimoto’s recipe from his restaurant at Disney Springs, Morimoto Asia, another shot, substituting baby back ribs for spare ribs. They were perfect…definitely the best ribs I’ve ever made!

For dessert, we had Mickey Mouse-shaped beignets with lavender sugar. Can you have too many Mickey-shaped treats?!?

This was a fun meal, and I really enjoyed the redemption when making the ribs!

Tasty Tuesday–The Ninth Disney Dinner, Star Wars Edition

Our ninth Disney Dinner was A Big Deal, because I tried to recapture the magic of something we tried at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios…but first, something new and something a little scary, the Sarjenn Snowcap, a cola slushy topped with sweetened, condensed milk. I wasn’t really sure how it would taste, but in the end it was very similar to a cola float, and very good.

The star of the meal was Batuuan Ronto Wraps, a popular item at Hollywood Studios. We shared a Ronto Wrap our first day at the park, and Turkey liked it so much, he bought his own for dinner the second day we were there. The Galaxy’s Edge version has both sliced pork and a sausage, but we had ours with just the sausage, and it really wasn’t missing much.

For dessert, we had Cavaellin Spice Creams, which were pretty much gingerbread cookie whoopee pies filled with orange cream cheese frosting.

It was fun to really have a little bit of Disney at home!