Happy Foods Blog

Quintessial and delicious! With the strawberry season in full swing I could not help but think of a favorite of mine: pate sablee, Creme patissiere (pastry cream) and best in season strawberries. What made it is the vanilla pods simmering in the cream! Happy foods!!

I have made these!! And it is very easy. Similar to bagels but not quiet, dipped in sesame. He best part is you can make these in a couple of hours. Make sure you have good cheese, turkey, avocados at hand when they are out of the oven. Slice and you will have the best sandwich :) 

The Happy Foods Blog is back! And to kick it off here is a picture of the best desert I have had so far in 2018. Delicious inverted apple tart at Bibendum Restaurant in London. Superb! And stay tuned for more posts. 

As American as apple pie and Kim K., the cheese cake is essentially curious deliciously rich, and can be made into a favorite late Sunday afternoon treat. Well, inspired by Jaque Pepin, I made this quintessential cake today, as our one year was taking his nap and our five year old was busy fighting enemies on naboo: Simple: 4 eggs, 4 packets of cream cheese, some lemon juice, some vanilla, and a cup of sugar... bake for an hour and stop. Let it rest for a while. Unmold. And dress. I used apricot jam as master Pepin likes, and also added cognac. Go heavy on the lemon rinds, since the smell and taste was just flagrant. I liked it a lot. Enjoy (make sure you go heavy on the apricot jam).

I just picked up the latest from Maestro... A culmination of 60 years of cooking in a beautiful collection of his best recipes... with a DVD of instructions: how to make chocolate leaves, and how to put an apron on, and.... I love Pepin and look up to him. I learned A LOT from him. In fact, to relax, I usually go to YouTube and watch some of his KQED episodes... I really do. You go Jacque, and for many more years of health and cooking shows....

Yes, it is that time of year where you see tons of beautiful orange pumpkins sitting around anywhere you look. Apart from being aesthetically pleasing to look at, a pumpkin is a good -in fact great- source of yummy things. The top on mind -blame my upbringing- is the seed... pumpkin seeds: roasted and salted make a wonderful snack and perfect accompaniment to a good ale. There is also that thick orange skin -or is it fat, or muscle- that you can make pumpkin stuff out of: pumpkin pies, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin kibbeh, -and in our family- pumpkin PANCAKES! Ever since we got that okido issue, we -meaning all of us- have been hooked on it. The recipe is below (pics to follow). Please make it, and make it often. Thanks Okido issue 6: Ingredients: 1 cup of flour, 2 tbsp of brown sugar, 1 tsp of baking powder, 1 tsp of cinnamon (or other mix of spices), 1 cup of milk, 1 cup of pumpkin puree, 1 egg, and 2 tbsp of oil (I usually skip). What to do: Mix above ingredients together. Warm a p