Pistachio-Crusted Lemon Bars

Cookbook Club – Sababa We used Adeena Sussman’s Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors from My Israeli Kitchen as our April cookbook. Sababa means “everything is awesome” in Hebrew, and is the spirit Sussman uses in her Israel-inspired recipes. We did indeed have a sunny afternoon meal – go to my Cookbook Club site to experience the…

Roasted Pistachio Ice Cream

I recently had a fantastic pistachio ice cream at a local Middle Eastern restaurant. Since then I found myself constantly thinking about pistachio ice cream, so I decided I better figure out how to make some. I searched around for some recipes to use as a starting point, but found that they all call for…

Orange Blueberry Cake

My friends gave me a ton of oranges from their tree. When we couldn’t bear the thought of eating another orange, I had a thought – if lemon cake is good, why not orange cake? I also had some blueberries from the local community garden. My first Orange Blueberry Cake was entirely consumed in one…

Key Lime Pie Cupcakes

I wanted to make a St. Patrick’s Day dessert, and my neighbor had just given me a bunch of limes from her tree. So I decided to make Key Lime Pie Cupcakes. To get that familiar key lime pie flavor I used sweetened condensed milk instead of sugar in both the cupcake batter and the…

Pandan Pie

Today is my favorite day of the year… Pi(e) Day! A few weeks ago, I had a pandan latte at a Vietnamese coffee shop. It was heavenly. Pandan is a leaf used commonly in Southeast Asian cuisine, and the best way I can describe its flavor is like an herbaceous vanilla. One of my friends…

Girl Scout Cookies n Cream

It’s Girl Scout Cookie season! I went to a party and ended up coming home with boxes of Do-Si-Dos, Thin Mints, and Trefoils. Having already consumed many cookies, I decided to use some of the cookies to make Girl Scout Cookie ice cream. Cookies n Cream is my favorite childhood ice cream, so what could…

Chewy Fudge Brownies

Cookbook Club – Texture Over Taste February’s cookbook was Texture Over Taste by Joshua Weissman. Weissman divided the recipes into 6 texture chapters – Crunchy, Chewy, Aerated, Creamy, Fluid, and Fatty. To explore all the textures we experienced, go to my Cookbook Club site. For now – my dish! When it comes to brownies, some…

Orange Rounds with Honey, Mint, and Salt

It’s orange season in California, and some friends gave me a bucket of oranges from their tree! I needed a dessert for a dinner party and considered doing an orange cake, but I’ve been making a lot of cakes lately and was in the mood for something different. And my mint plants are going crazy!…

Key Lime Cake

I had a big container of sour cream, I had key limes, and I had a dinner party I needed to bring a dessert to. It was an intimate dinner party for 4, so I thought there would be leftovers of this Key Lime Cake, but I ended up having to make another one the…

Coconut Ice Cream with Passion Fruit Swirl

This coconut ice cream with a swirl of passion fruit butter is a tropical treat in a bowl. What more is there to say? Guessipe Spread the coconut on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees F until golden (about 5 minutes), stirring halfway through. Remove from the baking sheet and set aside. Bring…

Passion Fruit Butter

In my family, close family friends are “aunts” and “uncles”, and my Aunt Chaz was as much family as any of my blood relatives. This Guessipe is in memory of her. She was Hawaiian, and one of her secret recipes was lilikoi (Hawaiian passion fruit) butter. I have never been able to find or make…

Passion Fruit Ice Cream

I’m thrilled it’s passion fruit season again, and thanks to this year’s heavy rains the vines in the neighborhood are heavy with fruit! So of course I had to tinker with an ice cream flavored with one of my favorite fruits. Many of the passion fruit ice creams I’ve tasted hardly had any passion fruit…