A Shaptowicz Year
In the past year we've shared quite a few food moments with
Shapto
wicz, occurring from Queens to Philadelphia with a nod to Australia, even!
Our first ever Oscar night party in 2006 was essentially a food gorging festival. Between my correct guessing of "Song of the Year" (that would be for "It's Hard Out There for a Pimp") and Cristin's win of the golden foiled chocolate bunny trophy, we filled up on Cristin's mom's yummy secret recipe Fiesta Twirls and Asparagus Rolls! Trying to guess the secret ingredient in the Asparagus Rolls was very hard and we didn't get even close!
This past summer, be apparently invented
Third Desserts when he served Shaptowicz not one, not two, but THREE desserts after dinner at our house! Sadly, i missed the first two but "Third Desserts" is now part of the regularly used vocabulary here.
In the Fall, be and i were treated to two different kinds of
Tim Tam cookies from Australia during Shaptowicz & Kim's high school reunion! They were really good chocolately covered cookies, filled with either latte or raspberry filling. The hardest part of eating them (besides the resultant empty bag) was correctly doing the
"Tim Tam Slam" whereby you bite off each end of the cookie and slurp coffee through it like a straw, melting the filling and softening the cookie. Apparently we can buy Tim Tams renamed as "Arnott's Biscuits" at
World Market in the States, but it doesn't seem like they carry all the flavors.
During our last two Shaptowicz visits, we ran out of time to sit down and make some
Ro*Tel and Pepper Jack Velveeta. Shaptowicz swears by the deliciousness of this cheesy, tomatoey concoction - plus we have mega amounts of tortilla chips waiting! be and i have been really into good tortilla chips recently, namely from
Garden of Eatin, so we can't wait to dip them into some Ro*Tel.
Lastly, the Pear Vanilla Ginger jam Shaptowicz left here is patiently awaiting with some brie cheese and crackers for the next Shaptowicz visit - hopefully this month!
Quick Cupcakes
1) The "Little Lolita" cupcake at
Grocery is really good although it sounds a bit unusual: chocolate & ancho chile cupcake with goat's milk caramel-cream cheese frosting topped with chopped chile toffee peanuts! What a great combo! (Thanks K!)
2) We also liked the peanut butter chocolate cupcake at Grocery. The chocolate cupcake part was very soft and flavorful. Apparently they make a peanut butter & jelly cupcake?
3) We split a mega Lavender cupcake from
Flying Monkey Patisserie in
Reading Terminal. The icing was smooth and deliciously infused with lavender. The cake part was a little dry but otherwise tasty.
4) The first recipe i tried from
Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World was the Chai cupcakes! They smelled so great while baking (be thought i was making carrot cake due to the spices!) and tasted very yummy too. I'm definitely going to make more cupcakes from this book (plus the "Faustess Cupcakes" from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's other book,
Vegan with a Vengeance).
5) A while back, we were gifted some cupcakes from
The Night Bakery in Germantown. They were very delicious and i particulary enjoyed the lemon cupcake!
6) I tried the vanilla cupcake from
Naked Chocolate Cafe which was very tasty as well. Note if you're part of
Philly Carshare, the desserts are 2 for 1 with the special keytag!
7) Lastly but not leastly, we LOVE
Tartes. It's this tiny little house on Arch between 2nd and 3rd Sts in Old City ... and they churn out the BEST cookies, cupcakes and baked goods ever! The only night they're open late is First Fridays, otherwise you have to go early. I can't recall everything we've tried. I just remember it's all been excellent.
Nuts to Me!
WHY is the popcorn at
Nuts to You so addictive? It's perfectly salted, not oily, very crisp and slightly toasty. For a measly $1.25 you get a giant bag about the size of 3 microwave popcorn bags. Plus, it's freshly popped and AWESOME. The guy behind the counter told me it can keep fresh for only 2-3 days however, so make sure you eat the whole bag like i do in one sitting. (Alright, probably more like 5 sittings -- it's a bigass bag!) They also sell an unsalted bag which would be perfect for popcorn balls or chocolate drizzle!
While you're there, be sure to get a pound of "Sweet Cream Almonds" which a few of us have appropriately dubbed "Cracknuts." The fresh almonds are roasted with a sweet/salty coating that's pure amazingness. If you like sweet roasted nuts, you'll eat the entire pound in 2 days. Happiness for $6.99!
I wonder what other addictive goodness can be found at Nuts to You...
On another note, i just made a
raw beet and apple slaw that came out quite tasty! Originally i bought the beets for the tops. I wasn't sure how to make the actual beet roots and didn't want to run the oven or boil them forever. The slaw is very crunchy, fresh and tasty. Note i used apple cider vinegar (1/3 less than the recipe suggested) and pink lady apples instead of Granny Smith. It's a lot of grating but well worth the pink hands. I wonder if be the beet hater will attempt to try them.
