Belgian White Beer Cupcakes

I know I'm a little late on this post.  Memorial Day BBQ's are prime places to debut such delicious treats as Belgian White Beer Cupcakes.  But that's OK.  Why don't we think of this post as a great treat that you can use to ease into the rest of summer.  

When your friends least expect it, you can show up at a BBQ, bearing gifts of the beer and cupcake kind.  You can say "Oh, these little things? I just felt like whipping these up for today.  No big deal."

You get the idea.

I had a lot of success a few years ago with my Blue Moon Cupcakes, so I decided to make a  variation of that.  I really wanted to make these with Sam Adams' Summer Ale, but alas, I couldn't find any in my local stores.  I opted to improvise instead of continuing the search, and I ended up using a Shocktop Belgian White Beer.  Delicious stuff!

So here's me raising my beer (cupcake) to you.  Enjoy!

The Great GoogaMooga Festival: A Review

 

Do you know what the Great GoogaMooga Festival is?  It's a real thing.  It's a real, awesome thing.

GoogaMooga is a food festival.  It is also a music festival.  The festival lasted 2 days (Saturday and Sunday) and was hosted in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, NY.  Several well-known.restaurants, breweries, and wineries were present at the event.  Additionally, well-known musical acts (such as The Roots and Daryl Hall & John Oates) closed out the events each night.  General Admission to the festival was free, as long as you could score a ticket.  There was also an "Extra Mooga" experience that you could purchase for an obscene amount of money and you would have access to a bunch of really cool events with celebrity chefs.  I didn't take advantage of that because really, it was too expensive and I just wanted to hang out with some good friends and get a few bites to eat.

I showed up on a sunny Saturday afternoon to partake in the day's events.  The day's events included demos, presentations, and bands at various locations within the GoogaMooga grounds.  Upon arriving, one of the first things I saw was a huge and beautifully colorful cake.  Yep. That's right.

Pssst....it's not real...

Candied Pecans

A few weeks ago, my friends and I were having a post-gym Whole Foods tryst.  Yes, we go to Whole Foods after the gym.  At 9:30pm. Whatever.  One of my friends found something that I'm calling the "Nut Bar". No snickering.  This is serious talk here.  The Nut Bar at Whole Foods is sort of like a candy bar.  A variety of nuts are displayed in a case and you can choose which one(s) you want, or you can mix-and-match.  Whatever you desire.

This find immediately kicked our killer taste testing skills into high gear.  Resoundingly, our favorite type of nut was a pumpkin spiced pecan.  This was honestly the best candied pecan I had ever tasted.  I could have eaten a pound of this stuff, which was why I didn't buy any.  Know thyself.

However, the universe seems to realize that I can only hold out so long.  Recently, I woke up to a post by JTB (aka Joy The Baker) in which she blogged about a candied pecan biscotti she had recently made.  Though I won't turn it down, I'm not a huge fan of biscotti.  What really caught my eye was the mention of candied pecans.  Do you mean I can make my own candied pecans at home?  Oh yes.  I had hit the jackpot.

I found a bag of pecans in the cupboard.  They may have been living in the cupboard for quite a while.  I don't want to talk about it.  Let's get down to business.

Chicken Broccoli & Feta Quiche

Each month, for the Secret Recipe Club, we have a common reveal day when we find out who's been assigned who's blog.  It's pretty exciting since I'm always wondering who was assigned my blog, which recipe they chose to make or adapt, and why.  I'm relatively sure the other bloggers are also wondering the same thing.  This month, I have decided to remove the mystery behind this process for my new friend Danielle over at Mostly Food and Crafts.  Hey, new friend! I've been assigned your blog this month!

From the endless recipes on Danielle's site, I finally settled on one: the Broccoli Feta Quiche.  Let's get to the heart of the matter.  Why did I choose this particular recipe?  Truly, there were a number of reasons.

Warm Weather Recipes

Today, I'd like to celebrate Spring.  Thank you for showing up. Hopefully you will stick around.  When you're here, that means it's time to make countless trips to the local farmer's market. It's time for fresh fruits and vegetables.  It's time for infused vodkas.  It's time for quiches and frozen yogurt.  I think you're getting the picture.

So in your honor, Spring,  I'm posting my favorite warm weather recipes.  And also, it's nice to revisit old recipes and remember why they were stellar the first time around.

Now...one must start somewhere.  And if that somewhere happens to be with strawberries and vodka, so be it.  Strawberry Infused Vodka