Corinne

Avocado Fries

They say that Californians add avocado to everything. Now, true to my contrarian soul, I vehemently denied this observation the first time it was shared with me. As a California native, I had never heard this stereotype until I moved outside of the bear Republic. Avocado on everything? Surely, that’s the extreme, not the norm. But as I continued to live further away from the State, I noticed that avocado became decreasingly prevalent in the Sides or Add Ons sections of various menus. And the quality of avocados seemed to be sorely lacking the further you purchased them from a coastline.

My time living in Wisconsin was especially painful, and I learned very quickly that avocados aren’t in abundance in every state. (Yes, Corinne, you were and are a spoiled foodie brat. Sorry, readers, for my entitled inner child. Her hanger can border the offensive.) And I very quickly learned just how much I fall into that add avocado to everything category. I can deny that label about as much as I can deny that I’m a redhead.

Yes, avocado is the perfect add on for almost any dish. But what about them as a standalone item? And that brings us to avocado fries. With flour and a sprinkle of panko bread crumbs or shredded coconut flakes, these babies can be transformed into an absolutely scrumptious meal.

I’m sure I was exposed to avocado fries at some point in my youth, but the most memorable experience was at Bru’s Wiffle in Los Angeles. At the time, I was living in Westwood while suffering in grad school at UCLA, so this had to have been 2012 or 2013. Matt was finishing up his undergrad degree at Marquette in Milwaukee, and we would rotate who flew out to see whom every three to four months. On one of his trips out west, we stumbled upon this restaurant, and lo and behold, there were avocado fries on the menu. Being the avid avocado lover that I am, I ordered a plate of these breaded, green treats and was astonished at how good they tasted. How could something — with the most basic of ingredients — taste SO DIVINE?!?

The dish was so remarkable that it’s stuck with both of us years, and we had to recreate something inspired by our LA discovery. If memory serves me correctly, Bru’s Wiffle used Panko bread crumbs for the outside of their fries, but we opted to use shredded coconut as the base of our crunchy coating.

Chickpea Falafel

We all have those foods that could make us salivate at the mere mention of them. Falafel fall in that category for me. Drop the word falafel, and you’re gonna hear me squeal. Yes, squeal. Because falafel are so, incredibly tasty. And I’m not the only one susceptible to their magnetism — not only do I have so much passion for this food, but the food and its history has the tendency to provoke a lot of controversy and intense emotion.

I get it: you may not be as hot for falafel as I am. Taste is very individual. Judging someone for their food tastes is like judging them for the type of music they like or the people they love. We crave what we crave, sometimes inexplicably so. Just because it ain’t your thing doesn’t mean it’s not someone else’s, but we still have plenty of crave-worthy food for you to take a crack at making. Check out any one of our other recipes if falafel isn’t what you have a hankering for.

Falafel are deep-fried balls made from chickpeas, fava beans, or a combination of both. The ones we’re making in this post require chickpeas (a.k.a garbanzos), and our process is an adaptation of Mark Bittman’s Falafel recipe featured in the New York Times.

Sherry Cake | The Secret Family Recipe

Every family has that secret family recipe. The one that has been passed down through the generations, a priceless commodity that requires some secret ingredient or technique that only Mom knows about. For me, it’s my sherry wine cake. I first got the recipe from my mom, who got it from her father’s mom, and so on and so forth. As soon as the recipe was passed to me and I was told it was a “family recipe,” I accepted this fact without question and knew I had a familial duty to uphold the privacy of its sacred contents. (I’d like to add that this was entirely my melodramatic perception, and my mom has shared this recipe with numerous people…)

Fast forward years later, and your girl here decides she wants to impress Matt one evening and bake him the Stubbs — or more accurately Fox — family wine cake. To no surprise, the kid was hooked and thought it was unbelievably light and fluffy. That inquisitive baker — whose curiosity is on par with Alton Brown — wanted to deconstruct my cake to an elemental level so he could make it himself. Since I knew he was a keeper, I assumed that it was safe for me to share the recipe with him.

I mean, it does call for both instant vanilla pudding and yellow cake mix. I guess I secretly knew he may have had a point, but my denial was about as full-fledged as my 10-year-old self who woke to my father putting Christmas presents downstairs near the tree. Duh, Santa Claus is real; I don’t care what I just saw or what anyone else has to say about that… (add Link to the article about family recipes and potato salad)

We all have that one baking dish that looks gloriously intricate as a finished product but in reality took a sneakingly small amount effort. The entire process to bake this little guy, from start to finish, is less than an hour. And if you’re like me and use a proper bundt pan, you’re cake is sure to be a showstopper. Honestly, I have NEVER made this cake and not received a compliment on way it looks — and tastes — when I use my Williams Sonoma spiral bundt pan. (Insider tip: You can also find our specific Nordic Ware Platinum Collection Heritage Bundt Pan on Amazon Prime, or check out the dozens of other Amazon Prime bundt pan options.) I feel like I’m almost cheating when I use it because I’m far from a master baker — which is definitely more Matt’s thing than mine — but it makes that cake look absolutely elegant.

Now, if you don’t have a snazzy bundt pan, don’t fret — all is not a loss! This cake recipe may be deceptively simple, but its taste alone will still have people talking.

American Pasta Carbonara

I haven’t written in a long time. Not for myself, anyway. I have an infinite number of ideas swirling around in my brain — fragments of intros, mounds of clever copy, poetic verses and lyrics galore. But what stops me? Excuses. Bottom line, lots and lots of excuses keep me from lifting the laptop cover or picking up a pen and paper. And an overwhelming, paralyzing fear that stems from that annoying monkey on my back: perfectionism. I’m a Type A control freak, and although I have the writing chops, I haven’t been able to dive into this blog. Matt and I have gone round and round the discussion board for two years now, developing our concept, our mission, our strategy, and it’s all there. But what we — or in all honesty, more so I — have struggled the most with is action.

Well, here’s action. Someone once told me that you should write what you know. I honestly cannot remember whom said what — maybe a professor at one of the many universities I attended during my academic rite of passage, but memory keeps aiming to a moment during much younger school years. Who stated it doesn’t matter as much as the words themselves do. Matthew will happily credit Stephen King here

So what do I know? Pasta carbonara americano, the way my mama makes it. (Tangent: Circling back to that perfectionism monkey, I just took ten minutes grappling with momma v. mama, and I’m still not content with my choice. Moving along…)

From the Mountains of My Abruzzo

Pasta carbonara americano is truly one of my biggest comfort foods. It’s a dish that will always take me back home no matter where I am, and it’s a meal that can bring me so much elation on even the gloomiest of days. Whenever my mom made it for me and my sister, I always felt like I was getting a tiny piece of my heritage. My maternal grandmother was from the Abruzzo region in Italy, born in the States but later moved back to Italy with her parents when she was eight. They experienced the trials of Ellis Island when immigrating to this country, eventually settling and making a home in Boston. As a typical, third-generation, Caucasian American, I am always grasping at whatever culture I can claim or learn about regarding my family. (I’ve taken two DNA tests by now and am already looking into a third.) My current personal project entails researching these Abruzzo roots, but enough on that for now.

Before I launch into a personal anecdote, I want to briefly note that this recipe is my mother and grandmother’s take on pasta carbonara americano. This is not to be confused with the more traditional pasta carbonara italiano and how the dish is typically prepared in Italy. Both are incredibly tasty dishes. My personal bias leans towards americano, but Matt is all about that pancetta used in carbonara italiano. 🙂

Obviously, this is a dish that means a lot to me. I’ll quit rambling so we can get to cooking.