Thai Coconut Lemongrass Lime Martini

Thai Lime Martini

This New Year’s Eve, we decided to stay home and be lazy (like we do every year)!  To make our home celebration more special, I decided to make martinis inspired by a recent trip we took to Maui.  In Wailea, we had dinner one night at the Monkeypod Kitchen – a fantastic restaurant that specializes [...]

Homemade Refrigerator Pickles: Spicy Dill & Garlic Cucumber

Homemade pickles

I love pickles…. especially the salty and sour kind!  Kosher dill pickles, cornichons, giardineira, Japanese umeboshi… they’re all good.  If you like pickles too, they are quite easy to make – simple refrigerator pickles can be made to taste (you can make them with all kinds of flavors and spices… whatever you like), and are [...]

Homemade Fresh Guava Jam

Homemade Fresh Guava Jam

Last week, some friends gave us a bag of guavas from their backyard tree.  The guavas were perfectly ripe, and very fragrant… Great timing, as I was planning to make some fall jams and jellies to give away during the holidays! While some guava jam recipes don’t call for added pectin… I think it’s a [...]

Simple Ratatouille (French Provençal Vegetable Stew)

Ratatouille (Mediterranean Vegetable Stew)

Although it is now officially “autumn”, the tomato plants in my garden must not have gotten the memo…. a few days ago, I had a ton of tomatoes sitting on the counter and I wasn’t sure what to do with them.  When my farm box arrived (it’s a once a month service that delivers produce [...]

Balsamic Roasted Carrots

Balsamic Roasted Carrots

When I was a kid, there was one way that we were served carrots at home… boiled, with a dollop of margarine.  Soft and mushy, with all the flavor dumped out with the water… these were not the best tasting carrots that I’ve ever had.  At a restaurant several years ago, I had Balsamic Roasted [...]

Low Sugar Fresh Strawberry Jam (How to make and water bath can strawberry jam)

Homemade Low-Sugar Fresh Strawberry Jam

Over the weekend, we visited the Carlsbad Strawberry Company‘s “U-Pick” strawberry fields.  For $20, they give you a large KFC sized paper bucket (and two adult admission tickets), and you can go down the rows of strawberries to pick and fill up your bucket.  This was a really fun experience – our little nephew had [...]

Fresh Tomato and Roasted Garlic Salsa

Fresh Tomato and Roasted Garlic Salsa

I have a potted jalapeno plant out on the patio – despite my neglect, this plant has produced so many jalapenos that I don’t know what to do with them.  So this week, I decided to try to make recipes to use them up – and I was craving chips and salsa.  I had plenty [...]

Fresh Lemon Drop Martini & Limoncello Martini

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This winter, the dwarf lemon tree that I planted in our backyard back in 2009 finally produced lemons!  I had 6 awesome and beautiful lemons… so to celebrate, I decided to turn these into Lemon Drop Martinis.  :)  I’m not so sure why it took so long to fruit… but it finally did.  Funny how [...]

Pear Martini (How to infuse Vodka with fruit)

Infused Vodka Pear Martini

Lately, I’ve been trying my hand at making different cocktails and types of martinis.  While I was browsing the Grey Goose website for recipes, I saw an intriguing recipe for making peartinis.  It called for the addition of pear-flavored vodka, which I didn’t have… but I did have pears, and also plenty of plain vodka! [...]

Roy’s Hawaiian Martini (official recipe)

Roy's Hawaiian Martini

One of my most favorite cocktails is Roy Yamaguchi’s Hawaiian Martini (from Roy’s, a popular upscale Hawaiian fusion restaurant).  It’s a potent cocktail, and at about $12 per glass… somewhat pricey… but considering how good (and strong) it is – you usually only need one!  Roy’s is one of my favorite restaurants down in La [...]