Julia's Album

Homemade vanilla crepes

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Julia

Crepes…. so many childhood memories are tied to them. Sometimes I think I make them out of nostalgia for my long gone youth. These homemade vanilla crepes certainly accomplish the job of comforting anyone who is lucky to taste them. Who could refuse a sweet crepe for breakfast and/or dessert?

Especially if you stuff these crepes with various fillings or just eat them plain, with a cup of sweetened tea or coffee. Dust the crepes with some powdered sugar if you like. They make great comfort food. Continue reading →

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Posted in Crepes, Dessert, Recipe | 1 Comment

Quick pasta with portobello mushrooms and green bell peppers

Posted on June 15, 2013 by Julia

I love to make quick pasta packed with veggies and coated with lightened up creamy cheese sauce. I often use spinach and mushroom combination for veggies, and this time I wanted to try a different green vegetable that tends to undeservingly get little attention from me: green bell peppers. I’ve also decided to use large portobello mushrooms which, as you know, are often used as “meat” in veggie burgers. I hoped for portobello mushrooms to add richness and “meatiness” to the meal without actual meat, and I was not wrong: this recipe turned out everything I wanted it to be. Please meet my new favorite pasta dish (with not so original ingredients): pasta with portobello mushrooms and green bell peppers!

As you see on the photos, I’ve used small pasta shells here, called Orecchiette Rigate. Interestingly, “Orecchio” means “ear” and “Etto” means “small” in Italian, so translated this pasta is actually called “small ears”, as the shape of these pasta shells can remind you of the shape of small ears. Not to freak you out. Any small pasta shells will work here, but I just love orecchiette! This type of pasta is often used with vegetable sauces, and it worked perfectly here, with creamy cheese sauce coating every single little shell (ear)! Continue reading →

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Posted in Bell Peppers, Cheese, Dinner, Mushrooms, Orecchiette, Parmesan, Pasta, Portobello mushrooms, Recipe, Vegetables, Vegetarian | 14 Comments

M&M peanut butter cookies, with dark chocolate

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Julia

This is one of my favorite, classic recipes for peanut butter cookies, and this time I added some M&M’s of dark chocolate variety to dress them up a bit. You can’t really go wrong combining dark chocolate candy and peanut butter, so cookies came out perfectly! They have a moist texture, almost like a brownie, especially if you manage to eat them the same day (which is, believe me, hard not to do). After the first day, they get crispier and will keep that amazingly soft and chewy texture. This is such a great recipe – everybody loves it, even those who are not big fans of peanut butter. It’s just an all around great cookie!

Do not skip the step of rolling the cookies into small balls and then rolling them in granulated sugar: that’s what makes them look so light in color and pretty! If you don’t roll the cookie dough balls in sugar, your cookies will come out much darker.

By the way, look whom I saw today on my way to the doctor’s office: little baby elk or deer (I can’t really tell the difference) prancing around:

On my way back, I saw the same baby elk/deer again, hanging out casually in the same spot eating some grass and enjoying morning sun – just being cute and adorable. Continue reading →

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Posted in Cookies, Dessert, Peanut butter, Recipe | 27 Comments

Asian fish and peanut sauce noodles

Posted on June 7, 2013 by Julia

I love the idea of combining fish with pasta, but not all pasta and fish combinations work well in real life. What I found, however, is that using Asian flavors to create a base sauce for pasta and fish is always a win. For example, if you haven’t yet tried my recipe for Asian salmon and noodles with snow peas and mushrooms - please do! It’s really good and ridiculously easy to make, it remains one of my top recipes of choice for making dinner at the end of the hard work day. And now, let me introduce you to my other recent favorite, Asian fish and peanut sauce noodles:

This recipe is also very easy to make, and, let’s face it, you can’t really go wrong with a peanut sauce and noodles. So, by choosing peanut sauce for my noodles, I was already off to a good start! The peanut sauce here is very simple and is somewhat of a cross between Pad Thai and drunken noodles. If you like either one of those dishes you will love this recipe! Continue reading →

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Posted in Black cod, Dinner, Fish, Pasta, Peanut butter, Recipe, Red curry, Thai, Vegetarian | 35 Comments

Apple cinnamon crepes, or apple pie – in a crepe!

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Julia

Apple pie has always been one of my most favorite desserts, and I am also addicted to crepes. As I was brainstorming the other day about what kind of new filling I should try for the stack of crepes that I seem to have an endless supply of (by frequently making them from scratch in a regular frying pan), I figured I just couldn’t go wrong by mixing finely chopped apples with brown sugar and cinnamon and then stuffing that into a crepe. Oh boy! These apple cinnamon crepes turned out so good! Just take a look at this photo:

These stuffed crepes were like apple pie at its finest: French dessert and traditional American dessert combined in one. They did not last long in my house: in fact, my husband never got a chance to eat a single crepe. He never knew I made them. I’ve eaten them for breakfast, afternoon snack and after dinner dessert. I’ve suffered withdrawal after the crepes were all gone, and had to make some more, dusting them with loads of powdered sugar: Continue reading →

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Posted in Apples, Breakfast, Crepes, Dessert, Fruit, Recipe, Vegetarian | 35 Comments

Healthy fettuccine alfredo with cauliflower sauce and sweet peas

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Julia

When I first saw the recipe for healthy fettuccine alfredo with cauliflower sauce by Pinch of Yum on Foodgawker, I immediately fell in love with the idea of making a perfectly healthy alternative to my favorite alfredo sauce. Plus, seeing this sauce immediately brought back the memories of a few years back, during Atkins diet craze, when I used to make “fake” mashed potatoes using cauliflower and how much I enjoyed it!

Making this healthy alfredo sauce has long been on my mind but what stopped me from making it was simple logistics: I would forget to buy cauliflower at the store! Finally, here we are – with several cauliflower florets in the refrigerator, I was ready to go! Continue reading →

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Posted in Cauliflower, Cheese, Dinner, Parmesan, Pasta, Recipe, Sweet peas, Vegetables, Vegetarian | 28 Comments

White fish with salsa: black cod with tropical fruit

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Julia

I’ve been making a lot of tropical fruit salsa lately. You could say I am on a tropical fruit salsa kick. Fruits and veggies mixed with the lime juice and spices are so good, and there are so many possible variations – I can eat it with anything! The salsa goes especially well with seafood: I’ve made mango salsa with salmon, pineapple salsa with shrimp, and now it’s time for white fish with salsa.

In this recipe, I am entering a new fruit – cantaloupe! Who knew that cantaloupe could be a delicious addition to tropical fruit salsa! It’s sweet, it’s soft, it’s colorful! It balances perfectly with the rest of ingredients: tomatoes, pineapple, red onion, cilantro, lime juice, and spices. Continue reading →

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Posted in Black cod, Cantaloupe, Dinner, Fish, Fruit, Pineapple, Recipe, Tomatoes, Vegetables | 18 Comments

Chocolate peanut butter cookies

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Julia

A while back last year, when Smitten Kitchen cookbook just came out, I won it at one of the giveaways, which made me very happy because I really wanted her book and because I usually don’t win anything. Since then, I have been using that cookbook mainly as my night time comfort reading, enjoying Deb’s stories and pictures right before I fall asleep. Then, I had a realization last week that I haven’t even cooked anything from that cookbook yet, and that was about to change when I started flipping through the pages and saw her chocolate peanut butter cookies, sandwiched together with a thick chocolate peanut butter frosting.

These cookies are so-o-o special! They will appeal equally to kids and adults, to those who like chocolate-based desserts and those who don’t. These cookies have a perfect ratio of sugar to peanut butter: they are perfectly sweet and the chocolate frosting does not overwhelm the peanut butter taste. Continue reading →

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Posted in Baking, Chocolate, Cookies, Dessert, Peanut butter, Recipe | 35 Comments

Asian sesame salmon

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Julia

Salmon, salmon, salmon. How I love good quality wild fresh salmon! This salmon you see on the photos is directly from the famous Seattle seafood market, and it is SO-O-O GOOD! Especially when you turn it into an Asian sesame salmon, beautifully caramelized and a little charred:

For this dish, I made a very simple but oh-so-flavorful Asian sauce, by mixing together the sesame oil, honey, rice vinegar, soy sauce, red curry paste until honey melted and blended beautifully with other ingredients. This creates a very tasty and gooey Asian sauce that is SPICY, SWEET, and SOUR – all at the same time!

Then I broiled the fish for about 5-7 minutes to caramelize the salmon, brushing with the sauce. As the final touch, I reduced the sauce slightly on the stove top and then poured it over the fish! Very simple? Yes! Very rich in flavor? Absolutely! Serve it over quinoa, rice or your favorite veggies.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Fish, Honey, Recipe, Red curry, Salmon | 18 Comments

Crepes with ricotta cheese and blueberries

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Julia

Because it was my mom who taught me how to make crepes, my dessert of choice for this Mother’s Day is dessert crepes! I love crepes! My mom used to make them for me and my twin sister almost every other weekend when we were growing up. We would usually fill them with all kinds of jam or preserves and have them for breakfast on the weekends. Those were the good old days!

Lately, I really like to fill my crepes with sweetened ricotta cheese filling and stuff them with all kinds of berries. I use agave nectar to sweeten the ricotta cheese, because agave nectar is very sweet and you only need a couple of tablespoons, and it’s easy to mix agave with ricotta cheese on low heat. I tried using regular or brown sugar and it just isn’t the same. Continue reading →

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