I love Thanksgiving. It might be my favorite holiday due to the fact that I get to cook for a couple days straight. Last year I was planning 2 months in advance! This year, I only had 2 days but I managed to pull it off. We had the usual fixings turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, mac n cheese, cornbread and pumpkin pie.
Our fridge is packed to the brim with leftovers. Last year I made a Turkey Fritatta with our Thanksgiving dinner leftovers. Vini has been looking forward to that fritatta the whole year! This time, not only did I make that fritatta but I also came up with a Thanksgiving leftover pot pie…kind of a Shepard’s Pie as well. It’s got turkey, gravy, stuffing, and mashed potatoes all baked under a flaky puff pastry. If you still have some leftovers, you’ve gotta try this!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm
Tags: american, baking, cooking, food, pie, recipe, recipes, thanksgiving
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Packing up and selling all my belongings has got me in a bad mood. I haven’t been able to cook dinners lately or bake things or just eat normally. I looked at what’s left in my pantry and what’s left of my cooking toys… I have just enough to make peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. YAY! Finally something that won’t stress me out and something delicious to post! Can’t think of a better way to cheer myself up, peanut butter + chocolate.
I’ve been meaning to make peanut butter chocolate cookies for a while now, I think that’s why I have 2 extra tubs of peanut butter in the pantry. Luckily no one has bought my cookie sheets or mixing bowls yet. So a little whisking here, a little taste testing there… and we have peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. Since I’m a sucker for ice cream sandwiches, I had to try these in ice cream sandwich form. I think they might better than my usual snickerdoodle option! It might be a while until my next cooking experiment post so I hope you enjoy it!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: american, baking, chocolate, cookies, cooking, food, recipe, recipes, snacks, sweets
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YAY! This is Vanilla Latte’s 100th post! Well to be specific, this is Vanilla Latte now as a food and travel blog’s 100th post, I deleted the ones that were irrelevant from 5 years ago. So for such a celebration, I would like to share one of my favorite mac and cheese recipes. Now this isn’t the one I normally make for dinner parties that involve 5 cheeses, that one will have to wait. This version is an attempt to be slightly healthier… I threw in spinach! 
Okay it’s not that good for you. Anything that starts as a roux and involves adding milk and cheese always ends with ooey gooey goodness that can’t be that good for you. Ah well, that’s why it’s a celebration!
I’ve used low fat milk, low fat cheese, and spinach. Little ways to make sure this delicious dish won’t cause a heart attack. But feel free to live on the edge, use full fat milk and cheeses! MAN my mouth is watering as I’m writing this. So delicious and easy to make. And really good leftovers with a splash of Tabasco. Hope you like it!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm
Tags: american, baking, cheese, cooking, food, pasta, recipe, recipes, spinach, vegetarian
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I absolutely love hush puppies. Little cornbread poppers, deep fried. I could almost eat them more than fries. Almost! For those who don’t know, hush puppies are deep fried cornbread balls. Served with whipped honey butter or a remoulade. Great for appetizers at a dinner party or just as a snack. I made these with my po’ boys the other day and they were the perfect addition to the meal.
Now I add in a bit of corn, jalapeños and onion in my recipe because I think it gives it a better texture and adds to the taste. You can of course spice it up even more by adding more jalapeños or spice. The buttermilk gives it that smooth consistency once you bit through the crunchy exterior. Mmmmm my mouth is watering just writing about it!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: american, Cajun, cooking, food, recipe, recipes, snacks
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We’re pretty far from Southern food in Sydney but this po’ boy recipe is pretty darn close to something you can find in New Oreleans… or maybe just a Cajun restaurant in LA. I even made hush puppies to go with it! (recipe coming soon!) A po’ boy can come in all forms, most traditionally it’s a French bread sandwich, with lettuce, tomatoes, and a fried meat or seafood… usually shrimps or oysters. But the most important topping is the remoulade!
It’s all about the SAUCE! The remoulade really makes this sandwich. I could use it on everything, in fact I used it as a dipping sauce for my hush puppies YUM! This remoulade recipe is a teeny tiny bit spicy but pretty mild by cajun standards. Be sure to add more heat if you want a bigger kick! Hope you like it!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: american, Cajun, cooking, food, recipe, recipes, sandwich, seafood
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I made a cheesecake!!! A very patriotic red, white & blue cheesecake to be exact. Okay so it’s more like yellowish instead of white but you get the idea. Now for a disclaimer: I generally don’t like cheesecake. I usually only eat the crust and the little bit of cheesecake that touches the crust. So that said, I actually liked this cheesecake! Biased? Well of course because I made sure the crust was nice and thick and there was enough berry topping to balance the cheesecake-ness.
This cheesecake was made with a graham cracker crust, the most important part! Note, for the Aussies that read this, you cannot find graham crackers here! Although I think a good alternative would be crushed up Anzac cookies! Definitely going to try that soon. I actually had my mom ship us some graham crackers so I can make this. Well worth the extra shipping and handling. I adapted this recipe from Martha’s Blueberry Topped Cheesecake. Now this cheesecake is note quite as cheesy as a traditional New York style cheesecake and it’s also not as tough. It’s got a bit more lemon to it as well. Hmmm might be why I liked it? Hope you like it too!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: american, baking, cheese, cooking, dessert, desserts, food, lemon, recipe, recipes, sweets
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Happy Fourth of July!!! I can’t think of a better dessert than apple pie to celebrate independence day. (Actually that might be debatable, I will post the red white and blue cheesecake I made as the other dessert option in a bit.) But really though, there’s nothing that speaks more American than the traditional apple pie, it’s right along there with baseball, red white and blue, bbqs, stars and stripes, and the pledge of allegiance.
To make sure I had enough, I bought an extra large pie dish just in case. I made mine a day before serving so the juices had time to settle but if you want to serve the same day, I suggest letting it cool for a few hours. The juices won’t be piping hot but it’ll still be warm on the inside. And you must serve with ice cream, it’s the only way.
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: american, apple, baking, cooking, dessert, food, pies, recipe, recipes, sweets
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I apologize for the poor photos, I didn’t get a chance to take as many as I wanted… and I had poor lighting. Regardless, the food still tasted great! So Garlic Mashed Potatoes… this recipe is incredibly easy to make. It’s your basic mashed potatoes but I’ve gotten some feedback… people don’t know how to make mashed potatoes! Here it is, very simple!
Ingredients:
10 potatoes, washed, scrubbed & peeled - in America I would go with russet idaho potatoes, here, I picked some browned ones that looked closest to russet
5 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
6 tablespoons of butter
1 cup of heavy cream
3/4 cup of milk
Step 1: Boil away
After scrubbing and washing the potatoes, make sure they’re peeled and pat dry with a paper towel - this will help to avoid slipping. Personally, I like keeping the skin on and mixing it in with the mash but this time I thought I’d try to make them look creamy and smooth without the brown chunks of skin. It’s Thanksgiving, it’s all about presentation right?! OKAY, cut the potatoes into large chunks - probably around 2 or 3 inches. Throw them into a large pot of boiling water and let that cook for about 15 - 20 minutes or until soft. Poke a fork in a chunk to see if they’re ready, you want them soft but not at the point where they’ve crumbled to the bottom of the pot. Drain and throw them back into the pot.
Step 2: Mash and mix
If you have a masher, great, start mashing! Make sure the heat is down to as low as you can get it. Pour in the heavy cream while you’re mashing and get it all mixed in. Once it’s all mashed, slowly pour in the milk and keep mixing. In a small saucepan, melt the butter and throw in the garlic. Let that simmer and bring out the flavors for about 5 - 8 minutes. I personally like to brown my garlic but most people like the garlic to be an added flavor and not too overpowering so I just let it simmer a little bit. Pour in that garlic and butter mixture into the potatoes and mash away.
Step 3: Serve
So Australians don’t eat their mashed potatoes with sour cream and chives, I guess it’s an American thing. I think only a couple people used the garnish. You can mix in the sour cream and chives right into the mash before plating so it’s all mixed in or you can keep it separate. I like keeping it separate so I can put a heaping spoonful
Hope this comes in handy! You can vary the recipe as much as you want to taste, that’s the best part about mashed potatoes. Add in bacon bits, cheese, whatever!
Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: american, cooking, food, potatoes, recipe, recipes, thanksgiving, vegetables, vegetarian
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