A New Idea for Holiday Dessert: Chocolate Cherry Trifle

Holiday greetings from Holly! This is a busy time of year for just about everyone. Christmas just ended, the new year is upon us, and people are scrambling to make this time special for their families. Well, I think presenting your guests with an impressive meal is how you can be "winning" like Charlie Sheen this season. I'm going to start from the end, though, and share my Christmas dessert with you. This dessert was inspired by my favorite pastime lately, Bakery Story (click here to download Bakery Story for Android and Bakery Story for Apple). It's a delightful game in which you create and run your own little bakery. One of my favorite recipes is the chocolate cherry trifle. I also made a "celebration trifle" inspired by this same game, but I will share that recipe with you later.

This recipe will leave you with a decadent, crowd-pleasing dessert with very little work or cooking skill required. If you want to break away from the traditional fruit cake and ginger bread house territory that goes hand-in-hand with this season, then follow me to trifle land, friends.

The Perfect Cold Weather Meal

Hello again food friends! I don’t know where you are, but it’s definitely been on the colder side here in Portland lately. I find that on those days when I’m chilled to the max, I’m looking for something homemade to warm me right up! One of my favorite warm weather dishes with my spirit food is Baby Reds and Chicken in the oven. It’s a simple dish that will leave you feeling warm and full.

Roasted Carrots

Merry Christmas!  I love veggies.  I especially like roasted veggies!  They are so easy and taste amazing.  Warm or cold.  You can change up the herbs and spices and have a whole new dish.  Carrots are a fascinating vegetable.  They are sweet but can also be savory and they too taste great roasted!  Also since it is Christmas I thought I would make it a bit festive in the pictures.

Festive Avocado Dip

Avocados and I have not always been friends, but since going completely milk free a few years ago our relationship has flourished. As has my relationship with mayonnaise, I guess their creamy factors have just been bumped up in my taste profile. 

Creamy Pasta Casserole

Hi! It's Holly here again with some more mayo love. I am going to share my favorite recipe made with my spirit food. This is one of my most versatile recipes, and it's also one that I've been making since I was a kid. It all began when I was 9 or 10 years old and my mother worked a graveyard shift. While she was working, the rest of us (my dad, brothers, and I) had to fend for ourselves when it came to dinner. So, my dad gave me an allowance and I made meals on those nights. One of our most popular meals was "Jackass Surprise." I can't recall where that unappetizing moniker originated from exactly, but it's become synonymous with this recipe to me now.

You'll Need:

A Reason to Smile

Hello food friends! Welcome to the last post of the first week. My name is Warren, and I'm from Portland as well. I can say that I am a food-oholic. Food has just always been something that I have admired. From the fancy, the sweet, the delish to the questionable.

My spirit food is definitely a baby red potato. Much like how Holly can remember mayo in her childhood, I can remember all the ways I've enjoyed a red potato. Whether baked in the oven, boiled and mashed or simply put in a crockpot to cook, they have always been a staple of a classic homemade me.

Baby red potatoes are also adorable. They are so cute, and when you eat them there is a certain comfort that comes over you. Food that can give life to emotions in you are my favorite kinds of foods. I cannot wait to share with you foods that bring those emotions to life in me.

Make sure you subscribe and stay tuned as we start sharing the recipes that are truly, Blog to Taste.

Stay smiling,

Sarah the Carrot

Hiya!  My name is Sarah.  Like my friends I am also from Portland Oregon.  I have had many relationships with food.  I was a vegan for 3 years then became Paleoish and that has been working much better for me for over a year.  On this food journey I have learned that I am much happier without dairy, gluten and most other grains.  I am also allergic to strawberries, mangos and hops (yep beer is out for me...).  This can make life pretty tricky but it can also be fun.  Lucky for me I have always been a veggie lover.  I was banded from my neighbors garden at a young age for eating all her brussel sprouts and snap peas.  My mother had to hide asparagus from me in the shopping cart or by the time we would check out I would have eaten all the tops.  When we would go berry picking I would get weighed before and after because I would eat more than I picked and I picked a lot!  I have a long love affair with frozen veggies and have been known to eat them frozen.

I love to cook and started cooking at a young age.  I remember sitting on the counter helping my mom stir and mix things (while eating frozen veggies!).  I spent time in 4-H cooking and hated it!  I would much rather make it up as I go and not follow a recipe to a T.  This makes me an awful baker!  I do own more cookbooks than I can count, at least 50, and have read most cover to cover.  I love getting food inspiration anywhere.  

So if you guessed that my recipes will be on the healthier side, you are right.  A carrot makes a great spirit food for me.  It is a sweeter vegetable and it matches my hair!  I hope you will join us on this good adventure!

<3,

Really Rosie

Hello I'm Rosie! A recently married, not enough time having, spoon wielding chick from Portland Oregon. I work hard to try to balance my life as a worker bee and a new wife, all while keeping a friendly smile upon my face. I'm still getting the hang of it, but I'm pretty sure that with a cold glass of wine in my hand, anything is possible! My food philosophy is to keep an open mind and not try to feed my body things that it doesn't like. 

As the most lactose intolerant person I know, I begrudgingly live a life of being a picky eater. This has opened my eyes to what it is like for people who eat alternative diets, wether it is their choice or not. Luckily I married a man who loves vegetables as much as I do, so even without cheese, we are happy. 

My spirit food is an avocado, because it is good on everything, yummy without needing any dairy, and it is black, so it matches all my favorite clothes!

Peace out,

The Best Food

Hello! My name is Holly and here are a few things that I distinctly remember as staples from my childhood: Barbies, Disney movies on VHS, Kool-Aid, and toast with just mayonnaise on it. I guess you could say that I was destined to be a chubby mayo-lover since I began feeding myself. And to this very day, I continue to enjoy mayo as my dip and spread of choice. It is my spirit food, and it is my friend when times are tough.

My cooking style follows along with this theme of soul-comforting foods. I love to make hearty and warm soups, rich desserts, and any other indulgent delicacies that strike my fancy at the moment. I usually cook for my family, so I try to make dishes that are flavorful but appeal to a variety of pallets, and I usually make a large amount so that everyone is fed.

I will post a mixture of my own recipes and experiments alongside some recipes that I have found elsewhere and where I found them. I want to broaden my culinary world while participating in this blog group with my foodie friends, so I hope to share my favorite type of recipes with our audience, and attempt to make things that are not in my soup/crock pot comfort zone.

Until the next jar,