Chicken & Dumplings

Disclosure: I received a complementary copy of Jubilee by Toni Tipton-Martin for review

It’s cookbook review time, and this one was fantastic!  The cookbook is a collection of recipes that represent African American cooking over the course of the last 200 years.  Tipton-Martin’s goal in writing Jubilee was to bring to light the diversity in African American cooking beyond fried chicken and soul food.

Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African-American Cooking: A Cookbook by Toni Tipton-Martin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well written, and beautifully photographed. I learned a lot about the history of African-American cooking and how much more it is than fried chicken and soul food.

My favorite part was the inclusion of recipe snippets taken from Tipton-Martin's extensive collection of antique cookbooks. They added a fascinating dynamic to modern recipes.

View all my reviews

Tipton-Martin traces the history of African-American cooking back to the days of slavery when culinary skills were typically developed either

1.      by necessity as in the field slaves who had to make do with whatever second-hand ingredients came their way or,

2.      by aptitude as slaves working in the kitchen. 

It was a fascinating read.  Plus, the recipes looked amazing – I have many bookmarked to try!  My favorite part, however, was that Tipton-Martin included snippets from her collection of antique cookbooks next to many recipes, giving the reader a glimpse of how a particular recipe may have looked long ago.

Bitoque (Portuguese Steak & Eggs) #eattheworld

It’s the 10^th of the month, which means we’re traveling the world for this month’s Eat the World Recipe Challenge!

This month’s challenge takes us to Portugal!  I had a great time searching Portuguese recipes, and had quite a list of options.  Yet, I kept coming back to Bitoque.

Bitoque is essentially what I’d call a Farmer’s Breakfast.  Two proteins, two starches, with a side of salad.  This is meant to fill you up for a full day of hard labor!

Pumpkin Spice Muffins with Cream Cheese Frosting

Today I have a pumpkin muffin for you.

A pumpkin muffin with frosting.

So is it really a muffin or is it a cupcake?

Despite what the frosting says, and the fact that I ate these for dessert, these are, in fact, muffins.

Let’s call the dessert muffins ok?

So what makes these a muffin and not a cupcake?

Addams Family Pancakes

Here we are at the last minute for Food ‘n Flix again…

This month’s flicks were hosted by Kimberly at Coffee and Casseroles.  Getting into the Halloween spirit, she gave us two 90’s movie options: The Addams Family or The Addams Family Values.  And since they aired back to back on TV, I watched both!

The Addams Family was pretty good but the Addams Family Values was pure brilliance.  Wednesday Addams is my favorite character and she had a larger role in the sequel, plus the story line was hilarious.  I loved it.

But then, I realized that I was overly focused on enjoying the movie instead of food spotting, so I had very little written down.

Then I saw that IHOP had a special promo Addams family menu right now, since there is a new animated Addams Family coming out.  I remembered a breakfast scene or two in the movies (though they contained mystery meat, not pancakes), and decided to take my inspiration from IHOP and make Addams Family pancakes.

Vegan Chocolate Cookies #choctoberfest

Disclosure: I received Baking Chocolate and Cocoa Powder from Divine Chocolate in compensation for this post.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Welcome to the last day of our chocolate filled #choctoberfest week!

Today’s post is sponsored by Divine Chocolate.  Divine Chocolate strives to bring joy to baking while delivering a premium chocolate product.

Divine Chocolate's baking line consists of three premium quality flavors ranging from 55% to 100% cocoa for a wide variety of delicious desserts.  Plus, Divine Chocolate baking bars are fairtrade, non-GMO, Vegan Society Certified and are made with 100% pure cocoa butter.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies #choctoberfest

Can one have too many pumpkin cookies?  I don’t think so, there’s always something new to try to keep perfecting those recipes!

I was thinking about pumpkin cookies again, especially since this month’s Fantastical Food Fight theme is Pumpkin!  I got to wondering if I’d ever made a pumpkin chocolate chip pudding cookie.

Perfect Frosted Brownies #choctoberfest

Disclosure: I received a case of powdered sugar from #Choctoberfest sponsor in compensation for this post.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Yesterday we were talking the best chocolate recipes on the blog, to date (plus a super amazing #Choctoberfest giveaway valued at over $400!!)  Today I’d like to add another!

Today’s recipe is sponsored by Imperial Sugar.  I’ve worked with Imperial Sugar a number of times in the past, so even though they sent me their powdered sugar this time around, I’ve also used their white sugar and brown sugar on a regular basis.

Plus!  You can double your chances winning some Imperial Sugar.  Enter the #choctoberfest giveaway PLUS you can enter Imperial Sugar’s daily Scary Scramble!

So let’s talk chocolate recipes, shall we?