Fall

With the crisp weather there are just some food that are comforting and bring warm thoughts. Here we are in apple season and where most people bake apple pies, drink apple cider I have a sudden urge for candy apples. Memories of innocent childhood experiences include eat sugar coated fruit in it's many variations (candy, caramel, chocolate and all with various toppings).

So this week I had my hand a making candy apples: plain, topped with coconut and topped with hazelnuts. It's a quick yet sticky process, the key is temperature and this is where a candy thermometer is my new best friend.
A good tip to know when making candy apples your best bet are to buy apples at a farmers market or take a trip apple picking (apples in the supermarket are coated with wax making it all the harder for candy to stick).

Originally thinking to make the syrup from scratch the lack of popsicle sticks sold alone I bought a candy apple making kit which just requires the addition of sugar and water. An enjoyable activity for children as well as the young at heart.

The best part of candy apples is the eating of course, even though these days my teeth suddenly hurt. Maybe next I'll try some chocolate covered apples like the many we see in gourmet and specialty stores.

Quote of the week: "Forget love, I'd rather fall in chocolate."

An Experience with Greek Cuisine

So about a month ago Amanda and I went to Greece and one of the best parts of the whole trip was the cuisine. Everything was so fresh and prepared so delicately and even the fried foods tasted healthy. Aside from the black sand beaches the thing I missed most had to be the variety of cheeses, because with almost every meal there was cheese involved. So here goes a list and some photos of a few of our favorite Greek delicacies.

Cheese Pies- Made with Feta Cheese and Phyllo Dough
Chicken Schnitzel-Breaded chicken breasts, served with french fries, rice and tomatoes
Gyro- Lamb or chicken served with salad, pita, Tzatziki sauce and french fries
Tomato Keftedes- Fried tomato balls made with tomatoes, onion and flour
Tomato and Cucumber Salad and Freshly Baked Bread
Lobster Slouvaki- Freshly grilled lobster and vegetables served with roasted potatoes and rice
Salad-Cucumbers, tomatoes, chickpeas, olives, feta cheese and pasta or croutons topped with a homemade mustard vinagrette
Cheeses from Santorini- One is a goat cheese and the other a cow's milk cheese served with toasted bread and fresh olives in olive oil. Both paired nicely with an Assyrtiko white wine from Santorini

In efforts to hold on to our adventures in Greece and all the fine dining we did we visited S'Agapo in Astoria. Beautiful and simply decorated S'Agapo brought us back to Greece with a offering a variety of traditional Greek dishes and a few kinds of cheese saganaki (fried/baked) including Halloumi from Cyprus. We had some saganaki, stuffed vine leaves, stuffed seadfood ( shrimps stuffed w/ fresh crabmeat & filet of flounder rolled w/ spinach and feta with lemon potatoes and pastitsio (pasta with chopped beef, fresh tomato and cheese covered with bechamel sauce- similar to lasagna) which was just what we needed.

All accompanied with a glass of wine of course!

(Curious of checking out S'Agapo? Here's a link to their menu with location details http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/sagapo/menus/main.html)

Chowder

As the summer has come to a close and fall is in full effect the first food I think of is chowder. Now my personal favorite is corn chowder, in it's many variations. So I had my hand in making a summer corn chowder using some fresh corn from the farmer's market. I started with a recipe I found online and enhanced it by adding a few of my own favorite vegetables. It was just perfect for the days with a slight chill.

Here is the recipe I used (I added some carrot and tropical sweet potato):

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large onion, cut into 1/4-inch dice
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5 cups Vegetable Broth
2 russet potatoes, cut into 1/4-inch dice
4 cups fresh corn kernels
1/2 cup diced (1/4 inch) red bell pepper
1/2 cup diced (1/4 inch) green bell pepper
Salt, to taste
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup half-and-half
2 ripe plum tomatoes, seeded and cut into 1/4-inch dice, for garnish
1/2 cup thinly slivered fresh basil leaves, for garnish

1. Place the oil and butter in a pot over low heat. Add the diced onion and wilt for about 10 minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the onion; cook, stirring, for an additional 3 to 5 minutes.

2. Add the broth and potatoes; bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, partially covered, for 10 minutes or until the potatoes are tender, stirring occasionally.

3. Add the corn, red and green bell peppers, salt, pepper, and half-and-half; cook over low heat for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. Ladle 2 cups of soup into each bowl. Before serving, place 1 tablespoon of diced tomatoes in the center of each and top generously with slivered basil. Serve immediately.

Our final product

Be Our Guests

Dear Friends,

We invite you to a dinner party hosted by food obsessed skinny girls.

We are here to share with you restaurant reviews, recipe recommendations, event planning, etiquette and more.

We hope you share our passion for food and if you don't we hope to inspire you to appreciate food for all it can be.

So here is a toast to our fellow skinny girls as we continue to surprise everyone on how we don't diet, eat out almost every night, don't know a thing about calorie counts and always order dessert! Cheers!

Quote of the week: “Food has replaced sex in my life, now I can't even get into my own pants”