Recipe for Thai Chicken Enchiladas

Like you probably do, I keep a folder of recipes to try.  Sometimes I get to them within the month, sometimes never, and sometimes like this recipe, I make it the next day!

Recipe for Braised Scallops-Daring Cooks

The March, 2012 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Carol, a/k/a Poisonive – and she challenged us all to learn the art of Braising! Carol focused on Michael Ruhlman’s technique and shared with us some of his expertise from his book “Ruhlman’s Twenty”.  While braising is often thought of when using less than tender cuts of beef, I went a different path and created a recipe for braised scallops.


Carol tells us that "Braising, from the French “braiser”, offers us a combination cooking method – dry heat followed by moist heat. Typically, meat is seared in hot fat which helps to add flavor and aromas, improves color (browning), and texture (crust). It is then submerged in liquid and cooked slowly and gently at low heat."

Recipe for Tropical Pancakes



For Easter morning, I made Mr. ELEB some pancakes.  I thought about making my whole wheat pancakes which I know are great, but was inspired by a Mark Bittman recipe to try something different.    Unlike Mark’s recipe, I toasted the coconut, included some macadamia nut oil, and topped the pancakes with mango.

They turned out very nice!

Rich and Creamy Carrot Soup

One month anniversary for my blog!  I'm so enjoying this-hope you are too!

I found when we moved to Maui that living here didn’t naturally generate those urges to make and eat hearty cool weather fare like soups, chili, stews and the like.  However, I think my blood must have thinned out in the 3 years we’ve been here full time, because I have no problem with those kinds of foods today!

Case in point-this hearty carrot soup.  I had carrots in last week’s produce box and even using some each day in my lunch salad, I still had quite a few left.  And, today is produce day again so last week’s carrots were begging to be used!

I thought about making dilled carrots for a dinner side dish but that didn’t really feel right with the rest of the meal.  So, what could I make with the carrots that I could use later?  Carrot cake?  Love it but, A. having a whole cake around is not on my healthy eating plan right now! And B. I didn’t have what I needed to even make it remotely lower in calories than the “normal recipe”.

So….Soup!  As usual for inspiration, I looked in the pantry and here is what I came up with.  It is really thick and rich, exotic tasting, even.  If you like a thinner soup, use more chicken broth. 

I was also happy to use up a couple of the limes off our new lime tree!