punkin’ cupcakes
I’m not one to recommend baking anything from a box, but considering my exceptional procrastination skills, having an emergency cake mix on hand isn’t such a bad idea. Sometimes you gotta do whatcha gotta do. So if you’re still looking for something to bring to that Halloween soiree tonight, I got your last-minute recipe right here: pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Easy, breezy, and damn tasty. So channel your inner Betty Draper and embrace the box of mix. Unless you spill the candy corns, no one will be the wiser.
Continue reading punkin’ cupcakes…
Best Day Ever
The extent of our NumNum sweet tooth is no secret. We are willing to travel great lengths for a delicious sugary morsel. Which is why we decided to hop on our bikes and head out to Red Hook to see for ourselves if this fabled bakery Baked (359 Van Brunt Street, Brooklyn) was worth all the hubbub. And from our brief time there, we can say that yes, it is.
Since it was our first visit to this baked goods hot spot, we decided we’d better go with something they’re extra famous for: sweet & salty chocolate cake. Turns out, the cake was all gone but the sweet & salty cupcake was an excellent plan B. The cake part was perfectly moist and, SURPRISE!, filled with a caramel-y center. The frosting was just rich and creamy enough (with a hint of mocha?) and the salt on top was like an amazing kapow! for the tastebuds. A seriously quality cupcake. How we stopped at just one, I still don’t understand. The cafe itself is totally cozy, decked out in wood with orange accents and long booths perfect for lounging with your laptop or the Sunday paper. With all that Baked has to offer (cakes, pastries, cookies, brownies, tarts, and more), we’ll definitely be making a few trips back, forks in hand.
we have a remedy (almost).
Kelly over at eat make read is one of our all-time favorite food bloggers (in fact, I just made her haricot verts with cinnamon yogurt and shallots and they were DELISH) so we were super thrilled to hear about this new project she’s hatched with her hubby and a couple pals: Remedy Quarterly, a magazine “filled with stories about food and recipes for feeling good.” I need it. Only, it doesn’t quite exist yet (printing a beautiful magazine is expensive business, I know for a fact!). So to get the ball rolling the Remedy crew has posted their project on Kickstarter, an awesome little website that lets you donate money to projects you’d like to help get off the ground. So head over there now, watch the teaser video, and throw a couple dollars their way. You’ll (hopefully!) get a what’s-sure-to-be-lovely magazine and depending on how much you give, a few other goodies as well like hand-printed recipe cards or a well-designed tote bag. That, my friends, is money well-spent.
Pledge of allegiance
We, numnum girls, pledge our allegiance to cheese. If you’re looking for us at a party, we’re by the cheese plate. I mean, we would follow cheese anywhere…
So it’s no wonder that we love us some creamy, delicious Salvatore ricotta cheese and thank goodness they are always at the Brooklyn Flea on Saturdays.
They serve up a good dollop of ricotta cheese on a piece of baguette, drizzled with olive oil, and topped with arugula and some prosciutto, the simplicity is like three bites of heaven. Of course, you can get a vegetarian version, but why would you want to when you can actually watch them cut the salty little slices off of babe’s leg itself right in front of you?!
And you need to balance out that savoriness with their oh-so-delicious cannoli (omg, it’s soooo delicious). The creamy ricotta is whipped up into sweet yumminess with chocolate bits and a slight zest of lemon then stuffed into the cannoli shell. I’m still dreaming about it today….
We literally went back to the table four times…seriously. Salvatore sells their ricotta all over New York City and Brooklyn (sorry out-of-towners) so go get a taste of your own and join our pledge.
Cozy up
Lately, there’s a brisk crisp in the air and some drizzle of rain and that just makes me want to cozy up on my couch with a bowl of chicken soup. As you know, we love our tomatillo salsa, so why not combine the warmth and comfort of chicken soup and the nice kick of tomatillo salsa with this recipe for Chicken Tomatillo Stew.
