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Showing posts with the label maraschino

Real Maraschino Cherries for #FoodieExtravaganza

Welcome to the  Foodie Extravaganza !  v. February 2015 = Cherries We are a group of bloggers who love to blog about food!  Each month we will decide on an all-famous National Monthly Food Holiday in which we will base our recipes around. This month the ingredient is  cherries.  Get excited!! We hope you all enjoy our delicious chery treats this month and come back to see what we bring for you next month.  If you are a blogger and would like to join our group and blog along with us, come join our Facebook page  Foodie Extravaganza .  We would love to have you! If you're a spectator looking for delicious tid-bits check out our  Foodie Extravaganza Pinterest Board ! Looking for our previous parties? Check them out  HERE . I'm sure that the word "maraschino" evokes images of unnaturally-colored red orbs of syrupy sweetness drowned in a pool of ginger ale or something equally sweet. At least that's what it did for me. I was tra...

Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte {Cook the Books}

This round Heather, at girlichef , selected  The Baker's Daughter  by Sarah McCoy for our August-September  Cook the Books  project. It was Heather's favorite read of 2012 and I can tell why. It's fantastic! Serendipitously, the author herself will be judging our entries. No pressure... The novel has one foot in the past and one in the present. Centered around two bakeries on two different continents - Schmidt Bäckerei in Garmisch, Germany and Elsie's German Bakery in El Paso, Texas -, there are Nazis, hidden Jews, illegal immigrants, border patrol, weddings, deaths, recipes, and romance. Several plot threads are woven together to create a masterful novel that I thoroughly enjoyed. I don't want to give too much away. If you haven't read it, and you like foodie tomes, read it. Stat. It's masterful, beautiful, and haunting. I'll just share my favorite passage and get right to the food. Reba sat alone at her kitchen table nibbling on the edge of...

Croatia: Cooking Around the World

Our Cooking Around the World Adventure continues...to Croatia which was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire until the end of World War I. In 1918, the Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes formed a kingdom known as Yugoslavia after 1929. And it remained part of Yugoslavia until the bloody, high-intensity civil war in 1991 when Croatia severed its ties and declared its independence. Some interesting numbers about this Mediterranean-climated country: it has almost 6000 km of coastline and its islands make up more than three times the area of its mainland. With that in mind, we traveled to one of the Croatian islands via tabletop when Riley made a dish that originated on the island of Hvar. I found Hvar called 'the island of lavender and sunshine' or 'the crown jewel of the Dalmatian coast.' It sounds deliciously relaxing with its vibrant patches of lavender and rosemary carpeting the hillsides. So, while I toyed with making a Croatian paprikash, the Chicken in Lavender and...

Croatian Cherry Cake with Maraschino Liqueur

I'm sure that the word "maraschino" evokes images of unnaturally-colored red orbs of syrupy sweetness drowned in a pool of ginger ale or something equally sweet. At least that's what it did for me. I was transported to glasses of Shirley Temples at family weddings and celebrations. And I was more than happy to disabuse myself of that tonight. Maraschino (marr-ə-SKEE-noh) is a bittersweet, clear liqueur flavored with Marasca cherries, which are originally from Dalmatia (Croatia). Today, most marascas grow around Torreglia, near Padua in Northern Italy, where the liqueur is distilled. The liqueur's distinctive flavor comes from the Marasca cherries and the crushed cherry pits; honey is also part of the ancient recipe. The distillate matures for at least two years in ash vats since that wood does not lend its color to the liqueur, and, then, it's diluted and sugared. It is typically bottled in a straw-coated bottle. For the cake, I started with ...