First, a note about the photo. Clearly the cupcakes have yet to be baked. Sorry about that, but I made these for a friend’s birthday, and we ended up getting together earlier than I expected, so I had to take them to her house to bake them. I know! Tacky, right? But with good friends you can get away with stuff like this.

Okay, that’s out of the way, so here we go.

Last but certainly not least in April’s Project Food Blog Cook-off contest is Key Lime Cream Cheese Frosting (and Coconut Cupcakes) from the Coconut and Lime website. Key lime pie is my all-time favorite dessert, so when I saw this recipe, my mind went wild. I don’t bake a lot, hence I don’t frost a lot, and the only way I eat cream cheese is in frosting or as a garlic and herb spread, so I would have never thought to make something like this. But thank goodness I did. Seriously, these two recipes could turn me into a baker yet. I love, love, love these cupcakes, and the key lime frosting is so good, I’d take a spoon to it and eat it alone. Both are very easy to make too, which I especially appreciate, being a non-baker. I did end up adding a splash more key lime juice to fit my tastes, but I couldn’t imagine messing with the cupcake recipe. It’s divine.

Click here for the Key Lime Cream Cheese Frosting recipe.

Click here for the Coconut Cupcake recipe.

One final note: Almost every supermarket in the United States (I don’t know about abroad) carries Key Lime juice. You can find it next to the other lime and lemon juices, typically in the juice aisle.

And that’s a wrap, folks. Stay tuned for the winner announcement, and a list of May’s recipes.

This salad has what I call character, with its smorgasbord of flavors, textures and colors. Creamy orzo studded with chewy wild rice. Crunchy, and bright, orange and yellow peppers. Dots of dark, sweet currants. Crunchy, toasted pine nuts. And flecks of green, pungent parsley. It’s a wonderful combination. The dressing—a mixture of honey Dijon mustard and red wine vinegar—doesn’t overwhelm the dish, but imparts a slight moistness and tang. This salad is perfect for a picnic or potluck. I can envision tubs of this being toted to parks, lakes, Sunday get-togethers. Or, I can see myself sitting in the grass on a sunny day, my feet bare, a book in one hand, a fork in the other, as I eat directly from the bowl of Wild Rice and Orzo Salad as if it were a tub of ice cream. In fact, maybe I will go do that right now… I hope there is iced tea in the house…

Head over to Running with Tweezer’s website and get the recipe for yourself. Right here.

Before I made this recipe, I’d never had a Thai inspired soup. I know, right?! And I eat Thai food like mad! My husband takes me out for Thai food and I eat and eat and eat and eat and… Well, you get the point. I used to be able to polish off a dish, maybe two. I’d eat circles around my husband. And then he figured out that Thai food is freaking good, and now he eats circles around me. We are hopeless. But if you make fine, fine Thai food, we might just make you very rich!

While on the hunt for recipes for Project Food Blog Cook-off, I saw this one, which happens to be from a fellow Foodbuzz Featured Publisher, and thought: Oh yeah. I’m gonna make me some Tom Yum Soup. But I was hesitant, too. I love the flavors of lemongrass, ginger, and red curry, but I wasn’t sure how they’d go with mushrooms and tomatoes. Especially the tomatoes. I really couldn’t see them adding anything to the dish, and was tempted to leave them out. I’m glad I didn’t however. They *do* add something to the dish—a surprising burst of freshness and complexity. Lovely touch.

While this recipe is a tad on the involved side (which doesn’t bother me unless I need a quick dinner) it’s divine. I’m addicted. My husband is too. We spent a long dinner slurping up noodles and broth and chicken, and savoring the spice of the ginger, lemongrass, and red curry combo. This will definitely go on my make-again-soon-list. Thanks, Vagrant Epicure!

View the recipe here. Clicky.

Apricots are one of my favorite fruits. I love high summer, when I can walk into markets and see bins overflowing with these small, glowing orbs. Or better yet, pick them directly off the tree. I haven’t done that since I was a kid, when my family spent part of our summers at my grandfather’s place near Fairfield, California. He had every kind of fruit tree imaginable, including a small, almost gangly one which produced what I remember him calling egg plums. They were small, greenish-yellow fruits with a juicy interior. I absolutely loved those, too, and I’ve never seen them since. Do they even exist, or were they part of my childhood imagination? I can’t be sure. But I’m going off on a tangent, aren’t I? Okay, back to Apricot Cream Scones…

I’m not a big baker, and have never been a huge fan of scones, but when I saw this recipe, I knew I wanted to try it for my Project Food Blog Cook-Off contest. Apricots and cream! Yum!! Excuse me for a moment, but I have to drool over childhood memories again. Peaches and Cream instant oatmeal (I know, instant oatmeal! But I was addicted to the stuff around age 11-12), orange creamsicles, and then many years later, in my early very twenties, I was obsessed with vanilla and cream Italian sodas and any type of fruit and cream sorbet. Heaven, I tell you! I think my “better place” will be filled with something and cream foodstuffs.

Back to Apricot Cream Scones again… When this dough popped out of the oven, I swooned at the aroma. I could barely wait until it cooled enough to cut into slices. I didn’t wait that long, truth be told, and my first taste of these scones was darn near hot out of the oven. I can’t say “yum” or “wow” again, so I’ll say “oh, yeah, love me some apricot cream scones.” I quickly ate two, then stopped myself before I ate the entire pan. They are, in my opinion, better fresh, however, so next time, I just might not stop myself.

Go to Apricot Cream Scones on Pinch My Salt’s food blog. Click here.

Recipe three in my Project Food Blog Cook-off…

My husband won’t shut up about these power bars. It’s gotten quite annoying, really. Yes, they are good. Yes, they are addicting. Yes, the espresso powder mixture is genius. Still. Be quiet, already! To make matters worse, I made my own version of Big Sur Power Bars, called Pacific Northwest Power Bars, and he told me to stick with the original. OUCH! To be honest though, I kind of preferred my version. They were pretty! They had color! But he’s right—they need refining. Maybe I will try again next week. There are a few specific things that I’d like to do differently… For one, I’d like to figure out how to make a less sticky version. Swanson uses brown rice syrup, which I like because it’s much healthier than say, corn syrup. But boy is it sticky! I usually make granola bars using honey, but they don’t always hold together well. The ingredients *will* hold together with the brown rice syrup, but almost too well. I cut them into individual bars and put them in a cookie jar. Bad news. It was one big lump in the morning. I ended up re-spreading the mixture, cutting them again, and wrapping the individual bars in wax paper. I want a crunchier bar, so it’s back to the kitchen…

In the meantime, head over to 101 Cookbooks, and watch Heidi make Big Sur Power Bars. Clicky.

I can’t lie. This isn’t the first time I’ve made this recipe, so maybe I’m cheating a bit in my Food Blog Cook-Off. But, well, that’s life, right? And besides, I did things a tad differently this time. The first time I prepared this recipe, I was cooking for friends who have a mild palate, so I really toned the spice down. This time, however, I made this for just my hubby and I, and I kicked it up several notches. Mmmm! Heat. Though maybe a tad much… It can be hard to gauge with chiles, and since our general rule is the hotter the better, I don’t worry about it much. I’m glad, however, that I only used the one jalapeno. The roasted poblanos packed quite a punch! Mouth fanning, cheese gobbling, hand me a beer, hot. The best kind, right? Really though, if you prefer it mild, the recipe is easily adaptable to that. Omitting the placenta (the inner white flesh) and the seeds from the chiles will help your case greatly, as the recipe says. I never do this, because, well, I like it hot!

The roasted tomatillos and garlic are terrific, and the browning of the pork method is right on. Elise has really got this recipe writing bit down. Check it out. RIGHT HERE.

Last fall, I blogged about our seemingly never-ending kitchen remodel. From mid August to the end of October, we went without a kitchen. The only things I had to cook with were a microwave, a small toaster oven, a crock-pot, and an outdoor grill. I didn’t have anywhere to store food items, and only a small work table to prepare meals. If we used dishes, we had to wash them in the laundry room. Needless to say, we ate out a lot. By Halloween night, we had our base cabinets in, and we rolled the stove into place, plugged it in, and cooked a take-and-bake pizza. Ah! Victory at last! Slowly, life started to get back to normal. For the next month, we continued to plug away at the kitchen, installing crown molding, tile, and wrapping up little odds and ends. There was a definite end in sight, and for the most part, the kitchen was fully useable.

Then, on December 4th, a massive flood struck. We watched our brand new hickory cabinets and stainless steel appliances fill with water. Technically, we weren’t even 100 percent finished with the kitchen, and there it was, about to be ruined. We don’t live in a flood zone, didn’t carry flood insurance, and for several days during that month, we wondered what, if anything, would be salvageable. Well, here’s the good news—ALL OF IT! As far as kitchen appliances and cabinets anyway. Don’t even ask about other stuff… We’d upgraded our cabinets to all plywood, a move that I firmly believe you can never ever go wrong with. Pay the extra thousand bucks. It could save you in the long run. It did us.

It took us a good month and a half after the flood just to clean up and dry out. The work of rebuilding what was destroyed didn’t begin until after that. We’re still not finished. We do, however, have full use of the kitchen again, and hey, I haven’t been able to truly say that since August of 2007. So now I’m saying it—I SURVIVED A KITCHEN REMODEL! And a flood. Dammit.