Postcard from San Francisco

This is a special foodie post, for everybody who loves to travel, enjoy great food, see places and have fun family time. Last week we visited San Francisco and stroll through the streets of this beautiful and breathtaking city.
Architecture, restaurants, cafes, historic treasures, so many things to see and explore. Best thing is that after long walks trough the city, there is always great place to sit down, relax and enjoy fantastic food, ether for breakfast, lunch or dinner. This is a great foodie city.
Wayfare Tavern is an amazing restaurant. Food is delicious and the whole experience is absolutely fantastic. For the lunch we chose: Deviled Petaluma Eggs, Tomales Bay Mussels, Chef’s Sandwich. Kids had Cauliflower Soup and Baked Macaroni & Cheese. This is one of my favorite restaurants so far, wonderful experience for the whole family.

“Chef Tyler Florence’s new flagship restaurant is a timeless San Francisco tavern featuring authentic American dishes inspired by local cuisine at the turn of the 20th century.”

Chef’s Turkey Sandwich with Cranberry Chutney and Quail egg sauce.

Tomales Bay Mussels, Herbsaint cream, pork belly, sweet potato, celery salt, grilled toast.

Dessert, Pumpkin Pudding with harvest grape jam, pecan clusters, cinnamon/port ice cream. Kids absolutely love this dessert:)

La Boulange bakery was our ultimate breakfast spot.

They have literally breathtaking selection of fresh baked pastry and croissants.

Cafe Latte is their speciality too, it is perfect.

My favorite, Chocolate hazelnut croissant.

Now, let’s talk about bread, Boudin Sourdough is the ultimate bakery and sourdough bread fan experience. This bakery is famous for their soup bread bowl entree.

There is an actual tour of the bakery.

Beautiful aroma of fresh baked bread from early morning to late at night.

Wow, bread in all shapes and sizes.

This is a fun experience for everybody, kids and adults, for all taste buds.

There it is. I hope you liked the post. San Francisco is the must see destination, what a great city….every time.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, Log Roll Cake Recipe

Thanksgiving is here….
Thank you is the powerful word. It means a lot and being thankful is even stronger. Thanksgiving is wonderful Holiday.
This year for dessert I decided to make log cake. While browsing through Wilton selection, I found and bought these beautiful decorating leaves which make great addition to this cake. This is a Fall or Winter dessert. Filling is rich, creamy with amazing nutty flavor and cake is moist, light and spongy.
Variations of filling and frosting are unlimited. Let your imagination and taste buds go wild:)

Cake:

4 eggs (room temperature)
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 tea spoon vanilla sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cake flour

Filling/Topping:

2 cups milk
2 eggs, well beaten
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 pinch salt
1 cup pecans, ground
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Butter a jelly-roll pan and line it with parchment paper.Set the pan aside.
Beat the eggs for 5 minutes, until they turn thick and foamy. Add the sugar, vanilla and salt to the eggs and continue beating for 2 minutes. Fold the flour, a few tablespoons at a time, into the whipped egg mixture. Once the flour is incorporated into the batter, stop mixing. Do not overmix or the cake will bake up into a tough texture.
Gently spread the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the cake for 10 minutes, until the cake is just set. Invert the baked cake onto a clean, dry kitchen towel and peel off the parchment paper. Wait for few minutes and then gently roll the cake, still in the towel. Allow it to cool completely.

The filling:

Using double boiler, scald milk, being careful not to burn. Mix together sugar, flour and salt. Add eggs to flour mixture and beat well. Add slowly to milk, stirring constantly with whisk until thick. Remove from heat. Divide mix in two bowls. for the filling add vanilla, pecans and butter.
For the glade add chocolate, vanilla and butter. Stir and cool.
Layer the cake with nut cream, roll and spread chocolate cream on top. If you like you can make marks with fork to add wood like texture, decorate and serve fresh with whipped cream on the side.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My NEW Video – Sweet Potato Pecan Tart, Grill Style Recipe

Yes, We made another Holiday video….Everything started last year after
Associated Content from Yahoo debuted my “Vanilice, Christmas Cookies video.” After more then 19.000 views, I was inspired to make another video, this time for Thanksgiving season. I decided to make a tart using the outdoor grill.

Sweet Potato Pecan Tart is absolutely lovely. Sweet potato filling is creamy and delicious with pecans and vanilla.
Crust is thin, light, crisp and not to sweet.

For the crust you will need:

2 fresh eggs
2 cups flour
1 stick sweet cream butter
lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar

For the filling you will need:

4 medium sweet potatoes
2 cups pecans, ground
1 cup light brown sugar
vanilla sugar

For the method please check out my video here.
Thank you my blogger friends and have a wonderful Thanksgiving season:)

Broccoli Salad

So, here is the thing about broccoli. I like them but I like them even better if they are dressed up nicely. There are many broccoli salad recipes all mixed up with mayo or dressing some sweet, some spicy….To be honest with you I was kind of hungry today, it was raining too and I wanted to eat broccoli, so I made this salad and it was very, very good:)
Here is the proof:

You will need around 20 minutes to make this salad and several good quality ingredients.
To start I blanch the broccoli for few minutes just to make them a little bit softer.
For the bacon I like to use oven roasting method….around 17 minutes in the preheated oven on 400F, delicious crunchy slices of bacon are done…..and stove top stays clean.
For the dressing, I used 1 tablespoon of Greek yogurt (which I love), vigorously mixed till becomes smooth and liquidy. I grated in a clove of garlic, some salt and pepper, lemon juice and fresh chopped chives from the garden. They added additional garlicky taste to the dressing which will give broccoli perfect taste.
Also had a hard boiled egg from this morning in the fridge so I added egg too.
Hmmm….something was still missing, o yes, generously shaved Parmesan cheese.
And there it is, lunch all ready and served.
On the plate there are wonderful vegetables high in vitamin C and folate, good source of dietary fiber and potassium, protein powerhouse and some calcium too. I feel like I did something good today for myself, treat my body well with delicious freshly prepared broccoli salad.
Enjoy.