Friday Food & Wine Finds: August 6

Happy Friday! It's time for another roundup of my latest finds, articles, and creative kitchen inspiration. I'm sticking to "Friday Food and Wine Finds" for now, though I think it lacks a little creativity. Naturally, suggestions are still welcome if you come up with a better idea!

Tonight, Des Moines is hosting this fabulous-looking al fresco dinner prepared by notable local chefs. Of course, it comes with an equally fabulous price tag, but it looks incredible and I would LOVE to go. Maybe next year! 

Building on last week's post on DIY barstools, check out this dining table made from shipping pallets. I am really taken with this idea... so taken that I am currently fighting the temptation to grab a pallet and build one myself.

I subscribe to too many magazines, which I never get around to reading until I'm traveling and have some serious airplane time to kill. I just finally read my July issue of Food & Wine this week, and I'm now obsessed with this barbecued chicken recipe from Tim Love. I'm not a big chicken person, but this recipe looks so, so good.  I truly can't wait to try it!

Recipe: Rhubarb Ginger Frozen Yogurt

By now, I'm pretty sure my love for rhubarb is well-documented on this blog. Along with asparagus, rhubarb is one of my favorite harbingers of spring. As soon as the first farmer's market rolls around in May, I search out the brightest, reddest stalks and buy pounds of it every week - much to the chagrin of my mother, who is kept in constant, free supply by a generous friend with a garden and plenty of rhubarb to spare. Ahem. Step it up, friends with backyards.

Friday Food & Wine Finds

So... what do you think of the new title? I rather liked Trevor's suggestion on my last Friday post for "Friday Offal Links," but maybe you have nicer things to think about today than dining on the internal organs of animals. 

And now that I've brought it up, I'm sure you can think of nothing else.

Anyway, what do you think of "Friday Food and Wine Finds?" Leave me a comment and let me know!

On to the food and wine finds...

I'm in Atlanta this weekend, so guess where I'll be eating tonight? Oh yes... Woodfire Grill, home of the bearded one. For those of you who don't watch Top Chef, this is the restaurant of last season's Kevin Gillespie where slow cooking rules and pork belly is king.  SO excited. If I survive without blowing a coronary artery, I'll report back on the food.

Recipe: Blueberry Mojito Frozen Yogurt

Last Friday was my dad's birthday, and once again I found myself headed up to Okoboji to celebrate. Because there was no elaborate surprise party involved this time, I didn't have to pull together three kinds of cupcakes. (Thank goodness!) However, my mom did get an entire dessert buffet's worth of food on her birthday; at the very least, dad deserved to have some kind of celebratory homemade dessert.

This post is not about herbicide.

I've got an idea I'd like to pitch to all 17 of my followers (as well as any lurkers who might be out there in the blogosphere reading Peas of my Heart anonymously, probably sitting in the dark while stroking a hairless cat. No? That's just in Bond movies? OK, if you say so).

I'm generally far too exhausted to type up an insightful post or a fun recipe on Fridays; besides which, it's summer and I've usually got an exciting, fulfilling weekend to start. (All right, so I'm just going to pour a glass of wine and binge on expensive cheese from Gateway Market. Don't judge; we all measure excitement differently.) Therefore, I'm starting a regular Friday feature rounding up articles, news, and thoughts from the week. To fit with the theme of my blog, I'll stick to the topic of food, drinks, and restaurants. 

Recipe: Chocolate Chipotle Cupcakes with Cinnamon Buttercream

I realize what I'm about to say could be offensive to some of you, but I feel like most chocolate cupcakes are just kind of... uninteresting. They can get a little too rich for me, and if they are overly sweet, I get bored and don't want to finish them. Cut that sweetness with the hot, smoky flavor of a chipotle chile, on the other hand, and I'm completely on board.

The first time I tried a Mexican chocolate cake was on my brother's birthday in Minneapolis several years ago. I was sold from the first bite. Especially if you use dark chocolate, the deep, rich sweetness helps to keep the chiles and spices from being too overpowering. Unfortunately, when I tried to replicate the cake later, I couldn't find any recipes with the deep, smoky flavor I wanted. I started playing around in the kitchen, and eventually came up with a recipe of my own.

Recipe: Tres Leches Cupcakes topped with Dulce de Leche

When we started planning food for my mom's surprise birthday party, the main part of the menu was a no-brainer: Taco House. If you have never been lucky enough to visit this Okoboji staple, it's hard to describe the appeal; from the outside, it looks like a dirty, hole-in-the-wall restaurant with too little seating and far-too-long lines (or, at least, that's how Dad describes it). But the food... is... fantastic. Mom eagerly awaits the opening of Taco House every spring and mourns its closing in the fall - for her birthday, it was really the only choice.

To keep the Mexican theme going through dessert, my brother suggested tres leches cake. I'd never made it before, but it seemed like the perfect dessert for our theme. My sister-in-law got me started with a recipe from a coworker, and with minimal adaptation on my part, tres leches cupcakes were born.