Blog Posts by YumSugar

YumSugarSource: Green Eats For a St. Patrick's Day Get-Together

Planning to host a St. Patrick's Day shindig for your friends? Lay out a spread of green foods for an extrafestive celebration. From creamy guacamole to pesto pasta to the tastiest mint dessert, these 10 green eats are perfect to serve while you toast the Irish.

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Drink Your Dessert: Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

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YumSugarSource: 9 Biggest ZOMG Moments From SOBEFest

By now, you've probably seen just about every food and behind-the-scenes photo from the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, but there is one thing you haven't seen yet: some of the craziest moments from our time in South Florida. Presenting . . . the biggest ZOMG moments from this year's festival. Go ahead - you know you want to.

Related Content:

The Ultimate South Beach Wine and Food Festival Experience

5 Burger Toppings Inspired by Burger Bash

Spotted in SOBE: Culinary Personalities From A to Z

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YumSugarSource: 5 Meals That Only Require 5 Ingredients (or Less!)

What's better than five fast and easy weeknight meals? Well, five fast and easy weeknight meals that only require five ingredients (excluding salt and pepper, of course). Let these simple home-cooked meals take you through a full workweek, and you'll wonder why you ever thought take-out was necessary.

1.Spaghetti Aglio, Olio, e Peperoncino: With just four staple ingredients and 15 minutes, you'll create a flavorful and satisfying Italian pasta dish.
2. Cast-Iron Roast Chicken: For a hearty and romantic meal that comes together in less than hour, and only requires three ingredients, consider roasting a chicken in a cast-iron skillet.
3. Garlicky Arugula Pasta: Fish sauce is the secret ingredient that brings on the flavor in this fast and easy pasta recipe.
4. Chicken Breast Stuffed With Goat Cheese and Basil: Four ingredients transform chicken breast, which can often be dry and flavorless, into something completely

Source: Homemade Pasta Is Fast and Easy With Fabio Viviani

While in Miami, we had the chance to nurse our hangovers, Italian style. Chef Fabio Viviani's Bertolli demo was filled with laughs, mispronunciations, and homemade, fresh fettuccine. All in all, it was great fun, and we were surprised to learn that making pasta at home doesn't have to be the headache that it's made out to be. With a food processor, a pasta press, and a few staple ingredients, you can have fresh pasta in a matter of minutes.

A few helpful tips that Fabio made sure to stress: an "Italian tablespoon" is not the same thing as an American tablespoon (see above photo), quality products and ingredients shouldn't be messed with, and that extra-virgin olive oil shouldn't be used in high-heat situations.


More from YumSugar: Bobby's 6 Steps For Perfect Fried Chicken


Fresh Fettuccine
From Fabio Viviani for Bertolli

Top your fresh pasta with your favorite sauce or toss it with sautéed vegetables and sprinkle with

Source: 8 Things to Know About Top Chef Texas Winner Paul Qui

In case you missed it, last night Paul Qui took home the title on season nine of Top Chef. The executive chef of Uchiko and East Side King in Austin, TX, who won eight of the 16 elimination challenges on Top Chef Texas, beat out fellow finalist Sarah Grueneberg by coming out on top in an elimination challenge with a clam dashi broth and coconut-Thai chile ice cream. Besides holding the champion title and being $125,000 richer, Qui now faces a higher public profile than he's ever held before. Whether you watch the show or now, there's no doubt you'll be seeing much more of him - so here are a few things you should know about the newly crowned Top Chef.

1. He's a James Beard Award semifinalist. Qui's been nominated as a semifinalist for the Best Chef: Southwest award and will find out if he's a finalist come March 19. Qui was named a semifinalist in the Rising Star Chef award category last year but didn't make it to the

Source: 5 Burger Toppings Inspired by Burger Bash

It was just a week ago that we were chomping down on burgers at Rachael Ray's Burger Bash in South Beach, where we tried just about every topping imaginable on a burger, from Morimoto's braised pork and wagyu beef to Guy Fieri's secret donkey sauce. Seven days later, we're still dreaming of those patties, and hoping to re-create some of them at home. Here are several things we're hoping to try on our own burgers at home.

1. Brick cheese spread
Give the burger a further nod to nostalgic Americana by adding creamy, dreamy brick cheese spread. Keep it honest and go for one made by one of Wisconsin's cheese artisans, like Abe & Arthur's did.

2. Bacon mixed into the beef patty
Tons of restaurants were doing this, from Shake Shack to Chicago's NoMI Kitchen (served with a spiked watermelon slice, no less!). We were most fond of applewood-smoked bacon coarsely chopped into the beef patty, then served with cherry pepper relish, as seen in

YumSugarSource: Spotted in SOBE: Culinary Personalities From A to Z

The South Beach Wine and Food Festival offered some of our favorite people in the food world the chance to kick back, drink mojitos, and hang out with one another. Even though we were at a food event, the wine and cocktails part seemed to be the first thing on everybody's mind. From Bobby Flay chugging his two huge drinks on stage to Michael Chiarello doing a bit of a pole dance, click through to see who we spotted and more behind-the-scene pics.

Related Content:

The Ultimate South Beach Wine and Food Festival Experience

Bobby's 6 Steps For Perfect Fried Chicken

Tasting Under the Tents in South Beach

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Source: Meet Your New Favorite Everyday Pasta

There are some commonplace Italian pasta recipes that are so simple yet stunning that I'll find myself on a streak of making them two, three, six times a month.

Spaghetti cacio e pepe falls under this category. So do pasta carbonara and spaghetti aglio e olio. But after years of making these dishes, I didn't think there were many more minimalist pasta combinations to discover.

Then I stumbled upon my latest obsession while out on a dinner date at the Campania-centric Italian restaurant A 16, where I enjoyed a plate of linguine tossed with torn cavolo nero and dressed in a pungent elixir of Italian anchovy sauce, barely-cooked garlic, and spicy red pepper flakes. By the end of that weekend, I'd already come up with a version myself, using some of my latest pantry fixations.

Among them: A bottle of umami-licious Red Boat Fish Sauce . . . . . . my go-to pasta, the organic linguine from Whole Foods . . . . . . flavorful baby arugula from