Taste and create

A Baked Potato, in a Bowl!

I LOVE baked potatoes. Actually, I love just about anything that involved potatoes - potato salad, french fries, potato soup, mashed potatoes... you would be hard pressed to find something involving potatoes that I don't like! So I knew I would love this recipe for baked potato soup when I found it! This actually goes above and beyond your typical baked potato. It includes other vegetables such as carrot, celery, and onion, which add a whole new dimension to the soup. It's very tasty! I chose to garnish my soup just like I would a mashed potato - with sour cream, bacon, and green onions. Not exactly the most healthy choice, but man it was good!

A Crepe Filled With Ham, Asparagus, and a Cheese Sauce... Yum!

I have loved crêpes ever since my old ballet company hired the "Crêpe Lady" for one of our annual garden parties (a sort of fundraising thing for the company). Ever since then I have gotten crêpes at every chance, so of course I had to try making them myself!

This recipe is super easy to make... almost like making pancakes! You can put all sorts of sweet or savory fillings in them... some of my favorites are sliced bananas with chocolate syrup, or ham and asparagus with this cheese sauce! (It's at the bottom of the post). Very yummy. What types of fillings do you like in your crêpes?

Orange Sunshine Cupcakes, with a tribute to Leukemia and Children's Cancers

Last year, I found out that someone very close to me has leukemia. It was devastating for everyone close to him, and although he will be alright after treatment, it will still be a difficult year. This also coincided with the second Taste and Create. Orange is the color for leukemia (like pink is the color for breast cancer) so these Orange Sunshine Cupcakes made a great tribute to him. To make it even more appropriate, I baked them in gold wrappers (gold is the color for children's cancer) and topped them with a delicious lemon frosting and dried mango strips twisted into the shape of a ribbon.

For more information about how you can help cancer patients, see my original post on my blog, SushiDay.com.