Cinco de Mayo: Recipes for a holiday-inspired feast..

Cinco de Mayo, the anniversary of the Mexican army’s 1862 victory during the Franco-Mexican War, has become prime time for Americans to celebrate some of the more festive and tasty elements of Mexican cuisine. consider the May 5 holiday, coupled with warmer weather, as the perfect opportunity to explore traditional Mexican dishes.Start your day with our recommendation:Chilaquiles Tortilla chips, sauce, crema and cheese are compulsory components of chilaquiles. But there are certain liberties that individual cooks take; a fried or poached egg can be placed atop the assembled chilaquiles; or cooked, shredded chicken or fried chorizo may be tossed with the chips.

The crema should be thin enough to drizzle over the finished chilaquiles. If it is too thick, add buttermilk or cream as needed.

Continue recipe & instructions here and enjoy!

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake with Toasted Coconut Ice Cream...

If you’ve ever seen “Fiddler On The Roof,” you probably know the term “yenta.” A yenta, in Yiddish, is a busybody, a meddler; in “Fiddler,” though, she’s a specific person, a matchmaker.

My whole life, I’ve always been something of a yenta. I love to get involved with people’s life decisions, telling people where to work, where to live, who to date. I’m kind of annoying that way. Which is why, over the years, I’ve pulled back a bit and let people lead the lives they want to lead, not getting too involved. And as far as matchmaking, occasionally I’ll set people up–I have some successes under my belt, some disasters too–though now I think I’m better off applying my skills to food: which is why I decided to pair pineapple upside-down cake with homemade toasted coconut ice cream.

It doesn’t take a yenta to see that this is a very good match: both recipes involve somewhat tropical ingredients (pineapple, coconut, rum) and everyone knows that cake tastes better with ice cream and that ice cream tastes better with cake.

To start, you make your ice cream batter. I used a recipe from my favorite ice cream book,David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop.” It begins by toasting unsweetened coconut in the oven:

Check out this recipe here "Link"

Mob Wives' Big Ang Getting Spin-off

VH1 announced yesterday that Mob Wivesstar Big Ang, a.k.a. Angela Raiola, is getting her own spin-off this July. Producer Jennifer Graziano recently called Big Ang her "secret weapon" after Ang emerged as the most popular character on the reality show about Italian American women who love mafiosos.
 
The owner of Staten Island's Drunken Monkey Bar & Grill, Big Ang earned a rep as a plastic surgery lover who pines over handsome "wise guys" and has a contagious Herman Munster-like laugh. As we've discovered, she also takes pride in cooking. Besides her voluptuous frame, those wise guys fall hard for her cutlets,  (as do family and friends) and Ang told us she's working on a cookbook. Since the new show will bring even more attention to Staten Island, we wanted to find out where she eats out. Here, Big Ang’s favorite restaurants.
courtesy of VH1,Food & Wine.com