Sour Cream Cornbread Muffin Recipe

Today, I made cream of tomato soup and decided I would replicate the same flavors in cornbread muffins. I find that cornbread muffins are a great accompaniment when teamed up with a nice bowl of warm soup. I added chopped sun-dried tomatoes and sour cream to the batter as well as small chunks of Comté cheese. The cheese gave a fruity and salty note to the muffins.

I think the addition of sour cream makes for super moist cornbread muffins. Of course, they taste best piping hot right from the oven, but they still taste great the following day.

Lentil Patties with Winter Vegetable Medley

This is one of those rare dishes where I don't miss eating meat. I used store-bought steamed black lentils and made little croquettes using leftover taro brioche I bought at the Asian market. After a brief pan-fry, I tossed them in a medley of winter vegetables. I tried to balance the mild sweetness from the brioche and caramelized onions with the earthy, savory flavors of the mashed lentils and grated Romano cheese. To complete the meal, I added Brussels sprouts, yellow bell peppers, asparagus and mushrooms, and a touch of Meyer lemon zest for a little brightness.

When I got married, I thought I was going to convert my husband Lulu and introduce meat and fish to his diet. Alas, it turned out slightly differently (by that I mean the exact opposite), since I have significantly reduced my consumption of meat and seafood. With dishes like this, I find I don’t miss meat as much as I thought I would.

Olive Cornbread Recipe

I recently saw on my Facebook page that one of PhamFatale's readers made my jalapeno cornbread, which reminded me that I hadn't made any in a long time. I created a new version using oil-cured black olives and an exquisite extra virgin olive oil from Cloud 9 Orchard.

May Chevallier is a true expert on olive oil and is the owner of a 140-acre ranch in southern Monterey County, where she planted 10, 000 olive trees. She's passionate about her Cloud 9 Orchard EVOO, which has won many prestigious awards. I recently met with May and she educated me about how to discern the quality of olive oil. I learned that too often olive oil is artificially enhanced with chlorophyll for color and synthetic olive flavor. Cloud 9 Orchard is free from any of these adulterations. You can order May's extra virgin olive oil directly from her. You won't be disappointed.

Ground Beef Stuffing Recipe

If you're Vietnamese, you've probably heard your mom say "tội chết" ("dreadfully sinful" in Vietnamese) in regards to wasting food. The lesson was definitely hammered into me, and now that I'm an adult, I intend to follow in my mom's footsteps and teach the same values to my daughter.

I love Acme brand green onion slab bread. It's very flavorful, moist and delicious. I went a little over-board buying 4 loaves at Costco. I made panini sandwiches the day before and had one left-over on the kitchen counter. Today, my goal was to come up with a creative way to use it all. I made stuffing using the onion bread with ground beef, artichoke hearts, tomato paste and mozzarella cheese. I moistened the bread with beef stock I had stored in the freezer. It makes a wonderful one-dish meal once the little casserole dish is heated and broiled in the oven. And if the slightly stale bread didn't have green onion in it, I could have made pain perdu (french toast) as well!

Chocolate French Toast Recipe (Pain Perdu) + Giveaway

It may be a bit cliché, but I'm a chocolate addict. I’m always trying to find new ways to use chocolate. Growing up, there was Nutella on the table every day, and I thought it would be fun to come up with a decadent, chocolate-flavored breakfast treat for the holidays.

This special breakfast combines French toast, chocolate and, since it's the holidays, marshmallows. I took stale brioche, dipped it in chocolate flavored custard and seared it on the stove. The garnish is made with marshmallow fluff and a drizzle of warm Nutella. Who would say no to that?

Speaking of chocolate, our friends from Romanicos are giving away $85 worth of their delicious handmade chocolates, called the “Cube Box”. I had an opportunity to try the chocolates recently, and they are honestly some of the best I’ve had in the US. I thought I could only get chocolates of this quality in France, so I was very pleasantly surprised. My husband’s family was literally fighting over them, so I’m going to have to get more soon! If you’d like to personalize the product for the holidays, check out Romanico’s Family Holiday Gifts. You can have your holiday greeting cards printed directly on the box. And of course, don’t forget to enter today’s giveaway for your chance to win!

Make sure you're a fan of PhamFatale Facebook fan page and Romanicos Chocolate, or follow @Phamfatalecom and tweet about this giveaway. To make it easy, you can just copy and paste this tweet if you’d like: "$85 Romanicos Chocolate #Giveaway from @Phamfatalecom and @Romanicos_Choco: http://bit.ly/sp4V7y".