Swedish Cardamom Cake | A Man Called Ove | #FoodnFlix

You never really know what's going on behind closed doors. Ove is a man who is never satisfied. He's extremely particular and practical, calling anything fancier than meat and potatoes (aka saffron) "putting Christmas into it". He is the type of man who yells at feral cats to get off of his private property, and locks bicycles in garages if they are left about. Basically, he's miserable, surly, and entirely bad-tempered.

Recipes inspired by The Princess and the Frog #FoodnFlix

This month I invited the Food 'n Flix club bloggers to join me in the kitchen with the animated Disney flick, The Princess and the Frog. Since it's October, I thought choose something with a little bit of dark magic and a whole lot of good food, in hopes that it would inspire some creative fun in the kitchen!

Our gathering was small but sweet this month with just six offerings...each pulled and influenced by different parts of this classic tale, retold. I hope you'll browse the photos below, and click through to the individual blogs to check out the recipes and the reasoning behind them!

Bananas Foster | The Princess and the Frog | #FoodnFlix

In the spirit of the season, and the month of October, a time when the veil between worlds is thin and the final harvest is upon us, I wanted to choose a movie with somewhat spooky roots as our Food 'n Flix pick this month. So I chose The Princess and the Frog. Spooky, huh? I know, not really. But the roots of the story come from an old tale, The Frog-King (or The Frog Prince), by the Brother's Grimm. Still not a very spooky as some of their tales (unless you're afraid of frogs), but it does lean a bit towards the dark side.

The Princess and the Frog takes place in the French Quarter and the Bayou of New Orleans. We see a young Tiana, who loves spending time in the kitchen with her father...and has quite the gift for it...growing up and dreaming of opening her own restaurant. She's a hard worker and has been saving every penny for years, but one night, when catering a party for her wealthy friend, she encounters something that changes her fate. A frog. A frog who, seeing her dressed in her friend Charlotte's dress and tiara, mistakes her for a princess, and begs her for a kiss.

#GrimmGrub Recipes Link-Up | #FandomFoodies

I'm excited to announce that I'm hosting the current round of Fandom Foodies right here on All Roads Lead to the Kitchen this month! I invite you to create and share recipes inspired by the tales of the Brothers Grimm—AND their derivatives!

Join us in the kitchen with The Princess and the Frog | #FoodnFlix

Hello! Remember me? I know I've been MIA for a long time, and for that I'm sorry. There's an explanation...really there is...and I may even get around to telling it one of these days. But, not today. Today I'm here to announce that I'm hosting this month's edition of the Food 'n Flix Club! And, since moderation isn't really my thing, I'll also be hosting Fandom Foodies this month (they connect, in case you had any doubt).

This month I invite you to watch the 2009 Disney flick, The Princess and the Frog. Set in the New Orleans bayou, this flick is teeming with inspiration for you to take into the kitchen this month!

Spaghetti and Peas | The Girls in the Garden

The book tour stops here today for the latest novel by Lisa Jewell called The Girls in the Garden. Set in a communal garden square tucked away in the city of London, we're thrust immediately into the the climax of the story, leaving us in the dark about the cast of characters seen through a haze as Pip discovers her sister Grace's unconscious, bloody body near the edge of a rose garden.

The book is then divided into two parts, "Before" and "After, the former making up the bulk of the story which is told mainly through the voice of three characters—tweenage Pip, her young, timid mother Clare, and the beautiful, slightly older, bohemian-style Adele (mother of Willow, Fern and Catkin, wife of handsome, charming Leo).

Chrissy Teigen's Cheesy Jalapeño Tuna Noodle Casserole

So, I'm the kinda girl who goes to the library and comes home with a stack of cookbooks so high they'd be dangerous if they fell on somebody. When I can carve out some time, I'll grab a pad of sticky tabs and start paging through. Every once in a while, I come across a book that I must (MUST!) have in my personal collection pronto. Chrissy Teigen's cookbook, Cravings, was one of those books.

I'm not going to go into depth about the book...yet—but that's because I want to do a dedicated review post on it (in fact, I'm so enamored of it that I'm contemplating a Julie and Julia-style cook-through). But I did think that this month's Fish Friday Foodies theme, fish in a dish, was the perfect opportunity to try one of the recipe I had bookmarked in it.

Flourless Chocolate Cake | Practical Magic

Welcome to the first edition of the (Vampires, Witches, and Zombies - oh my!) Book and a Movie Challenge of 2017!  Last year, I joined my friend Kimberly of Coffee and Casseroles in her monthly pursuit of exploring vampires through books and film, this year she's expanded to add witches and zombies to the mix, with posts being every other month. We're kicking off a new year with the book Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, and its movie adaption.

Beer Fruit Cocktail Sangria inspired by Warm Bodies

Let's talk zombie fiction in the form of the movie Warm Bodies today. There are two types of zombies in Warm Bodies, and neither are your typical brain-dead roamers. First we have what seem like the typical slow-moving, grunt-to-communicate zombies, but via the magic of the voice-over, we find out that there really are thoughts going on inside their heads (or at least in the head of our main character, "R"). However, they've sort of accepted their station and rove around in packs looking for food (aka humans) outside of the airport where they've taken up residence.

When these zombies consume the brains of their victims, they absorb their memories. "R" enjoys eating brains because through these memories, he actually feels more alive. One day his group runs into a group of humans and actually feels the human emotion of attraction for the first time since the zombie apocalypse began. During the fight between R's hoard and the group of humans, he unknowingly kills the boyfriend of Julie (the one that caught his clouded eye), and as he's eating his brain, gets glimpses with her in them.

Campfire Beans & Weenies | Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse

It's zombie time! This month's In the Kitchen with Zombie Fiction pick is the 2015 movie Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse. Our main characters are three high school guys, who have been best friends since joining the Scouts as young kids, Ben, Carter, and Augie. Ben and Carter both think they've outgrown it and are ready to move on, but are staying for Augie...or at least until he's awarded the highest honor a Scout can get later that night.

In the time between school ending for the day and their campout starting for the night, they hit a deer and get a flat tire, are "invited" to the secret senior's party by Carter's sister's boyfriend, and meet a hot girl that used to go to their school, but is now a cocktail waitress at a strip club—and she buys them beer.

Conchas (without food dye)

Welcome to the September edition of the Bread Baking Babes! Today also happens to be Mexican Independence Day, and since I am the this month's Kitchen of the Month, I decided it would be both fun and timely to challenge the BBBabes and all of the potential BBBuddies to head into the kitchen to bake up my personal favorite of all Mexican breads—CONCHAS!

Now, if you've been hanging around here for any amount of time, you may know that I've already shared two different concha recipes in the past—but it's been 4 years since the last time I did, so I think it's time to revisit them.

Conchas translates to shells in English, and they get their name from the beautiful sugar crust that tops them, since it is cut to resemble the shape of a seashell. If you have a good Mexican Panaderia (bakery) near you, you've probably seen these colorful sweet rolls before. If you've never tried them, I recommend getting to the bakery early and loading up a tray with a pile of them, still warm from the oven. Seriously, a concha and a cup of coffee is enough to bring a smile to anybody's face in the morning.

"(Sweet Mother of) Monkey Milk"shakes w/ Gold Coins | Wreck It Ralph | #FoodnFlix

Later this year, the Food 'n Flix club will be celebrating our 8th anniversary. Just thinking about how long we've been creating movie-inspired recipes together makes me all warm and gooey inside. We're kicking off 2018 with one of the 4 animated movies on the schedule for the year - Wreck It Ralph!

Spaghetti di LaRusso | The Karate Kid

Well, hello 2018. Here I am sidling up to you, and almost a whole month has already gone by. And just because I can, now that I've officially welcomed you, I'm gonna go ahead and slip back into the past—34 years in the past to be exact, because it's time for another round of recipes inspired by 80's movies from me and Kimberly at Coffee and Casseroles.