About

Welcome to Apples & Picante!

I’m Maia. I love food & cooking. I love the color purple, eating popcorn & drinking red wine. The kitchen is my favorite room in the house and I can often be found cooking after midnight. I’m excited to share my passion with you!

About this blog

This blog is a labor of my love of cooking and feeding people around me.

I started this blog in 2015 but didn’t have any time to document what I was cooking as I was renting a room preparing for my move to Bogota. I saved the photos along the way and wrote notes in my phone to one day share all of it with you.

The inspiration for this blog combines my late Grandma Toni’s love for everything Apple related and my love for Picante (read: Spicy!). Thus Apples & Picante was born. Many recipes are from my Latin and Italian heritage, while others stem from my fascination of replicating amazing dishes I’ve had all over the world.

I like to share recipes as simple as I can and with minimal word fluff. I like to get straight to the point because I know all of you are eager to cook, not read my life story!

All photos are taken with iPhone 5s or Canon EOS Rebel T3i.

About Me

I live in South Minneapolis, Minnesota with my fiancé. We both grew up here. Prior to this, I was in Bogota, Colombia teaching English and before that, home was New York City (read: all over NY!) where I lived for 8 years. AND I was born in sunny California. It’s been a lot of fun traveling around the world!

I am severely allergic to dairy and so 99% of all dishes will not include any dairy. I was born with this allergy and so I have no clue what I’m missing out on! I consider it a compliment when I make a dairy free version of something and my taste testers say it’s like the real deal.

While growing up I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with my mom and watching my dad cook great meals. Here and there I would cook a meal and became more serious about it once I moved out and had to fend for myself. Attending college in NY can be as pricey as it gets, and a home cooked meal can be a much needed comfort. I’m self-taught, mom/dad/grandma taught and catering intern-taught. I spend A LOT of time in the kitchen!

Feel free to comment on my blog posts adding to the conversation or email me. I reserve the right to remove promotional links, abusive and/or inappropriate comments.

Credit

All photos on this site were taken by Maia Arroyo-Roppo.

If this site has inspired you to replicate a recipe please rewrite in your own words and link to the original.

THANK YOU!
I hope you enjoy these recipes as much as I love cooking them and sharing with you!