Monday, September 28, 2009

First Meal in Our New Home

After a week 0f driving from California to Massachusetts, you can only imagine how eager I was to cook! Well, thankfully we packed a very basic kitchen set that we lugged around in the car just for this purpose. Our first home-cooked meal in our new home was Tortellini Soup- an old stand by. Our furniture won't arrive for another couple of days so we have to use a makeshift dining table. Yes that is a cooler and a sleeping bag box.

When we get the kitchen all set up later this week I will take pictures and give everyone the grand tour. And by grand I mean COUNTERSPACE! I'm so excited to roll pizza dough that I can barely contain myself! You'll see...

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Peanut Butter Waffles with a Dollop of Big News

The one recipe that really jumped out at me in the last Simple and Delicious magazine was for Peanut Butter and Jelly Waffles. So naturally, it went on the dinner menu for the week. We love doing breakfast for dinner!

Brett is a BIG fan of peanut butter. It is a major staple of his diet (as I type this he is is dipping pretzels in peanut butter for a snack.) And I like it too. Although this waffle recipe was way more complicated than my traditional waffles, I still wanted to give it a go. I mixed the dry ingredients (5/8 cups of flour, 1 1/2 T sugar, 1/2 T baking powder, 1/8 tsp baking soda and cinnamon) in one bowl, wet ingredients (1 egg yolk, 5/8 cup milk, 1/6 cup peanut butter, 1 1/2 T melted butter) in another, and then set about whisking one egg white in a third bowl.

Now, I've watched almost every season of Top Chef and have always loved the quick-fire relay race where someone inevitably has to whisk six egg whites into stiff peaks by hand. I thought that surely I could handle one egg white! Well, boy is it tiring! I was going as fast as I could for about a minute before I broke a sweat and started fatiguing. Brett took over for a couple of minutes while I caught my breath, and then I took it again for another minute of rapid whisking. We went back and forth like that a few times before we had very nice, stiff (enough) peaks.

Then I combined the dry and wet ingredients and folded in the egg whites. A lengthy process for waffles, but I think it was worth it.

These waffles smell delicious! I spread some strawberry jelly on my first one, but decided that I prefer good ol' maple syrup. This one's a keeper! (The measurements for this recipe have been halved to feed two people instead of four.)

Now for the dollop of BIG NEWS!!! Brett and I will soon be packing up our tiny, San Diego kitchen and moving all the way to Massachusetts! We will be ridiculously busy for the coming month, so if you find my posts few and far between or non-existent, you'll know why. Wish us luck!