Foolin' Around in the Kitchen

Easter Cookies

2011-04-18T09:21:00.001-07:00

We love decorating cookies around here. Although Christmas is the traditional time to do it, we always seem to be inundated with other baking projects around that time of year. So we find other times to decorate cookies. Usually Halloween cookies squeeze their way in. It's been a while since we've made Easter cookies. I forgot how colorful and beautiful they are! This was the first time we've made butterfly cookies. I thought they would be fun to decorate, but when it came time to do it, I didn't know where to begin. We both tried to do symmetrical designs. I usually went the way of drawing a silly smily face. Maybe next year we'll do fewer butterflies and more of my personal favorite...eggs!

And here's the whole lot!

Szechuan Sesame Noodles

2011-03-06T06:34:00.000-08:00

There's a commercial (I think it's for paper towels) that has one scene of a "husband" running a blender without the lid on and making a huge strawberry milkshake mess in the kitchen. Brett and I always jokingly shake our fists and say, "Husbands!" This of course is a huge stereotype of the incompetent husband trying to cook. Brett is anything but incompetent in the kitchen.

I am the main cook in our household, but Brett does help regularly. He's the one who puts all my prep for fried rice together. He also does most of the assembly for pizza twist. I also prefer that he does all the big pouring jobs. It is rare that he does everything all by himself. But I was a lucky lady recently. I sat on the couch while he made dinner.

He picked the recipe for Szechuan Sesame Noodles out of the Bon Appetit Fast Easy Fresh cookbook and got to work. He's not used to chopping, I am most definitely the knife wielder in the kitchen, but he took his time, and got the garlic (3 cloves), fresh ginger (1/2 tsp), and red onion (less than half) all chopped up. When Brett is the chef, he gets to make executive decisions. He chose to saute the red onions rather than leave them raw: an excellent choice. He also chose to skimp on the ginger (the recipe called for 2 T): also a good call.

Other than chopping, this recipe pretty much makes itself. Brett cooked half a box of linguine, drained it, and then drizzled it with sesame oil. He sauteed the chopped red onion. When those parts were all done, he heated some more sesame oil in the wok and cooked the garlic and ginger. Then he added 6 T of teriyaki sauce (we love the thicker kind that can be used as a glaze/dip), 1 tsp of chili-garlic sauce, and 2 T of lime juice. Once that was all bubbly, he added in the noodles, sauteed red onion, and a generous amount of peanuts and stirred it all up.

I couldn't help but notice the absence of vegetables in our dinner, so I steamed up a few pieces of broccoli. That was not the highlight of the meal. In fact I had to force myself to choke it down.

The noodles were fantastic. They had just the right amount of spiciness from the chili sauce and definitely some sweetness from the teriyaki sauce. The peanuts were our favorite part. Brett did a great job in the kitchen and did not make a giant "husband" mess. In fact he was was far neater than I ever am.

Puffed Apple Pancake

2011-02-11T15:13:00.000-08:00

If you're looking for a good breakfast in bed treat for Valentine's Day, I think this is a winner. Brett found this in our Bon Appetit Fast, Easy, Fresh cookbook and I must confirm that it was indeed fast, easy, and fresh. Brett peeled and thinly sliced the apple (the recipe called for two but we only had one) and I did everything else.

I preheated the oven to 425 degrees and melted 1/4 cup of butter right in the bottom of the 9x13 pan that we were planning to use. I also whisked together 1 cup of milk, 4 eggs, 3 T sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, 1/2 salt, and 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon. I received some Ceylon Cinnamon from Penzey's Spices for Christmas and since it's supposed to be good with fruit, decided to try it in this recipe.

Once the butter was melted, I spread out all the little apple slices in the bottom of the pan and put it back in the oven for 10 minutes.

This is where I almost messed up the entire breakfast. I almost forgot to whisk 2/3 cup of flour into the batter. I was a split second away from pouring the batter over the apples when I realized it. Yikes! After adding the flour, I poured it over the top. I kind of expected the apples to stay at the bottom, but some popped right up to the top. It didn't seem to matter. Then I sprinkled 3 T of brown sugar over the top.

Back in the oven it went for 20 minutes and when it came out it was all puffy and golden and smelled amazing. After a minute or so, and certainly after you cut it, it deflates quite a bit.

The recipe says this makes four servings, so we each started out with 1/4 of the pan. But I will confess that we ate the entire thing in one sitting. We loved it. It is a little custardy, and reminded me of bread pudding without the chunks of bread. It's one of those borderline breakfast/dessert dishes, but when you think about it, the best breakfasts are like that. Try it, you will love it!

Homemade Potstickers

2011-01-29T08:43:00.000-08:00

Brett and I came across a bottle of Mae Ploy sweet chilli sauce at the grocery store recently and were immediately whisked back to our college days. Brett and his roommates always had a giant bottle of the good stuff and a family size bag of frozen potstickers on hand. I can't even count how many times we ate potstickers for dinner. It wasn't until several years after college that we realized how unhealthy frozen potstickers are with exorbitant amounts of sodium and sometimes fat. So we decided if we were going to ever have them again, we would make our own. Several years after that, we've finally gotten around to doing it.

A quick search on the Food Network's website gave us a recipe and we set to work. We have honestly never bought Napa cabbage before. I actually had to ask the produce guy just to be sure I had the right thing! I chopped up an entire mixing bowl full! I also chopped up some green onion that we had on hand (instead of leeks), some garlic, and some ginger, and I grated a handful of baby carrots.

Next I got to cooking. Unfortunately I didn't read the directions closely enough and ended up cooking the filling in three tablespoons of oil instead of two. The third tablespoon was supposed to be saved for cooking the potstickers in once they've been assembled. Oops. So our filling was a touch oily, but it tasted OK.

In addition to the cabbage, green onions, garlic, ginger, and oil I added rice wine vinegar and soy sauce. The carrots go in once everything is all cooked down and off the heat.

Then the fun part starts. We laid out a whole bunch of won ton wrappers, got a little bowl of water and a fork ready, and started spooning the filling onto the center. We wet a finger with water and trace around the edge, fold the wrapper over the filling, and then seal it all up with a fork. With two people working, this job actually goes pretty quickly.

In college, the method we used to cook potstickers was pour a little water in the frying pan, cover them, and when the water had evaporated off, add a little oil and crisp up the outsides. This recipe, perhaps because the potstickers were fresh and not frozen, recommended the opposite. Fry them in oil first, then add the water and cover.

They turned out quite beautifully actually. I was a little impressed with my own handiwork.

They tasted good too. They were little bit oily (entirely my fault) and a little bit vinegar-y, so we may play around with different fillings in the future. If any of you have any recommendations, I'm happy to hear them. And, of course, the sweet chili sauce was just as good as I remembered. There will definitely be more homemade potstickers in our future.

Monkey Birthday Cake

2011-01-08T06:51:00.000-08:00

Our youngest nephew celebrated his first birthday while we were all together for Christmas. So of course I volunteered to make his birthday cake. When I thought about it, I had never made a kid's birthday cake before. But it was not that hard to think of a design. At first I thought Star Wars, but then I chickened out. (It would have need excellent execution plus a black cake does not really scream one-year-old.) Then I thought about animals and almost immediately came up with a monkey. Monkeys are funny. They have big ears, a big smile, and not a whole lot of detail.

Here's the sketch I came up with.

Brett and I baked the cakes including two cupcakes for ears. The next day, I mixed up the frosting and got to work.

I used the regular star tip for everything except for the whites of his eyes. It took a lot of patience and I had to rest my hand every once in a while.

I think it turned out pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself. And the birthday boy seemed to like it.

Peppermint Bark Cookie Bars

2011-01-02T08:12:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! If you are anything like me, you've had more than your fair share of sweets lately. I've certainly overdone it on candy and cookies. But if you haven't had enough, or if you're not sure what to do with a few leftover candy canes, this is a tasty and easy dessert to try.

I found this recipe from the Cookin' Canuck linked on the Pioneer Woman's website. I love peppermint bark and I love cookies, so this seemed like a perfect recipe to try.

I mixed up the dough (2 sticks butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 egg yolk, 2 cups flour, 1/4 tsp salt).

I pressed the dough into a 13x9 pan. Next time I might take more care to press evenly. There ended up being some distinctly thicker pieces. But then again, I might not. It really didn't matter all that much.

I baked it for 25 minutes at 350 degrees and then sprinkled (my favorite) Tollhouse semi-sweet chocolate chips all over. After just a few minutes, spread the chocolate evenly.

Crunch up a few candy canes in a ziplock bag while the cookie is baking and then after the chocolate is spread, sprinkle the pieces all over the top.

Then melt some white chocolate chips and drizzle it all over the top.

Put the pan in the fridge so that all the melty chocolate will harden and then take it out and cut it up into bars.

These are really good. After one bar on that first night, I was done. Later in the week I started eating two in one sitting. Before I knew it, they were gone.

Gingerbread Extravaganza

2010-12-18T06:34:00.000-08:00

Brett's gingerbread house got a little more intense this year. Not only was it a house with two gables, which required a lot more engineering and calculation, but he also decided to add a second, rather large lighthouse... that actually lights up. Ambitious, yes. But when Brett puts his mind to something, there is no stopping him.

He stayed up late for two nights working on blueprints. He calculated angles and lengths using stuff he learned in trig back in high school. (If you look closely you'll see something involving cosine.) He figured out specific measurements for each piece.

Then he stayed up late for two nights rolling out the dough, meticulously measuring and cutting out each piece, and then baking them. He used Life Savers this year instead of Jolly Ranchers because Life Savers have the clear pineapple flavor. He used these for the lighthouse windows so that the light could shine out brightly. Unfortunately the sugar darkened a little bit and ended up being kind of a brownish yellow.

Then construction began. I tried to help, but my poor hands were way too shaky. I was quickly relieved of my duties.

Sometime in the middle of the night, while I was fast asleep, Brett piped fences for the house and lighthouse on a silpat.

The next night was for finishing touches. I applied the M&Ms to the roof, Brett did everything else... mostly while I was in bed fast asleep. He created a special compartment for the battery-powered tea light and made a removable roof so we could turn the light on and off. He also dyed a little icing green and piped some wreaths and bushes.

AND... it lights up!

I could not be more proud of his gingerbread house skills!

Super Chocolate Fudge Bundt Cake

2010-12-12T06:37:00.000-08:00

Brett doesn't like chocolate. And that's ok with me. There are plenty of delicious, chocolate-free desserts out there. At my new job (the one that has unfortunately made blogging a low priority in recent months) everyone loves chocolate A LOT. I have unofficially declared myself the office birthday cake baker and this past week I was all set to make an angelfood cake, when I got an email from my boss regarding the birthday girl's cake preferences: "Her passion is chocolate." Well, first of all, you don't ignore the boss's guidance, and second of all, when someone's passion is chocolate, you can't give them an angelfood cake. The only problem was that I didn't have a stand-by recipe for a really decadent chocolate cake. I did a quick search on Tasty Kitchen and found this recipe for Chocolate Fudge Bundt Cake. It just looked like the kind of cake a chocolate lover would go crazy for.

The batter was super easy and fast to mix up: chocolate cake mix, instant pudding powder, sour cream, eggs, vegetable oil, water, and chocolate chips. I got out my lovely chrysanthemum bundt pan and sprayed gobs and gobs of Pam for baking. As pretty as this pan is, there are soooo many nooks and crannies for cake to get stuck in. I poured the super thick batter into the pan, popped it in the oven, and went to sit down.

About halfway through the baking process, I got up to check on it and saw that it was rising, which usually is a good thing, but it was rising up over the sides of the pan. There was not much I could do at that point, so I let it continue baking. I referred to the recipe, and it says to use a 10 inch bundt pan. I didn't break out the ruler, but I could safely say that my bundt pan is smaller than 10 inches. Oops!

When I pulled it out of the oven, it had risen some more--up and over the center hole. After it cooled, it did sink back down a little bit, but the hole was still covered over.

I flipped it over without incident, and like the rusty blogger that I am, I forgot to take a picture of the finished product. (If you would like to see what the chrysanthemum shape looks like, look at my amaretto cake.)

And the birthday girl loved it, which is all that matters to me! It was a chocolate lover's dream!

Chicken Potpies

2010-09-25T05:39:00.001-07:00

This meal was the ultimate team effort. Usually when I make the menu for the week I run out of ideas after three meals and start asking Brett for his input. Usually he has no input at all, which is very frustrating for me. However, last week Brett expressed an interest in making chicken potpies and even found us a recipe to try in that red and white checked Better Homes and Gardens cookbook that EVERYONE seems to own.

Our job assignments were very clear. I was in charge of the goo, Brett was in charge of the crust.

I chopped half an onion, a handful of baby carrots, and one potato. Then I boiled the potatoes and carrots for about 10 minutes (the prep was pretty similar to Cheddar Chowder) and threw in a handful of frozen peas for the last 2 minutes. While that was going, I sauteed the onion in a saucepan with a couple tablespoons of butter (the recipe called for mushrooms too, but I left them out.) I added 1/6 cup of flour and let that cook for about a minute before adding 1/2 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp pepper, a couple shakes of dried thyme, 1 cup of vegetable broth and 1/2 cup of milk. I stirred and stirred until that stuff got pretty thick, then I added the drained veggies and shredded chicken (leftover from a roasted chicken earlier in week.)

Meanwhile, Brett had been busy with mixing and rolling out the crusts. He just used a recipe for basic pie crust. Our potpie recipe is for the "fake" potpie where the crust is only on top. Brett wanted to do the "real" potpie with the crust all around. I must say that it was a great decision. He fitted our custard cups perfectly.

Of course he had the duty of spooning the goo into the crust and covering them with a top circle of crust.

To help get them in and out of the oven we snuggled the custard cups into a rectangular baking dish. They baked for about 15 minutes and came out gorgeous.

At this point it was nearly 7:30 and I was starving! The only problem with a potpie is you risk extreme mouth burns if you try to eat it right away. The goo is liquid hot magma! Potpies require patience and lots of blowing, and when I'm hungry, patience is not a quality that I possess.

When I could finally start eating it, it tasted pretty good. It was a little on the bland side, so next time I will put more salt and seasoning in the filling. We thought that we would each eat one and then split the third, but we were both pretty full after one. That means that we have one leftover to eat for lunch this weekend! In the future, I think this will be a weekend meal, simply because an hour and a half is too long for a weeknight meal.

Chow Mein with Hoisin Sauce

2010-09-18T06:02:00.000-07:00

I love hoisin sauce. I think something I made long ago called for it because there's been a half full jar of it in my fridge for a very long time. I wanted to use it before it got too far past the "best by" date so I turned to the food network website and found this Chow Mein recipe from, strangely, Giada de Laurentiis.

The hardest thing about this recipe was cutting the carrots into matchstick-size pieces. I only had baby carrots, so I'm not sure if this made it harder or easier than a regular sized carrot, but I just took my time and tried not to slice my fingers.

The rest was super easy. I put the carrots and some frozen french-cut green beans into boiling water for one minute, then I took them out with a strainer and put them in cold water.

The pot of water went back onto the burner and when it quickly came back to a boil, I put a package of wide lo mein noodles in for 5 minutes. While that was going, I minced some garlic and fresh ginger.

I'm not sure if it was because the water had already been used (it's the only difference I can think of) but the water got really foamy and kept boiling over. It was really more annoying than anything else because I kept having to leave my cutting board to babysit the boiling noodles.

Once the noodles were done, I drained them, ran some cold water over them, and patted them dry with a paper towel. Then the noodles, garlic, and ginger went into a wok with some hot canola oil. I stirred for 3 minutes like the recipe said, but those noodles never got the slightest bit brown. Then I added the veggies and let those reheat for a couple of minutes. Then I added a mixture of hoisin sauce, soy sauce, vegetable broth, and honey, and let it thicken up for a couple of minutes.

By this point I was so hungry that I forgot to take a picture. Thankfully, Brett eats slower than I do and had a reasonable amount left on his plate.

It tasted good! I never realized that hoisin sauce has a little spicy kick to it, but I liked it. The only thing I might do differently next time is put a tad bit less sauce. It was a little bit overwhelming. All in all, I think we have a keeper! I love it when that happens!

Cinnamon Rolls

2010-09-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

First of all... Happy Birthday Dad! He's probably the number one fan of this blog, so if anyone will see a birthday shout out on here, it's him.

Last week, for a Labor Day treat, Brett and I made some homemade cinnamon rolls. Believe it or not (I hardly do) I got this recipe from a fellow blogger waaaaay back in May of 2008. This recipe has been on my mind for over two years and I'm just now getting around to trying it! These rolls proved to be well worth the wait.

If you want to eat cinnamon rolls for breakfast, then you need to start making them the night before. So Sunday night we mixed up the dough (we used our stand mixer like the recipe says, but Brett would have rather done it by hand). I kneaded it for eight minutes and then we let it rise in our usual way (covered with plastic wrap, in the off oven, with a pan of hot water beneath) for 2 hours.

When it came out, it was time for Brett to do his thing! He punched it down and rolled it out into the proper dimensions and I slathered on the softened butter and sprinkled on the brown sugar/cinnamon mixture. Some of the brown sugar mixture sprinkled onto the mat instead of the dough, which is almost inevitable if you're me, but wincingly painful to watch if you're Brett.

I backed away and let Brett roll the dough into a log. I have no doubt that I would have made a giant mess. He, of course, was extremely careful and neat.

Next, Brett (again, I would have made a mess of this) sliced the log into 18 equal pieces and put them into the greased baking dishes (I can handle spraying Pam without making a mess...sometimes). The recipe called for two square 9x9 pans, but we used a 9x13 baking dish and a 9x5 loaf pan. It worked out fine.

After being refrigerated over night. I got them out and put them (still covered) in a cold oven with a pan of hot water underneath to rise for about an hour.

Then they baked for 18 minutes.

They looked ok when we pulled them out. But the real magic is hidden.

We flipped them out onto the cooling rack and simultaneously said, "Oooooh."

I stirred up some simple frosting (powdered sugar and milk). The recipe called for a cream cheese based frosting, but I think cream cheese flavor can be overwhelming sometimes, and I really wanted to be able to taste the cinnamon rolls.

The final product was absolutely wonderful. It got me thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas and wanting to share these with family (also the fact that there were 18 rolls got me thinking about sharing). This is definitely a special occasion worthy breakfast and I've no doubt we will see these again.

They heat up great in the microwave too. We were eating the leftovers for the rest of the week.

Orange/Pineapple Shrimp

2010-09-04T05:47:00.000-07:00

This was another recipe from Simple and Delicious that we tried during our meat-fest a couple of weeks ago. Their recipe was called Sesame Shrimp and Rice, but I believe this is a wildly inaccurate name. The mandarin oranges and pineapple chunks are what give this dish most of its flavor.

I started out with 20 minutes of peeling and deveining 18 GIANT shrimp. It was really gross and took forever. Next time I will ask the butcher to do it for me. I had peeled shrimp before, but never deveined. Yuck, yuck, yuck! The term "devein" is also wildly innaccurate, but I won't go into details.

Then I stir fried some snow peas with the shrimp and added some green onion when the shrimp were about half-way done. At the very end I dumped in a couple handfuls of mandarin oranges and lots of pineapple chunks. The mandarin oranges are so delicate that as soon as I started stirring in the sesame ginger sauce (the recipe says salad dressing, but we had some leftover sesame ginger teriyaki sauce) the oranges disintegrated. There was not a whole orange to be found anywhere in the finished product. Next time I will add the oranges last and not allow any stirring of any kind. Or maybe I will just place oranges on top after it is already plated.

The final product was pretty good. I wish the oranges had stayed whole and that I had put fewer oranges in. The orangey-ness was a little much for me. Brett liked the orange mush all over the place though. My favorite part, by far, was the shrimp. All that work to get them cleaned up and ready to go turned out to be mostly worth it... but I'm still never deveining my own shrimp again!

Unwrapped Bacon Scallops

2010-08-28T06:17:00.000-07:00

When we jumped off the vegetarian wagon, we really jumped off. This past week, in addition to a chicken, we bought scallops, shrimp, and ... bacon! Just two slices of the thick cut bacon from the butcher counter at Whole Foods, but it still counts.

Lately, I've been coming up empty handed with my Simple and Delicious magazine. More than lately. It had been three or four issues since anything even vaguely caught my eye. But this last issue, I found three things to try and they all were successes to varying degrees. We'll start with the biggest success: Unwrapped Bacon Scallops.

I had never made scallops before. I had only ever had a couple of bites of scallops off of Brett's plate (the grilled scallops at Legal Seafood are great). Brett is a big fan of scallops. As an elementary student he proudly proclaimed scallops his favorite food when all of his peers were saying pizza and burgers. So he was excited to try making our own, and a little nervous about it too.

I chopped up the bacon, sauteed it, and then set it aside to drain and crisp up a bit. I reserved a little bit of the bacon grease and cooked some onion, zucchini, and garlic in that. I didn't like that the onion cooked much faster than the zucchini. Next time I will put the zucchini in first and then add the onions and garlic. When that was almost done I scooted it to the outer edges of the pan, added the scallops, and sprinkled them with salt, paprika, and fresh thyme. The recipe called for seafood seasoning, but I didn't want to invest in a big can.

We let the scallops cook for almost three minutes on one side and then flipped them and let them cook for another two minutes.

How's this for a pretty plate? You all know I'm terrible at presentation ... so naturally, this is Brett's handiwork. I love the bacon sprinkled around the edge :)

It tasted great! We will definitely make this again.

Off the Wagon

2010-08-19T10:12:00.000-07:00

Our vegetarianism morphed into what we called "at-home vegetarianism." This means that when we were on vacation, at a restaurant, or eating at someone else's house, we ate whatever we wanted, which many times, included meat. Our home however, had been consistently meat free since March...until recently. I decided that we needed to occasionally eat meat, so we went to Whole Foods and bought a chicken. The packaging said that it was raised by the Amish, and I have a hard time imagining the Amish mistreating their animals, so I deemed it acceptable meat to consume.

I stuffed the chicken with thyme, garlic, and lemons, rubbed it with butter, and sprinkled it with salt and pepper. It smelled wonderful and tasted fabulous. I was feeling ok with our decision to occasionally have meat in our house...until we turned on the T.V. I found it very ironic that the show we found ourselves watching, The Fabulous Beekman Boys on Planet Green, featured city guys turned farmers who just happened to be slaughtering their pigs in the episode we caught. They did it humanely, and those pigs lived very good "piggy" lives, but it was still sad. The guys in the show were crying, I was crying, and the chicken that I was stuffing into my mouth started to taste a little less delicious. It is hard for me not to think about the animal that died so that I could have a meal.

I don't know if this was a sign that we should stick with vegetarianism a little longer, or if it was just a reminder to be grateful for the animals we eat and respect their lives as much as possible. I just couldn't believe the timing! (The show is great, by the way. You should watch it if you get the chance!)

We intend to limit our meat to one chicken a month. I can come to grips with that. Afterall, the leftovers did feed us for an entire week! The chicken most certainly was not wasted.

Orzo with Chick Peas

2010-06-12T06:12:00.000-07:00

We loved the Lemon Orzo Soup so much that we thought we should find another orzo recipe. It didn't take me long to find this recipe for Orzo with Chick Peas on Food Network's website. I debated whether or not to tell Brett that it's a Rachael Ray recipe, since he hates her with a passion, but a few of our stand-by favorites are hers so I figured he would be ok with it.

It has a lot of ingredients that just jumped out at me: orzo, red onion, garlic, zucchini, chick peas, and feta cheese. Yum, yum, yum, yum , yum, yum. I did leave out the mint and parsley, mainly because I don't like buying a big thing of herbs that I'm just going to use a tiny bit of. It was extremely easy to throw together, as I would expect of Rachael Ray. And before Brett could finish making the hummus, I was done!

I was worried about over-salting because Feta Cheese is already so salty and I probably ended up under-salting as a result. Any bite that had Feta was perfect, but the bites that were heavier on chick peas were a little bland. So my solution was just to make sure I had Feta in every bite! This was a tasty and easy side-dish that I'm sure we will make again.

Refrigerator Potato Bread

2010-06-06T06:20:00.000-07:00

Brett and I are always looking for new bread recipes to try, so when Brett received Beard on Bread by James Beard for his birthday, we were immediately excited to get baking. When confronted with a new cookbook it is a little overwhelming so we decided to tempt fate and just open the book and make the first recipe we saw. This happened to be Refrigerator Potato Bread.

We got off to a bad start. I put the yeast, warm water, and ALL the sugar in the bowl, and then realized that I was only supposed to add some of the sugar. We waited to see if the yeast would bubble anyway, but it didn't, so we threw it out. Oops!

Brett took over and got the sugar measurement correct, only he let it proof for 15 minutes instead of 5. We got distracted and didn't set a timer. Oops again!

While Brett mixed in the rest of the ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, salt, and eggs) I whipped up some mashed potatoes using some potato flakes that we've had in the cupboard forever. I couldn't believe that Beard says that it is okay to use potato flakes! Then Brett started adding flour to form a stiff dough.

Instead of rising like usual, this bread goes directly into the fridge overnight. The next day when we took it out it looked pretty much the same. Punching it down was like punching play-do. At this point I was worried, but we moved ahead. Brett formed it into a loaf and then we let it rise our traditional way for 4 hours.

This time it did rise, so I stopped worrying.

It baked beautifully and tasted wonderful!

Birthday Cake!

2010-05-26T17:32:00.001-07:00

Amidst all of this May busy-ness I had a birthday! Brett woke up early and baked the cake so it would be nice and cool when we returned from our day out on the town. My least favorite part of cake decorating is trying to get the icing perfectly smooth so Brett did that part while I piped pink roses. Then I did my trademark basketweave around the sides of the cake and piped the words. It's a little weird writing "Happy Birthday" to yourself, but I'm a firm believer that the birthday cake should have a name on it.

For the finishing touches, Brett added tiny purple flowers made by a special tip that I just can't figure out how to use. He's just got the magic touch I guess.

And after a short stint in the freezer, I placed the roses all over.

The cake turned out beautifully and tasted great too!

Sweet and Spicy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

2010-05-23T06:56:00.000-07:00

Wow! I cannot believe that it has been a full month since I last posted! Between a new, full-time job, two sets of visitors, and the always busy month of May, I just didn't have a spare moment to blog. But enough excuses, I will try to do better!

One of our new favorite recipes was adapted from an Elie Krieger recipe called Sweet and Spicy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches. Her recipe calls for tomatoes, which we immediately eliminated.

What her recipe doesn't call for (and I decided to add on a crazy whim) is a thin layer of apricot jelly. Sounds weird but it is so good.

So first I thinly sliced half of a red onion and sauteed it in a teeny tiny bit of canola oil.

While that was going I spread butter on one side of each slice of bread, sliced up A LOT of pepper jack cheese, and spread some apricot jelly on the inside of half of the bread slices. Then I put the sandwiches together.

I wiped out the onion pan and used it to grill my sandwiches. There's no sense in dirtying a new pan! Since there is not melting cheese holding one side of bread on, you have to be very careful when flipping the sandwiches. I pretty much just hold it on with my hand until it's almost all the way flipped.

Then slice and eat!

The pepper jack cheese is pretty spicy (if it's too spicy just substitute a couple slices of cheddar but you have to leave a little bit of pepper jack otherwise there's no spicy in sweet and spicy!) And the apricot jelly and red onions add a wonderful sweetness that I just love! Sweet and spicy and very easy to make!

Lemon Soup with Orzo

2010-04-25T06:51:00.000-07:00

Brett and I tried a new recipe out of Elie Krieger's The Food You Crave. Of course we adapted it to be vegetarian, which just means that we swapped chicken broth for vegetable broth and left out the chicken. We also left out the celery because Brett does not want celery anywhere near his food.

I sauteed some chopped onion, carrot and fresh thyme in some olive oil until the veggies got tender and then I added all of the broth. About one minute later I realized that I wasn't supposed to add all the broth so I dipped a measuring cup in the pot and then strained it into another measuring cup. Oops!

Orzo is great! I'd only had it a couple of times, but I had never cooked with it before. It looks like rice, but is actually pasta. I poured some orzo into the pot and let that cook.

When the orzo was almost done, I took that reserved liquid and heated it up in the microwave. Now for the weird part... I beat an egg, whisked in some lemon juice, and then gradually whisked in the hot vegetable broth to temper the egg. This mixture got added to the pot of soup and acted as a thickener. Just make sure that the soup doesn't come to a boil.

Admittedly, it is not the prettiest soup in the world (although Elie Krieger's is quite lovely.) I think that the brown vegetable broth instead of golden chicken broth kind of ugly-ed this dish up. But to me, all that matters is the taste, and it was anything but "tan"! The main flavor was lemon, but I think the fresh thyme is what really made this soup wonderful. The orzo also gave great texture. Yum! We liked it so much that we decided to make it again the next night for my parents who came all the way across the country to see us! And we will definitely be making it again in the near future.

Broccoli Cheese Stuffed Potatoes

2010-04-10T06:11:00.000-07:00

We're trying to eat more vegetables. It's a constant battle for us because we want to eat healthy but we just don't really like vegetables. I've been that way my whole life. I remember as a kid I would eat broccoli, but only if it was absolutely doused in melted Velveeta "cheese". Don't even get me started on Velveeta. Any cheese that doesn't need to be refrigerated and can be found on the cracker aisle, is not cheese.

We've also been watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and got a HUGE kick out of last week's episode when the school district's lunch nutrition enforcer declared that even though there were 7 different vegetables in his veggie noodle stir fry, he needed more vegetables on the tray, and then she suggested adding some french fries to reach the vegetable quota! French fries are not vegetables! Potatoes in general should not count as vegetables; they are a starch and should be placed in the same category as breads and grains. At least that's how we view them... and we are not experts.

All that talk about potatoes made me hungry for them (that should be another clue that they're not a vegetable!) I've had bad luck with baked potatoes in the past, but I decided to go with a new method that I found in Rachael Ray's Veggie Meals: poke them with a fork and microwave for 8 minutes. Then wrap them in foil and throw them into a 450 degree oven for 20 minutes. This method worked beautifully!

While the potatoes were baking, I whipped up the broccoli by steaming the florets in 1/3 cup of water for 5 minutes. It also turned out beautifully!

Last came the cheese sauce. I melted 1 T of butter then sauteed about half of a small onion (the recipe called for a shallot) until it was soft. Next I added 1 T of flour, then I added 1 cup of veggie stock and let it thicken. Finally, a HUGE gob of grated cheddar cheese made it's way into the pot. The steamed broccoli gets stirred around into the sauce and then it all gets poured over the split baked potato.

I loved these potatoes. Yes, it is an unsettling amount of cheese... but at least it's not Velveeta. And there's broccoli in there! I even ate the skin of the potato, which I usually don't do... that's how amazing this sauce is!

Peanut Butter Criss- Cross Cookies

2010-04-02T06:16:00.000-07:00

One time when we were at Brett's parents' house, Brett's mom passed out some cookies that did not have the fork criss-cross in them. They were tasty and obviously peanut butter cookies and so we all laughed when Brett's dad said something along the lines of, "These are good. What kind of cookie are they?"

"Peanut butter!" We replied.

"But they don't have the criss-cross!" We thought it was funny that the criss-cross is so closely associated with peanut butter cookies that if a cookie doesn't have it, it must not be peanut butter!

This is a super classic recipe that everyone can instantly recognize mainly because of that fork-pressed criss-cross. Brett practically lives off of peanut butter, so of course he loves these cookies.

Since we are on a big maple syrup kick, I decided to substitute 1/4 cup of sugar with 1/4 cup of maple syrup. I instantly regretted doing this because real maple syrup is not cheap, and the peanut butter totally (obviously) is the star of the show. The maple flavor was lost in this batter.

As I was making these cookies I was trying to talk to my mom at the same time and actually forgot to criss-cross one batch. Do they still look like peanut butter cookies to you?

No? Perhaps these then:

Peanut Butter Criss- Cross Cookies

1 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 and 1/2 cup flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

In a large bowl, cream together peanut butter, butter, and sugars until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

Add to creamed mixture.

Roll into 1 inch balls. Flatten with fork first one way and then cross the other way.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

Crescent Zucchini and Squash Pie

2010-03-27T06:50:00.000-07:00

When I told Brett that we were trying a new recipe called "Crescent Zucchini and Squash Pie" he was anything but enthusiastic. In fact he was probably dreading it. But, we both agree that, despite the name, this recipe turned out to be really tasty!

I got this recipe from Simple and Delicious magazine several months ago and just now got around to trying it. I think I was scared of it. The reason I chose it is because it has crescent rolls, lots of cheese, and probably the most inoffensive vegetable around.

I started by cutting up an onion and lots of zucchini and yellow squash. This all got sauteed with some butter until they got tender.

Then I spread crescent roll dough out into the bottom of a pie plate. This was not as easy as the recipe makes it seem. And because of my deep hatred of mustard, I left it out. I also forgot to grease the pan, but this turned out to not be that big of a problem. Even low-fat crescents seem to have enough grease.

Then I grated a gob of Jack and Mozzarella cheese and mixed it with 2 eggs, salt, pepper, and dried basil. I left out the parsley flakes and dried oregano because I think they smell weird.

Once the zucchini mixture had cooled a little bit, I mixed it in with the cheese mixture, and then poured it into the pie plate.

It baked at 375 degrees for 25 minutes and then needed to go a little bit longer because it was still a little soupy. I had to cover the "crust" edges with foil so they wouldn't burn.

The final product was really good. The only problem was that the crescent rolls in the middle of the pie plate were still a little doughy. This dish was a little rich and lasted us two nights. I think next time I might put less salt too.

Vermont Maple Syrup

2010-03-22T06:45:00.000-07:00

I've always been a Log Cabin Syrup girl. It is maple flavored corn syrup and I think it's yummy. However, I know that it is completely fake and therefore felt the need to try the real thing. Brett and I knew that moving to New England would eventually involve a maple syrup expedition to Vermont and the time finally came last weekend.

Maple syrup runs from late February to early April when the temperature gets above freezing during the day but still drops below at night. We missed this target by a little bit considering that it was in the high 60's on the day that we went. We also missed the boiling demonstration at Harlow's Sugar House by an hour or so.

But we did not miss the tasting. They had four grades of maple syrup: Vermont Fancy, Grade A Medium Amber, Grade A Dark Amber, and Grade B. We started with the lightest (Vermont Fancy) and made our way to the darkest (Grade B). They get progressively stronger in flavor and by the time we got to Grade B it tasted almost like molasses. We decided on a bigger jug of the Grade A Medium Amber, a tiny jug of Vermont Fancy, and some maple candies for Brett's mom.

Of course, we had pancakes the following day.

The syrup was much thinner than Log Cabin and it soaked into the pancakes very quickly. The flavor was awesome. It was milder than I'm used to, but so REAL. And that's a good thing.

Potato and Fennel Ravioli

2010-03-17T08:05:00.000-07:00

Over the rainy weekend Brett and I decided to make homemade ravioli again. The last time we made it we had to hand roll the pasta dough and it ended up being too thick. This time we had our pasta machine to help with the rolling (although it is not an easy process) and we decided to go with a roasted veggie filling.

I had seen a recipe with potato and fennel filling, but they were boiled. I wanted the extra flavor from roasting. I cut up a couple of red potatoes, one very small onion, and one fennel bulb, and threw in two cloves of garlic. I drizzled everything with olive oil, sprinkled salt and pepper, and baked them for 1 hour in a 350 degree oven. I was taking a big risk here because neither of us had ever had roasted fennel before. But when it came out of the oven we both tasted it and actually liked it!

I pureed the roasted veggies in my mini food processor which did not go well at all. It made a really sticky, thick mess and somehow got up inside the blade holder and down onto the base. I have no idea how, but it was a mess to clean up.

Brett was in charge of making the pasta dough. After I ruined it the last time we tried, he has forever earned the job of pasta maker in our household. We decided to go with the second thinnest setting because our filling was pretty thick.

With the sheets all rolled, I began scooping tiny balls onto the pasta dough using the squares on our rolling mat as a guideline.

I brushed egg wash onto the edges and between the balls and then covered it all with another, slightly larger, pasta sheet. I pressed carefully and tried to push out most of the air. Then I used a pastry cutter to cut the ravioli apart. They were so cute!

We boiled them for a few minutes even though they rose to the top almost immediately. I have no idea how to tell if they were over or under-cooked.

Since Brett is picky about his sauces, we dressed them simply with butter and parmesan cheese. They tasted very good! We decided that the dough could have been a little bit thinner.

The next day we made ravioli again because we had a lot of leftover filling. We did make thinner sheets, however the sheets were too thin and unmanageable at times. We need an in between setting!

Bad, Worse, and I Can't Believe That's Dinner

2010-03-12T06:52:00.000-08:00

The past couple of weeks as an official vegetarian have gone surprisingly well, but not without a couple of hiccups. I ordered French Onion Soup at Panera Bread and was half way through the bowl before I realized that it was most likely made with beef broth. I also couldn't resist sharing a shrimp tempura maki roll at Ginger Pad (our favorite restaurant in the area.) Brett has also modified his status to "at-home vegetarian" because they cater lunches at his workplace quite often and because all the best things on restaurant menus contain meat.

I have tried a few "vegetarian" recipes out of vegetarian cookbooks that I either own or checked out at the library and I've got to say, "YUCK, YUCK, YUCK!"

First we have Sweet Potato and Black Bean Stew. It didn't help that the sweet potatoes were a little crunchy, or that the jar of Pace was not appealing to me. The best part of this was the cornbread that went on top. We attempted to eat leftovers and failed miserably.

Then we tried Potato Medley which was so bad that I either deleted the pictures or was too horrified to even take pictures. Potatoes were cooked in oil with some green pepper, broccoli, and peas. It was under-seasoned so I kept adding salt and it was still under-seasoned. I just gave up and decided that it was not good. The leftovers are still in the fridge a week later. I think they will be headed for the trash now.

Most terrible of all (although Brett would probably vote for the Potato Medley) was the black bean burgers. As I was making this the words, "What have I done?" kept crossing through my mind. I pulsed some black beans in my mini food processor and then mixed that with some bread crumbs and green chiles. To say that it didn't look very appetizing would be an understatement.

It was nearly impossible to form this pile of ... goo into patties because it was so moist and sticky, but I managed and then coated them in cornmeal.

They went into a non-stick pan and actually did begin to resemble burgers.

Except I didn't have any buns.

Brett threw his on sliced bread and actually ate two! I got one down and made it about halfway through the second one before I had to stop. The leftovers immediately went in the trash, and you KNOW how much it pains me to throw food away.

Better luck next time!

It's Still Just Oatmeal

2010-03-09T06:52:00.000-08:00

I've been hearing about steel-cut oats for a while now. They are more nutritious than rolled oats, have a more firm texture, and I had heard that they taste better too. I'm not a big fan of oatmeal. I will eat it, but that doesn't mean that I like it. It is mushy and slimy and doesn't taste good without brown sugar. I guess I thought that steel cut oats would magically not taste like oatmeal. I don't know how I delude myself into these ideas.

It's still just oatmeal!

Slimy, mushy oatmeal.

I had made a big pot, and after choking down a small bowl I seriously considered throwing the leftovers away. But if it's remotely edible I will not throw anything away, so into the fridge it went. And, surprisingly, the next day it was much better. It had firmed up and lost some of it's slime. The texture felt kind of like rice pudding. I almost enjoyed it. But it was still just oatmeal.

Bottom line: If you like oatmeal then you'll probably like steel-cut oats. If you don't like oatmeal, don't expect any miracles, you probably won't like steel-cut oats.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

2010-03-03T06:23:00.000-08:00

When I finished reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan I was overwhelmed. There is so much information and emotion wrapped up in that book to adequately cover in a blog post, so I will only give you a few highlights, with my strong recommendation that you read it yourself. If you are at all interested in food, eating, the environment, or the moral implications of our decisions, you will find this book intriguing and enlightening.

As the menu planner and primary grocery shopper in my home, I am having a hard time doing those jobs in my post Omnivore’s Dilemma life. Michael Pollan forces us to think before we eat. I am fairly certain that this was the goal of the book- to make Americans think about where our food comes from. Here’s a hint: “the grocery store” is not the correct answer.

The correct answer is generally (but not always) “farms.” But not all farms are created equal. Most use chemical fertilizers and pesticides that strip the soil of its natural nutrients and poison the water supply. Some farms are “organic” by USDA standards (which some might consider too lenient) and still fewer are “organic” in a more traditional sense. Industry and fossil fuels have infiltrated just about everything we eat, from fruits, veggies, and grains, to beef, pork, and poultry. Industry has interfered with natural processes to turn a profit. Instead of cows grazing on ample pastures for a couple of years before being slaughtered, cows are fattened with corn over five months on a crowded feedlot. And the beautiful grasslands they used to graze on are transformed into more cornfields to fatten livestock and (unbeknownst to some of us) humans. It is more cost efficient for companies to raise livestock faster on less land, but the moral, environmental, and public health costs are often not considered. It needs to become profitable to raise crops and animals through healthy, natural methods and the only way this will happen is if people express demand for these products (or conversely, lack of demand in irresponsibly raised products.)

So how has this affected my grocery shopping?

I’ve stopped buying meat. I cannot endorse a system that crushes the true spirit of the livestock or that grossly pollutes the planet that I love and live on. This may be a temporary state of vegetarianism until I find a responsible local farmer, but even if or when that happens I know that I do not need to eat meat every day.

I’ve started buying some organic foods. Even though most organic foods that you’ll find in the store are what Pollan calls “industrial organic” he considers them a step above regular foods simply because that is a patch of land that does not have chemical fertilizers or pesticides on it. Apples are the number one fruit that we buy, so now I buy organic apples for twenty cents extra per pound. Call me crazy (Brett does) but I feel like they taste better! I also bought some Stonyfield organic yogurt on sale for cheaper than Yoplait! I love the packaging!

I’m still researching the best eggs and milk to buy. I just can’t bring myself to pay twice as much for organic milk if I’m not sure that my regular milk cows are being mistreated. As for eggs, I stood in front of the egg section for ten minutes trying to figure out what would be best. Cage-free? Organic? Vegetarian fed? I went with cage-free because I hated the image of laying hens crammed six to a cage so they can’t even move. According to the book, chickens left to their own devises like to eat grubs, so that’s why I didn’t go with vegetarian fed. I’m just not sure if that was the right decision.

The bottom line is: Read The Omnivore’s Dilemma! It will make you think about what you eat, pay attention to food in new ways, and seek change in this country’s agricultural habits.

Breakfast Burritos

2010-03-01T08:05:00.000-08:00

Officially becoming a vegetarian has prompted me to think of new, tasty ways to get protein into my body. Truthfully, I probably wasn't getting enough protein anyway, but because my mom gave me a distinctly worried look when I told her about my plans to go vegetarian and because I love being responsible, I'm paying more attention to my protein intake.

Beans and eggs are two tasty, protein-rich options that so obviously lead to breakfast burritos. I've only had a breakfast burrito once, when I was tailgating at a Chargers game, but it was very good. I tweaked the formula just a little- subtract bacon, add pinto beans. And instead of eating them for breakfast, of course, we ate them for dinner.

The pinto beans were my favorite part. I sauteed some garlic in a little bit of olive oil, added a can of drained, rinsed pinto beans, and added a few shakes each of chili powder and cumin. Soooo good.

Brett decided to improvise homemade hashbrowns. He grated a potato, dried it off, and threw it in some hot oil. It was going pretty well... until the smoke alarm went off. We were on such a good streak too! I think it had been three or four months since it had gone off. When the hashbrowns were finished, they were very oily, but with a little bit of salt they tasted amazingly like the triangle hashbrowns they used to serve in the cafeteria my freshman year of college. Next time we'll probably just use the frozen kind, or research a few recipes.

I grated Jack cheese while Brett scrambled a few eggs.

Then we loaded up our tortillas. Mine closed up nicely, even though I forgot the salsa at first.

Brett's was a monster and wouldn't even close!

Vegetarian Adventure

2010-02-22T07:00:00.001-08:00

I've been wanting to try being a vegetarian for a couple of years now and we are finally doing it... starting Wednesday. We have some meatballs in the freezer that we need to get rid of first.

I think we've gradually been heading in this direction because we stopped eating beef a long time ago, we don't eat meat every night, and we rarely eat big hunks of meat. This choice does eliminate a few favorites from our meal rotation and calls for some substitutions in others, but I think we can do it.

There are many reasons why people become vegetarians, but for me it is the mistreatment of farm animals. When I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle last year my eyes were opened about the treatment of mass-produced turkeys. Turkeys are bred to have huge breasts, but they get so huge so fast that they can't even mate naturally. Similarly, chickens (as I saw on Oprah recently) get so big so fast that their legs can't even hold up their bodies, so they have no choice but to just sit in their own filth.

Cows are a whole different, horrible story. Right now I'm reading The Omnivore's Dilemma (which I will post about when I'm completely finished) and I just finished the chapter on factory farms. I knew it was bad, but I had no idea how bad. The cows are forced to eat corn when their bodies are naturally evolved to eat grass. This makes them sick, so they are also fed antibiotics. The herbivorous cows are also sometimes fed beef tallow (for fat) and chicken, pig, and fish meal (for protein.) They also stand and sleep in huge piles of their own waste. I could go on, but I won't. If there's anything I could encourage you to stop eating, it would be corn-fed beef.

We are still going to consume milk, cheese, and eggs, which has got me feeling a little hypocritical because I know some of those animals are mistreated too, but I can't give up those things. We've agreed to buy free-range eggs and become more aware of where our milk comes from and how those cows are treated.

I'm viewing this as a fun, new project and I'm hoping that it will work out. If you have any tips on being a vegetarian I would be happy to hear them! One great thing is that this choice won't interfere with dessert!

Orange Shrimp with Rice

2010-02-17T06:53:00.000-08:00

I love it when I find a recipe that both Brett and I agree is a keeper. I found this recipe in the latest issue of Simple and Delicious magazine and they aren't kidding around; it really is simple and delicious!

I halved the recipe, but I will include the whole recipe here.

Cook rice.

Mix 1/2 a cup of orange juice with 1/4 tsp of cornstarch, 1/4 tsp of salt, and 2 T of fresh torn basil.

Saute 1 lb of raw shrimp (I took the tails off for faster consumption) and 2 cloves of garlic in 1 T butter and 1 T olive oil.

When the shrimp turn pink, stir in the orange juice mixture and let it thicken for about 1 minute.

Serve over rice.

Sooooo easy! All that probably took 10 minutes. And the best part is that it's really yummy. I've never really enjoyed fresh basil all that much, but it was fantastic in this. The orange flavor was very subtle and the garlic is so good. We will definitely be making this one again.

Sour Cherry Coffee Cake

2010-02-12T07:02:00.000-08:00

Foolin' Around in the Kitchen is officially two years old! Thanks to everyone who reads my little blog!

In celebration of my "blogiversary" and Valentine's Day, I made a Sour Cherry Coffee Cake from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. This recipe has several steps but turned out very tasty.

I mixed up the batter and poured half of it in the bottom of a greased angel food cake pan (or as Martha calls it- a tube pan.) Then I placed cherries on top of the batter so that none were touching the pan. The rest of the batter went on top of that.

Then I had to make the streusel topping which turned out to be a little more complicated than I anticipated. Martha only includes a recipe that will make 4 cups of streusel and I only wanted 1 cup, so I had to fourth everything. You all know how sometimes halving things can go badly in my kitchen, so I made sure to write everything down. I ended up with some eighths and sixteenths but all in all it went well.

I sprinkled the streusel on top (it seemed like way too much but I went with it) and then put it in the oven.

When it came out of the oven it was not done, so I let it go five more minutes and it still wasn't done, so I let it go four more minutes and it was good enough. I declared it done.

After cooling for 15 minutes I inverted it onto a cooling rack with a baking sheet underneath just as Martha prescribed. Martha's a smart lady. Probably half of the streusel came off when I plopped the cake upside down onto the cooling rack. Then I carefully turned it back over with my hands.

I couldn't let all that topping go to waste, so I tried to scoop it up and put it back on top.

When the cake was completely cool I mixed up some milk glaze (1 cup powdered sugar and 2 T milk) and drizzled it all over the cake.

The cake was very good! I was a little worried about those cherries being too tart, but the cake is so sweet that it balances it out. The cherry bites are my favorite.

Apple Pancakes with Cider Syrup

2010-02-08T08:14:00.000-08:00

Brett and I used to make pancakes all the time back in college. I pour and he flips. It's a great way to start the day. However, as much as we love breakfast foods, we rarely make them for breakfast. This was more of an afternoon snack for us.

This recipe is mostly based on a recipe in the Jan/Feb issue of Simple and Delicious magazine except that I refuse to use "complete pancake mix." I mixed up our usual pancake batter and added a little cinnamon while Brett grated up a Granny Smith apple to add to the batter.

Then I got to work on homemade syrup. This stuff is incredible! You've got to try it! In a small saucepan combine 1/2 cup sugar, 1T cornstarch, 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg.

Then add in 1 cup of apple cider (preferably not expired) or apple juice.

Can you believe they still had this on the shelf? I bought it on Feb 1! I didn't even think to check the date on it. No wonder it tasted a little off. Live and learn.

Stir until it's all mixed and then turn on the burner to medium and keep stirring. When it's thick and bubbly turn the heat down to low, stir for a couple more minutes and then add 2 T of butter and 1 T of lemon juice. I kind of goofed up and added those last two ingredients immediately after lowering the heat and it didn't seem to matter. When the butter is all melted, remove it from the heat and let it sit while you cook the pancakes.

The grated apple gave the pancakes a mushier texture. Brett and I both agreed that next time we would just make regular pancakes. There's no need for the grated apple. The syrup is what makes these pancakes awesome!

I poured the syrup into a liquid measuring cup so we would have more control over pouring. I do have a fancy little syrup pourer somewhere in the storage closet. Maybe next time I'll think ahead and get it out.

This one is definitely a keeper!

Creme Caramel

2010-02-03T11:31:00.000-08:00

A while back I received a cute little cookbook called "Easy Desserts". Upon glancing through, I noticed that there were a lot of recipes that called for vanilla bean, so I promptly added vanilla beans to my Christmas list. Like saffron, that falls into the category of, "It would be nice to have, but I'm not going to buy it." Brett's mom (again) indulged my eccentric wish list.

With a tube of vanilla beans in my hand, I went through the cookbook again and found a beautiful picture of creme caramel. I call it flan. Or at least that's what the picture looks like to me. Maybe they are completely different (which would explain a lot.) Brett and I love flan. We ordered it regularly at El Torito where, we believe, the best flan on Earth resides. (We have tried more "authentic" flans but have a special place in our hearts for El Torito's version.) Unfortunately the nearest El Torito is 3,000 miles away now, so we attempted to make our own.

I split the vanilla bean and scraped out the seeds and put everything into a saucepan of milk over medium heat.

I cracked five eggs and put Brett in charge of the caramel sauce.

Here is where I have a problem with "Easy Desserts." I think they left important information out of the recipe to make it appear easier. There were very little instructions about heating the sugar, water, and salt. No temperature. No high/medium/low heat instructions. Simply a color: "deep caramel color". It says to take it off the heat when it reaches this color and wait until it stops sizzling. We quickly realized that if we waited till it stopped sizzling it was going to be totally burnt. So Brett just poured the sizzling REALLY deep caramel colored liquid into the custard cups. He also poured boiling water into the baking dish for a water bath.

I added some sugar and salt to the milk mixture and then gradually whisked it into the eggs.

Brett poured the custard into the custard cups and then we baked them.

Again there were some missing instructions. We weren't sure what to do after baking them. All the recipe said was "serve at room temperature." We opted to remove them from the water bath and let them cool on a cooling rack.

They smelled great so I ate mine before it came to room temperature. I cut around the edge and flopped it onto a plate. It was not centered at all.

Brett got his in the center, but it caved in somehow.

The tasting was jarring. The caramel sauce looked perfect, but was way too bitter. Overdone. Near burnt. I poured my sauce off into the sink and focused on the custard. Brett followed suit. The custard was a little eggy. And despite all of that precious vanilla, it was bland. It needed to be sweeter.

We looked at the six custard cups left and briefly discussed throwing them out. Instead I covered them with plastic wrap and put them in the fridge. They were not at all a satisfying dessert like we had hoped, but they were edible.

The next day, I was surprised to find that they were much better cold. Again, not really a satisfying dessert, but better.

I can say definitively that we will never make this dessert again.

When all the little custards were gone I indulged Brett's request and made some wonderfully sweet and satisfying chocolate chip cookies.

Saffron Rice

2010-01-30T08:18:00.000-08:00

For about the past year I have started putting food items on my Christmas list. They are usually things that I can't find or that I want but wouldn't spend my own money on. For my birthday last year, Brett's mom was kind enough to indulge my eccentric wish list by getting me some saffron. This is one of the most expensive spices out there (more expensive than silver by weight!) so I definitely was not going to buy it myself. And I wasn't going to use it frivolously either.

I saw Giada making saffron rice on TV a while back and actually wrote down the entire recipe while I watched the show. I stumbled across the recipe as we were straightening up around the apartment recently, and decided that it would be a great way to use saffron for the first time.

I cooked some bacon (the recipe called for pancetta but I already had bacon on hand) and then poured the drippings into a pot along with 1/2 a T of butter. That's what Giada did on TV even though the online recipe says to discard the drippings. I sauteed a chopped Spanish onion until it was soft and translucent.

I had never used basmati rice but the package said "aromatic" so of course the first thing I did when I opened the package was smell it. Unfortunately my first thought was "dog food." But I decided that I would use it anyway and poured it in with the onions and stirred it around until the grains started to brown just a tiny bit.

I poured in a box of chicken stock, less salt than the recipe called for, and a precious pinch of saffron. I put the lid on and let it simmer away. The recipe said to let it cook for 20 minutes, but I'm so thankful that I'm a hovering cook because I checked on it in five minute intervals. I was surprised that all the liquid was absorbed and the rice was cooked after only 10 minutes!

I was so excited to try it that I forgot to put the bacon crumbles on top! It was delicious! About half way through my meal I remembered my bacon, but I actually preferred it without. The bacon taste is so strong that it overpowers the rice. Brett liked it too, which is a good thing because we ended up with a TON of leftovers. Next time I will half the recipe and use an olive oil/butter combo instead of messing with bacon.

Dinner Rolls

2010-01-26T08:02:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since I have been 100% happy with a new recipe, but I've got to toot my own horn on this one. I have discovered the most perfect dinner rolls ever! Of course this recipe came from Taste of Home's Baking Book, which is where most of our bread recipes come from. The recipe will make 24 rolls, so I halved it. I even wrote out all the ingredients already halved on a sticky note and placed it over the the ingredient list in the book so I wouldn't accidently look at the wrong list.

2 1/4 tsp yeast (1 packet)

1/2 tsp sugar and 1/6 cup sugar

1/4 cup warm water (110-115 degrees)

5/8 cup warm milk (110-115 degrees)

1/4 cup melted and cooled butter

3/4 tsp salt

1 egg

3 1/4 cups all purpose flour

How could I possibly mess something up? Well, I swapped the milk and the water. So instead of 1/4 cup of water it ended up being 5/8 cup of water. I was worried from the beginning that I had messed up, but it turned out not to be a big deal. I dissolved the yeast and 1/2 tsp of sugar in the water and then added the milk, butter, salt, the rest of the sugar, the egg, and half the flour. I mixed that with a fork until it was pretty smooth and then I added the rest of the flour. Then I got to kneading. Usually I knead until all the flour is thoroughly absorbed. This time I kneaded for the full six minutes that the recipe called for. Maybe this is what made the difference. I can't say for sure, but I know in the future that I will knead for however long the recipe tells me to.

Our method for rising is simple. The dough goes in a greased bowl covered in foil. We put the dough in the off oven with a pan of hot water underneath for about an hour. It works really well.

When the dough had doubled in size I punched it down and tried to divide it equally into twelve pieces. These pieces were formed into balls by pulling the dough down into a little nub at the bottom. It's kind of like a balloon: smooth and round on top, with a little nub on the bottom. The balls went nub side down into a greased 9x13 pan.

I let them rise again and then uncovered and baked them for 20 minutes in a 375 degree oven and they came out PERFECT! So incredibly perfect. I went on and on about them all through dinner. And I'm not crazy because Brett loved them too and he even gave me a, "Good job," which is high praise from him.

We will definitely see these again, but maybe next time I won't mix up the water and milk. Or maybe I will. Don't mess with a good thing, right?

Potato and Leek Pizza

2010-01-21T09:15:00.000-08:00

My parents gave me The Pioneer Woman's cookbook for Christmas and I've just now gotten around to trying one of the recipes. I first went through the cookbook when I was super hungry and EVERYTHING looked good, but later when I went through on a more discerning stomach I was surprised that the Potato and Leek Pizza is what jumped out at me the most. I guess I shouldn't be that surprised. Like an elementary school student, my favorite food is pizza.

Brett, of course, was wary. He wasn't sure if he liked leeks, and he definitely wasn't sure that potatoes belonged on pizza. I think bacon, and the fact that I had already purchased the ingredients, swayed him to agree.

We joked about what Brett's dad, who is a very traditional "Meat Lovers" pizza guy, would say. Since he can't even fathom pineapples on a pizza, this one would surely leave him flabbergasted.

Brett and I split duties. This is my favorite way to cook. There's less work and someone to keep you company. And it goes so much faster!

He was in charge of the bacon (I don't like the splattering.)

And as much as I love our mandoline, Brett is better at getting it to cooperate. He's figured out that if you don't attach the sliding hand grip to the mandoline that it works a lot better. He sliced the red potatoes as thin as the mandoline would allow.

I wanted to see if I could see through them. I could not.

I was in charge of the leeks, which needed chopping and washing. I sloshed the chopped leeks around in a bowl of water to get rid of all the dirt that gets trapped between the leaves. Brett was not the only one who got to use a fun kitchen gadget. I got to dry the leeks in the salad spinner!

I also mixed up a batch of our favorite pizza dough and sauteed the leeks in some of the bacon grease.

I was so excited to get started on constructing the pizza that I forgot two pretty important steps. I didn't poke the pizza crust with a fork so that it doesn't rise in the center and I didn't put the pizza peel under the dough before adding the toppings. But of course I didn't realize either of these at the time.

We drizzled olive oil, put a single layer of potato slices, and then sprinkled some salt all over the pizza.

Next came the mozzarella cheese, leeks, crumbled bacon, and fresh ground black pepper. Pioneer Woman also adds goat cheese and parmesan cheese, but we decided to leave those off. It looked so pretty!

Then we realized that we had forgotten the pizza peel and tried to shimmy it underneath without disturbing the toppings too much. One side of the pizza did end up a little balder than the other.

When it came out of the oven I realized that I had forgotten to poke holes in the dough. The center had risen up and spilled some cheese off onto the baking stone.

The final verdict was that we liked it. The texture of the potatoes was kind of weird at first, but not at all bad. Brett said the leeks were fine. I thought they were wonderful. And of course the bacon and cheese were the best parts. I did notice that this kind of pizza is more filling than a traditional pizza. I could only eat two pieces instead of my usual three. Overall it was a success!

Jalpeno-Potato Chowder

2010-01-18T09:40:00.000-08:00

The second recipe I tried out of my new vegetarian cookbook was Jalapeno-Potato Chowder.

I chopped up 1/2 a cup of onion and green bell pepper and cooked that in 3 T of butter for about 5 minutes.

I also chopped up 3 cups of potatoes and put those on to boil. I don't remember for how long, but I know that I tasted a crunchy one and let it go for a few minutes longer.

Now for the "chowder" part I added 3 T of flour to the onions and bell peppers and let that cook for about a minute and then gradually added in 2 and 1/2 cups of milk. I kind of lagged a little on the "stirring constantly" so the milk scalded a little on the bottom. Then I added corn, the drained potatoes, half of a minced jalapeno, some dried thyme, and some salt. After the parmesan cheese disaster with the risotto I was very careful about adding salt. Add a little, taste a little.

The chowder was ok on that first night. It was a little bland, so we kept adding salt until it was pretty good. What really surprised me was that it was very good for lunch the following day. It was thicker and had more flavor after sitting in the fridge overnight. So this one may be seen again, but it may be one of those make ahead meals.

Creamy Corn and Garlic Risotto

2010-01-14T07:15:00.000-08:00

Last week was a doozy. Car problems. Computer problems. Recipe problems. I'll assume that you are only interested in the recipe problems.

I got a couple of new cookbooks for Christmas, including a vegetarian cookbook that has been on my list for two years now. The first recipe I chose out of this new cookbook sounded delicious. How can I go wrong with corn, garlic, and risotto?

I chopped a lot of garlic, measured out my arborio rice, and got out the frozen corn. I brought a tiny bit of vegetable stock up to a boil and added the garlic, then the rice and then the corn. I added the rest of the broth a little bit at a time, until the rice was cooked through.

So far so good. I tasted it and thought, "Eh, not bad but it needs a little something. Probably salt. The parmesan cheese will add salt." Then I came to the last step: "Stir in cheeses and parsley." Well, lets just say that I made the mistake of using the stuff in the green canister. Jeffrey Steingarten would be appauled. I dumped in the entire 1/2 cup that the recipe called for. Not a little bit and then taste. The whole amount. It made the risotto way too salty. Almost inedible. I hate it when I know better, but I do what the recipe says anyway.

And I was so distracted about ruining dinner that I entirely forgot about the fresh chopped parsely I had waiting on the cutting board. Brett suggested that I could add it in tomorrow when I eat the leftover risotto for lunch. Like I'm eating that for lunch! Yuck!

French Onion Soup

2010-01-06T08:06:00.001-08:00

I have been wanting to make French Onion Soup for a very long time and now I have finally done it. I mostly used Pioneer Woman's recipe, but with one key change- I cooked the onions completely on the stovetop because I don't have an oven proof pot big enough for all those onions.

I sliced six yellow onions. I normally love chopping up an onion (as long as I'm using my trusty sharp knife.) But six? At first I was thinking that maybe this was a bad idea. The very first onion made my eyes start to water. As Zack Morris would say, "It was peeling onion day in Home-Ec."

But after I took a break, wiped my eyes, and blew my nose, I was good to go. I powered through all six onions while an entire stick of butter melted in my big pot.

I was a little worried when all those onions completely filled my pot, but with some careful stirring and lots of time they cooked down beautifully. I've put together a slideshow so you can watch the onions cook down.

The onions took about 45 minutes to start browning nicely. That's when I added the wine. It is pretty common knowledge that Brett and I don't drink. It's a personal choice that we think is healthy and cheap. We sometimes joke about all the money we've saved by not buying six dollar drinks. Anyways, we occasionally do get a bottle of wine as a gift and I always say that we'll cook with it sometime. Well this is the first time I have ever cooked with wine. This bottle of wine was particularly funny because, unbeknownst to the giver, this was the same wine that was served at our wedding, and from the same year too! I had to dig through a storage bin to find a corkscrew, but I got it open.

I added a cup and backed off. The smell that many wine drinkers probably love just smells like alcohol to me. I had a fleeting thought that I had just ruined dinner. After that cooked down for about five minutes I braved a taste of an onion and I actually liked it.

I added beef and chicken stock, two cloves of minced garlic, and a couple of dashes of Worcestershire sauce. This simmered for forty five minutes.

While that was simmering along I toasted some thin slices of bread under the broiler.

I had every intention of buying Gruyere cheese but couldn't believe that in the entire fancy cheese section of my store, there was not a single piece of Gruyere. None! So I went with Provolone.

I did add some salt to the finished soup. It just tasted like it needed something... and usually that means salt. The soup was much better than the blurry picture I've taken. It was very oniony- which for me is a good thing. However it was a little winey- which for me is a bad thing. Next time I will put less wine... or none at all. I haven't decided yet.

Leftovers were a disaster. I took the container out of the fridge to find a layer of butter congealed across the top. Soooooo unappetizing. Next time I will either make less so that I don't have to deal with leftovers or use significantly less butter. Or both.

Comfort and Joy- Mashed Potatoes and Mac and Cheese

2009-12-22T07:17:00.000-08:00

I got a new issue of Simple and Delicious magazine and I bet you can guess the theme..."Classic Comforts!" I usually find one or two recipes to try in each magazine but this time I found seven! The first two have been moderate successes, so I thought I would share them with you.

Recipe number one was "Crunchy Mashed Potatoes." I will admit that it had me at "1 and 1/2 cups cheddar french-fried onions." I love those things. This recipe was so easy that it actually came together too fast. I barely had time to get everything together. I also try to clean as I go and put away ingredients that I've already used (a habit of cooking in a small kitchen for five years) but there was not a second to spare. Once the three cups of chicken broth came to a boil it was non-stop action for all of 30 seconds. I'm not joking. I added 1 cup of milk, 1 pressed garlic glove, 1/4 tsp of pepper, 3 cups of potato flakes, and 1/4 cup sour cream and whisked until it was smooth. Then it went into a casserole dish, got sprinkled with the french -fried onions and 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese, and went under the broiler for about 1 minute. I didn't even have enough time to zap hot dogs in the microwave. Fancy dinner huh? I joke, but Brett was soooo happy to have hot dogs.

It tasted good, but Brett and I concluded that it needed butter. I also conferred with my mom (the queen of potato flakes) and she uses evaporated milk instead of regular, which adds creaminess.

The second recipe that I tried was called "Spirals and Cheese." This one used a lot of pots, which I don't like, but was very easy, which I do like. While 3 and 1/2 cups of rotini were cooking to just underdone, I melted 3 T of butter combined it with 3 T of flour and gradually added 3 cups of milk. When that had thickened after a couple of minutes, I added 2 cups of cheddar cheese, 1/2 a cup of parmesan cheese, and 1/2 tsp each of salt and pepper.

I drained the pasta, and poured it all back into the same pot and then added the cheese sauce. It was very thin. So thin that I thought I had done something wrong. I poured it all into a baking dish and crossed my fingers.

In yet another pot I melted 1 T of butter and added 1/2 cup of dry bread crumbs, 1/2 cup of cheddar cheese, and 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese. This only took about 10 seconds of stirring and then I sprinkled it all over the noodle mixture.

It went into the 400 degree oven for 20 minutes and came out perfect. It did taste good, but it was a little bland. We think it could have used some cajun seasoning or bacon... or both. Three pots and one casserole dish later I was starting to think how much I like Kraft macaroni and cheese.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Gingerbread House

2009-12-18T11:24:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend Brett started work on his gingerbread house. Sunday night he mixed up a double batch of dough.

Monday night he meticulously rolled, measured, and cut the walls, roof, and base of his house. Before baking he placed Jolly Ranchers in the window holes. When the cookies baked the Jolly Ranchers melted and formed translucent window panes. We were so excited that this technique worked! I think we had seen someone do it years ago on the Food Network and we finally got around to trying it. Don't try this without a Silpat; it would be a disaster! When everything cooled, the cookies and windows pulled right off without a hitch.

Wednesday night Brett whipped up some royal icing and got to work on construction. Compared to the measuring and baking, the construction was relatively fast- only 3 hours! We made a path out of M&M's, a door out of Hershey bar, and a gate/trellis/arbor/whatever-you-call-it out of candy canes. Brett also carefully piped little picket fences onto the Silpat. My only real contribution (because nibbling on M&M's and candy canes doesn't count) to this whole project was the little chimney made out of red M&M's.

We wanted the roof to be good and dry before we added shingles, so Thursday night was Andes mint shingles night! Brett also plucked the fences right off the Silpat and secured them to the base with royal icing. He added some finishing touches and just barely had enough icing.

I've made a video of some of the process and included some of the still photos that I took before I remembered we have a video camera. We got a free Flip video camera for paying our cable bill on time two months in a row! I actually really like it, so you may see more videos popping up on the blog... if there's something interesting enough to video. Enjoy!

Christmas Candies

2009-12-16T12:27:00.001-08:00

Brett and I spent a good majority of the weekend in the kitchen (we spent a minority of the weekend watching a Ninja Warrior marathon) and we ended up using almost five sticks of butter. Yes, that sounds like a lot. Yes, I feel like Ina Garten or Paula Deen. No, we did not eat all that butter, nor will we be consuming it over an extended period of time. In today's post I will be telling you how we used two and a half sticks of butter. I will save the other two for my next post.

I got it in my head that I wanted to make homemade peppermint patties. We've made homemade fondant filling for candy before, but it was a sticky, goopy, time-consuming, arm-deadening disaster. It was one of those things that could not get any worse, so it had to be better the second time! Making fondant requires a candy thermometer and a strong stirring arm. We heated 1 and 1/3 cups of water, 1/3 cup light corn syrup, 1/4 cup of butter, 4 cups of sugar, 1/4 tsp cream of tartar, and 1/8 tsp salt to 240 degrees. I manned the thermometer while Brett washed the sides of the saucepan with a wet pastry brush.

Brett poured the liquid into a 9x13 pan and we left it in the fridge until the pan didn't feel warm anymore.

Then the stirring began. We soon added 1/4 tsp of peppermint extract. It starts out thick and sticky.

We worked in shifts. When my hand hurt or my arm got tired, Brett would take over. For a while it seemed to firm up a little, but the second it felt like it was actually getting thinner, we let it rest. The last time Brett made this all by himself and he stirred it for an hour before he let it rest. We try to learn from our mistakes. After about thirty minutes we let it rest for five and this made all the difference in the world.

It quickly turned to this:

Then we formed it into little peppermint patty fillings. Brett's are the beautiful, perfectly round ones and mine are the lumpy, misshapen ones. We ended up with 136! We let them rest overnight to come to room temperature and form a little crust before we dipped them in semi-sweet chocolate.

Sooooo messy! But sooooo fun! I pretty much licked chocolate off my hands for lunch. (Don't worry, I washed them before touching any candies again.)

Isn't our tree cute? Can you spot Homer, Marge, Bart, and Lisa? Can you believe that this is our fifth married Christmas, yet our first Christmas tree?

Our next endeavor was the Coffee Toffees that I saw on Zoe's blog recently. This time Brett manned the thermometer while I whisked the butter, sugar, brown sugar, molasses, water, and instant coffee powder together. Brett was not pleased with the heating rate, so we cranked it up to medium-high.

Every sugar challenge I've watched on Food Network warns of the dangers of sugar burns, so I let Brett's steady hand do the pouring. I love sil-pats! I spread the sugar out with a flat spatula as quickly as I could and then Brett got ready with the pizza wheel. The recipe said to work quickly before the sugar hardened, but we actually worked too quickly. Brett's gentle cuts (so we wouldn't damage one of our beloved sil-pats) were going back together almost immediately so he kept rotating through and making new cuts until they finally stayed.

The mixture came to room temperature pretty quickly and was soon ready to be broken along the cut lines.

I dipped these in melted semi- sweet chocolate using a fork instead of my fingers.

Overall, our candy turned out delicious. I can't even begin to choose a favorite. The only problem we had was when the chocolate hardened. Some of our pieces "bloomed." This means that the chocolate became discolored. I actually think that it looks kind of neat. Some of the mints got little lizard spots on them. The discoloration does not affect the flavor at all, so I really don't care, but it is something to study up on for improving our candies next time.

We shipped tins of our candies to loved ones across the country as our little attempt at spreading some Christmas cheer. Afterall, who doesn't love homemade goodies?

Mamma's Cornbread Dressing

2009-12-11T06:55:00.000-08:00

Every year at Thanksgiving my grandma makes her cornbread dressing and every year it is one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving. The recipe is no secret. She gladly shares it. I've tried to make it with disastrous results. The first time there was WAY too much sage. But I followed the recipe! So I asked Mamma, "Are you sure there's 1 Tablespoon of sage?" She was sure. The second time I tried to make it it was WAY too soupy. "Mamma, are you sure there are 5 cups of chicken broth?" She was sure.

You know what they say about the third time? I went with my gut (instead of the recipe) and it was indeed the charm.

I prepped all of the ingredients, which for this recipe means to make some cornbread in advance, boil and chop 4 eggs, and chop onions and celery.

Cornbread was one of the first things I ever made on my own, so I should know what I'm doing, but for whatever reason (I'll blame the oven) this cornbread needed to cook much longer than normal. I had already cut it up before I realized that the center was still batter. Oops!

In addition to the cornbread, you are supposed to tear up a few pieces of white bread. I had two sandwich rolls that were "on their way out" so I started tearing those up into a bowl. About half way through the first roll, I glanced at the other roll and saw a green dot of mold. Ugh! I sifted back through the torn pieces and found one green spot that I took out. I really hope that was it. The other roll went in the trash.

When I added the sage I went with one teaspoon instead of one Tablespoon. Despite what Mamma says, I'm convinced that there's a typo in my recipe.

I stirred up all the dry ingredients and then I poured a melted stick of butter over everything and started adding chicken broth. Instead of pouring in five cups and calling it a day, I poured a little, stirred it up, and then poured some more. I got it to the consistency I like after about 3 cups (a little soupy) gave it a taste for seasoning (see I'm learning!) and then added the raw eggs.

I baked it off, and I must say that it turned out pretty darn close to Mamma's, although not quite as good of course. Yum!

Mamma's Cornbread Dressing (with Kim's aforementioned tweaks)

1 pan of cornbread

3-4 slices of white bread

4 eggs, boiled and chopped

3 eggs, raw

1/2 cup melted butter

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped celery

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/2 Tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon sage

3-4 cups of chicken broth (enough to make slightly soupy)

Mix cornbread and white bread crumbs in a large bowl. Add salt, pepper, and sage. Mix well. Add onion, celery, and boiled eggs. Mix well. Add melted butter and gradually add in the broth. Mix well. Add raw eggs. Mix well.

Pour into a greased 13x9 inch baking dish. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 40 minutes.

Blackberry French Toast

2009-12-08T06:07:00.000-08:00

My mom found this recipe in a recent issue of Southern Living and tried it out on us while we were in California for Thanksgiving. Brett and I are known for eating breakfast for dinner, but this is one of those breakfasts that could easily pass as a dessert, so that's what I did! I also halved the recipe for just the two of us because the whole recipe makes a ton.

First I cubed up half a loaf of french bread and put half of the cubes in a greased casserole dish.

Then I melted 1/2 a cup of seedless blackberry jam over medium heat for a couple of minutes.

Then I cubed up half a block of Neufchatel cheese (you could use 1/3 less fat cream cheese) and sprinkled them on top of the bread cubes. I made sure to make really small cubes. The one improvement I wanted to make over my mom's was to have less overwhelmingly "cream cheesy" bites.

Then I poured the melted jam over that and topped it with the rest of the bread cubes.

In a separate bowl I whisked together 2 eggs, 1 cup of milk (the recipe calls for half and half), 1/2 a tsp of vanilla, and 1 tsp of cinnamon. Oops! It was supposed to be 1/2 a tsp of cinnamon (I forgot to half it) so i tried to get a little out before starting to whisk. I love cinnamon and I don't think it hurt the dish at all.

I poured the liquid evenly over the bread cubes making sure to get every single one wet. (I didn't want a crunchy crouton layer on top after it had baked.) Then I sprinkled 1/4 cup of brown sugar over the whole thing. I covered it up and let it sit in the refrigerator for almost 24 hours. The recipe recommends 8-24 hours, so it's a great dish to throw together the night before, whether you're having breakfast or dessert the following day.

The next day I baked it with a lid on for 20 minutes at 325 degrees, then took the lid off and baked it for 10 more minutes.

It was delicious...again! As a dessert I might call it blackberry bread pudding instead of french toast because it has the same texture and similar flavors (except for the cream cheese.) Also, even though I made smaller cubes of cream cheese there were still some distinct cream cheese bites. I wonder if it would work to melt the cream cheese with the jam so that I could pour it evenly over the bread cubes? I may just try that next time.

Mom's Chili

2009-12-02T07:17:00.000-08:00

I was doing so well with the New England weather. I was able to go out on a fifty degree day and comment on how nice the weather was. I even appreciated the weekly rain that never fell on San Diego. However, I've had a setback that can be summed up in three words: Thanksgiving in California. I spent the last week sitting outside in a t-shirt for hours, getting hot in a light jacket, and (I'm ashamed to say) complaining when the temperature dipped down into the sixties and we had to go inside. It was a big setback. I returned to near freezing temps in Massachusetts. I was in bad need of some really good chili.

My mom's recipe has won some chili cook-offs in the past, and it is incredibly easy to make. I did make a couple of changes, but followed the same basic recipe. I used ground turkey instead of ground beef. For whatever reason, I have grown accustomed to ground turkey and actually prefer it to ground beef. So that's just what I buy now. Not by choice, I had to buy regular pinto beans. My new grocery store does not carry Ranch Style beans. If you have access to Ranch Style beans I highly recommend that you use them. I could swear that they have the same secret ingredient as Coca-Cola. I have licked my fingers after draining a can, and it has a hint of Coke! So delicious! I also substituted garlic powder for garlic salt and didn't notice a difference.

I sauteed a chopped medium onion in 2 T of butter until the pieces were soft.

I added one package of ground turkey (I think it's 1.3 pounds) and cooked it until I couldn't see any more pink. Then I drained off the fat.

Next I added a 46 oz bottle of tomato juice, a 15 oz can of beans, 2 T of chili powder, and garlic powder, salt, and pepper to taste. That's pretty much it!

After simmering for 30 minutes, the liquid thickens up a little and it is ready to eat!

I like mine with lots of cheddar cheese. Not quite the same as Mom's, but almost as yummy, and certainly satisfying on a cold December night!

Asian Style Pork Stir Fry

2009-11-20T08:51:00.000-08:00

Yes, you read that correctly. Pork was in my kitchen. I have had very few experiences with pork, but none of them have been particularly tasty. In fact, most of the pork dishes I've tried were rather taste-less. I saw this stir fry recipe in my Bon Appetit Fast Easy Fresh cookbook a LONG time ago and wrote it down on a sticky note on the inside cover. I knew I would find it later :)

It calls for pork tenderloin which is one of the grossest looking items in the meat department. Plus they come in three pound packages and I only wanted half a pound. So I ended up buying tender chops.

I marinated them for an hour in a mixture of soy sauce, honey, minced fresh ginger, and crushed red pepper flakes.

I cooked the pork in a dry wok because the recipe said nothing about oil for this part. But when it came time to "wipe skillet clean" I couldn't. There were black crusties cemented to my non-stick wok. I washed and scrubbed and finally gave up.

Next I whisked together the extra marinade, orange juice, cornstarch, and red wine vinegar (it was supposed to be rice vinegar, but the last thing I need is another bottle of vinegar that I rarely use in my cabinet.) I cooked some frozen french cut green beans in peanut oil, then I added the pork back in along with orange zest, minced garlic, and the whisked liquids.

I waited until the sauce thickened, which also meant waiting until the green beans were thoroughly overcooked.

We spooned the stir fry over rice and chowed down. It was good, but a little bland. I'm starting to learn something. Maybe it's because I've watched a gazillion episodes of Top Chef where the judges complain about underseasoning. When a recipe says "season to taste" that means sprinkle some salt and pepper and then actually taste it! It seems obvious, but I'm just now understanding that it is very important. Salt brings out the flavor of things, so without it, food tastes bland. I think my fear of adding too much salt has made a lot of my dishes just ok, when they could be good. I'm trying to conquer this silly little fear of mine.

In case you were wondering, that is a Mary Englebreit "Congratulations" plate. We keep this plate at the bottom of our stack of normal dinner plates, so when we get to it, it's kind of like, "Congratulations: You've used all your plates! Now run the dishwasher!"

Apple Pumpkin Cake

2009-11-15T07:30:00.000-08:00

About a week ago I posted about baking bread from a book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Someone had left a comment (which I always appreciate) but I didn't realize right away that it was the author of the book! How exciting is that?! Not only does she write cookbooks, but she's an actual pastry chef and she writes a really great baking blog. I spent some time exploring her blog and I quickly found this recipe for Apple Pumpkin Cake.

I peeled and thinly sliced four Granny Smith Apples and then sauteed them in three T of butter until they were just starting to get soft. I took them off the heat and added three T of sugar and one tsp of cinnamon. Now, those of you who read this blog regularly will remember my quest for a baked apples side dish that resembles the Stouffer's version. Well forget the last post. This is way better. Almost perfect, and much faster.

I put the apples off to the side and got to work on the cake. What is great about this recipe is that the streusel topping and the cake batter start of in the same bowl. At a certain point you take out a little and reserve it for later. Then you add baking soda, pumpkin puree, sour cream, and eggs. I didn't take a picture because I feel like I've made a lot of orange batters in my stand mixer lately, so I thought I would spare you another one.

Then, as shocking as it is, I got out my springform pan! I've had it for more than four years and this is only the second time I've used it! I was very excited! I coated it with Pam for Baking (an awesome invention) and poured in the cake batter.

The apples went on top of that.

To the reserved streusel topping I added some homemade pumpkin pie spice. I'm not the kind of gal who wants another spice jar cluttering up my cabinet, especially when I have all the ingredients on hand already. For one tsp of pumpkin pie spice: combine 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground ginger, 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg, and 1/8 tsp ground cloves. Easy!

Here's what it looked like before baking:

And here is what it looked like after baking and cooling:

Beautiful!

This cake was delicious! The apples, the pumpkin, and the spices just scream fall! Mmmmmm! Thanks for the recipe Zoe!

Stir Fry Sesame Beef

2009-11-11T06:19:00.000-08:00

I love my mom's stir fry. I always request it when I'm home. I've tried to recreate it with little success. My stir fry, even when I follow the exact same recipe, is edible, but not delicious. Brett thinks it's the quality of the beef, but I'm pretty sure that my mom gets her beef at the grocery store; there's not some mystery butcher with fabulous stir fry beef that she goes to. So if it's not the beef, then it's either my equipment or me that's the problem, and I don't want to admit to either one of those. I had pretty much given up on making stir fry until I was making the menu for the week and stumbled across some recipes that sounded pretty good.

What really caught my eye about the sesame beef recipe in my "Bon Appetit Fast Easy Fresh" cookbook was the hoisin sauce. I LOVE hoisin sauce. The recipe calls for asparagus, but I immediately switched that to broccoli (and lessened the amount). I could have used more toasted sesame seeds as not all of the meat was coated. I also made the decision to blanch the broccoli first because I hate undercooked broccoli.

I got everything prepped first as anyone who's ever cooked stir fry knows to do.

I cooked the sliced red onion and broccoli florets in canola oil for about two minutes.

Then I added the beef for about 3 minutes, until it was completely brown.

Then I turned down the heat and added 2 T of hoisin sauce and 1/3 cup of water, and let it bubble for about two minutes. The sauce was very thin. I think it would have been better to just add the hoisin sauce, see how the thickness was, and then gradually add the water little by little. I let the sauce bubble a little longer with the hopes of thickening, but it did not happen. Lastly I dumped in two teaspoons of sesame oil. Again, it would have been better to add a little bit, taste, and then maybe add more. It ended up with too much sesame oil.

The final product was ok. The meat was not very tender, the broccoli was sadly overcooked (which is better than undercooked) and the sauce was way too thin. Lessons learned. We might see this one again with some key changes, but then again we might not.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

2009-11-09T06:53:00.000-08:00

I've known about this book for a while and happened across it in the massive cookbook section at my new library.

It seemed too good to be true. Recently Brett and I needed bread but were too lazy to go to the store, so we decided to make it from scratch. Well, luckily we thought of this four hours before dinner because that's about how long it takes to make homemade bread. There is a lot of rising and waiting involved. So I was excited to try the "revolutionary" new method of bread baking that will supposedly take five minutes.

Part of what makes this method take only "five minutes" of your time is that you mix up a giant batch on the first day and keep it in your refrigerator pulling off hunks each day. But the mixing of the dough doesn't take as long as usual either because there is no proofing the yeast, no kneading, no covering and rising (kind of), and no punching down the dough. Brett, of course, was dubious of this method. It really does take all the fun out of baking bread. If you have never punched risen dough, I highly recommend it.

I decided to go with the first recipe in the book since it seemed the most basic- Boule (Artisan free-form loaf.) I used the flour I had on hand which is not the kind they recommend. I also halved the recipe and therefore messed up slightly on the measurement of the yeast and the salt. I should have halved it ahead of time but instead I waited until I had my water already hot and ready to go. Needless to say, my math was rushed. Quick: What's half of 1 and 1/2 T? And don't say 3/4 T because I don't have a 1/4 T measure. Answer in teaspoons please. See? Not that easy. Afterwards, I thought it through and realized I was off by a 1/4 tsp.

Once you've stirred everything up, you put a lid on it and leave it on the counter for a couple of hours and then you move it to the fridge.

After a couple of days in the fridge, I decided it was time to bake. I pulled off a handful of very wet dough. It is supposed to be wet- that is what makes it able to sit in the fridge for up to two weeks. I pulled dough from the top down to the bottom on all four sides to form a "gluten cloak" I don't know if I did this right, but it seemed ok. Then you let it sit on a pizza peel for forty minutes.

This is where I take issue with the book's title. You still have to be thinking ahead to make this bread for dinner. This isn't a Pilsbury "pop it out of the tube and you're done" kind of thing. You have to let the dough rest, let the pizza stone heat up, bake the bread, and let the bread cool. A process I will say takes at least an hour and forty minutes and that's if you don't let the bread cool all the way. So yes, you spend about five minutes of active work, but you still have to have a good deal of forethought.

The bread turned out beautiful. It was slightly misshapen from my poor pizza peel skills, but golden and very "artisany" looking. The recipe said to let it cool completely, but we couldn't wait any longer. The outside was very hard. I ended up peeling the crust off and eating it first, saving the squishy, wonderful innards, or "crumb" if I'm being fancy. I prefer innards:) It was ok. Most, if not all, of the other yeast breads we've made were better. Brett thought the innards were like the texture of dumplings. They were soft and chewy, but kind of sticky and dense. The flavor was not all that great- I'll blame that on the flour.

I will be the first to admit that I did not execute the recipe entirely accurately, but it was not good enough to merit a second chance. Maybe this method would work for you, but for us it's back to old fashioned (fun) bread.

Kim vs. The Smoke Detector

2009-11-06T06:53:00.001-08:00

We lived in the same tiny apartment in San Diego for five years and set off the smoke alarm once, with good reason. We accidentally set a piece of wax paper on fire.

Since we have moved, we have set the smoke detector off four times in four weeks. Twice for bacon, once for pizza, and once for a steamy shower. Can you believe that our shower set it off?! None of these incidents were emergencies or anything more than the normal smoke that you get when you cook. I'm convinced that most people don't cook and that people who might cook would be deterred by a super-sensitive smoke alarm.

Solution number one: open the sliding door after the smoke alarm goes off. Sure it lets our heat out and the weather is getting chilly, but it gets the smoke out too. Not a viable solution, plus we still have to listen to the alarm.

Solution number two: turn on the exhaust fan and close the bathroom door when showering. Ok, this one works for the steamy shower problem but does nothing to help with the cooking. It's only a partial solution

Solution number three: Ask maintenance if there's anything they can do. "Live with it," they said.

Solution number four: Don't cook meats, especially bacon. Do-able but it limits our menu, and I don't like that.

Solution number five: Turn on the microwave vent and watch as the smoke does not get sucked to an outside vent, rather gets blown right back into the kitchen. Surprisingly, this is the solution that actually works.

Last night was the big test for solution number five. I made grilled chicken fajitas using my grill pan. The whole kitchen got smoky, but the smoke alarm did not go off! Maybe the microwave filters the smoke before it sends it back out. Maybe the vent back into the kitchen pushes the smoke in a direction where the smoke detector can't find it. We were amazed, but happy that we've found solution.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

2009-10-31T08:11:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween! Earlier this week Brett and I cut into our pumpkins to make our jack-o-lanterns. I love the smell of pumpkin innards; it reminds me of childhood. Pulling the innards out feels so gross, but I love it too. This year, instead of throwing everything away, we made sure to separate the seeds from the guts for a tasty treat.

I washed them off as best I could and then let them dry on wax paper overnight.

I hadn't had roasted pumpkin seeds since I was a little girl, but I distinctly remember liking them. I asked my mom how she prepared them and she said just butter and salt. I looked online and discovered many recipes used either butter or canola oil and salt. So simple! After a little more searching, I found this recipe on allrecipes.com. It had worcestershire sauce, garlic salt, salt, and butter. I was sold. We decided to make two different batches- one classically seasoned with canola oil and salt, and another spiced up a bit.

After stirring all the ingredients in a bowl, I poured the seeds out onto a cookie sheet and spread them out a little bit. For the classically seasoned ones I stirred the olive oil into the measuring cup of pumpkin seeds and then sprinkled the salt on after I had spread them out on a separate cookie sheet. It seemed easier that way.

They went into a warm 275 degree oven for an hour. I stirred them once, halfway through.

Once cooked, I spread them out on paper towels to let them cool for a short while.

Both varieties were delicious! It is hard for me to choose a favorite!

Sweet Potato Casserole

2009-10-29T07:12:00.000-07:00

I like to believe that everyone who plans the meals for the week gets into ruts every once in a while. Ruts are ok, however, you have to prepare yourself for the inevitable: one day you will be sick of it. This has happened with chili chip casserole (which we ate two nights a week every other week for a very long time) and nacho french bread pizza (which we ate every Monday for a very long time.) Right now my rut is the fresh baked chickens in the grocery store (I used to call them rotisserie chickens, but I don't think they are actually cooked on a rotisserie.) I know that it is very easy to roast a chicken. I have done it once before. But I have compared prices and it is actually cheaper to let the grocery store cook it for you, plus you don't have to do anything! The thing that I'm hoping will help sustain this rut is that I can pair it with different side dishes and use the leftovers for various chicken dishes.

This week the accompanying side dish was a family favorite: Sweet Potato Casserole. It is a dish that I eat about once a year on Thanksgiving. I don't understand why we do that to ourselves! If we like it so much, we should make it more often. So I did.

I planned to half the recipe, but I could not find a smaller can of sweet potatoes; apparently 40 oz is standard. Here is the recipe.

1 40 oz can sweet potatoes

3/4 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup pet milk (I use regular)

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

In a microwave proof bowl, heat the drained sweet potatoes

In a large electric mixing bowl, combine sweet potatoes with butter.

Mix until butter is melted, then add sugar, milk, eggs, and vanilla.

Pour into large baking dish. I used a large Corningware, but next time I will use a 9x13 pan because it took much longer than 45 minutes to cook through in the center, plus there will be more marshmallow surface area ;)

Cook in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes, or until center is firm and not liquidy. Top with a layer of miniature marshmallows and continue to cook until marshmallows are lightly browned.

Believe it or not, but this is a picture of the final dish AFTER the marshmallows de-poofed a little bit. They really go nuts after just 5 minutes in the oven so don't forget about them.

This side dish probably should be labeled as a dessert, but it's Halloween week and we're supposed to eat too much sugar right?!

* I was wondering about the difference between sweet potatoes and yams so I thought you might be too. True yams are native to Asia and Africa. A North American variety of sweet potato is orange like a yam and marketed as a yam even though it is not one. I always thought I bought canned yams for this recipe, but the label says both "sweet potatoes" and "yams" on it. Silly marketing people- no wonder we're confused. I love Wikipedia. *

It Must've Been Something I Ate

2009-10-27T05:59:00.000-07:00

My first visit to the local library since becoming a MA resident was quite fruitful! I went upstairs to peruse the HUGE aisle of food/cooking books and almost immediately found It Must've Been Something I Ate by Jeffrey Steingarten. Some of you may remember that I loved his first book The Man Who Ate Everything.

While the first book was laugh out loud hilarious and very endearing, the second book was, like most sequels, not as good. I did chuckle a few times and smiled when he teased himself about seasickness or being over-obsessive. I felt like this book was less accessible to the common-folk. I learned more than I ever cared to know about caviar and unpasteurized fancy cheese. Multiple chapters about Paris and New York (one of which I skipped entirely) just could not hold my interest. There were, however, several chapters centered around San Diego. I lived there for ten years and did not know about the bluefin tuna industry, sea urchin roe, or The Vegetable Shop.

I felt a little like Mr. Steingarten was ridiculing me for liking Kraft parmesan cheese ("The powdered Parmesan in those green canisters in the supermarket is a salty, dry, repellent condiment that should not be called Parmesan.") but it's not like I'm deluding myself into thinking that it's authentic Parmagiano! So what if I put it on my pasta almost every day! He would probably insist that I throw my green canister away and buy a chunk of the real stuff immediately. Maybe I will... someday :)

One of the funniest parts was about a woman pulling the parmesan cheese curls off of her salad. I laughed because not too long before I read that part, I had been in a restaurant scraping my salad bowl with my fork trying to pick up the last bits of cheese. Brett ended up getting them out with his finger.

Now that I'm a New Englander, I paid extra close attention to the chapter on Lobster Rolls. Neither Brett nor I have ever had one. We are not huge fans of lobster. I am not a huge fan of mayo. And Brett is not a huge fan of celery. All of these things are common ingredients in lobster rolls. And yet we are still curious about trying one. According to the book, right now would be a good time to get one, so I have already started reading reviews to find a suitable place. However, we'll probably end up getting one down the street at Panera Bread- is that wrong? I'm sure Mr. Steingarten would unequivocally say, "Yes!"

Baked Apples Side Dish

2009-10-23T05:37:00.001-07:00

My mom is a wonderful cook. When I think back on dinnertime growing up, she really had a lot of great meals in her repertoire. We never had microwave dinners. But we did have one microwave side dish that has stuck with me over the years: Stouffer's Scalloped Apples.

With all of the apples in our fridge, I decided that we should bake some more, so I set out to find a suitable recipe that resembled Stouffer's.

I used two Mutsu apples (I changed the portions of the recipe drastically) brown sugar, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg. You can tell from the picture that I greatly underestimated the necessary bowl size. Brett teased while I tried to stir and not spill, which was near impossible. I put it in a baking dish, covered it, and put it in the oven. I did periodically stir it, but other than that it was pretty low maintenance.

The finished product smelled wonderful. I made a point of making sure that Brett knew that it was a side dish and not dessert, but apparently I was the one who needed warning. It was not sweet enough for me, so I added an extra sprinkling of brown sugar, which reminded me that my mom always added a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar to the top of the Stouffer's version.

This side dish was ok. Not bad, but not amazing either. Just ok.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

2009-10-16T08:06:00.000-07:00

I read several blogs regularly and always see recipes that sound good, but rarely do I actually get around to making them. Well this is one of those rare times. Marielle at La Petite Chef is one of those bloggers who always posts a recipe, and I was so thankful for that when she posted about her Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. I knew that I had to make them sometime this fall.

When Brett jokingly asked me, "What's for dessert?" when there obviously was not anything for dessert, I figured that it was time to whip up these cookies.

The Massachusetts debut of my KitchenAid mixer went wonderfully. I welcomed her to her new home and then put her to work mixing the wet ingredients: butter, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, and pumpkin puree.

I mixed the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg. I swear I spun my spice rack around ten times looking for ground cloves before they finally decided to show themselves. I was already devising a way to grind up whole cloves- which I'm sure would have been a disaster. These are all the spices I love. Every one of them.

Then I slowly added the dry ingredients into the wet ones. Oh my gosh. This cookie dough was awesome. As I stood there licking the beater (after I had wiped it off of course) I couldn't help but make "mmmmm" noises. It is personal blasphemy for me to say this, but I think this batter is better than my pumpkin pie.

I made the first batch of cookies without chocolate chips, because Brett claims he hates chocolate (even though he will eat brownies as long as you put powdered sugar on them.) They puffed up like marshmallows! Then I incorporated most of a bag of Tollhouse semisweet chocolate chips (aka- the best chocolate in the world) into the dough and saved a couple of handfuls for personal use :)

These cookies baked up wonderfully.

When it came time to eat one, I was a little surprised. The texture was like cake! The inside was so fluffy it even looked like cake! I love chocolate chips, but I think that the chocolate flavor overpowers the pumpkin and spices. Next time I may (here I go again with the blasphemy) leave out the chocolate and go with a purely pumpkin pie flavored cookie.

This recipe managed to combine three of my favorite things: pumpkin pie flavors, cookies, and cake. I highly recommend these to everyone!

Apple-Honey Challah

2009-10-13T07:08:00.000-07:00

When we were picking apples we were intrigued by the description of the Mutsu apple and decided that we had to find them.

"Mutsu- A great all-purpose green apple- dense, crisp, and juicy- good for pies and eating fresh- makes a coarse, flavorful applesauce- much better than Granny Smith"

Granny Smith is our favorite apple. We buy them every week at the grocery store. "Much better than Granny Smith" totally got our attention. We found the Mutsu grove and saw that they were GIANT green apples. We picked two each with plans to eat and bake them and then moved on.

Sunday evening around 6 o'clock, we pried ourselves off of the super comfy couch and started making the final recipe that I had clipped from my mom's Martha Stewart Living magazine- Apple-Honey Challah. I got the water hot enough for the yeast (the recipe says 100 degrees but we always go between 110 and 115 for our yeast breads) while Brett assembled all the ingredients on the counter. We mixed everything up, and Brett took the lead on kneading. The dough was very sticky, so we ended up adding about 1/2 a cup extra of flour.

After the first rise we sliced up the Mutsu and each snuck a little bite. It was sort of like Granny Smith, not better or worse, but we could tell the difference. The hardest part of the recipe was kneading the apples into the dough. The apples just globbed everything up, making it sticky again. And to make matters worse they didn't really want to stay in the dough. They kept squeezing themselves out.

After the second rise Brett attempted to roll the nice plump ball of dough into a rope so we could coil it in a cake pan. The dough was even stickier because of the apples and all the butter we kept brushing onto the top between rises. The rolling did not go well and we finally gave up and put a very fat "coil" into the cake pan. I don't even think you could call it a coil.

The really annoying part about this bread is that it has to rise three times! Right before the final rise Brett said, "I don't ever want to do anything that has to rise three times. This isn't worth it." Keep in mind that we hadn't eaten it yet. Thinking of the Martha Stewart cream cheese and chive biscuit fiasco I had a couple of years ago, I made some comment about how Martha likes to make things harder than they need to be. We decided that coiling the loaf was totally unnecessary, and if there was a next time we would just plop the ball into the cake pan.

One thing we love about our new oven is that it has a window and a light. We hunkered down by the oven to watch the dough rise for the final time, and then again as it baked.

We had to let it cool for a while in the pan and then a little while longer.

Finally at 11 o'clock, we were blessed with the wonderful deliciousness that is Apple-Honey Challah! It was light and fluffy with a hint of sweetness. It reminded me a little bit of King's Hawaiian Bread (with apples of course.) The apple bites were my favorite. The Mutsu did not disappoint.

Although it was very time consuming, we both really enjoyed the final product. So if you have five hours to spare, I highly recommend making this :)

Apple Picking at Cider Hill Farm

2009-10-12T06:53:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful time we had at Cider Hill Farm in Amesbury, Massachusetts this past Saturday! I'm trying to embrace New England life and the fall season as much as I possibly can, and one of the first things that came to my mind (after fall foliage of course) was apple picking. Now I realize that there are plenty of places all over the country where people can go pick apples, but for some reason, it is in my head as a New England activity.

It was an absolutely perfect fall day: low 60's, windy, near clear blue skies. Enough of a bite in the air for you to still be comfortable but know that it is indeed fall. Many other people had the same idea as us, but the farm store and apple orchards did not feel crowded at all.

We got right down to business... and by that I mean we ate hot dogs and apple cider doughnuts. The reason I chose Cider Hill from the many "pick your own" farms in the area was because someone reviewed it saying that they have the best apple cider doughnuts in the world. I was sold. The doughnuts were amazing. They reminded me of Disneyland churros except fresher and greasier. I couldn't really taste the apple cider in them, but maybe that's because I ate two in a matter of minutes. I also liked that you can watch the guy making the doughnuts in the bakery.

Next we got our bags, with a map conveniently printed right on it, and a list of apple descriptions and set out for the orchards. Here I am with my first apple. I think it was a honeycrisp, but then again we picked so many that I have no idea.

We ended up with 10 different varieties: Honeycrisp, Newtown-Pippin, Red Delicious, Rome, Golden Delicious, Northern Spy, Mutsu, Cortland, Arkansas Black, and (my favorite so far) Kidd's Gala.

They have a sign about sampling when you first enter the orchard area. It basically says we know you'll want to taste, but keep it to a minimum. Brett and I felt a little strange about tasting something, after all you wouldn't eat an apple at a grocery store, but toward the end of our time there we decided to share a Kidd's Gala. When I picked it the skin was a little sticky and its coloring looked like a perfect peach. When I took a bite, it was sweet and juicy, but slightly crisp. It was wonderful! I promptly picked two more to put in my bag for later.

After apple picking, we picked out two pumpkins, a jug of cider, and some fresh honey. Here is our bounty from the farm.

We've already baked with one of our apples; I'll post about that soon.

Linguine in Pepper Broth

2009-10-09T07:00:00.000-07:00

This recipe was originally "Linguine with Clams in Pepper Broth" from a recent issue of Martha Stewart Living. It took all of two seconds to decide not to include clams although I'm sure I could have found some great ones here in New England. I can handle eating them in clam chowder, but straight out of the shell is another story.

While the pasta water was coming up to a boil I chopped up a clove of garlic and a few slices of pancetta. The garlic at our new grocery store is actually called, "Super Colossal Garlic." That's why one clove of garlic looks like more. I love garlic, but Brett would not allow more than one super colossal clove.

Once the pasta was cooking I started crisping up the pancetta. Again, the kitchen got all smoky! No smoke alarm this time though, so that was good. I snuck a bite of pancetta from the cooling paper towel and it was delicious (I had never had it before!)

For the broth I put some butter and the garlic in and realized very quickly that the pan was too hot. With an electric stove you can't just crank the flame way down, so I yanked the pan off the burner altogether and stood there saying, "Oh no the garlic is going to burn!" It's a good thing I have Brett because he had the presence of mind to just pour in the chicken broth. (We used chicken broth instead of white wine.) Problem solved! The garlic did not burn. I added much less black pepper than the recipe called for (and it still looked like a lot) and a teeny tiny pinch of red pepper flakes. We let that simmer for a few minutes.

Finally it was time to toss it all together. Linguine and lemon zest went into the broth and we topped it all with a generous sprinkling of pancetta. We quickly realized that we probably should not have halved the recipe. It said that the full recipe "Serves 4", but maybe it didn't mean four hungry full grown adults. So we made some cheesy bread to go with it.

I thought it was delicious. Brett thought it was, as he feared it would be, too peppery. I have a feeling this might show up again but perhaps under the title, "Linguine in a Mild Pepper Broth."

Steak Au Poivre with Balsamic Reduction

2009-10-07T07:14:00.000-07:00

Sounds way too fancy huh? I was shuffling through the last few issues of Martha Stewart Living and found a few recipes that sounded good to me. I must have been feeling adventurous, or hungry, or maybe both.

For a friend's bachelorette party a couple of months ago I ate at a RESTAURANT called The Strip Club. It is an eating establishment where you stand over a flaming grill and cook your own steak: it is simply a very clever name. I ordered a teriyaki steak, while everyone else ordered kabobs. Theirs were done cooking in five minutes and I was left waiting for my thick hunk of beef to cook through. I eventually got impatient, took it off the grill, and realized that it was still very rare. Back onto the grill it went. When it was finally cooked through, it was wonderful. I've been thinking about it ever since. That is what has made me look twice at steak recipes.

Although the fancy French name might scare some people off, I must say that Steak Au Poivre was quite a simple recipe. I seasoned both sides of the NY strip steaks with kosher salt, coriander, and lots of fresh ground black pepper. (The recipe tries to fancy it up with 3 different types of peppercorns ground up with a mortar and pestle.) Then I put the steaks in some olive oil and cooked them for about 2 minutes on each side.

By this point they were spattering and smoking quite a bit. I put them in the oven and watched smoke rise up through one of the burners. I put a chair under the smoke alarm and opened the sliding door just in case. I have no idea what I'll do in the winter. I'll probably just let the smoke alarm go off.

They went in the oven to finish for 7 and a half minutes. The recipe said 6 for medium rare so I thought a minute and a half would get us up to medium/medium well. They ended up being well done... still edible, but I would have preferred a little pink.

Now for the balsamic reduction I kind of blew it. I was supposed to save the steak juices, then wipe out the pan. I just wiped out the pan. So when it was time to add the juices back in, I just added a little bit of water. The vinegar smell was very strong and had both Brett and I pretty wary of the sauce. You can see that when I plated my food, I made sure the sauce was well away from anything else.

Surprisingly, the sauce was pretty good. I ate my little spot of sauce and then went back for another spot. Even Brett liked it!

Maybe now steak will find its way to our table more than once ever 5 years:)

Adjustments

2009-10-05T07:02:00.000-07:00

When you move to a new place there are inevitably adjustments that need to be made. As a person who thrives on routine, to me even minor adjustments seem like major ones at first.

The first and most pressing adjustment was shopping at a new grocery store. The closest one to us is called Shaw's and we had never heard of it. In fact all the grocery stores here in New England have names that are foreign to us: Super Stop and Shop, Market Basket, and Hannaford are the ones we've noticed thus far. Shaw's is HUGE and wonderful! Brett and I spent a long time going up and down every aisle looking at everything. The only thing we don't like about it is that you can't just buy a huge brick of cheese like we're used to. You've got to buy it pre-shredded or get a small brick of a fancy variety. We went the fancy way for mozzarella and both agree that next time we will go pre-shredded. There is also a little farm stand grocery store down the road a ways that seems to have good produce.

The second adjustment I've had to make turns out to not really be that big of a deal. I've cooked on a gas stove for my whole life, but now our apartment has an electric. Most of what I've cooked on the stovetop so far has been pasta, and I think that water actually boils faster on this stove. I can't tell any difference on the oven, except that it tells me exactly how long it will take to preheat, and it lets me know when it's ready. I like that.

The last adjustment is really a pleasure to make. Now I have lots and lots of counterspace!

When I chop vegetables I don't have to worry about banging my elbow on the fridge, or dropping things down into the void between the fridge and counter. I don't even have to precariously transfer handfuls of chopped veggies across the kitchen to where I'm preparing the pizza. I just chop right next to where I've rolled out the dough. And then next to that I grate my cheese! I told you I was excited to make pizza dough!

Even though we have only cooked a handful of meals thus far, we have already had an oops. When we make pizza we usually put cornmeal on the pizza stone and preheat it in the oven so it will be nice and hot by the time the pizza is ready to go on it. Well when we opened the oven door to put the pizza on the stone, the cornmeal was smoking ALOT. Usually it's not that bad. Of course, the smoke alarm started going off and I had to frantically figure out how to turn it off. Next time we will heat the stone without the cornmeal and add it just before the pizza goes on. At least we know our smoke detector works!

First Meal in Our New Home

2009-09-28T19:10:00.001-07:00

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...

Peanut Butter Waffles with a Dollop of Big News

2009-09-05T12:49:00.000-07:00

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!

Nancy's Blueberry Crisp

2009-08-26T10:48:00.001-07:00

I cannot believe I have not shared this recipe yet. It is quite possibly the easiest dessert ever and it is also one of my all-time favorites. Brett and I have been making and enjoying this since our college days. My Aunt Nancy blessed us with this recipe a long time ago, and I will be eternally grateful... I am not exaggerating... it is that good. THANK YOU NANCY!

Blueberries were in abundance and on sale this week, so of course I immediately thought of Blueberry Crisp. Here are the ingredients: 20 oz crushed pineapple, 3 cups (at least) of blueberries, 1 box of yellow cake mix, 1 stick of butter, and 1/2 a cup of sugar. (Pecans are optional... Nancy always opts yes, I always opt no... either way it is delicious.)

Layer in the order given. Pineapple first- juice and all

Blueberries next

Then dump the dry cake mix on top of that. It is weird the first time you do it, but trust me it is awesome. I think the technical name for this kind of dessert is "dump" cake because you just dump the cake mix on top, but I don't think that sounds very appetizing.

Next sprinkle 1/4 cup of sugar over everything, then pour melted butter over everything, then add another 1/4 cup of sugar.

Then bake it at 350 degrees for 45 minutes

And then eat it. I don't think too highly of raw blueberries, but I must say that when they are cooked, they are among my favorite fruits. Even though this dessert is not the prettiest thing in the world, it packs a major punch in the taste department.

It is also wonderful the next day. We like to reheat individual servings in the microwave and then crack through the crusty top layer with a spoon and mix it all around. Brett even claims to like it better the second day.

Chicago Visit

2009-08-22T09:32:00.001-07:00

Brett and I spent the past week visiting family in Chicago. It was a wonderful trip! We got to meet our brand new nephew, Jack.

We also went to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field! If you ever get an opportunity to see a game at Wrigley Field you should go. Not only is it beautiful and historic, but it has the buzz of true baseball fans who know when to cheer without a big screen telling them to "Get Loud!" Here I am returning from the concession stand with hot dogs for all and peanuts for Brett's mom.

We also went to the fantastic Harry Potter exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry. If you love Harry Potter, you would love this exhibit! Do you recognize the Weasley's flying Ford Anglia?

Since this is a food blog I thought I would mention the drastic change in my eating habits when I am in Chicago. It can be summed up in one word: MEAT. I ate two hamburgers, a hot dog, a steak, sloppy joes, a pulled pork sandwich, lasagna, and more. The food was great (I highly recommend Ditka's Restaurant) but it was way more meat than I am accustomed to. Upon arriving home I planned an almost entirely vegetarian menu.

Penne Pasta with Dubliner Cheese and Brown Butter Sauce

2009-08-10T10:21:00.000-07:00

It had been a while since we had last used our pasta roller and we decided it was time. I remembered one of my mom's favorite dishes from The Old Spaghetti Factory: the famous spaghetti with mizithra cheese. If you search for it on the Internet (as I did) it turns out that everyone loves that dish and has tried to come up with their own version.

Well, the first thing to go wrong was that I couldn't find mizithra cheese. I went to four stores and had zero luck. I had read about someone using Dubliner cheese instead, so that's what I went with.

I got out the semolina flour and looked at the recipe. We wanted to use half semolina and half regular flour and we also wanted to half the recipe. Sound like an "oops" waiting to happen? Well it was. So I measured out one fourth of the semolina and then added another fourth of regular flour. But then I proceeded to fourth the rest of the recipe too when I was supposed to half it. I realized just in time for the last two ingredients, but didn't realize the biggest mistake of all.

I kneaded the dough like crazy, it was very elastic, like the recipe indicated. When it came time to roll it out it was an absolute disaster. It would not roll through! We had to push it between the rollers and when it finally came out the other side, it cracked and broke. The dough was just so dry! After the third time through the roller (you're supposed to do it ten times before you start thinning it) I started suggesting that we throw it away and use dried pasta. I'm way less stubborn than Brett (but still very stubborn.) Brett tried adding a little bit of water to his hands, but it did not help at all. Finally he asked, "Are you sure you halved everything correctly?"

"Yes, I halved everything correctly!" I said as I glanced over the recipe. And I wasn't lying, everything had been halved... and then some. Visions of the custard cup I had cracked the egg into danced in my head. I had halved that egg by eyeballing it... Brett had scrambled up the other half as an appetizer... oh no... the recipe calls for 2 eggs... so half of that would be one egg. I confessed my dinner ruining mistake and put a pot of water on to boil for the dried penned I had in the cupboard.

I was so mad at myself. We should know by now to write out the halved recipe, because we've messed up before. Brett threw the dough in the trash, I sulked and pouted for a few minutes, and then we got to work on the brown butter sauce. Melt butter, let it brown, slowly pour the liquid off over a seive (in case any solids get out.) It was very easy. Much easier than making pasta.

We coated the pasta in the brown butter sauce and tasted it before adding the cheese. "It reminds me of something," Brett said, trying to figure it out.

"Caramel!" I exclaimed, immediately recognizing the warm sweetness.

It was a little weird at first, but with the cheese on top, it was pretty delicious.

So our original plan totally went down the tubes, but it turned out to be a tasty dinner anyway.

Garlic Bubble Loaf

2009-08-06T09:51:00.000-07:00

I make pizza dough. That is my yeast specialty. Every other yeast bread we've made has been spearheaded by Brett (with the exception of flat bread, which tasted suspiciously like pizza dough.) So I was feeling brave the other day and decided to make my own non-pizza yeast bread. I got out Brett's Taste of Home Baking Book and picked out a recipe that sounded delicious and looked fun to eat: Garlic Bubble Loaf.

I carefully measured the milk and added the little bit of water that the recipe called for, and then heated it in the microwave stopping often to check the temperature. I've learned to be meticulous about the temperature of the liquid because that's what gets the yeast going! If it's too cold nothing will happen and if it's too hot it will kill the yeast and, well, nothing will happen. Pizza dough starts out with yeast, sugar, and water because (I realize this is not very technical) the yeast needs something to eat. So I just assumed that the yeast would get the sugar from the milk. I didn't read the recipe very carefully because I was supposed to dissolve the yeast in just the tiny bit of water, not the milk too. But I like my way better, and it turned out fine:)

Mixing the dough and letting it rise for an hour went perfectly, so I punched the dough down (so fun!) and divided it up into twenty four pieces using our bench scraper, which really is a fantastic tool.

I tried to roll each piece into a ball, with minimal success. I'm sure if Brett had been there he would have insisted that I spend more time making perfect spheres, but he wasn't, so I didn't. Then I mixed some melted butter, dried parsley, and garlic powder for dipping. Unfortunately most of the garlic powder just sunk to the bottom. I wonder if I had been more patient if it would have eventually dissolved. Next time. Towards the end of dipping I ran out of butter and was just trying to soak up whatever I could from the dish.

Anyway I dipped each ball and then placed them into a greased loaf pan.

I covered that up and let it rise again.

Then I baked it...

I turned it out of the pan...

And I pulled a ball off for eating! This would be great for a big family-style dinner because there is no need to slice the bread. It just neatly pulls apart.

It was delicious and I was so proud of myself. Brett said that maybe I should be in charge of the bread baking from now on, but I will not let him relinquish his crown just yet.

Great Weekend and Great Breakfast: Cinnamon French Toast

2009-08-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was one that we had been looking forward to for months and it did not disappoint. Some long time friends of ours got married! The wedding was beautiful, the food was awesome (six types of cake!), and we got to see a lot of friends that we hadn't seen in a while. One of the things I love about weddings is seeing all the family and friends (many of whom have never been in the same room together and have come from great distances) convene for one evening of support and celebration for the bride and groom. It's wonderful! So, for probably the zillionth time, Congratulations!

Now for a breakfast as sweet and comforting as a good marriage (how's that for a transition?)

As many of you know, Brett and I like to eat breakfast for dinner on occasion. Last week we were all set to have traditional Baked French Toast when I decided to spice things up a bit. I found a recipe in the Bon Apetit- Fast Easy Fresh cookbook for Cinnamon French Toast. What was funny was the soaking liquid was almost exactly the same (6 T milk, 3 eggs, 1T sugar, 1/4 tsp vanilla), with the addition of 2 tsp cinnamon. I let the sliced french bread soak for about an hour, which I think made some bites soggy. Next time I will let it soak for less time.

Baking french toast is so easy- the oven does all the work. For cooking it in a buttered skillet I had to actually pay attention. The recipe said about 3 minutes on each side over medium heat, but it turns out you should not trust a timer. Mine got a little toastier than I like, but not burned (thank goodness!)

To finish, top with some powdered sugar, more cinnamon, and maple syrup. We both liked the cinnamony zip that the french toast had, so we'll be sure to make this again. We still love our regular french toast too, so maybe we'll alternate:)

Helen's Hashbrown Casserole

2009-07-29T09:38:00.000-07:00

I recently took this casserole to a Fourth of July party that my friends were throwing. When asked to describe what I was bringing I said, "It is one of those artery clogging side dishes that two people should never eat by themselves, yet Brett and I rarely do. It's got hashbrowns, sour cream, cream of chicken soup, butter, cheddar cheese, and onions, topped with cornflakes and drizzled with... more butter. It's delicious."

My friend's response was priceless, "Delightful! Why do I smell Paula Deen?"

She really wasn't too far off. Right part of the country anyway. This recipe comes from my great-aunt Helen, who (of course) lived in Arkansas.

Helen's Hashbrown Casserole

32 oz package of shredded hashbrowns

1/4 cup butter, melted

12 oz cheddar cheese, grated

1/2 onion chopped

10 oz can cream of chicken soup

8 oz sour cream

1 tsp salt

(another) 1/4 cup butter, melted

cornflakes

Place thawed potatoes in a greased 13x9 baking dish. In a large bowl, mix together 1/4 cup melted butter, soup, cheese, sour cream, onion, and salt.

Pour over potatoes. Top with lots of cornflakes. Drizzle with remaining 1/4 cup melted butter. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Bountiful Arkansas

2009-07-22T08:32:00.000-07:00

Brett and I just returned from a week vacation visiting my extended family in "The Natural State." Arkansas is one of the greenest places I have ever seen. It probably helped that it rained for the entire month of May, but even so, trees far outnumber people, whereas in San Diego it is definitely the other way around. I have spent nearly every summer of my life in Arkansas and it is a wonderful place to recharge your batteries.

Sharing food is commonplace there. Family, friends, and neighbors bring over a sack of whatever they have from their garden, whether it's fresh picked blackberries, hand-shelled black eyed peas, okra, corn, tomatoes, pecans, or squash. I had more fresh produce picked by somebody I know in one week than I had all year in California. It makes you feel closer to your food, and more appreciative of the generosity of others.

(Here I am standing in my grandparents' tomato patch)

Every meal is home-cooked, with one exception: the night we eat out at The Fish Net. I get fried catfish once a year, but it's not the catfish that gets my mouth watering...it's the hush puppies! They are little drops of fried dough that are Heaven in your mouth. I could eat an entire meal of them. I practically did! The catfish is an afterthought.

Now it's back to dry, brown San Diego, and whatever the grocery store has to offer. The home-cooked part will stick around though :)

Love and Apple Crumble

2009-07-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

Brett and I celebrated our 4th anniversary yesterday. We had a really fun evening (much better than last year when we were both sick to our stomachs and I barfed up an entire orange milkshake.) The CRAZY thing was that we actually tried a new restaurant! The motivating factor was a San Diego Restaurant gift card that we've had sitting around for over a year. Jack's Grille in La Jolla couldn't have been a more perfect choice. There was live music, we were seated in an open air atrium, and most importantly, the food was delicious! We even got a complimentary appetizer (or maybe it was an amuse bouche) just for being cute I guess ;)

One thing I love about Brett is that he bakes! One night last week we were seriously bored. There was NOTHING worth watching on T.V. Brett got his trusty Taste of Home Baking Book and started flipping through. He took a page out and went to the kitchen. All of this without saying a word. Of course curiosity got the best of me and I started trying to guess what he was making because our ingredients were limited. I guessed apple crumble but I was pretty positive that we didn't have any oats. Ever resourceful Brett remembered that we had some instant brown sugar maple oatmeal packets, so we used that. Brett got to work peeling and slicing the apples. He is incredibly slow, but he does a great job.

And I got the topping all mixed up and the pan prepared for baking.

Really it only took about 20 minutes to prepare (it could be quicker if you were in a hurry) and then we were back to , "Well, what do you want to do now?" But it was a nice 20 minutes in the kitchen with my husband.

When it came out of the oven it was delicious and the hint of maple was a very nice addition.

Zucchini and Squash Pasta (and some misses)

2009-06-28T15:27:00.000-07:00

I must have been very hungry when I went through the latest issue of Simple and Delicious magazine. I usually find maybe one new recipe to try, but this time I found five or six to try. Strangely, many of the recipes involved beef. Perhaps I was having some kind of a protein deficiency and my body was screaming "BEEF!" just hoping my brain would hear. I cannot remember the last time I bought beef.

The first recipe was a roast beef, mushroom, and onion open faced sandwich. Anyone who knows me well is probably wondering how in the world this ended up on the menu. In addition to the beef abstinence, I dislike mushrooms and sandwiches. This recipe was doomed from the beginning. Brett however did not veto (as he usually would when it is so glaringly obvious that I will not like it) because he loves sandwiches and mushrooms, and does not have as strong of an aversion to beef as I do. It turned out ok. I ate a few bites before I had to start picking mushrooms off, and a few more before the sandwich aspect got to me. I'm crazy, I know. I can't even really explain why I don't like sandwiches, they just make me feel sick. The cheese was, predictably, the best part. The recipe went in the recycling.

The second recipe we tried was pizza hamburgers. This was only the second time I have ever made hamburgers and they completely fell apart on the grill pan. It was a disaster. They were so ugly that I didn't even bother taking a picture. They were edible, but not worth trying again. That recipe went in the recycling too.

They do say, "Third time's a charm," but it started off badly. The leftover ground beef from the burgers smelled and looked weird, but I decided to cook it anyway. After a few minutes, the smell of the beef had only worsened. Brett and I agreed that the best thing to do was get it out of the apartment. It's quite common to leave a certain spice or an insignificant ingredient out, but this time we left the beef out and... it was wonderful! I had some roasted zucchini, yellow squash, onion, and garlic that I mixed with a can of tomato sauce and some Italian seasoning. We poured it over some penne pasta and scarfed it down. Thank goodness! A recipe was saved from the recycling bin! I'm sure we'll see this one again sometime soon.

No more beef... for a while at least.

Chicken Enchiladas

2009-06-22T10:17:00.000-07:00

It is rare to find a recipe worth trying in Glamour magazine, but that's where this one came from. Of course I changed a good deal of the recipe so it's more like it was inspired by a recipe found in Glamour magazine. The recipe called for red pepper, broccoli, and black beans and I didn't use any of them. I did substitute shredded chicken (leftover from my baked chicken) for the black beans though. I sauteed some onions and garlic in olive oil and then stirred in some chopped fresh cilantro, and a ridiculous amount of mozzarella cheese.

Probably the best advice I got from this recipe is to heat the corn tortillas in a dry non-stick pan until they are pretty hot. This prevents the tortillas from cracking when you add the filling and roll them up. I've always had so many problems with cracking tortillas that I didn't expect this trick to work, but it totally did! Only my first one cracked and that was because I didn't let it get hot enough.

Once the enchiladas were all rolled up, I poured a lot of Salsa Verde over the top and then put them in a 350 degree oven for fifteen minutes. So easy!

They tasted great. I do prefer red enchilada sauce to salsa verde, so the next time I make this I'll probably switch to red. I might even add some more cheese too :)

Peach Pie

2009-06-18T10:14:00.000-07:00

The peaches at the grocery store have been smelling so good lately; I just had to do make something with them. As much as I love to bake, I had never made pie crust from scratch. I think that's because I had heard so many horror stories about bad crust and because Pillsbury makes it so easy. Brett's mom convinced me that it's not that hard and well worth it. I looked up a recipe for crust and peach pie in a few cookbooks and finally decided on Taste of Home's Baking Book. Although it was not encouraging to see half a page dedicated to "Problem Solving Pointers for Pies."

I made the filling first, which involved peeling seven peaches, and I am NOT a whiz with a paring knife. I tried the trick (that I read in two sources) of putting the peaches in boiling water for 20-30 seconds and then in an ice bath. This worked for two of the peaches: their peels slid right off; the other five were decidedly not ripe yet. Ugh. It took me quite a while to carve the peels off of those five guys and then quite a while longer to cut the flesh away from the pits. It was a total hack job and I was frustrated way before it was time to start the crust.

Surprisingly, the crust came together rather easily. I used my pastry blender to cut the shortening into the flour. I made sure not to over mix, and to allow some larger pieces of shortening to remain with some smaller pieces. I then formed it into two balls (this was a double crust pie) but I tried to do it quickly so that my warm hands would touch the dough the least amount of time possible. Then I had to roll it out, which was a little frustrating because the dough was quite sticky, but I managed to get it big enough in the end. As I put it into the pie plate, I realized that the edges were quite hideous and I declared that this might be the ugliest pie ever. After I trimmed and crimped the edges, however, it was not entirely ugly.

Then for the top crust, instead of doing a full crust with a few cut-outs, I opted to do a bunch of little cutouts. I saw this technique in Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook with stars on a Fourth of July pie. It was beautiful, so I decided to try it with flowers. My parents had bought me some mini cookie cutters (meant for fondant) for my birthday and I figured one of the little flowers would be perfect for this task. I think it looked beautiful!

After baking, I could tell that the fruit filling had gone super liquidy, but other than that, it looked great.

Cutting the pie was a bit of an ordeal because of the excess goo. When I pulled the first piece out all the goo from the surrounding pieces seeped down into the hole. And when I pulled the second piece out, a good portion of the filling slid off and had to be replaced by hand. This is the second fruit dessert in a row that has been ridiculously liquidy. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Now on to the crust! I thought it was great. I'm the kind of girl who usually leaves the edge of the pie on the plate, but it was not so with this one. Definitely better than Pillsbury. I'm not a pie connoisseur, so I don't know how flaky or light it is supposed to be, but it certainly met the standard I do have: yummy!

The Man Who Ate Everything

2009-06-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

I've been known to watch Iron Chef America on occasion, and I've always appreciated the brutal honesty of regular judge Jeffrey Steingarten. When they introduce him at the beginning of the show, they always mention his book, The Man Who Ate Everything, so I finally got around to reading it. It was hilarious, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys cooking or eating.

I love how it looks like he even ate the book cover!

He begins the book with a quest to rid himself of his (quite common) food phobias. He claims to hate Kimchi, anchovies, Greek food, anything with dill, and lots of other very normal things to hate. By what he calls exposure (and what I would call force feeding) he manages to conquer all of his food phobias and even grows to like some of those foods. I thought it would be fun to make a short list of some of my food phobias (believe me I could go on for a long time.)

1. Sushi- The texture, the seaweed, and worst of all the raw fish

2. Clams, Oysters, Scallops- For some reason, things that come in a seashell scare me. They are chewy, and there is almost always sand involved. (Except I love clam chowder.)

3. Raw meat (particularly chicken) - I'll eat it when it's cooked, but when it's raw, it grosses me out.

4. Tomatoes- I love salsa and ketchup, but put a slice of tomato in front of me and I just can't bring it to my mouth.

5. Mayonnaise- I could gag just thinking about trying to eat it. I always joked about having a Fear Factor for picky eaters, well I would be the one crying over eating a spoonful of mayo. If something has mayo in it, just don't tell me, and I'll probably like it.

Mr. Steingarten is very thorough (obsessive) in all of his food research. He spends months making bread into the wee hours of the night; he probably went though a thousand potatoes trying to perfect the preparation of mashing; and I'm sure he baked a hundred pies in search of a flawless crust. When he puts his mind to something, he buys two or three of the necessary equipment, all the cookbooks he can find, and lots and lots of ingredients. After reading his book, I have no doubt that he can call himself a food expert.

He reminded me of Brett at times, always doubting the latest study. Steingarten spent several chapters debunking diets, misconceptions about sugar, salt, and alcohol, and even exploring the hazards of salad. I suppose I can conclude that, in moderation, everything is ok. Of course Steingarten doesn't seem to know the meaning of moderation.

The best part was that I laughed through the entire book! If you're in need of a laugh, read The Man Who Ate Everything. (You just might learn something too.)

Mojo Style Broccoli and Potatoes

2009-06-13T10:50:00.001-07:00

This past Memorial Day Brett, my mom, my cousin, and I all went out to an amazing dinner at The Melting Pot in Brea. It's the second year in a row that we've eaten there, so I guess you could call it a tradition now. The food there is wonderful, plus it has the added fun element of fondue. For our main course we ordered "Mojo Style" cooking liquid. Of the entire plate of various meats and big bowl of veggies they brought for us to cook, I probably raved the most about... the broccoli?! I kid you not, the broccoli was delicious and didn't even taste like broccoli.

So fast forward three weeks and I was still thinking about the mojo broccoli, so I attempted to recreate it at home. Recreating a fondue dish is easier than any ol' restaurant meal because they pretty much make it tableside and I got to see all of the ingredients going in. I started with vegetable stock, added a few chopped garlic cloves, the juice of half an orange, the juice of a whole lime, and a handful of chopped cilantro.

I don't have a fondue set (Brett and I were rather conservative on our wedding registration) so I just combined everything in a saucepan and kept it on low heat. I (mistakenly) kept the liquid just under a boil because I didn't remember the liquid at the restaurant ever boiling. Brett said it was boiling just not rapidly and that perhaps their special cookware prevented it from bubbling. Anyway, that is why it took much longer for me to cook the broccoli florets and red potato quarters than it did at the restaurant. Also, the broccoli at the restaurant sunk to the bottom, whereas at home it floated. I'm going to attribute this problem to the salinity of the vegetable stock.

Once I finally declared it done, it earned my seal of approval. It was not anywhere near as good as The Melting Pot's version, but it was good enough to be a respectable imitation. The potatoes never did get quite done, but I was tired of waiting, so we ate them "al dente." I don't know if I will try this again; I'll leave it in the maybe category. Maybe if I ever get a craving for broccoli...HA!

I love this picture for it's multiple meanings. Is it

a) a VERY relaxed dinner at home

b) Brett's attitude toward broccoli

c) just plain unsanitary

d) all of the above

Roasted Garlic and Lemon Chicken

2009-06-11T11:25:00.000-07:00

I have now accomplished something that has been on my "to cook" list for quite some time: I roasted a whole chicken. I realize that this is something that anyone can do, and most everyone has done before, but for me, this was quite a feat.

As many of you know, I hate raw meat. Raw chicken in particular just makes me want to dry heave. So how in the world I reached in that cavity and pulled out those giblets, I have no idea. I felt like I was on Fear Factor. I took deep breaths, reached in there, had no idea what kind of organs I was pulling out, and disposed of them in record time. I tried not to look. It was one of the grossest things I have ever done. It made me seriously consider vegetarianism.

Then I had to salt and pepper the inside and outside, and cram lemon wedges, a whole head of garlic with the top cut off, and a fistful of fresh thyme up inside the bird. I was supposed to tie the legs together with kitchen twine, but I didn't have any, so I briefly considered using a twisty tie before saying "forget it." I was also supposed to tuck the wings up under the bird, but I felt like I was manhandling it, and I didn't want to hear any joints crack or pop, so I didn't do that either. I brushed the whole thing with butter then put it in the oven.

Do you see that flap on the left? Was I supposed to cut that off? I don't even want to know what it is.

An hour later, I used my (sad, neglected) meat thermometer and saw that the chicken needed to cook longer, so I let it go for another half hour, at which time, it came out slightly overdone.

I covered it with foil and let it rest for about ten minutes while I prepared the rest of the meal (I'll tell you about that soon.)

The chicken was tender and juicy and overall really good. I was very proud of myself. Now, I don't think it was better than the grocery store rotisserie chicken (which is about the same price, maybe less) so I think I'm going to check "bake a chicken" off my list and never worry about giblets again!

Flatbread

2009-06-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

I made hummus again this week for a lunchtime snack, which has become quite a regular thing around here. Usually I spread it on pitas, but this week, I forgot to buy pitas so I was dipping carrot sticks into it. I KNOW! Me eating veggies- voluntarily! Well, I must say that the hummus is so strong in flavor that I can't really even taste the carrots. After a couple of days of carrots, I did get a little tired of them, so I decided to make some flatbread to spread the hummus on.

I used Bobby Flay's recipe on the Food Network website but I didn't really read ahead, I just started making it. I did read far enough to see that it had to rest for an hour so at least I had the foresight to start making it at ten in the morning. I mixed the yeast and what looked like A LOT of warm water, let that rest for about five minutes and then added half the flour gradually. This was where it was supposed to rest for an hour " to form a sponge." I'm not really sure what it was supposed to look like. It had little air bubbles that sort of made it look like a sponge, but it was not even close to the same consistency.

This was the first time ever that I've used my dough hook. I usually just do these things by hand, but I thought I would give it a try. With the mixer going, I added the salt, olive oil, and remaining flour. It was pretty fun, but I think I let it go a little too long because it formed a ball and then a few seconds later turned to goo. I added a little more flour to thicken it up and then I scraped it off onto a floured surface to knead it. Needless to say, the dough was sticky.

Then I got to the part in the recipe where it has to rise for two and a half hours. So much for the lunchtime snack. After that I divided it into three balls and let them sit for another half hour. Then I rolled them out and put them on silpats.

After 15 minutes of baking they were ready to eat. Finally! It was four o'clock! It pretty much just tasted like pizza dough, which I love, and for some bites I didn't even add any hummus. It was delicious all by itself. Well worth the wait.

Next time I may try to add some seasonings, we'll see. Any suggestions?

Scalloped Potatoes with Ham

2009-05-30T12:45:00.000-07:00

Either the folks at Taste of Home have a genius choosing their covers, or I'm lazy (maybe both.) Brett's mom sent me a copy of Cooking for 2 magazine recently and I was immediately set on making the Scalloped Potatoes with Ham that was featured on the cover. Brett and I had just been talking about how much we like potatoes, but how rarely we make them, so this seemed like a natural thing to make.

I followed the recipe almost exactly (we had half a leftover red onion that I used instead of white onion). I love the flavor of Worcestershire sauce, but have hardly any recipes that call for it. I got a big laugh when I pulled the tiny bottle out of the cabinet and read the "best by" date: 11/26/04! I had Brett guess what it said and he actually got the correct year! Anyway, I smelled it, and it still smelled yummy, so into the recipe it went! I also love anything with Cajun seasoning, so I knew this would be a good one. The only other change I made was omitting the 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of sherry or chicken broth. 1 and 1/2 teaspoons hardly seemed worth it since I didn't have sherry and only had chicken broth granules.

The thinly sliced potatoes and onions (thank you mandoline!) got layered with the cheesy, creamy sauce and cubed ham and went in the oven. It was definitely a keeper!

Brett's "Okami" Birthday Cake

2009-05-18T21:24:00.000-07:00

For Brett's cake this year, I had a few ideas, but by far the coolest was an Okami cake. Okami is a video game that we got for Christmas (thanks again TKOM!) that we have been obsessed with. We've played it for hours...I could tell you exactly how many, but I must say it's an embarrassingly high number. In the game you are a god in the form of a white wolf fighting evil and restoring beauty to Japan. New skills called brush strokes are conferred upon you by other gods throughout the game. One of the first techniques you learn is blooming cherry trees.

I drew out my design and, as I always do, I took it with a grain of salt. Usually the actual cake barely resembles the sketch.

I iced the strawberry cake (always Brett's request) and got it as smooth as I could. This is obviously a skill I have not mastered. Then I drew my design into the icing using a toothpick so I wouldn't have to freehand the piping. This was a new technique for me, and at first I was a little heavy handed (around the ear) but for the most part this really helped with the overall success of the cake.

Then I set about piping over the lines and filling in some of the bigger portions. Okami is supposed to look like a Japanese painting, so I bought a stiff, flat paintbrush and went over some of the thicker parts so it wouldn't look like a bunch of rows of piped icing.

I wanted the writing on the cake to resemble brush strokes, which I achieved, however, it came out crooked and with strange spacing. I also put six of the actual brushstrokes from the game around the side of the cake.

Next I made some pink icing. Now I know you are thinking, "Why is she putting pink flowers on her husband's awesome wolf cake?!" Well, the cherry trees play a huge role in the video game and I thought it would be pretty. I also wanted to practice piping with the tiniest writing tip in the world! My hand was stiff after about 1/3 of the flowers, but they turned out really cute. I was briefly reminded of my 3rd grade soccer team called "The Carnivorous Carnations." We were gray and pink, and absolutely terrible!

The cake exceeded my expectations. It turned out almost exactly as I had envisioned! And most importantly, the birthday boy was pleased.

Rice Pudding Mess

2009-05-14T09:50:00.000-07:00

I love my mom's rice pudding, but (if I ate it regularly it would be a big butt) it contains a TON of butter. You can actually see golden pools of it in every serving. Once you get past the fact that every bite is clogging your arteries, it is amazing. Needless to say, I rarely make it, and when I do, I seriously cut back on the butter.

I was flipping through Elie Krieger's The Food You Crave and saw a butter-free recipe for rice pudding. Of course this caught my eye and immediately went on the menu. There were a couple of red flags that really should have stopped me from making this. Obviously the first was no butter. The second, which Brett did point out while giving me the, "Yuck! Are you kidding?" look was vanilla soy milk. We have tried soy milk before and found it undrinkable. Who wants to drink beans? While the vanilla is far superior to the regular, it still tastes like vanilla flavored beans.

But instead of saying, "You're right, honey." I proceeded to read from the cookbook, "The vanilla soy milk imparts a richer flavor and texture than regular milk." I was sold. Brett was not.

The recipe was incredibly simple. I threw everything together, put a lid on it, put it in the oven, and set the timer. Toward the end of our wait, we heard a noise coming from the kitchen. That is never a good thing in our household. Sure enough the frothy milk mixture was bubbling over the pan, escaping from under the lid, and splashing down onto the bottom of our oven. All I had to do was remove the lid and all the foam went down, but the damage was already done.

We let it continue cooking until the timer beeped and then I gave it a good stir and let it cool to thicken up a little bit. Nutmeg and cinnamon got sprinkled throughout and it did smell pretty good. We started eating. It was okay. The nutmeg was its saving grace... for about four bites. I put down my bowl and said, "I don't think I want to eat any more." A couple of minutes later, Brett put his down too. As much as I hate throwing food away, this one went in the trash. I think the picture may help you understand.

I better go clean the oven now.

Mother's Day Blueberry Baked French Toast

2009-05-11T09:39:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day! Our Mother's Day celebration started the night before, when Brett made the Challah I would be needing for breakfast the following morning. My mom hung out in the kitchen while he worked and we all visited. We had the extra egg for egg-wash this time and it turned out so shiny and golden and perfect!

On Mother's Day, Brett slept in and I got to work. I saw this recipe on Giada at Home two weekends ago. It was the Mother's Day brunch show. I watched and said, "Yum, I'll make that for my mom." But when I went to find the recipe online, I couldn't find it! So I had to catch that episode again and take notes on all the measurements, baking time, and temperature.

Giada's Blueberry Baked French Toast

6 eggs

3 cups milk

3/4 cup maple syrup

2 tsp cinnamon

pinch of salt

zest from one lemon

1/2 loaf of Challah

2 cups blueberries

Topping: 3 T sugar mixed with 1 T cinnamon

Whisk together the first six ingredients to make the batter then gently stir in the blueberries and chunks of bread. Pour into a large buttered baking dish. Sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar topping. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes.

This recipe will feed a crowd, so I halved it and it was still plenty. I'm not sure about the measurement on the bread. I cut a few large slices of bread into chunks, put them in the batter and then decided to add some more because it looked way too wet. I just kept adding until there was only a little bit of liquid still in the bottom of the bowl.

I was a little worried that there would be too much cinnamon, but it tasted delicious. The most surprising taste was how strong the lemon zest was. I really liked that unexpected zing. Yum Yum Yum! I highly recommend this one for a special occasion breakfast! And the most important thing was that my mom liked it. I love you Mom!

Challah

2009-05-07T09:59:00.001-07:00

It has been a few months since Brett, the resident yeast expert, has made anything with yeast. In fact, I've been making some serious strides to match his expertise by making lots and lots of pizza dough. But finally, inspired by Giada at Home and a Mother's Day breakfast we are planning for my mom, Brett got the urge to get up and make some Challah, which is a traditional Jewish bread made with eggs.

If I were the one making the Challah, I would have talked about it for a couple of days. However, I was just watching T.V. and assumed that Brett had got up to get a drink of water. When he took a little longer than water requires I asked, "What are you doing in there?"

"Making Challah," came his matter of fact response.

As he prefers for his yeast projects, I stayed out of the way. He came and showed me his fist imprint after he punched down the risen dough. I watched him cut the dough into thirds using the bench scraper he got for Christmas. And he required my "girl skills" when it came time to braid the bread. I pretty much just pointed and told him what strand to put in the middle. One strand was way longer than the others, so he made three little knot rolls.

Before rising:

After rising:

We did not having any extra eggs, so Brett had to forego the egg wash that gives Challah its characteristic sheen. The final product looks dark and dull, but believe me, it was perfect on the inside.

The little knot rolls were my favorite. If we ever have some big special occasion meal, I think we should make Challah knots. Of course the actual loaf was delicious too. I'm looking forward to having this again soon ... in a very different form.

Rhubarb-Strawberry Crisp

2009-05-01T11:03:00.000-07:00

Last summer, on our grand tour of the USA, I bought a cookbook at City Tavern in Philadelphia. I've been wanting to make the Rhubarb-Strawberry Crisp from that cookbook ever since we got home in July, but I have not been able to find rhubarb in the store, and I wasn't about to use frozen. After reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I learned that rhubarb is a springtime plant so it reminded me to start looking for rhubarb again. Sure enough, I found it on the first try. It was one of those, "I'm pretty sure this is rhubarb, but I don't see a sign confirming it" kind of moments. I just knew that it looked like red celery. I was relieved when the cashier agreed that it was indeed rhubarb.

As you probably know, I'm a very picky eater. I have to take deep breaths before tasting something new. I had had rhubarb once in a pie as a child, but I couldn't really remember it. And my mom had had a strawberry rhubarb pie that she said was delicious. But other than that, I have to admit that I was a little scared. I kept assuring Brett, who was very wary of the rhubarb, that it would be good, but I didn't tell him that I was also trying to reassure myself.

I cut up two cups of strawberries, and two cups of rhubarb, drizzled them with 1tsp lemon juice/2T water/1/4 cup brown sugar/ 1/2 cup white sugar mixture. Stirred that up and then dumped it into a baking dish. I made a traditional streusel topping- no oats or nuts- and sprinkled that on top. I let it bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes (instead of 30) because the recipe was for individual servings and I thought it might need longer.

When it came out of the oven it was bubbling and beautiful, but very liquidy. I think that maybe it didn't need the extra cooking time after all.

It turns out that I stressed out over rhubarb for no reason, because it was delicious. Brett claimed he couldn't even taste it. The truth is, that anything would be good under all that sugar!

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

2009-04-29T20:03:00.000-07:00

I first became familiar with Barbara Kingsolver's work when a friend recommended her wonderful novel The Poisonwood Bible. I was looking through the food/cookbook section at the library and was surprised to see a non-fiction book called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I checked it out, not only because I know from experience that she is a great storyteller, but also because I was interested in her family's experience of a year of eating local food. Her family was hard-core dedicated. They moved from arid Arizona to Virginia farmland, grew their own produce, and raised their own poultry. Pretty much the only non-local food that they consumed was coffee and wheat flour.

Brett teased that this book was hippie propaganda. I do admit that it was preachy at times, but everything it said made sense. Why shouldn't we know, or at least question, where our food comes from and how it was raised? I've never really thought about the bananas I buy every week traveling thousands of miles to get to my grocery cart. Am I okay with the fact that gazillions of gallons of fossil fuel was used to transport them? I like to think of myself as a pretty environmentally conscious person, so I shouldn't be okay with that. When Kingsolver talked about practically all produce traveling from California, I felt reassured. I thought at least I live in California, so it's not really traveling that far to get to me.

Newly educated on the intricacies of eating local, I was checking snow peas off my grocery list and just happened to notice the label above the bin that read, "Product of Guatemala." Guatemala?! Ugh. I still bought them, but at least I'm aware of where they come from now. At least I thought to look! Mushrooms- "Product of USA." That's not helpful. The United States is a HUGE country- I know, I've driven across it twice! I even looked at the free range eggs. Maybe I'll start going to the farmer's market. One thing is for sure, this book has changed the way I think about food. I hope that after this thinking period, that it will start to change the way I eat.

I will never have a farm like Kingsolver has, and I definitely will never raise (and harvest) chickens, but I would like to have a garden and grow some food someday. If you look beyond the "hippie propaganda", this book is really about the joy of gardening, cooking, and eating. The fresh avocados our friend gave us last week were a tangible reminder that food doesn't have to come from the store. We can grow it!

Friendly Guacamole

2009-04-25T22:37:00.000-07:00

I was planning our weekly menu and had a craving for guacamole. We hadn't made it in a long time and Brett thought it sounded good too, so onto the menu it went. The next day, our friend just happened to give Brett some fresh avocados! What a wonderful coincidence! It reminded me of small town Arkansas where everyone brings everyone tomatoes from their garden. It is always so nice to receive fresh produce from a friend. Thanks Marie!

Our guacamole recipe came from my aunt Nancy and it is super easy and delicious. Thanks Nancy!

1 cup chopped tomato

3 avocados

1/4 of a chopped onion

1 minced jalapeno

1 T lime juice

1 tsp salt

I don't go exactly by the measurements, I just put what looks right. I definitely go easy on the tomato, but that's because I don't really like tomato. (We tried to make it once without tomato and it tasted weird, so just don't leave it out.)

It's hard to believe that I used to refuse to eat guacamole. I think it was the color and the mushiness that scared me. Who knows? At least I came to my senses as an adult! It is sooooo yummy!

Apple Turnovers

2009-04-21T14:40:00.000-07:00

It has been about a thousand degrees here in San Diego for the past few days, and yet here I am posting about apple turnovers. These were delicious, but would be much better in colder weather.

With the last of our leftover phyllo dough from Election Night and, coincidentally, Inauguration Day we decided to make Apple Turnovers from Elie Krieger's The Food You Crave. We had all the ingredients on hand, and now that we are ol' pros with phyllo (or as Brett told me, "You don't freak out anymore"), it really came together quite easily.

I got the brown sugar and cinnamon measured and in a skillet along with some freshly grated nutmeg, while Brett thinly sliced the apples. Some of them were so thin that he was holding them up to his eye to see if he could see through them. If I had been slicing they would have been much thicker and done quicker, but I probably would have had a bleeding finger.

When Brett was (finally) done slicing, I sauteed the apples in the sugar and spices until they were soft. It is quite possibly one of the best smells in the world. Mmmmmm.

We prepared the phyllo with melted butter (even though the recipe says to use canola oil to cut out some of the fat.) And between the second and third layer we crumbled up some Vanilla Wafers. Here I go again with my store brand follies. I have tried reduced fat Nilla Wafers and they are terrible. When I was at the store this week it was either reduced fat, mini, or store brand. I went with the store brand. They are good, but do not taste like true Nilla Wafers. They kind of tasted like fortune cookies.

Once the phyllo was prepared we cut it into four strips and spooned a fourth of the apple mixture in little piles at each end of the dough strips. Brett did the honors of wrapping them up into little triangles. He compared it to folding up a paper football.

I brushed each turnover with more butter and then they went into a 350 degree oven.

They came out golden and flaky, with an ooey gooey apple center that was as hot as magma! We both decided to eat two servings. Oh well, no leftovers.

Strawberry Trick

2009-04-13T18:03:00.001-07:00

My grandma was in California visiting for Easter and had a wonderful tip to share with me, which I am now going to share with you.

It is no secret that I love strawberries. The best strawberries in the world, as far as I am concerned, are from Manassero Farms in Orange County and I was so happy to see that my mom had bought a big crate of them for us to snack on during our visit. I usually just grab one, wash it, and eat it while holding the stem, but there are always a few juicy bites around the leaves that go to waste. I am also terrible (and dangerous) with a paring knife so when a recipe says to take the hulls out of strawberries, I usually don't. This tip solves both of those problems. All you need is a straw!

I thought that it would be easier to show you than to explain it in words, so I'm proud to present the first video ever posted on Foolin' Around in the Kitchen!

(Photography by Dad, music by Herb Ohta Jr.)

Dutch Babies

2009-04-13T10:03:00.000-07:00

Another recipe that had been gathering dust since my bridal shower (4 years ago!) is for Dutch Babies. The recipe was given to me by a family friend, along with the pyrex dishes that we use ALL the time. Many families have a special occasion breakfast and I can totally see why this is theirs. However, unlike many special occasion breakfasts, this one is incredibly easy, so it allows whoever is cooking to celebrate right along with everyone else. In typical Kim and Brett fashion, we made this for dinner instead of breakfast.

The recipe calls for a Tablespoon of butter in each dish, but I just couldn't bring myself to do that so I put 1/2 a Tablespoon (you could probably even put less if you want.) While that was melting in the 425 degree oven, I got the batter together:

3/4 cup flour

4 eggs

3/4 cup milk

That's it! I stirred it up and it was quite lumpy, but that's exactly what the recipe said to expect.

When the butter was melted I sprayed a little cooking spray in there just for good measure, tried to distribute the batter evenly between the 4 dishes, and then put them in the oven for 15 minutes.

I was pleasantly surprised when I pulled them out of the oven!

We weren't exactly sure how to serve it so the first one just stayed in its dish and the second one got turned out onto a plate.

We poured maple syrup and sprinkled powdered sugar over the top and it was delicious. They tasted a little bit like french toast but eggier. The texture was light and delicate, but it was rich and filling. We really liked it, and since it was sooooo easy, I'm sure we will see it again.

Crusty Omelette Bake

2009-04-09T09:40:00.000-07:00

Every day for breakfast I drink an Instant Breakfast. I've been drinking them since high school and I think they're delicious. On weekends Brett loves to eat a giant bowl of Cheerios, so I just make my Instant Breakfast as usual. As you might guess, breakfast for breakfast is pretty rare in our household, but that doesn't mean we don't like breakfast, we just have breakfast for dinner on occasion.

This recipe came with my Longaberger pie plate. Longaberger is well known for their beautiful baskets (pictured above) but they make ceramic bakeware and all sorts of other things too. It's one of those recipes that, in addition to the ingredients, tells you what Longaberger tools you can use. (Don't tell the folks at Longaberger, but I used a different mixing bowl, and it worked just fine.)

I started by taking a couple of large handfuls of thawed Southern-style hashbrowns and spreading them out in the bottom of a pie plate (that had been sprayed with cooking spray) and up the sides a little bit. This baked for about 10-15 minutes until the hashbrowns were starting to brown around the edges.

While that was cooling slightly I got to work on the egg mixture. Really you could put whatever you like in your omelettes but I chose to follow the recipe. 5 beaten eggs, 1/2 a cup cubed ham, 1 cup grated cheddar cheese, 1/4 cup milk, salt and pepper, 1/2 cup broccoli florets and 1/4 cup of chopped green onion. Some of you may be amazed that I didn't leave the broccoli out (Brett wanted me too) but I figured it was an easy way to sneak in a little bit of vegetables.

I poured the egg mixture over the hashbrowns and let it bake at 400 for 25 minutes. When I took it out, the eggs were still a little runny, so I gave it a couple extra minutes.

We sliced it up like a pie, and ate it with ketchup on the side.

It was really good, but we both agreed that next time we'll leave out the broccoli.

Mom Oops

2009-04-07T10:06:00.001-07:00

As it turns out, I'm not the only one who occasionally makes mistakes in the kitchen, but then again, maybe it's genetic.

My mom was recently making her much loved White Chocolate Craisin Oatmeal Cookies and when she reached for the vanilla she accidentally grabbed the red food coloring. They may look scary, but I've heard they still taste great.

Jambalaya

2009-04-06T10:41:00.000-07:00

A family friend makes Jambalaya for big get-togethers and she gave me her signature recipe at my bridal shower. Even though I have had this Jambalaya recipe for four years now, I didn't get around to making it until last week. Since Brett shrugged and grunted when I asked him what he wanted to eat that week, I made the menu. He was not very excited about Jambalaya night. I assured him that it would be similar to the Red Beans and Rice Soup that we make, only with andouille sausage instead of beans.

I was a little confused about whether or not the andouille sausage was already cooked. It had the texture of pepperoni when I cut it into slices. The recipe says to heat it through, but I let it go longer than that just to be on the safe side. I also threw in some leftover bits of pre-cooked chicken. I took the meat out and then cooked a chopped onion, two cloves of garlic, and a chopped green pepper in the same pot. (The recipe also calls for chopped celery, but I left that out.)

Once the veggies were tender, I put the meat back in, added three cups of chicken broth, and then did a major double take at the recipe. 1/4 cup of paprika!! I didn't even have 1/4 cup of paprika and I'd never seen a recipe that called for even close to such a huge amount. What I did have a lot of was Cajun seasoning from Penzey's Spices. So I left out the 1/4 tsp cayenne and the paprika from the recipe and instead added almost 1/4 of a cup of the Cajun Seasoning. When that came to a boil I added two cups of rice and let it simmer covered until the rice had absorbed all the liquid and was cooked through.

The apartment smelled fantastic! I think even Brett was starting to get excited, even though he didn't show it. He was wary that it would be too spicy. I went to have a taste to check if the rice was done and it was, "Oooooh it's good!" I yelled from the kitchen. "Oooooh it is spicy though," quickly followed.

It was good, but we ate it with a giant glass of water. I had to take a sip every two bites. Our mouths were on fire! Next time I'm going to half the cajun seasoning, I should have listened to my instincts, which told me a 1/4 cup was way too much.

I discovered a pretty good remedy to "put out the fire." Popsicles! I had one for dessert soon after the Jambalaya, and by the time it was gone, so was the spiciness.