of monkeys and cupcakes

Roast Beef Nori Rolls

2010-05-17T10:33:00.004-04:00

First things first, I forgot to take a final picture of the rolls. And that is why I am a bad blogger. Needless to say these are wicked tasty and super easy. All you need is a couple sheets of nori, roast beef, sour cream, and horseradish. Mix up the sour cream and horseradish together to your liking, really up to you and your tolerance. Place roast beef on about 3/4 of the nori and spread with the zesty cream thusly.
Then all you have to do is roll it up, wet the nori and let them sit a bit. The sitting is not vital, but it softens up the nori a bit and lets everything meld a bit. Slice them up with a nice sharp knife and pop them in your mouth! Or in our case package them up along with oodles of IPA's for a beer tasting.

look at me I am a posting ninja... maple bacon snickerdoodles

2010-05-10T19:40:00.007-04:00

Soooo, I was basically over work for the week by 8:30 this morning. This bodes poorly for the rest of the week, but when that happens it does give me ample time to day-dream about food. What, you don't do that? Basically if I ever need motivation for any sort of experiment or project, just have me get a touch bored at work, next thing you know I am researching how to debone a squab. Enter these cookies, what is funny about all of this is that for the last year or so I have totally lost my sweet tooth. Random cookies or frosting are just to much, my sweet tooth may have been replaced by a high quality ice cream and potato chip tooth. So, I like the concept and flavor combo of this, but they were crunchier than I prefer and was kinda of over it after one bite. If you want the recipe, I snagged it from Closet Cooking but added bacon, that kid makes some tasty grub. I did however cram the few pieces of bacon left over into my maw. On a similar note, I may have dropped a snickerdoodle dough-ball, destined for the sugar bowl for rolling, on the floor and had to retrieve the whole thing from the Saltine's mouth. FYI, I opted not to cook that one. P.S. we got a super cute dog.

Kinderhook Farm Sirloin

2010-05-09T07:23:00.003-04:00

We thawed out the sirloin from Kinderhook Farm and in an effort to truly see how the meat tastes I simply tossed it under the broiler. Nothing fancy, nothing to amp it up. All I can say is holy shit, this was delicious. Super tender, very flavorful, and not at all chewy but not in that funny mushy way that some mass produced meats can be. After cooking this up I am very much looking forward to chowing down on the rest of our meats that we got from the farm. Since I was cooking up the sirloin in the morning I made a right brekkie of steak and eggs for the Hubbs. I also will not deny that I "may" have gnawed the bit of meat that was on the bone after we sliced this baby up.

Kinderhook Farm

2010-05-02T14:53:00.009-04:00

In our goal to try and have most of our meats come from local-ish and happily raised animals we took the jaunt out to Valatie NY to check out Kinderhook Farm. I was a gorgeous day and perfect for a short trip. The farm store was small, just a few freezers of meat and a fridge with their eggs. The eggs, by the way, were totally beautiful light green, browns, and tan; sadly we had just gone shopping so we had about a dozen and a half already hanging in the fridge at home. We called Georgia, one of the owners, she met us at the store and helped us out. After chatting for a bit we decided on a nice brisket, sirloin, and some marrow bones. Everything comes frozen but according to the website you can call ahead and they will pull stuff out of the deep freeze to start defrosting in advance of your visit. The super friendly and helpful Georgia took us on a quick tour of the farm where they were in the early days of "lambing" which meant there were oodles of wee day-old lambs just cold-chillin with their moms. There was also a brandy-new calf that had been born the day before as well.

As far as the meat, we have not had any of it yet. I will definitely post on that once we bust into the stash.

Oh, and as far as posting, which I suck-diddly-uk-at, my new goal is to wow you all with at least one post a week. This should help "goal orient" stuff a bit more. Here is hoping it works!

Mommy sheep

home made goat cheese

2010-01-10T18:16:00.006-05:00

Even though I have made mozzarella at home, for some reason I thought the process for goat cheese would be different or more difficult. Turns out it is probably easier and with ingredients that don't involve a trip to a special market providing that you have a hook-up for goat milk or it is in your regular market. I followed Kiss my Spatula's recipe pretty much to the letter, except that I doubled it. doubled for no other reason than I purchased a half gallon of goat milk rather than a quart and we were not to apt to use it in coffee or over granola.

Draining cheese looking, well, sacky

We chopped up the green parts of a handful of scallions to add into the mix for some additional zing and color. To sample my freshly made cheese I went for dates with goat cheese wrapped with prosciutto. It was really hard not to make 14 of these and cram them into my gaping maw.

English Muffins

2010-01-03T11:08:00.003-05:00

Look at the patient muffins chillin in their rings, aw.....

Months ago on a whim I purchased some english muffin rings in the hopes of making my very own nook and cranny filled muffins. Fast forward till a week ago and the rings were still sitting lonely in the cupboard. While prepping for the previously mentioned post-christmas brunch, I figured that it would be a nice time to test out the lonely rings. I used the recipe and directions that came with the rings and as you can see they turned out pretty fluffy and giant. I wish that I had taken a better side shot since they were seriously about 2 1/2 inches tall, at least! Our guests commented that they looked more like the "grands" style of refrigerator biscuits from the grocery store. They did taste great, but not the chewy-crunchy way that a traditional english muffin tend to be. I need to experiment with a couple of different recipes. The one that came with the rins produced a rather stiff dough and I had imagined that it would have been different with a looser more slack dough with less in the rings initially. Overall they were pretty good considering it was an early morning experiment.

"working with what you got" muffins

2010-01-03T10:49:00.006-05:00

We found ourselves the hosts of a pot-luck brunch on the day after Christmas and since we had been traveling in the days before and would be traveling in the days after our few days at home I refused to make a special trip to the market for grub. I did however find time to hit a liquor store to procure the requisite bubbly for brunch, not to be a poor host, obviously. These blueberry cottage cheese muffins were a bit of an iron-chef-to-the-interwebs creation. I based the recipe on this one that I found here. These muffins were very well received by Lady Giblet of Ridiculous Food Society fame, and that makes them a winner in my book.

oh hai! I still do this from time to time

2009-12-16T08:54:00.003-05:00

There has been an overwhelming lack of time and motivation in the land of monkeys and cupcakes and for that I apologise.

However, I bring you a surprisingly delicious and pretty health-full dish! Chard and spaghetti squash gratin. Yes, yes, very rarely do you see healthy and gratin in the same sentence but this fits the bill fairly well. I adapted these two recipes found here and here. I went for fat free fage greek yogurt in place of the sour cream and it worked like a dream and boosted the protein a bit. I am sure that it may be a touch richer with regular or low fat sour cream but I wasn't missing it. This is totally a make again and I really look forward to seeing what else I could mix in, hmmm mushrooms? salmon? the list really could go on.

Glamorous leftovers at desk shot

Dulce de Leche

2009-11-09T08:01:00.005-05:00

First off, I do not recommend this cooking method and it could be dangerous. Proceed at your own risk. That said, I am totally going to make this again using the same method.

I have seen this recipe kicking around the interwebs for some time and I opted for the crockpot-you-won't-be-home-if-the-cans-explode method found here. There are tons of different ways to do this and many require much, much more attention and stirring so I went for the lazy one.

Into the crockpot went four cans of sweetened condensed milk with the labels removed and were then covered with water. Cook on low for eight hours. The cans will be hot when you fish them out of their watery home. Be careful when you open the cans, there will be a bit of pressure and some of the delicious dulce de leche will blurp out. I urge anyone who tries this to resist consuming all of it with a spoon during this initial step. It will be hard and you may fail.
I served this up at two sorriees over the weekend with apples and it was very well recived.

Chicken liver roasted butternut squash pate

2009-11-02T17:16:00.004-05:00

After having some amazing pate at the nearby wine bar I decided that I should try my hand at it. This was also nice since it incorporated the butternut squash which lightened it up a bit and made good use of the abundance of butternut squash that we had from our CSA. This was a hit at one of the Halloween parties that we attended this weekend, I brought wee toasts and some crackers to serve as the pate vessel, however I observed most people dunking pretzels in it. What can I say we are nothing but classy. If you want the recipe check it out here.

Product Review- MimicCreme

2009-10-19T10:25:00.004-04:00

Now, I don't normally do reviews but I figured why not.

A few weeks ago I was doing my normal shopping at the Co-op and we needed evaporated milk for a creamy soup. Turns out they were out of it and I really did not want to cave and go for the full-fat cream monty. I get enough milk fats from cheese and whatnot, I can skip it in a soup that I will not miss it in. We ended up stumbling upon a product called MimicCreme non-dairy milk section. It is non-dairy, soy-free, and gluten free. The ingredients are simply Purified Water, Almonds, Cashews, Sodium Bicarbonate, Rice Starch, and Non-Iodized Salt. I was a little apprehensive and concerned that it would be a watery gross mess. It was not the case at all, creamy nice looking, and worked like a dream in our soup. It even fared well when the soup was frozen and then reheated. MimicCreme gets a firm thumbs up from our household and and is a nice healthy/different option for cooking. We have totally made repeat purchases of the product. My only complaint is that the unsweetened comes in a 32 oz container and sometimes it is a bit more than we need, but I just end up using it in coffee or in other projects.

super oatmeal

2009-10-15T07:38:00.005-04:00

Again, I will spare you a photo of one of they most unphotogenic foods, oatmeal. To be honest I pretty much hated oatmeal unless it was in cookie form until I was well out of college. It was slimy, gross, and generally unsatisfying. Especially unsatisfying when in a lame-ass wee packet that served as a sugar delivery system. I also grew up in a cream of wheat household, my mother hated oatmeal and never offered it as a breakfast option. That brings me to about the age of 24-ish, I realised that I should give oatmeal another try, its good for you relatively easy, and relatively cheap.

Enter steel-cut oats. These little suckers are a whole different animal. Nutty, a bit chewy, and minimally processed. The major drawback to steel-cut oats is the cooking time, if made traditionally it takes about 40 minutes of ACTIVE cooking and stirring. Yes, you can make a bunch all at once but there is nothing more boring than standing over your stove top just stirring oatmeal. Watching paint dry or counting paperclips come to mind.

I have since perfected the lazy steel-cut oat preparation- the steamer/rice cooker. I have one that I rescued from my parents house years ago it is very similar to this one. This is also the only way I prepare rice. I have only successfully ruined pots while cooking rice on the stove. Note- this oatmeal making process is no faster it is just hands free. 1/2 cup steel cut oats to 2 cups water in the little rice cooker dish, fill the water reservoir to the high line and set it for one hour. When it dings you have two hearty servings of oats that will improve immensely if they are left to chill overnight in the fridge then reheated in the morning.

Okay, back to the super oatmeal. I have tried numerous mix-ins for oatmeal and for the most part they are totally up to you and your preferences. However this morning I stumbled upon a real winner. After the oats were done in the steamer I split them in to two containers added a spoonful of chia seeds, a squeeze of hazelnut agave, and a spoonful of cashew butter. This all got mixed together then put in the fridge to wait till morning. The chia and cashew butter gave it a bit more body and staying power for the tummy, plus some healthy fat and a fiber boost. Breakfast Win!

Wow, this is an awful lot of talk about oatmeal....

Bacon Jam

2009-10-10T18:46:00.006-04:00

I generally leave all of the bacon experiments to Mr. Dave, however when I happened upon Not Quite Nigella's bacon jam I knew I needed to try it. Wow, just wow. First off it makes your house smell awesome, second it got me out of some of my ceiling painting shift when the Hubbs took over so that I could tend to the jam. I am pretty eager to give this a-go with some soft cooked eggs in the near future.
Not gonna lie it looks pretty gross while its cooking, like strange bacon soup.

After it improves slightly, mostly because you get to eat it.

corn fritters aka I forgot that I really dislike frying things

2009-09-21T18:37:00.005-04:00

We have been a bit backlogged on eating our farm share, we went out of town for a weekend and really got behind, leaving our household of two with eight ears of corn. To dispense with four of those ears I tried my hand at some corn fritters. They turned out pretty tasty plated up with some wilted tat soi and some ginger garlic chutney for the Hubbs. And I was quickly reminded how much I dislike frying. eating fried sure, making it no.

Savory Ricotta Kale Pancakes

2009-09-06T12:52:00.003-04:00

Holy yummy breakfast. I found some super fancy ricotta on sale at the coop and bought it with no real plan for it. I have been intrigued by the concept of ricotta pancakes, mostly cause it packs a bit more protein than regular pancakes. In my world pancakes are kind of a waste, they just make me more hungry.

I based the pancakes on a recipe that I found here, I omitted the sugar and added a touch more than a pinch of salt. Once that was all together I added one bunch of kale that I had wilted with a chopped onion and a bit of garlic. They turned our fluffy and wonderful.

One finished and one half-way there.

home made cheese and a giant sandwich

2009-08-23T08:45:00.011-04:00

I recently made the kitchen foray into making cheese. I can honestly say it was pretty cool and way easier that I would have thought. It was like a science experiment that suddenly results in cheese. Specifically a shiny wonderful ball of mozzarella.

Although the poor tomatoes in the northeast are being sadly taken out by blight, the few that have made it have been amazingly tasty and worth the hearty price tag. At the Troy Farmers Market I picked up some delicious tomato beauties from Slack Hollow Farm. Those tomatoes were begging for a tryst with my fresh mozzarella, thus the giant sandwich was born. I found a nice looking loaf of ciabatta at the Coop, sliced it the long way and went to town caprese style.

Giant sandwich=awesome

side note- I was talking to my sister yesterday and she commented that her husband was making cheese, and I had to respond "oh I made some cheese this morning" Random.

natural habitat

2009-08-14T21:26:00.004-04:00

These tried to make their way back home into the nature of center square.

Shrimp Boil Fritatta

2009-08-06T07:46:00.007-04:00

We definitely had a boatload of leftovers from our shrimp boil and while leftovers are wonderful this was one that really lost a little something after a night in the fridge. The Hubbs was very concerned that the shrimpy/crawfishy goodness would go to waste so he suggested a fritatta.

After I pulled all the meaty bits of seafood out of their shells I chopped up the potatoes and cut the corn off the cob. The onions and garlic from the boil were already pretty soft and mushy so I just tossed them in as is. This mixture turned out to be about 3 cups of filling, give or take. I mixed three eggs and 1/2 cup of milk and combined with the boil mixture. I was going to add just a bit of parmesan at this point only to find out that my parm had gone rouge in the fridge. The only other cheese option was a smoked gruyere so I shredded a nice chunk in to the mix. Add 1/2 cup flour plus 1/2 t baking powder, plus what ever seasons you prefer (I went for a dash of Cayenne and a bit of old bay). Mix the whole thing together and pop it in the oven in a greased pie pan or oven safe dish. 350 ish for 40-45 should do it. This was a pretty freestyle job, as fritattas want to be.

Shrimp Boil

2009-08-04T12:23:00.004-04:00

I really cannot claim any credit for the shrimp boil or even the inspiration. That I have to give credit to The Kitchen Sink. I simply saw the blog entry and said "hey that would be tasty", and after having a crap-tastic day I was determined to try and force a good evening. The only real tweak was the addition of a few crawfish that looked inviting at the market.

Steamy

This was enjoyed with a few glasses of asti on our stoop to celebrate summer FINALLY arriving in the northeast. The Hubbs and I determined that this was tasty, messy, and did in fact improve the evening. Next time we would probably add in some spicy sausage as well and more people; we have a ton left over (but the Hubbs has a banner idea, so keep an eye out....)

Margarita

2009-07-29T18:35:00.004-04:00

Some of you who know me know that for most of my drinking years, I often passed on tequila. That was unless I was terribly tipsy and it was 1. bought by someone else, 2. rack, and 3. utterly gross. Given those factors I thought I hated tequila. Much like how I thought I hated wine because I had only ever stolen white zinfandel from a box that my Mom stored under the kitchen table.

Needless to say I decided to take it back about a year and a half ago. I gave tequila another chance and it has been a wonderful affair since then. Again, to those who may know me know that I also do not drink rum, spite my love for it. Rum however is a foul tasty temptress in my world. She makes me irrationally angry and frankly, batshit crazy. For the sake of my marriage and friendships I will not be giving rum another go.

Margarita:
This is my recipe made to my preference and is not what everyone likes, but it has gotten some pretty encouraging reviews from my attorney.

2 oz Tequila (whatever brand you prefer, but really don't totally cheap out)
2 oz triple sec (feel free to cheap out here, unless you are going for Grand Marnier don't bother in my book)
2 oz lime juice.

pour over ice, no salt, and most certainly do not turn that shit into a watered down snow cone.

Cheers

New Asian Market

2009-07-27T09:36:00.005-04:00

Mr. Dave of Ridiculous Food Society fame recently visited and reviewed the newest addition to the Asian market family in the Capital District. His review is far more comprehensive so please feel free to check it out here.

It is bright and clean, although still has that "Asian market smell", but that is just how it goes. I really look forward to spending a bit more time there and taking advantage of their fresh meats and fish. One thing that very much surprised me was this........

Yes, Durian. I admittedly was to chickenshit to buy one. It was too far away from trash day to purchase a supposedly delicious fruit that stinks of dead bodies. I am still intrigued and may heed the siren call soon. Plus I loved that it was tucked unassumingly in a cooler next to green tea ice cream and an impressive assortment of dumplings.

picture purposely omitted- sesame ginger nufu salad

2009-07-27T08:30:00.005-04:00

Our household has been known to purchase a tub of the tofu salad from the co-op and gobble it up almost instantly. This goes the same for both versions of the tofu salad, Matt's and the curry cashew. A few weeks ago I got some flavored and seasoned tofu when it was on sale and stashed it in the cheese drawer to await inspiration.

Yesterday morning that inspiration struck! Leaving the flavor decision up the the Hubbs, tofu salad was going to be made. After choosing sesame ginger I looked down at the package and realized I had in fact not purchased two packages of tofu I purchased one package of tofu and one package of nufu. specifically Sunergia nufu peanut tofu. Apparently nufu is soy free "tofu", I had never heard of it nor really knew that it existed. It is virtually identical to tofu except that the soybeans are replaced with peanuts. Although this is seasoned lightly, it still tasted a lot like tofu straight out the package. However after jazzing it up a bit hoooboy! tasty stuff.

Sesame ginger nufu salad

1 package Sunergia nufu peanut tofu
half of a vidalia onion chopped small
4 green onions chopped
1 T natural peanut butter
approximately 2 T warm water
few shakes soy sauce.

Crumble up nufu and mix with both onions. In a separate bowl combine peanut butter and warm water and mix till fully incorporated and smooth. Add a bit of soy sauce to the mixture and combine. Pour the sauce into the nufu and onion mix; stir it all up and enjoy.

This really was super tasty and would be great in a wrap or over some greens. We just kind of chowed it on its own. Pictures were graciously not taken since tofu/nufu is really not the most photogenic of foods to begin with and once you smash it up you really are not doing it any favors.... but trust me this was delicious and quick.

easiest "fancy" salad ever

2009-07-20T09:42:00.006-04:00

Ooolala, is that a course from a swanky tasting menu? Nope, just my lunch on Saturday. After a busy morning that included an awesome run with my sister, the farmers market, the co-op, and an unsuccessful trip to Rolf's Pork Store; I was totally ready for lunch.

I took some nice fresh spinach from our CSA, topped it with tangy goat cheese, fresh figs, a splash of balsamic vinegar, and cracked pepper. Wicked easy and enjoyed while sitting on my stoop taking in the neighborhood.

edamame dip AKA "holy shit there is sunshine in my mouth"

2009-07-20T09:24:00.006-04:00

There us no way this picture will ever do this dip justice, unless I photo shop a halo and ethereal lighting into it....

I stumbled across the recipe for this wonder-dip at Closet Cooking, I tweaked it only slightly. My edamame was already cooked, I used fresh lemon juice in place of lime, and I tossed in a garlic scape for good measure. Wowzer is this tasty! It really is like an amazing summer day that you can eat with veggies, or chips, or on a sandwich. I highly recommend giving it a whirl for yourself.

Belgium

2009-07-13T10:06:00.005-04:00

Ha ha! I have a reason aside from laziness as to why I have not posted.... We were visiting Belgium. The land of beer, chocolates, mussels, and fries!

There were some definite winners that we were able to sample throughout our journey. The beers (not surprisingly) were wonderful, we really did not encounter any real duds at all. Similarly any chocolate we encountered was delicious and in a totally different category than most chocolate you find stateside.

You can get giant steaming pots of mussels every way imaginable. I am admittedly a bit of a mussel slut and will accept them any way that I can get them and will always be pleased. So, me liking the mussels was a bit of a sure thing.

Our firm recommendation on the fries. Skip them if they are at a restaurant or part of your meal they will be lame, pretty standard, and they will serve them to you with just about everything. Go to a stand or a cart. That is where the pom frits action is. They will be hot, greasy, and with a bounty of dipping sauces that can be slopped all over them.

Oh, and if you ever find yourself in Antwerp check out a place called The Bistro. One of the best meals I have had in a long time.

A P.S. to Belgium- Your cities will smell way less like piss if you actually have bathrooms. Just seems like a safe bet when your culture encourages consumption of multiple liters of beer in a given sitting. Just an observation.

another photoless post

2009-06-26T18:40:00.002-04:00

Ok. This is totally lame but I have been hankering for a pb+j sandwich for a few days, earth shattering right? Either way, we tend not to have jelly/jam in the house purely because it does not get eaten. In my quest I remembered that pb and honey is rather delicious as well, alas no honey. BUT we do have wonderful vanilla flavored agave..... and holy shit it was amazing. I don't know if it was the fact that it was a new flavor combo or what but I am still dreaming about that half a sandwich.

pizza with broccoli and garlic scape pesto

2009-06-25T08:35:00.003-04:00

This time of year is one of my favorites, not just because its getting warmer and you get to cookout more often, but because of garlic scapes. I was introduced to them a few years ago in our CSA share and was instantly hooked. We now seek them out when they are in season and toss them in just about everything that we cook, soup, pasta, stir-frys, the whole she-bang. Yesterdays dinner turned out to be chock full of scapey goodness. We used premade dough from the market topped with scape pesto, some broccoli, a few plops of ricotta, and a sprinkling of grated parmesan. It was awesome. Alas since I am a bad blogger.... we forgot to take pictures. Sigh

I still am being a bad blogger

2009-06-22T10:26:00.003-04:00

I can't say that I have gotten my mojo back and that makes me sad. So I am forcing the mojo. Keep an eye out, there will be something soon, I promise.

Kung Pao Tofu

2009-04-20T19:38:00.003-04:00

Told you that I didn't totally abandon this little nook of the interweb. In an effort to use some tofu that was nearing its "best by" witching hour I opted to make some kung pao tofu. I adapted this wonderful looking recipe from For the Love of Cooking. It came out rather tasty if I do say so myself, and was quickly nommed by the boys in the house.

I am being a very bad blogger

2009-04-07T13:53:00.002-04:00

In contrast with my general bad pictures and lame prose, I have simply been lazy and uninspired.....

And I kinda don't know where the camera went.

Regardless, it is no excuse. I just need to find my mojo, maybe spring will perk me up. Keep your fingers crossed.

Irish Soda Bread

2009-03-15T09:49:00.006-04:00

In order to fortify the Hubbs for the opening of sanctioned outdoor drinking season in downtown Albany, AKA the St. Patrick's day parade, I made some holiday appropriate soda bread. This was a slightly modified version of Helen Doyle's Irish Soda Bread from Cooking Light. I skipped the caraway seeds and used a mix of milk and buttermilk as to extend the buttermilk a bit. It came together very quickly and did not suffer for me skipping the quick knead. I really felt that kneading something only 3-4 times was not worth making the floury giant kneading mess.
From the best that I can tell the Hubbs survived the parade (I had to miss it). I can't say that my lovingly made soda bread actually helped but I would like to think it did.

Sorry for the whole lot of nothing....

2009-03-12T10:33:00.004-04:00

I have not abandoned my sweet little blog, it is just that a lot of things are lining up so that there is very little to post.

There was some fun bacon toffee made for a birthday soiree, but someone (cough, Hubbs looking in your general direction) deleted all of the pictures on the camera. It was wicked tasty and allowed me to conquer my fear of the candy thermometer. It was inspired by a post by Foodie With Family. If you want pictures and the low-down it is all there. And it was totally had not to just eat this toffee for every meal, matter of fact we may have bookended every meal and snack with the nummy bits of sugary-bacony-goodness.

I also have been traveling for work and some family stuff and was hoping for some wonderful meals or restaurants to post about, however it really just didn't happen. I had a full week of rather mediocre food, not to many gems in the lot.

Keep an eye out for a few things to come.... I have a few things up my sleeve.

confession/observation

2009-02-25T19:30:00.002-05:00

Ok. I know that bacon is considered a bit "trendy" right now, but I would like to argue that it is less trendy but more that people are simply taking it back. I spent years of my life shunning pork of all kinds, and I still do for the most part. Yes, it is the "other white meat" as we are told, but that is exactly what it is, white. It tastes like white, or beige if you will. I am sure if I found a nice local farm that does not breed their piggies to be lean and mean I would love it.

Needless to say, I started eating bacon a while back and seriously, I am in love. I could eat it every day and look for ways to incorporated it into my world. So color me trendy and bring on the bacon.

dinner we forgot to take pictures of...

2009-02-16T20:34:00.004-05:00

We made a fairly stellar din-din of stuffed chicken breast and sauteed bok choy this evening and completely forgot to take any pictures till we and our guest had pretty much licked the plates clean. It went kinda like this.... hearty sized chicken breast (not the comically large ones or the freak chicken, just about 5-6 ozs that are appropriate to eat and have enough meat to put a bit of an opening down the side. Those were filled with a mixture of goat cheese, dried cranberries, fresh thyme, and some ground flax seed. I smooshed that all into a slit in the side of the breast and sealed it off with a toothpick and tossed in the oven. We chopped up some baby bok choy and started the stems with olive oil and shallots, once tender added in the leafy parts with some garlic and a few glugs of balsamic vinegar and some garlic. Once everything is good and wilty drop a few globs of goat cheese then mow on it.

Not to bad for a Monday.

VD

2009-02-14T19:32:00.010-05:00

Hee hee, VD is funny.....

All things venereal aside, we made the most bad ass dinner tonight for Valentines day. French Onion soup and a spinach salad with a warm bacon vinaigrette and poached egg. The soup was very simple and accented wonderfully by the gruyere, hand picked by the wonderful Gustav at the Co-op. We generally do the float method rather than putting everything in the oven, while wonderful, it really turns into a dreadful clean-up of melty cheese.

The salad was pretty badass. We cooked up three strips of sliced smokey bacon till crisp, removing the bacon and most of the fat (save it for later). Added some minced shallots to the pan, then a bit of apple cider vinegar and dijon mustard. Once all of the good bits are deglazed from the pan add the fat and a bit of olive oil if needed and whisk till warm and combined. Plate the whole thing up over spinach, the bacon, and add in a poached egg (ours was not nearly as juicy as I would have liked....).
And then love all of the cheesy, crusty, bacony, wonderfulness.

Chocolate Chip Cashew Butter Cookies

2009-02-09T17:09:00.005-05:00

I really have been feeling the cookie itch lately. Plus, cookies are way easy to unload on others once you have had the two or three that you have actually been hankering for. I liked these, but probably would have skipped the chips, strangely enough. The cashew butter really made a great cookie that was much more subtle than a regular peanut butter cookie and I think it would have stood on its own just fine. I followed this recipe, swapping cashew butter for the pb.

Next time I will definately skip the chips, maybe sub in some nice roasty cashews or toffee bits..... hmmm toffee bits.....

Nerding out a bit....

2009-02-07T18:21:00.003-05:00

I rarely muse about pop culture here, but seriously why is Bryan Fuller not involved in every t.v./movie project ever. His touch is whimsical, amazing, and enthralling.

All things that he touches wraps you in a binky of goofball comfort.

some of the ugliest pizza ever

2009-02-02T09:14:00.006-05:00

I am VERY aware of the poor quality of my pictures and most of that is due to a cruddy point and shoot paired with a lack of picture taking patience. That said, these were pretty uggo and the crap-tastic pics are certainly not doing them any favors.

The only one even fit for public viewing.....

These pizzas were made on the gluten-free crust previously seen here. We opted for a sauteed spinach, caramelized onion, and egg pizza. the two that we graciously saved from picture hell were an hoisin sauce, chicken, and caramelized onion combo. Lastly was the "fancy squash", roasted delicata squash, artichoke hearts, and caramelized onion.

Word of warning. If you get egg white on your pizza stone it will eventually burn off and can be scraped off, however it will smell super bad.

Cranky with a chance of snickerdoodles

2009-01-30T08:31:00.010-05:00

I have been in an awesome mood, and by awesome, I mean an utterly cranky; borderline fightn' mood. So it is awesome in how in awe I am of my magnificent grumps.

Regardless I am still having my love affair with my new kitchen aid, so when the hubbs was asked "chocolate chip or snickerdoodle?" he actually responded "snicker baby snicker" this was via text, lest you think he is some sort of beatnik cool cat. Also posed with that question I think the hubbs is the only one that would immediately go for the doodle. I like them very much, but who passes up chocolate chip? But, I digress.....

I halved the recipe from here which is pretty much a very standard snickerdoodle. I have found very few variations. I did however make my cookies out of tablespoon size balls, hee hee balls, and the turned out to be rather robustly sized cookies. They were a good treat for my snickerdoodles loving husband and a nice surprise for my partners in snowy-day-happy-hour crime.

National Chocolate Cake Day!

2009-01-27T21:18:00.005-05:00

I could not let national chocolate cake day pass with out honoring it in some way. We chose to celebrate with our favorite, go-to, easy as pie, vegan chocolate cake from the moosewood collective. We made it very un-vegan by covering it with a hearty amount of butter-filled peanut butter frosting. All in all a bit ugly in presentation but utterly delicious.

Plus! I got to use my new Kitchen Aid stand mixer. I.think.I.am.in.love.

Spring/Summer Rolls

2009-01-20T14:56:00.007-05:00

In my little head spring rolls are smaller, made with wonton wrappers, and fried. Whereas summer rolls are bigger, "uncooked", and made with rice paper. Either way the terms are often, correctly or not, used interchangeable.

These are delicious and make for a light meal. We made these ones with assorted veggies and avocado or shrimp; then whipped up a choice of sauces. A soy garlic or a zesty peanut butter. They are slightly labor intensive with the rice paper but once you get going it is a snap. We have also set up all the fillings and sauces and had a summer roll party. Much like a baked potato bar but with summer rolls, fun but slightly messy. This meal made me remember that I really like these and should keep these as a "go to" lunch or dinner.

There are tons of recipes and tutorials on making these on the interweb, so I will save you the pain of my poorly executed instructions.

News!

2009-01-14T13:07:00.004-05:00

I know that you all have been waiting anxiously for my next thrilling post.....

No, not really. Well I guess that is ok.

We have been making some tasty feed, and some not so tasty feed. Put it this way, cocoa black bean soup sounds like it should taste like you have a wonderful mole sauce tossed into your black bean soup. Match made in heaven, right? Nope just kinda bitter and lame.

I hope to make something worth posting this weekend. This is also contingent on finding the battery charger for the camera.

In other news I have decided to join The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Team In Training and will be participating in the Rock and Roll Marathon this May in San Diego! I am super excited and wicked nervous about the training. Expect some additional chatter about blisters....

Click here for the link to my donation site

Slow Roasted Garlic Lemon Chicken

2009-01-04T08:35:00.007-05:00

Yes, yes, I am aware that I am playing a bit of catch-up and I should probably space out these posts a bit, but frankly I don't feel like being that organized and calculated.

We made this for an annual get-together that our friends have every holiday season. Our new house was site for this particular years soiree. Among our friends contributing for this little potluck was Mr. Dave. The slow roasted chicken taken directly from a Nigella recipe. The only changes that I made was using chicken pieces rather than having to chop up a whole chicken and I peeled the garlic rather than leaving it in the skins. That was a purely a personal preference.

Here is the whole she-bang ready for the oven.

While this does take a bit of time, hence "slow roasted" it was very easy and the leftovers held up very well and remained tasty, especially paired cold in a salad.

Seared Tuna and Soba Noodle Salad

2009-01-04T08:03:00.007-05:00

This is a dish that gets made from time to time in our household, usually by the Hubbs. This is one of his "dishes", generally because for a while I would notoriously over-sear the tuna rendering it just sort of lame. The recipe is very flexible, forgiving, and accommodating to what you have in the house.

For this go-round we crusted the tuna with back and white sesame seeds and gave it a nice sear in a pan then set aside.

While you are searing, boil some water and cook your soba noodles, the amount really depends on how many you are feeding and your personal preference. At any point in the cooking, depending on how well you can multi-task in the kitchen or if you have help whip up the dressing. The dressing generally consists of:
low sodium soy sauce
fresh grated ginger
minced garlic
mirin
rice wine vinegar
sesame oil

Toss all of these together and tweak to taste. If you want it a bit sweeter add more mirin or a bit of sugar. You could include some chili oil, fish sauce, etc. depending on your tastes as well. Once your noodles are cooked and drained add a bit of the dressing to the noodles reserving some for later.
To plate this up, put a nice amount of spring greens or baby spinach on a platter and place the soba noodles on top. Thinly slice the seared tuna and place it over the noodles and pour the reserved dressing over the top and then chow down. This is also a good ace-in-the-hole for guests or a fancier dinner it is quick and easy and looks and tastes amazing.

extending our vacation

2008-12-28T16:52:00.004-05:00

In an effort to squeak the absolute last bits out of my vacation I have opted to plant myself on the couch and have my version of girlie drinks rather than get anything done. This drink was tested and ultimately honed over the last day or so and it is definitely making my Sunday afternoon a bit brighter.

Pomegranate Cosmopolitan

1 part vodka (we received a bottle of Bison Grass vodka and this turned out to be the best to bring out the drink)
1 part triple sec
1 part lime juice
1 part pomegranate juice

Toss it all in a shaker with ice, shake, and serve.

Sorry about the lack of pictures.... all efforts were thwarted. Maybe it is so delicious that it cannot appear on film?

I have not fallen off the map.....

2008-12-23T17:22:00.003-05:00

I was just here

Our friends got hitched in a Jamaica and it ruled. However between helping them out and our travels the posts have been rather sparse. But stay tuned after the holidays.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

2008-12-10T08:56:00.007-05:00

I have been wanting to try pasta with carbonara sauce for some time and last night the stars aligned. Sitting at work yesterday I realized that we had all the fixin's for carbonara at home. I know that I could have just gone to a restaurant, but I frankly go out for Italian food very, very rarely. Not that I do not like Italian food.... I just don't get jazzed over what generally turns out to be mediocre food that has been turned into an excuse to eat 16 pounds of mozzarella cheese. Please, I can do that on my own. There are a select few places that I will go and when I do rarely do I order pasta. It's just not my style, there are other way tasty things are to be had.

This turned out great and was a snap to throw together. I tweaked a Tyler Florence recipe sightly. I used four strips of lower sodium bacon, omitting the olive oil, the bacon grease was plenty. We also used less cheese; about 2/3cups rather than the full cup. The spaghetti was also whole wheat. It was still cheesy and wonderful. Not at all as heavy as I thought it would be. In my high class way, I likened it to pasta with butter and parmesan for big kids.

Belated Turkey Day

2008-12-10T08:36:00.006-05:00

The Hubbs and myself hosted Turkey Day for the first time this year. It was fun, we had a houseful, and a GINORMOUS turkey. We intended on taking pictures of various wonderful dishes but alas we really only to pictures of the bird. Mostly because it was comically large.

We tried to place items of known size by it for comparison but I don't think it really captured moment. This 22 pounder was ordered from Homestead Farms about 15-20 minutes outside of Albany. The turkey was well worth the price. It was honestly one of the best tasting turkeys that I have ever had. The fact that it got to live a nice little life on a farm wandering about was very evident.

Given the sheer amount of leftovers, turkey and otherwise, the Hubbs ate pretty much a Thanksgiving dinner style supper for almost a week before the remaining turkey was transformed into Mexican turkey lasagna.

Daring Bakers- November

2008-11-29T07:49:00.009-05:00

This months Daring Bakers challenge came from Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater. This caramel cake was quite delicious and a great addition to our Thanksgiving table. You can find Shuna's original recipe here.

I absolutely fell in love with the browned butter frosting. I may just keep this in my bag of tricks in the future.
This months host was Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity along with Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie Duo, Jenny of Foray into Food. And helping out with alternative baking, Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go

this blog should really just be called 'of monkeys and soup'

2008-11-25T09:32:00.002-05:00

Last night the Hubbs decided that he wanted to be in charge of dinner and I willingly let him have at it. He found a really nice and fairly easy recipe sweet potato and butternut squash soup here. He adapted it by using delicata squash because we had it on hand and they are wicked yummy and easy to work with due to their petite size. While I can take virtually no credit for this dinner except for grabbing a few things at the Coop, I am very much looking forward to the leftovers for dinner this evening.

Chicken Soup for the Hubbs Cold

2008-11-24T07:58:00.008-05:00

The Hubbs has come down with a doozy of a cold and in an effort to get him on the mend I created what turned out to be a very hearty and tasty soup. This is not a light broth to be daintily slurped before your main, this is the main. It is also fairly quick as far as soups go, but I did take a few short cuts along the way.

Roasted Garlic Chicken Soup with Israeli Couscous

1 head garlic
1 medium onion
2-3 good sized carrots
2-3 stalks of celery (helery)
1 1/2 cups shredded chicken (I used the dark meat from a rotisserie chicken)
5-6 cups organic free range low sodium chicken broth (or whatever you prefer)
1 cup uncooked Israeli couscous
Couple hand fulls baby spinach
Few hearty shakes of turmeric
salt
olive oil

Slice the top part of the garlic off drizzle with a bit of olive oil and a pinch of salt and wrap in foil. Set this in an oven/toaster oven at 400 degrees and let it roast while you get going on the rest.

Get a nice relatively small chop going for the onion, carrot, and celery (helery) and place it in a soup pot on medium with a little bit of olive oil till they are tender and getting translucent. Once they are softened add broth and bring to a slight boil. Once boiling add the couscous and turmeric and let simmer for about 10 minutes. After ten minutes add in your shredded chicken and heat through. At this point your couscous should be cooked and tender and your garlic should be nice and soft. If its not just keep the soup on low and give it a few. When the garlic is roasty and tender squeeze out the cloves (mash them a bit if you need to)into the soup and give it a nice stir. Add a few handfuls of baby spinach and mix it up till wilted and add a bit of salt if needed.

This was hearty on day one and virtually solid in the fridge, you can add a bit of water or broth to loosen it up, but once heated it was a bit less thick.

I would love to say that after three servings of this over the weekend he was totally cured.... but you can't say it didn't help a little.

I rule.....

2008-11-14T19:14:00.003-05:00

This is the new kitchen cart that is now living in our home. I love it. I put her together with my own awesome, flat-pack mastering hands. We had been putting off this purchase since we moved in in July, but I had officially had enough of the drop-leaf table that the microwave had been living on. Behold. She is beautiful and now we have a place for the crock-pot and the growlers waiting to be filled at our local brewery.

Indian Food Extravaganza

2008-11-09T20:39:00.012-05:00

While the Hubbs was away it was not a really robust cooking time. I am very good at making dinner for others but if left to my own devices I tend to get hungry and rationalize that eggs and toast or cereal is a perfectly acceptable dinner. So in anticipation of his return I started making a list of things that I would want to make. First up was Chicken Tikka Masala. This turned into a rather large dinner because I ended up getting antsy and just kept cooking. The full menu included:
Chicken Tikka Masala
Spicy Chickpeas with Tomatoes
Apple Ginger Chutney
Naan
Brown Rice
Oh.... and some wine

We had a friend over so this was not just for us, and we had a good amount left over as well. I am not going to include the recipe for the chickpeas because while good, nothing really worth writing home about.

Chicken Tikka Masala
Adapted from about 75 different versions of this dish.....

The day before set up the chicken to marinate
3-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
bit over a cup of thick natural yogurt (I used whole milk Greek Fage)
1 t fresh ginger, minced
2 t ground cumin
1 t ground cinnamon
2 t chili powder
2 t fresh cracked pepper
Salt

Mix everything together and let it hang out in the fridge over night.

On feasting day:

Tomato sauce/gravy

14 oz can of diced tomatoes tomatoes, juice included
2-3 T Greek Fage plus 5 oz of evaporated skim milk- this replaces the heavy cream that is in most recipes.
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 red chilies, finely chopped
2 t ground cumin
2 t gram masala
1 t ground coriander
1-2 t chili powder
1 t ghee or clarified butter
Salt and pepper

Place chicken bits on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees till cooked through. You can also skewer these and make them on the grill if you would like.

While the chicken is cooking get started on the sauce. Heat a large skillet to medium and melt the ghee/clarified butter. Sauté the garlic and chopped chilies until fragrant. Add the spices and mix till it coats the garlic and peppers and gets a little pasty.

Pour in the canned tomatoes and mix well to get all of the spicy bits mixed in. Simmer uncovered for approx. 10-15 minutes on low heat until the sauces begins to thicken, then add the grilled chicken pieces and yogurt/condensed milk. Simmer for a further 10 minutes, thickening the sauce further and to heat the chicken and cream through.

Apple Ginger Chutney

1 T ghee/clarified butter
1/2 c chopped onion
2 good sized apples, peeled and chopped (I used honey crisp)
2 T minced fresh ginger
1/2 c apple cider vinegar
1/4 c sugar
1 T Cornstarch
2 T water

In a saucepan melt the ghee/clarified butter then add onions and cook till they start to get soft and a bit brown. Add in the apples and ginger and cook for a few minutes then add vinegar and sugar. Bring the whole shebang to a boil. Make a slurry of the cornstarch and water, add it to the saucepan. bring it back to a boil and cook, stirring constantly for about 4-5 minutes. Chill and serve.

Lastly we made Naan. This was really good, not restaurant quality but definitely good given we were making it on the stove top not a clay oven. We used the basic dough recipe from Artisan Bread in Five minutes a Day and followed their recipe. Just go buy the book, it is great.

And thank you to Joe, who came over and enjoyed this meal with us!

Home made yogurt and granola

2008-11-09T19:49:00.008-05:00

After seeing Stephanie's post at A Year of CrockPotting on making yogurt in your crock pot I was very intrigued. For her great post and instructions, including cost analysis click here.
I opted to use fancy-schmancy full-fat Greek fage for my active-culture add-in. I also used local whole milk and I really think that the high quality ingredients really made a difference. I did not add the gelatin and was perfectly happy with the thickness and consistency. It is really tasty. If you have been punishing yourself eating fat-free yogurt, or even grosser, fat-free/sugar-free yogurt allow yourself this pleasure. It does not need to be homemade, Stonyfield makes a tasty one, just give it a try. I converted about six months ago and it is well worth the extra calories. As a plus, it is so yummy you can pretty much eat it plain without 16 teaspoons of sugar dumped in to make it mildly palatable.

That said, to offset the milk fats (mmmmmm, milk fats) you can sprinkle a bit of this on top.

Quick and Healthy Granola
3 cups oats (quick or original- skip the instant)
1/2 cup roughly chopped nuts (I used almonds and walnuts)
1 T cinnamon
1 t ginger
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
2-3 T agave nectar
splash of vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the oats, nuts, cinnamon, and ginger in a good-sized bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the remaining ingredients and mix well. Add wet ingredients to the oat mixture and combine well. Spread granola on to a foil-lined cookie sheet/jellyroll pan that has been sprayed with a bit of cooking spray. Pot it in the oven for 30-40 minutes giving it a stir every now and again.

This is not a super sweet, decadent granola. But lets face it granola, while often very delicious falls into the category of "comically unhealthy" foods that are disguised as health food.

Keeping a Promise

2008-11-05T07:51:00.004-05:00

A friend, and far superior blogger, had some fears and apprehensions as election day finally arrived.

You can read his words here

I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I tucked into this breakfast a few minutes ago.

I am glad that we are all in a world were we will be able to enjoy bacon-y goodness.

Oh, Yeah

2008-11-04T10:57:00.001-05:00

Go VOTE!

I am sure that the three or possibly four of my friends that look at this were at the polls bright and early, but just in case.....

Addendum to my Daring Baker Post

2008-10-30T15:09:00.003-04:00

I forgot to mention that part of the challenge was to toss the pizza dough in the air all fancy like. I did not have very much luck with that. For the traditional dough, I had the best luck shaping it draped over the knuckles of my fists. The gluten free dough was not nearly as eslastic and pliable and was best pressed thinly by hand.

Pizza Time! Daring Bakers Challenge October

2008-10-29T08:03:00.001-04:00

I really liked this month's DB challenge, I am definitely going to use the dough recipe in the future. It was the first time I ever got pizza crust truly thin and crispy. I decided to test both the regular and the gluten free options for the dough, and then put out the pizza party call. My only request was that my guests bring their preferred toppings. It was a blast. So much pizza.

Pizza number one:

Hummus, kalamata olive, and red onion on gluten free crust.

Pizza number two:

Shredded mozzarella and marinara on traditional crust.

Pizza number three:

Fresh mozzarella and marinara on traditional crust.

Pizza number four:

Mushroom, marinara, shredded mozzarella, and Mr. Dave's red wine and pistachio sausage on gluten free crust.

Pizza number five:

Fresh mozzarella, caramelized onions, and bacon on gluten free crust.

Pizza number six:

Steak, marinara sauce, and fresh mozzarella on traditional crust.

Pizza number seven:

Garlic and olive oil, bacon, and half fresh mozzarella and half fontina cheese on traditional crust.

We made some other ones as well that did not get a chance for their glamor shot sadly. Things got a bit hectic with a house full of people making pizza and having a few drinks.

Dough Recipe
~ BASIC PIZZA DOUGH ~
Original recipe taken from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” by Peter Reinhart.

Makes 6 pizza crusts (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter).

Ingredients:
4 1/2 Cups (20 1/4 ounces/607.5 g) Unbleached high-gluten (%14) bread flour or all purpose flour, chilled - FOR GF: 4 ½ cups GF Flour Blend with xanthan gum or 1 cup brown rice flour, 1 cup corn flour, 1 cup oat flour, 1 ½ cup arrowroot, potato or tapioca starch + 2 tsp xanthan or guar gum
1 3/4 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Instant yeast - FOR GF use 2 tsp
1/4 Cup (2 ounces/60g) Olive oil or vegetable oil (both optional, but it’s better with)
1 3/4 Cups (14 ounces/420g or 420ml) Water, ice cold (40° F/4.5° C)
1 Tb sugar - FOR GF use agave syrup
Semolina/durum flour or cornmeal for dusting

DAY ONE

Method:
1. Mix together the flour, salt and instant yeast in a big bowl (or in the bowl of your stand mixer).

2. Add the oil, sugar and cold water and mix well (with the help of a large wooden spoon or with the paddle attachment, on low speed) in order to form a sticky ball of dough. On a clean surface, knead for about 5-7 minutes, until the dough is smooth and the ingredients are homogeneously distributed. If it is too wet, add a little flour (not too much, though) and if it is too dry add 1 or 2 teaspoons extra water.

NOTE: If you are using an electric mixer, switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for the same amount of time.The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl. If the dough is too wet, sprinkle in a little more flour, so that it clears the sides. If, on the contrary, it clears the bottom of the bowl, dribble in a teaspoon or two of cold water.
The finished dough should be springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky, and register 50°-55° F/10°-13° C.

Or

2. FOR GF: Add the oil, sugar or agave syrup and cold water, then mix well (with the help of a large wooden spoon or with the paddle attachment, on low speed) in order to form a sticky ball of dough.

3. Flour a work surface or counter. Line a jelly pan with baking paper/parchment. Lightly oil the paper.

4. With the help of a metal or plastic dough scraper, cut the dough into 6 equal pieces (or larger if you want to make larger pizzas).

NOTE: To avoid the dough from sticking to the scraper, dip the scraper into water between cuts.

5. Sprinkle some flour over the dough. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Gently round each piece into a ball.

NOTE: If the dough sticks to your hands, then dip your hands into the flour again.

6. Transfer the dough balls to the lined jelly pan and mist them generously with spray oil. Slip the pan into plastic bag or enclose in plastic food wrap.

7. Put the pan into the refrigerator and let the dough rest overnight or for up to thee days.

NOTE: You can store the dough balls in a zippered freezer bag if you want to save some of the dough for any future baking. In that case, pour some oil(a few tablespooons only) in a medium bowl and dip each dough ball into the oil, so that it is completely covered in oil. Then put each ball into a separate bag. Store the bags in the freezer for no longer than 3 months. The day before you plan to make pizza, remember to transfer the dough balls from the freezer to the refrigerator.

DAY TWO

8. On the day you plan to eat pizza, exactly 2 hours before you make it, remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator. Dust the counter with flour and spray lightly with oil. Place the dough balls on a floured surface and sprinkle them with flour. Dust your hands with flour and delicately press the dough into disks about 1/2 inch/1.3 cm thick and 5 inches/12.7 cm in diameter. Sprinkle with flour and mist with oil. Loosely cover the dough rounds with plastic wrap and then allow to rest for 2 hours.

Or

8. FOR GF: On the day you plan to eat pizza, exactly 2 hours before you make it, remove the number of desired dough balls from the refrigerator. Place on a sheet of parchment paper and sprinkle with a gluten free flour. Delicately press the dough into disks about ½ inch/1.3 cm thick and 5 inches/12.7 cm in diameter. Sprinkle the dough with flour, mist it again with spray oil. Lightly cover the dough round with a sheet of parchment paper and allow to rest for 2 hours.

9. At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone on the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven as hot as possible (500° F/260° C).

NOTE: If you do not have a baking stone, then use the back of a jelly pan. Do not preheat the pan.

10. Generously sprinkle the back of a jelly pan with semolina/durum flour or cornmeal. Flour your hands (palms, backs and knuckles). Take 1 piece of dough by lifting it with a pastry scraper. Lay the dough across your fists in a very delicate way and carefully stretch it by bouncing it in a circular motion on your hands, and by giving it a little stretch with each bounce. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss.

Or

10. FOR GF: Press the dough into the shape you want (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter - for a 6 ounces/180g piece of dough).

NOTE: Make only one pizza at a time.
During the tossing process, if the dough tends to stick to your hands, lay it down on the floured counter and reflour your hands, then continue the tossing and shaping.
In case you would be having trouble tossing the dough or if the dough never wants to expand and always springs back, let it rest for approximately 5-20 minutes in order for the gluten to relax fully,then try again.
You can also resort to using a rolling pin, although it isn’t as effective as the toss method.

11. When the dough has the shape you want (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter - for a 6 ounces/180g piece of dough), place it on the back of the jelly pan, making sure there is enough semolina/durum flour or cornmeal to allow it to slide and not stick to the pan.

Or

11. FOR GF: Lightly top it with sweet or savory toppings of your choice.

12. Lightly top it with sweet or savory toppings of your choice.

Or

12. FOR GF: Place the garnished pizza on the parchment paper onto the stone in the oven or bake directly on the jelly pan. Close the door and bake for about 5-8 minutes.

NOTE: Remember that the best pizzas are topped not too generously. No more than 3 or 4 toppings (including sauce and cheese) are sufficient.

13. Slide the garnished pizza onto the stone in the oven or bake directly on the jelly pan. Close the door and bake for abour 5-8 minutes.

Or

13. FOR GF: Follow the notes for this step.

NOTE: After 2 minutes baking, take a peek. For an even baking, rotate 180°.

If the top gets done before the bottom, you will need to move the stone or jelly pane to a lower shelf before the next round. On the contrary, if the bottom crisps before the cheese caramelizes, then you will need to raise the stone or jelly.

14. Take the pizza out of the oven and transfer it to a cutting board or your plate. In order to allow the cheese to set a little, wait 3-5 minutes before slicing or serving.

Moroccan Lentil Soup

2008-10-14T16:21:00.003-04:00

Oh look, more soup..... Seriously I was not kidding about my love of eating and making soup. I found this on A Year of CrockPotting. This is wonderful and fun blog that honestly encouraged our household to dust off the CrockPot and get cooking.

I tweaked the recipe a bit by skipping the celery cause it is gross and tends to ruin my day....... and simply doubled the carrots. It is delicious and is great with a bit of chicken tossed in if you are looking for it to be a bit heartier or a protein boost. It begs for a nice piece of naan as well. Sadly as good as it tastes, it is not the most photogenic soups......

Check out the full recipe here. Thanks Stephanie!

Oatmeal Blondies

2008-10-04T15:49:00.010-04:00

With an impromptu game night on the horizon, I couldn't come empty handed.....
WARNING: these will make your house smell like a dream come true- eff scented candles.

Oatmeal Blondies
1 C butter, melted
2 C dark brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
2 t vanilla
1 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
couple pinches salt
1 C oats

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 13/9/2 pan.
- Whisk together sugar and butter. Add eggs and vanilla and give it another whisk.
- Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt mix well. When combined add oats.
- Pour into the pan and smooth out well, bake for 30-35 minutes and a toothpick comes out clean.

In this case wrap up and bring to friends house for munching....

Butternut Squash and Black Bean Chili

2008-09-30T20:53:00.005-04:00

Soup and chili are one of my absolute favorites. I could and would honestly eat soup or chili for one to two meals a-day. This is why we have had to utilize the soup doctrine in our house. If the Hubbs says "no more soup" it is a firm no and I must cease and desist. This was a new one, I am really digging it, especially since it has gotten cooler at night I have been dreaming of winter squash..... that's normal and ok, right.

I made this one in the Crock-Pot, a fair amount of chopping but worth it. Here is a trick after you have scooped out the seeds on a butternut squash, toss it in the microwave for a few minutes, it will be way easier to peel.

Butternut Squash Black Bean Chili
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon each: cumin, chili powder and ginger (I went with hearty shakes of them all)
1 sweet onion, chopped
2 red bell pepper, cored, seeded, diced
2 cups butternut squash, cubed
3 cups broth of your choice
1 28-oz. can Muir Glen Fire Roasted Tomatoes or whatever your prefer
1 cup chopped green chiles
3 14-oz. cans black beans, rinsed, drained
1 tablespoon rice vinegar

assemble in your Crock-Pot:

Spray Crock-Pot with cooking spray and add garlic and spices, give them a swirl.

Add the remaining ingredients and give it all a stir. Cook on low for 5-6 hours. this one took about 5 hours and then we kept it at warm for a few hours before munching. This made a ton, we both had dinner and there was about eight servings put up in the fridge and freezer after that.

Apple Craisin Quick Bread

2008-09-27T17:52:00.008-04:00

I received a surprise call last night. The Hubbs was going to get to come home for the weekend, I got a bit of a break from being a campaign widow! I preparation for that and to busy myself as to not fall asleep before the debates and before he arrived; since I would have to let him in the house (yes, yes, I "may" have locked myself out of the house which ultimately involved our door getting re-keyed in the past few days, but that is neither here, nor there....). Back to the bread, I adapted this from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook which is probably an underutilized resource in my cookbook collection.

Apple Craisin Quick Bread
1 1/2 cup unbleached flour
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/4 t nutmeg
1 C sugar
1 C shredded apple (I used one MASSIVE honey crisp apple, I would venture that you would need at least 2 hearty apples or 3-4 very small-you loose volume while shredding)
1/4 oil
1 C Craisins (raisins, currants, chopped apricots, etc would be great as well)

Grease a larger loaf pan 8x4 or 9x5 and preheat oven to 350.
Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside
In another bowl combine wet ingredients and add dry to it in a few batches and stir till moistened, then fold in the craisins.
Pour batter in the prepped loaf pan and place in the oven. Cook for about 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

I added a bit of cinnamon sugar that we had in the cupboard on the top for funsies. According to the Hubbs this was a nice treat to come home to.

Daring Bakers: Gluten Free/Vegan Lavash with Fig and Olive Tapenade

2008-09-27T12:30:00.012-04:00

The Challenge: Make Lavash Crackers and create a dip/spread/salsa/relish to accompany it. This challenge allows for large helpings of creativity and personality, with the crackers, your flavor choices for the crackers, and with your dip/spread choice. This challenge came from Natalie from Gluten A Go Go, and co-host Shel, of Musings From the Fishbowl.

I really liked this challenge, it was a nice break from sweets. I opted to go both gluten free and vegan; our household often cooks both intentionally vegan and accidentally vegan so I looked forward to trying my hand at gluten free as well.
The crackers turned out great and way tastier than the last version of crackers that I made I attribute that to the mix of flours in the gluten free flour that I used.

Gluten Free Lavash
Makes 1 sheet pan of crackers

* 1 1/2 cups (6.75 oz) gluten free flour blend (I skipped the xanthan gum, cause I didn’t feel like running to the co-op)
* 1/2 tsp (.13 oz) salt
* 1/2 tsp (.055 oz) instant yeast
* 1 Tb (.75 oz) agave syrup or sugar
* 1 Tb (.5 oz) vegetable oil
* 1/3 to 1/2 cup + 2 Tb (3 to 4 oz) water, at room temperature
* Poppy seeds, sesame seeds, paprika, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, or kosher salt for toppings

1. In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt yeast, agave, oil, and just enough water to bring everything together into a ball. You may not need the full 1/2 cup + 2 Tb of water, but be prepared to use it all if needed.

2. The dough should be firmer than French bread dough, but not quite as firm as bagel dough (what I call medium-firm dough), and slightly tacky. Lightly oil a bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

3. Ferment at room temperature for 90 minutes, or until the dough doubles in size. (You can also retard the dough overnight in the refrigerator immediately after kneading or mixing).

4. Divide the cracker dough in half and then sandwich the dough between the two sheets of parchment. Roll out the dough until it is a paper thin sheet about 15 inches by 12 inches. Slowly peel away the top layer of parchment paper. Then set the bottom layer of parchment paper with the cracker dough on it onto a baking sheet.

5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit with the oven rack on the middle shelf. Mist the top of the dough with water and sprinkle a covering of seeds or spices on the dough (such as alternating rows of poppy seeds, sesame seeds, paprika, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, kosher or pretzel salt, etc.) Be careful with spices and salt - a little goes a long way. If you want to precut the cracker, use a pizza cutter (rolling blade) and cut diamonds or rectangles in the dough. You do not need to separate the pieces, as they will snap apart after baking. If you want to make shards, bake the sheet of dough without cutting it first.

5. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the crackers begin to brown evenly across the top (the time will depend on how thinly and evenly you rolled the dough).

6. When the crackers are baked, remove the pan from the oven and let them cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. You can then snap them apart or snap off shards and serve.

I used a bit of black and regular sesame seeds and a sprinkling of sea salt on the crackers. I also tried some rolled out and some using the glass-smoosh method. When I make these again I will definitely stick to the smoosh method. I layed out the parchment and then made a small ball of dough and then placed a bit of parchment over it and flattened it with a drinking glass the just peeled back the parchment. This took a bit longer, but made for a more consistent cracker.

Fig and Olive Tapenade
From Elana's Pantry
Fig Tapenade
1 cup dried figs
½ cup water
1 cup kalamata olives
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped

1. Place figs in a food processor and pulse for 30 seconds, until well chopped
2. Add water and pulse to create a paste
3. Add olives and pulse until incorporated
4. Add olive oil, vinegar and thyme; pulse again for 30 seconds until tapenade is smooth

This was super tasty and would be a great with any number of other crunchy snacks, it was a great mix of sweet and savory.

Thanks for a great challege!

Oatmeal Cranberry Cupcakes with Rich Chocolate Glaze

2008-09-23T18:17:00.009-04:00

For this months Cupcake Hero, bakers choice using two of the ingredients from the previous challenges, I opted for cranberry and cocoa. I hoped that these would be like a tasty cupcake variation on dark chocolate covered dried cranberries that I have been known to cram in my face from time to time.

Oatmeal Cranberry Cupcake
Adapted from Cupcake Project's Cinnamon Raisin Cupcake with Maple Glaze

1/2 C butter (1 stick) softened
1 1/2 C sugar
3 eggs
1 t vanilla extract

8 oz unsweetened applesauce
1/2 C cider vinegar
1 1/2 C oats
1 C flour
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1 t pumpkin pie spice
1/2 t salt
2 C dried cranberries

Cream butter and sugar.
Beat in eggs, one at a time.
Add vanilla extract, applesauce, and vinegar.

In a separate bowl, whisk together oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and salt.
Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, a little bit at a time.
Fold in the dried cranberries.
Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full.

Bake at 350 F for around 25 minutes or a toothpick comes out clean. I ultimately ran out of cupcake liners so I also made a few bigger mini cakes in ramekins, those took a bit longer.

Rich Chocolate Glaze
2 C confectioner's sugar
1/3 C cocoa powder
1/4 C low fat sour cream
1/3 C milk (what ever you have on hand)
1/2 t vanilla extract

Toss the whole shebang in a bowl and combine well with an electric mixer. This is thick, but loose enough to pour on your cuppies if you prefer.

These turned out tastier than I thought they would and would definitely use variations of this in the future.

Taking suggestions.....

2008-09-17T08:52:00.002-04:00

I will be getting this blasted cast off next week (hopefully), and will get a good amount of my arm back, save for a brace of somesort. Aside from just basking in the glory that is called "washing my arm", what should I make? I have a couple challenges to catch up on so those are on deck, but what else?

Holler at me with ideas.

The one drawback is that the hubbs turns into a political pumpkin at pretty much the same time and will be gone through election day, so any local suggestions may have to help consume......

no really, we have been cookin'

2008-09-13T20:59:00.003-04:00

When I say our camera is holding everything hostage I am not kidding. The hubbs may or may not have sent the cable that connects our camera to the computer to long island.... and he may or may not have every memory card ever associated with our camera/computer stuck in his pocket in pants that he may or may not be wearing or in a pile in our room.

Either way, we had awesome figs and blue cheese, some heirloom tomatoes, Rich's most recent take on arepas(creamed corn rules), oh and steak that made me really happy that I started eating meat......
But, nothing to show for it....

Quick Panzanella

2008-09-07T17:58:00.003-04:00

Yeah, I know the picture is terrible, but right now our camera is holding everything hostage, so we are left with camera phones.
I decided to make a quick Panzanella with some homemade bread and a wonderful heirloom tomato. I could probably eat this every day of my life. Just a bit of toasted up bread cubes, tomatoes, touch of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and a bit of parmesan cheese then munch away.....

farmers market haul

2008-09-07T13:36:00.003-04:00

Nom, nom, nom.........

Here is a bit of our bounty from the farmers market yesterday. I cannot wait. We have some tasties lined up for the week. Look at those little eggplants, I seriously want to hang one around my neck as pendant!

Lookie lookie!!!

2008-09-05T10:43:00.002-04:00

One of my blogging peers and friend (like actual in-person!) just got a rad shout-out in our paper the Times Union.

Check out the wonderful blurb here

And check out the The Ridiculous Food Society

So exciting!

Daring Bakers- Chipotle Chocolate Éclairs

2008-08-31T09:00:00.004-04:00

The August Daring Bakers challenge came from Tony Tahhan and MeetaK.

I would love to say that my first Daring Bakers attempt went splendidly and without a hitch….alas I cannot. First, I had to enlist the help of wonderfully generous friend on account of the busted wrist. These were not a one-handed project. So we set aside a nice Saturday and got crackin.

We started with the standard Pâte à Choux and piped out our “chubby fingers”, my still slightly swollen fingers peeking out of my cast served as an excellent example. As we piped and they cooked we quickly turned into giggling children muttering things about wieners. In the midst of a very mature conversation we probably took them out a touch to early and most of them sank and looked like this
Some maintained their puffy namesake so we forged on…. To the chocolate pastry cream! We used the provided recipe with one addition that we all really, really enjoyed; to the cooling pastry cream we added about 2-3 tablespoons of the zesty delicious goo that comes in the can of chipotles. In my humble opinion this addition really stepped up the filling, prior it was kinda just an eggy-chocolatly-unremarkable filling, after there was a bit more depth and contrast.

We opted to use a Mark Bittman recipe for dark chocolate glaze out of How to Cook Everything. This is where things got ugly…..on paper sounded like it would whip up in a jiff and be wonderful. Not.so.fast. This is what we got.
The wheels were quickly coming off this bus. We decided to assemble the few puffy shells and coat the top with simple melted bittersweet chocolate. See not so bad.
The rest met a different fate. Being virtually unfillable, the chipotle chocolate éclair cake was born!
The “shells” were split, the really ugly pieces layered on the bottom of a 9/13 pan, filling smeared on top, and then covered with the nicer éclair bits and a bit of melted chocolate. I have to admit I am really not that fond of éclairs, these however actually benefited from some time in the fridge and definitely tasted better the next day after the cake sat-up a bit.
Hopefully I will have two working hands for the September challenge!

Ratatouille Style- Heirloom Tomato and Fresh Pesto Pizza

2008-08-23T18:15:00.008-04:00

I can say with all seriousness that I look forward to August and the tomatoes it provides pretty much all year long. At our most-favorite farmers market, the Troy Waterfront Farmers Market we got our grubby mitts on some fresh and wonderful heirloom tomatoes and a hearty bunch of basil and this beauty was created.

It was nice, light, and really highlighted the simple yet amazing ingredients. This was good enough to be recreated a few days later, pretty much identically with the rest of the pesto.

Bum wing aside, I should be able to post a bit more frequently because..... drum roll please.... I have completed my masters! No more work full-time, school full-time drudgery. Now its just work full-time drudgery.

Ratatouille Style- Maki Dogs

2008-08-23T17:43:00.013-04:00

As the wrist mends my hubbs has taken over a good portion of the cooking and other house duties. He has in the most adorable fashion, photographed a few of the meals so that I can post. We have jokingly referred to this arrangement as cooking "Ratatouille Style" where I give instruction and steps and he prepares. I also have been sending him e-mails of yummy looking blog links and recipes with the heading "I could eat this". After one such e-mail he tried his hand at the Maki Dog.....

We found this at Not Eating Out In New York and were pretty intrigued by the concept. It is a veggie dog with a bit of wasabi mayo, rolled up maki style with sushi rice and nori. All in all it was a tasty endeavor, next time I think we would split the veggie dog in half lengthwise before making the roll to better balance the textures. The winner of this meal was the delicious oven roasted blue potato chips that he made as well. We snagged these lovelies at the farmers market earlier in the day. Interesting paring, but they were delicious.

a bum wing

2008-08-12T10:48:00.002-04:00

Hello all. Posts may be a bit sparse for the near future... I fractured my wrist on Friday and it is really hindering my kitchen prowess. Hopefully I will get to post some guest cooks (read: the hubbs)handy work.

August Cupcake Hero Challenge- Jalapeno

2008-08-08T15:05:00.004-04:00

I was a bit daunted by this challenge, but I trudged forward..... only to make a rather unremarkable cupcake. While this was tasty and I am sure will be gratefully accepted by all tasters, the jalapeno really didn't come across the way that I would have liked it to. I made my no-fail vegan chocolate cake that I have mentioned before but added a hearty amount of cinnamon to pair with the zesty jalapeno. The frosting is a nice tangy cream cheese frosting with about half a cup of hot-pepper and jalapeno jam tossed in at the end. This jam rules we love it on a bit of cheddar or an apple but in this situation the zing is just the slightest after burn. I hope that everyone else has better luck....

Pear and Gorgonzola Pizza aka what maybe K8's last meal, if it ever comes to that...

2008-08-03T18:12:00.003-04:00

There is very little that I can say about this pizza other than HOLY SHIT. It was so tasty. This was something that I had been wanting to make for a while and the pears from a house warming fruit basket seemed like a good opportunity. Admittedly we bought the crust. I was in the mood for super crispy thin crust pizza, and frankly I just can't ever make it happen in my kitchen. Little rub of olive oil and some dried thyme on the crust, gorgonzola crumbles, sliced pears, and a few pine nuts went on top and then tossed it in the oven on a pizza stone. Needless to say my love of stinky cheese, fruit, and pizza had an amazing illegitimate baby in my kitchen.

two kick ass dinners

2008-07-29T17:52:00.005-04:00

My week so far has contained two UNBELIEVABLE dinners. One I was responsible for, one arrived at my office.
Dinner 1.

The first real dinner we made in our new house was an awesome steak salad with blue cheese crumble and strawberry vinaigrette. The vinaigrette was just strawberries (bit over a cup) some olive oil, water, salt, pepper, and a wasabi seasoning rub tossed in. everything got whirled together with a hand blender and then enjoyed on our new stoop. best.dinner.ever.

Dinner 2.

My friend and co-worker had recently set up a pierogi sweat shop in her kitchen and she showed up with a big ol'bag of delicious potato filled goodness for me. After they thawed a bit, got tossed in a pan, and then crammed in mouth. They were awesome and a very nice surprise. Thanks Rebecca!

Red White and Blue Cupcake Challenge

2008-07-27T20:13:00.006-04:00

Ok, well, more like pink, white, and purple….. Everything started out red white and blue, does that count?

In the midst of moving into a new house, becoming a first time homeowner, and taking a midterm for this blasted masters degree, I said why not make cupcakes. People got to eat right? So the golden cake with blueberry filing and strawberry frosting were born. I can say that these really surprised me; I was a bit apprehensive about the filling. Let me tell you it was amazing and thank you to Mary at Shazam in the Kitchen for the recipe. We had some left over and actually had to remove it from the house so that my husband and I did not just subsist on frosting via spoon for multiple days.

Golden Cake with Blueberry Filling and Strawberry frosting

Golden Cake (Adapted from a few recipes, to suit what was in my dwindling kitchen reserves)
2 ¾ cups flour
2 ½ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
2 sticks (8oz) unsalted butter, at room temp
2 cups sugar
5 large eggs
1 ½ tsp vanilla
1 cup light sour cream
1/3 cup skim milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and set up your cupcake pan/papers.
2. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. Cream together the butter and sugar till fluffy
4. Add eggs one at a time and mix thoroughly between each one followed by the vanilla.
5. Add milk/sour cream alternating with dry ingredients.
6. Fill about ¾ full and bake about 20 minutes or golden and toothpick comes out clean

Blueberry Filling (Shazam in the Kitchen)

½ cup (4oz) unsalted butter at room temperature
3 cups confectioners sugar
½ tsp vanilla
1 cup blueberries

1. Dump the blueberries in a small sauce pan on the stove and simmer till the berries start to explode and get syrupy. Chill for at least a half hour in the fridge.
2. Cream butter and sugar till smooth and creamy.
3. Add vanilla and blueberries

Strawberry Frosting (from Crazy About Cupcakes)

6 Tbsp. unsalted butter at room temp
8 oz cream cheese (I used Neufchatel)
4 ½ cups confectioners sugar (I went a bit less)
¾ cup fresh strawberries sliced

1. Mix cream cheese and butter together.
2. Add in confectioners sugar a bit at a time.
3. Mix in strawberries. The berries will be smashed up a bit but still visible in the frosting and it will turn a wonderful pink color.

To fill these I opted for the cone method and it worked like a dream. Plus we got to make super tiny cupcake tastes with the nubbin that gets cut off. Our wonderful and amazing friends that helped us move reaped the benefits of these delicious cakes! Thanks again guys!

the hubbs b-day feed

2008-07-25T06:48:00.010-04:00

Admittedly this is another tardy (hee hee, tardy) post. My husband birthday was about a week and a half ago and to celebrate this day I tried my hand at a layer cake and a John Barrymore Onion Pletzel. Specifically a chocolate cake with cannoli filling and a coffee buttercream.

I used my super-trusty, go-to "why would you ever make a cake out of box ever again" chocolate cake recipe. The recipe is the Moosewood Collective's vegan chocolate cake It is a snap to put together, literally just dry into wet. I can attest that it is virtually impossible to mess up always tastes wonderful and can be enjoyed by all. The cannoli filling was simply some ricotta sweetened with confectioners sugar. Let me tell you it was pretty hard not to just eat the entire bowl and claim to our guests that 3-layer cakes generally do not have anything between the layers.

The coffee buttercream was a bit of an experiment and lessons were learned. 1. making frosting of any sort on a 90-some-odd degree day makes things a little drippy. 2. Anything with 3 sticks of butter as a primary ingredient will return to a sold butter consistency when cooled. This was a recipe from The Marshmallow Fluff Cookbook. Basically the powdered sugar is replaced with fluff in this buttercream. It comes together like a dream and did not taste overwhelmingly of marshmallow. Toss in a little espresso powder dissolved in a bit of hot water, and tada! The cute little decorations are the new fancy-schmancy M&M's.

The John Barrymore Onion Pletzel was my first attempt at any of the sweet dough's from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. It was good, but I am not totally sure that it was good enough to justify the sheer amount of butter involved. All in all it made for a tasty and special breakfast when paired with a couple of fried eggs.

belated 4th of July yum yum's

2008-07-08T17:56:00.006-04:00

I know that I am a bit late with my 4th of July post....please forgive.

For the cookout on our friends shared patio our feed contribution was chicken, plum, and red onion kebabs. Our booze contribution was, booze.

Chicken, Plum, and Red Onion Kebabs
Adapted from June July 2008 issue of Every Day with Rachel Ray

1 cup vegetable oil (I used less, seemed to be a lot of oil, so I added a bit of water)
2/3 cup apricot jam
4 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
3 tablespoons soy sauce- lower sodium
3 pounds skinless, boneless chicken thighs, slightly bigger than bite-sized chunks
2-3 pounds of plums, nice chunks
1 large red onion, again nice chunks

- Whisk together the vegetable oil, jam, vinegar and soy sauce. Add the chicken and toss to coat; refrigerate and let every thing hang out for a bit
- Transfer the marinated chicken to a bowl. Pour the marinade into a small saucepan, boil for 2 minutes, then let cool. I you are super nervous about chicken bits; I would toss it and just mix up some more of the sauce. I actually did the boil and everyone was safe and salmonella free, however I was admittedly a bit hesitant…..
- Thread the chicken, plums and onion onto skewers, since these were heading to the outdoor grill we soaked the skewers in water for a bit. Grill the kebabs, turning occasionally and basting frequently with the marinade during the first flip on each side, the just let them go until the chicken is cooked through.

I would definitely make these again, but possibly with nectarines instead. The plums got a touch to mushy on the grill for my liking, others enjoyed them, it was just not my bag. The chicken thighs, while generally an ugly pain in the ass to work with were totally tender and held up on the grill awesome.

Here are all of our little kebab soldiers all lined up.

All in all not too shabby. Stay tuned. There should be some fun eats and a few cakes coming up in short order.

Not as boring as you would think.....

2008-06-29T11:30:00.009-04:00

I have a serious soft spot (or crunchy, if you will) for crackers. They are tasty, munchable, and portable. The drawback is that you can eat 7 million without batting an eye and they are often filled with crud that 1. does not need to be in them and 2. is really not that good for you. That said, I decided to make my own. Not too shabby.

I tweaked and based this on fairly traditional cracker recipes. Very simple, not a lot of action but ultimately a pretty tasty ending

I mixed about 1 1/4 cups flour with a hearty amount of cumin, a few shakes of chili power, and salt.

With a nice glug of olive oil and enough water to bring the dough together, it will form a nice firm dough. This ball yielded two trays of crackers.

I rolled the dough out directly on parchment with a bit of flour trying to make it nice and even and thin. Score/cut the dough in to the shape you desire and give each one a nice poke with a fork and a sprinkle of coarse salt.

These babies get popped in a 400 degree oven for around 15 minutes, till they are crispy and smell nice and toasty.

All in all they are not the buttery, transfatty crackers you will get at your local grocer, but they definitely held up to some homemade hummus or a soft cheese. Now I just need to test other flavors to mix in.....

Pupusas

2008-06-22T19:00:00.003-04:00

The other day I stumbled across a great post on Gild the Voodoolily, in which she reviewed a Salvadorian restaurant that looked totally amazing. Needless to say the there are no Salvadorian restaurants anywhere within reasonable driving distance...

Thus a kitchen experiment was found. While I did not make a full on Salvadorian menu, I tried my hand a Pupusas. These are essentially a little pancake made out of Masa harina and filled with virtually anything you want, generally a soft cheese and meat, or cheese and beans. We opted for the bean cheese combo because really how can you go wrong.

We initially had tough time getting the filling not to squeeze out when flattening, but we got it down. These are pretty labor intensive and I wish I could say that they were worth it. They were not especially bad, just unremarkable. The hubby was content to mow on them, after my first I was content to munch the leftover cheesy beans.

Sorry that there are no process pics, the camera was being a bit cranky. This is also why the final pic is a bit grainy and cruddy, camera phones can only do so much.

Hopefully I will get a chance for some fun feed posts over the next week or so. I will have about a week and a half off before my LAST CLASS in my masters.

Fluffernutter Whoopie Pies

2008-06-15T15:12:00.003-04:00

This adaptation started out as an all-call to the usual suspect who sample or reap the feed benefits of my cooking and baking projects. One of the responses stated anything chocolate and peanut butter.... and the fluffernutter whoopie pie was born.
The recipe for whoopie pies that I have used in the past is from The Marshmallow Fluff Cookbook. A very fun look at the history of fluff, facts and figures, and recipes.

I took the traditional whoopie pie recipe, but swapped out the filling for the fluffernutter frosting also found in the book. They were a hit. They had their debut at a cookout and there was nary a pie left!
Fluffernutter Whoopie Pies

1 egg
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1 c. sugar
2 c. unsifted all-purpose flour
1/3 c. unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Heat oven to 350 F. Grease two large cookie sheets and set aside. In a large bowl with mixer at medium speed beat egg and vegetable oil. Gradually beat in sugar and continue beating until pale yellow in color. In another bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. In a measuring cup combine milk and vanilla. Add flour and milk mixtures alternately to eggs and sugar, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Drop by tablespoons onto cookie sheet. These will spread a lot, so make 6 cakes per sheet at a time. Bake about 5 minutes or until top springs back when lightly touched with finger. Remove to wire racks to cool. When cool, use filling (see below) and two cakes to make sandwiches.

Fluffernutter Frosting

1 c. Marshmallow Fluff
1/2 c. peanut butter
1/3 c. butter or margarine, softened
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/3 c. confectioners’ sugar
2 T. milk

In small bowl with mixer at low speed, combine Fluff, peanut
butter and butter until blended. Increase speed to medium. Beat
in confectioners’ sugar, alternately with milk, adding just enough
milk to make frosting smooth and spreadable. Beat in vanilla.

That looks like magazine bread!

2008-05-27T19:20:00.005-04:00

Those were the exact words uttered by my hubbby after I mentioned that this particular loaf of bread was turning out pretty nice. This is the simple loaf from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. If I do say so myself it is a nice lookin loaf.

Putting off work......

2008-05-17T20:29:00.009-04:00

In an effort to not do school work, while also not feeling "idle" I made some feed today. While running errands this morning it was decided that a friend would make some burgers for dinner, so I offered to try my hand at making some rolls. I used the base recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. They turned out rather hearty an big but they were a hit with the burgers.

Here are a few before and afters.
Sorry that there are no giant burger pics, but the camera didn't make it to the patio.

After some relaxing and eating of meats, we succumbed to the rain and packed it in. I saw a post on PheMOMenon! about black and white cookies and it peaked my intrest a bit. I have a very special place in my heart for these cookies. They are not my favorite to eat, nor to make, in fact I haven't made them in almost nine years... The last time I made them was a goofball effort for my now hubby's birthday the first year that we were dating. He is a transplanted Long Islander and grew up munching on black and white cookies. As a surprise I decided that I would make a GIANT black and white cookie (a bit bigger than a record/garbage can lid) and ship it to him our first summer apart during college. Ultimately I successfully made and shipped the massive cookie in time and unbroken for his birthday. Needless to say they remind me of the early days of my relationship with him.

I actually had all of the ingredients on hand so I decided to make the cookies. The recipe came together very easily, quickly, and got a prompt and frosting filled thumbs up from the hubby.

I may erase this later.....

2008-05-12T21:57:00.003-04:00

So, first off I love Las Vegas. I feel the itch to go just about every six months. This has nothing to do with the specific location.....

I am in Las Vegas for a work conference. Rad, I know, work sanctioned enabling of my booze and gambling. I opted to stay at The Palms because it is nearby the conference and I really wanted to check it out. If anyone has any urge to do this, don't. It is totally underwhelming. The casino and gaming floor is fine, but so far the food sucks, you are pretty much isolated from the strip and any of the fun things. Oh, and Internet costs 14 smackers a day, and they gym cost 20 dollars a day and only if I want to use it the exact hours I am supposed to be working. I mention this because I feel that all hotels should have wifi connections and the gym should be halfway decent and 24 hours or free (better if both). If I were at a shitty holiday inn express, that would be the case and I would get a waffle in the morning, or something

sorry for the whining, but really what is the point of a blog otherwise.....

goat cheese and date pizza

2008-05-11T06:31:00.006-04:00

While at first blush the combination my not sound delicious, but let me tell you it is. This past Friday night the hubby and I tried our hand at making this awesome pizza. We used the olive oil dough recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. We have been having a carbohydrate filled love affair with this book for about a month and we show no signs of stopping. For this dough we halved the recipe and used half of the batch (essentially 1/4 of the dough from a full batch) and it was totally enough for a nice dinner for the two of us.

The hubby giving it the thumbs up.

We stretched out the dough on a floured board then transferred the dough to a nicely cornmealed peel. Added a bit of olive oil, some chopped garlic, crumbled goat cheese, quartered dates, and a few twists of fresh black pepper.

Viola!

All in all it was quite a tasty success!

Ice Cream Cupcake Round-Up Caramel Apple Pie a la mode

2008-05-04T16:52:00.013-04:00

Hooray! I have just finished my first challenge/round-up. The Cupcake Project is hosting this challenge along with Scoopalicious. I tried my hand at creating Carmel Apple Pie a la mode.

I started out with a base from Crazy About Cupcakes. I thought that the caramel apple cupcake would be a great base...

Then I added some ice cream....caramel swirl to be exact....
I let the ice cream soften a bit, piped it on and then smoothed it out (I will save you the image of the slightly "poopy" appearance after the initial "deposit" of ice cream, at least it wasn't chocolate.....

And then a simple cream cheese frosting.....

Drum roll.... final product

They definitely came out ok. Nothing amazing, probably not a "make again". In hindsight there are a few things that I would change. They were totally tasty, and my tasters had no complaints, but in the future I would choose a stronger base. Maybe a hearty vanilla or a brownie-ish chocolate. The apple caramel lost a bit of flavor in the freezing translation. It maybe better to experiment with the ice cream and frosting versus the cupcake base. I would also firmly make this a two-day or early morning late afternoon project rather than an evening attempt like I tried. You need some time for the ice cream to set before you add the frosting. Room temperature frosting to, not-so-set ice cream results in some soupyness as you get to the end of tray. I will say that I was very pleased with how the frosting turned out, it was creamy and delicious. I tend to have frostings that are going great and then will suddenly split on me or start burning out the motor on my mixer so it was a nice surprise.

Tada! first real post!

Let me know if there is anything else that I should include in the future.

this will serve as a bit of a warning.....

2008-05-02T21:40:00.003-04:00

Ok. As I get ready to start actually posting projects and recipes everyone needs to know the following:

1. I am not a photographer, most of my pictures will have the lovely backdrop of my dumpy apartment kitchen and cluttered counter.

2. I "follow" recipes so anything that post will only be a suggestion and I probably tweaked it a bit as I went or I was missing/substituting an ingredient. I also really enjoy cooking and baking and will not let this cause me to miss out on the relaxing and creative aspect of making food and treats for my friends and family.

3. I have been phasing out vegetarianism for a really long time, it was just recently that I truly pulled the trigger. I incorporated poultry and fish years ago but recently decided that meat tastes good and I like some of it. Fair and simple. So if you see a VERY rudimentary meaty dish remember that it is still new to me and I am learning....

Now that I have put a few more things out there, keep your eyes peeled for my foray into ice cream cake-cupcakes. I am currently working on The Cupcake Project Ice cream Cupcake Roundup.

Stay tuned!

happy anniversary to me

2008-04-30T14:46:00.004-04:00

Yesterday the hubby and I celebrated our two year anniversary and I was surprised with an overnight trip to the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge MA. It was awesome relaxing and we had two delicious meals at their restaurant.

If you are ever in the area I recommend checking it out. They have tons of local food options and even had a complete sustainable menu at breakfast this morning. Who can say no to 4H eggs?

Putting a few more things out to the universe

2008-04-28T14:11:00.000-04:00

In addition to this being generally about food and life, I hope that this will help facilitate growth and accountability as I figure out my little place in this world.

Oh, and have a boatload of fun, make some tasty food for the ones that I love and care for, and be ready to take on anything that comes my way.

hello again

2008-04-27T20:30:00.002-04:00

For the three of you who may have checked this out before, I am re-tooling a bit and I am going to suck it up and turn this into a food and life blog. specificaly, my food and my life.....

So stay tuned.