I don't know what is going on with my blog

I posted the last blog with paragraphs, but it looks like one long paragraph. Sorry about that. I tried to fix it, but no luck. Maybe someday, my blog will like me and do everything that I tell it to. Until then, you'll just have to deal with it.

I Want You Inside Me Chili and Cheesy Muffins

Cheese Muffin recipe: http://http//thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/figs-cheese-muffins.pdf

I Want You Inside Me Chili: http://noteatingoutinny.com/2008/08/12/777/#more-777

I have been reading this blog from a girl in NYC who has given up eating out (for various reasons). Anyway, she had posted a fabulous looking chili recipe that had NO BEANS (yes!!!) that had won a Brooklyn chili contest. I was in love with the fact that the chili sounded spicy and it had no beans! (Did I tell you that I don't like beans?) I was also happy that it called for stew meat instead of ground beef. If you decide to make this recipe, please don't freak out about the MSG that is in there. It's not going to kill you unless you decided to consume massive quanities at a time. The Asians have been using it for years now and they usually live longer than most Americans...something to think about. Plus MSG is found in a lot of processed foods, so you might have been eating it all along without knowing it! If you do live in Lawrence, I had to buy a pretty big bag of MSG for the recipe and would be more than willing to share!

I had sour cream, blue cheese (Chris' favorite, but I say yuck), cheddar cheese and green onions as toppings like the recipe suggested. Chris loved the blue cheese in it. I don't go near that stuff, so I couldn't tell you how it was. I used the rest of the toppings and loved them. The sour cream really cuts the heat out of the chili. The chili had a good kick to it, but your tongue wasn't on fire. Yet, I am pretty immune to hot stuff, so maybe I am not the right one to be commenting on the heat of the chili.

I figured with chili, I needed some muffins to go along with them. Cheese muffins from Pioneer Woman's blog were the perfect addition to our meal of chili and a salad. A couple of beers and it was a wonderfully tasty dinner. Nathaniel ended up eating three of the muffins with his chili (I love the fact that my kid is eating spicy foods now). I do have a suggestion though. I baked the muffins in muffin papers and they ended up getting stuck on the muffins! Use her method of spraying or buttering the pan! These muffins really need to be served fresh out of the oven--they are good when they have cooled down, but they are amazing warm!

Happy Cooking! Have a great holiday weekend everyone!!!

Blog update

When I started this blog, I vowed to use all my cookbooks in a year. I just counted how many I have used since my first posting. I believe it's nine (give or take 1 or 2 since I have used recipes twice out of a couple of them) out of 146 (I have seemed to gain a couple of cookbooks since the first post), so it looks like I need to step it up! It's so hard to use them when I keep reading all these tasty looking blogs! But I'll do better to sticking to the original plan.



Nathaniel received his Amazon package in the mail yesterday, so we were able to scour through his new cookbook for some yummy looking bread recipes. If all goes well with our cooking relationship, I think that I will add some more cookbooks to his collection, so that he can take them away to college in 5 years (gasp!). We'll start trying out some of the bread recipes next week after I get back.



I am very disappointed that I wasn't able to make Hot Browns this week because I didn't think about the fact that I am leaving on Thursday night for 5 days. Oh, well. Hopefully next week, I'll be able to make this delightful dish. However, I am keeping my promise to make "I want you inside me chili" and it's marinating in the spice rub as I type this post. I am going to make some cheesy muffins to go with the dish (surprise, surprise, recipe from Pioneer Woman). I'll post about these recipes after the meal.



Chris and I will be heading east this weekend for a fun filled 5-days in Charlottesville/D.C. I am sure that there will be plenty of food to blog about. We already have our food destinations in line for D.C. and I am sure that Chris' dad's cousin, Don, and his lovely wife, Mary Helen, will take care our of dining needs as well as the last time that we visited Charlottesville. We'll be attending the USC/VA season opener, something that I just could not pass up since we had a place to stay and because we love Charlottesville! If you didn't know already, I am a die-hard USC football fan (my uncle lived with us in the 70's during the time that he attended USC and brain-washed me at an early age) and I had to twist Chris' arm to give up going to KU's home opener vs. Florida International, but we are going on Saturday!

I will try to post pictures along the way, but I don't know what our internet access will be like. So if there isn't any posts all weekend, don't cry, I promise to be back on Wednesday!

Pioneer Woman Contest

If you get a chance to read this before 5 PM, Pacific Time, you might want to enter her contest today. She is giving away 3 Kitchen-Aid mixers (your choice of color), so you never know if you might win! Good luck!

P.S. I have a white one already, but I wouldn't mind a red one to match my kitchen!

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/08/because-i-want-to-share-my-passion/?cp=39#comment-97388

Okra

I had been eyeing the okra in the Farmer's Market for weeks now, but hadn't figured out what to do with it. I finally asked Justin what he did with his. He told me that he had been eating it raw (something that I never thought of) and that a friend of his said to fry up bacon, batter it and fry it. I had read his comment weeks ago, so I had totally forgotten the whole "batter" part of it when I was making dinner last night. I was already almost finished making dinner, so I decided that I would just throw them in the bacon grease without batter. Great idea! I just sauteed them for a short period of time and drained them on a paper towel. They were delicious with a slight hint of the bacon. I know that a lot of people think that okra is super slimy, but when cooked this way, it wasn't at all.

P.S. I saved the bacon for salads. Soooooo much better than those fake bacon bits!

Dinner With Our Friends (aka Don't You Wish That You Were Eating At My House)

Well, I didn't just feed my guests cupcakes on Saturday night, so I guess my readers want to know about what I made for dinner (plus I was threatened that if I didn't post my recipes from that night...well, who knows what they would have done to me).



Anyway, it's hard to get too crazy with your dinner choices when you have more than a couple of people coming over especially since you want to cater to your guests' preferences (like Paul's dislike of pretty much most things green.....hahah), so I usually make something that is pretty universally liked. I stuck with a couple of baked pasta dishes that seemed to be a hit with our guests since there was very little food leftover.



Here are the recipes:



Baked Ziti with Pesto from Quick From Scratch Pasta by Food & Wine Books



1/2 pound ziti (I used penne since the store was out of ziti)

2 tbs oil

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, mince

2 cups canned crushed tomatoes in thick puree

1/4 teas salt

1 bay leaf

1/2 teas fresh-ground black pepper

1 cup ricotta cheese

1 1/2 cups grated, packaged mozzarella cheese

1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese (you can omit this if you want)

1/4 cup pesto (store-bought or homemade)



1)Preheat oven to 350. Oil (or spray) an 8 by 8 inch baking dish.



2) In a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook the pasta for 7 minutes. It will be partially cooked.

Drain, rinse with cold water and drain again.



3) In a medium saucepan, heat 1 1/2 tb of the oil over moderately low heat. Add onions and

cook, stirring occasionally until translucent. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add tomatoes, salt and bay leaf. Bring to a simmer over moderate heat and cook until very thick, about 10 minutes. Stir in 1/4 teas. pepper and remove the bay leaf.



4) In a bowl, combine the ricotta, 1 cup of the mozzarella, about half the Parmesan (if using), the pesto and the remaining 1/4teas. pepper.



5) Put half the pasta in into the baking dish and top with about a third of the sauce. Spread the ricotta mixture on the sauce in an even layer. Cover with remaining pasta and then then the remaining sauce. Tope with the remianing 1/2 cup mozzarella nd the remaining Parmesan. Drizzle with the remaining 1/2 tbs oil. Bake until bubbling, about 30 minutes. Let sit 10 minutes before cutting.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------



While that recipe was good, this next one was great. I believe that Dave was debating on if he should lick the pan after we were done eating it! It's a Pioneer Woman recipe again and right now, she is batting 100% with the recipes of hers that I have tried. It's not even close to being low-fat, so maybe you don't really want to look at the recipe. One thing that I did do differently is that I cooked my spaghetti in all of the water that the chicken cooked in (she tells you to cook it in 2 cups of the chicken water--that's too much work for me), but you could probably just cook it in plain water if you are really lazy (I won't judge)! I am sure that this would have made excellent leftovers, but we wouldn't know since there wasn't any!



http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/recipes/chicken-spaghetti.pdf

Cupcakes, Yummy, Yummy Cupcakes!

Friends were coming over for dinner this weekend, so I needed to make some delicious dessert for them. I decided to make some Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcakes from Barefoot Contessa's cookbook Barefoot Contessa at Home. They were a big hit with the kiddo, who decided that he needed to eat 4 of them as soon as I finished frosting them (to make sure that they were safe for everyone to eat, of course)! These aren't super sweet (which I loved) and they made more than the recipe said.

I am lucky enough that the recipe is online at Food Network right now, so that I don't have to retype it. But if you do decide to use the recipe, you might want to print it out because (usually) her recipes are copyrighted and only posted for a short time online! Happy Baking!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/chocolate-cupcakes-and-peanut-butter-icing-recipe

Breakfast of Champions

Chris and I usually don't eat a lot of breakfast because I am pretty lazy in the mornings. We used to have a favorite weekend breakfast place (that served eggs benedicts with goat cheese...yummy), but New Hampshire St Bistro closed down last year and we haven't really been the same since. This has meant that I have to cook breakfasts on weekends now. I have been trying to branch out with the variety, but sometimes it's hard for me to make anything different since we really do enjoy that one potato dish that I posted awhile back. But Chris is a big fan of biscuits and gravy, so I decided to make him some. I also decided to make fried green tomatoes (a favorite of mine) since I had just picked up some at the Farmer's Market on Saturday.

I found both recipes online. Both were excellent, but I didn't completely follow the biscuits and gravy recipe. I decided to doctor the recipe a bit by not shaping the sausage into patties, but just breaking it up in the pan. I don't know if this is the reason that I didn't get a lot of grease in the pan or not. I probably only ended up with a 1 1/2 tbs of grease. I would have also made more gravy and had less sausage in it, but Chris really enjoyed it the way it was.

The fried green tomatoes were cooked in bacon grease (hence the bacon on the plate) and were pretty damn good. We don't usually eat such a big (unhealthy) meal, but I was feeling devious and why the heck not?

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/09/biscuits_and_gr/

http://southernfood.about.com/od/greentomatoes/r/bl10712b.htm

I want her kitchen!

Pioneer Woman's kitchen is dreamy. Read her blog for Aug 21.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/

Pork leftovers

I have to just say that the pork leftovers have been a big hit with Nathaniel and me. They have gained even more flavor while being in the fridge overnight. I don't think Chris will be getting any when he returns tomorrow because there won't be any left!

Wordless Wednesdays

What's the deal with wordless Wednesdays? If every blogger didn't write anything on Wednesday, what the heck would people do all day? Work? Clean? Please. What fun is that?

I won't be cooking much the next two days. I have a fridge full of leftovers and Nathaniel will be at his dad's. Since Chris isn't at home, I am going to be eating a lot of plum cobbler and pork for the next few meals! But just because I am not cooking, doesn't mean that I am not thinking about it. I've got some recipes ready for when the boys get back this weekend. Today, I am going to go through all my kitchen supplies to make an inventory of everything that I have. I probably have some of the most interesting kitchen supplies out there (when Nathaniel was little, I used to watch Martha Stewart Living pretty religiously. I have a cherry pitter that hasn't seen light since 1999). I figure this way, I can make a list of things that I really need/want for future trips to Williams-Sonoma.

I am also going through the spice rack to get rid of anything that has been hanging out for too long and see what ones I need to get more of soon. I have been in some kitchens where the spices were born before I was. If you are one of these people, GET RID OF THEM AND GET SOME NEW ONES! I can't tell you how badly you can ruin a meal with old spices or how much better a meal would be with some newer ones. I am not one of those people who replaces them every six months, but it's really time to throw away any spices that aren't from this decade (or three decades before!) and if a spice company from 1980 isn't in business anymore than you really know you are in trouble! I make sure that I have the basic spices in my pantry and don't buy the less common stuff unless a recipe calls for it, that way you don't have stuff from 10 years ago hanging out in your spice rack! My other tip is that you really do get what you pay for when it comes to spices. There are super cheap ones in the grocery store and there are more pricey ones. I would suggest that you splurge for something other than the cheapest ones. Trust me, there is a difference. All you have to do is a smell-test. If you can't smell the difference, you have a bad sniffer and you might want to get that checked out! Haha. I am not saying that you have to buy the most expensive ones (even though I am a big splurger and buy most of my spices at Dean & Deluca--trust me, there is a difference. Come over and smell my cinnamon or taste the hot red pepper flakes and you'll be converted.), but please don't buy the 69 cent spices.

Next week, I'll be trying out a chili recipe that I found online that won a Brooklyn chili contest. It has NO beans and looks super spicy, so I am game to try it out. I am also going to make Hot Browns, Louisville's famous dish. The picture below is from our trip there a couple of summers ago. It's pretty much heaven in a dish (along with about 5000 calories, but so worth it)!

I love this woman!

I tried another one of Pioneer Woman's recipes tonight. This time it was spicy shredded pork. She hasn't wronged me yet (and by the look of her other recipes, I don't think that she will)! Nathaniel and I had these with some flour tortillas. I added some sour cream and jalapenos to mine. I would have loved some salsa, but I didn't have all the ingredients to make some. Nathaniel loved this so much that he said that he was going to make a sandwich with it for his school lunch.

I made the recipe with a 4 lb piece (it looks like I'll be eating it for a few days), which made a lot of food. The picture above isn't even half of it! I used her advice on the dried herbs and spices. I would probably go a little more spicy when I make it again (Nathaniel is starting to like spicy stuff), but the flavors were really tasty. I just wished that I would have remembered that I had some beer in the second fridge because that's really all that was missing.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/08/spicy-shredded-pork/

Pioneer Woman

Geez! I love Pioneer Woman's blog. Today, she has breakfast burritos and they look so tasty. I probably like her because she likes to use lots of butter....hmmm, sounds like someone I am.....I mean someone I know.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/

Breakfast, Dessert or Maybe Both

For breakfast today, I decided to try out a new recipe that I found in April 2008's issue of Gourmet magazine because it contained Nutella (which Nathaniel and I both love). When Chris and I were in Paris, we stayed in a hotel that had a great complimentary breakfast buffet. Since food (even just a simple sandwich) is sooooo expensive in the city, I would fill up on lots of Nutella and French bread. Every time I eat Nutella, I get a smile on my face and remember the good times in Paris. After I got back from that trip, I found that Costco has double packs of Nutella (it's not quite the same since it's made in the USA, but still delicious). It comes in handy because Nathaniel has grown to love the stuff as much as I do.


This recipe is super easy. It's like a crepe, but thicker and more dense. We barely made a dent in it (like a little more than a 1/4 is all we ate), but maybe it's because I am still half asleep. You could also top this with regular chocolate syrup or maple syrup. I wish that I had some berries like the recipe suggested and I forgot to add the powdered sugar (which would have just been for a pretty picture, not because it needed more sweetness). The above picture is Nathaniel's serving with extra Nutella sauce on it, but it really didn't need that much. It was wonderful for breakfast, but could be a nice dessert too. Delicious!


http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/OVEN-CRESPELLA-WITH-NUTELLA-SAUCE-241993

Strange recipe that I found

Yesterday, I spent most of the day being lazy and ended up getting caught up on some food blog reading. I came across this recipe for black bean brownies on one of the blogs that usually has some tasty looking recipes. I have to say that the thought really made me feel like I needed to throw up. You see I really, really, really dislike beans. It's funny because I can eat just about anything (and am willing to try almost anything at least once), but beans are not something that I like eating at all. This is the reason that I could never become a vegan. I have tried them over and over again without success in liking them. There was one time in Chicago at Rick Bayless' Frontera Grill where I did eat an entire serving of black beans (much to Chris' dismay because he thought that he would get to eat them) that I liked. I think it was probably because of the spices and Mexican cheese that he adds to them, but it's the only time that I have eaten them with pleasure. It's really too bad that I don't like them since they are a great, cheap source of protein, but I just don't like them. If anyone is brave enough to try this recipe, please let me know how it is. I just thought it sounded really replusive.


http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/amazing-black-bean-brownies-recipe.html

Plums, plums, plums, plums

I love stone fruits and really love the fact that they are easily turned into delicious desserts. I had a whole box of plums from our trip to Costco and wasn't going to be able to eat all of them myself, so I decided to make a little plum cobbler tonight. Super easy, super yummy. I added a scoop of vanilla ice cream on my serving--a little extra added goodness.

http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/001166plum_cobbler.php

My son, future chef

Nathaniel had gotten a gift certificate to Amazon for Christmas that he had been saving to use till now. His birthday is New Year's Eve, he does this often when he gets gift cards since he gets so many things at once. He had been debating on what to get for months, Wii games, books, etc. etc. But he finally heard that Heros Season 2 was coming out on DVD and since he still had half of the certificate to use, I asked him if he wanted to maybe spend it on a cookbook. He has been helping me in the kitchen a lot more lately. Excited about this idea, he let me help pick the cookbook. We decided on something completely different than my usual cookbooks: one about artisan breads. http://www.amazon.com/Artisan-Bread-Five-Minutes-Revolutionizes/dp/0312362919/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219093712&sr=8-1 I had read about it on another food blog and it sounded like a decent one to add to the collection. We picked the free supersaver shipping, so it won't get here for a couple of weeks. But we look forward to using it when it gets here!

P.S. I was planning on making a spicy, pulled pork for dinner, but I misread the recipe and thought it only took a few hours to cook. Turns out that it takes 6 hrs and I didn't realize this till 3 PM, so Nathaniel and I will have to figure out what's for dinner now!

Updated Travel Blog

I finally updated my travel blog about part 1 of our Pacific Northwest trip (the Seattle part) that we took earlier this month. Since a lot of that blog is about our food adventures while on the trip, I figured some of you might want to read it. There is the link.

http://socalgirl.travellerspoint.com/7/

I am going to try to get the Oregon part of the trip up asap because we have lots of food stories about that state too!

The Day After Breakfast

I woke up to a grumbling stomach due to the fact that I had partied like a rockstar at a bachelorette party last night. I was feeling unbelievably good for someone that drank as much as I did, but I was HUNGRY. After debating with Chris about if we should go out for breakfast, I decided that I wasn't really up for leaving the house.

So I whipped up our favorite breakfast. There are times when this is the only thing that I make for breakfast on weekends, but it's so tasty that no one cares that we just had it. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this dish.

Country Brunch Skillet adapted from Maryana Vollstedt's The Big Book of Breakfast

(This is a very forgiving recipe when it comes to the veggies--you can omit things or add other veggies to your liking. But DO NOT omit the bacon!)

Serves 4.

4 oz bacon, chopped

1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper

4 green onions, sliced

4 oz button mushrooms, sliced (I usually add more since I love them)

4 cups frozen cubed hash brown potatoes, slightly thawed (Try to find the biggest cubed ones. I

have used smaller cubed ones and they get mushy.)

4 large poached eggs (You can omit the eggs if you want, but the yolks breaking in the dish adds

that much goodness!)

salt, pepper to taste

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (I used a white Cheddar this time because that's all I had, but

regular Kraft works)

In a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, cook bacon until crisp. Remove bacon with slotted spoon to a plate lined with a paper towel to drain. Leave 2 tbs dripping in skillet (or if you are really feeling naughty, leave it all--the potatoes & mushrooms will soak it all up). Add bell pepper, green onions and mushrooms and saute for 2 minutes. Add hash browns and cook, turning occasionally, until hash browns are tender and browned, 10-15 minutes. Stir in bacon. Salt and pepper to taste. Reduce heat to low, sprinkle with cheese, cover and let cheese melt. Add a poached egg on each serving. Hot sauce is wonderful with this dish.

Enjoy!

This Week's Farmer's Market trip

I am not posting a picture this week since my trip didn't consist of too much because Chris will be out of town for work most of the week (and since I still had tomatoes, eggplant & green chiles at home). I brought along a friend, Megan, with me this week (Chris was golfing in a tourney). She said that she is planning to be more adventurous with her farmer's market shopping in the future, so I'll have to bring her along more often. We also ran into our friend, Ryan's parents, so it was nice to chat with them for a little bit. I am still hoping to make it up to Kansas City's City Market one of these weekends since they have 140 vendor stalls, which means more things to experiment with! http://www.thecitymarket.org/

I picked up some baby Yukon potatoes, pears, eggs, basil, little onions and lots of meat from Amy's (4lbs short ribs, 2 lbs ground meat and lb ground pork. NO, I will not eat all this meat by myself in a week--haha). The short ribs are for Korean BBQ ribs that the boys love. Short ribs befuddle me because they are cut in so many different ways. I have seen them without bones (Costco), large pieces (Amy's) or small pieces (Korean market in KC). I am still wondering why that is and hopefully, the ones that I bought will still work for my recipe.

On another note, it looks like I am not only good at feeding the humans around here but the hummingbirds. They are making me refill the feeder every three days as of late (they didn't eat any of it for months). At this rate, I'll have to start buying the big bags of sugar!

P.S. I also added labels for my recipe posts (it's on the right side column after the book I am reading section). That way if you read a post earlier and wanted to find the recipe, you don't have to go through the whole blog again. Hope this helps!

Run, don't walk to make this

I have just outdone myself again (Paul and Megan, you should be kicking yourself for not staying for dinner after your visit!) and made another delicious meal. A meal so good that Nathaniel said "One of the best, but then again everything that you make is one of the best." Charming, huh?

Since Chris and I had quite the workout today--we dropped my car off at the dealership to get an oil change and biked back home, then biked back to the dealership--almost 6 miles total (we are living with one car since with his new position meant that he had to give up his work car and I am not working at this moment, so we are going to try to do with just one vehicle at this moment until we really have to have another one), I figured that we could eat some red meat tonight. After my first bike ride, I came home and read more of Pioneer Woman's blog. I came across an incredible recipe (warning--it's not lowfat, but it's soooo worth it. Plus we exercised a lot, so we deserved it). It's a steak sandwich with onions and it's fabulous. It's super easy to make and there isn't a lot of ingredients either.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/marlboro_mans_f/

With this steak sandwich, I decided to make some potatoes since both the men in my life love potatoes and I am a little tired of mashing them (I first saw these on my friend, Shannon's blog and have been wanting to make them). Do yourself a favor and make these potatoes. I promise if you like potatoes, you will love these.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/06/crash-hot-potatoes/

P.S. Made my day when Megan told me the story that her husband said that he not only liked his mom's lasagna, but mine too (he is pretty picky about his lasagna). I am glad that other people (besides Chris) appreciate my food! :)

***Note--For you people that are wondering why my bread isn't the same color, it's because I used the butter in the pan method for toasting it. I guess I didn't use quite enough butter! Oh, well, it was still a wonderful sandwich!

I lied

I am eating out at Free State tomorrow for lunch. Ok, it's not so bad. Friends are in town from Seattle and it's the most "Lawrence" restaurant to go to. Plus they get most of their food locally (including bread from Wheatfield's), so it's really not unlike eating at my house. Well, maybe not, since I can drink 10 beers and eat fattening fries with mayo.....

Blog for you to check out

Everyone is probably wondering why I am not in the kitchen right now and whipping up some new recipe. Also, where is the post from last night's dinner? Well, I am sorry to disappoint, but we ate a pretty boring dinner of leftovers last night to clean out the fridge. But never fear because I just found a new recipe for tonight's dinner.



I have been reading multiple posts on a blog that I found through two other blogs that I read (it sounds like I really have no life, huh?) called The Pioneer Woman. I can kind of relate to her, she was a city girl transformed to a country girl. Wait a second! Never mind, I am not living in the country (like some of CA friends might think). Ok, I can relate to her because she seems to love food and has some kick ass recipes on her blog. I suggest that you check it out.



http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/



I am planning on trying my hand on baking some bread next week. I found a no-knead recipe and hoping that it turns out good. I'll keep you posted. I am also going to be a nice mommy (but according to him not cool because I like to sing 80's music at the top of my lungs- I love my funny teenager!) and bake a cake and/or cookies with Nathaniel, which has become a favorite thing for him to do lately because he eats most of it (growing boy--5'8"!). Since Gooey Bars aren't being made in my kitchen anymore, we are going to have to find another favorite for Nathaniel.



Chris will be leaving for a work trip in NH on Sunday, so I'll be trying to figure out kid-friendly recipes that don't make a ton of food (since I am not a big fan of leftovers) or maybe someone wants to come over and be my guinea pig?



P.S. Since I have started on my cooking kick about a month ago, we have not eaten out in Lawrence at all (we did eat out a lot on our trip and will continue to when traveling since it's our favorite part of traveling!). I have really noticed a difference in how much better we eat at home (no fries all the time, huge meals, soda for Nathaniel--I stopped drinking it before summer started). We are planning on continuing our trend of not eating out in town (although, I do miss fries with homemade mayo at Free State Brewery) for as long as we can, but we are going to splurge for a dinner at Krause's in the near future. It's pretty pricey for Lawrence ($80+ per person. Funny how people wouldn't think twice in LA or NYC at this price, but Lawrence, KS...come on.), but the restaurant has gotten rave reviews from everyone that we know that has eaten there. The fact that the owners run the restaurant in a Rockhill designed addition to their house is big bonus points for me (I am a big modern-architecture lover...I know, I know it's not for everyone). It's also the kind of set-up that I have dreamed about (we can talk about my old culinary dreams in future posts). Chris also noted that we are willing to go eat at the greatest restaurants that we can afford on our trips, so why not go to the restaurant where we live that is supposedly the greatest too??? Smart man. The only thing that worries me is that we'll fall in love and never be able to eat anywhere else in Lawrence again (kind of like eating Mexican food in Mexico City, it's not the same in the U.S!). NOTE--This will be the restaurant that I take my parents to when/if they come visit us finally (we really, really, really like visiting them, so they never come out) because after all the trips that they have made out to KS, they think that the restaurants really suck. Of course, when you have great restaurants within 15 minutes, I would think Kansas dining sucks too (unless you want a steak...yummy).



http://www.krausedining.com/



http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/international-food-scene (Krause was featured in Jan 08's Food & Wine issue on some Top 100 list. I tried to get a copy of the magazine, but they were sold out in town everywhere. The link online isn't the full issue.)



P.S.S. I told Chris that I wouldn't be able to cook like this all the time if I had a job (or going back to school when I figure out what I want to be when I grow up besides a Toys 'R Us kid). He knows that and isn't really hinting at it anymore....haha.

GRITS!

Very few of you reading this probably know that I was actually born in Louisville, KY and not CA. I only lived there till I was almost 1, so I can't be considered a Kentucky-girl. I had never actually gone back to KY until summer 2006, when we made a clear effort to drive to my birthplace during a road trip. It's funny because sometimes I wonder if my southern birthplace (why is KY a southern state when it's not really southern on a map?) is why I love southern-style food. One of my favorites is grits, something that I think is under appreciated in this country (grits are just like Italian polenta) and thought of as "poor" southern people food. For those of you who don't know, grits are just coarsely ground corn. They are pretty plain and boring by themselves, but are delicious when things are added to them (cheese, shrimp, fried eggs, etc. etc).

Since I was up at such an early hour, I decided to try out this recipe for today's breakfast. I added a fried egg on top (a secret from Steve. The yolk breaks over the grits and adds that much more goodness to it!). It looks like white grits where used in her picture, while mine were yellow. So my picture looks like I have a fried egg on top of scrambled eggs....haha.

http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/007297grits_with_corn_and_onion_greens.php

P.S. That's my Paris metro mug in the background. I heart Paris!

Too Early in the Morning

It's way too early for my brain to function right now, but I am up because I promised to make Nathaniel breakfast on his first day of 8th grade! I had offered to make waffles, pancakes, etc, etc, but he picked his all-time favorite thing.

Cinnamon Bundles from Neiman-Marcus' Pigtails and Froglegs

1 pkg (8 count) refrigerated crescent rolls
8 large marshmallows
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 cup margarine or butter, melted (I always use butter because I think it tastes better. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup, but I usually only use 1/4 or less. Adjust accordingly.)

Roll out and separate dough triangles on a cookie sheet. Brush triangles with butter. Combine sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle mixture over dough, reserving the rest (I usually have extra cinnamon sugar that I just keep for next time). Dip marshmallows in butter and roll in sugar mixture to coat. Place 1 marshmallow in the center of each triangle and pull up sides of dough to cover marshmallow. Press dough together to seal. Place cupcake papers in muffin tin and put each bundle in a paper. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes.

What's for dinner

I wanted to make something with my ground pork that I purchased from Amy's Meats on Saturday and used cookthink.com to gain my inspiration for tonight's dinner. I found a great recipe for pork burgers with avocado dressing. I substituted bread from Wheatfield's instead of buns and added some tomatoes to the avocado. Chris asked Nathaniel what his favorite meal that I make is and he said these burgers (he omitted the avocados and added cheese to his). Quite delicious. http://www.cookthink.com/recipe/4086/Pork_Burgers_With_Avocado_Dressing
I also bought kale yesterday at the Farmer's Market and used an Alice Waters' recipe from the cookbook that I just picked up in Portland. Recipe from Chez Panisse Vegetables. (I split the recipe in half)

2 bunches kale (about 2 pounds)
2 tbs olive oil
salt
2 cloves garlic
1 to 2 tbs red wine vinegar

Strip the leaves off their stems and cut away the tough midribs of any large leaves. Chop coarsely and wash in plenty of water. Drain well, but do not spin dry.
Heat a large pan and add olive oil and enough kale to cover the bottom of the pan. Allow these greens to wilt before adding more. When all kale has been added, season with salt, stir in garlic and cover the pan. The greens will take anywhere from just a few minutes to 15 mins. to cook, depending on their maturity. When they are tender, remove the lid and allow any excess water to cook away. Turn off heat and stir in vinegar.

Homemade Tomato Juice

I had recently told Chris that he was no longer allowed to purchase his case of V-8 at Costco due to the extremely high sodium that was in each 12 oz can. When we picked up the flat of tomatoes the other day, I promised that I would make him some homemade tomato juice.

This is the recipe that I used:
http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/007310homemade_tomato_juice.php

It was pretty simple, but I did have a bit of a problem with my food mill (it's been a long time since I used it and maybe I wasn't using it right). There is no way that I would suggest using a sieve to push the juice through because you'll be there for days. The food mill is the only way to go. My tomatoes were sweeter than I thought, so I should have used less than the 1 1/2 tbs that I used but I did add some extra dashes of Tabasco since we love spicy stuff. My batch didn't make a whole quart, but it's probably because I got pretty impatient with the food mill. Definitely tasty and I'll make it again with some modifications in the future.

P.S. I still have half a flat of tomatoes left.

Chicken Monterey

Since we had just gone to Costco, I always get avocados (5 in a bag). Avocados are one reason that we could never go on a 200-mile radius diet while living in KS (we could come pretty close, but there are a few things that we would not want to give up eating). Chris almost always orders things that come with avocados if he sees them on a menu. He would eat them everyday if we lived in CA and had a tree. But we don't, so we have to settle for avocados at Costco (which usually are pretty good).

This is one of Chris' top 3 favorite things that I make. Once when Josh was over, I made it and he asked for some bread, so that he could mop up all the sauce that was leftover in the dish. It's that good.

Chicken Monterey adapted from NO JACKET REQUIRED by Neiman Marcus

serves 4-8 (depending on what else you have for dinner)

4 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts, halved

salt and pepper to season

2 tbs flour, plus more for dusting

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1/2 medium onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

8 large button mushrooms, diced

1 teas. celery salt

1/2 teas. white pepper (do not use black pepper, the taste would ruin this dish!)

1/2 cup chicken stock

1/2 cup white wine (please use something that you would drink. Bad white wine will ruin any

dish!). And then drink the rest of the bottle yourself...haha. Just kidding. Ok, maybe not.

1 avocado, pitted, peeled and mashed (I usually throw in another one since we love them)

3/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese, divided into 1/2 cup and remainder

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Use a 9x13 baking dish. Pound chicken breasts until 1/4 inch thick (you can also cheat and find this already done for you in the store to save time and energy). Lightly sprinkle with salt and pepper: dust with flour. Melt 1/4 cup of butter in large skillet over medium heat and brown chicken. Transfer to baking dish in a single layer.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In the skillet, melt remaining butter over medium-low heat, saute onion, garlic and mushrooms until tender. Stir in 2 tbs of flour, celery salt, white pepper, chicken stock and wine. Cook over low heat for 4 to 5 minutes until thick. Stir in avocado and 1/2 cup cheese to blend. Adjust seasonings if needed. Spoon mixture over chicken and top with the rest of the cheese. Bake for 15 minutes until chicken is cooked and cheese is melted.

Enjoy!

The Mother Load

I picked up an entire 7 1/2 lb flat of organic roma tomatoes today at the Farmer's Market from the old man that I usually buy my delicious cherry tomatoes from. The price? $10. What am I going to do with them? Hmmmm.......

Funny yellow dinner

I made dinner last night and realized that everything we were eating was yellow-cheese, corn, squash, tomatoes & even mustard! I felt like one of those weirdos who only eats white food. I thought it was funny, so I took a picture:

Mushrooms, mushrooms, mushrooms

I do some of my food shopping at Costco, which is hard sometimes when I buy things that Nathaniel doesn't like. That means the 40 oz box of mushrooms has to be consumed by two people. So this is what was for lunch today. Spaghetti with Mushrooms, Garlic & Oil.

Adapted recipe from Quick From Scratch Pasta by Food & Wine Books

serves 4 (You can adjust the oil and other stuff to taste. The amount of oil was a bit too much for me, so I only used like half. It depends on the mushrooms too)

1/2 cup olive oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

dried red pepper flakes, to taste

2/3 mushrooms, sliced (I used button, but wild ones would be great too)

salt, to taste

1 lb spaghetti or spaghettini

3 tbs parsley (I didn't have any at the time, so I didn't add any)

1/4 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper (I hope that most people grind their own!)

1) Start by boiling water for your spaghetti & cook according to package instructions.

2)In a medium frying pan, heat oil over moderately low heat. Add garlic and red pepper flakes, stirring until garlic softens, about a minute. Add mushrooms and salt and cook until the mushrooms exude liquid, the liquid evaporates and the mushrooms begin to brown, about 5 minutes.

It's that easy! Enjoy!

My kitchen helper

Grace's kitchen helper aka Moose. Sometimes she hangs out on the fridge.
And sometimes by the sink. Really what she is doing is hoping for some food scraps (she is worse than a dog) and get into things! The other night, she was licking the cheese grater that was in the sink! Silly kitty!

P.S.

Please comment on my page if you end up using any of my recipes (let me know what you thought of it) or have any ideas/recipes/tips to share! Heck, you can even post a comment for no reason at all if you really want. I would love to hear from you! And feel free to send the link to any friends/family that might enjoy it too!

Sunday Dinner

Our friend, Dustin, decided to buy me Rock Band special edition (the one with the guitar, microphone and drums!) for my birthday, so I invited him over for a lovely dinner made with mostly ingredients grown/made close to home.

Our dinner consisted of Justin's brown butter corn with basil (I could really eat this everyday), the purple beans (which I found out turn green when cooked, so disappointing) and grilled sandwiches with bacon, yellow tomato, mozzarella & basil on rustic Italian bread. The bread came from Wheatfield's http://www.wheatfieldsbakery.com/bakery.html, which is one of our favorite places in Lawrence to eat at. The bakery was featured on a "The Best of" show on Food Network in 2003. It's pretty amazing bread and I could live on their baguettes with some Irish butter! The bacon cooked nicely and did not get smaller like some brands do. You could clearly taste the difference in my $7/lb bacon, so much that Dustin and Chris both commented on how good it tasted. Thanks Amy's Meats! http://www.amysmeats.com/ The yellow tomatoes were really sweet and juicy. When I bought them at the farmer's market, the lady told me that she has to save the seeds every year because she can't find them in any catalogs anymore. I hope that she'll continue to grow them as long as I live around here! I love basil and I always hate buying grocery store basil because it's never very fragrant plus the taste is nothing like fresh, locally grown basil. Next year, I am planting a garden since the interior of my house is finally finished with (well, mostly done) and I'll be sure to plant lots and lots of basil. Anyway, dinner was a success since there wasn't a bite leftover and everyone cleaned their plates!




The sandwiches before the bacon was added. The tomatoes were amazing!


Also, we picked up two growlers of Free State beer, one Ad Astra (my fave) & one Oatmeal Stout (Chris' fave). For only $7.29, you can fill up your jug ($3) and enjoy this wonderful beer at home (4-5 glasses). For you readers that aren't familiar with Lawrence, Free State is a popular brewery in town with some of the most amazing beers. In all of our travels, we still haven't been to any other local brewery that has such great beer. But we won't give up trying! http://www.freestatebrewing.com/.


For dessert, I decided to make a favorite that I had never tried to make before. Pavlova. Not Pavlov's dog, but a light, airy, sweet meringue cake topped with fresh whipped cream and fruit. It's easy, easy, easy and wonderful for summer since it's not heavy. The recipe that I used is one that I found online. I added a teaspoon of vanilla for more flavor. Also, I didn't use their whipped cream topping recipe, but just threw one together on a whim myself. It's pretty easy, get out your mixer and whip some heavy cream + some sugar (to taste) till it's thick. You can always omit the cream and only use fruit. I used blackberries and kiwis, but would have loved more berries (of all sorts) to go on top. I also made four smaller cakes instead of one big one because if you have any leftover cake (we had one since there were only 3 of us), it's easier to keep them for later. You just need to store it in an air-tight container for later. After you add the toppings, it will need to be eaten (oh, bummer) because the meringue will get soggy if you try to keep any leftovers. http://www.joyofbaking.com/Pavlova.html
Look at how white the meringue is! Organic eggs are the best! If you wanted to be really wanted to be fancy, you could pipe the meringue with a icing bag and make a really pretty dessert. But I didn't feel like pulling out the cake decorating kit and cleaning it.



The finished product. I need some plates with color for my photos of white foods, don't I?


NOTE: I used my organic eggs for the egg whites in my pavlova and since I had extra yolks (and didn't want to find a recipe for just yolks), I decided to just scramble them with some leftover mushrooms. While cooking the yolks, I noticed that they smelt just like chicken. I was shocked and I was feeling a little sick to my stomach about it, wondering if I would really be able to eat them after that. But I powered through it and had the high calorie yolks. They were pretty damn delicious. Nothing like a chicken abortion for a snack (sorry if after reading that comment, you'll never be able to eat an egg again)!


P.S. Our rock band is taking open auditions for anyone interested because Chris has been demoted to groupie status....haha.

Farmer's Market Experiment

If you have been paying attention to my blog, you already know that I have a friend, Justin, who shops for the week every Sunday at the Farmer's Market. Well, he inspired me to start writing this blog and to try using his tactic on how to shop...no list or anything, just buy whatever looks good. I have to say that since I am a planner when it comes to cooking, it wasn't as easy as it sounds. I start to think about what I can make and then wonder if I have everything for that recipe! So I had to clear my mind and just get on with it. I also didn't go crazy with the purchasing of food since Nathaniel is gone till mid-week (plus I can always get some more staples on T/Th), so this is what I got. 3 lbs bacon & a lb ground pork (ok, maybe I went a little crazy with the pork products, but I LOVE bacon! All that set me back $27, but should be well worth it. http://www.amysmeats.com/), baby leeks, yellow watermelon, dozen ears of corn, dozen organic eggs, small onions, yellow heirloom tomatoes, variety of heirloom cherry tomatoes, mini squash, blackberries, 2 eggplants, 2 jalapenos, purple wax beans, garlic, a bunch of basil and a bag of chile peppers.

My first meal will consist of the eggs, some leeks & goat cheese that I already have in the fridge. Unfortunately, I have no heavy cream right now because scrambled eggs are always better with some cream!

What my butt looks like now after my trip

After eating all the food on my trip........

I am back....

Ok, I have a lot of stories about my foodie adventure in the Pacific Northwest, but here is some pictures to tide you over until I get some blogs written. Top Pot Doughnuts in Seattle. Yum.

Norma's Ocean Diner in Seaside, OR. The best clam chowder EVER (and I have eaten a lot of clam chowder). With a slab of butter on top, how can you go wrong? It was even voted one of the Top 10 best soups in Bon Appetit magazine a few years back.

Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland, OR. It's the famous Maple Bacon doughnut that I fell in LOVE with.

Gordita's in Seattle. A massive fish burrito served wet. Chris and I split this bad boy and still couldn't finish it!

Foodie heaven

Sorry about the lack of posts the last few days. I am still alive and kicking! Also, I am in foodie heaven here in the Pac NW!!!! I haven't stopped eating and I definitely haven't had a bad meal yet (ok, my first meal in Seattle was just kind of so-so, but all the rest have made up for it). I'll have pictures of my food adventures soon!

One of my favorite food experiences has been Voodoo Doughnut. http://voodoodoughnut.com/. I loved it so much that I am going back again in the morning (and maybe again and again). I had the Maple Bacon bar (they had a sign on it saying the "vegan nightmare"). It's a maple bar with bacon on top....the best doughnut ever. If you like doughnuts and bacon, then you would love this strange combo! Weird, but sooooooo good.

More to come soon!

Bye Bye!

I am leaving on a jet plane. Don't know when I'll be back again. Just kidding. (side note-did you know that John Denver wrote/sung that song before Peter, Paul & Mary?) But I am leaving for the Pacific Northwest today and I won't be cooking for the next few days. However, I will be making sure to eat lots of food, taking pictures and blogging about my culinary adventures in the PacNW. I have already figured out all of our food destinations in Seattle, Portland and the coast, so be ready to read all about it soon! I hope that you have a great weekend!

Homemade Ice Cream & Waffles

Keeping with my challenge of using all my cookbooks before my next birthday, I decided to make some homemade ice cream with Nathaniel. He had gone through my books and came across Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book. Of course, this was the cookbook that he was interested in. I have a Krups ice cream maker that has been crying because of lack of use (probably for the last 7+ years), so I decided that it was time to let Nathaniel know what real ice cream tastes like.

We decided on making French Vanilla ice cream and mix-in whatever he wanted later. Warning this recipe calls for eggs that are not cooked, so make sure that you are using the freshest eggs that you can find. None of those expired eggs that have been sitting in your fridge for months!

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FRENCH VANILLA from Ben & Jerry's

2 large eggs
3/4 sugar
2 cups heavy or whipping cream
1 cup milk (we used 2% because that was what we had. I am sure that whole would be even better)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Whisk in sugar, a little at ta time, then continue whisking until completely blended, about a minute more. Pour in cream, milk and vanilla and whisk to blend.

2. Transfer the mixture to ice cream maker and freeze following the manufacturer's instructions.

Makes 1 quart.
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It was very soft, so we popped the ice cream in the freezer for 30 minutes before Nathaniel mixed in some M&M's. His reaction was "Oh, this is SOOOOOOOOO good. We should make homemade ice cream all the time!" Really rich, creamy and delicious.

Funny thing is that I finished reading The United States of Arugula where the author writes about how Ben & Jerry's basically ripped off their ice cream mix-in ideas from an ex-schoolteacher, Steve Herrell, who had an ice cream store where they would come in taking pictures and study the ice cream machine to see how it worked (p. 191).

Ok, so after our homemade ice cream success, I asked Nathaniel if we wanted waffles in the morning. At 9 AM, we pulled out the waffle iron (a Christmas present that has been hiding in the closet) and whipped up some perfectly airy and fluffy waffles.

WAFFLES from Neiman-Marcus' Pigtails and Froglegs (sadly this cookbook is out of print, but one of my favorites)

1 3/4 cup flour (that's 1 cup plus 3/4 cup, not 1- 3/4 cup)
2 teas baking powder
3 teas sugar
1/2 teas salt
3 egg yolks, beaten
1 1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 egg whites, beaten until stiff

Combine dry ingredients in mixing bowl. Combine yolks with milk. Stir into dry ingredients (I sifted the dry into the milk mixture). Add oil. Carefully fold in egg whites. Do not over mix. Pour about 1/2 cup of batter into your waffle iron. Close and bake.
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The recipe said that it served two, but that must be two very hungry people. I made 9 waffles with this batter (Nathaniel ate 2 and I ate 1), so I would have to say that maybe 3-4 people might be more accurate. Since I am leaving town tomorrow, I decided to give the leftovers to my friends, Angela and Blake, so I'll have them give me a report on how well they reheat.

Nathaniel's reaction to the waffles--"The best ever. Let's make them again!" I totally agree.

P.S. Nathaniel was a little disappointed that he didn't remember to put the leftover ice cream on the waffles instead of just having syrup & butter.