The Jetsetting Fool Cooks (and Eats!)

The Lack of Blogging

2010-12-10T23:53:00.001-06:00

Hold on tight because I'm coming back starting the new year with a new food blog! Promise!

Green Chili and Carne Guisada

2009-10-01T09:06:00.003-05:00

I kept seeing these wonderful tomatillos at the Farmer's Market and I finally decided to get a bag full to make something with them. I had never used them in my cooking, so I had to do some searching for a recipe. Over a year ago, I had come across the website Homesick Texan and I have been wanting to make things from her website. It all looks so good, but I just haven't gotten around to it.

The first recipe that I tried out of hers was the green chili which I got to use different chili peppers from the Farmer's Market in the dish. I started out with the lowest amount of chili peppers (4 each), but added the seeds and this dish was pretty spicy (Chris and I both like spicy too). Usually the Farmer's Market chili peppers are much more potent than the ones in the store because they haven't been sitting there for a long time, so keep that in mind if you usually store bought ones. The mix of peppers made for an amazing blend of flavors and we both really loved this dish. It made for great leftovers and the house smelled wonderful.

Homesick Texan's Green Chili

The next day, I tried out this recipe (I forgot to take a pic) because I had a piece of chuck from my CSA and didn't want to just make a pot roast with it. It's not as spicy as the above recipe, but still has good flavor. We didn't love it as much as the green chili, but it's probably because we liked the spiciness of the first dish. Still definitely worth a try :)

Homesick Texan's Carne Guisada

Smoky Pork & Sweet Potato Tacos

2009-08-29T13:15:00.003-05:00

I apologize that there isn't a picture of this dish. This is something that I found months ago, but I had forgotten it until yesterday when I was looking for a dish to make and bring over to our friends' house.

It's super easy because you chop some stuff up, put some things in the blender and throw everything in a Crock pot! I did use fire roasted tomatoes (I keep various organic Muir Glen brand cans in my pantry) which I think really added a great flavor to the sauce.

I also made the avocado crema that goes with the tacos. Super easy to make and very tasty. The only thing is that I would have halved the recipe because 7 people barely made a dent in the sauce, but it will be good for salad dressing this week.

The nice thing about this dish was that my teenage son even liked it (he doesn't usually like things with lots of sauce) and he even ate leftovers for lunch today!

http://www.feelgoodeats.com/2008/05/07/cousin-meags-killer-party-tacos.html

Blackberry Buttermilk Cake

2009-08-19T12:14:00.004-05:00

I have been AWOL this summer. I have actually spent more time traveling than in my own bed the last three months and I haven't been able to spend much time at the Farmer's Market (which is really sad) this summer. I have also ate quite a bit of food on the road that needs to be posted about on here, but I haven't had a chance to do it! I have one more trip to NYC tomorrow to end this crazy summer of travel, then my travel slows down quite a bit which means back to actually cooking and hopefully blogging again!

I did get to make this delicious buttermilk cake from Gourmet magazine with the fresh blackberries that I bought at the Farmer's Market earlier this summer. This cake isn't too sweet and it's great when it's reheated for a little bit in the microwave. I liked it as a breakfast cake, but you can use it for dessert with some ice cream if that strikes your fancy. It keeps for days (if it will last that long) and you can use all kinds of different berries.

Berry Buttermilk Cake (I used blackberries) from Gourmet Magazine

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar, divided
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
1 cup fresh raspberries (about 5 oz)

Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Beat butter and 2/3 cup sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes, then beat in vanilla. Add egg and beat well.

At low speed, mix in flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined.

Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter raspberries evenly over top and sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 Tbsp sugar.

Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more. Invert onto a plate.

Farmer's Market

2009-06-27T22:44:00.006-05:00

I have been slacking. I took most of June off from my blog and I have no excuse besides that it was vacation time with the parents. Well, that's not always a vacation either. It's also hard to be away from home for 3 1/2 weeks and even think about doing anything but enjoying perfect Southern California weather and our 13 day road trip to Canada. The road trip was exhausting (future blog post), but it was a good bonding with the parents. Yet I don't be doing it anytime soon with them again unless we rent a huge RV and I can hide in the back the whole ride.

One of the worst things about road trips is that no matter how well I eat, after about a week, is that I am done with eating out. I just can't stand the sight of another menu and don't get me started about fast food. We rarely eat it when at home, so when you are forced to on road trips (so that you can make good time)--blah. I never want to see Wendy's again.

So I was thrilled to get back to the Farmer's Market today and see LOTS of new things on the tables. Potatoes, onions, peaches, cabbage, tomatoes are starting to ripen, etc. etc. I was like a kid in a candy store!

My bounty today: carrots, radishes, beets, small potatoes, eggs, snap peas, garlic, green cabbage, yellow cherry tomatoes, regular tomatoes, zucchini, onions and peaches. I am glad that I went early because the peaches were gone by 7:20! No salad mix this weekend due to the extreme heat that we have had in the Midwest, but I was pleased with everything else that I picked up.

When I was uploading my pics to my computer, I noticed that I had an old Farmer's Market pic from May 23 that I never got up on the blog. My husband was gone in Chile for work, so I didn't purchase a lot of things--peonies, salad mix, arugula, radishes and some tomatoes. But I did LOVE my peonies. I wanted to buy a bush this year, but was too late. I need to purchase one before they start to bloom out here because there were no bushes left by the time I decided to buy one.

I'll be cooking a lot more this week, so blogs to follow!

I Am Still Breathing!

2009-06-13T01:19:00.002-05:00

I haven't had a chance to post anything since my life has been filled with planning a road trip with my parents, son and brother. I have been the one in charge of figuring out where we are going and making all the hotel reservations, so I have been doing a lot of research since before we left on the 7th. It's been an interesting time. Most of it has been fun since I love to travel and visit new places, but it's also been trying because my (and my brother's) traveling style is completely different than my Dad's. We won't be willing travelers on any family road trips anytime soon!

I have been slightly disappointed in meals on the road trip. Even in Portland, I had taken my parents to a place that I went to back in August without great results. There has been some gems though and I will post them up as soon as possible!

Slacking :(

2009-06-02T00:45:00.003-05:00

I have been slacking. I admit it. Life has been crazy since I returned from my honeymoon in Spain. I went from relaxing to having to deal with a crisis to having the in-laws in town to my hubby leaving for a work trip in Chile for a week to having a dear friend in town to leaving for CA this past Saturday to visit my parents! Before I left, I didn't have a lot of chances to make any food with the visitors and my hubby being gone. Now he is left at home to fend for himself (he can't cook unless it comes in a pouch and involves boiling water). But don't feel too bad for him, I did leave him some food and stuff in the freezer that he can defrost.

My crazy travel schedule is not going to end anytime soon. I'll be leaving for a road trip with the parents on Saturday. We'll be driving to Canada from SoCal on a 12 to 14-day road trip. Should be fun and interesting. Hopefully, I'll get a few good meals on the trip that I can blog about. I'll try to get up some of the great meals from Spain on here before I leave, but I'm in charge of planning the entire road trip which means most of my time is spent on figuring out everything. I'll try to catch up soon!

Strawberry Time!

2009-05-22T10:57:00.000-05:00

I love strawberries. I had heard the rumor that the Farmer's Market had some while we were gone in Spain, but they sold out quickly (ten minutes) as soon as the market started last weekend. The lady told me that she would have more during the Tues/Thurs markets, so I ended up scoring a couple of baskets during the week. They were tender and juicy, but since they weren't treated with chemicals like some of the berries that you would buy in a grocery store, they got soft quicker than store bought ones. Since they were just soft and not rotten, I could still use them in a cooked recipe with no problem. I was reading my twitter feed list and found this great recipe from Gourmet magazine. It's basically like strawberry shortcake without all the work!

STRAWBERRY DUMPLING recipe from Ruth Cousineau at Gourmet Magazine

The dumpling after cooking.

1 qt strawberries, trimmed and thickly sliced (about 4 cups)
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2/3 cup whole milk (I used 2% because that's all I had)

Accompaniment:
heavy cream (didn't have any, but I am sure that it would be divine)

Stir together strawberries and sugar in a 4-qt heavy saucepan and let stand, stirring occasionally, until juicy, about 15 minutes. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally.
Meanwhile, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Blend in butter using a pastry blender or your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal with some roughly pea-size butter lumps. Stir in milk until just blended, then add mixture to boiling berries and stir once or twice. Tightly cover saucepan and reduce heat to low. Cook, undisturbed, until dumpling looks dry on top, 15 to 18 minutes. Let stand off heat, uncovered, 5 minutes before serving.

Healthy Chicken Salad

2009-05-20T23:00:00.005-05:00

Sorry for not posting much since I have been back. This week has been crazy, but it will finally calm down on Friday so I hope to get caught back up on everything! I am still in process of getting some posts up about our food in Spain and I am behind on some new recipes posts too. Hopefully soon life will be back to normal and I'll get my posts caught up. Life has been so crazy that I actually forgot that I had a cooking class last night and missed it! I didn't realize it till it was an hour after the class! Bummer!

I found this super easy and delicious (plus healthy) chicken salad recipe. I decided to put it in a croissant since we had some and it was so good that we had it two lunches in a row. There isn't any mayo like typical chicken salad, but it's a little bit like guacamole with chicken. The second day that I made it, I added some cucumbers and used a lemon instead of lime (since I didn't have a lime). I am sure that some red onion would be great and you can mess with the recipe, so that it fits your needs.

Avocado and Chicken Salad from Serious Eats

- serves 4 - Adapted from Cooking Light and Mrs. Micah

Ingredients
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

2 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, filleted

Kosher salt and fresh black pepper

1 Hass avocado, chopped

1 large beefsteak or slicing tomato, seeded and chopped

1/2 bunch scallions, chopped

2 tablespoons cilantro, chopped

1 lime

Procedure
1. Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high. While oil is heating, salt and pepper both sides of the chicken. Add chicken to pan and sear 4 or 5 minutes per side, until browned and just cooked through. Remove chicken from pan and let sit for 10 minutes.

2. While chicken is cooling, combine avocado, tomato, scallions, and cilantro in a bowl. Then cut the lime into approximate halves, with one slightly bigger than the other. Squeeze larger half over ingredients in bowl. Stir to combine.

3. Once fairly cooled, chop chicken into 1/2-inch chunks. Squeeze remaining lime over chunks and add to avocado mixture. Stir until combined. (Avocado should cover everything, but shouldn’t itself be annihilated.) Salt and pepper to taste.

Farmer's Market

2009-05-16T10:07:00.005-05:00

I am finally back from my Spain trip and I have been CRAVING vegetables since I got back. The Spanish food was amazing, but it's hard to find vegetables at restaurants especially green ones (potatoes are very common). So yesterday's visit to the Co-op grocery store consisted of buying only vegetables and milk. Today's trip to the farmer's market resulted in buying tomatoes, leeks, radishes, green onions, spinach, salad mix, basil, thyme, eggs, shittake mushrooms and a piece of aged goat cheese from Landeria Farmstead (read their story here). The goat cheese cost $8.50 for a 4.5 oz piece, but I figured it wasn't much more than some of the foreign cheeses that I buy. It's not like the goat cheese that you would typically think of, but more like a Gouda. He also had a swiss goat cheese, but I am not a huge fan of swiss cheese.

I'll post some Spain pics soon. I will also be cooking a lot since I haven't done any in almost 2 weeks, so hopefully I'll have some recipes to post. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

La Bodega Kansas City April 2009

2009-05-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

It's funny that my husband and I aren't very adventurous with our dining choices in Kansas City considering we'll eat just about anything. We usually eat at Blue Koi, a noodles and dumplings place by the Med Center, because it's our one of our favorite places to eat period. It was also because every time that we did eat somewhere new, we were disappointed in the food and wondered why we didn't eat at Blue Koi. But we have decided to try to branch out in our Kansas City restaurant picks and try to only eat at Blue Koi like every fifth time (haha).

We were going to go to the Chris Cornell concert with our friend, Dustin, so the men decided on going to the tapas place, La Bodega, for happy hour before heading to the show. Happy hour includes half price beer & sangria plus a selection of half price tapas. We had heard a lot about this place, but just hadn't had a chance to try it. The happy hour is such a great deal and we ended up stuffing ourselves for around $40 (plus 2 sangrias and a beer). The food was excellent and the sangria was one of the best that I have ever had in a restaurant (not overly sweet or with a thick layer of sugar at the bottom of the glass).

Pintxos de Higo-- Roasted red peppers, goat cheese and a fig coulis on grilled bread. A suggestion of the waitress and one of my favorite ones.

Champiñones a la Plancha-- Roasted mushrooms with garlic & white wine- parsley sauce.

Calamares a la Plancha--Sautéed squid in olive oil, garlic and lemon sauce.

Pincho de Pollo y Chorizo-Skewered chicken and chorizo with garlic cumin aïoli.

Albóndigas Caseras Meatballs in a spicy garlic cream sauce. One of our favorites. We actually ordered another one at the end of our meal. YUMMY!

Patatas Bravas-- Potatoes in a spicy tomato sauce. Probably Chris' favorite since he loves potatoes.

Queso de Cabra al Horno--Goat cheese baked in tomato sauce and garlic bread. This one was my least favorite which was disappointing because I love goat cheese. The tomato sauce was a bit bland. Probably won't get this one again.

A pic of our outside table with my sangria in the middle. What a great little meal!

One of the biggest reasons that Chris wanted to eat here is by the time that I have this scheduled to post, we'll be enjoying the real deal in Spain on our belated honeymoon!

Beef, Barley and Vegetable Soup

2009-05-07T11:19:00.003-05:00

The interesting thing about getting a CSA meat subscription is that sometimes we'll get something that I have no idea what to do with. I am still trying to get through meat from January (I write the date on the labels so that I know when I got it) and slowly, we are going through it. We'll sign up for another one later in the summer when the meat finally dwindles down, but we'll go for a smaller monthly package because we'll be trying out some of the other meats from the farmer's market (elk, lamb, bison, etc).

When I received a shank bone, I didn't know what to do with it. After some research online, I came across this soup recipe that was perfect for all the gloomy, rainy days that we have had lately. I really loved the flavor of this soup and the stew meat (also something that I had in the freezer from Amy's Meats), but I found the shank meat a little tougher than I liked. The meat bone did bring out more complexity to the broth, so I think that omitting it would be a problem.
But I loved the hot pepper sauce in this soup and ended up adding more to my own bowl. Great idea!

Beef, Barley and Vegetable Soup from Bon Appetit magazine February 2001
serves 8

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 pound beef stew meat
1 pound meaty beef bones (such as beef shank bones)
3 celery stalks, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1/4 cup pearl barley
4 cups water
2 14 1/2-ounce cans beef broth
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes in juice
1 10-ounce package frozen corn kernels
2 cups frozen sliced okra
2 small bay leaves
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 1/2 cups frozen peas
1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons hot pepper sauce

Heat oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Add stew meat and bones; sauté until beef is dark brown, about 8 minutes. Transfer beef and bones to plate. Add celery, onion, and barley to pot. Sauté until onion is golden, about 15 minutes. Add 4 cups water, beef broth, tomatoes with juices, corn, okra, bay leaves, and garlic powder. Return beef and bones to pot and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered until beef is almost tender, about 1 hour.
Add peas and 1 1/2 teaspoons hot pepper sauce to soup. Cover and simmer until beef is tender, about 30 minutes longer. Season with salt, pepper, and more hot pepper sauce, if desired.

Crust- Chicago

2009-05-06T10:00:00.002-05:00

When I told Katie that I was coming up to Chicago and wanted to go out to eat with her, she came up with a couple of pizza restaurants that we not the standard deep dish affair (which I do love, but can't stomach all the time). We decided on Crust, an organic eatery on W Division Street, which serves wood-burning oven pizzas.

Kim's Italian sausage pizza-- Italian sausage, pesto, provolone & shaved fennel (Kim really wanted to be on my blog--haha!). She liked it, but couldn't figure out what the white stuff was on top of the pizza. I recently looked up the menu online and told her fennel, but she said it was very mild.

Annie's Margherita pizza--organic tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, ricotta, olive oil & fresh basil. We traded a couple of slices with each other and I am not a big fan of ricotta on pizza. A little bland for my tastes, but the ingredients were

Katie's Basilico pizza-- tomato sauce, béchamel, buffalo mozzarella, & fresh basil. Looked yummy.

My 'shroom pizza--woodland mushrooms, spinach, béchamel, wild herbs, goat cheese & parmigiano-reggiano. Oh my goodness. What a great pizza. Everything was delightful and the combination of flavors was incredible. I'll have to try to recreate this one at home because it was so tasty.

The sad thing is that there are so many places to eat in Chicago and we don't visit enough, that I'll probably never get a chance to eat here again. But I might have to next time just to eat that mushroom pizza again! DELICIOUS!

Mity Nice Grill--Chicago April 09

2009-05-04T09:00:00.004-05:00

I spent a weekend by myself in Chicago staying with a good friend of mine that I hadn't seen since 2007, so we had a lot to catch up on when I finally saw Annie. We had wanted to check out the famous Hot Doug's for the famous foie gras hot dog and duck fat fries, but we had chatted so much as soon as we saw each other that we lost track of time and Hot Doug's is only opened till 4.

So we decided to hit up a place that we have frequented many times Mity Nice Grill which located in the food court (a very fancy one) on the basement floor of the Water Tower. It was a beautiful day, so we were able to walk from her apartment to downtown (about a 15-20 minute walk).

The Mity Nice Grill is part of the Lettuce Entertain You restaurant group. If you are a reader of Gourmet magazine, there is a nice article in the February 2009 issue about the owner of the group, Rich Melman. Great comfort food for when you are shopping.

Annie decided on mini cheeseburgers and a cranberry mojito. Yummy!

And I decided on the Thanksgiving feast, which made Annie laugh at my appetite (she remembers that I am an eater). I love Thanksgiving meals, so this was a great choice! No complaining about having turkey in gravy in April and not having to clean up the mess! For a drink, I had an orange creamsicle---it wasn't that great because the liquors started to separate and made it unappealing. But the yummy food more than made up for it. Another wonderful meal at the Mity Nice Grill even if our waiter was slower than a snail!

New Orleans Part 5--NOLA restaurant (last and final part)

2009-05-03T09:00:00.002-05:00

The only thing that our friends who went on the trip with us said that they wanted to do was eat at one of Emeril's restaurants. Unfortunately we couldn't get a reservation at the original restaurant, which is probably a bit more "New Orleans cuisine" than the other two restaurants of his. So NOLA for Sunday lunch, it was. There is what we ate (descriptions of the dishes from the NOLA menu):

Appetizers
Duck Confit and Fried Egg Pizza with Parmesan Cheese, Truffle Oil and Baby Arugula

This was actually an entree, but I couldn't pass it up because I love duck confit and fried eggs! It was AMAZING. I didn't eat the whole thing, but shared with my hubby. But I would have eaten it all.

Jeff's appetizer:

Pan Roasted Crab Cake with Smokey Eggplant Purée, Feta Cheese, Kalamata Olives, Crispy Spinach and Citrus Butter

My entree:
“Shrimp & Grits” Sautéed Gulf Shrimp, Grilled Green Onions, Smoked Cheddar Grits, Apple Smoked Bacon, Crimini Mushrooms, Creole Tomato Glaze and Red Chili-Abita Butter Sauce

I love shrimp and grits, so I was excited when I saw this on the menu before our trip. It was good, but not great. There was almost too much going on in this dish to make it a great dish in my opinion. The sauce was too sweet and overpowering for the cheddar grits & shrimp. They could have left it out and still had a great dish.

Chris' dish:

Seared Rare Yellowfin Tuna with Avocado, Wonton Crisps, Cucumber, Wasabi Aioli and Ponzu Vinaigrette

A good, light lunch. Not really what you would think of when you think of Emeril.

April's lunch:

Parma Ham-Goat Cheese and Basil Panini with Tomato Soup and Crème Fraîche

She said that it was the best tomato soup she had ever had and she liked the panini too.

Jeff's lunch:

Hickory Roasted Beef Brisket & Ribs with Orecchiette Pasta-Brie Cream “Mac & Cheese” and Honey Baked White Beans

He got talked into the ribs by the waiter as a last minute upcharge when ordering. I am pretty sure that Jeff enjoyed his lunch since I don't think he said much while he was devouring it!

April's dessert:

NOLA Buzz Bomb: Flourless Chocolate Torte with Bittersweet Chocolate Mousse and Brandied Apricots wrapped in Chocolate Ganache

She said it was great. Jeff and I had the guava sorbet (very tasty, but would make for a boring picture) while Chris just had a cup of coffee.

Chris and I are in agreement that we'll have to try the original restaurant next time. NOLA is good, but most of the food that we have seen in other restaurants during our travels. We would have liked to see more New Orleans influenced food on the menu, so we'll just have to remember to make our reservations for Emeril's way in advance.

As a whole, New Orleans was great. Loved the people, the food, the sights, the culture, etc, etc. There is still so much to eat that we missed out on; muffelettas, gumbo, the original Emeril's, and the list goes on. We can't wait to get back there!

April Cooking Classes

2009-05-02T08:00:00.000-05:00

In April, I took two cooking classes at the Merc: "Still More Mexican" with Chef Nancy and "French Tarts--Savory and Sweet" with Chef Paige.

For Nancy's class, the menu was Fresh Flour Tortillas from scratch. Queso Fundido. Tortilla Soup with Crispy Tortilla Strips. Red Chili Enchiladas with Chicken. Mexican Chocolate Flan. The main reason that I took this class was for the flour tortillas as I am not a huge fan of corn tortillas which are in the soup and enchiladas. I am also not a fan of chocolate (gasp!), even though I am a lover of flan. It wasn't my favorite class that I have taken of hers, but I was glad to learn the flour tortilla process and will be making them in the future. The soup was good, but I wasn't a fan of the crispy tortilla strips or it could have been the fact that the soup wasn't piping hot (the only way that I think hot soups should be served). Enchiladas were decent, but like I said corn tortillas aren't my favorite. As for the chocolate flan, the Mexican chocolate was an interesting touch with the cinnamon. I think that if I was to make it for a dinner party, I would make chocolate and regular flan, so that guests can try both.

If you know me at all, you know that I am obsessed with all things French. I took French as my language (I speak it poorly, but can read French decently) in both high school and college. I studied lots of French art for my art history major plus have read French history just for fun. Paris is one of my most favorite vacations spot in the world. I just love French things. So when I saw the French tarts class open up, I was thrilled when Jackie and Kelly said that they were taking it too. They included a silver removable bottom tart pan in the $25 class fee. This was an amazing deal considering the pan was made in France (not that I needed another one since I have quite a collection of tart pans that I rarely use).

Paige's class was great and informative. She is a fun chef with a great sense of humor and knowledge of why certain things work and don't work in cooking (she'll pull out info from food science books and stuff like that), but it had been awhile since I had been to one of her classes. Her French tart class was great. The menu--Mushroom & Leek Tart. Classic Savory Quiche. Amandine (a divine dried fruit and almond frangipane tart). Tarte Citron (a classic lemon tart). Fresh Raspberry & Custard Tart. My favorites were the Mushroom & Leek (I have already made this. Expect a post later) and the Raspberry & Custard. This class made me want to experiment with tarts, so look forward to some tart recipes in the near future!

Mee Ga-Ti Rice Noodles with Coconut-Bean Sauce

2009-05-01T12:25:00.000-05:00

This recipe comes from my cooking class that I took last month where we received a cookbook along with the class fee. When I first heard that Chef Nancy was making this, I have to admit that I was leery. Afraid that the sauce would be too sweet because of the coconut milk, I was pleasantly surprised by the complexity of the dish and it ended up being my favorite dish that she demonstrated that night.

Mee Ga-Ti Rice Noodles with Coconut-Bean Sauce from Real Vegetarian Thai by Nancie McDermott

8 oz dried rice noodles, either wire-think or about the width of linguine or fettuccine (I used the wider ones)
1 tbs vegetable oil
2 eggs, beaten
3 cups unsweetened coconut milk (MAKE SURE THAT IT'S UNSWEETENED!)
1/2 cup minced shallots
1/3 cup Asian bean sauce (you will need to go to an Asian grocery store for this)
8 oz firm tofu, cut into slender 1-inch long rods
2 zucchinis, halved lengthwise and cut crosswise into thin half-moons, or cut into slender 2 inch long rods
2 tbs Tamarind Liquid or freshly squeezed lime juice (I used my Tamarind paste--about 1 tbs)
2 tbs Vegetable stock
2 tbs sugar
1 teas salt
1 teas freshly ground pepper
1 teas red chili pepper flakes
A handful of fresh garlic chives, cut into 2-inch lengths, or 3 green onions, white part thinly sliced crosswise and green part cut into 2 inch lengths
2 cups bean sprouts
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
1 lime, cut lengthwise into 6 wedges

Put the dried rice noodles in a bowl, add warm water to cover, and let stand until limp and liable, 15 to 20 minutes. Put a large pot of water on to boil.

Meanwhile, heat the vegetable oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat until a drop of egg added to the pan sizzles at once, about 1 minute. Add only enough of the eggs to coat the pan, swirling to make a thin sheet. Cook until the egg sets, about 30 seconds. Flip it to warm the other side, and then turn it out onto a cutting board to cool. Repeat with the remaining egg, When the egg sheets are cool, shred them into fine strips and set aside.

Drain the noodles and add them to the boiling water. Cook until tender but still firm, 1 to 2 minutes. Drain well and set aside.

Pour the coconut milk into a medium skillet, place over medium heat and bring to a gentle boil. Adjust the heat to maintain an active simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until it gives off a sweet aroma and thickens a little, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the shallots, bean sauce, tofu and zucchini and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes. Add the tamarind or lime juice, vegetable stock, sugar, salt, pepper, and chili flakes. Stir well and cook for 2 minutes more.

Add the noodles, the garlic chives or green onions, and most of the bean sprouts, reserving a handful for garnish. Toss well to coat everything with the sauce. Transfer to a serving platter and sprinkle with the cilantro. Garnish with the reserved bean sprouts and the lime wedges and serve warm or at room temperature.

Serves 4.

New Orleans part 4-Roadfood Crawfish Boil/Pig Roast

2009-04-30T09:00:00.001-05:00

One of the reasons that we had gone to New Orleans was to take part in the Roadfood Crawfish Boil/Pig Roast. The past four years before, the Roadfood team took a bus around various foodie places to try local cuisines (previous ones had been Northeastern desserts and BBQ around Austin, TX). Chris had always wanted to try going on one of these tours, but we never made it. This year, the location was a place that we hadn't been and it was a different agenda. All the food would be in one place and there would be four buses instead of just one.

Before the 20-30 minute ride out to the bayou, they took us to Hansen's Sno-Bliz. This little building is in the middle of nowhere, but well worth the drive to get a refreshing frozen treat. If you go to their website, you can read about the history of the place. The owner's grandparents were the masterminds of this. Her grandpa actually invented the ice shaving machine that they still use to this day.

There are multiple flavors to choose from, but with the big group, they limited it to 3 flavors: cream of nectar, strawberry and satsuma (a tart citrus fruit) & you could add sweetened condensed milk to your flavor. Our friends thought this was a strange topping, but it's actually something that I was surprised to see in America. It's fairly common in Asia to see sweetened condensed milk on shaved ice and it's something that I grew up eating since I was a toddler. The best flavor was the satsuma with the milk. The combination of the tart with the sweet was a perfect blend and would be wonderful during a hot, humid New Orleans day.

After our pit stop, we headed out to the bayou where the crawfish boil/pig roast took place. There was a swamp full of small alligators swimming right by the picnic area (ugh) and plenty of mosquitoes that feasted on my blood.

We met the Roadfood team, Michael and Jane Stern, but we only got a pic with Michael. It was a little disappointing that we didn't get to chat with them for a longer period of time (it was probably 2 minutes before they had to run off) because they were busy talking with other guests who had attended previous ones (it was almost frat-like) and since they were playing hosts to everyone.

The whole pig.

Carving the pig. The meat was excellent, but Chris and I were bummed that the pig skin wasn't the super crispy skin that you see Anthony Bourdain eat on his shows all the time. The skin was tough and inedible, so basically just a layer to protect the meat while cooking.

A boat load of boiled shrimp. Not my favorite since the shrimp were small and hard to peel. A lot of work for little reward.

The rest of the spread: potatoes, corn, bread and two kinds of jambalaya--alligator or chicken with andouille sausage. Chicken jambalaya was definitely the best dish of the night.

Crayfish. I've eaten crayfish before, but usually in a dish already shelled. Too much work for me. But the males seemed to enjoy them.

Chris and I are undecided on if we'll do this again or not. It wasn't cheap at $95/person (all you can eat food and drink) and I am not sure that it was worth it. They did donate money to charity, so I feel a little better about spending that much. If we had gone to different restaurants on the tour like they had in the past, the experience would have been worth it. We'll have to see what's on the agenda next year before we decide.

New Orleans Part 5 (and the last one) will be coming soon :)

Mac & Cheese

2009-04-29T16:15:00.002-05:00

I found this recipe on Pioneer Woman's page. We loved it, but a friend of mine made it and said it was only so-so. Not sure why that is.

I will give you tips on mac & cheese though. First, you MUST use good cheddar (not Kraft, buy the good stuff out of the deli case) and you MUST grate it yourself (bagged cheese will not work). Second, the roux has to be completely cooked or you will end up with grainy cheese, not a smooth one. Also DO NOT use lowfat cheese. If you need to use lowfat cheese, then this is not the recipe for you. I did use the whole milk that she suggested. I figure with things like this, we don't eat them all the time, so a little extra fat isn't going to kill us.

This is really best straight out of the oven. Leftovers are ok, but not as good as when it's first cooked. This makes A LOT, so make it for a big group (unless you are married to a mac & cheese loving man named Dave--haha!).

Macaroni & Cheese from the Pioneer Woman

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
4 cups dried macaroni
1/4 cup (1/2 stick, 4 tablespoons) butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups whole milk
2 heaping teaspoons dry mustard (more if desired)
1 egg, beaten
1 pound cheese, grated
1/2 teaspoon salt (more to taste)
1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt (more to taste)
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
*Optional spices: cayenne pepper, paprika, thyme

Cook macaroni until very firm. Macaroni should be too firm to eat right out of the pot. Drain.
In a small bowl, beat egg.
In a large pot, melt butter and sprinkle in flour. Whisk together over medium-low heat. Cook mixture for five minutes, whisking constantly. Don’t let it burn.Pour in milk, add mustard, and whisk until smooth. Cook for five minutes until very thick. Reduce heat to low.
Take 1/4 cup of the sauce and slowly pour it into beaten egg, whisking constantly to avoid cooking eggs. Whisk together till smooth.Pour egg mixture into sauce, whisking constantly. Stir until smooth.
Add in cheese and stir to melt. Add salt and pepper. Taste sauce and add more salt and seasoned salt as needed! DO NOT UNDERSALT. Pour in drained, cooked macaroni and stir to combine.

Serve immediately (very creamy) or pour into a buttered baking dish, top with extra cheese, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until bubbly and golden on top.

New Orleans Part 3--Sucre

2009-04-29T13:00:00.002-05:00

Before I left for New Orleans, I checked out the Serious Eats website for any tips for places to eat or visit. I came across Sucre while reading up on the city. It's an amazing sweets shop on Magazine Street (a very hip area of town with great little shops & places to eat).

The gelato counter. They had my favorite flavor, blood orange, which I had to have. Perfection.

April's dessert. Some sort of chocolate dessert with their famous macaroon on top. I ended up buying a box of 15 various flavors of macaroons (at $22, it was not cheap) to take home to my son. I was a little disappointed in how they didn't hold up well in transit and I am shocked that they actually ship them out. Some flavors were better than others, but not sure that I would buy them again.

My dessert was fraise mousse with white cake on the bottom. $6 a dessert. Not bad for the presentation.

There was also handmade chocolates and a small lunch menu (I believe sandwiches and salads). What a great find!

Cream of Asparagus Soup

2009-04-29T09:00:00.003-05:00

When I decided to go pick some asparagus, I knew that I wanted to make some cream soup. I LOVE cream soups and I LOVE asparagus, so it was a no brainer when I found this simple recipe from Elise's wonderful website. I didn't have any vermouth, so I omitted it. I do see how it would have brought out more flavor though. It's probably not worth buying an entire bottle for just this, but use it if you have some in your liquor cabinet.

Creamy Asparagus Soup from Elise of Simply Recipes

Ingredients
2 lbs asparagus
1 large yellow onion, chopped
3 Tbsp unsalted butter
5 cups chicken broth
Leaves of 2 sprigs of fresh thyme
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 Tbsp dry vermouth
A squeeze of fresh lemon juice
Salt and pepper

1) Cut tips from 12 asparagus 1 1/2 inches from top and halve tips lengthwise if thick. Reserve for garnish. Cut stalks and all remaining asparagus into 1/2-inch pieces.

2) Cook onion in butter in a 4 or 6-quart heavy pot over moderately low heat, stirring, until softened. Add asparagus pieces and salt and pepper to taste, then cook, stirring, 5 minutes. Add 5 cups broth, thyme, and simmer, covered, until asparagus is very tender, 15 to 20 minutes.

3) While soup simmers, cook reserved asparagus tips in boiling salted water until just tender, 3 to 4 minutes, then drain.

4) Purée soup in batches in a blender until smooth. If you want a very creamy texture, you can put the purée through a food mill or press it through a sieve. Transfer to a bowl (use caution when blending hot liquids), and return to pan. Stir in cream. Stir in vermouth and a squeeze of lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with asparagus tips.

Serves 4-6.
Adapted from a recipe in Gourmet magazine

New Orleans April 2009 Part 2

2009-04-28T23:21:00.002-05:00

I haven't been good at updating the foodie travel part of my blog. I am WAY behind on my New Orleans trip. I have downloaded the pictures, but just need to finish writing the posts. Expect them to be coming soon!

Cafe du Monde beignets. The famous beignets that everyone talks about. I can't say that I was that impressed with them. Give me a Top Pot or Voodoo Doughnut instead, but I did eat them and they weren't bad. I just didn't eat them multiple times like I thought I would.

Our friend, Jeff and Chris with Pat O'Brien's hurricanes--what you are required to drink when in New Orleans. It's some rum with artificial coloring/flavoring drink. It will turn your tongue red!

The second day that we were in New Orleans, we took part in the Roadfood Festival on Royal Street by the French Quarter. There was plenty of different restaurants that had booths. Too many things to choose from. We actually didn't eat as much as I thought we would, but here are the pictures from what we did eat.

First and most delicious thing that we ate during the festival. Shrimp Remoulade Po-boy. Remoulade is a mayo based condiment. This one had a little kick, but look just like plain mayo. I was never able to figure out what the spice was, but we loved it.

Alligator Etouffee over grits. Grits are one of my favorite things, so I couldn't pass them up. But the flavor was a little bland to me (needed some hot sauce which I forgot to put some on). It was also the last of the pot, so might be the reason that there was barely any alligator meat in it and it was cold. Chris also got the fried artichoke hearts, which were delicious. A picture wasn't taken in time before he had devoured them.

New Orleans part 3 coming soon!

Pendleton's Farm 04/24 and Farmer's Market 04/25

2009-04-28T09:53:00.006-05:00

One of the greatest things about living in the Midwest is the proximity to farms. We are able to get great local vegetables at a decent price and that tastes better than anything you can get in the grocery store. At the outskirt of town, there is a wonderful place called Pendleton's, where you can pick your own asparagus during this time of year. I called up Megan to see if she wanted to join me to pick some (which was a lot more fun to have a friend around). For $2.50/lb or was it's $3.50? (I can't remember, but it was a great deal either way), we picked some delicious asparagus. So perfect that I picked 3 lbs of it. We also got some spinach (picking it was a big job since it was medium sized leaves) and I was thrilled to find fresh tomatoes up at the store when we went to pay. They also have great pots of flowers, plants and herbs for your garden, which I skipped this time (I have 150 bulbs that need planting as I type). They also should have morel mushrooms soon, but I am afraid that I might miss them while I am out of town for my honeymoon!

We didn't pick up a lot at the farmer's market this weekend since I had just gone to Pendleton's the day before. I did pick up a couple of pounds of ground pork (we have LOTS of beef still from our CSA subscription--we plan on continuing a smaller sized one when we eat through some of the meat), the carton of eggs that Chris forgot last week when I was out of town, green onions, cilantro (which wasn't very flavorful and very disappointing), some homemade potato & pea samosas (which were bland), a lb of bacon and a lb of grass feed meat bacon. Meat bacon? We'll see how it tastes, but I figured that we would give it a try. Since Amy's Meats hasn't had bacon lately, I have bought mine from the wonderful lady at Homespun Hill Farm.

This Saturday is the grand opening of the Farmer's Market, which also means that the Tuesday/Thursday markets will also be starting up next week. I am looking forward to buying minimal vegetables at the grocery store (even if I have become very fond of our local Co-op, mostly because a father of friends works there and it's nice to chat with him weekly) and will probably be making less trips to the chain grocery stores in town as the summer goes on. Hope that everyone is going to take advantage of their local Farmer's Markets this summer!

Noodles with Pork From Shanxi

2009-04-28T09:17:00.000-05:00

This recipe comes from Susanna Foo, a highly respected Chinese food chef in America (awards from Food & Wine magazine, James Beard cookbook award, etc). She also has a very interesting story (link here) on how she got into the food industry. I am disappointed that we missed out on eating at her restaurant in Philadelphia when we were there a couple of years ago, but her cookbooks are innovative.

I have had her first cookbook for years (it's well worn) and was able to pick up her other one at Half Price Books recently for about $10. This recipe is something that I make a lot. It's a comforting dish with the potatoes and pork. Susanna dices her pork into smaller cubes, but I am lazy and don't. It will work either way. I have yet to serve it with all the small accompaniments that she says to serve it with (mostly because I forget to), but I would like to one of these days!

Noodles with Pork From Shanxi from the cookbook Susanna Foo Chinese Cuisine

serves 4-6

1 lb boneless lean pork, cut into 1/4 inch dice
3 tbs soy sauce
1 tb cornstarch
1/4 cup corn oil
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
3 tbs brandy (do not omit this. I don't think that the flavor would be right if you did)
1 large russet potato, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch dice
2 cups chicken stock
2 large tomatoes, peeled and dice (note--I don't peel them. It's up to you if you want to leave them on or not)
2 scallions, chopped
coarse or kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 lb fettuccine or linguine (she has a recipe for homemade noodles, but I have never made them)

Place the diced pork in a large bowl and mix in the soy sauce and the cornstarch. Add 2 tbs of the oil, mix well and marinate for a few minutes at room temperature while preparing the rest of the ingredients.

Heat 1 tbs of the oil in a large, heavy saucepan or Dutch oven. Add the onion and the garlic and cook over high heat, stirring, until the onion is lightly browned, 2 to 3 minutes.

Add the pork, along with any marinade, and continue to cook, stirring, until the pork is no longer pink.

Add the brandy. Cover the pot, turn the heat to medium and cook for about 10 minutes. Add the potato and mix well. Pour in the stock, cover and cook for 30 minutes, or until the pork and potatoes are completely cooked.

Add the tomatoes and the scallions. Continue to cook, stirring often, for 3 minutes more, or until sauce is thickened. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

While sauce is cooking, cook pasta until tender, but still firm to the bite.

Spoon the cooked pork into a large bowl and serve, along with a bowl of the freshly cooked pasta. Allow people to help themselves to the pasta and sauce.

OPTIONAL GARNISHES
Present the pork and pasta along with small bowls filled with any or all of the following: balsamic vinegar, chopped fresh jalapeno peppers, julienned cucumber, chopped fresh basil, chopped fresh cilantro and julienned leeks.

Sorry!

2009-04-25T13:16:00.002-05:00

I just noticed that I have been lacking in posts for longer than I thought. I am behind in posting about my foodie trips, cooking classes and multiple dishes that I have made lately. I'll be working on them this weekend and hopefully catch up this week!

Creamy Herbed Potatoes

2009-04-25T13:01:00.004-05:00

I went to a potluck the other night and the hostess wanted me to bring a potato dish. I love Cheddar cheese with sour cream potatoes that everyone always brings to potlucks, but I figured that I would find something a little different instead. I came across this WONDERFULLY sinful potato recipe from Pioneer Woman. She suggests using any of your favorite fresh herbs. I only had thyme in my fridge, so I used that and worked perfectly (I used about a couple teaspoons worth). Adjust the herbs to your liking. This recipe is delicious and the leftovers were well received by my husband, who has already asked for me to make it again. And since I didn't get a chance to snap a picture, I'll make sure to make it again soon!

Creamy Herbed Potatoes from the Pioneer Woman

PW’s Creamy Herbed Potatoes
4 to 5 russet potatoes
1 stick (1/4 pound) butter
1 medium onion, finely diced
8 ounces cream cheese
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk (half & half works, too)
1 teaspoon finely chopped rosemary
1 teaspoon finely chopped parsley
1 teaspoon finely chopped chives
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped sage

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Slice potatoes very thinly.Add butter to a large skillet over medium low heat, When melted, add diced onion. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add cream cheese to the pan and stir to melt.Pour in cream and milk, stirring to combine.Season with plenty of salt and pepper, then add chopped herbs.Place potatoes in a buttered baking dish. Pour contents of skillet over the top.Top with Parmesan cheese and bake for 45 minutes, or until bubbly and…bubbly. Allow potatoes to sit 15 minutes before serving.

Tip: Do not try to transport this dish unbaked unless your dish has a good seal. I learned this the hard way and ended up with about a half cup of liquid (cream, milk & butter) all over my car (luckily most of it on the floor mat).

French Apple Tart

2009-04-12T22:45:00.001-05:00

I was watching the Barefoot Contessa on Food Network the other day and saw her making this. It looked so good that I had to make it. The recipe is in her latest cookbook, which is one of my favorites (I want to make just about all the recipes in there). Make sure that the sugar is not close to the edges or it will burn the sides. I had a little bit of burnt edges, but I just cut it off. For the glaze, I used rum instead of Calvados since it costs almost $30 for a 1/5 of the apple brandy. I am sure that the Calvados would have added a great complexity to the apples, but I thought that the rum was tasty enough and I already had it in my liquor cabinet. For a little added extra, a dollop of sweetened freshly whipped cream would be a great addition to this. She was really fancy with her cutting of the apples, but I didn't have a melon baller and didn't cut them like she did. It was still delicious, so I am not going to judge if your apples aren't perfect!

French Apple Tart from Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics

Ingredients

For the pastry:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon sugar
12 tablespoons (11/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, diced
1/2 cup ice water

For the apples:
4 Granny Smith apples
1/2 cup sugar
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) cold unsalted butter, small diced
1/2 cup apricot jelly or warm sieved apricot jam
2 tablespoons Calvados, rum, or water

Directions
For the pastry, place the flour, salt, and sugar in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Pulse for a few seconds to combine. Add the butter and pulse 10 to 12 times, until the butter is in small bits the size of peas. With the motor running, pour the ice water down the feed tube and pulse just until the dough starts to come together. Dump onto a floured board and knead quickly into a ball. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
Roll the dough slightly larger than 10 by 14-inches. Using a ruler and a small knife, trim the edges. Place the dough on the prepared sheet pan and refrigerate while you prepare the apples.
Peel the apples and cut them in half through the stem. Remove the stems and cores with a sharp knife and a melon baler. Slice the apples crosswise in 1/4-inch thick slices. Place overlapping slices of apples diagonally down the middle of the tart and continue making diagonal rows on both sides of the first row until the pastry is covered with apple slices. (I tend not to use the apple ends in order to make the arrangement beautiful.) Sprinkle with the full 1/2 cup of sugar and dot with the butter.

Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the pastry is browned and the edges of the apples start to brown. Rotate the pan once during cooking. If the pastry puffs up in one area, cut a little slit with a knife to let the air out. Don't worry! The apple juices will burn in the pan but the tart will be fine! When the tart's done, heat the apricot jelly together with the Calvados and brush the apples and the pastry completely with the jelly mixture. Loosen the tart with a metal spatula so it doesn't stick to the paper. Allow to cool and serve warm or at room temperature.

Sunday lunch

2009-04-12T21:27:00.008-05:00

I love goat cheese. If I had my way, I would probably eat it every day and at every meal. I had come across this recipe the other day on foodnetwork.com, but realized that it was in one of my cookbooks that I haven't used for my blog yet.This is a salad that you would find in a fancy restaurant, but it's not hard to make. I used my own version of a mustard vinaigrette instead of hers since I didn't have all the ingredients. But I have no measurements for my own vinaigrette (I just throw in some fancy mustard, white wine vinegar, olive oil, salt & pepper to taste). If you love goat cheese, give it a try.

Salad with Warm Goat Cheese adapted from Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Parties!
serves 6

1 (11-ounce) log plain or herbed Montrachet (or any good goat cheese)
2 extra-large egg whites, beaten with 1 tablespoon water
Fresh white bread crumbs (I used panko crumbs since that's what I had)

2 tablespoons good cider vinegar
2 tablespoons good Champagne vinegar
Pinch sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 extra-large egg yolk
1 cup good olive oil
Enough mixed salad greens for 6 servings
Olive oil and unsalted butter, for frying

Slice the Montrachet into 12 (1/2-inch-thick) slices. (The easiest way to slice goat cheese is to use a length of dental floss.) Dip each slice into the beaten egg whites, then the bread crumbs, being sure the cheese is thoroughly coated. Place the slices on a rack and chill them for at least 15 minutes.

For the dressing, place the vinegars, sugar, salt, pepper, and egg yolk in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and blend for 1 minute. With the motor running, slowly pour the olive oil through the feed tube until the vinaigrette is thickened. Season, to taste.

Toss the salad greens with enough dressing to moisten, then divide them among 6 plates.
Melt 1 tablespoon oil and 1 tablespoon butter in a saute pan over medium-high heat until just under smoking. Cook the goat cheese rounds quickly on both sides until browned on the outside but not melted inside. Top each salad with 2 warm rounds and serve.

Opening of Farmer's Market 2009

2009-04-11T09:51:00.005-05:00

First of all, this is my 200th post. Wow. That's a lot.

The farmer's market had a soft opening today (grand opening is the first Saturday of May). Even with the weather being in the 40's, it was a great day to get out to see some of the farmers back in the swing of things. I was thrilled since it meant that I will not be spending all my time in the grocery store anymore. To me, the farmer's market means six months of great local vegetables and that spring is really here (finally). While the selection was pretty limited still, I was able to pick up some great stuff.

Here is the list of what I picked up today: salad mix, rosemary, arugula, green onions, spinach, curly parsley and honey.

Everything looks great. I am also hoping that I'll be able to go asparagus picking at one of the local farms next week. Their estimated date of picking is April 15, so I am hoping that they are right on the date. I have plenty of asparagus recipes ready to go!

I am heading out to Kansas City today to hit the Asian markets, so that I can finally make some of the incredibly yummy recipes that Chef Nancy made in her last cooking class that I took. Also, I know that I am behind on my New Orleans posts---I'll work on them soon!

Bolognese Sauce

2009-04-11T09:00:00.001-05:00

If you don't know who Alice Waters is, please do me a favor and google her right now. Her Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook is one of the most wonderful cookbooks that I own. The illustrations for the book are gorgeous colored block prints by David Lance Goines and her cookbook is filled with stories and explanations. I have owned this cookbook for a couple of years now, but I had never used it for recipes--only to read the delightful stories and ogle the illustrations. This recipe takes hours to cook plus prep time, so it's not something that you can just whip up quickly and the ingredients aren't cheap. But it's so worth the extra time and effort. Trust me, it's a good one.

Alice Waters' Bolognese Sauce from Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook

Yield: Serves 8

1/3 cup dried porcini mushrooms
Extra virgin olive oil
4 ounces pancetta, diced fine
1 medium yellow onion, diced fine
4 ribs celery, diced fine
1 small carrot, diced fine
Salt
2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1½ pounds skirt steak (or chuck), cut into ¼-inch cubes
4 ounces lean pork shoulder, coarsely ground
1 cup dry white wine
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs thyme
2 cups Basic Beef Stock or Basic Chicken Stock
1½ cups milk
3 tablespoons double-concentrated Italian tomato paste
¼ cup chopped parsley, for garnish
Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Pepper

Cover the dried porcini with boiling water and allow to sit for 15 minutes. Remove the porcini from the water, reserving the liquid, and chop the mushrooms fine. Heat a wide heavy-bottomed pan; pour in 2 tablespoons of olive oil and add the diced pancetta. After the pancetta has released some fat, add the onion, celery, carrot, and a little salt. When the vegetables have softened somewhat, add the garlic and porcini, and cook until the vegetables are soft. Remove the vegetables from the pan and set aside.

Put the pan back on the heat (you don’t need to wash it), pour in 2 more tablespoons of oil, and when it is hot, add the skirt steak, pork, and a little salt. Cook over medium-high heat until the meat begins to brown, about 15 minutes. Turn the heat to medium and add the cooked vegetables, wine, bay, and thyme. Adjust the heat to maintain a low simmer and let the sauce cook until the liquid evaporates and the contents begin to brown. Deglaze with 1 cup of the stock and a few tablespoons of the milk; add the tomato paste, making sure to scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pan and stirring the sauce well to incorporate the milk. Continue to cook the sauce gently, adding a few tablespoons of milk and stock now and then. Reduce the sauce until the liquid evaporates and everything begins to brown again; this gives the sauce depth and color. Deglaze with the rest of the stock and milk, stirring and scraping well. Skim the fat that rises to the surface of the sauce. The sauce is done when its texture is velvety and the meat is completely tender, in about 1½ hours. Cool and refrigerate for up to 4 or 5 days.

Reheat and serve over pasta, garnished with the chopped parsley, and pass Parmesan cheese and the pepper mill.

Variation: This basic recipe can be used with other kinds of meat and even poultry—guinea hen is especially good. Another variation worth trying is to add sautéed fresh wild mushrooms at the end of the cooking.

P.S. This is cookbook #31 which means only 120+ to go!

Thai One-Pot

2009-04-10T20:58:00.006-05:00

I have been eyeing this recipe for years, but I hadn't gotten around to making it. I finally made it last night to a rave review from my husband. We even ate the leftovers for lunch today, which was just as delicious as it was last night. It's a very simple recipe where you throw everything into one pot, so who can complain about that?

Thai One-Pot from Food & Wine's Quick From Scratch One Dish Meals cookbook

serves 4

1 tbs cooking oil
1 green bell pepper, cut into 1/4 inch strips (I chopped them into smaller pieces)
1 red bell pepper, cut into same size as green bell pepper
1/4 pound shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, caps cut into 1/4 inch slices
1 teas salt
1 1/4 pounds lean ground pork
3/4 cup short grain rice
2 1/2 cups canned low sodium chicken broth or homemade stock
3 tbs soy sauce
1/4 tea cayenne pepper
4 scallions including green tops, chopped
10 radishes, cut into thin slices
5 tbs chopped cilantro or fresh parsley
2 tbs lime juice (from about one lime)

1. In a large nonstick frying pan, heat the oil over moderately high heat. Add the bell peppers, shiitakes, and 1/4 teas of the salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until beginning to brown, about 5 minutes. Remove.

2. Add the pork to the pan and cook, stirring, until it is no longer pink, about 3 minutes. Spoon off the fat from the pan. Stir in the bell peppers and shiitakes, the rice, broth, soy sauce, the remaining 3/4 teas salt, and the cayenne. Bring to a simmer. Cover. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, without removing the lid, until the rice is just done, about 20 minutes.

3 Remove the pot from the heat and let stand, covered, for 10 minutes. Stir in scallions, radish, cilantro, and lime juice.

New Orleans April 2009 Part 1

2009-04-08T22:32:00.004-05:00

Right before our trip to New Orleans, I received my April issue of Gourmet in the mail. In the Roadfood section (Roadfood will come up again later), there was an article about roast beef po-boys in New Orleans. There were two restaurants for them that they mentioned and we tried Parkway Bakery and Tavern for our first meal of the trip. It ended up being my favorite meal of the trip. This amazing little place has a bar on one side and sells po-boys on the other.

My surf and turf po-boy. That's a small sized sandwich! Inside was lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, fried shrimp, roast beef and gravy.
It was loaded with so much roast beef and shrimp that I ended up having to eat most of it with a fork! So delicious!

Chris' sandwich was the special of the day called swamp thing. Alligator sausage with gumbo. We also ordered cheese fries. They give you a choice of cheeses too! Perfectly crispy fries with cheese that wasn't hard and crusty.

We almost ate here again the last night of our trip because our first choice was closed on Sundays and we were having difficulties thinking of other places not in the French Quarter to eat at. But Chris' friend ended up suggesting a Spanish restaurant instead that we met up with him at, so I didn't get to eat another one of these incredible po-boys. I am starting to kick myself a little bit about that. Guess I just need to go back!

Saturday Morning Breakfast

2009-04-08T15:54:00.001-05:00

This is not something that you should eat everyday, but it's pretty tasty. I had been eyeing this recipe for years now, but having to deep fry things early in the morning isn't always very appealing. I finally got around to trying this out one Saturday and it was well worth the wait! Everyone loved it!

Terrier Toasters from Neiman Marcus' cookbook No Jacket Required

1 loaf Kings Hawaiian Bread or Challah
3 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 teas vanilla
1 tbs maple syrup
cooking oil for deep frying
whipped butter to top toast
powdered sugar to top toast
cinnamon to top toast
sweet ground chocolate to top toast

Cut bread into 2 inch cubes, discarding the crust. In a separate bowl, beat together eggs, milk, vanilla and syrup. Pour oil 2 1/2 inches deep into a deep pot. Slowly warm oil until it reaches a near boil. Quickly dip the bread cubes into the batter (do this quickly or it will soak up all your batter!) and submerge them in oil, using tongs. Fry until golden brown. Drain on a paper towel and place on a serving tray. Smother with whipped butter and top with powdered sugar, cinnamon and chocolate.

Note: Nathaniel just used syrup and powdered sugar on his--yummy!

Excitement

2009-03-31T09:29:00.005-05:00

I have noticed that my interest in cooking at home goes up when the weather gets nicer. When it's gloomy and dark outside, I just want to curl up on the couch with a good book, my laptop or a movie. I might think about food, but I don't want to get out from under my blanket. It's easier to order some takeout. But the weather is finally getting nicer here and my cooking will continue especially since the opening of the farmer's market is on April 11th! I can't tell you how excited I am for the farmer's market. Shopping at the grocery store just isn't the same!

On Thursday night, I took another cooking class with Chef Nancy. It was nice because Jackie brought along some friends and we talked about doing a huge cooking party at Jackie's house in the future (she has a lovely kitchen that I just LOVE). This class was a new concept at the Merc, where you pay a little more and receive a cookbook with your enrollment. I loved this idea (which adds another cookbook to my ever growing collection)! This class was called Vegetarian Thai and she choose the cookbook Real Vegetarian Thai by Nancie McDermott. Unfortunately, this cookbook is no longer in print, but you can try getting used copies of it from various sources. I was a little iffy on taking a vegetarian class because we love meat in this family. It's not to say that we don't eat vegetables, but we do usually eat meat during dinner. Since Chef Nancy was teaching the class, I put my worries aside and still enrolled. She is also a meat eater, so I knew that I was in good hands. She picked four recipes for the class (not the real names of the dishes, but I don't have my cookbook with me at the moment); two potato pot stickers, a rice salad dish, a coconut sauce noodle dish and a sorbet. I will be making all of these in the future once I get to the Asian market in Kansas City, but I was especially impressed with the noodle dish. I can't wait to make this one myself! Expect future blog posts of the recipes from this class.

Other news is that we are going to New Orleans this weekend for a foodie weekend. Chris' favorite food website Roadfood.com is hosting a New Orleans food festival. We use their website a lot when traveling and have about a 90% success rate with the choices that they have picked on their website. I am really excited because one of my food blog idols will be there. Ed Levine, the creator of Serious Eats, will be part of the Q&A on Sunday and also join us at the crawfish boil/pig roast on Saturday night that we are attending. I read Serious Eats almost daily. It's a combination of recipes, food news and restaurant reviews. They also have a lovely weekly newsletter that you can subscribe to. When I read that Mr Levine would be there this weekend, I was thrilled. Can't wait to eat my weight (plus some) in food this weekend in NOLA!

I have a few new recipes that I haven't posted on here yet. I'll get them up before I leave!

Homemade Vanilla Pudding

2009-03-29T15:51:00.000-05:00

I had recently gotten vanilla beans from my friend, so I have been looking for things to make with them. I love vanilla pudding and I came across this recipe. Great simple recipe. I am not sure if the butter adds that much to the pudding or not, but I did add it. Note: This will not keep for a long time. It says within a day, so eat it quick!

Vanilla Pudding recipe from the New York Times
2 1/2 cups half-and-half or whole milk
2/3 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened (optional).

1. Put 2 cups of half-and-half or milk, sugar and salt in a small or medium sauce pot over medium-low heat. If using a vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise and scrape seeds into milk or half-and-half using small sharp knife, then add pod. Cook just until mixture begins to steam.

2. Combine cornstarch and remaining milk or half-and-half in a bowl and blend; there should be no lumps. Fish pod from pot and discard. Add cornstarch mixture; cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture starts to thicken and barely reaches a boil, about 5 minutes. Immediately reduce heat to very low and stir for 5 minutes or so until thick. Stir in butter and vanilla extract, if using.

3. Pour mixture into a 1-quart dish or 4 to 6 small ramekins or bowls. Put plastic wrap directly on the pudding to prevent formation of a skin, or do not cover if you like skin. Refrigerate until chilled, and serve within a day, with whipped cream if you like. Whisk to remove lumps if needed.

Spring Break 2009--Da Smoke--final part of TX trip

2009-03-28T10:23:00.004-05:00

Chris' aunt lives right outside of San Antonio, away from the hustle and bustle of the city. She doesn't cook at all, so she has her favorite little restaurants close to her house. They are all little hole-in-the-walls and we tried her favorite BBQ place while visiting her.

Da Smoke is located in Adkins basically in the middle of nowhere. As soon as we got out of the car, the smell of BBQ welcomed us into the tiny restaurant. No frills with plastic picnic rooster table covers.
My plate of ribs and brisket with greens (amazing) and fried okra (one of my favorite things).

Chris' plate of ribs and pork tenderloin with potato salad and gumbo.

Nathaniel's plate of brisket with fries and green beans. The green beans were amazing with onions, potatoes and bacon cooked with them.

They had fried chicken as the special for the day. I was tempted because Aunt Cathy had raved about the fried fish, but I was pleased with my choices as was everyone else. Great little restaurant with no frills and delicious food!

Spring Break 2009--Cerroni's Purple Garlic

2009-03-27T08:00:00.002-05:00

Cerroni's Purple Garlic is a great little hole-in-the-wall in strip mall that my in-laws frequent all the time. It's hard to get me eat at an Italian restaurant because I make a lot of Italian food at home. But this is one of my favorite restaurants in San Antonio. It's a small little operation where the owner makes all his own bread and pasta for the restaurant every morning. He serves his food on styrofoam plates with plastic forks, but his food could be served on fine china. It's a simple menu of pizza, pasta and sandwiches. This is the kind of place that I wish Lawrence had.

Fresh Tomato and Basil Bruschetta. The owner uses extremely fresh tomatoes and basil on homemade bread. My mouth is watering just thinking about this dish.

Marinated Eggplant in some sort of balsamic vinaigrette. Quite tasty.

My meatball sandwich on that wonderful homemade bread. It looks like a small sandwich in the pic, but.........

look at how huge the meatballs are! There were four of them in that sandwich!

Chris' special pasta. Some sort of gorgonzola, sausage, mushroom, etc, etc. pasta dish. Since I am not a huge fan of gorgonzola or sausage, I couldn't tell you how this tasted. But Chris loved it.

Nathaniel got a pizza to go (didn't get a pic of this). He wasn't feeling well and wanted his food to go. He ate it all before I could get a shot of it. The pizza got a big two thumbs up from the foodie kiddo. I was hoping to try a bite, but it never happened!

Spring Break 2009--Threadgill's--Austin, TX

2009-03-26T22:00:00.002-05:00

Threadgill's is one of those Austin restaurants that has been around FOREVER. Janis Joplin even was a waitress there back in the day. Our friend, Doug, who has lived in Austin hadn't been there yet, so we decided to skip the downtown area (South by Southwest music festival was going on). I had checked out the menu before and still didn't know what I wanted when I got there.

Chris had a Poboy sandwich. Not really sure why since we are going to New Orleans soon. It was decent, but nothing really outrageous.

Nathaniel's burger. He also ordered a side of mashed potatoes because he couldn't decide on fries or mashed potatoes. Good choice. The mashed potatoes and gravy--heavenly.

Doug's buffalo chicken sandwich. I took the pic from the side, so you can't see that this chicken is as big as half the plate! It's a chicken on steroids! They also gave him blue cheese crumbles (not my favorite) instead of just blue cheese dressing.

I picked their famous chicken fried steak. It was decent, but not so good that I would order it again. It's a different story when it comes to their sides. I had debated on if I should just get the three or five sides plate (I wish I would have). They have a list of 20ish sides and I would have had a hard time limiting myself to five. My sides of cheesy grits and fried okra were amazing.

It's worth checking out if you are in Austin and looking for a decent home cooking type of meal. Especially to eat some of those yummy sides!

Spring Break 2009--Liberty Bar--part 1

2009-03-26T15:40:00.004-05:00

Every year for spring break, my son and I usually go out to CA to visit my side of the family. But since my parents are out of the country for a few months, we opted to go down to see the in-laws in San Antonio for part of the week. We didn't do much besides eat and hang out with the family, but that's the best kind of vacation when visiting family!

The restaurant that we go to almost every time in San Antonio is the Liberty Bar. I have a love/hate relationship with this restaurant. I seem to be the only one who has these issues with this place. Chris and his parents love eating here, but I have a good meal here only every other visit and this time was not one of those times. Nathaniel wasn't a fan of his steak and the roasted tomatoes on his plate were cooked too long, so that they were extremely mushy.

Chris ordered the All Day Special. Take note of the price...haha.

Liberty Bar does have the most delicious hummus. They grill the pita bread and the hummus has a little bit of heat to it. Love it!

Chris' dish was really tasty. The sweetbreads were firm, not mushy with a great grilled flavor.

My dish was not so great. I ordered a pasta dish (they make their own pasta) with tomatoes, onions and salt pork, which I ordered last time and loved. But I was brought out the thyme, garlic and olive oil one instead since the waitress didn't write everything down and misheard my order (even though everyone else heard me). The first plate was just some plain pasta with some very bitter garlic (pretty disgusting), so I had the waitress take it back. I noticed that I was brought out a larger plate of pasta because instead of throwing the first dish away, they just mixed it in with the one that I ordered. This didn't work well and resulted in a plate of pasta that I barely ate.

They do make great desserts. I had some mango ice cream to go and Nathaniel had the chocolate cake, which was an amazing looking layer cake. I am sure that Liberty Bar will be in my future again since everyone else likes it, but I can't say that I give it my recommendation without any reservations.

Penne alla Vodka

2009-03-26T13:32:00.006-05:00

Note--Picture is not very exciting looking and dark. Sorry about that!

I have been craving Italian pasta the last few days. I am pretty sure it has to do with the fact that I dvr-ed a bunch of Food Network episodes about pasta recently. My pantry is full of different kinds of pastas at any given time because I love how versatile it is. After viewing a couple of pasta episodes this morning, I decided that I really wanted some pasta carbonara, but I was missing a few ingredients to make it. So I went through Lidia Matticchio Bastianich's cookbook Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen and found a simple, quick recipe for Penne alla Vodka. I love vodka sauce and find it funny that many people will buy the jarred stuff when it's super easy to make yourself. I used to make Giada's Vodka Sauce, but with the 1 cup of vodka in there, it's best made a day or two ahead of time. Lidia's only requires 1/4 cup, so that the vodka does not overwhelm the sauce. I didn't put parsley in this time since I didn't have any on hand with any effect on the delicious taste of the sauce. Enjoy!

Penne Alla Vodka from the cookbook Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen

Salt
One 35-ounce can Italian plum tomatoes (preferably San Marzano) with their liquid
1 pound penne
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
10 cloves garlic, peeled
Crushed hot red pepper
1/4 cup vodka
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter or olive oil for finishing the sauce, if you like
2 to 3 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus more for passing if you like

Bring 6 quarts of salted water to a boil in an 8-quart pot over high heat.

Pour the tomatoes and their liquid into the work bowl of a food processor. Using quick on/off pulses, process the tomatoes just until they are finely chopped. (Longer processing will aerate the tomatoes, turning them pink.)

Stir the penne into the boiling water. Bring the water back to a boil, stirring frequently. Cook the pasta, semi-covered, stirring occasionally, until done, 8 to 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Whack the garlic cloves with the side of a knife and add them to the hot oil. Cook, shaking the skillet, until the garlic is lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Lower the work bowl with the tomatoes close to the skillet and carefully — they will splatter — slide the tomatoes into the pan. Bring to a boil, season lightly with salt and generously with crushed red pepper, and boil 2 minutes. Pour in the vodka, lower the heat so the sauce is at a lively simmer, and simmer until the pasta is ready.

Just before the pasta is done, fish the garlic cloves out of the sauce and pour in the cream. Add the 2 tablespoons butter or oil, if using, and swirl the skillet to incorporate into the sauce. If the skillet is large enough to accommodate the sauce and pasta, fish the pasta out of the boiling water with a large wire skimmer and drop it directly into the sauce in the skillet. If not, drain the pasta, return it to the pot, and pour in the sauce. Bring the sauce and pasta to a boil, stirring to coat the pasta with sauce. Check the seasoning, adding salt and red pepper if necessary. Sprinkle the parsley over the pasta and boil until the sauce is reduced enough to cling to the pasta.

Remove the pot from the heat, sprinkle 3/4 cup of the cheese over the pasta, and toss to mix. Serve immediately, passing additional cheese if you like.

Red Cabbage with Apples and Honey

2009-03-25T23:12:00.006-05:00

I love cabbage. But for some reason, I don't eat it that much. While reading the Serious Eats newsletter today, I came across this amazing recipe for red cabbage with apples & honey. I was making Italian beef sandwiches for dinner, so it was a great side to make. Super easy and delicious. It braised in the oven for a couple of hours and makes your houses smell amazing (the bacon in there probably helps). Yummy!

Dinner with Friends Part 3 (and the final part)

2009-03-25T22:25:00.004-05:00

The picture of the chicken tagine isn't that great, but the dish is wonderful--promise!

Chicken Tagine with Lemon and Olives

1 chicken, cut into 8 serving pieces, or 8 of your favorite chicken parts (I used all thighs)
olive oil for browning chicken
2 medium jalapenos, seeded and sliced lengthwise (optional)
1 medium red bell pepper, sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
2 inch piece of ginger root, peeled and grated
4 large garlic cloves, minced
2-3 large fresh ripe tomatoes, chopped or a 14-oz can
1 Tbs. Ras el Hanout
1 teas. turmeric or saffron
1 teas. cumin
salt and pepper to taste
2 c. chicken stock plus a little extra as needed for cooking
4 sections preserved lemons, pulp removed and discarded, peel sliced into thin strips
1 cup mixed Mediterranean olives
1/2 cup chopped cilantro, additional for optional garnish
rice or couscous to serve
harissa hot sauce to serve

Season chicken with salt and pepper and brown in hot olive oil. Set aside. Pour off all the fat, reserving 1 tablespoon. Saute peppers and onion in the reserved fat until softened. Add the ginger and garlic to the peppers and onion, cook for three minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook for three minutes. Add the Ras el Hanout, turmeric or saffron, cumin, salt and pepper, and chicken stock to the pot and simmer gently for 10 minutes.

Arrange the chicken pieces in the pan, covering well. Cover and simmer gently for 30 minutes or until the chicken is very tender. Add stock, if necessary. On top of the chicken, add the preserved lemon, the olives and cilantro. Simmer a little longer to blend the flavors. Sprinkle with additional cilantro. Serve with hot couscous or basmati rice. Pass the harissa at the table for diners to stir in as they wish. Serves 4.

Dinner with Friends Part 2

2009-03-25T21:56:00.003-05:00

Part of the chicken dish requires making your own spice mix for it and a Moroccan hot sauce. Here are the recipes for both.

RAS EL HANOUT

1/2 tsp. anise seed
1 tsp. fennel seed
8 whole allspice berries
8 cardamom pods-seeds only
8 whole cloves
15 whole black peppercorns
1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
1 Tbs. sesame seed
1 tsp. coriander seed
1/2 tsp. cumin seed
pinch of dried hot red pepper flakes
pinch of ground mace (can be left out if you don't have it)
1 Tbs. ground ginger
1 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg

In a spice grinder or mortar and pestle, grind fine the first 11 ingredients. In a small bowl, stir together the rest of the spices with the spice mixture until combined well. Place in a tightly jar in a cool dark place up to six months. Makes about 1/4 cup.

HARISSA (MOROCCAN HOT SAUCE)

1 teas. cumin seed
1/2 teas. coriander seed
1/2 teas. caraway seed
4 hot red dried chlies--stemmed but not seeded, rough chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled
3/4 teas. coarse salt, or to taste
1 medium red bell pepper--roasted, peeled, and chopped coarse (you can roast it yourself or use jarred roasted red pepper)
1 teas. tomato paste
1 Tbs. olive oil

Toast whole spices and chiles in a dry skillet until fragrant, then cool. With an electric spice grinder or mortar and pestle, grind seeds and chiles fine. Transfer ground spices to a small food processor and add garlic and salt. Grind mixture to a paste. Add roasted pepper, tomato paste, and oil. Process to a coarse puree. This will keep, covered in a jar in the refrigerator for weeks. Serves as a condiment with the couscous and tagine. Makes 1/2 cups.

Note- I will probably double the recipe when I make this next time. Everyone loved it and there wasn't a drop left! Also great with eggs!

Dinner with Friends Part 1

2009-03-25T21:11:00.006-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, we had Jackie and Bruce over for dinner. I served them Moroccan chicken with couscous. It was a time consuming meal, but well worth it in the end. There are multiple parts to this, so you won't be able to just whip this up after work. This is menu from another one of my wonderful classes with Chef Nancy.

To start, you will have prepare some preserved lemons a week ahead of time for the chicken tagine. You won't want to miss out on these since they add a delicious salty element to the tagine that you will not have otherwise.

Preserved Lemons

4 large lemons (use organic ones because you'll be eating the peel part!)
2/3 cup kosher salt
1 cup fresh lemon juice
olive oil

To make preserved lemons, scrub 4 lemons and cut each into 8 wedges. In a bowl, toss the wedges with 2/3 cup kosher salt and transfer to a 6 cup glass jar. Add 1 cup fresh lemon juice and cover the jar with a tight-fitting lid. Let lemons stand at room temperature for 7 days, shaking the jar every day to redistribute the salt and juice. If you are going to keep these for a long time, place a small film of olive oil on the top of the lemons after the week is over. Store in the jar and refrigerated for up to 6 months.

Cumin Scented Couscous

1 cup quick-cooking couscous
1 1/2 Tbs. unsalted butter
2 shallots, peeled and minced
3/4 teas. ground cumin
1/4 teas. crushed fennel seeds
1 1/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth, canned or homemade
3 Tbs. minced flat leaf parsley

Place the couscous in a medium sized bowl, set aside.

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the shallots, cumin and fennel, cook, stirring frequently, until shallots are translucent, about 2 minutes. Add the broth and salt to taste. Bring to a boil.

When the seasoned broth is simmering, pour it over the couscous, stir and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let stand until the couscous has absorbed the liquid--about 7 to 10 minutes. Remove the plastic and add the parsley; fluff the couscous with a fork. Serve hot.

Serves 4.

Moroccan Carrot Salad

6-8 medium carrots, julienned

2 teas. paprika

1/2 teas. cinnamon

1/2 teas. cayenne

1 teas. cumin

2 Tbs. fresh lemon juice

1 Tbs. sugar

5 Tbs. light olive oil

salt to taste

Blanch carrots briefly in boiling salted water. Combine all the dressing ingredients in a large bowl. Drain carrots and add to dressing while still warm. Adjust seasoning and serve at room temperature. Serves 6.

Miami part 3-Bahama Fish Market

2009-03-10T08:34:00.003-05:00

Bahama Fish Market is one of those amazing finds that I just happened to come across when researching Miami the first time we were there. I was googling Cuban food and found Three Guys from Miami, which helped us you with our picks of places to eat down there. Bahama Fish Market was so good the first time, that we decided to put it on our list to go back to. It's a fish market with a large restaurant with a HUGE counter to sit at if you want and extremely fresh fish. Most of the customers are Cuban and the waitresses speak limited English. The prices are reasonable and the food is delicious.

Smoky fish dip. This stuff is so good that I wish that I could eat this all the time.

Crab and fish croquettes---not full of fillers like some croquettes are.

I am not sure what the Cubans do to their rice, but it looks like plain rice--yet doesn't taste like plain rice. Maybe they cook it in broth or something? Anyone know the answer to this? And one of Chris' favorite foods-fried plantains.

The special of the day was squid and rice. It looks black because of squid ink. Doesn't look really appetizing, but it was delicious.

And my fried scallops. They weren't heavily breaded, so they were light and really tasty. Yummy!

If you happen to make a trip out to Miami and love seafood, you'll want to make a trip to this place--cheap, delicious Cuban seafood!

Miami part 2-Joe's Stone Crabs

2009-03-08T13:13:00.002-05:00

If you watch any travel food show to Miami, chances are that they will talk about Joe's Stone Crab restaurant. Stone crabs have a small body, but huge claws (to be able to crack oyster shells). The crabs are harvested by only removing one claw (so that they can still eat), which grows back the next year. They are seasonal in Florida from Oct 15-May 15 and we luckily got there the last weekend of the season last May. These crab claws are amazingly sweet and meaty, which has landed them on my favorite foods list.

We got to the restaurant around 8 PM and it was a packed house. The wait ended up being over an hour (which was ok with me since I filled the time by drinking wonderful Cosmos at the bar), which was impressive considering how large the restaurant is and the fact that it was a Tuesday night!

We started with oysters. I love oysters, but living in the Midwest means that we don't eat them except when traveling to the coasts.

Our sides were their famous hash browns (super crispy) and cole slaw (a mayo-apple cider dressing which was sweet & tangy). That dish is melted butter for the claws, but I prefer their mustard sauce that is at the left of the fork.

Two orders of select stone crab claws. Better than king crab legs or lobster! I could live on these.

And for dessert, their famous key lime pie. We aren't big dessert people, but we can't pass this pie up. Last trip, we had ordered one, but we realized that we needed another one! Really amazing.

Can't wait to go back!!!

40-some-hours-in-Miami, part 1

2009-03-07T13:09:00.000-06:00

Chris and I just celebrated our 5 year anniversary of our first date on Tuesday. Since it's still winter, we decided that heading south to Miami would be nicer than going north to Chicago. Good choice since it had just snowed in Lawrence and we lucked out with some sunny, gorgeous weather. We had just gone to Miami in May 2008, where we fell in love with food, people and city. It's such a great place for foodies especially fans of seafood and/or Latin cuisine.

Luckily for us, Latinos love to eat late at night since our flight didn't arrive till 9:30. Our first meal was at Versailles Restaurant, a late night joint that has been a Miami institution for years now. We didn't get there till about 10:30 and were surprised that it was still a pretty packed place late on a Monday night. I got one of the Cuban plate specials, so that I could try a little bit of a bunch of stuff. On my plate is the yellow Cuban rice, yuca (the white pile and not to be confused with yucca), fried pork chunks (meat under the onions), tamale, fried plantains (the left side of the rice), some sort of shredded pork and a croquette (top by the pork chunks). Chris ordered the palomilla steak dish, but our pic didn't turn out so appetizing, so I decided to leave it out. It was all quite tasty, but my favorite was the fried pork chunks. They were incredibly tender and juicy while being lightly fried (not breaded). Plantains are also a favorite of ours and these were delicious.

The next day, we decided to pick up some sandwiches before the spring training game. I had read up on restaurants with a website, Three Guys from Miami, that I had used when we were in Miami last. We needed something quick and easy since we needed to drive over an hour to get to Jupiter for the game. Enriqueta's Cafe seemed to be a good choice and when we pulled up to it, Chris was already smiling (he loves the hole-in-the-wall locations). It had been written about in Food & Wine magazine back in Dec 2004, so why not give it a try? The Cuban style chicken sandwich was what the Three Guys website raved about, so we both ordered it. The chicken was perfectly seasoned and juicy, topped with tomato, lettuce, cheese and super crispy french fries. For about $5.50, you couldn't go wrong! Delicious!

Miso-Sake Salmon with Soba Noodle Salad

2009-03-02T00:16:00.005-06:00

Another delicious recipe from Chef Nancy!

Soba Noodle Salad
1 lb soba (I used a buckwheat one)
1/4 cup soy sauce
3 Tbs sesame oil
2 Tbs rice vinegar
2 tea. sugar
1 tea. chile garlic sauce
1 red bell pepper, julienned
1 cup sliced scallions, divided
2 carrots, julienned

Cook noodles according to package directions. Rinse with cold water and set aside to drain well.

In a small bowl, mix soy sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, sugar and chile garlic sauce . In large bowl, toss noodles with sauce to coat well. Marinate at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours in refrigerator, tossing occasionally.

Stir in red bell pepper, 2/3 scallions and carrots. let stand at room temperature up to 2 hours, tossing occasionally. Mound noodles on top and scatter remaining scallions over noodles. Top with seared salmon.

Serves 8

Miso-Sake Salmon
8 (6 oz) skinless salmon fillets
1/2 cup mirin
1/2 cup sake
2 Tbs soy sauce
2 Tbs rice vinegar
1/4 cup white miso
2 Tbs brown sugar
vegetable oil for searing

Combine mirin, sake, soy, vinegar, miso and brown sugar to make a marinade. Coat salmon fillets with the marinade, cover and refrigerate for 12-24 hours. Longer than 24 hours and the fish may be too salty.

A few few hours before you are ready to serve, prepare the noodle salad and set aside. Salad is best if you make it at least 2 hours in advance.

Heat vegetable oil in a non-stick skillet until just starting to smoke. Remove salmon from marinade and wipe off excess. Sear salmon over medium-high heat until well browned on each side and fish is just cooked through, about 5 minutes per side. Serve salmon with noodle salad.

Pad Thai

2009-03-01T23:22:00.004-06:00

I really love pad thai when it's done right, which isn't often in most Thai restaurants in America. I was thrilled to see that Nancy made a delicious pad thai in her class the other night and I was excited to make it at home. I made it for Chris for lunch on Saturday and he loved it. The recipe seems like a lot of work, but it's just a lot of ingredients to prep. Once you have all the ingredients ready to go, it takes a very short time to get it cooked.

Pad Thai recipe from Chef Nancy

8 oz rice noodles
3 Tbs. oil, divided
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 oz, boneless pork, chicken or beef, cut into thin stripes
3-4 oz pressed or fried tofu, cut into thin stripes
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 Tbs. fish sauce
1 Tb. soy sauce
2 Tbs. sugar
2 Tbs tamarind liquid (1 heaping Tb. tamarind pulp dissolved in 3 T water and strained. I used 1 1/2 teas. of tararind paste instead)
1 teas. paprika
1 teas. chile-garlic sauce
3 cups bean sprouts (divided)
3 scallions, trimmed and cut into 1 inch lengths
2 Tbs. dried shrimp, finely chopped
1/2 c. ground roasted peanuts
3 Tbs. cilantro, chopped
lime wedges for servings

Soak the rice noodles in warm water for 30 minutes, or until soft. Drain and set aside. Assemble all ingredients before beginning to cook. Heat a large skillet until hot, then add half of the oil. Add the garlic and stir-fry briefly, about 15 seconds. Toss in the meat and stir-fry until it has changed color. Add the tofu and cook 20-30 seconds. Pour in the eggs and cook until it sets aorund the meat and tofu slices, less than a minute. Break it up a little, then transfer to a plate and set aside. Combine fish sauce, soy, sugar, tamarind, papriks and chile sauce in a small bowl and set it by the stove. Heat remaining oil, add the noodles and stir fry until translucent. Add half the bean sprouts and the sallions, tossing until they wilt. Add the dried shrimp and then the fish sauce mixture and cook about 1 minutes. Add the reserved egg mixture and gently toss. Toss in the half of the peanuts.
Turn out onto a serving platter or plates. Sprinkle with remaining bean sprouts and peanuts, and garnish with cilantro. Serve with lime wedges for squeezing over. Serves 2-4.

February Cooking Class #2

2009-02-27T12:45:00.000-06:00

On Tuesday night, I took another cooking class with Chef Nancy (I think this means that I am an official groupie now) which was about fast Asian noodle dishes. I had actually signed up & paid for this the last time she taught it, but had to miss it at the last minute. So technically, I paid for this class twice. The three dishes that she made were Phad Thai, Soba Noodle Salad with Miso Glazed Salmon and Beef Pho. Phad Thai is a dish that I never order in restaurants because I am always frightened that it's going to come out with ketchup in the sauce, which makes the noodle dish super sweet and not palatable to my stomach. There is NO ketchup in real Phad Thai, so avoid making it with ketchup!! If ketchup had been used in Nancy's recipe, I would have been disappointed forever and stopped taking her classes. But luckily for me, she didn't! I'll be making this dish later this weekend, so expect a post soon on how to make real Phad Thai.

I wasn't excited about the salmon part of the second dish. Salmon is one of my least favorite proteins because I find it boring, even though I love fish. But I have to say that Nancy's dish made me rethink my views on the fish. It was perfectly moist and seasoned. I wouldn't have thought that I would gobble the entire piece up and still crave more. I look forward to making this one for my salmon-loving son and husband!

The beef pho was another dish that I was really excited to taste. I love a big bowl of pho when the weather is cold and have been wanting to learn how to make it for a long time now. It's pretty time consuming with having to make the beef broth, but it's worth it.

Recipes to follow soon!

Brussels Sprouts

2009-02-22T21:15:00.001-06:00

I really love brussels sprouts as long as they aren't boiled and mushy which makes them smell like stinky feet. I decided to buy a bag at Costco and used Barefoot Contessa's Roasted Brussels Sprouts recipe twice with the contents. The first time, I realized that the brussels sprouts were smaller than what she used because they ended up burning slightly (still ended up tasty), so I had to adjust the time when I made them again.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

serves 6

1 1/2 lbs Brussels sprouts

2 Tbs good olive oil

3/4 teas kosher salt

1/2 teas freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut off the ends of the Brussels sprouts and pull off any yellow outer leaves. Mix them in a bowl with the olive oil, salt and pepper. Turn them out on a baking sheet and roast for 35 to 40 minutes (Note from Grace: the time will need to be adjusted if you have smaller sprouts by about 15-20 minutes. check them from time to time to make sure that they aren't browning too quickly), until crisp outside and tender inside. Shake the pan, from time to time, to brown the Brussel sprouts evenly. Sprinkle with more kosher salt and serve.

Shrimp and Grits...OMG....

2009-02-14T21:21:00.006-06:00

I LOVE grits especially cheese grits. I had ordered shrimp and grits at a fancy restaurant in Key West that is one of the most memorable dishes that I have ever eaten. So when I found this recipe online, I was in heaven. Cheese grits topped with bacon and shrimp fried in bacon fat! How can you go wrong? I made this for our Valentine's night dinner (Chris had made multiple reservations at restaurants all over the place, but I told him that I had no desire to spend dinner with all the couples that are forced to be romantic one night a year). The dish was AMAZING! It's easily one of the top three best dishes that I have ever made and I still can't stop thinking about how great a dish it is. Absolutely fabulous!!!!

Shrimp and Grits

Note---DO NOT use instant grits--they won't work in this recipe! I used stone ground grits that I found at Whole Foods. Number 2 note- DO NOT use nuclear orange colored Kraft chedddar cheese for this. Buy a very nice sharp cheddar from the deli case and grate it yourself. It will make all the difference in your cheese grits!

Chopped Salad

2009-02-14T20:46:00.005-06:00

Another delightful recipe from my last cooking class. It's easy, healthy and delicious. She didn't give out exact measurements, but I have given her estimations that she gave in class. You can toy with the ingredients and figure out what works best for you.

Chopped Salad from Chef Nancy

Cucumber, preferably hothouse, peeled and diced (if you use a hothouse or English one, you don't need to peel if you don't mind the skin. but if you have to use a regular one, you should peel the skin)

Tomato, diced

Red onion, minced (about 1/4 cup)

Garlic, minced (about one clove)

Jalapeno, finely minced, seeded if wanted (about 2 Tbs. This ingredient is optional)

Cilantro, chopped (half cup)

Scallions, chopped (half cup)

Olive oil (1/4 cup)

Freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice (3 Tbs)

Cumin powder (teaspoon)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

***Tips--Do not skip the fresh herbs! The ratio of cucumber to tomato is supposed to be roughly 2/3 cukes to 1/3 tomatoes.

Toss all the vegetables together in a large bowl. Use lots of cucumber and tomato and little of everything else. Then dress with oil, lemon juice, cumin, salt and pepper, and toss very well.

Cupcakes

2009-02-14T20:45:00.004-06:00

I am not a fan of cake mix. I think that when they are made per the instructions on the box, they aren't very appetizing. But there are many recipes on how to improve cake mixes with added ingredients that will make them more tasty. While I would like to bake from scratch cupcakes all the time, it's not always possible. I found this recipe in this adorable cupcake cookbook called HELLO CUPCAKE! If you haven't seen this cookbook, it's full of really cute ideas. I just made plain vanilla cupcakes with homemade chocolate frosting, but I hope that I will be able to make the Van Gogh cake one of these days (check out the cookbook---it's soooo cute)!

Perfect Cake Mix Cupcakes from Hello, Cupcake!

1 box cake mix (French vanilla, devil's food or yellow--without pudding)

1 cup buttermilk (in place of the water called for on the box)

vegetable oil (the amount on the box)

4 large eggs (in place of the number called for on the box)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.

2. Follow the box instructions, putting all the ingredients in a large bowl and using the buttermilk in place of the water specified (the box will call for more water than the mount of buttermilk that you are using), using the amount of vegetable oil that is called for, and adding the eggs. Beat with an electric mixer, until moistened, about 30 seconds. Increase the speed to high and beat until thick, 2 minutes longer.

3. Spoon half of the batter into a ziplock bag. Snip a 1/4 inch corner from the bag and fill the paper liners two-thirds full. Repeat with remaining batter. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the cupcakes from the baking pans, place on a wire rack and allow to cook completely.

Chocolate Frosting

1 stick unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces

2 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

16 oz powdered sugar

1/3 to 1/2 cup milk

1. Combine the butter and the chocolate in a small saucepan. Melt over medium heat, stirring constantly. Add the cocoa powder and stir until smooth. Transfer the chocolate mixture to a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer.

2. Add the powdered sugar alternately with the milk, adding more milk, if necessary, to thin, and beat until fluffy and smooth.

Beer Braised Beef and Onions

2009-02-12T21:19:00.002-06:00

I have had a subscription to Gourmet for years now, but I rarely get a chance to make recipes out of the magazine. While reading February's issue, I found one that really appealed to me because I had just received chuck roast in my CSA subscription last month. This is the recipe that I made tonight for dinner, but I didn't get a chance to take a picture since I had to run to my doctor appointment. The smell that permeated through my kitchen this afternoon was mouth-watering. This is a tasty, easy dish that takes minimal effort!

Beer Braised Beef and Onions

Cozy Orzo

2009-02-12T16:20:00.004-06:00

Cozy Orzo from Mollie Katzen's Vegetable Heaven cookbook

1 lb room-temperature cottage cheese

1 teas salt

1/4 cup minced chives or scallions

1 tea grated lemon zest

black pepper, to taste

1/2 pound orzo

1 cup frozen peas

grated Percorino or Parmesan cheese for the top

Combine the cottage cheese, salt, chives or scallions, lemon zest and black pepper in a medium-sized bowl. Mix well.

Cook the orzo in plenty of rapidly boiling water until it is tender. Place the peas in a colander in the sink (this will defrost the peas and cook them slightly). Shake off the excess water, transfer the orzo and peas to the cottage cheese mixture, and stir gently. Sprinkle with cheese and serve warm or at room temperature.

Farfalle with Broccoli

2009-02-11T22:45:00.004-06:00

One of the things about buying produce at Costco is that you are stuck with HUGE bags of one item and you have to be creative about what to make with all of the bag. This week, it's broccoli and brussel sprouts that I have to figure out what to make with all those veggies!

With the broccoli, I made some cream of broccoli soup for lunch tomorrow and this pasta dish tonight. I still have 3/4 of the bag left, so I'll need to look for more broccoli recipes. There is anchovy fillets in this sauce, but they will melt when cooked so that you won't be able to tell that they are there. They add an salty flavor to the pasta which you won't be able to obtain without them.

Farfalle with Broccoli from Giada De Laurentiis' Everyday Pasta

4 to 6 servings

1 lb farfalle

2 heads of broccoli, trimmed to florets (about 4 cups)

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

4 tbs unsalted butter

3 garlic glovers, chopped

5 anchovy fillets, chopped

1/4 teas. crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 teas. salt

1/2 teas. freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook, stirring occasionally. After 5 minutes, add the broccoli florets to the pasta, stir, and cook for another 4 minutes. Drain the pasta and broccoli, reserving 1 cup of the pasta water.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat the olive oil and butter over medium-low heat. Add the garlic, anchovies, and red pepper flakes and cook for 5 minutes. Add the broccoli, pasta, salt and pepper and toss. Add some of the reserved pasta water, if necessary, to make a light sauce. Transfer to a serving platter and sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese.

February Cooking Class

2009-02-11T22:17:00.006-06:00

Last night, I took a cooking class that was taught by Chef Nancy (again) called Recipes from the Late, Lamented West Side Cafe. West Side Cafe was a Kansas City restaurant that she was a partner/chef at years again. I was very impressed with her recipes once again and can't wait to make all of them!

I did make one of them tonight. It's a great Persian dish that can be made as a dip with flatbread or a side dish with meats and rice.

Mast O Esfenaj (Persian Spinach and Yogurt Salad) from Chef Nancy Stark

6 oz baby spinach

1 T. finely minced onion

1/4 c. chopped walnuts (you can substitute almonds, if you want)

1/4 t. finely minced garlic (about a clove)

1 cup best quality, full-fat plain yogurt (do not use non-fat, it won't taste the same)

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Bring about 1 inch of water to a boil in a pot large enough to hold all the spinach. Add spinach, cover pot and cook until wilted, about 1 minute or less. Drain and immediately rinse in cold water to stop the cooking and hold the color. When it is cold enough to handle, squeeze spinach dry using your hands, then finely chop. You should have about 3/4 cup. Place spinach in a bowl and combine with the remaining ingredients. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Be generous with the pepper! Serve with flatbreads or as a side dish.

Free State Beer Banquet

2009-02-11T19:40:00.001-06:00

Free State Brewery is one of our favorite places to eat in Lawrence. The food is excellent, the beer is the best small brewery beverage (trust me--we have tried a lot of brewery beers on our travels!) and they have Monday beer day (select beers for only a $1.75/pint)! The last few years, they have had a beer banquet in February where the head chef prepares a special meal and they bring multiple beers in to go with the food. We hadn't had a chance to do it in the past for various reasons, so we jumped at the chance when Jackie and Bruce decided to do it this year.

For $45/person, we were treated to 5 courses and 8 beers (not full sized ones, but big enough to give you a nice buzz).

The list of beers---
Urthel Samaranth--a Belgian Quadruple Ale. Probably my favorite because it reminded me of our trip to Belgium last year.
Boulevard Saison Brett
Fireside Imperial Pilsner--One of Free State's own.
Oak Aged Ironman Imperial Stout--Another FS beer.
Big Sea ESB
Anderson Valley Hop Ottin
Santa's Helper
North Coast Pranqster

The food by course:
1st course--Pistachio Pork Pate on a tiny hash brown with Gruyere, cherry relish, mustard and sweet pickles. Not as liver-y as some pates are. Really quite tasty.

2nd course--Stout Marinated Duck Salad--with local greens, grapefruit and a roast shallot vinaigrette. I LOVE duck, so I loved this dish.

3rd course--Plum, orange and ginger sorbet trio. The ginger part was really interesting and tasty. The little gingersnap cookie was awesome!

4th course--Pomegranate Beef Filet with white cheddar potato gratinee, pork belly, brussels sprouts and cipolini onions. Really amazing!

5th course--Molten Chocolate Puff with malt ice cream, candied kumquat and hazelnut syrup. I am a not a big chocolate fan, so I wasn't impressed plus it was a let down compared to the rest of the meal.

Overall, we were really impressed with the food and beers. We had a great time with Jackie and Bruce, their friends and the other people sitting at the table. Seriously how can you go wrong with great food, beer and company?

Perfection Pound Cake

2009-01-28T22:27:00.003-06:00

I really love pound cake and I have tried different recipes for this dessert (I usually use Martha Stewart's recipe which uses 4 sticks of butter!). I found this in one of my new cookbooks, Baking: From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan. This pound cake is less sweet than other recipes that I have tried, which would make it delicious with some ice cream and berries. Sorry that there is no pic because we ate it before I could take some! :) Enjoy!

Perfection Pound Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour or 2 1/4 cups cake flour (she suggests cake flour for a more delicate cake. I used all-purpose and it was still great)
1 teas baking powder
1/4 teas salt
2 sticks (8 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teas vanilla extract

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter a 9x5 inch loaf pan or an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch loaf pan. Put the pan on an insulated baking sheet or on two regular baking sheets stacked one on top of the other.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Working with a stand mixer with a paddle attachment or a with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar on high speed until pale and fluffy, a full 5 minutes. Scrape down the bowl and beater and reduce mixer speed to medium. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1 to 2 minutes after each egg goes in. As you're working, scrape down the bowl and beater often. Mix in the vanilla extract. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour, mixing only until it is incorporated--don't over mix. In fact, you might want to fold in the last of the flour, or even all of it, by hand with a rubber spatula. Scrape the batter into the buttered pan and smooth the top.

Put the cake into the oven to bake, and check on it after about 45 minutes. If it's browning too quickly, cover it loosely with a foil tent. If you're using a 9x5 pan, you'll need to bake the cake for 70 to 75 minutes; the smaller pan needs about 90 minutes. The cake is properly baked when a thin knife inserted deep into the center comes out clean.

Remove the cake from the oven, transfer the pan to a rack and let rest for 30 minutes.

Run a blunt knife between the cake and the sides of the pan and turn the cake out, then turn it right side up on the rack and cool to room temperature.

January Cooking Classes

2009-01-28T09:52:00.006-06:00

I took two cooking classes in January, which both happened to be taught by Chef Nancy (who is my favorite instructor at the Merc); Exotic Moroccan and Savory Pastries. The Moroccan one was AMAZING. Moroccan food is similiar to Indian food, but without burning your mouth off. Basically all the spices and favor without the extreme heat. The main reason that I took it was to learn how to make a chicken tagine which means that I can buy one of these pretty pots:

Nancy said that we don't need to buy a special tagine pot to make the dish, but I'll definitely keep my eyes open for one if I end up going to Spain this year. She made a harissa sauce (Moroccan hot sauce) which was incredible. I was just reading Gourmet magazine yesterday and noticed a soup recipe where they also used the harissa sauce (I'll have to try that out soon). In the chicken tagine, which was a complex dish made of 3 different recipes, she added preserved lemons (basically lemons preserved in salt for a long time). I need to start making these lemons, so that I can make this tagine dish in the near future. Amazing.

Last night, I took the Savory Pastries class. I had a nice surprise when I got to class and found someone that I knew there! In December, Terry had taken a class that I had also gone to, so I was glad to see her with her high school aged son (what a great thing to do with your older children). Nancy taught us how to make potstickers (her filling and sauce was yummy, but I prefer a more crunchy bottom), empanadas (these were amazing and I can't wait to try these at home) and samosas (Chris made me take this class just for these).

In a couple of weeks, I'll be taking another class of hers (I should just become a groupie) where she will be teaching recipes from her old Kansas City restaurant. I am really looking forward to that one. The Merc is also trying out a new type of cooking class where you pay a little more and it includes a cookbook that the chef chooses. Nancy will be teaching the first one, Vegetarian Thai, in March and I'll be signing up for that one for sure (even if I am not a vegetarian or becoming one anytime soon). I'm going to try out some of these recipes from the classes and post them soon!

My Blog

2009-01-28T09:18:00.003-06:00

1. I have been slacking.
2. I have good reasons that don't need to be shared on this blog.
3. I haven't really been cooking anything new since I got back from the holidays. Mostly because my hubby was gone for over a week for work.
4. I have admitted that I will not meet my current goal of using all my cookbooks by my birthday (which is only 6 months from now--yikes)!
5. I readjusted my goal to the end of the year. This is also to accommodate the nice additions to the collection that were purchased during the last month or so (about 10+ more) and any more that make their way into my house this year!
6. I need to make more of the recipes from my cooking classes to post because they really are excellent and need to be shared.
7. I will try to figure out how to post in a more timely manner. Maybe every other day, three times a week, etc.? I am still working on this one.
8. I am starting to get really tired of the grocery store. I am definitely more motivated to cook when I can shop at the farmer's market.
9. I can't wait till spring.
10. I'll be posting a new recipe and about my Jan cooking classes today. :)

A Recipe From My Friend

2009-01-23T00:09:00.003-06:00

Amy emailed me this recipe after making it a couple of times for her family. I forgot to take a picture of it, but it was wonderful. If you like shrimp and rice, give this recipe a try. Thanks Amy for the recipe!

Cajun Shrimp Casserole

Chocolate Covered Bananas

2009-01-17T12:45:00.002-06:00

***Here is a recipe that I forgot to post from last month. It's a great one for those of you who have kids at home!

Many years ago, I purchased two of Emeril's children's cookbook, hoping that Nathaniel would want to start cooking with me in the kitchen. While he has started helping me cook more (mostly when it comes to desserts), he was more willing to tell me what recipes he wanted me to make for him! So this is one of the recipes that he does like making with me. I am not usually a big fan of bananas (I don't like the mushy texture of it), but I do love frozen bananas!

From Emeril Lagasse's There's a Chef in My Soup! cookbook

You'll-Go-Ape For Chocolate-Covered Bananas

8 servings

4 bananas

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup lightly toasted coconut or 1/2 cup chopped roasted peanuts (or 1/4 cup of each)

1) Peel bananas and cut them in half crosswise so that you now have two short pieces.

2) Insert an ice-cream stick or half of a bamboo skewer into each piece so that it has a handle.

3) Wrap each banana half in a piece of aluminum foil and place in the freezer until frozen solid, 4 to 6 hours or overnight.

4) Place the cream in a small saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Remove from the heat.

5) Place the chocolate chips in a medium mixing bowl, then carefully pour the hot cream over the chips. Let the chocolate and cream sit undisturbed for a minute or two, then stir with a small spoon or rubber spatula until the mixture is blended and smooth and the chocolate is completely melted, about two minutes.

6) Place the coconut in a small mixing bowl. Or if using nuts, chop into small pieces and place in a small mixing bowl.

7) Remove bananas from the freezer and unwrap.

8) Cover a small baking sheet with waxed paper or foil.

9) Holding the stick or skewer, dip one banana half int he melted chocolate and cream until completely coated.

10) Sprinkle the coated banana with about 1 tbs of either the coconut or peanuts.

11) Set banana on the covered baking sheet and repeat with the remaining bananas and coatings.

12) Serve immediatedly or cover tightly and return the bananas to the freezer until ready to serve.

Brother's Birthday Lunch

2009-01-17T11:43:00.006-06:00

My brothers both have birthdays in December, then Nathaniel is a New Year's Eve baby. I get pretty tired of celebrating holidays by Christmas time. Since my brother's birthday is three days after Christmas and then three days later is Nathaniel's, so sometimes a chore to figure out where to eat for my brother. Nathaniel always picks sushi (his favorite), so my brother usually tries to pick something quite different. In the past, we have eaten anything from steaks to Swedish food to French to seafood. This year, we went to Charlie Palmer's restaurant in Bloomingdale's at South Coast Plaza. For you foodies out there, you probably already know who Charlie Palmer is (not to be confused with Charlie Trotter, another well-respected American chef). But for those who don't, Charlie has written four cookbooks and owns restaurants all over the States. I believe this is his first restaurant in Southern California and it was well worth the wait.

The adults decided to have the three course prix-fixe lunch, while Nathaniel dined on Kobe steakburgers and freshly made french fries.

First Course:

ARUGULA AND FRISEE SALAD BLUE CHEESE, WHITE BALSAMIC, GOLDEN RAISIN

I picked this one, while my hubby picked the soup. I usually don't like blue cheese, but this one was very light and palatable to my taste buds.

or the ROASTED BUTTERNUT SQUASH BANANA SOUP HAM HOCK AND APPLE RAVIOLI

I don't like fruit in my soups, so I passed on this one. But Chris and my mom really raved about it. They brought out the soup bowls with the only apple ravioli in it, then poured the soup out from small containers at the table. Very elegant.

Main Course:

BUTTER POACHED BABY SHRIMP MEYER LEMON RISOTTO, PARSLEY ESSENCE

This is what my mom and I got. It was good, but I wished that I would have picked the steak.

CHARCOAL GRILLED HANGER STEAK ROSEMARY FINGERLING POTATOES, CARROT EMULSION

This steak was fabulous! The flavors were amazing and it was cooked to perfection. I kept stealing bites off my husband's plate.
Nathaniel's Kobe Steakburger Sliders. These came with a tuffle mayo on the side. The sliders were delicious (I took a very small nibble), but not sure that the fries were worth the $8 or whatever they cost to go along with them.

Dessert:
MOLTEN CHOCOLATE PRESERVED MEYER LEMON, ESPRESSO ICE CREAM

I am not a chocolate person, but almost everyone else ordered this dessert. They even "accidentally" made an extra one for Nathaniel, who didn't eat the prix-fixe meal. He LOVED it. He even loved it more when my mom gave him most of hers!

APPLE TARTE TATIN CRANBERRY SEMIFREDDO, CINNAMON ICE CREAM

I LOVED this one. The ice cream was very tasty and the cranberry semifreddo (a lot like a mousse) was good enough to still think about.

It was an amazing birthday lunch. Nathaniel keeps talking about the sliders and wants to go back next time we are in town. Can't say that I blame him!

Foodies in Santa Fe Part 4--Dinner #2

2009-01-12T21:49:00.004-06:00

We had spent most of Sunday walking around the Plaza area. Right before the holidays, the Native Americans bring their goodies to sell. I am not big into the turquoise jewelry, but there was plenty to choose from if you are. We did pick up an etching of a cat from a local artist that Nathaniel picked out. While walking around, we made sure to look at all the menus posted in front of the restaurants to see which places might be a good one for the whole family because while Nathaniel isn't as picky as some children, he still has his dislikes.

We continued to go back to read the menu at the Sleeping Dog Tavern, which is an upscale bar and grill that you are able to peep into the kitchen from the street. After watching the dishes that the chefs were preparing, we decided that we would give it a try.

When we got there around 7:30, there was no one eating at all (people were at the bar watching football) and we were questioning our choice of restaurants. But we are worries were swept away when we got our delicious food.

Nathaniel's fish and chips, made with salmon (his favorite):

Chris' duck confit with mashed sweet potatoes

And my favorite dish, Local Free-Range Steak with Horseradish Butter. Yummy!

The restaurant did start to get busier the longer we sat, so we didn't end up being the only ones eating in there. They also had some yummy beers on tap. Chris and I like to try out local beers whenever we travel somewhere. A great dinner to cap off our trip to Santa Fe!

Foodies in Santa Fe Part 3--lunch

2009-01-12T21:07:00.004-06:00

Tecolote Cafe is another Roadfood find restaurant that is only open till 2 PM.

Pork tamales covered in green chile and cheese with pinto beans and hominy. The tamales look small, but they are actually quite thick and filling.

Chris' original plan had been to eat a green chile burger (a must in Santa Fe), but we had only eaten 3 hours before (we had to rush to get there before it closed since the burger joint that we first planned on going to was closed on Sundays). So instead, he opted for the smaller dish Frito pie--green chile, Fritos, cheese, ground beef, beans, lettuce, onions and tomato.

Nathaniel ordered a plain cheeseburger that was so tasty that he ate most of it before I could get my camera out. They also came with these delicious, thinly sliced, lightly fried potatoes instead of regular fries. At first, Nathaniel wasn't a fan of them, then he just continued to eat them until they were all gone!

Foodies in Santa Fe Part 2

2009-01-12T19:21:00.003-06:00

Harry's Roadhouse is off the highway right outside of Santa Fe. It's a great eclectic restaurant that we found out about on the Roadfood website again. Since it was Sunday morning, we lucked out by only having to wait for 10 minutes when we got there for breakfast. When we left, there was a huge line waiting.

Chris' dish: Sunny side-up eggs over smoked salmon potato hash.

Mine: Huevos Divorciados, one corn tortilla with green chile sauce, shrimp & cheese, the other with red chile sauce, avocados on top of refried black beans (I am ok with black beans, but usually don't eat them all) and a homemade flour tortilla to soak up all the sauce. Messy, but really tasty.

Nathaniel wanted one of their famous cinnamon rolls. It was baked in a huge muffin tin. He loved it and the side of ham that he ordered too.

Santa Fe was cold when we were there, so we were luckily seated next to a fireplace. But during the warmer months, it would be lovely to sit in the sitting area that overlooks the back patio. I recently read that the desserts are very well known, so I guess we'll have to go there for lunch or dinner next time. Oh, bummer.

Foodies in Santa Fe part 1

2009-01-08T08:10:00.005-06:00

During the 2007 holiday season, we drove out to So Cal via Santa Fe, NM (and Phoenix...not that exciting). Chris and I ended up loving this foodie destination, so we ended up doing it again for two nights this trip. We have not had a bad meal in this city and the quality of the ingredients is very evident at the restaurants that we ate at. Being a foodie, the thought of having Trader Joe's, Whole Foods and Wild Oats within a very small 1-mile radius makes me very happy because it's a sign that the people of Santa Fe care about their food. I have often read in food magazine about the Santa Fe chefs who insist on fresh, local ingredients, which means usually means quality food. This does mean that eating in the NM capital won't be cheap, but it's worth it for a foodie.

This time, we also had my foodie son in tow (he flew last time), who is a very vocal food critic. After being a picky eater as a little child, he has grown into a young teenager, who will try everything at least once. We started with a Roadfood.com find that we had ate at the year before, The Plaza Cafe. I have actually been dreaming about eating there again since we decided to drive to CA again (heck, I am still thinking about it). The restaurant is in the plaza (go figure) and was packed when we got there at 8 PM. Everyone was very happy with their meals (including the food critic child, who happily ate the entire plate). The one thing that I wished that I would have taken a pic of was the dessert that Nathaniel got to go (there was no way that even my two endless pit boys could eat another bite at the restaurant). He picked the chocolate cake, which consists of multiple layers of cake and frosting. It was so big that the chocoholic couldn't finish the cake and only ate half of it (he did manage to eat the rest in the morning).

There are our pics from our first meal in Santa Fe:
My dinner salad. I hate when you order a dinner salad and they bring you iceberg lettuce, a couple of shavings of carrot and a big tomato wedge. This was definitely a major improvement on a dinner salad--jicama, lots of carrots, homemade ranch (I think it might have been a Southwestern one, but very tasty. I need to start taking notes at restaurants) and a small scoop of a tasty bean salad (I ate the green beans, but not the pinto).

Nathaniel's dish was fish tacos. He has recently discovered that he loves fish tacos. I believe this picture was taken after he had actually already eaten one. BIG plate of fish tacos. Very tasty. He ate all of them, but not the plate of rice and beans that also came with his meal. The two little cups of sauce are homemade green chile sauce (my favorite) and fresh salsa.

Chris ordered a pork dish, the Anchiote Pork Plate--browned pork with Yucateacan spices and topped with your choice of chile (always green for us) and grilled onions. It was amazing. My favorite out of all of them, but then they were all really delicious.

Cashew Mole enchiladas--chicken enchiladas with mole sauce and sour cream. There is two in there and they were big. I could barely eat one (my hubby happily finished number two after cleaning his plate).

I did not get a chance to take a picture of the HUGE sopaipilla that comes with the Southwestern meals (there is also a good variety of Greek stuff since the owner is Greek, but we never get that far in the menu). They are always freshly made and come hot from the fryer. Nathaniel had never had one and I told him fried Mexican doughnut that you can pour honey on. Sold. Another sopaipilla fan. Maybe I couldn't finish my meal because I ate my sopaipilla and most of Chris', but I'll never admit it. :)

P.S. Nathaniel got home from school today and I showed him the pics of this blog entry. He is still talking about this meal!

Happy 2009!

2009-01-01T11:36:00.003-06:00

I hope that everyone out there had a great holiday season! Best wishes for a great 2009! The holidays seemed to have just flown by and now it's finally all over. Phew! I have been on vacation at my parents' house for awhile now and all this relaxing has made me lazy with the blog. I have been eating non-stop (my mom thinks that we don't eat in KS or something) and our happy stomachs will be sad to leave in a few days.

I'll be back home on Monday, so expect some new recipes and restaurant food pics soon. Hope my readers haven't given up on me! I promise I'll be back to blogging more regularly once I get home! Happy New Year!

I Am Still Alive :)

2008-12-18T12:48:00.003-06:00

I haven't had much time lately to blog or make anything super interesting. We have been having very random meals at my house trying to clean out our fridge (i.e. dinner two nights ago-- fried catfish, beets & lo mein. lunch--cream of broccoli soup & waffles). I do have a couple of posts that are in the works (hopefully, I'll get them up after I send out the Christmas cards today), but the holiday season has been quite busy in this household this year!

I will leave you with some great food blogs to read that aren't on the side of my blog:

Cake Wrecks- professional cakes that people actually paid money to take home. Really funny stuff!

Cooking for Engineers- for those of you who like to deconstruct things.

Orangette- lovely food blog with tasty looking pictures (and recipes)!

Bakerella- YUMMY! I made one of the cakes on her blog. At first, I thought it was a bit dry, so it sat a day and ended up DELICIOUS. I think that I ate 70% of the cake!

Homesick Texan- I love this blog. I haven't had a chance to make anything on it yet, but it's delicious sounding. Home-style TX food. It will make you gain 20 lbs just reading it!

Smitten Kitchen- I believe this one was featured on Martha Stewart's show. The couple works in their 80 sq ft (yes, that's 8-0!) in NYC. I can no longer complain about my small kitchen anymore.

Dorie Greenspan- Well known in the baking world, this cookbook author has a great blog with lots of information, recipes, stories, etc, etc.

Hope you like these blogs and I'll be posting again soon--promise!

Herb Baked Eggs

2008-12-11T12:53:00.005-06:00

I was a little surprised that I hadn't tried out this recipe yet because I usually buy herbs for a specific recipe and then have to scramble to figure out what to do with the rest of them. We always have farm-fresh eggs on hand thanks to CSA subscription. I did cut the recipe in half and only used two eggs per dish instead of the three that she used. I would suggest cutting your cooking time a bit if you decide to do the same because the eggs cooked faster with only two eggs in the dish, resulting in a non-runny yolk (I like them runny, if you don't then cook away). They were still delicious cooked most of the way and the herbs added a wonderful kick to the eggs. But whatever you do, be sure that your baking dishes that you use are broiler safe and I suggest that you make sure that your baking sheet is too (I skipped using the baking sheet) or it will have a tendency to warp!

This recipe comes from Barefoot Contessa's Barefoot in Paris cookbook.

Herb-Baked Eggs

Sweet and Sour Pot Roast

2008-12-10T08:33:00.002-06:00

I had an arm roast in my CSA subscription and was wondering what to do with it. I found this recipe in Neiman-Marcus' No Jacket Required. It was very tender and full of flavor, but it was a little too sweet for my tastes. On the other hand, Chris was a big fan of it and had seconds. If you like sweet and sour things, this is definitely something for you to try.

Sweet and Sour Pot Roast

serves 6 to 8

1 tb shortening

4 lbs arm or chuck roast

2 onions, sliced

1/4 teas pepper

1/4 teas ground cloves

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup sugar

juice of 2 lemons

salt to taste

Heat shortening in a heavy skillet with a tight-fitting lid. Add roast and onions. Brown, turning frequently. Add remaining ingredients, cover, and simmer over low heat for 3 to 3 1/2 hours until meat is very tender, turning every 45 minutes and uncovering for the last 15 minutes to reduce the juices.

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

2008-12-09T18:40:00.003-06:00

Chris and I have always loved spring rolls, but I wasn't sure that Nathaniel would like them. But he loved them! I need to work on the wrapping of my spring rolls (not super pretty), but they

were really delectable. I used pork this time per the recipe, but I think that I'll try out some shrimp next time. The hoisin-peanut sauce was also well received in my house. I had halved the recipe for the sauce, but realized that Nathaniel could have eaten it with a spoon and I'll have to make the full amount next time.

Spring Rolls

Giada's Panna Cotta Recipe

2008-12-09T18:23:00.002-06:00

I love the Italian dessert Panna Cotta ("cooked cream"). You can add any kind of berries to top it. I think some mangoes would be delicious too. This time I used whole raspberries and just placed them on top. Giada's version has a very strong honey taste, so make sure that you use a good honey for this. This recipe comes from her Everyday Italian cookbook, but it's already online at Food Network. I wasn't able to get a good pic since I put it in white dishes again, but that's life!

Panna Cotta with Fresh Berries

Stepping It Up

2008-12-09T18:03:00.002-06:00

I have been really bad about trying out new recipes lately! I have devised a better way of keeping track of what cookbooks I have used for the blog and sadly, I am only at #22 (and the new total of cookbooks isn't known because I have gotten a few new ones in the last couple of months)! So I need to step it up especially since in a couple of weeks, I'll be taking a cookbook break while visiting the parents over the holidays (but I will be sure to post about the delightful foods that I do eat in CA). I'll try to do better at scouring through my cookbooks on a weekly basis and have recipes ready to go for that week. I already have four new recipes in different cookbooks ready for this week. I will be sure to include good recipes in favorite cookbooks that are staples in our diet whenever I make them.

I am still trying to catch up on past meals that I haven't gotten up on the blog yet. I should be getting closer to being finished with those posts soon. Happy Cooking!

Paprika Home Fries With Poached Egg

2008-12-09T11:11:00.001-06:00

I am a sucker for poached eggs. I love the gooey goodness of the yolk dripping all over my food (I know that some people are grossed out by this). It's especially disappointing when I order a poached egg in a restaurant and it comes out with a hard yolk. So while reading food blogs, I found this great recipe for paprika home fries on Serious Eats. We buy large bags of potatoes, so it was a great way to use some of them up before little eyes developed all over them and ended up in the trash!

The red stuff that is on the dish is the special Frontera Grill hot sauce that we discovered in Chicago when eating at Rick Bayless' restaurant. It's sad that we have been able to find other Frontera Grill products like salsa in Kansas, but no hot sauce. Luckily for us, they have it in San Antonio (which meant bringing 4 bottles back)!

Shrimp Fra Diavolo

2008-12-08T21:09:00.004-06:00

Fra Diavolo (means "Brother Devil" in Italian) is a spicy sauce for pasta or seafood. This is a quick pasta sauce perfect for a weekday meal.

Shrimp Fra Diavolo from Quick From Scratch Pasta by Food & Wine Books

Serves 4

2 tbs cooking oil

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 cup canned crushed tomatoes in thick puree (one 16 oz can)

1/4 teas dried red pepper flakes

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

3/4 teas salt

1 lb med shrimp, shelled

3/4 pound vermicelli (or other thin long pasta)

1) In a large frying pan, heat the oil over moderately low heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, 30 seconds longer. Stir in the tomatoes, red-pepper flakes, water, parsley, and salt. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes. Add the shrimp and cook, covered, just until the shrimp are pink, about 4 minutes.

2) In a large pot of boiling water, cook the pasta according to package directions. Drain pasta and toss with the sauce.

Tonight's Dinner- Pizza and Creole Corn Chowder

2008-12-08T20:26:00.010-06:00

Nathaniel has been waiting for me to make pizza again for awhile now. Since I didn't get the roast cooking early enough, I decided why not try out a new pizza crust recipe that I had been eyeing for months now. It turned out great and it was simple with only 10 minutes sitting time to rise. The crust is a thin wheat crust, but it's not cracker-like as with some thin crusts. You won't be able to use lots of sauce or toppings since the crust is so thin, but that's good for the waist line. I added a little bit of tomato sauce with herbs and some fresh mozzarella. Perfect! Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

Since the pizza crust only made two pizzas (one for Nathaniel, half for me & Chris), I decided to make creole corn chowder. I have wanted to make this chowder for years now, but I never got around to it. Since we had gotten some ham in our meat CSA subscription, I had the perfect excuse to make it tonight. It's pretty thick, so if you might want to add more milk or cream to your pot of chowder. The chowder is also pretty spicy, so you might adjust the red pepper in the soup to your taste.

Creole Corn Chowder from Neiman-Marcus' No Jacket Required

serves 10 to 12

2 cups finely diced bacon

2 cups finely diced onion

2 cups finely diced green bell pepper

2 cups finely diced red bell pepper
2 cups finely diced ham

4 cups corn

3 cups diced tomatoes

1/2 cup tomato juice

1 teas oregano

1 teas basil

1 teas thyme

2 teas red pepper flakes

1 teas black pepper

2 cups milk

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup oil

2 cups cream

Saute bacon in heavy pan until crisp. Add onion and bell peppers, cook until limp. Add ham, corn, tomato juice and seasonings. Simmer 30 minutes. Bring milk to boil in a saucepan. Make a roux to corn mixture and mix well. Add milk. Simmer 15 to 20 minutes. When ready to serve, add cream and cook until hot. (This recipe can be cut in half, which is what I did)

Austin, TX

2008-12-08T11:44:00.007-06:00

I forgot to write about the Austin part of our trip. It's only about an hour away from San Antonio, making it a nice day trip for us when we are visiting. If you have never been to Austin, it's a huge college town (1.6 million if you count the surrounding Round Rock suburb) with lots of great non-chain restaurants, live music nightly, a very nice university art museum, etc. etc. It's definitely the "coolest" city in Texas and a foodie paradise. Chris and I have eaten in Austin quite a few times and have yet to have a bad meal.

On this trip, we decided to try out Shady Grove, a roadfood.com suggestion. We were pleased with the cheese fries (so good that Chris didn't even offer to let me eat the last one), Chris' hippie sandwich (a bunch of grilled veggies on their homemade hippie bread) and my Monterey Chicken (grilled chicken topped with bacon, green chile strips, Monterey Jack cheese and green chile sauce). I was also very happy with the homemade jalapeno ranch dressing for my side salad. It was so tasty that I thought about getting another side salad to use up the rest of the dressing!

After lunch, we made a stop at LBJ's Presidental Library that is located on the University of Texas campus. It's free admission (free parking too) and worth the stop. An old lady at the admission desk talked our ear off for about 10 minutes explaining the museum layout to us, but we couldn't really complain because she was so excited about everything!

Our last stop in Austin was Amy's Ice Cream. I had heard about this terrific place while watching Food Network before our last trip out there and I am addicted now. The ice cream there is fabulous (14% butterfat--how could it be bad?). I was excited to see that she had a location in San Antonio (which I ended up visiting a couple of times).

We were disappointed that we missed out on a roadfood find, Eva B's Bakery and Cafe. They were closed by the time that we drove by and we didn't get to try all the delicious looking kolache that they have. It looks like we'll have to make another trip to Austin in the near future...bummer.

Rustic Chicken with Mushrooms and Polenta

2008-12-07T22:01:00.004-06:00

This is one of our favorite chicken dishes. I finally got a chance to use the organic chicken thighs that I bought from a local farm. They ended up being delicious.

adapted from magazine The Best of Fine Cooking; Comfort Food Issue Comfort 2004

For the chicken:
salt and freshly ground pepper
2 Tbs olive oil, more as needed
8 bone-in chicken pieces (3 to 4 lbs total) or one 3 1/2 lb chicken, cut into 8 pieces
1 cup sliced yellow onions
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups sliced portabella mushrooms
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 1/2 cups canned diced tomatoes, with their juices
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup kalamata olives, pitted and halved
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves, chopped

Polenta:
1 tbs unsalted butter
4 cups water or chicken broth
1 tsp salt
1 cup medium ground cornmeal

To make chicken: Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Cook the chicken pieces, skin side down in batches, until browned on all sides, 3 to 4 minutes per side, adding oil if necessary. Transfer the chicken to a plate as it's browned.

Reduce the heat to medium, add the onions, saute, stirring, until translucent, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, another 2 minutes. If the pan is dry, add 1 Tbs, oil. Add the mushrooms and cook until they release their juices and begin to brown, about 5 minutes. Add 1 tsp, salt and 1/2 tsp pepper. Add the wine and scrape up any browned bits in the pan. Return the chicken pieces to the pan (they should just fit in snugly) and simmer until the wine is reduced by half, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, broth, olives and thyme. Reduce the heat and simmer the chicken, turning occasionally, until it's completely cooked and very tender, 30 to 40 minutes. Meanwhile, make the polenta while the chicken is cooking.

To make polenta:
In a medium saucepan, bring the butter, water (or broth) and salt to a boil over medium-high heat. Slowly, add cornmeal, whisking until smooth. Reduce the heat to a simmer and continue to cook, whisking or frequently stirring with a wooden spoon until the mixture is thick, about 30 minutes. If polenta is done before the chicken, cover with foil and stir occasionally to keep a crust from forming.

Serve the chicken over the polenta with some of the sauce.

Million Dollar Brownies

2008-12-07T21:46:00.004-06:00

The other item that I brought to the Christmas party.

Million Dollar Brownies from Neiman-Marcus' No Jacket Required

14 oz bag of individually wrapped caramel candies
1/3 cup evaporated milk
8 oz German's sweet chocolate
6 tbs butter
4 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup sifted flour
1 teas baking powder
1/2 teas salt
2 teas vanilla
6 oz chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans (if you want them)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 13 by 9 inch baking pan. In a double boiler over low heat, combine unwrapped caramels and evaporated milk. Cover and simmer until caramels melt, stirring occasionally, keep warm until caramels melt, stirring occasionally, keep warm with lid askew and water barely simmering.

In a 2 quart saucepan over low heat, combine chocolate and butter, stirring occasionally, until melted. Remove from heat, let cool to room temperature.

In a large bowl, beat eggs with an electric mixer at high speed until foamy. Gradually add sugar, continuing to beat until slightly thickened and pale yellow.

In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt, gradually add to the egg mixture. Mix. Blend in the cooled chocolate mixture and vanilla. Spread half of the chocolate batter into prepared pan. Bake for 6 minutes, or until set. Remove from oven.

Spread caramel mixture over baked chocolate batter. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top. Add half of pecans into remaining chocolate batters (if using). Spoon over caramel layer. Sprinkle remaining pecans over top. Bake for 30 minutes or until the top layer of the batter is set. Let cool in baking dish. Chill for at least 2 hours in the dish.

Note: If brownies are not chilled, they will be difficult to cut.

Hummus

2008-12-07T21:40:00.003-06:00

This is what I made for last night's Christmas party that we went to.

Hummus from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

2 cups canned chickpeas, drained, liquid reserved
1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/3 cup tahini (sesame paste)
6 tbs freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
2 tbs liquid from the chickpeas
8 dashes Tabasco sauce

Place all the ingredients in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and process until the hummus is coarsely pureed. Taste for seasoning and serve chilled or at room temperature.

Slacking!

2008-12-07T20:44:00.001-06:00

Sorry about the lack of posts! With the holiday and my trip to see the in-laws, I haven't had much time to blog! I didn't get a chance to cook much before our trip since we were busy with an out of town guest and running around trying to get things ready for our trip.

We ate A LOT of great food in Texas, but I have to say that I was a little relived that I finally got to cook and eat at home tonight! Our friends from Dallas were planning to come down for the weekend and Jeff told us that there was only one thing that he wanted to do was eat at Taco Taco, which was named best taco in America by Bon Appetit. The small no-frills restaurant only holds 40 people and the homemade tortillas and authentic Mexican fillings in the tacos made us recall the delicious tacos that we had in Mexico. It was so tasty that Chris and I made another trip to the restaurant the day that we left San Antonio for a final meal there.

April, Brett and I also ate at the Tip Top Cafe (while the adult males were golfing on Sunday), which I had seen on Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. I had never eaten at a restaurant that I had seen on this show and always wanted to, but I was pretty disappointed with the food. My chicken fried steak was huge, but pretty flavorless and I'll probably skip any of Guy Fieri's choices from now on.

Sunday night after the nephews left, Chris' dad took us to Welfare Cafe in Hill Country. The restaurants is in the middle of nowhere on a working ranch. Unfortunately, the weather was windy and cold, so we couldn't sit outside on their porch. There was a bluegrass band playing that night, making most conversation hard to hear, but the food was wonderful. They have a rotating small daily menu (not a good place for vegetarians or picky eaters).

We ended up eating at Liberty Bar the last night that we were in San Antonio. It's a restaurant in an old building with a crooked floor. I have eaten here a couple of times and I wasn't really that impressed the first time, but it's a place that Chris' parents like to eat at. The menu is extensive, which sometimes isn't a good thing. But this time, I did have some delightful pasta (which was a great choice after all the super fattening foods that I had eaten during the trip).

I can't wait for another trip down to San Antonio next year for some more mouth watering food!

Heath Bar Brownies

2008-11-24T22:50:00.002-06:00

I just made these today. Nathaniel was not impressed with Heath Bars alone, but I had a feeling that he would like these brownies. I was right and he loved them.

Heath Bar Brownies adapted from Maida Heatter's Brand-New Book of Great Cookies

6 1/2 oz Heath bars
2 oz unsweetened chocolate
4 oz unsalted butter (1 stick)
2 large eggs
1/2 teas vanilla
1/4 teas salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup sifted flour

Adjust a rack one-third up from the bottom of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 8 inch square pan by lining it with foil with the shiny side up, then butter it (I sprayed it instead--less work!).

To cut up the Heath bars, work on a cutting board with a sharp and heavy knife. Cut through the long sides into slices 1/4 to 1/3 inch wide (about 1 1/2 cups of cut up Heath bars). Chop a scant 1/4 cup of the cut up bars into smaller pieces (to sprinkle on top), keep these separate.

Place the unsweetened chocolate and butter in the top of a small double boiler over warm water on moderate heat. Stir occasionally until melted. Remove the top of the double boiler and set aside.

In the small bowl of an electric mixer beat the eggs, vanilla, salt and sugar until mixed. Add the chocolate mixture (which may still be warm) and beat only to mix. Then add the flour and beat only to mix. Remove bowl from mixer and add all but the 1/4 cup of the smaller Heath bar pieces.

Turn into the prepared pan and spread smooth. Sprinkle the smaller pieces of Heath bars over the top. Bake for 28 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out just barely clean.

Remove the pan from the oven, let stand until cool. Cut into small pieces. Serve at room temperature or refrigerated.

Frozen Hot Chocolate

2008-11-24T22:33:00.003-06:00

I am sure that a few of you are wondering what the heck frozen hot chocolate is. Personally, I think it's kind of weird too. If you remember from earlier posts, I don't really like chocolate but my son was having a hard day and I decided that he needed some cheering up. This recipe helped out some and he really did like it. It comes from the famous dessert place, Serendipity 3, in NYC where celebrities hob nob all the time. This makes A LOT. The cookbook just said a gigantic Serendipity-sized serving. It made easily 5 margarita sized drinks.

Frozen Hot Chocolate from Sweet Serendipity

3 oz of a variety of your favorite chocolates

2 teas store bought hot chocolate mix

1 1/2 tbs sugar

1 1/2 cups milk

3 cups ice

whipped cream

-chop chocolate into small pieces and place it in the top of a double boiler over simmering water, stirring occasionally until melted. Add the hot chocolate mix and sugar, stirring constantly until thoroughly blended. Remove from heat and slowly add 1/2 cup of the milk and stir until smooth. Cool to room temperature.

-in a blender place the remaining cup of milk, the room temperature chocolate mixture and the ice. Blend on high speed until smooth and the consistency of a frozen daiquiri. Pour into a giant goblet and top with whipped cream. Enjoy with a spoon or a straw--or both!

Lamb Chops

2008-11-24T20:41:00.003-06:00

This is a a recipe from Giada DeLaurentiis' Everyday Italian cookbook. Our lamb chops came from a local rancher who sells her meats at the Farmer's Market. It took no time to make up the rub and cook these up. She calls for a grill pan, but I don't have one. I ended up just pan frying the chops and they still ended up delicious.

Lamb Chops

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

2008-11-19T20:55:00.001-06:00

I just made these this afternoon. The recipe was on a blog of a friend (Laura's) of a friend's that she adapted from Smitten Kitchen's blog. I followed the original recipe on SK's and everyone loved them. I'll have to try out the chunky peanut butter next time, but I only had creamy.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Roasted Shrimp Cocktail

2008-11-19T20:44:00.003-06:00

A perfectly easy way to make shrimp cocktail. Another great recipe from Barefoot Contessa's Back to Basics cookbook.

serves 6 to 8
2 lbs (12 to 15 count) shrimp
1 tbs olive oil
1/2 teas kosher salt
1/2 teas freshly ground black pepper

SAUCE:
1/2 cup Heinz chili sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
3 tbs prepared horseradish
2 teas freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 teas Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teas Tabasco sauce

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Peel and devein the shrimp, leaving the tails on. Place them on a sheet pan with the olive oil, salt and pepper and spread them in one layer. Roast for 8 to 10 minutes, just until pink and firm and cooked through. Set aside to cool.
For the sauce, combine the chili sauce, ketchup, horseradish, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco. Serve as a dip with the shrimp.

Knife Contest On Steamy Kitchen

2008-11-18T23:24:00.004-06:00

I found this knife contest on a blog that I read. I missed posting about Pioneer Woman's KitchenAid contest today, but this one is still going on Steamy Kitchen. She also has some great tips on how to sharpen your knives (which will only work if you have decent knives).

Sorry that I don't have cool contests like this. But no one is sponsoring me or offering to donate me any items to give away. Plus future plans include being a poor college student once again, so giving away $150 knives just isn't in the budget right now. Maybe someday.

Knife contest

Barefoot Contessa's White Pizza With Arugula

2008-11-17T20:49:00.002-06:00

The other night, I decided to try my hand at making homemade pizza (much to my son's delight). It took a little bit of time and effort, but it was fun to make them with Nathaniel. The only problem now is that Nathaniel doesn't feel that other pizzas are up to par to eat anymore and it looks like I'll be making more pizzas in the future. This is a Barefoot Contessa recipe from her newest cookbook that I purchased a few weeks back. She uses a garlic oil instead of red sauce and 3 different kinds of cheese for the pizza, then she tops it with arugula with a lemon vinaigrette. It's a perfect pizza!

White Pizza With Arugula

Pioneer Woman's Shrimp Pasta

2008-11-17T20:42:00.002-06:00

I wasn't feeling great all day, but I needed something quick for dinner. I try to keep a bag of frozen shrimp in the freezer, which made this dish easy to make. If you like pasta and shrimp, this is a wonderful and quick dish. I used spiral pasta instead of penne because I recently purchased a six pack of pasta at Costco. Another great dish from Pioneer Woman!

Shrimp Pasta

Carnitas!

2008-11-16T23:57:00.002-06:00

I forgot to take pics of this lovely recipe. I had tried making carnitas earlier and the results were ok, but not great. Even my foodie son commented on how they were too dry and that this recipe was much better. It made a lot of food, so we will be enjoying the pork for a couple of lunches. I had some homemade salsa leftover and served it with some sour cream and flour tortillas. Delicious (and easy)!

Carnitas

Curried Chicken Salad

2008-11-12T22:57:00.003-06:00

I was really glad that Nathaniel ended up liking this because the recipe makes a lot of chicken salad. It's a Barefoot Contessa recipe and you can adjust it to your taste by making it spicier with more curry powder or sweeter with more chutney. If you want to omit the raisins or cashews, you can (I omit both because I don't like raisins in my savory foods and Chris doesn't usually like nuts).

Curried Chicken Salad from Barefoot Contessa's Family Style cookbook
serves 6

3 whole (6 split) chicken breasts, bone in, skin on (you'll want the skin on to keep the juices in, but get rid of it before putting it in the salad)
olive oil
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups good mayonnaise (DON'T use Miracle Whip--whatever you do, don't do it!)
1/3 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup Major Grey's chutney
3 tbs curry powder
1 cup medium-diced celery (about 2 large stalks)
1/4 cup chopped scallions, white and green parts (2 scallions)
1/4 cup raisins
1 cup whole roasted, salted cashews

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Place the chicken breasts on a sheet pan and rub the skin with olive oil. Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Roast for 35 to 40 minutes, until the chicken is just cooked. Set aside until cool enough to handle. Remove the meat from the bones, discard the skin, and dice the chicken in large bite-size pieces.

For the dressing, combine the mayonnaise, wine, chutney, curry powder, and 1 1/2 teas salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Process until smooth.

Combine the chicken with enough dressing to moisten well. Add the celery, scallions and raisins, and mix well. Refrigerate for a few hours to allow the flavors to blend. Add the cashews and serve at room temperature.

Marshmallow-Hot Fudge Sauce

2008-11-12T22:24:00.002-06:00

I just purchased the ice cream cookbook last night and had Nathaniel look for a recipe to make. This is the one that he picked to top our homemade ice cream.

Marshmallow-Hot Fudge Sauce from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop

makes 2 cups

2/3 cup milk (whole or low-fat)

2 tbs salted butter (I used unsalted since I never have salted)

30 large marshmallows (not quite a whole bag)

8 oz bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped (I used a 4 oz bar of each since that's what I had)

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Warm the milk and butter in a medium saucepan. Add the marshmallows and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until they've melted. Remove from the heat and add the chocolate pieces. Let stand for 30 seconds, the stir until smooth. Add vanilla. Serve warm.

**Can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Rewarm it gently in a microwave or by stirring in a saucepan over very low heat. If the sauce becomes too thick, stir in a few spoonfuls of milk.

Korean Short Ribs

2008-11-12T21:59:00.002-06:00

I just realized that the picture isn't that appetizing looking, but trust me, it's delicious. It's a great meal when you serve it with some rice and a veggie side (I made stir-fried bok choy). I get my short ribs from the Korean/Japanese market in Overland Park because I have never seen the same cut in the regular grocery store. I have seen short ribs, but not cut the same way. So you might have to get the meat from an Asian market unless you live out in CA or somewhere like that.

Korean Short Ribs from Neiman-Marcus' No Jacket Required

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup sliced green onions

2 tbs toasted sesame seeds

2 tbs sugar

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1/2 teas pepper

4 lbs short ribs, cut between the bones

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Stir together soy sauce, water, onions, sesame seeds, sugar, garlic, and pepper. Pour over ribs and marinate, chill in fridge overnight. Grill or broil for 15 to 20 minutes until cooked to desired doneness.

Sweet Potato Fries

2008-11-11T15:52:00.004-06:00

I found this recipe for sweet potato fries last week when I was looking for something to make with my Farmer's Market sweet potatoes. Chris loves blue cheese (which I do not love), so I decided to be nice and still make the blue cheese dressing that was also posted. The fries were delicious (sorry no photos) and Chris loved the blue cheese dressing. He loved it so much that he asked if that was really all that was left of it after finishing off the fries. I did have a couple of the fries burn on me and I think that I might try to make these at 400 degrees instead of the 425 because it was too hot for my fries. And next time, I will probably make a homemade ranch dressing along with the blue cheese when I make these again. It's a good change of pace from regular french fries and with it's high nutritional value, how can you go wrong?

Last Week's Cooking Class

2008-11-10T22:07:00.005-06:00

I know that I am slacking in the posts! I am about 3 posts behind and I will try to get them up asap! I didn't end up going to Chicago because I needed to have a relaxing weekend before the holidays. Now that I am rested, I am ready to take on the holiday season. Ok, I am not, but let's pretend that I am.

I took cooking class #3 at the Merc last week. It was called "A Vegetarian Indian Feast Made With Fresh Paneer" taught by a woman who was grew up in New Delhi and has lived in Lawrence for the past 20+ years. For those who aren't familiar with Indian food, paneer is Indian cheese. It's unbelievably easy to make (milk and vinegar). It's creamy, delicious and very versatile. She showed us how to make the paneer and how to use it in 5 different dishes. I'll be making it in the near future (since Chris is really excited about this), so I'll post step-by-step pics of how to make paneer on my blog.

Tonight, I am taking another class (#2 out of 3 this month) where I will learn the tricks of making breakfast breads. The sole reason that I signed up for this class is that the instructor is making cinnamon rolls (YUMMY!) and I have completely forgotten what else is being made!

The cold weather has made it's way to KS, so expect some cold-weather homey foods to start appearing. I've already gotten into a rut in making some foods that are sure things lately and haven't been pulling out the old cookbooks as much. I am really enjoying Barefoot Contessa's Back to Basics, so if you are in the market for a new cookbook, I highly recommend it. I pretty much want to make everything in it and I've already made a few recipes with plans for more soon!

Anyway, it's off to Half Price Books right now where I am going to purchase another cookbook! I have some great coupons and spent two hours yesterday scanning the whole store for some great purchases (of course, there was more than just one great book, but the coupons are for a single purchase). So I am going back today to purchase The Perfect Scoop at the ridiculously cheap price of 40% off $12.99 (brand new copy too)! By the way, is it wrong to buy an ice cream cookbook when it's 40-some degrees outside?

Last Farmer's Market For The Year Today

2008-11-08T10:47:00.003-06:00

The last Farmer's Market for Lawrence was today. It's a sad day for me because that means that till April, I will have to shop in the grocery stores for all my produce. Luckily, we signed up and paid for a CSA from Amy's Meats to get 15 lbs of beef/pork & 2 cartons of farm-fresh eggs monthly until the Farmer's Market starts up again. It's nice because she makes a bi-monthly trek out to Lawrence (they are right outside of it) and you pick up your meat at one of the three locations that she has set up. The upfront cost was a lot, but in the long run, we are probably saving a bundle since we were buying quite a bit of meat/pork from her weekly. Plus now, we don't have to worry about paying for beef/pork products (unless we decide to add some stuff on) till April. Amy took really good care of us this month with tons of great stuff in our bag: 2 cartons eggs, lb flank steak, lb minute steak, 2 lb ground beef, lb ground pork, lb Italian sausage, lb sausage patties, 2 3/4 lb rump roast, 2 1/2 lb arm roast, 1 1/2 lb ham steak, and 1 1/4 lb pork tenderloin. It looks like I'll be busy looking for some recipes for all this stuff!

Along with our CSA subscription, we also purchased one whole chicken, 2 lbs chicken thighs, 3 lbs chicken wings (I am in the middle of reading a book right now that has me swearing off chicken from the market--I'll post about the book later), 2 lbs of lamb chops (great thing is this farmer will also be making a monthly visit from Baldwin to sell her beef/lamb/pork too), bok choy, 2 bunches of arugula, salad mix, cilantro, a HUGE leek, 2+ lbs of Roma tomatoes, dill, hummus, baklav and organic cayenne pepper.

That's the last purchase of 2008 at the Farmer's Market for me. Sad, sad, sad. I have a couple of posts that I haven't gotten to yet, so I'll try to get those up soon. Hope everyone has a good weekend!

The Jetsetting Fool Cooks (and Eats!)

The Lack of Blogging

Green Chili and Carne Guisada

Smoky Pork & Sweet Potato Tacos

Blackberry Buttermilk Cake

Farmer's Market

I Am Still Breathing!

Slacking :(

Strawberry Time!

Healthy Chicken Salad

Farmer's Market

La Bodega Kansas City April 2009

Beef, Barley and Vegetable Soup

Crust- Chicago

Mity Nice Grill--Chicago April 09

New Orleans Part 5--NOLA restaurant (last and final part)

April Cooking Classes

Mee Ga-Ti Rice Noodles with Coconut-Bean Sauce

New Orleans part 4-Roadfood Crawfish Boil/Pig Roast

Mac & Cheese

New Orleans Part 3--Sucre

Cream of Asparagus Soup

New Orleans April 2009 Part 2

Pendleton's Farm 04/24 and Farmer's Market 04/25

Noodles with Pork From Shanxi

Sorry!

Creamy Herbed Potatoes

French Apple Tart

Sunday lunch

Opening of Farmer's Market 2009

Bolognese Sauce

Thai One-Pot

New Orleans April 2009 Part 1

Saturday Morning Breakfast

Excitement

Homemade Vanilla Pudding

Spring Break 2009--Da Smoke--final part of TX trip

Spring Break 2009--Cerroni's Purple Garlic

Spring Break 2009--Threadgill's--Austin, TX

Spring Break 2009--Liberty Bar--part 1

Penne alla Vodka

Red Cabbage with Apples and Honey

Dinner with Friends Part 3 (and the final part)

Dinner with Friends Part 2

Dinner with Friends Part 1

Miami part 3-Bahama Fish Market

Miami part 2-Joe's Stone Crabs

40-some-hours-in-Miami, part 1

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February Cooking Class

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January Cooking Classes

My Blog

A Recipe From My Friend

Chocolate Covered Bananas

Brother's Birthday Lunch

Foodies in Santa Fe Part 4--Dinner #2

Foodies in Santa Fe Part 3--lunch

Foodies in Santa Fe Part 2

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Happy 2009!

I Am Still Alive :)

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