To Grill a Mockingbird

Fun Fact!

2011-02-07T14:47:00.001-08:00

Here's a fitness fun fact for you:

The average human being burns 115 calories per hour simply by standing! The average human only burns 80 calories by sitting.

I've resolved to do more work standing...how about you?

Where I've Been...

2011-02-06T17:08:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted here in a long time. I could cite a lot of reasons (work, housework, needing to sleep more than 6 hours per night, etc.), but in reality, I've simply been an observer of the online world instead of a participant in it.

I'm going to try to change that, although I plan to take baby steps. Life is simply incredibly busy right now. But some improvement is better than none, right?

One of my last posts before I fell off the face of the earth, was about how I was finally fed up with my diet; feeling overweight and generally gross. So for my first post, I wanted to give you a brief update on how all that has been going.

My friend Emily said recently that my weight loss journey would have been fun to chronicle here...but frankly, I was and am still too embarrassed of how far gone I was...how literally gross I looked and felt.

So here's the story (in as much detail as I can comfortably provide):

Last summer when we moved, I lost a bunch of weight the weekend we moved and directly afterward. And that makes sense: I was moving boxes, hauling large pieces of furniture, eating very little for days at a time as we struggled to finish moving over the course of a single weekend (people who move in a day, I don't see how you accomplish it)... And then after the initial move was over, there was the unpacking, the organizing, the running back and forth to the hardware store for paint, tools, and other random bits needed to fix up our new nest. Overall, I lost between 10 and 15 pounds at the start of the summer. And sadly, I got used to eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, because I was working it all off.

But in reality, I was deluding myself. I wasn't in great shape, even before the move (as numerous pictures from last year's prom can attest -- honestly, I looked like I was pregnant). And although I lost a bit of weight during and immediately after the move, I gained it all back, plus more. By the time I was willing to admit I had a problem, my problem was a big one. This past spring, I had gone shopping with my mom and discovered that I needed to buy pants in the next size up. For some reason, that failed to get my attention, even though it obviously signaled that I had gained some weight. But then, things got even worse: by mid-summer, the pants and other clothes I bought in the spring, the ones that were a size larger than those I had been wearing? Yeah, those clothes were too tight too.

Realizing that I had a choice between buying all new clothes in a still larger size or getting a grip on my life and health was a wake-up call. I knew that I had to change my habits and my life and that I had to do it quickly and permanently. So I made some hard decisions (or, at least, decisions that were hard for me at the time):

1. I gave up drinking soda, and I did it cold turkey. For those of you who don't think soda and caffeine are addictive, let me tell you about the dark days following that decision. I had cravings non-stop. I literally dreamed about drinking Dr. Pepper out of a chilled, ice-filled glass. One night in particular the dream was so vivid that I woke up in a panic, convinced that I had relapsed and actually had been drinking the soda. It took my husband (who probably thought I had completely lost it) about 10 minutes to convince me otherwise.

2. I immediately cut back on how much and how often I was eating. Even though every health magazine and weight loss company known to man touts the effectiveness of journaling what you eat, it really is true. Forcing myself to write down everything I put in my mouth was an immediate check to my eating. Did I really want to have to look back at my weekly consumption and see that Snickers bar staring back at me? No, I didn't. In my own, admittedly amateur opinion, I'm a combination grazer and emotional eater. Being a grazer means that I'm a great person to invite to your parties: I will eat your food all evening and praise you endlessly for it. However, it also means that I continue to eat long after I'm full, just because the food is available. Being an emotional eater means that I use food as comfort: if I'm sad, I eat. Likewise, if I'm happy, angry, pensive, thoughtful, etc., I'm going to eat.

What all this means is that I had to completely re-think and re-do my eating habits.

3. For several months, I completely cut red meat out of my diet. Now, I will be the first to admit that red meat gets a bum rap for all sorts of health problems (increasing the risk of heart disease, raising cholesterol, etc.). But my purpose in giving it up had nothing to do with any of that. It was simply easier for me to stick to my diet if I gave it up. So, for example, whenever my husband wanted to barbeque hamburgers, I had a chicken breast fillet instead of a burger. Whenever he wanted hot dogs, I had a chicken sausage (Member's Mark chicken, spinach, and asiago cheese sausages from Sam's Club -- delish!). All these little changes, over time, added up to big differences in my health, my weight, how my body looked, and how I felt about myself.

And so.............without further ado.................

Here are my current results. I say current, because I'm not done yet. And, as Emily suggested, I'll be documenting the journey from here on out.

1. I have currently lost a total of 40 lbs. In practical terms, here's how that breaks down:

When I started my weight loss journey, I had a BMI that was officially in the obese category. Now, I'm on the high end of the normal range.

I have had every single pair of pants I own (minus those I've bought recently, of course) taken in. I can't even begin to explain how good it felt to feel the seamstress grab a HANDFUL of fabric and know that it was all extra fabric that was going to be cut away. I can't explain how good it felt as I drove away from the seasmstress's shop to hear my mother say from the passenger's seat, "My God, Kristen, you've lost at least 4 or 5 inches from your waist! Those pants were just huge. I can't believe they ever fit you." Not only that, but pants that I've bought since I started losing weight are getting a little baggy. Some of the women I work with have started to tease me that those need to be taken in now too.

I've dropped three dress sizes -- officially. I was always in the 10-12 range since high school. And based on American measurements, I was considered normal. I never thought I would ever again wear a dress sized in the single digits. But now, here I am.

2. I now work out at least 3-4 days each week. Even if I don't make it to the gym, I have several DVDs and at-home routines I've torn out of magazines that I can work through. I've come to the conclusion that it isn't so important that I go to the gym and work out every day for x number of hours. Instead, I try to make exercise a part of my daily life, but if I miss a day, I don't make myself crazy over it. I just start fresh the next day. Eliminating the idea that missing a workout was a "failure" was difficult for this perfectionist, but it's been so worth it in the long run. Missing one workout doesn't make me a failure, just like going to the gym every day for a week isn't going to magically get me back to the weight I was in high school.

3. I have discovered the joys of walking. I love going for walks around our neighborhood (I actually drove my car through the neighborhood this past summer to map out a 3-mile route). I walk with a playlist I made for my iPod that is composed only of songs that have at least 100 bpm (beats per minute). That's the minimum I've found that will get my heart rate up and keep it up for the duration of my walk. One afternoon I left for my walk and had gotten about a quarter mile from my house when the battery charge in my iPod went dead. That day was a turning point for me. The old me would have turned back and gone home and not walked. I would have charged the iPod and thought, "Well, maybe tomorrow..." The new me kept walking. The only songs I could remember that definitely had 100 bpm were those I had recently learned in a CPR refresher course: "Stayin' Alive" by The BeeGees and "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen. By the time I finished my 3 miles and stretched out in the driveway, I was sick of The BeeGees and Queen. But the point was, I finished. The old me would have quit. The new me had a funny story to tell at lunch the next day.

4. Today, I welcome new challenges: at my cousin and aunt's urging, I've signed up for my first half marathon. I'm really enjoying training for it, and I'm looking forward to walking it with my family.

I've changed the way I cook and the way I serve food. I felt like I had to find a happy medium between the foods my husband and I love to eat and eating healthier. So I've adapted a lot of things and changed the way I eat them. (I'll be posting some of those recipes in the days to come.)

I also enjoy food in moderation now. As I said earlier, I gave up red meat for a couple months at the beginning of my weight loss journey. When I had lost 25 lbs., my husband took me out to dinner and insisted I treat myself to a burger. I had a patty melt at Red Robin and it was the most delicious thing I had ever eaten. I think my husband enjoyed listening to me rave about the burger as much as I enjoyed eating it. And that night taught me several important lessons as well. First, it's okay to eat the foods you love, even the "bad ones," so long as they are a treat and not an everyday staple of your diet. Second, something you only eat once in a while tastes so much better and is such a treat that you enjoy it even more than if you got to have it any time you wanted. And finally, despite how much I enjoyed my burger, I learned that I shouldn't reward weight loss with food. Better to treat myself to a new blouse. Still, that was probably the best patty melt I've ever had.

It's been a little over 6 months since I've had a soda, and while I do miss it occassionally, I've gotten used to drinking iced tea instead. I would argue that, especially in the summertime, there's nothing better than a tall, cold glass of iced tea. Not even a tall cold glass of Dr. Pepper.

Movin' On Up

2010-06-30T07:22:00.000-07:00

We moved over Memorial Day weekend.

I realize this may not be earth-shattering news in your world, but it sure rocked mine on its axis.

Let me back up. Hubby and I had been on a perpetual house hunt for roughly three years. We loved our old house. Could have lived in it forever and probably died there, except for a couple minor details:

1. It had a one-car garage. And we have two cars. And Hubby was getting just a wee bit sick and tired of having to go out to my car on winter mornings to scrape the ice/frost off the windshield. (That was the trade-off for allowing him to park his car in the garage.)

2. The basement bathroom was...problematic. Anyone who knows me, knows that replacing a cracked shower stall floor became a year-long struggle in which much effort and sweat, not to mention curse words, were expended. And during which time I was confined to the upstairs bath, which DIDN'T HAVE A SHOWER. I repeat: there was no shower head in our upstairs bathtub. So I spent a year taking baths.

3. I now hate and loathe baths. Wouldn't take one if you paid me a boatload of money.

4. There were only 2 bedrooms.

Anyway, bath-time neuroses aside, there wasn't anything terribly wrong with our old house, so we took our time in looking for a new one. And finally, finally, FINALLY, we found one that is awesomely awesome. And spacious. And purty. And did I mention, awesome?

*Please note that I will try mightly to find time to take some photgraphs of the wonder that is my new kitchen ASAP.

So, we moved. And I discovered what it's like to not know where anything is. To continue leaving my shoes in a big ol' cardboard box because that's easier and more convenient than unpacking them. To not be able to cook anything for 2 straight weeks because we remodeled the kitchen immediately (all new appliances and quartz countertops). To be in the process of re-painting every single room in the house.

In short, I went from living in a house with several deficiencies, but overall, nothing majorly wrong, to living in a war zone.

But I love it anyway.

And I know that when we're finished, it will be beautiful, and we will have put our own unique stamp on the house.

But I probably won't get much cooking (or blogging) done this summer. And I wanted you to know why.

I will try, however, to post some kind of updates about the ongoing renovation projects. Hubby and I are babes in the woods when it comes to that stuff, but we're learning fast. (We have no choice.)

Perhaps my next blog post will be my adventures on our new riding lawn mower (it's candy apple red and very sleek -- I like to think of it as the sports car of yard work).

2010-03-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

This is my next book. As a long-time fan of the Fox series Bones, I figured it was high time I read the novels on which the series was based. I think there are 9 or 10 books in the series, which gives me plenty of reading material for the rest of Spring Break, as well as the start of summer vacation. I think I'll be able to take my coffee out to the front porch later this week to read in the yard. I can't wait!

The Time Traveler's Wife: The Reviews are In

2010-03-27T22:30:00.000-07:00

I have been eager to read this novel for a while. It was on my to-do list for about a year, and then it was made into a movie. Now, I have a strict rule about reading books before I watch any movie based on said book. Clearly, this item on my to-do list had reached critical mass.

And still I didn't read it. Call it procrastination, call it laziness...I call it life getting in the way. I had papers to grade, recipes to try out...dang it, people! I had to SLEEP! (We will cover my devotion to sleep in another post...or therapy).

Long story short, The Time Traveler's Wife didn't get read. And truthfully, I hadn't even purchased it.

And then, Hubby and NetFlix did an end run around me. He ordered TTW from NetFlix. And those ruthlessly efficient fools had the nerve to send us the DVD. What nerve!

Anyway, they forced my hand. I headed to Border's that very afternoon and procured a copy of the book (Buy 1, Get One 50% off, no less). And so I read it. Finally.

And, people, here's the part that I really, really, really, really hate to admit:

I didn't like it.

TTW had so much potential -- it was a love story that overcame time itself, for Pete's sake. And then there were the problems:

**Potential Spoiler Alert**

1. The science-techie component. We get that Henry is a time traveler. It should have been left at that. Not explained as a genetic disorder involving mismatched pairs of chromosomes, or something. Such a prosaic (albeit unlikely) explanation took all the magic out of the story. Having known the basic background (it's a love story about a guy who can time travel and a gal who can't) prior to reading the book, I had theorized that maybe Henry was from the future, etc., etc. The idea that someone would leave their own, seemingly advanced time, just to meet the girl they would fall in love with decades later (they first meet when Clare is a child and Henry is an adult) seemed like such a romantic concept to me. Turns out the real story was much more down-to-earth. And that much more disappointing.

2. Maybe I'm a stodgy grandma dressed up as a gal in my late-20s, but I don't like a heart-warming love story spanning space and time to use unnecessarily ugly words. And by ugly words, I mean dropping the F-bomb...for no good reason...literally 3 pages after I had thought to myself, "Okay, there's a wee bit of sex in this book, but at least they haven't said the F-word." And then, BAM! There it was.

And then there's the C-word. I rank this above the F-bomb, in terms of sheer offensive-ness. Is offensive-ness a word? Probably not. Anyway...the C-word I refer to is not as benign as crap. The C-word I refer to is...stay with me here (and keep in mind that this site is a family place)...the C-word refers to...ummm, lady parts. And that's all I'm gonna say. Move along, people, nothing to see here. I'm going to go blush and stammer to myself for a few minutes. I'll be back.

All right, I'm back. And let's never even allude to that word again after this post is over. However, in the interests of a fair review, I will explain my problem with its use in this novel. First, like the F-bomb, it has no place in this type of novel. Second, it's an offensive term (am I getting repetitive yet?) that no self-respecting woman would ever use to refer to herself in any way whatsoever.

**Definitely a spoiler alert**
3. I hate a love story with a sad, tear-jerker ending. It's just inappropriate that when two people have managed to overcome the limitations of time itself that they can't live happily ever after. It is my understanding that the movie ends differently than the book. It's the only reason I plan to actually watch it. Yes, I was that disappointed with the book -- I actually contemplated not watching the movie.

And so, as with all my recent book reviews, I have to give this one a rating. And sadly, I have to rank this one low. The lowest rating I've given so far.

It gets...** (2-stars). Sorry, TTW.

I Am Scout

2010-03-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

My favorite book of all time is To Kill A Mockingbird. I think I read for the first time when I was about 10 or 11. When I read it for the first time, I remember thinking it was funny, and that I liked Scout's spunk. And for whatever reason...reasons lost long ago in time and space (name that movie), I kept coming back to TKaM. Over the years after that, I averaged reading it about once a year -- usually in the summers, when I had a little free time. In fact, I remember my mother's old copy of the novel traveling with us nearly every summer that my family drove to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (at least 9 years).

As I mentioned above, I have my Mom to thank for giving me my first copy of TKaM. She went to my high school back when they sold students the books instead of renting them out for the year. So my Mom kept her copy from freshman English. I found it in a box in our basement one summer, along with copies of Swiss Family Robinson and The Illustrated Man. Even though I've read all those books and read them each multiple times, Mockingbird was always my favorite.

For the past 6 years, I've been an English teacher and had the pleasure of teaching this novel in my classroom. I hope that at least a few of my students see the same potential I saw in Mockingbird: humor, good morals, family values, and most of all, a darn good story. I hope at least one will find a copy of this book someday and re-read it and think: "This story is as good as Mrs. Miller always tried to tell me it was." That's the hope, anyway.

And so, due to my love of Mockingbird, I've always been interested in other aspects of the novel: it's autobiographical nature (the story is based on Harper Lee's early years in Monroeville, Alabama and many characters are loosely based on people from the neighborhood where she grew up), Harper Lee's unlikely friendship with the...difficult Truman Capote (she wrote large chunks of In Cold Blood, but received very little credit for her contributions -- she was even listed second in the dedication, behind Truman's lover), and finally, why Mockingbird was something of a one-hit-wonder -- Harper Lee never published another novel.

All of these issues, and many more besides, are addressed in Charles Shield's biography, I Am Scout. And unlike other biographies (and most nonfiction, truth be told), I was fascinated. The book is engagingly written and reads like a good book -- not your typical biography. It's informative and fun and has lots of pictures.

Oh, yes, and it's because of all these things that I Am Scout is so appealing to students. I use this book in both my junior American Lit. class (which reads Mockingbird) and in my senior Contemporary Lit. class (which reads In Cold Blood).

Overall, this is a great book and I recommend it to those who are bored with more common non-fiction offerings.

The Time Traveler's Wife

2010-03-21T11:10:00.000-07:00

I'm starting this book today. I've been wanting to read it for a really long time. And I had to read it before I saw the movie. It's just not the same to read a book post-movie. I already know what's going to happen, and if the movie was disappointing, then I really lose all enthusiasm for what might be a really good book.

As a devoted bookworm, that would be a real tragedy.

The Basketball Belly

2010-03-20T22:03:00.000-07:00

This has been a great year for many reasons...

Hubby got a great new job.

The basketball team went 21-8 and we won our conference outright for the first time since 1984 (when our big man's dad was on the team).

I got to go to the State Cheerleading Competition for the second time. Always fun to spend time with the girls and coaches.

But, like all good things, this year will come to an end.

Unfortunately (at least at the moment), I have a souvenir to remind me of this year: my basketball belly.

You see, basketball season, particularly when your hubby coaches AND works as an administrator AND is the Athletic Director, is all about late dinners. When will he be home? And, "Hey, we beat our cross-town rivals! Let's go out for a late dinner and celebrate!" (And celebrating usually involves nachos...oh, nachos...)

Anyway...

Since this was a particularly good season, with lots of nights of celebrating with lots half-priced appetizers at a local restaurant (don't judge...I hadn't had any dinner), I gained a little more than my normal winter weight.

I used to joke that I gained weight every winter just like bears do before they hibernate. A particularly apt joke, considering my deep and abiding love of sleep. But this winter's weight gain was a little on the ridiculous side and I need to be getting something of a grip on the situation.

And so I have come to two dramatic conclusions. (I know you're on the edge of your seat for these announcements...aren't you? ...............Hello? Is this thing on?

........Anyway.............

Conclusion #1: I will not do even one tiny spec of clothes shopping, not even for accessories, until I have gotten some control over the situation. If you're sitting there, stunned into silence, and shaking your head, believe me, I know how unlikely and drastic such a course of action sounds. But it's the best incentive I could think of to actually achieve results.

*Possible side effects of Conclusion #1: Getting to go shopping for lots of new, and exceptionally cute clothes in a smaller size.

Conclusion #2: I will share the story of my quest here, with you -- the good, the bad, and the ugly (my first ab workout will likely fall into the ugly category). Triumphs and utter failures. Nothing will be off limits. Heaven help you all.

Wish me luck. I'll report back tomorrow with my Day 1 Workout.

Spring Fever

2010-03-20T20:13:00.000-07:00

I have Spring fever.

This past week was a tease. Warmer than its been in months. Sunny. Birds chirping. You know.

I celebrated! I leaped, I sang, I frolicked. I painted my toenails bright red.

And then today happened. 40 degrees. Spritzing rain. Windy.

Crappy.

And all I have to say is: "WHY?!?!?!"

Desperately hoping Spring returns ASAP,
Kristen

A Christmas to Remember

2009-12-29T22:44:00.001-08:00

Man, do I have a great family! =] This Christmas, I asked for (begged, pleaded, bribed...) lots of kitchen equipment. Basically stuff that I didn't register for when I got married, because I thought I'd never used it. And now, having realized how often I cook and how helpful some of these things are, I don't want to have to buy them myself! haha!

So what was on this year's wish list? So happy you asked. Here ya go!

1. Dutch oven (at least 7 qt.)
2. French rolling pin
3. *Large* mixing bowls

I had heard of Dutch ovens previously, but never figured I would make enough soups in enough quantities to justify owning one. Little did I know that those suckers are darned useful for making just about anything. So I got a 7 qt. creamy white Martha Stewart Dutch oven from my parents (Love it! Thanks!!) and a Lodge Ware 3 qt. Dutch oven from the hubby (who listened to and remembered me ranting and raving about how much I wanted/needed/demanded a Dutch oven -- he's the best!).

I also already have a rolling pin. It's a traditional, granite pin by Kitchen Aid and, like nearly everything I registered for, it was dishwasher safe. But the spring that enabled the pin to turn properly apparently was not dishwasher safe and rusted terribly. Leading to a situation where, the second or third time I used the thing, I took it out of the dishwasher after cleaning it and rust-colored water ran out of the handle area onto my foot. I know what you're thinking: "Ewwwww!" And you know what? You're right! That's exactly what I yelled at the very top of my lungs. So in addition to the Martha Dutch oven, my parents also got me a French rolling pin. It will be ideal for rolling out the crusts for my favorite apple tarts.

Now, let me say that I have mixing bowls. But I didn't have really huge, honkin' mixing bowls that I could mix up say, a double batch of homemade meatballs in. Well, now I do (thank you to my mother-in-law, Linda). This set comes with 4 nesting, stainless steel bowls and airtight lids for each. The bowls are dishwasher safe, and have already been put to good use mixing up a batch of the aforementioned meatballs.

Finally, let me say that I am blessed to be able to cook for family and friends and do so often. This past year has been an amazing one, with a visit from my best friend this past summer and several family lunches and dinners with both my and my husband's family.

I'm a lucky girl. And I'm lucky to share it with you. Happy Christmas! Happy 2010. May this new year be even better than the previous.

*Details in a future post about our New Year's Eve party and all the yummies we served. =]

Oreo Truffles

2009-12-17T10:58:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day of final exams. Which means that all my grades had to be finished yesterday so that students would know their grade going into finals. Which meant that last night, for the first night in a long time, I had -- wait for it -- nothing to grade! Bliss! Joy! Rapture!

Which meant I couldn't wait to get home and cook something. So for my project, I picked something I could bring to school and share:

Oreo Truffles

Ingredients:
1 package Oreos
1 8 oz. block of Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened
1 lb. of chocolate (I used Dove Milk Chocolate Silky Squares, but have also covered the truffles in white chocolate, turning them into Inside-Out Oreos)

Directions:
Break up a package of Oreos into chunks and place in a food processor. Process until smooth (no chunks in thr truffles!). Add the softened cream cheese and process until the mixture comes together (generally, you'll know this has happened when the mixture forms a shiny clump on one side of the food processor's bowl). Using a small ice cream scooper (mine is 1-inch in diameter), scoopt the Oreo mixture out onto a wax paper- or parchment-lined cookie sheet. Refrigerate for 15-20 minutes. While mixture cools, melt chocolate in a double boiler.* Remove cooled mixture from the refrigerator, roll scoops into balls and dip in melted chocolate. I used forks to remove the balls from the melted chocolate so that the excess could drip off. Place chocolate-covered balls onto another wax paper- or parchment-lined cookie sheet and refrigerate overnight.

These are incredibly rich, so enjoy them with a large glass of milk handy.

*If you don't own a traditional double boiler, or, like me, discovered that chocolate burns easily in a traditional double boiler, try this trick:
Place a glass bowl over a pot of gently simmering water. Make sure the bowl isn't touching the water. Congratulations! You've just created a homemade double boiler. Chocolate (or anything else you're in the mood to melt) will melt more slowly, but I've never burned chocolate using this method.

Cheddar Dill Scones

2009-12-04T07:34:00.000-08:00

I am so behind on my blog postings! I don't know where the time goes these days. Not only that, but the last few posts I have managed to squeeze in, I forgot to upload pictures.

So this weekend, I will be trying to rectify this situation. I will be doing my best to get my lst few posts' pictures inserted in their proper spots, as well as blogging some of my recent kitchen antics.

For now, however, here's a recipe I tried recently for cheddar dill scones. Like so many others in my repertoire, it's a Barefoot Contessa recipe. In making these, I did learn several important lessons, however, which I will now share:

1. Ina's stand mixer is bigger than mine. In the future, I will cut her scone recipes in half.
2. Read the manual for the food processor's shedding attachment before just blithely assuming you know how to use it.
3. Invest in a cookie or biscuit butter for future scone-making. Some of my "free-hand cuts" were a little too generous.
4. Read the whole recipe over again before putting scones in the oven to avoid the inevitable baked-on mess when I realize that I forgot to sprinkle cheddar over the top of the scones before baking.
5. Make sure all your ingredients are very, very cold. The butter needs to be very cold so that once the scones are in the oven, the water in the butter will evaporate and create steam, which makes the scones puffy and delightful.

Overall, these were very good. Buttery, rich, and they made the whole house smell heavenly. Quite indulgent, and best served in small portions! I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Cheddar Dill Scones:

Ingredients:
4 cups, plus 1 Tablespoon of all-purpose flour, divided
2 Tablespoons baking powder
2 Teaspoons salt
3/4 lb. cold unsalted butter, diced
4 extra large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup cold heavy cream
1/2 lb. sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 cup fresh minced dill
1 egg beaten with 1 Tablespoon of milk, for the egg wash

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Combine 4 cups flour, baking powder, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.
3. Add the butter and mix on low until the butter is in pea-sized pieces.
4. Mix the eggs and heavy cream and then add quickly to the flour-and-butter mixture. Combine until blended.
5. Toss together the cheddar, dill, and 1 Tablespoon of flour and add to dough. Mix together until just incorporated.
6. Dump the dough untila well-floured surface and kneed for 1 minute until the cheddar and dill are well-distributed.
7. Roll the dough out until it's 3/4 inch thick.
8. Cut dough into 4-inch squares and then cut in half diagonally to make triangles.
9. Brush the tops with egg wash and bake on a baking sheet for 20-25 minutes until the outside is browned and crispy and the inside is fully baked.

Vegetable Lentil Soup

2009-11-12T16:28:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm starting to get that Christmasy urge -- the one that makes me believe it's totally sensible to stay up till midnight stringing lights just so on the Christmas tree, or re-arrange the furniture to accomodate another Christmas tree, or generally string tinsel and garland over anything and anyone foolish enough to stand still while I rush about in a holiday frenzy. Some people would write this off to a typical young married woman's urge to create the "perfect holiday," something that no sane person has ever attempted, nor achieved. No, in truth, I rush around and get too little sleep because I truly believe this is the most wonderful time of the year. There's a feeling I get at the holidays that I don't really have any other time of the year -- everyone is kinder and friendlier (unless your holding the last Tickle-Me-Elmo doll still available for purchase, in which case, people are vicious, but still...).

Anyway, for several years (ever since I got married, as it turns out), I have been wanting to make soups in the late fall. Thick, luxurious, warming soups that I can eat with a chunk of warm crusty bread while curled under a fleecy blanket. Don't that sound wonderful? Ah, but sadly, life has always gotten in the way: there are errands to run, papers to grade, clothes to launder...you know what I mean.

But this year, I vowed, would be the year that I actually followed through and made...something!

So tonight, on my way home from school, I stopped at the store and picked up the ingredients for Vegetable Lentil Soup. Overall, it came together easily and is bubbling merrily away as I sit here, typing. For anyone keeping track, this is yet another Ina Garten recipe, although healthier than most of her other recipes. I liked that too -- I need to be watching my girlish figure as we head into the holidays (the better to scarf down my grandmother's cookies and other assorted goodies on Christmas Day!).

Vegetable Lentil Soup
Slightly Adapted from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

Ingredients:
1 pound French green lentils
4 cups chopped yellow onions (3 large onionss)
4 cups chopped leeks, white part only (about 2 leeks)
1 Tablespoon minced garlic (about 3 cloves) -- I used more; I love garlic!
1/4 cup good olive oil
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper
1 Tablespoon minced fresh thyme leaves (or about 1 teaspoon dried thyme)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
3 cups medium-diced celery (8 stalks)
3 cups medium-diced carrots (4-6 carrots)
*2 cans diced tomatoes
3 quarts chicken stock
1/4 cup tomato paste
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

**Denotes my addition to the recipe -- I never met a vegetable soup that I didn't want to add more veggies to!

Directions:
In a large bowl, cover the lentils with boiling water and allow to sit for 15 minutes. Drain and set aside.

In a large stockpot on medium heat, saute the onions, leeks, and garlic with the olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme, and cumin for about 20 minutes, until the vegetables are translucent and very tender. Add the celery and carrots and saute for 10 more minutes. Add the chicken stock, tomato paste, and lentils. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer uncovered for 1 hour, until the lentils are cooked through. Double check the seasonings and adjust if needed. Serve hot and enjoy!

Christmas Cookie Ornaments

2009-11-11T15:41:00.000-08:00

I have given in...

It's only November 11th, and in the past week I have caught myself humming Christmas carols, planning holiday cooking, scheming ways to sneakily purchase Christmas gifts, and generally getting into the Christmas spirit nearly a month too early.

Each time I realize I'm doing one of these things I guiltily force myself to stop. I caution myself to enjoy each day (it's been ludicrously warm around here lately, so it hasn't been difficult to do that...but still...), stop and smell the roses, whatever I can to distract myself from Christmasy thoughts.

Well, I officially give up. I've thrown in the towel, I'm waving the white flag -- basically, pick your favorite metaphor for surrendering -- I"m doing it!

I found a recipe at allrecipes.com for a white cookie dough ornament. In the past, I've made gingerbread-looking ornaments with cinnamon, but hadn't found a good recipe for a white flour/bread dough-type ornament....until now.

Yesterday I made a double-batch of the ornament dough and stuck it in the fridge before running errands and going back to work for a couple hours. The dough was simple, came together easily, and has only three (inexpensive) ingredients. Today I had lots of fun cutting out all sorts of shapes using cookie cutters, and even worked on a couple free-form ornaments.

Best of all (or the worst, depending on your perspective), the house smells like baking sugar cookies. It's wonderful for the house to smell so good, but the downside is that the dough isn't meant to be eaten. Let me say again: THIS IS AN INEDIBLE RECIPE!!!

Here's the recipe. I'll be posting pictures of cookies as they are finished.

Christmas Ornament Cookie Dough:
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup salt
1 1/2 cup of warm water

Combine flour and salt in a bowl and mix well. Slowly add water, mixing as you go. When all the water has been incorporated, stir well (no need to worry about developing those glutens!). When you've mixed the dough as well as possible in the bowl, dump onto a well-floured board and knead until the dough is smooth and supple. You can either use the dough immediately or refrigerate it until ready to use.

When you are ready to make cookies, you can either pull, squish, and squeeze pleasing shapes from the dough or roll it to about 1/4 inch thick and cut using cookie cutters. Either way works well.

Place the cookies on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake at 325 degrees for about an hour.

*Mine got a little brown after an hour, so for the second batch I cut the cooking time to around 45 minutes. Bottom line: use your best judgment.

For decorating cookie dough ornaments, I have found that using fabric paint (also known as "puffy paint," those of us alive in the '80s probably remember this as the last word in fashionable t-shirts) accurately simulates the look of royal icing on cookies. After that, I raid the local craft store for buttons, beads, etc. -- anything that resembles candies, dragees, and other decorations.

French Apple Tart

2009-09-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

*Pictures Coming Soon!*

As I think I've mentioned in the past, I'm a little addicted to watching the Food Network. One of my favorite shows is Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa. I know a lot of people (including my parents...hi, Mom and Dad!) who think she's dull as dishwater to watch, but everything she makes always looks so good and is so simple. Perhaps the problem isn't that her show is dull, but that people are easily bored by the deceptively simple (yet awesome) recipes she makes. Either way, I've yet to find a recipe from Barefoot Contessa that hasn't become a fast favorite.

Today's recipe was slightly scarier than my average Ina recipe, however. You see, I have a mental block/phobia regarding my ability to make pastries, breads, biscuits, etc. I believe my phobia on the subject goes back to the first year I was married and tried to follow a recipe for homemade buttermilk biscuits. Somehow, instead of being a sticky, but cohesive dough, what I got was a *liquid* (I know, ewwwwww, right?). Anyway, I have shied away from recipes of that sort ever since (the closest I've come since is baking up a can of those Pillsbury whomp biscuits -- so named because you have to whomp the tube on the counter to get the biscuits out -- and yes, whomp is a technical term). But I digress...

What was scary about the French apple tart recipe was that it called for making my own pastry. Granted, this looks easy as can be when Ina does it on TV, but remember, I have a phobia. So it was with great trepidation (look it up, it's really a word) ;) that I started today's project. In case things went badly, I didn't take any pictures of the pastry-making part of the recipe. But here's the thing. It really WAS easy. It actually worked EXACTLY the way Ina said it would. And now, as the smell of simmering apples and cinnamon (I tweaked Ina's original recipe just a tad) fills my kitchen, I relax, sniff appreciatively, and say to you, Happy Fall! I also say to you, go make this! Right now!

French Apple Tart

Adapted From: Barefoot Contessa: Back to Basics "Easy French"

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* (I only used 3 and had left-overs)
1/2 cup sugar* (I only used a heaping 1/4 cup -- the apples were plenty sweet already)
Cinnamon, to taste*
Just a tad of freshly grated nutmeg*
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) cold unsalted butter, small diced
1/2 cup apricot jelly or warm sieved apricot jam (I forgot to add this.)
2 tablespoons Calvados, rum, or water (I forgot to add this too. The moral? Never multi-task and make dinner while making dessert.)
*Denotes my additions/changes.

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.
*45 minutes was plenty of time.

Isn't She Lovely?

2009-09-07T18:19:00.000-07:00

Today, in honor of my friend Cari's birthday tomorrow, I made my famous (or infamous, depending on whether or not you ask my parents about it) homemade angelfood cake. Normally, this cake (which first appeared several months ago in my blog) is flavored with lemon zest. However, in honor of Cari's birthday, I went with orange zest for this particular cake. Rebellious, yes? Then, just to prove what a wild and crazy person I really am, I covered the whole she-bang (technical term) with a semi-sweet chocolate ganache. As the title says, isn't she lovely?

Presto! Pesto

2009-09-01T14:10:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything recently, not because there's nothing going on in my kitchen, but because I've been so darned busy! Between the husband's promotion at work (!!!) and going back to school, I've been busier than a one-armed paper hanger (as the saying goes).

But as I said above, that doesn't mean I've neglected my cooking...just my blog (oops). Anyway, despite being busier than ever before, I'm going to try to catch you up with all my recent cookery. For now, however, I'll leave you with last night's uber-fast dinner:

Whole Wheat Linguini with Homemade Basil-Spinach Pesto

I used Barilla Whole Wheat Linguini and cooked it according to the package directions. Of all the different types of whole wheat pasta I've tried, I think this one is the best (I find many walk a fine line between being beyond chewy and needing to be boiled to mush just so I can chew it).

Anyway, the biggest and most delightful surprise of my night was the pesto; one of a series of things I've thrown together in my food processor recently (I love that little gadget!). Here's how to make your own (and keep in mind that I just wandered the supermarket, grabbing things that looked interesting).

Ingredients:
1 package (about a cup) basil
4 cups baby spinach
1/4 cup toasted pinenuts
1/4 cup toasted walnuts
3-4 cloves chopped garlic (don't stress about chopping it, remember it's going in a food pro.)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
Olive oil as needed

Directions:
Roughly chop the basil and spinach and dump it in the food processor. Add the garlic and the toasted pine nuts and walnuts, and parmesan cheese. Blend until combined, scraping down the bowl as needed. Once combined and with the lid on and motor running, stream in olive oil until the pesto reaches the desired consistency (I think I used between a 1/2 cup and 3/4 cup of olive oil -- I liked the chunkier texture). Toss room temperature pesto well with pasta and serve with additional parmesan cheese if you like.

*For those of you who are counting, this is the second recipe I made up all by myself! =]

Pasta Salad with Homemade Vinaigrette

2009-07-26T20:44:00.000-07:00

We grilled tonight (as you can plainly see). We couldn't decide what to grill, so we grilled a little of everything. If you look closely at the back of the picture, you can see the grilled tilapia. This was our first experience grilling fish and I was a little worried we'd be scraping umm..."blackened" fish off the grill by the end. I should have had more faith in hubby's grilling skills; as well as in my prep skills. I doused the filets liberally in olive oil and rubbed it in well. Then I used some Pampered Chef Sweet and Smoky Barbeque rub on the fish. I love this rub and it goes particularly well with fish. The fish was absolutely delicioius! Perfection! Major props to me (and hubby!). =] As you can see from the picture, we also had burgers and hot dogs. Hubby does a great hamburger -- I season the patties with salt and pepper and while they are grilling he bastes them periodically with barbeque sauce. The hot dogs are Hebrew National. I love their slogan ("No Ifs, Ands, or Butts!") and their dogs are yummy too!

But for me, the highlight of dinner was the pasta salad I made. I didn't really have much of an idea of what I was going to make to begin with. I knew I wanted to make something healthy that would provide plenty of left-overs for lunch this coming week. So I wandered the grocery store and picked out some veggies, all familiar favorites: a red pepper, a cucumber, a pint of grape tomatoes, and a handful of green onions. My plan was starting to come together. When I got home I boiled about 1 1/2 cups of Barilla Piccolini pasta. While that was boiling, I chopped my veggies (I meant to take a picture, but forgot). Finally, with about 2 minutes to go until the pasta was ready (I should have done this first), I started to make my vinaigrette. I was basically just throwing things together, but it turned out so well that I may never buy salad dressing again!

Homemade Vinaigrette:

2 tablespoons dijon mustard

1 tablespoon whole grain mustard

1 heaping tablespoon minced garlic

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/2 tablespoon dried parsley (I would have used fresh, but forgot to pick some up, so I improvised)

Blend all ingredients on low in a blender, then with the motor running, stream in olive oil until desired consistency is reached. I used about 1/2 cup (guesstimate) and my vinaigrette was VERY thick.

I drained my pasta, then dumped in into a large bowl and covered it with about half the vinaigrette and tossed (so the sauce could soak into the warm pasta), then added all the chopped veggies. Finally I poured the rest of the vinaigrette over the top and tossed the whole thing well.

This is the first recipe I ever created (although I'm terribly afraid that it isn't that original), and it was wonderful. The vinaigrette tasted very similar to a caesar dressing, almost as though it had parmesan cheese in it. I'm not sure what combination of ingredients did that, but it was a fortuitous coincidence.

This would be a great, simple salad to take to a picnic or potluck because it can sit at room temperature., for hours, if necessary. I plan to make this again and often! You should too! =]

Multigrain English Muffins

2009-07-26T19:19:00.000-07:00

This weekend marked the second recipe that Emily and I chose to make and blog about together. This week, Emily chose the recipe: Multigrain English Muffins. I was excited to make these since I enjoyed Emily's multigrain bread recipe. Interestingly, the weekend we chose to make the muffins was also the weekend that my husband and I redecorated our guest bedroom. Although I guess I can't technically say we *redecorated*, since that implies that the room was decorated before. And being used for storage and generally looking like a dump isn't exactly what I'd call the latest in interior design. So, where was I? Oh, yes, we were decorating, and the last thing we had to do was hang the curtains. No problem, right? Ha -- that just shows you know nothing about me!

I started the muffins early and then left them to rise for the first time while hubby and I tackled the curtains. The curtains were ironed and hung with the maximum amount of trauma and cursing, and then I returned to check on the dough. It was supposed to rise for an hour and "double in size." Ummm...I was willing to swear under oath that the stuff hadn't moved. Huh. Around this time, Emily texted me. Her dough wasn't rising either. Okay, now, I wasn't looking forward to making and baking multigrain hockey pucks, but it was comforting to know that it wasn't necessarily my fault. After a series of texts, we agreed to leave the dough to rise for another hour. Then, regardless of how it looked, we would roll the muffins out and cut them out. I was still apprehensive, but hey, at least we had a plan.

As you can clearly see from the pictures, despite my fears, things turned out very well. The dough didn't rise nearly as much as the original recipe claimed. Overall, the muffins were very good. I've eaten them with butter and jam, used them as hamburger buns, and had them toasted with scrambled eggs. I plan to make these again, and soon! Thanks to Emily for a great recipe.

Multigrain English Muffins (Recipe Copied From The View From the Thirty-Second Floor):

Ingredients:

adapted from Martha Stewart, June 2009
Makes 13 muffins

1/2 cup warm water
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 teaspoon unsalted butter
2 3/4 cups white/wheat flour
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 tablespoon course salt
1/4 cup flax seeds
3/4 cup milk

Combine warm water, honey, yeast and butter in the bottom of your mixer. Let stand for 5 minutes or until foamy. Make sure the dough smells like yeast or is foamy. You want to make sure you activate the yeast. Combine the flour, wheat germ, salt and flax seeds in a separate bowl. With the dough hook attachment, turn your mixer on and slowly add in the dry ingredients. Pour in the milk. Mixture will form a ball. Let the mixer run for about 5 minutes to knead the dough. (You can knead the dough by hand if you don't have a stand mixer)

Turn the dough out onto the counter and knead just a few times. Put the dough into a bowl brushed lightly with oil so that the dough doesn't stick. Turn the oven on warm and put the bowl on top of your oven, cover with a dish towel and let rise for 2 hours. The dough will not rise much, so don't panic. Turn the dough out onto the counter and knead for 1 minute. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin to 1/2 inch thick. Use a 3 inch ring cutter to form 13 dough rounds. Place the muffins onto a baking sheet, lined with parchment paper. Cover the muffins with a dish towel and let rise again, for at least 30 minutes.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Place English Muffins on the skillet in batches. Cook the muffin for 7 minutes on each side. The muffin will brown - don't let it burn. Take muffins off once they are cooked on both sides. Cool. Serve immediately or put in the freezer and take them out one at a time as needed.

Homemade Oreo Cookies

2009-07-06T20:37:00.000-07:00

** Just before the tip popped off my piping bag.

**My iced cappucchino made it into this picture! =] Oh, and that red tea kettle? It was a wedding present from Emily of T.V.F.T.T.S.F. fame! =]

Ahh...the ice cream scooper. One of my favorite multi-taskers.

Recently my friend Emily (of The View From the Thirty-Second Floor) and I have started a blog project that was originally suggested by my husband. In the spirit of the Tuesdays with Dorie group, Emily and I are going to jointly choose a recipe, make it (she in Chicago, and I down St. Louis way), and then blog about it. This way, we can both try new recipes, something I know we both want to do more often. As our inaugural recipe, we chose the Homemade Oreo Cookie recipe from Smitten Kitchen. Now, as some of you are probably aware, I consider myself something of an Oreo lover (an Oreo fiend is how my husband once described it). So I was highly skeptical about achieving an authentic Oreo taste. Here's how things went down:

I came home from teaching summer school today, grabbed a quick lunch with the hubbie, and then sent him off to open gym so that I could have the kitchen to myself (being married to a basketball coach is so convenient sometimes). The cookie dough came together very quickly, although I was surprised that the dry ingredients were mixed together before adding the wet ones (that's pretty much backwards from every other cookie recipe I've ever made). According to the directions, rounded teaspoons of dough were to be spaced 2 inches apart on a parchment lined cookie sheet. How fortunate that I had a tiny ice cream scoop to use to scoop up and drop the dough. I can't emphasize what a great time-saving measure this is. Plus, the cookies were tiny enough that lots could fit on a single cookie sheet, so I got them all baked in two batches
(even more awesome!). While the cookies were baking, I mixed up the cream center for the cookies. According to Smitten's directions, she piped the icing centers on the cookies and it was easy as could be (she noted that having to ice the cookies individually would be an "unholy p.i.t.a." -- I couldn't agree more). Dutifully following directions, I got out, assembled, and filled my piping bag...and promptly squeezed the tip right out the end of it! Note: for future reference, use a Ziploc bag, snip off the corner, then throw it away and be done with it.

Overall, this was a fairly easy recipe to complete, leaving me plenty of time afterward to clean up the kitchen and even (seriously!) clean and redecorate my spare bedroom (I promise I'm not making that up.) before hubbie got home.

I excercised some serious self-restraint and didn't even sample thecookies until hubbie could join me. Together we each ate a cookie. Here are my first impressions, uncensored:

"Umm...the cookies are chewy. I've NEVER eaten a CHEWY Oreo."

"Hey, the creamy center tastes just like the center of an Oreo. I rock!"

"Dang, this thing just sucked all the moisture out of my mouth. Need. Milk. NOW!"

Overall, these are pretty tasty, but, at least in my mind, can't hold a candle to a real Oreo. Of course, there is an unexpected up-side to this recipe. As my husband pointed out, these are undoubtedly better for you than an actual Oreo. But is healthy eating really the reason we eat Oreos?? =]

Homemade Oreo Cookies

For the chocolate wafers:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar [see recipe note]

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter

1 large egg

For the filling:

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter

1/4 cup vegetable shortening

2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Set two racks in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 375°F.

In a food processor, or bowl of an electric mixer, thoroughly mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. While pulsing, or on low speed, add the butter, and then the egg. Continue processing or mixing until dough comes together in a mass.

Take rounded teaspoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately two inches apart. With moistened hands, slightly flatten the dough. Bake for 9 minutes, rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool.

To make the cream, place butter and shortening in a mixing bowl, and at low speed, gradually beat in the sugar and vanilla. Turn the mixer on high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.

To assemble the cookies, in a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch, round tip, pipe teaspoon-size blobs of cream into the center of one cookie. Place another cookie, equal in size to the first, on top of the cream. Lightly press, to work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie. Continue this process until all the cookies have been sandwiched with cream. Dunk generously in a large glass of milk.

Recipe Note (This is from Smitten Kitchen's original posting):

Let’s talk about the sugar for a minute, shall we? This is a sweet cookie. A good, sweet cookie. Yet, if you think of an actual Oreos, the wafers are fairly un-sweet and actually on the slightly salty side, which contrasts with the super-sweetness of the filling bringing harmony, happiness, yada yada. If you want your cookie closer to that original, you can take out a full half-cup of the sugar. If you want to make the cookie by itself, go ahead and use the full amount.

Note: I plan to make these cookies again to use for ice cream sandwich cookies.

Strawberry Fields

2009-06-27T21:00:00.000-07:00

I had to post and brag about the wonderful produce we've been enjoying lately. So far this summer I've had gorgeous, juicy peaches and nectarines, as well as kiwis and magoes. But perhaps my all-time favorite fruit, and most recent purchase were strawberries.

These particular berries were Driscoll Organic berries. As we all know, organic produce is often more expensive than other produce. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the non-organic berries were almost a dollar more expensive than these little gems. Score one for me!

I also must confess that I did absolutely nothing to these berries except to wash them, blot them dry gently, and eat them! Delicious!

My Ace of Cakes Episode

2009-06-22T21:09:00.001-07:00

This past year our school stopped sponsoring seasonal sports banquets, and instead each team was responsible for organizing their own. At the very end of the year (we procrastinate), Adam was finally able to schedule and hold the basketball team banquet. I will gladly take full credit for the banquet: I called the caterer, reserved the school's courtyard, and...made the cake.

Let me pause and digress here: I'm addicted to watching the Food Network, and one of my favorite shows to catch in the evening is Ace of Cakes. I love to watch the cast members of the show push the envelope in terms of creativity with food. When watching Food Network, I often want to jump up and start cooking whatever is currently on the screen. Perhaps that was the origin of my recent...shall we say, delusions of grandeur?

Here's what happened:

As I said, I made the cake for the banquet and knew going in that it would have to be a fairly big cake (in total I made 4 9x13 sheet cakes and smooshed (technical term) them together). Now, since this needed to be done quickly, I caved and used cake mixes to save time, as well as store bought icing. Still, I began baking the day before the banquet at 3:30pm and was about finished at 8pm. As I pulled the last sheet cake from the oven, the glass Pyrex dish slipped from my hands. Despite my best efforts to save the pan (which was a toasty 350 degrees at the time of the incident), the pan fell from my hands, bounced off the door of my oven, and crashed to the floor (naturally, all of this seemed to happen in slow motion). Even today, nearly two months later, I can't remember exactly what I did in the moment of silence that followed the shattering of the pan. I do remember that in the process of cleaning up the mess I employed an omelet spatula given to us as a wedding present (thanks, Aunt Kathy!). As I flipped broken glass-embedded cake into the trash, I noticed my husband bent over a particularly large piece of cake. As I watched in horror, he scooped up some cake and ATE IT!! That was it! It was getting late, I was going to have to go back to the store, not just for another cake mix, but also to find another PAN to bake in, and the cake wasn't going to get iced until the next day. Irritably I told my husband (whom I love more than life itself), "So help me, if you swallow glass and cut your own throat, I will not be the one to drive you to the hospital!" After that melodramatic rant, I flung myself crying into my car and drove to Walmart for cake mix and a pan.

Needless to say, things weren't as bad as they seemed. I came home and finished baking, apologized for yelling at the hubby (who was quite understanding about the whole incident, really), and even got a couple hours of sleep.

The next day I approached the cake with a new caffeine-spiked optimism. As I said, I was inspired by Ace of Cakes. With that in mind, and sipping from the largest cup of coffee Starbucks would sell me, I cut into the cake, shaping it into a basketball jersey. And it didn't look too shabby, if I do say so myself. Next I iced the cake with white icing and then, since nothing bad had happened yet, took a stab at dying icing. With the recently dyed-red icing, I added trim to the jersey, as well as a number. Finally, just as Adam was trying to load the car and head to the banquet, I added the final detail: a tiny Nike Swoosh in the lower righthand corner. Barring minor decrepancies, I had recreated in cake one of my husband's team's home game jerseys.

It looked great and the cake was delicious. People asked me, "Will you make this again next year?" Ummm....no. I don't think I would survive another incident like this. But like I said, the cake looked pretty good in the end (in spite of all the bumps -- and crashes -- along the way).

Flying Gorillas

2009-06-21T17:53:00.000-07:00

Birthdays when I was in college were always a challenge. You see, since my birthday is in early December, it always seemed to fall on the first day of final exams or on the day before exams. In other words, my birthday was at a time when no one had the time or the inclination to celebrate. The Christmas after my 21st birthday my parents and I were shopping at the St. Louis Galleria and stopped for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. A Flying Gorilla at the Cheesecake Factory is a banana and chocolate daquiri and it was the first alcoholic drink I ever had with my parents. I think I chose to get that particular drink because it had an interesting name more than any other reason. You may have noticed from my post titles that I enjoy interesting names! =]

For the past several days my husband has been requesting that I come up with a recipe for banana chocolate chip muffins. I don't know why he suddenly began to crave that particular combination, but it works out well, since I can name that creation a Flying Gorilla. I did some recipe research online, everything from asking my friend Emily (of The View From the Thirty-Second Floor) to epicurious and foodnetwork.com. Finally, I chose to use a recipe from Tyler Florence and adapt it slightly. Overall, I was very pleased with the results. Below is the recipe from Tyler's Ultimate. Any changes I made are noted in parentheses.

Flying Gorillas

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour (I used half whole wheat flour and half A/P)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 overripe bananas
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup pecans, chopped (I used a 6 oz. bag of walnuts and chopped them roughly)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and lightly butter 2 muffin tins. (I used paper muffin liners -- easier clean-up.)

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. Mash 2 of the bananas with a fork in a small bowl so they still have a bit of texture. With an electric mixer fitted with a wire whisk, whip the remaining bananas and sugar together like you mean it, for a good 3 minutes (I whipped all four bananas, at hubby's request). Add the melted butter, eggs, and vanilla and beat well, scraping down the sides of the bowl once or twice. Mix in the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Fold in the nuts and the mashed bananas with a rubber spatula. Spoon the batter into the muffin tins to fill them about halfway (I used a 1 1/2 inch ice cream scoop to get even muffins).

Give them a rap on the counter to get any air bubbles out (this was a good idea -- I'll do this with other muffins, brownies, etc. in the future).

Bake until a toothpick stuck in the muffins comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes (these were ready after 18 minutes in my oven). Let cool for a few minutes before turning the muffins out. Serve warm or at room temperature.

These are delicious and I can't wait to have one for breakfast tomorrow.

Bake While the Sun Shines

2009-06-12T15:07:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here at my kitchen table typing happily, pausing often to look out my lovely big bay window into the front yard. The sun is shining, my geraniums are blooming brightly, robins are hopping about after worms, and I'm listening to some of my favorite music (thank you,Project Playlist). Even better, there's currently a zero percent chance of rain (quite a switch -- it's been so rainy here that you'd think we were living in Seattle instead of the St. Louis-area). Since it's bright and sunny out, with very low humidity and lower temperatures overall, I figured this was a good day to get the baking bug out of my system. For quite a while, I've been meaning to bake another loaf of multigrain bread (recipe in my post, "Making Bread, Breaking Bread"). And then, the other day my friend Emily posted in her blog ("The View From the Thirty-Second Floor") about baking homemade chocolate pretzels....

Clearly I was overdue for an afternoon of me-time in the kitchen with a couple new recipes and my laptop playing all my favorite tunes (currently playing: Billy Joel's Uptown Girl -- classic!). I started the afternoon by getting out all the ingredients for the chocolate pretzels. As I arranged ingredients around my stand mixer, I noticed a portion of the recipe I had failed to pay any attention to...the butter and egg needed to come to room temperature! (I know that's a "well, duh" moment, but I totally forgot about it, okay?) Anyway, I quickly rearranged my baking schedule and started with the multigrain whole wheat bread. That way, the dough could rest while I prepared the chocolate pretzel dough.

The multigrain bread has fast become a favorite of mine, as its exterior is crusty and crumbly and it's interior is hearty, but soft and slightly chewy. As a bread, it's so versatile too! I love using it to make toast for breakfast, but it's also incredible with sliced turkey or ham as a sandwich for lunch, or even with a dab of peanut butter for a quick snack. If summer temperatures didn't prevent me, I would probably bake a loaf every week. Unfortunately, running my oven for almost an hour in a July heat wave is a recipe for heat stroke!

I'm also trying a new recipe today: chocolate pretzels. I got the recipe for these from Emily's blog as well (what can I say, she has great ideas). Her recipe, however, originated with The Smitten Kitchen, a blog that I have begun to follow as well. Smitten makes so many appealing treats, including homemade marshmallows and homemade graham crackers (used in what I can only assume were the ultimate s'mores). I have to say, you have to admire, and slightly fear, a pregnant woman who voluntarily makes s'mores from scratch in order to enjoy really good s'mores. Me, I always assumed that ANY s'more was a good s'more! But I obviously have much to learn!

I'll definitely be trying to make homemade marshmallows, etc. once. We'll see how traumatic they actually are. According to Smitten Kitchen, there's an excellent chance for me to end up wearing much of the marshmallow concoction. And while I will stipulate to the inherently messy nature of s'mores, I don't think I'd enjoy wearing them (or their individual components).

I'm sure I'll try many of the Smitten Kitchen recipes in the coming months, especially ones that don't require baking. I'm also planning to make lots of ice creams this summer (surely you remember how excited I was about my ice cream maker?!) =]

For now, my oven is preheated, and it's time to bake the bread. Another hour till the pretzel dough is ready......as Ahhr-nold would say, "I'll be back." =]

[Time Elapsed: 5 hours]

Okay, so after a really long break (and a trip to Border's for coffee and browsing), I came home and started rolling out my chocolate pretzels. After the first one broke for about the fifth time, I was ready to throw a chunk of the dough. Long story short, I made half a batch and will worry about the rest of the dough tomorrow. Or not.

For those of you who are feeling adventurous, here's the recipe:

Chocolate Pretzels

1 1/2 sticks of butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar1 egg
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 oz. good quality bittersweet chocolate, melted
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 cups flour (I used King Arthur White/Wheat Flour)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg yolk (for brushing)
Rock sugar (for sprinkling)

Place butter into mixing bowl. Mix on medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add sugars and beat for 2 minutes until butter and sugar is well combined. Beat in egg and vanilla. Mix in melted chocolate and cocoa powder. Add flour, salt and baking powder. Do not over mix. Dough will pull away from sides and form a ball in the bottom of the bowl.

Remove dough from bowl. Form into a long rectangle. Refrigerate until firm, at least 2 hours. Remove dough from fridge. Cut into 20 equal chunk portions. Roll each section into a long snake, about 10 inches long. Form dough into a circle and then twist twice at the bottom. Fold ends over to form a pretzel shape. Place on a baking sheet. Brush with egg yolk and then sprinkle with rock sugar.

Bake at 325 for 20 minutes. Pretzels will just start to harden. Transfer to a cooling rack. Do not store until completely cool.

Great Balls of...Meat!

2009-06-10T19:20:00.000-07:00

The other day I had meatball-apalooza at my house. Right after we first got married I tried out a recipe for homemade meatballs and made spaghetti and meatballs (complete with homemade marinara sauce, I might add). Adam loved the meatballs and I had made waaaaaay too many, so we froze the leftovers. As I recall, we put 5 or 6 in a Ziploc baggie and added a ladle-full of the sauce (as I recall, we filled about 8 baggies total). We discovered that this made for super simple weeknight suppers, whether we were in the mood for pasta or a meatball sub. I've made the recipe several times since then, but never got around to blogging about it. So, after last weekend's record-setting meatball-making, here I am...

It all started on Thursday night. Adam ate the last baggie of meatballs for a late dinner. He mentioned that we needed to make more of them for easy dinners (that wouldn't heat up the kitchen too badly) during the summer. I happened to have some ground chuck and sirloin in the freezer, and so took it out to thaw. In total, I thawed about 6 pounds of meat and so made a triple batch of meatballs on Saturday morning. Below is my recipe...I started with Ina Garten's recipe from foodnetwork.com and then made modifications to add depth of flavor.

Meatball Ingredients:
1 lb. ground chuck
1 lb. ground sirloin
1 cup fresh white bread crumbs (4 sandwich slices, crusts removed)
1/4 cup Italian dried bread crumbs
1-2 tablespoons dried parsley
1-2 tablespoons dried oregano
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
2 teasoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 ground nutmeg (grate it fresh, it matters)
1 extra-large egg, beaten (let the egg come to room temp., about 30 minutes...again, it matters)
Olive oil

Directions:
In a large bowl, combine the following ingredients lightly with a fork (try not to mash the mixture, as this will make the meatballs tough and hard):
-ground meats
-fresh bread crumbs
-dried bread crumbs
-parsley and oregano
-parmesan
-salt and pepper
-nutmeg
-egg

After mixing thoroughly, I used an 1 1/2 inch ice cream scooper to scoop even amounts of the meatball mixture, then rolled them lightly into balls and set them aside on a tray.

Pour about 1/4 inch of olive oil (I used classic olive oil for this instead of extra virgin because I think it gives the meatballs more flavor) into the largest skillet you own. Heat oil over medium heat. Brown meatballs in small batches (be careful not to overcrowd the skillet!) and turn the meatballs carefully with a spatula or fork (I used a large off-set spatula that I also like using to frost cakes...but I digress). Each batch takes about 8-10 minutes to brown. Drain the meatballs on a paper towel-covered plate and then transfer to a slow cooker to finish cooking. I pour in a small amount of marinara and then a layer of meatballs. Continue layering meatballs and sauce until the slow cooker is full (or you run out of meatballs). =] Let simmer on low heat for at least 2 hours.

**These are delicious fresh, but also keep very well in the freezer for up to 3 months (impressive, yes?) =]

High Steaks Cooking

2009-06-08T17:57:00.001-07:00

Today has been a busy day at my house. I got up early and did some cleaning (vacuuming, my least favorite chore), ran a bunch of errands, planted some beautiful Sprint Red begonias in between rain showers, and then started on dinner: Grilled Steak Kabobs. I started with a 2.15 lb. (it was gi-normous) London Broil steak, a fairly expensive cut, but it was recommended by my butcher. And what a great recommendation! The steak was juicy, tender, and absolutely melt-in-your-mouth delicious! I cut the steak into kabob-sized cubes (about an inch to an inch-and-a-half square), and marinated them in a homemade marinade that I've used in the past with chicken. But I can happily report that it is excellent with steak as well! I'm sure this would have been even better had the steak marinated overnight, and that's what I plan to do next time. But since Adam and I have been grilling quite a bit lately, I was craving something other than our usual burgers.

The Marinade:
One clove of garlic, minced per pound of meat
Combine 2 tablespoons of each of the following for each pound of meat:
-Olive oil
-Soy Sauce
-Honey

The Kabobs:
I soaked bamboo skewers for about an hour before loading and grilling them. In theory, this should keep the skewers from catching fire on the grill. In reality, the skewers caught fire fairly quickly and Adam and I were kept busy finding creative ways of putting them out (using tongs to grab the flames and smother them is a method I can recommend).

I loaded the skewers with the marinated steak cubes, chunks of yellow onion, and red and yellow bell peppers. Delicious!

Playing Chicken with an Enchilada

2009-05-21T19:45:00.000-07:00

Cinco de Mayo, Part 3:

How exciting! A mere 16 days after Cinco de Mayo, I'm finally finishing my posting about my amazing Mexican meal! This last post revolves around the chicken enchiladas I made for myself. As you all may recall from Cinco de Mayo, Part 1, my husband is not a fan of large chunks of vegetables in his meals (large chunks of meat? no problemo -- how 'bout that Spanish??) =] So anyway, the chicken enchiladas were for me, because they had both large chunks of veggies and green chiles, something Adam wouldn't knowingly eat if he was starving to death. So, as with the rest of my meal, I purchased ingredients for the enchiladas and hurried home to start cooking. And thus began a series of mistakes that caused dinner to be delayed until 8 p.m. For starters, I purchased large chicken breasts -- not an issue. The fact that I thought they were BONELESS, split chicken breasts when in fact I had grabbed a package of skin-on, bone-in chicken breasts --definitely an issue. Needless to say, this caused a plethora of problems:

1. Bone-in chicken breasts cook really slowly. Much slower than say, the rest of the meal.
2. Bone-in chicken breasts means that at some point, I have to remove the bones in order to shred the chicken.
3. Getting stabbed with a chicken bone while doing the afrementioned shredding does not improve one's overall mood...especially well into one's third hour of standing over a hot stove.
4. Shredding chicken breasts and suddenly realizing that the inside was actually NOT completely cooked delays dinner even more
5. Shredding partially cooked chicken breasts really decreases the likelihood that I'll want to eat them eventually, cooked or not.
6. Finding a way to finish cooking partially cooked shredded chicken breasts means that I will need to get out and get dirty every pot, pan, bowl, and utensil that I own.
7. Getting out all the aforementioned equipment means that the task of cleaning up after dinner was akin to Hercules having to clean the Aegean Stables, without the benefit of having god-like powers and simply redirecting a river.

Anyway, in spite of many (and I do mean MANY) obstacles, this meal was really tasty and turned out pretty well in the end. I can also happily report that I did not contract salmonella from the chicken bone stab wound. I can also report that the chicken was (in the end) completely cooked and very tender and juicy. Still...lesson learned.

So here's the recipe. I highly recommend it. I also highly recomment carefully reading the packaging before purchasing chicken breasts.

Ingredients:
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
1 (10 ounce) can diced tomatoes with green chile peppers
1 (14.5 ounce) can stewed tomatoes
12 small chile peppers, diced (optional)
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup
1 (14.5 ounce) can chicken broth
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1/2 pint heavy cream (I used half and half since I had some in the fridge)
6 (6 inch) corn tortillas
3 cups shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute chicken and onions until chicken is evenly brown. Stir in diced tomatoes with green chile peppers, stewed tomatoes, chile peppers, soup and broth. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat, cover skillet, and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, or until chicken is no longer pink and juices run clear.
Remove chicken from skillet, and shred when cool enough to handle. Meanwhile, allow skillet mixture to simmer and reduce to about 2 1/4 cups. In a medium bowl, combine shredded chicken and about 1/4 cup skillet mixture (just enough to make a paste like mixture). Mix together with half the chopped green onions.
In a second skillet, heat cream over low heat, being careful not to boil. Dip tortillas in the warm cream to soften and coat. Spoon about 1/3 cup chicken mixture onto each tortilla. Top chicken mixture with half the shredded cheese, and roll up tortillas. Place rolled tortillas in a 9x13 inch baking dish, seam side down, and pour remaining 2 cups of skillet mixture over the enchiladas. Cover with remaining shredded cheese, and sprinkle remaining chopped green onion over cheese. Bake uncovered in preheated oven for 25 minutes, or until cheese is melted and bubbling.

Let's Rock the Guac

2009-05-14T20:38:00.000-07:00

Cinco de Mayo Fiesta Posting, Part 2:

At this rate, I'll be done posting about my Cinco de Mayo meal by next May 5th! So, as I mentioned in a previous post, I made beef enchiladas with homemade sauce for my husband on Cinco de Mayo. For myself, I made chicken enchiladas (in my post, Cinco de Mayo, Part 3), but the highlight of the enchiladas was my homemade guacamole. I had never made guacamole before, so I printed several different recipes, read each, and then created my own. I loved it and have already made it again to eat at lunch this week. I love that something so delicious is also so healthful -- avocadoes, like pomegranates, mangoes, and cranberries, are considered a super-fruit.

Unfortunately, I don't have much of a guacamole recipe. It's more of a series of guidelines that you can adapt to suit your own needs. I would argue that this is how most recipes should be written so that we can all be creative with our food and so that it will suit our tastes. Anyway, here's how it went down.

I extracted the green stuff from 3 avocadoes (neat trick alert: after sticking a knife into the pod-thing in the middle of the green stuff, push down on it from both sides of the knife to remove it) and first tried to mash it with a fork. Ummmm...yeah. Cut to me, three minutes later dumping the mess into the food processor and hitting pulse. (I may have also yelled, "Take that, 'cado!" but we don't need to talk about that.) =] Anyway, after I had achieved *mostly* smooth avocado, I poured in some lemon juice, and about a quarter of a jar of salsa (I prefer Pace Chunky Mild, but to each his own). I mixed that it together and added a bit of salt and a lot of ground black pepper. Side note: I work with a guy who thinks pepper should be put in everything, including "the water that comes out of the tap." He's a little odd, but nice. =] Anyway, after all that was mixed together I dumped it all into a bowl and stirred in anoth quarter cup of the salsa (I love chunky stuff!) and then some finely chopped red pepper. Delish!!

Beef Enchiladas, Ole!

2009-05-10T10:06:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Too much of a good thing...is wonderful."? I seem to have taken it to heart recently in my own kitchen. My husband and I are both big fans of Mexican food. He espcially enjoys enchiladas, and so for several months I have been scouring my favorite food sites for the perfect enchilada recipe to surprise him with. There are many requirements:

1. They must be beef enchiladas.

2. They must be covered in red sauce (none of that salsa verde crap for him!).

3. They must not contain larger chunks of vegetables (although large chunks of beef are okay).

4. They should be very cheesy in addition to the beef (well, duh, isn't that what everyone wants in an enchilada???).

And then, right around Cinco de Mayo (What fabulous luck -- finding Mexian food recipes around a Mexican holiday! Man did I feel blonde after that...=] ) I found the perfect recipe. Even better, I found a recipe for homemade red sauce to layer with the beef enchiladas. Also, anything of the chunky vegetable persuasion could be pureed until you'd never know it was there...perfect.

So last Monday (Cinco de Mayo, if any of you are keeping track), I left school and went to the store to get ingredients for not one, but two kinds of enchiladas (I made chicken ones for myself, but we'll discuss that in another post). Needless to say, when picking up items for several different recipes, I sit down first and try to organize my shopping list so that I'm not dashing back and forth across the store every 5 seconds. Also, needless to say, I screwed up the list on Monday (otherwise, why would I have brought this up). And so I dashed up and down and back and forth. It was pathetic. And exhausting. And when I got home, I still had to cook. (Insert dirty words here.)

According to my calculations (and frantic re-reading of the recipe), I would need to begin with the red sauce, since it was recommended that it simmer for 2-3 hours!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Yeah, right! I was practically fainting with hunger then. How ridiculous. (Cut to me, three hours later, finally assembling the damned enchiladas and shoving them in the oven.)

Red Enchilada Sauce

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon minced onion
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
5 teaspoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon dried basil (I used sweet basil)
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1/4 cup chunky salsa, pureed (I actually used about a 1/2 cup)
1 6oz. can of tomato paste
1 1/2 cups chicken broth

Directions:

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and saute for 1-2 minutes. Add the minced onion, oregano, chili powder, basil, pepper, salt, cumin, parsley, salsa, and tomato paste.

Mix together and then stir in the chicken broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for at least 45 minutes, although the acutal recipe recommended simmering for hours, adding more chicken broth as needed.

Once I had the sauce simmering nicely, I started on the second half of this dish: the actual enchiladas. These were actually very easy to put together (but let's not confuse easy with quick!).

Below is the recipe I used. All changes made are listed in parentheses.

Beef Enchiladas

Ingredients:

2 lbs. lean ground beef (I chose to use ground chuck, but may try it with ground sirloin in the future)
1 large chopped onion (finely minced...microscopically minced, in fact)
1/8 teaspoon garlic salt
Add the following to taste: cumin, chili powder, pepper, dried parsley
12 (8-inch) flour tortillas
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
8 oz. shredded colby jack cheese (I used Kraft Mexican cheese)
**The recipe called for two 19 oz. cans of enchilada sauce, but as I said, I made my own).

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a heavy saucepan or skillet, brown the ground beef and onions, stirring often. Season the beef with the garlic salt, cumin, chili powder, pepper, nad dried parsley and set aside (at this point I dump the meat into a fine mesh colander and let most of the grease drain out). In a skillet, fry the tortillas in the begetable oil (this is super important!! For future reference, I would fry them for 15-20 seconds each...mine were still a little soggy) =[
Pat the tortillas dry and set aside. Mix about a 1/3 of the enchilada sauce into the beef and then spoon some of the beef mixture into each tortilla. Top with colby jack cheese and roll tightly, laying in a 9x13 Pyrex. Pour the rest of the enchilada sauce over the top and cover in more colby jack cheese. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until the cheese on top is melted and browned.

Also, I doubled the sauce recipe since my husband likes more sauce on enchiladas than I do, so he could spoon more onto each serving. These were very good, but time-consuming, so I probably make them again, just not on a school night! =]

Triple Threat Raspberry Sauce

2009-04-11T12:47:00.000-07:00

Well, no surprises here: I've made another Ina Garten (aka The Barefoot Contessa) recipe. And, as usual, it's fabulous. This time, I made Ina's Triple Threat Raspberry Sauce to top my homemade Lemon Angel Food Cake (you guessed it, another Ina recipe!). You see, every year on Easter SAturday, my parents have a big dinner at their house for my mom's side of the family. This used to be the big dinner at my grandma's house, but after a stroke or two, she wasn't up to having company, and we were a little scared of the idea of her cooking unsupervised. Not to be funny about it -- it wasn't a funny situation, but at the same time, there are moments with anyone suffering with Alzheimer's when you're either going to cry or laugh. In my case, I preferred to laugh (with grandma, not at her, of course).

Anyway, this dinner has been at my parents' house for quite a while by this time, so the routine is fairly established: we will have ham and turkey from the Honey-Baked Ham store. Dad will make his special baked macaroni and cheese (which Adam really likes), and there will be other sides as well, at least one of which is (hopefully) my Mom's jello casserole (I know it sounds gross, but believe me, it's amazing!). Anyway, this year we are also having mom's spinach salad (delish!) with homemade French dressing (yum!).

In previous years, my folks have really only experimented in the dessert department: some years my dad will make coconut cream pie from scratch (amazing) or his lemon raspberry layered pie (also darned good). The year Adam and I got engaged my mother went a little crazy and made chick cakes out of giant chocolate muffins. They were very good, but also very big and I needed a nap after eating all that!

This year my parents have put me in charge of the dessert, so the pressure was on. There are lots of froofy desserts that I would love to take, simply because they're impressive: pavlovas, meringues, that sort of thing. But since I've never attempted any of those things before, I figured I would stick with an old standard: lemon angel food cake. I've blogged about that before, so I won't repeat myself here. But this time, however, I'm serving the cake with triple threat raspberry sauce. The sauce is thick and luxurious and sweet, but tart at the same time. I always think lemon and raspberry are two very complimentary ingredients, so hopefully tonight's dinner will be a success. I'll be adding post-dinner thoughts, comments, etc. later tonight. For now, here's the recipe...

Triple Threat Raspberry Sauce

4 half pints of raspberries
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 12 oz. jar of seedless raspberry jam
2 tablespoons Framboise

Directions:
Combine two half pints of the raspberries, sugar, and water in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 4 minutes. **The raspberries will start to break down as the sauce comes together.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the jar of raspberry jam and the Framboise. Pour the heated raspberry mixture over the top. Pulse until smooth.

Pour the pureed sauce through a colander to remove some of the seeds. Add the last two half pints of raspberries to the sauce and stir to combine. Chill for at least two hours (preferably overnight) and serve over angel food cake, ice cream, etc.

Philly Cheese Steak Wraps

2009-04-09T19:06:00.000-07:00

One of the highlights of my week is when the teachers I eat lunch with order out on Fridays. We frequently get food from Donzo's, a local restaurant/bar, and my favorite is the Philly cheese steak wrap. Today I was at the grocery store picking up a few things for dinner at my parents' house on Saturday (more on that in an upcoming post) and decided to see if I could make my own cheese steaks. So I quickly reversed course back through the grocery store and picked up a couple bell peppers (red and yellow), some sirloin steaks, and a package of whole grain garden vegetable wraps. I was very excited, especially since my husband had his master's class tonight and would be hungry when he got home.

When I got home I quickly got out my laptop and logged on to foodnetwork.com. I was eager to see what sort of spices, etc. I could add to the cheese steaks to really maximize the taste. What I found was a lot of information about how to properly caramelize onions and peppers (very helpful, but not exactly what I was after), and very little information about flavoring steaks for sandwiches. With very little to work with, I finally shrugged and decided to do my own thing (which has worked out...okay in the past). I quickly dug through my spice drawer and pulled on the onion and garlic powders and, after some hesitation, the marjoram. I also grabbed a can of beef broth from a nearby drawer and a large bowl. Working quickly I mixed my marinade and sliced the sirloin, stirring the steak into the marinade and then setting it aside. Next I got to work on caramelizing my onions and bell peppers, which takes quite a while, as I was about to find out...I also realized that I was quickly running out of both burners and skillets to put on them! Never fear! After the onions and peppers had cooked down in their separate skillets for about half an hour, I combined them into one skillet, and prepared to cook the steak strips in the newly emptied skillet.

As everything finished cooking, I took a moment to inhale deeply and appreciate how wonderful my kitchen smelled. I would venture to say that cooking onions is one of the most underappreciated smells....now stop laughing at me. =] Anyway, the steak was tender, the onions and peppers were perfectly caramelized and the cheese melted over the top of it all was creamy and delicious. Overall, this was a great meal; something that I would describe as simple, but time consuming (mainly because of the amount of time required to caramelize stuff without burning it to a crisp).

Philly Cheese Steak Ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs. sirloin steak, sliced thinly
2 large Spanish onions
2 large bell peppers (one red and one yellow)
1 package whole grain tortilla wraps
1 can beef broth
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon marjoram
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
Salt and pepper
Mozzarella cheese

Directions: Thinly slice the steak into long strips. Place in a bowl and pour a can of beef broth over the meat. Add 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper, garlic and onion powder, and marjoram. Stir to mix marinade and thoroughly cover the meat. Set aside. Next halve the onions and slice them thinly. While doing this, melt 2 tablespoons unsalted butter with 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet. As you add the onions to the skillet, separate the slices with your fingers in ensure even cooking. Next, slice the bell peppers into thin strips (note: the thinner the better!). Melt 1 tablespoon unsalted butter and about 1/2 a tablespoon of olive oil in a smaller skillet and add the peppers. Cook both the onions and peppers over medium-low heat, stirring often. Caramelized onions and peppers will need to cook down for anywhere from 30-40 minutes...like I said, this is pretty simple, but still time consuming.

Once the onions and peppers have begun to caramelize, combine them into one skillet and use the emptied skillet to cook the steak strips (I added just enough olive oil back to the pan to *very* thinly coat the bottom). Enough of the marinade sticks to the steak to deglaze the skillet, which is a nice bonus in the flavor department. As the steak strips finished cooking (I would say mine were somewhere between medium and medium-well) I removed them to a paper towel-covered plate to drain any extra olive oil away. Finally, after the steak strips finished cooking I added the remaining marinade to the skillet and cooked it down into a thick and flavorful au jus (which I carefully poured it a small bowl and promptly left sitting on the countertop while Adam and I headed downstairs with our plates to watch Survivor while we ate -- oops). Anyway, here's how it all came together: I took one of the wraps and loaded it with steak strips, covered them with the caramelized onions and peppers, and then topped it with some shredded mozzarella cheese. I stuck the whole thing into the toaster oven to melt the cheese and then wrapped it up and ate every last bite! It was delicious; the marinade was slightly spicy and and cheese was oozy. What a great meal, and one that I'll definitely be making again. Oh! And Adam, who scoffs at the use of whole grain wraps, ate his cheese steak on a whole wheat hoagie roll and said that it was "pretty good." Which, for anyone who doesn't know my husband, is high praise indeed! =]

If Life Gives You Lemons...Make Lemon Fusilli

2009-04-06T18:40:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to get a little antsy. We've had some very nice weather recently. Weather appropriate for spring. Warm, sunny days. Days that remind you that barbeques, gardening, and CARDINALS BASEBALL are just around the corner.

And then you wake up on April 6th to light snowfall and freezing wind. What a hoot! Someone needs to tell nature that April Fool's Day was 5 days ago, so no more screwing with us, please.

But I've already caught the warm weather bug and have been thinking a lot about warm weather foods. All week long I've been particularly craving grilled burgers (I haven't craved cheese burgers this bad since college when I lived with 20 other girls who nearly fainted at the very thought of eating red meat.). So today after a much-needed haircut I stopped by the grocery store on the way home and picked up everything I would need to make burgers and all the fixings. In this instance, the "fixings" were green beans (for the hubbie) and the ingredients of lemon fusilli.

The lemon fusilli recipe comes from Ina Garten's Barefoot at Home cookbook (or in this case, foodnetwork.com). On her show, Ina serves the fusilli as a main dish at a lunch for a friend, but I chose to use it as a side dish. Even as a kid I liked all the fun sides that went along with a barbeque: deviled eggs, pasta or potato salad (or both!), baked beans, etc. But lately, in an effort to be healthier, I've been trying to avoid eating an excessive amount of carbs (and it's hard...I love my carbs!). So this pasta dish seemed like a more reasonable alternative, both because it includes a lot of veggies, and because I deliberately made it a side, instead of a main dish. Unfortunately, I didn't take into account the fact that since Ina served this as a main dish, the portions of ingredients were main-dish portions. Thus I find myself with oodles of pasta salad left over. But that was the only real down side. So if any of you out there in Readerville are interested in a carb-o-licious meal, you know where to find me!

P.S. This would probably have worked out much better if I had halved all the ingredients.

Lemon Fusilli

(This is the recipe as published by Ina Garten. My alterations are discussed at the end.)

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon good olive oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic (2 cloves)
2 cups heavy cream
3 lemons
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 bunch broccoli
1 pound dried fusilli pasta
1/2 pound baby arugula (or 2 bunches of common arugula, leaves cut in thirds)
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes, halved

Directions:
Heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat, add the garlic, and cook for 60 seconds. Add the cream, the zest from 2 lemons, the juice of 2 lemons, 2 teaspoons of salt, and 1 teaspoon of pepper. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, until it starts to thicken.

Meanwhile, cut the broccoli in florets and discard the stem. Cook the florets in a pot of boiling salted water for 3 to 5 minutes, until tender but still firm. Drain the broccoli and run under cold water to stop the cooking. Set aside.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add 1 tablespoon of salt and the pasta, and cook according to the directions on the package, about 12 minutes, stirring occasionally. Drain the pasta in a colander and place it back into the pot. Immediately add the cream mixture and cook it over medium-low heat for 3 minutes, until most of the sauce has been absorbed in the pasta. Pour the hot pasta into a large bowl, add the arugula, Parmesan, tomatoes, and cooked broccoli. Cut the last lemon in half lengthwise, slice it 1/4-inch thick crosswise, and add it to the pasta. Toss well, season to taste, and serve hot.

My Alterations:
*Note: I seem to have lost my ability to follow directions, as I accidentally omitted the parmesan cheese (no way I would intentionally leave cheese out of anything). I also failed to put in the arugula, for the simple reason that I forgot to purchase some. Maybe next time...or maybe not, it was *really* good today just the way it was.

I didn't cook the pasta and the sauce together. I simply dumped the pasta, broccoli, and tomatoes into a big (huge, really) bowl and poured the sauce over it before tossing. I also added about half a red onion, which I would probably not do again. I thought it would add some nice heat and instead it was just a little too...oniony. Also, in the future I think the sauce could use a little more garlic, as that taste got lost in the lemony-ness. I also used Barilli's new mini fusilli pasta, which only needs to cook for about 7 minutes.

Overall, this was really good and I think it will become a favorite with a few...tweeks. =]

Being an Ambassador for the Republic of Tea

2009-04-05T16:06:00.000-07:00

As some of you may know, I'm a high school English teacher. This year, in my ongoing efforts to make my classroom more comfortable and spacious (ha), I rearranged the furniture and brought in a small coffee pot. Although it's small, the pot is digital and comes with a timed brewing feature, so I set it to begin brewing about 10 minutes before I arrive at school in the morning. I can't begin to explain how comforting it is to walk into my classroom and smell freshly brewed coffee. It's like having my very own coffee house (I keep the milk and a selection of creamers in the mini fridge behind my desk). =]

Lately, though, I have been using my coffee pot to brew tea and have served it hot or cold depending on the weather. Although I dearly love plain old black tea (Lipton, please), I have discovered how good some of the flavored teas are, particularly those from the Republic of Tea collection. I originally found these teas at St. Louis Bread Co. (Panera to all you non-St. Louisans). Since then I have seen the brand in a variety of specialty shops, but sadly, not in any local grocery stores.

My favorite of all these is the ginger peach tea. I have tried other peach teas and none are as flavorful or aromatic as this one. It purports itself as being able to boost one's longevity. I'm always up for something that will help me live longer/better! ;]

Anyway, the best way I have found to brew Ginger Peach tea is to run water through my coffee maker and drop a single tea bag into the coffee pot. The tea can steep for a few minutes and then I pour it into my favorite mug and sip the morning away. Inevitably I find myself brewing multiple cups per day, which is when the decaf version of this tea comes in handy. Recently, as the weather has gotten a bit warmer (and the boilers in the school continue to churn at full power), I have been craving a cool drink. I brew my tea as always, but then stash it in my mini fridge until it is cool enough to be refreshing. Hot or cold, it's delicious!

More on other favorite teas in future posts!

I've Gone Over to the Dark Side

2009-03-24T19:58:00.000-07:00

Dark Chocolate Ice Cream

As I have written before, I'm sort of addicted to my ice cream machine. I really think at least half the fascination is that it literally makes ICE CREAM in about a half hour. I personally can't think of a better way to spend a half hour! =] Anyway, this was my first actual ice cream (everything else I've made has been a sorbet, which is must less labor intensive). Dark Chocolate ice cream is another recipe that is simple....but what I've had to realize is that simple is not necessarily synonymous with easy. So, that said, let's talk about some of the more difficult aspects of dark chocolate ice cream:

1. First, when cooking any type of milk or cream, don't turn away from it FOR A SECOND! Not to sneeze, not to flip your hair out of your face, not even if the kitchen drapes catch fire! If you do, the milk/cream will burn to the bottom of your favorite pan faster than you can say "ice cream."

2. When pouring ridiculously hot milk/cream mixtures from pots into bowls, etc., do so far away from still hot burners. Or be prepared to clean your stove of sticky, burned-on ice cream base, which will not clean off easily.

3. When chopping bars of chocolate, be sure to stick your hands in the freezer first, otherwise, you will melt said chocolate with the heat of your hands...and then, again if you're me, you'll accidentally wipe the side of your face and leave a streak of chocolate that your husband will make fun of later.

All that being said, this stuff is good, very good. And this is coming from someone who was a strict milk chocolate-eater (I've always considered dark chocolate just a bit to bitter for my taste). But somehow in ice cream,the bitterness is softened, and dark chocolate cuts through some of the over-sweetness that characterizes ice cream. Overall, I give this recipe two thumbs up and can't wait to make more.

Ingredients:
2 ¼ cups whole milk
2 ¼ cups heavy cream
1 vanilla bean
1 1/8 cups granulated sugar
1 1/8 cups Dutch process cocoa
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
12 oz. Bittersweet chocolate, chopped (preferred: Ghirardelli’s)

Directions:
In a large saucepan, combine the whole milk and heavy cream over medium-low heat. With a sharp knife, split the vanilla bean lengthwise; use the blunt edge of the knife to scrape out the "seeds" of the vanilla bean.

Stir the seeds and bean pod into the milk/cream mixture. Simmer the milk/cream mixture over low heat for 30 minutes. Remove the vanilla bean pod and discard it or rinse and reserve for another use.

Combine the sugar, cocoa, eggs, and egg yolks in a medium bowl; using a hand mixer on medium speed, beat until thickened like mayonnaise.

Measure out 1 cup of the hot milk/cream mixture. With the mixer on low speed, add the cup of hot milk/cream to the cocoa mixture in a slow, steady stream and mix until completely incorporated. Stir the chopped chocolate into the saucepan with the hot milk/cream. Stir the egg mixture into the hot milk/cream. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and begins to resemble a chocolate pudding. Transfer the chocolate mixture to a bowl and stir in vanilla. Cover with plastic wrap placed directly on the surface of the chocolate mixture, and refrigerate until completely cooled.

Pour the chilled custard into the freezer bowl, turn the machine on and let mix until thickened, about 25 to 30 minutes. The ice cream will have a soft, creamy texture. If a firmer consistency is desired, transfer the ice cream to an airtight container and place in freezer for about 2 hours. Remove from freezer about 15 minutes before serving.

My New Friend Herb

2009-03-20T20:49:00.000-07:00

Last night I went on an all-out cooking blitz. I got home from the grocery store (one of my favorite field trips) around 4:30, changed out of my school clothes (sad experience has taught me not to try new recipes in nice clothes), rolled up my sleeves and began our meal. Now, in previous blogs I've stated that I don't really like blogging about things that I just "throw together" for dinner. While they are delicious and fairly healthy (for the most part), I don't know that I'd always called them "blog-worthy." Last night, however, I outdid myself (if I do say so myself), and feel I must tell you about it.

I made chicken scarpariello and herbed potatoes for dinner and we had dark chocolate homemade ice cream for dessert (the dark chocolate ice cream will be the subject of my next blog...stay tuned!). Anyway, the recipe for chicken scarpariello comes from my mother-in-law, who found it at allrecipes.com. If you aren't on this website, you should be. I love it. You can maintain an online recipe box, post your own recipes, comment on ones you've tried, all sorts of things. It's great for days when I decide what to make for dinner while at school and then am faced with the choice of winging it at the grocery store, or driving home for the recipe, then back to the store, then back home. Several rather...interesting meals later, I posted/filed a bunch of stuff on allrecipes.com and now can just look things up before heading to the store. Excellent!

Anyway, not only is chicken scarpariello super yummy, it's also very simple to make in large or small quantities.

Ingredients:
1/2 pound chicken breast meat, cut into 1x3 inch pieces
Flour, for dredging
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 Tablespoons butter
2 Tablespoons minced garlic (2-3 cloves -- I like it extra garlicky!)
2 Tablespoons minced shallots
1/2 cup white wine (I used a chablis)
1 cup hot water
1 chicken bullion cube
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
Salt and pepper

Directions:
Put olive oil and butter in a 10-inch skillet (I use one with high sides for less-messy stirring).
While the oil and butter heat up/melt, cut the chicken into pieces. Dredge the chicken in flour right before laying carefully in the skillet (this is usually when I get burned with little oil pops -- evil MUFA). Brown the chicken on all sides and lay on a paper towel-covered plate to drain. While the chicken is browning, fill a measuring cup with 1 cup of hot water and add the bullion cube so it can dissolve. After browning the chicken, turn the heat down on the skillet and add the shallots. Cook until shallots are softened and translucent. Add the garlic a few minutes before the shallots are done to avoid burning the garlic. After sauteing the shallots and garlic, add the white wine to deglaze the pan. Next, pour in the chicken bullion/water and add salt and pepper to taste (I add about 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon salt and lots of pepper (probably about a teaspoon -- I like it spicy!). Standing over the skillet, rub the dried rosemary vigorously in your hands to "crush" and release it's aroma as it drops into the sauce. Stir and bring sauce to a simmer. Re-add the chicken to the sauce and simmer until sauce is thickened and reduced by half.

This can be served over pasta or brown rice, but I made it with mini herbed potatoes. I found the recipe for the potatoes on foodnetwork.com. It's one of Ina Garten's recipes (she's one of my favorites -- I LOVE her kitchen!!). This was also the first time I had invested in fresh herbs. I was a little apprehensive -- would it really be as easy as it looks on TV?? YES! It was! And the difference in taste was unbelievable!!! I have been busily making plans ever since to have an herb garden on my back patio this spring/summer. I would dearly love to grow my own rosemary, thyme, dill, parsley, and chives -- to name a few. I would love to know if I could also grow oregano -- how great would that be on homemade pizza?!?!? More on the possibility of an herb garden later, however. For now, back to the herbed potatoes.

As I mentioned above, I stopped at the grocery store on my way home. I knew that I would be making chicken scarpariello, and was planning to serve it over angel hair pasta, as I have in the past. But I'm really trying to be better about eating more veggies, so I browsed through the produce section to see if something caught my eye. And while I know that potatoes aren't the all-time healthiest veggies...these mini potatoes looked too good to pass up. Imagine a bin filled with little Easter egg-sized Yukon Gold potatoes. They were adorable and practically screaming, "Choose me!" What's a girl to do? So I grabbed a bunch of them, already thinking of herbed potatoes. And since I was buying herbs I wanted to be able to make at least one other batch of the potatoes to "use up" the rest of my herbs. Then the fun began: choosing my herbs. First I grabbed a big bunch of Italian flat leaf parsley. From what Ina Garten writes, that's a classic combination with potatoes. Then, I headed down to the rest of the herbs...for some reason, in my grocery store, parsley is in with the lettuces instead of with the rest of the herbs...weird. Anyway, for my other two herbs, I choose rosemary (I use the dried kind when we grill potatoes for barbeques) and thyme. Ina recommends chives as more traditional than thyme in herbed potatoes, but since I already had an oniony thing going on with the shallots in the chicken sauce, I didn't want to double up. Here's the recipe I used for *my* herbed potatoes. For the record, my husband, who is possibly the world's harshest food critic, and picky besides, said these were "really good." And believe me, that's high praise indeed. =]

Herbed Potatoes:

Ingredients:
1/2 lb. of potatoes
1/4 - 1/2stick of butter (it depends on how healthy you want to be...or how bad) =]
Finely chopped herbs (parsley, rosemary, thyme)

Directions:
Scrub the spuds carefully (and slice in half if needed) and then place in a deep saucepan or stock pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil and boil for 10 minutes. Dump into a colander and cover with a clean kitchen towel to "steam" the potatoes. In the meantime, melt the butter in the pot you just used. Return potatoes to the pot and allow them to begin to brown, stirring and turning often. While the spuds are browning, chop the herbs to your heart's content (chopping is another favorite cooking technique of mine -- especially mincing -- with my biggest chef's knife, of course). Add the herbs when the spuds are almost done browning. Savor the aroma!

Serving:
I put a few of the potatoes on a big white plate (very appetizing -- I actually ate one before I finished serving dinner) and then added the chicken. I finished the plate by scooping the scarpariello sauce over everything. It was steaming hot and delicious. Great meal to eat while watching the NCAA Tourney games.

Oh, Sweet Addiction...

2009-03-16T21:04:00.001-07:00

So, based on most 12-step program models I've ever heard of, the first step is admitting you have a problem. So noted.........and I don't care (which is not step 2 of any 12-step program I could find, so maybe I'll have to start my own).

"Why this confession?" you might ask with interest? "To what substance are you slavishly devoted?" you might wonder with concern. I'll be happy to tell you. Because I'm not stopping. No, if anything, I'm increasing my use.

That's right -- my new obsession is........(wait for it)........homemade ice cream. It could very well be the most addictive drug known to mankind, or at the very least, the most delicious.

In all seriousness now, I must start at the beginning:

I received an ice cream machine for Christmas (I actually returned an immersion blender to get the ice cream machine...no doubt one of the best decisions of my life). Until now, I haven't had a chance to use it. But I had been keeping busy scouring the internet for interesting ice cream recipes. I even went so far as to buy a book on the subject (Ice Cream and Frozen Desserts by Peggy Fallon). But on Monday, I came home and actually made a frozen dessert.

To be on the safe side, I started small and attempted one of Cuisinart's recipes: fresh lemon sorbet. Although it was one of the simpler recipes in the Cuisinart booklet, it seemed pretty complicated, but since it was my first experience with the machine, I figured that I would just learn as I go and that things would get easier with time. Which has proven to be true. Since Monday (and currently it's THURSDAY), I have made another ice cream and prepared the ingredients for a third (if only I had several of those freezer bowls I could make ice cream at a nearly constant rate!). But for today's post, I will limit myself to the fresh lemon sorbet, which is delicious and extrememly tart (it makes my lips smack when I eat a scoop -- that's how tart it is). I do, however, have one improvement that I will make in future batches: no more lemon zest! The instructions called for finely chopped lemon zest. Now, as far as cooking techniques go, I'm kind of a fool for anything that requires me to zest. I don't know why I think it's so fun, but I do. Now, normally I zest with a microplane (which I would argue is the way God intended us to zest our citrus). But this time the recipe called for the zest to be removed in strips and then chopped. Well, I figured I should be open to trying new zesting techniques, so I dutifully retrieved my vegetable peeler and carefully removed only the yellow part of the lemon skin (the white pith beneath is very bitter). That was actually great: quick, easily done, and already the kitchen smelled like lemon (one of my favorite kitchen smells -- I also love the Kitchen Lemon antibacterial soap from Bath and Body Works -- similar smell). Anyway, once I had the zest of all the lemons, I stood pondering how to finely chop it. I supposed that I could hand chop it vigorously until an appropriately fine zest was achieved. But it was a Monday night, I had tests to grade, and, let's face it, I'm not the world's most patient person...so I whipped out my handy dandy food processor, roughly chopped the lemon zest, threw it in, and pulsed to my little heart's content. Here's the thing: the pieces came out in a variety of different sizes. Some were what I would call fine, but others were downright coarse. Next time, I will either have to "man-up" and just put some elbow grease into using my microplane, or I will simply leave out the zest component of the recipe. Either way would probably be an improvement. Although the sorbet is delicious, after you swallow a cold, fresh, tart bite of sorbet, you then get to chew on...chunks of lemon peel. Bleh.

Anyway, here's the recipe as printed by the Cuisinart people:

Fresh Lemon Sorbet

Preparation: 10 minutes + cooling time, 25-30 minutes chilling time; optional 2 hours to "ripen" in the freezer.
Makes 8 half-cup servings.

Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
1 1/2 cups freshly squeezed lemon juice (7-8 lemons for me)
1 tablespoon finely chopped (minced) lemon zest

Directions:
1. Combine the sugar and water in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

2. Reduce the heat to low and simmer wihtout stirring until the sugar has completely dissolved, about 3-5 minutes. Cool completely. This is called a simple syrup, and may be made ahead in larger quantities to have on hand for making this and other frozen desserts. Keep refrigerated until ready to use.

3. When cool, add the lemon juice and zest; stir to combine.

4. Pour the lemon mixture into the ice cream machine's freezer bowl and mix until thickened, about 25-30 minutes.

Nutritional Information:
Calories: 204 (0% from fat)
Carbs.: 52 grams
Protein: 19 grams
Fat: 0 grams
Saturated Fat: 0 grams
Cholesterol: 0 milligrams
Sodium: 2 milligrams

As I mentioned above, I have made several desserts with my ice cream machine. Stay tuned for even more deliciousness! =]

Black-and-White Cheesecake Squares

2009-03-10T19:32:00.000-07:00

Lately, with the weather behaving in a typically Midwestern, bipolar fashion, I have found myself getting grumpier and grumpier as I alternate from one day to the next from my winter coat to wearing sandles and skirts to school. While I will stipulate to the fact that the day is somehow brighter when I'm not waddling into school wearing all the clothes I can possibly get onto my body, I also hate the task of "testing" the weather every morning. Because I don't know about you, but I don't trust my friendly local weather forecaster. CBS has Kent Earhart, and boasts that "You can count on Kent." Like hell I can. Last night I was told the weather today would be in the mid-60s. Accordingly, I wore a springy skirt, but paired it with a slightly heavier cardigan just to be safe. Cut to me, halfway through the day, sweating bullets and feeling slightly pissy about meteorologists. And what a dumb name for the weather guy: meteorologist. That name would be appropriate if he perdicted when those meteors the size of Texas will hit the earth and cause massive global extinctions, dinosaur-style. But until then, let's get real: you're the weather guy. So stop with your fancy-schmancy charts and pseudo-scientific babble and just give me the darned 5-day forecast already so that I can go to sleep.

Hmmm...that was a little more hostile-sounding than I had first intended. However, after a moment of indecision, I've decided that I enjoy being hostile about the biploar Midwestern weather. It's just not normal to go from nearly 80 degress on Tuesday to a predicted 40 degrees on Wednesday. I mean, what the heck?? It's like we all did something so wrong that we're being punished on a cosmic scale. Bah Humbug!

So to cheer myself up, and as a treat for my loving husband, who has listened to my weather rants, I decided to try making a new dessert recipe (which I generally favor). Desserts are always *real* recipes, whereas I feel bad calling something I threw together for a dinner a "recipe."

Maybe I've never mentioned this before, but I'm a *huge* Martha Stewart fan. I mean, I realize that she's unethical and probably scary as hell in person, but darned if she can't do pretty much ANYTHING in terms of cooking, interior design, crafts, etc. In fact, perhaps the only thing she's ever really failed at is insider-trading. =] Anyway, since I'm married and no longer have access to my mother's subscription to Martha Stewart Living, I have had to procure my own (Note: procuring my own consisted of begging my Mom to get it for me every year as my birthday present.). Anyway, each month when I get my Martha, I sit down and read it from cover to cover. This month though, I have had the head cold to end all head colds. As a result, I found reading bothersome (that's a real problem when you're a self-proclaimed bookworm *and* and English teacher who teaches from novels every day and thus must read every day). Basically, every time I bent my head to read, my nose started running. Not pretty. You know, you can always tell if someone really loves you if they love you even when you're sick. I mean, not pretty sick, like you just have the sniffles and still look reasonably human, but really, disgustingly sick, and unable to speak properly, much less stay awake long enough to have a meaningful conversation. So once again, major props must go to my awesome hubby.

But I digress...anyway, what with the head cold, I didn't get around to finishing my Martha until a couple of days ago. One of my favorite parts in the whole magazine is the very last page. Every month, Martha publishes one recipe from her Cookies! cookbook. For those of you unfamiliar with this tome (that's English teacher for "book") it weighs about 5 pounds and costs around $40-45 at Borders...and as much as I love cookbooks, I can't see myself buying a book that expensive for myself. Especially since the only recipes in it are for cookies (I mean, I love cookies, who doesn't; but they're a treat, not something you eat constantly if you want to be able to fit through the doors). So anyway, these recipes published in the back of the magazine rock. I know they're just there to tease us into buying a gazillion dollar cookbook, but I can withstand the pressure...I think. =]

In the back of the April issue, Martha highlighted her black-and-white cheesecake squares. The pictures in the magazine looked divine. I couldn't wait to try them. So after school today I hustled home and prepared my ingredients. While the recipe was easy to prepare, it involved several separate steps, and multiple bakings. Frankly, this was waaaay too labor intensive for an after-school project. I would have been better off baking these on a Satruday afternoon when I have plenty of time to work. As it was, I felt I was rushing the steps. That being said, however, the recipe was very elementary, if messy, to make. In the recipe below, I make special note of the particularly messy parts.

Ingredients:

Vegetable cooking spray (I use Pam.)

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder* (See note below.)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

10 ounces (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

2 cups granulated sugar

3 large eggs

2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup confectioner's sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Coat a 9x13 inch baking dish with cooking spray.

2. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together into a large bowl. Cream butter and granulated sugar in a stand mixer until smooth. Add 2 eggs and 2 teaspoons of vanilla, and beat until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl at least once. Reduce the speed of the mixer to low and gradually add the flour mixture. Increase speed to medium (I only increased the speed one click on my Kitchenaid Artisan, but it's a little psycho, speed-wise) until incorporated.

3. Reserve 1 cup of the dough, cover, and refrigerate. *Messy Alert!* Press the remaining dough into the bottom of the prepared dish (I used the cooking spray on my hands and even had to reapply to finish patting down the dough -- this stuff re-defines sticky!). Refrigerate for 30 minutes (not sure what this accomplished, but I did it) and then bake for 25 minutes, or until the edges of the brownie layer are puffed and the base is set. Let cool before proceeding (which means go watch TV, take a nap, get a mani/pedi, because this part doesn't go by quickly).

4. Mix cream cheese, confectioner's sugar, the remaining egg, and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla in a medium bowl. *Messy Alert!* Since I had already used my stand mixer, and I'm not one of those people who buys an extra bowl for the stand mixer (where do you store it??), this part meant I had a choice of washing the mixer bowl by hand (not fun at all!) or busting out the hand mixer. So despite the additional dirty dishes (let's hope my dishwasher doesn't go on strike!), I ended up using both the stand and hand mixer (hey, that rhymes!). Anyway, spread the cheese mixture over the cooled base and crumble the remaining cup of brownie dough over the top of everything (also extremely messy -- if you've done it right, you'll look like you've been making mudpies...for 12 straight hours).

5. Bake again until the filling is set, 25-30 more minutes at 325. Let cool (again). Cut into squares and serve. Leftovers will keep in the refrigerator for about 3 days.

*Dutch-process cocoa powder is cocoa powder with alkalines added as a stabilizer, unlike natural unsweetened cocoa powders like those distributed by Hershee's, Ghiradelli's, etc. Dutch-process cocoa should be used in every recipe that also calls for baking soda as a leavening (rising) agent. Popular brands of Dutch-process cocoa powder include Lindt and Pernigotti, among others. I LOVE Pernigotti cocoa,but couldn't find any, so I took a chance and used Sacco, which combines Dutch-process cocoa with natural cocoa powder. Honestly, I couldn't tell a difference. Also, I went through my recipe file and found a bazillion recipes that call for natural unsweetened cocoa powder and also use baking soda. Hmmm...could this be a plot to force us to buy fancy-pants cocoa powders?? =]

**This recipe claims to make 24 bars. I'm not sure what Martha considers an appropriate size for these, but 24?? Considering my husband's considerable sweet tooth, I'll be lucky to get 12 out of the pan!

***Also, I thought the cheesecake layer in the magazine was much thicker than the cheesecake layer in reality. Next time I plan to double the cheesecake part of the recipe.

These are totally yummy -- fudgy and gooey, well worth the mess factor!

St. Nick Sticks

2009-03-04T15:09:00.001-08:00

Let me start by saying that I'm aware Christmas is several months past. Let me also note (I promise this will al make sense soon) that my husband and I *LOVE* shopping at the local Sam's club (home of my beloved mangoes...*sigh*). Anyway, this past Christmas, Adam and I purchased not one, but TWO bags of M&Ms from Sam's (plain and peanut -- Adam ate the plain ones, but I refuse to touch them because peanut M&Ms are so obviously superior). Anyway, I digress...so one of these *5 pound* bads of M&Ms gets eaten, but the other still contained about 4.9 pounds of candies. So one evening, I got out the big bag of M&Ms and attempted to eat a few. Adam joined me in this quest (hey, you try eating a 5 pound bag of candy -- any candy -- without help!) and before long Adam let out what can only be described as a gasp. At first I was worried that he had begun choking on the M&Ms, as his mouth was quite full at the time of the gasp. But by the time I had finished shaking him and hysterically screeching, "Are you all right?!?!" at the top of my lungs, he had managed to finish chewing and could tell me what was so important that he had to completely freak me out.

What he had noticed was a recipe for St. Nick's Sticks on the back of our gi-normous bag of Christmas Peanut M&Ms . These delightful homemade candies are yummy, and, depending on the type and quality of your ingredients, can actually be (*gasp*) figure friendly. And finally, and, when discussing candy, perhaps most importantly, these are darned tasty! But perhaps the best indication of the yum-factor for these treats is that when I made a double batch and offered them to my students, they were GONE before I could say "M&M!"

So without further ado, the recipe:

St. Nick's Sticks

Ingredients:

2 bags Dove milk chocolates (feel free to use bittersweet, or other chocolates)*
2 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup peanut butter
2 sticks unsalted butter
Peanut M&Ms (to garnish)

Directions:

1. Unwrap the chocolates and melt them in a double boiler.

2. Melt butter in the microwave.

3. Mix graham cracker crumbs, powdered sugar, butter, and peanut butter.

4. Pat graham cracker mixture into the bottom of a 9x13 pan.

5. Pour melted chocolate over the top of the graham cracker mixture and smooth with a spatula.

6. Decorate top with peanut M&Ms.

7. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes so the chocolate can set.

ENJOY!!

*I used Dove Chocolate because, in my "professional opinion," it melts better than say, Ghirdelli's, but again, use whatever you like most or are most comfortable with.

**This would also be awesome with chopped dry roasted peanuts or almonds on the top instead of M&Ms. In fact, I think that is the variation I might try next. Also, I may try a peanut butter-free version...I thought the taste of the graham crackers got lost in the peanut butter.

It's a bird. It's a plane. It's a MANGO!

2009-02-18T07:14:00.001-08:00

So, I've been reading lots about the great benefits of eating mangoes. Apparently, it has been designated as an official "superfruit;" so named for its incredible health value. Mangoes are also rich in prebiotic dietary fiber, vitamin C, and other essential vitamins and minerals. (Props to Wikipedia for the mango info.)

In addition to actually being good for you, and, perhaps most importantly, mangoes are also darned tasty. I purchased my mangoes on a recent trip to the local Sam's Club. As I stared at a huge selection of mangoes, I wondered how to choose my mangoes. From previous reading, I knew that a ripe mango would be slightly soft if squeezed lightly. But I wanted to pick out six mangoes so that I could enjoy them throughout the coming week. Finally, after dithering far longer than really necessary, I selected three ripe mangoes and three that were still very firm.

After arriving home, I cleaned each mango gently (you don't want to bruise their skin, as it may create brown/black spots that can reach all the way into the fruit inside) and then set about the complicated task of slicing one. The oblong seed pod of a mango is a complicated thing...and I'm waaaaay too stubborn to buy one of those goofy mango slicers (that, as Alton Brown would point out, is a uni-tasker, and has no place in my kitchen -- unless it's a fire extignuisher). So, since this was my first whole mango, I eventually decided that a slightly messy cut was just part of the learning process. And so, accordingly, I went after the thing with my largest, sharpest, pointiest knife. Note to Self: When going after things with one's largest, sharpest, pointiest knife, one should be careful to remove one's fingers from the immediate area. And so, after some minor first aid, I had two halves of a mango laying in front of me on my board. Unfortunately, as I had feared there would be, there was still a lot of mango attached to that darned seed pod thing. And so I began (a lot more carefully this time) to slice away sections of mango until I decided there was no more that I could possibly remove with a knife. Then, just because I wanted the "whole mango experience," I gnawed on the seed a bit and ate some mango off it directly. YUM!

So, after I tossed a thoroughly gnawed seed pod thing (that's it's technical name) into the trash, I addressed the remaining halves of mango, as well as the smaller slices I had cut from the sides of the mangoes. Each slice was laid on my board and the peel carefully sliced off. Then, I sliced each chunk into smaller, bite-sized pieces. That evening I enjoyed mango for dessert. The next day I also had mango as part of my lunch at school.

As I worked my way through my six mangoes this past week, I reflected on the fact that I was really enjoying a new and novel fruit: it's texture is unlike other fruit I commonly eat and the extraction of the fruit is certainly a bigger challenge than say, an apple. However, mangoes are unqiue in that they have so many uses, both sweet and savory. Although I ate my first six mangoes straight; that is, as a fruit and not as part of a larger recipe, I plan to buy more mangoes. I foresee mango salsas, sorbets, sauces...hmm...I'm sure there's an application that doesn't start with an "s," but darned if I can think of one right now. I guess I'll just have to start with these. Stay tuned for more with mangoes.

P.S. Never write your blog while watching a Good Eats marathon -- you'll find yourself speaking like Alton Brown.

Rockin' the Moroccan: Cous Cous

2009-02-02T19:37:00.000-08:00

So tonight I was feeling adventurous...okay, in reality I was feeling tired, but I had bought all the ingredients for cous cous, so I plowed ahead with dinner plans: Fried Chicken with green beans and cous cous. The fried chicken is made with Andy's Hot 'N' Spicy flour/batter. I highly recommend it, although I do cut the batter with a bit of all purpose flour to keep from scorching my mouth! Here's how the chicken is made:

Hot 'N' Spicy Fried Chicken

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Andy's Hot 'N' Spicy flour

1/4 cup All Purpose flour

1 egg

2-3 T. milk

4 Schwan chicken breasts -- they are excellent!!

1-2 cup classic olive oil (full flavor, this is NOT the time for extra virgin nonsense)

Directions:

Combine the Andy's flour with the all purpose flour in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, lightly beat the egg with the milk. Slice the chicken breasts into strips. Pour the olive oil into a large skillet and heat over medium heat.

Dredge chicken pieces in the flour mixture and then coat with the egg/milk mixture. Dump back into the flour mixture and then lower gently into the olive oil. Tip: Take it from me, lower the strips gently. I have the burns to prove the wisdom of this. Also, employ a splatter screen of some kind. Even a metal mesh colander will work in a pinch. But use something to avoid having your stovetop (and your hands and arms) covered in small droplets of burning hot oil.

When the chicken has browned on one side (watch carefully, it varies depending on the thickness of the chicken breast pieces), flip and brown on the other side. Remove from the skillet and place on a paper towel-lined plate.

I used Ina Garten's cous cous recipe from her book Barefoot in Paris. I first saw it on her Barefoot Contessa show along with chicken and forty cloves of garlic and her awesome ice cream bombe. I can't wait to try my hand at a homemade ice cream bombe...but I digress...

I was nervous about trying to make/eat cous cous. I'd never had it before, but I figured that it was basically a chicken-flavored rice with some embellishments thrown in. I like chicken, I like rice, and, separately, I like all the embellishments (shallots, pine nuts, and craisins). So I figured, what the heck?

Cous Cous:

Ingredients:

4 Tablespoons unsalted butter

3/4 cup chopped shallots (3-4 shallots)

3 cups chicken stock

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 1/2 cup golden cous cous

1/2 cup toasted pine nuts

1/4 cup dried currants (Note: I didn't have currants, so I used craisins)

2 Tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley

Directions:

Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the shallots and cook them over medium heat for 3-5 minutes, until translucent. Frankly, I forgot to check on the shallots as I was also working on the fried chicken at the same time, but they didn't overcook or burn due to my inattention. =] Add the chicken stock. salt, and pepper to the saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat. Stir in the cous cous, cover the pan, and set aside for 10 minutes. Add the toasted pine nuts, craisins, and parsley and fluff the cous cous with a fork. Serve hot.

*Ina had a point about stirring the cous cous -- fluff gently or it will start to clump. It doesn't affect the taste, but it doesn't look as pretty.

**Another random fact about making cous cous: expect your house to smell like chicken stock and cous cous for about 48 hours. I'm still not sure if it was the brand of chicken stock I used, or simply the shallots that cooked a bit too long, but the house retained the odor of the cous cous until I went on the attack and burned some candles. I'm not sure what it is about a burning candle that neutralizes odors, but it's very effective. The candles don't even need to be scented (frankly, scent only masks odor anyway), so go ahead and use cheapo ones! =]

I Scream, You Scream...

2009-01-27T20:20:00.000-08:00

So, for Christmas this year, I really wanted an ice cream maker. I have watched so many cooking shows that discuss the wonder of making your own ice creams, sorbets, and frozen yogurt. But of all the cooking gadgets I received (thanks, Mom and Daddy!), an ice cream maker wasn't one of them. I do, however, have some Christmas money left over (thank you, Auntie!), and am planning to purchase an ice cream maker of my very own. First up, coffee ice cream with chocolate-covered expresso beans mixed in (*YUM*). The model I'm considering is a small Cuisinart, nothing super-powerful, but quite appropriate to my needs. I can't wait!! Cooking in the summer has always been a sticky proposition...literally: it gets so hot in my kitchen during June, July, and August! Thus, I figured I should learn how to cook with cold foods. What better way to keep cool than to cook (and, of course, consume) ice cream. Wish me luck!

The Husband by Dean Koontz

2009-01-25T18:57:00.000-08:00

Getting a new book has always been a treat for me. The past few years I have really gotten into reading the works of Dean Koontz. I think the first Dean Koontz novels I ever read were Seize the Night and Fear Nothing. While both are a little...out there, they were also scary, but with a touch of humor thrown in. Dean Koontz is known for his style of writing, in which horror and shocking violence are interspersed with humor and love...the knowledge that life goes on for those willing to believe that people are, at heart, good. Of all the Dean Koontz novels I've read, my favorites have been Life Expectancy, The Taking, and Watchers. Having said that, I should also say that The Husband starts with an awesome premise: a humble gardener receives a call at work: "We have your wife. You can get her back for two million cash." Unfortunately, the book peaks with the opening. After that, the plot and characters are predictable and the signature suspense of a Dean Koontz novel are missing. As I said, getting a new book is usually a HUGE treat, but this was a disappointment overall.

On a scale of 1 to 5, I give this book a 2.

Making Bread, Breaking Bread

2009-01-25T16:55:00.000-08:00

I think one of the most terrifying things for a cook to do is make her own bread from scratch. Personally, I had never tried making bread from scratch, but I have had numerous bad experiences with trying to make flaky, light biscuits. So today, I braved the unknown and baked bread. And while I can't make biscuits to save my life, I have found that I can make a mean loaf of bread.

This particular recipe came from my best friend's blog: The View From the 32nd Floor. I highly recommend it (the blog and the recipe).

Multigrain Bread

1/2 cup oatmeal
2 cups boiling water
1 envelope dry yeast
4 1/3 cups flour (I used half white and half whole wheat)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
2 teaspoons flax seeds
2 teaspoons poppy seeds

Place oatmeal in a large bowl. Pour 2 cups boiling water over. Let stand until mixture cools slightly, about 15 minutes. Sprinkle yeast over oatmeal. Add flour, oil, sugar, and salt and stir until smooth. Cover and let rest 15 minutes.

Knead dough until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Oil large bowl. Add dough to bowl. Cover with clean kitchen towel and let rise until bread has doubled in size.

Mix the seeds in a bowl. Punch down dough. Knead briefly and add the seeds as you do and shape into a loaf (or two). Cover and let rise about 30 minutes.

Using sharp knife, cut 3 diagonal slashes on the surface of the loaf. Bake at 425 until golden brown, about 35 minutes.

Modifications:
I used 1 1/3 cup of all purpose flour and 3 cups of whole wheat flour. I also rolled the loaf in oatmeal before I let it sit for 30 minutes before baking. Other than that I followed the recipe exactly and it was delicious!

You Say Tomato, I Say Sauce!

2009-01-25T15:43:00.000-08:00

You know, I normally am not a fan of Sundays. When I was a kid, it was a day that was spent doing homework and anticipating another long week before reaching the next weekend. It was a night that meant I had to go to bed early instead of getting to stay up. And now that I'm an adult, not much has changed. After all, I'm a teacher. I've gone from sitting among the students to standing in front of them, so Sundays are still a day to anticipate another week and a night when I definitely need to go to bed early. However, today I wasn't doing homework or even grading papers. Today was devoted to testing out new recipes and making at least one old favorite.

The "old favorite" in question is a very simple, homemade tomato sauce. I belong to a recipe forum called AllRecipes.com. This particular sauce can be found by searching "Simple Marinara Sauce." My husband loves this sauce and I usually make a double batch and freeze some to have on hand for quick suppers. Today we had it as part of chicken parmigiana for lunch, although it is also delicious over pasta or combined with ground beef to make a tangy meat sauce. My husband isn't a fan of chunky tomato sauces, but I really enjoy combining this sauce with fire roasted diced tomatoes for some added texture.

Simple Marinara Sauce

INGREDIENTS
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
1 (28 ounce) can tomato puree
2 1/2 tablespoons dried oregano
2 1/2 tablespoons dried parsley
1/4 cup grated Romano cheese
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon onion powder

DIRECTIONS
Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Saute garlic until aromatic and tender. Stir in crushed tomatoes, tomato puree, oregano, parsley, Romano cheese, Parmesan cheese, bay leaves and onion powder. Reduce heat to low and simmer for at least 40 minutes.

Modifications:
I add a tablespoon of sugar to the sauce to cut the acidity just a tad. In the past I have also used two cans of crushed tomatoes instead of tomato puree. Occasionally, we have found that the sauce is too thin, and using additional crushed tomatoes really helps.

Six Seconds by Rick Mofina

2009-01-17T21:06:00.000-08:00

If you are a fan of The Unit or 24, you're going to love this book! This is an international-style thriller that reminds me of books I've read by Tom Clancy and Brad Thor. The topics are pertinent, current, and deeply frightening. The story is actually pretty complex and involves three separate story lines:

A woman who lost her family in a personal and violent attack in Baghdad, Iraq and will do anything to get revenge.

A member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who believes he may have lost his edge following a terrible personal tragedy. He stumbles into the investigation of the deaths of a family in a Canadian park and uses the investigation to pull himself back from the brink.

A woman whose husband abducts their son from his school and disappears without a trace

These three story lines merge in a terrifying attempt to assassinate the Pope on U.S. soil.

I once heard someone say that the test of a good book is whether or not you're still reading it at 2a.m. on a school night. This book passes that test. I looked up with about 20 pages left and noticed that it was about 1:45. I shrugged; at that point, what's another 15-20 minutes? So even though I needed an extra large cup of coffee the next day, I will go on record as saying the book was worth it.

On a scale of 1-5, I'd give this a 5.

CHEER! by Kate Torgovnick

2009-01-17T20:50:00.000-08:00

I picked up CHEER! at a clearance sale at the local Border's. Teaching English means that I'm always on the lookout for books that my students might like to read in class. I have tons of cheerleaders in my senior classes, so this book was a no-brainer. And as I sat down to read it, I was pleasantly surprised by how fascinating it was.

Ms. Torgovnick is a journalist who has devoted a large chunk of her career to writing about extreme athletes. And who could be more extreme than college cheerleaders? If you ask me, there's something deeply frightening, but also awe-inspiring, about watching a tiny girl being launched up into the rafters of an arena by guys who look like linebackers for the football team.

Anyway, this book was a very readable and accessable biography of three college cheerleading squads that Torgovnick followed from try-outs through national competitions. Not only did I get a crash course in cheerleading (there's a very helpful glossary in the back of the book), but I was pleasantly surprised to find that this wasn't just about the public and happy aspects of cheerleading. Torgovnick reported on cheerleaders who quit the team, worked through eating disorders, and dealt with injuries that were potentially season-ending, if not life-threatening, as well as dealing with a variety of family issues and crises, all while maintaining their grades and cheering schedule. It was an incredibly honest look at a very underappreciated sport. Even though I'm not a big fan of nonfiction, I enjoyed this book.

On a scale of 1-5, I would give it a 3.5

Lemon Angelfood Cake

2009-01-17T20:00:00.001-08:00

The first time I invited my parents to come over for lunch after I got married, I think my dad's expectations were pretty low. Bologna sandwiches low, you might ask? Maybe. He certainly wasn't expecting an entire, from scratch, homemade meal. But that's what I did. Now, he loved that I made my mother's spinach salad with homemade french dressing, and he ate two helping of the chicken tetrazzini. But what really wowed him (and what I wasn't counting on as a "wow factor") was that I had made a lemon angelfood cake from scratch. Now, to understand the wow factor here, you must understand that my mother's favorite thing to make for dinner is reservations. Now, that doesn't mean she is a bad cook -- far from it, I would rather eat my mother's cooking than my own. But she objects (strongly) to the large mess that daily, from scratch cooking entails. In fact, as I was explaining that I had successfully separated a dozen eggs to make the lemon angelfood cake, she visibly shuddered. But she did admit that the cake was excellent. And my dad raved about it so much that I have made it for my parents numerous times since. Finally, I suppose that mom concluded that since I was making the gigantic mess in my own kitchen (and I will admit that this is a messy and lengthy process) that it was okay for her to indulge and enjoy.

Now, despite telling you that lemon angelfood cake is a "lengthy and messy" process, I will also assure you that it is well worth the time and effort. Dad would like me to add here that the stewed berries I made to go with the lemon angelfood cake were also excellent, although at first he doubted that they would improve or add anything to the experience. Au contraire. So without further ado...

Lemon Angelfood Cake

2 cups superfine sugar, divided*
1 and 1/3 cups sifted cake flour (NOT self-rising!)
1 and 1/2 cups egg whites at room temperature (about a dozen eggs)
3/4 teaspoons kosher salt
1 and 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 and 1/2 teaspoons lemon zest (about 2 medium lemons)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Combine 1/2 cup superfine sugar with the cake flour and sift together 4 times (this is very important). Set aside.

Pour egg whites, salt, and cream of tartar into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment and beat on high speed until the whites make medium-firm peaks, about 1 minute. With the mixer on medium speed, add the remaining 1 and 1/2 cups of superfine sugar by sprinkling it over the whites as they are being whipped. Whisk for a few more minutes until the whites are thick and shiny. Whisk in the vanilla and lemon zest and continue to whisk until very thick, about 1 more minute. Remove the bowl from the mixer and sift about 1/4 of the flour mixture over the egg whites and fold it into the whites with a rubber spatula.** Continue adding the flour by fourths by sifting and folding it in until it has all been incorporated.

Pour the batter into an ungreased (very important, since this is a cake that will literally "climb" the walls of the tube pan) 10-inch tube pan, smooth the top, and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the cake springs back slightly when touched. Remove the cake from the oven and invert on a cooling rack until completely cool.

Stewed Berries:
I made this up as I went along, so feel free to modify as needed.
2 cups strawberries
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup water

I cleaned and chopped the berries (leave large chunks, they will disintegrate a little as they cook), then placed them in a small saucepan. I dumped in the sugar and water (my measurements are, at best, guesstimates) and then cooked over low heat until the sugar dissolved and the juice from the berries combined with the sugar and water to make a slightly thickened syrup. Yum!

Note: This cake is also excellent in the summer with fresh berries that have been well-sugared and stashed in the refrigerator overnight. Either way, you can't go wrong. Oh, and if you can't find nice strawberries, raspberries would probably be even better!

*If your grocery store doesn't sell superfine sugar (mine doesn't), you can simply pour the two cups of sugar into a food processor and zing it around in there for 10 seconds or so. The first time you do this, maybe just pulse it slowly and keep an eye on the sugar. You're looking for a texture somewhere between regular sugar you might put in your coffee and powdered sugar. Believe it or not, you can actually *see* when the sugar has reached a "superfine" state. Trust me, it sounds more difficult than it really is.

**If you are new to "folding," it's actually pretty simple. Hold the bowl firmly (I tend to tuck it in my arm and hug it to me --messy, but it works) and stick your spatula straight into the middle of the bowl. Pull the spatula out and up and fold that first scoop of batter toward the center of the bowl. Rotate the bowl a quarter turn and repeat. Keep doing this until all the flour is incorporated, then add some more flour. It may seem awkward at first, but it gets easier. Believe me, or else I wouldn't make this cake so often!

Final Notes:

I don't know what it is about angelfood cakes, but they are, in my experience, the most likely to "fall;" that is, for mysterious reasons known only to it, come out of the oven looking like an overgrown hockey puck. While this has never happened to me, my grandmother (who I must assume has experienced this type of disaster) gave me strict instructions on how to avoid this type of cake catastrophe: Never, but never, allow anyone in the house to do more than tiptoe and whisper while the cake is baking. If they do, some obscure god of cakes will be offended by the noise and cause your cake to end up flatter than the proverbial pancake. Not pretty.
According to my sources, this cake is actually pretty healthy if you are someone concerned with your weight, health, etc. I can safely feed this to my eighty-some odd years old great aunt who suffers from type-2 diabetes, as well as to my mother who follows the Curves diet for women. In any event, it basically has no fat whatsoever, so dig in!

Oreo Cheesecake

2009-01-16T14:51:00.000-08:00

Oreo cookies are one of those nostalgic foods from childhood. And although the adult in me understands that they aren't exactly healthy, I still love to eat Oreos with a big glass of milk. Oreos are also excellent as ingredients in a variety of desserts. For example, when I was in college, I remember the cafeteria made these awesome cheesecake brownies with Oreos layered inside them (yum!). I also enjoy making brownie pie with an Oreo crust (but that's another blog).

But perhaps the best Oreo dessert I have ever made or eaten is OREO CHEESECAKE. It rocks! I first found the recipe for my Oreo cheesecake when I was in college (Go IWU!). The Bloomington/Normal Pantagraph ran an article in its Lifestyle section featuring cheesecakes, undoubtedly the best article to ever run in that section of the paper.

Traditionally, I make my Oreo cheesecake every New Year's Eve for our annual party. Last year some of our friends brought over their fondue paraphernalia and we mixed up milk chocolate and white chocolate/mint fondues and THEN dipped the cheesecake in that. Well. While not exactly healthy, it was darned good. So without further ado, here is the best Oreo cheesecake recipe ever...

Oreo Cheesecake:

2 bags Oreos (standard size, please, none of that double-stuffed nonsense)

1 stick unsalted butter, melted
3 eight oz. blocks of cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup sugar
4 eggs, room temperature
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Crush 30 Oreos (I use a food processor), and coarsely chop 20 Oreos. This is about 1 bag of Oreos, but I always buy two bags, usually because I must snack on Oreos while preparing this dessert! In a large, heat-proof bowl, melt a stick of butter and then combine the crushed Oreos and butter. Stir until Oreo crumbs are well-coated with butter, then press into bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch spring form pan. Set aside.

In an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar until creamy; add eggs one at a time. Next add sour cream and vanilla extract; fold in chopped cookies. Spread mixture into prepared crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes, or until set. I discovered that my oven starts to burn the edges of the cheesecake, so I try to watch and remove the cheesecake a few minutes early.

To cool the cheesecake, I use a trick I learned from watching the Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network (don't laugh -- I too was skeptical at first). When the cheesecake tests done, turn off the oven and open the door wide and let the cheesecake sit in the oven for another hour. AS the oven cools, the cheescake will also slowly cool and this will keep the top of the cheesecake from cracking. Now, cracked or not, this is darned good. But for the sake of aesthetics, this is one trick that works well. When the cheesecake is completely cooled (or you simply can't wait any longer to eat it), remove from the springform pan and garnish with the remaining (HA!) cookies (yet another good reason to buy two bags...you might actually have extras for garnishing purposes!).

Apple Crisp Muffins

2009-01-15T17:23:00.000-08:00

The other night my mother-in-law gave me a recipe for some wholesome oatmeal muffins that can be modified in a variety of ways. Since I’m staring down my (wait for it) FIVE-DAY WEEKEND (thank you ridiculously cold weather), I thought it was the perfect time for a baking binge. I made the muffins using a few of the recipe’s suggested modifications and a few of my own that I thought of as I was mixing the muffins. First, to increase the “healthy” factor, I used half the all-purpose flour suggested and substituted whole-wheat flour for the rest. I also threw in a couple tablespoons of wheat germ for good measure. I combined the rest of the dry ingredients as suggested and at the last minute dumped in a little cinnamon…probably about a teaspoon. The “apple crisp” muffins idea was starting to take shape, especially as I started to eye the gala apples sitting on my counter top. Seconds later I was grating apples energetically and wondering how many calories could be burned cooking. The answer I eventually arrived at: not enough. =[ But now my whole house is filled with the smell of baking apples, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Awesome!

The muffins are delicious! I can't wait to eat them for breakfast and (bonus), they freeze really well, so I made a double batch.

Basic Muffin Recipe

1 cup quick oats
1 cup reduced fat, cultured buttermilk
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

In a bowl, soak oats in buttermilk for 15 minutes. Stir in beaten egg, brown sugar, and vegetable oil. In a separate bowl, combine flour, bkaing powder, baking soda, and salt. Combine with wet ingredients until just combined. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin tins 3/4 full. Bake at 400 degrees for 16-18 minutes or until muffins test done. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack. Makes one dozen muffins.

Options: Add raisins, nuts, dried cranberries, mashed banana, grated apple, chocolate chips, about 1/4 cup of your choice. You could also add cinnamon or grated orange or lemon zest.

Apple Crisp Muffins:

1 cup quick oats
1 cup reduced fat, cultured buttermilk
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons wheat germ
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 apple, grated

Note: I combined the cinnamon with the other dry ingredients and the apple with the wet ingredients. Otherwise, I followed the recipe as described above.

To Grill a Mockingbird

Fun Fact!

Where I've Been...

Movin' On Up

The Time Traveler's Wife: The Reviews are In

I Am Scout

The Time Traveler's Wife

The Basketball Belly

Spring Fever

A Christmas to Remember

Oreo Truffles

Cheddar Dill Scones

Vegetable Lentil Soup

Christmas Cookie Ornaments

French Apple Tart

Ingredients

For the pastry:

For the apples:

Directions

Isn't She Lovely?

Presto! Pesto

Pasta Salad with Homemade Vinaigrette

Multigrain English Muffins

Homemade Oreo Cookies

Strawberry Fields

My Ace of Cakes Episode

Flying Gorillas

Bake While the Sun Shines

Great Balls of...Meat!

High *Steaks* Cooking

Playing Chicken with an Enchilada

Let's Rock the Guac

Beef Enchiladas, Ole!

Triple Threat Raspberry Sauce

Philly Cheese Steak Wraps

If Life Gives You Lemons...Make Lemon Fusilli

Being an Ambassador for the Republic of Tea

I've Gone Over to the Dark Side

My New Friend Herb

Oh, Sweet Addiction...

Black-and-White Cheesecake Squares

St. Nick Sticks

It's a bird. It's a plane. It's a MANGO!

Rockin' the Moroccan: Cous Cous

I Scream, You Scream...

The Husband by Dean Koontz

Making Bread, Breaking Bread

You Say Tomato, I Say Sauce!

Six Seconds by Rick Mofina

CHEER! by Kate Torgovnick

Lemon Angelfood Cake

Oreo Cheesecake

Apple Crisp Muffins

High Steaks Cooking