Nothing Says Sorry... Like Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner!

So, let me just start out by saying, I'm sorry for not updating in months. I was all like, oh! I'll talk about being vegan! It'll be awesome! And then that went on for a month, ended, and we all got fat and happy again. I'm going to blame my camera charger for not working. Seriously. Why'd it got to be that way?

To make up for it I'll start this blog off right. With this mouthwatering picture of dinner from last Thursday:
Mmmmm. Well, okay, I'm biased because I both made the food and took the picture. But still. That there is butter sauteed scallops over linguine in a tomato cream sauce tossed with panchetta. Somehow looks more professional than usual, if I do say so myself. It might be the awesome porcelain black plates I got from IKEA on my last trip. $4.99 each, so expensive by their standards! But I thought they were awesome and rationalized them anyway. The wine is called "Yard Dog." Has an adorable dog with a cone around it's head on the label. It was an interesting white blend from Australia we got on our first trip to the Vintage Cellar downtown for about $11. I liked it a lot, surprisingly. Fruity but rich and complex underneath that. Would recommend it.

Scallops over Linguine with a Tomato Cream Sauce
Ingredients:

• 8-10 medium Scallops (Don't make Spike's mistake! Don't use frozen! - Top Chef All-Stars Reference)
  
• 1/3 box Linguine
• 1 stick Butter
• 1 cup Cream
• 1/2 can Tomato sauce (buy it or make it, I buy it in a can. )
• Salt (all I can say is... a heck ton)
• Panchetta
• Nutmeg
• Apple Cider Vinegar

First thing to do is get the sauce started. I pour the tomato sauce into a medium-small pan on low over a burner. Then I add the cream until the color's a lightish orange, making sure to stir it in as I go. I keep the heat low until I make sure the cream is integrated so it doesn't curdle or any weird stuff like that. Salt, pepper, nutmeg and seriously, just a splash of apple cider vinegar, add a few slices of panchetta,torn into smaller bits and let sit there on medium-low for a while, stirring.

After this, put some salt into some water. Really wish I could be more specific than this. A lot of water. Enough to cover the scallops and then some. Put salt in until the water is cloudy.... I'm thinking about half a cup to a cup for the amount of water I had. Add scallops. Leave there for 7-10 minutes. I'm serious about that 10 minutes thing. The scallops are salty at that point. The recipie I used said 10. I think it was a little salty, but my boyfriend had no problem with them. (He tends really salty so I'm not sure I'd listen to him.) Take them out and rinse them immediately and set aside.

Slice up/ tear up some panchetta. Not too much, maybe 3-4 slices? And put them in a pan and cook the bits like bacon. They're pretty thin cut, usually, though, so be careful to not burn them. Set aside when done (just crispy!) At this point you should probably start boiling the water for the pasta and then, you know, putting the pasta in the water. My linguine took annoyingly long to cook. Like. A full 8 minutes longer than the box said. Good thing the scallops were also behind schedule!

Put that butter in a sautee pan and melt it on low. I know, a stick of butter. Totally unneccesary. But the deeper the butter is, the more it soaks into the scallops. Mmmmm. When the butter is melted turn the burner up to medium. Sautee them for 2-4 minutes on each side, depending on the thickness of the scallop. --So here's the thing. Mine took forever to cook. Yes, some of them were a little thicker, but they didn't really even get the color until later. I think I needed to be cooking around medium-high, but I was afraid of burning the butter. The recipie said 2-3 min. per side. I think I was at least at 4 on the thick ones. Ultimately, they were really luscious on the inside but the thick ones, the outside was a teensy bit tough. So, I'd say higher heat, less time. Okay, go!--

Mix the sauce and the pasta together and place on center of plate. Put scallops on top of linguine and garnish with fried panchetta. Enjoy while warm! (A full or lightly oaky white would go well, or a light, fruity red. Enjoy these cool or room temp, respectively!)

Part 2: Breakfast!

I know. Breakfast totally comes first. But that picture is just so pretty! This is going to be about French Toast and Bacon. Boring, common place, and sloppy, do you say? No! Wonderful. I've got to tell you. I was never much of a french toast fan. My parents had to cut off the crust for me, and even then, my Mom had to be the one to dip it because when my Dad did it, he'd get the eggiest parts and I'd have a coating of scrambled eggs on my bread! My boyfriend had a similar french toast experience. The one time he'd had french toast previously, he was young, expecting manufactured french toast sticks, and shocked when he got egg bread. Well, folks, I have overcome my own expectations for French Toast!

Italian Bread French Toast with Bacon

Ingredients:

• Italian Bread! (Yes, one of the home baked loaves from the grocery that has that soft, chewy inside and crusty exterior. I love it. I loved it so much, I wanted to use it in breakfast!)
• 3 Eggs
• 1 cup of milk (ish)
• Cinnamon
• Brown Sugar
• Nutmeg
• Vanilla extract, just a dash (I used vanilla soy milk so I skipped this...)
• Baaaaconnnn!!!

So yes. Wisk together all of the ingredients in a shallow dish (except bread and bacon). I'm sorry I don't have exact amounts of the spices but they were reasonable. Five shakes of cinnamon? 1/3 cup brown sugar? A dash of nutmeg? Meanwhile, cook that bacon! Keep it somewhere warm (like the oven on warm....) but transfer it out of the skillet you used to cook it. Keep the bacon fat in that skillet.

Dip the sliced bread in the mixture by setting in in the dish on one side for 5-10 second then flipping it for another 10 seconds or so. Then put it immediately on the hot skillet! (350 degrees or so, that's medium high!) Sprinkle cinnamon-sugar on the up side of the bread then flip it over when the other side is goldening up nicely. Maybe 3 minutes? Repeat and remove!

Serve the french toast with syrup, a sprinkling of powdered sugar, and that scrumptious bacon. This has seriously changed my few of french toast. It was insanely excessive, even for bruch. But you know what? Also insanely delicious.

Part 3: Lunch

Okay. Don't get me wrong here. I sometimes make impressive lunch foods. Eggplant marinara panini! Fried eggplant! Grilled cheese (not impressive, but yummy)! Honey Smoked Turkey with Swiss cheese, Lettuce, and Creole Mustard! (Sounds impressive, isn't too.) I don't usually think about taking pictures of these things though.

So. That being said. This is a cop out. Sliders. I made them for an easy dinner. Look at it. Easy, quick, cute. And I can fufill my promise of Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, but saying they're best served for lunch! So uh. Yes! Here!
Beef Sliders with Egg Noodles

• Beef Paties (I used premade *shame*)
• Lettuce (Iceberg, which I like!)
• Creole Mustard
• Buns
• Egg Noodles
  

....

Oh, why am I even trying? This is completely an example of a college student on a budget trying to be a foodie. That there meal cost about $1.50 a plate. The most expensive thing used was probably the mustard. Basically, I took the frozen hamburger paties I had bought from my university to use up the remainder of my meal plan money. I cooked them with salt and pepper on my (product placement!) George Foreman Grill! I split them into two mishmashed paties per large pattie! I boiled some water! I cooked some eggnoodles! I washed some lettuce! I dripped some mustard!

15 minutes later I had dinner. Looks good and tasted good too.

Here's a present for you guys since I failed at my lunch section. Smiley face fondant cake! Desserts next time, I'll tell you how I made it! Bye!

Picture taken by roommate!

Metro!/Gillie's [or] Being a College Student and Veganism Part 1

So, for reasons that I can't seem to remember when I'm staring at a nice bowl of mac and cheese, I decided to eat vegan for the week. That is Sunday dinner to Sunday lunch. Actually, these couple days into it, I think a week isn't too bad. Maybe I'll try two weeks! We'll see when the weekend comes around.

Okay, I lied. I do remember why I decided to go vegan for the week (maybe because I'm eating a delicious pear as I type right now.) 1- To see what it's like. The answer? Ridiculous. You real vegans are crazy. I have no idea how you do it. 2- To see if I could. Do you know how many things have animal products in them?! The answer is... everything. 3- To be healthier. I've gotten a lot of objections to this third and most important reason. My friends who know actual vegans say that a lot are "junkfood vegans". For example, my boyfriend realized last night that Reese's Peanut Butter Cereal does not have any animal products in it. However, because we're doing it for a short amount of time, the cravings for real food aren't so desperate and we have to buy food for this anyway, good or bad food, so we just buy the good stuff.

Right! On to the food! Day 1 was a quick pasta with homemade sauce. Yummy, it was tomato sauce spiced with oregano, basil, parsley, garlic, onion, nutmeg, red pepper, salt/pepper, and that's all? Possibly other things were included because I was throwing spices into it until it tasted right. I really missed the cheese on it. Day 2 I ate at Gillie's with my roommate where I had the foccacia pizza with marinara sauce, vegan cheese, garlic and shittake mushrooms. Gillie's is this crazy hippie place downtown. By which I mean, it really focuses on having vegetarian/vegan options, has a nice music scene on Fridays and the people who work there seem really chill. The stuff there isn't entirely cheap, but my pizza cost me only $6.50. I think my friend's pesto cost her more than $10 though.

On the other hand, I went to a really trendy fine dining place a few weeks ago before heading to an art gallery in the nearby city. Metro! was really crowded for when we got there but it died down as we were finishing up (when the picture was taken). I somehow managed to forget to take the important pictures... the food. But in any case, the dining room was beautiful! So many delicious looking things were coming out and so many things on the menu sounded amazing. The cuisine was an interesting mix. Most of it seemed neo-american, but they also had a large sushi menu! The prices, unfortunately, reflected the atmosphere, or I would have gotten something much more exciting than I did. I ended up with an open face crab melt which was actually quite good. The french fries were suprisingly spectacular! I expected them to be a throw away. My boyfriend got some small rolls of sushi, maybe salmon and octopus? He liked them, although he said they might be a little overpriced. "But then, that's sushi these days." Our dishes were in the $10-15 range, but they were on the cheaper side of the menu.

In any case, back to the veganism! So, last night, we had Walnut Tofu over Ramen Noodles. Please blink and stare at that title for a while. It was pretty much my vegan take on walnut shrimp, but I forgot to put the rice on until I was about to serve the food, so I was forced to improvise and microwave some ramen noodles. I think the point I'm trying to make is, if you forget that I'm a college student because I like to cook nice food, remember that a- I have ramen noodles and b- I made a dish that used them. I think this was pretty entertaining.
Walnut Tofu
1 package extra-firm tofu (pressed)
1 medium package walnuts
Almond milk
Powdered sugar
Corn starch
Olive oil (for marinade)
Small amount of vinegar (for marinade)
Onion powder (marinade)
Chili powder (marinade)
Garlic (marinade)
Salt/pepper (marinade)

Basically, marinade the tofu for a while. While this is going on, mix the milk and walnuts over medium low. Add powdered sugar until the liquid tastes just sweet. Then add corn starch until the liquid is slightly thicker and sticky, but no longer watery. Add a little bit of salt. Keep stiring and add more milk if the mixture thickens too far. After the tofu is done marinading 15+ minutes, sautee in a skillet over medium-high. Pour the marinade mixture into the skillet as well and feel free to add more seasoning as desired. Cut the pieces of tofu into small pieces (about half a bite or smaller, but not like ground beef) with a spatula. Sautee for around 7 minutes until the tofu is firm but not gummy. Drain tofu and add walnut mixture to the skillet and mix over low heat. Serve over rice or, if you forget, ramen noodles. I'd also add salt over the dish after it is mixed.

It tasted pretty good, but this was my first time cooking tofu, so it wasn't the best texture wise. Jasmine rice would have made it taste much better but honestly, it was still pretty good over ramen. I'm going to give it a "pretty good". My biggest problem was probably just the tofu... it would have been great with shrimp :) It doesn't look too insanely appetizing but I mean, it is walnuts and chunks of tofu covered in a brownish sauce. I don't think there's anyway to plate that to make it look that great.

Wanted: A Lifetime Supply of Basil

Really. How did I go 18 years of my life without ever having eaten pesto? And to think, if my friend hadn't given me a bite of his reheated, leftover pesto one afternoon, I'd have had no inkling that it was even remotely decent! After all, it is suspiciously green and healthy looking. The first time I made pesto I mentioned it in this blog, back in May, 2 whole years since the first time I tried it. Since then I've made it at least 5 times, but now the floodgates are really opened. I've always made it in a blender, which is really a pain cleaning. But my mother was in town recently and she bought me a food processor which is really MUCH better. So now I just need about a thousand pounds of basil and I'll be happy. Anyone want to help me out?

Here's the recipe for the pesto. I think I cited this site in my first post about pesto, but at this point I don't really use a recipe anymore. (Forgive my approximations.)
Basil Pesto
Serves 3-4
2 packages basil (something like 4.5 oz?)
1 small package walnuts (maybe 1.5-2 oz?)
4 cloves garlic (more or less depending on how garlicy/spicy you want it, but having too much garlic is better than not having enough, if you ask me.)
A lot of Parmesan cheese (I really don't have anything resembling an amount here. 1/2-3/4 cup?)
Olive oil (1/3 cup?)

Put that all in some sort of blending/chopping device until it's chopped up and blended together. You can make it really fine if you like really homogeneous mixtures, but if you're into bigger flares of flavor, you might want to keep a little more texture. You might also have to go into your blender/food processor with a spoon and make sure the stuff on the top gets into the blades at the bottom.

Serving suggestions: I had it over about 3/4- 1 lb of pasta. Adding lots of feta cheese to the mixture really makes it outstanding, making that garlic really interesting without being too much. I served it with a form of bruchetta (mozzarella slices melted over bread topped with the pesto and tomatoes) and I usually do that. The tomatoes help cool off the garlic.

I served the meal with a Tapena Tempranillo, which was almost what it needed. The wine was a little too mellow. It needed a little more heat and a little more spice. It was kind of surprising that the smoothness of the wine was the problem. Young old world reds are usually the opposite of smooth, but then, it wasn't an expensive wine either (something like $8), so it might just not have had the interest I wanted it to. We were contemplating buying a dry white of some sort, but a strong, spicy red was definately a good decision, even if this wine wasn't the wine for the job.

I've also used the sauce as a pizza sauce before (with mozzarella and feta cheese) and it would have been great for the shrimp pizza I made a few weeks back.

I'm going to be honest and say that whatever recipe you use for pesto, you should throw it away and try this one. I have not had pesto anywhere else that was better. I had a really disappointing spinach-oregano-basil vegan pesto recently (although it is very possible that I just don't like spinach, and the pesto was okay), as well as a commercial pesto. My brother says pesto tastes like grass and I believe that whatever pesto he's eaten does taste like grass. Mine absolutely does not. Give it a shot!

When I made this recently, I tried to make a fried mozzarella that I could top with tomatoes and pesto (instead of using bread for the base) but I couldn't figure out frying mozzarella. I clearly missed something when I was foodgawking the topic. So, I had to make do with (quite yummy) bruchetta like substances.

I also failed at making chocolate lava cakes. For some reason, the center just wasn't molten. There was clearly a different filling than the outer cake, and it was kind of a moist fudge, half cooked brownie type thing, but it wasn't molten. However, my boyfriend described it as possibly the best chocolate cake he'd ever had, so it wasn't all bad. SO rich though, I've got to say.

The week before the pesto I made some steak I marinated in apple-cider vinegar and soy sauce (also some garlic, pepper, salt and olive oil). I pan seared it and then put it in the oven. Somehow, I do a pretty bad job at cooking steaks medium rare in the oven, which is what I prefer, but I did get medium out of it, so that was nice. The flavor of the steak was exactly what I was looking for, although not all parties agreed that this would be their first choice marinade.

I served it with asparagus, which I've not only never made, I've also never eaten. (I'm not a big green thing fan.) I put butter, salt and a little lemon juice on them and just baked them for 6-7 minutes. This time was slightly under the internet's consensus, so I blame the pathetic looking result on the local grocery store. The asparagus they had were kind of thin to begin with, so they cooked down a lot and probably over cooked. I didn't like them, they were a little bitter, but I think that was just me and my weird tastebuds. The consensus was that the asparagus were actually good. I'm going to fess up right now and tell you that the mashed potatoes were instant potatoes. Garlic and herb instant potatoes. So let's just move on from there.

My next post will probably be about the restaurant I ate at this past weekend. I'm also planning to make chicken enchiladas tonight, so that might be coming up soon as well! Oh! And! If you read this blog, you should follow or comment! Thanks :)

Explanations

So, the reason why I haven't said anything recently is that I accidentally left my camera charger in Colorado, and it seems a shame to talk about the food I've been making without showing pictures. So, brief explanation of what I've been making: pulled pork, beijing beef stir fry, shrimp pizza, homemade bagels, panna cotta.

So the point is, I ordered a new charger from ebay, and it should get here soon! I'll try to cook something nice in honor of being able to take pictures again! See you with a real post soon!

The Thing I Hate Most About Cooking: Dishes.

Yo. So my kitchen has really been a wreck recently. I try pretty hard (well.... I try at least) to wash dishes after I cook, but if I cook in a rush and then sit down for a meal, the last thing I want to do afterward is dishes. This is pretty much the situation every week night, by the way. And then there was still some left overs from the 6 hrs of baking cupcakes and homemade icing. Going out of town for 8 days didn't help at all. So I got back and all the surfaces in my kitchen were covered with very sketchy dishes. However! On thursday, my extremely strapped for cash friend came by and I asked her exactly how broke she was. 3.5 hrs later, my dish problem was solved! My kitchen was still a wreck but it was a totally manageable. It is now still totally clean, almost a week later!!


So, I didn't make too much that was interesting this last week. My boyfriend's been really busy with work and not around, and I really hate cooking just for myself. (I like to be appreciated!) I made quesadillas on Monday, but it was just that simple (messy!) recipe I've discussed before. Thursday, though, I made firecracker shrimp (link) and spur of the moment added crab rangoon to it. I also sauteed some kale, which was okay as leafy green things go! But in any case, despite the original focus on the shrimp, I actually loved the crab rangoon! I kind of ad libed it from a couple places. But this is what I did:

Baked Crab Rangoon
1/2 pack of imitation crab
6oz cream cheese
Pack of green onion, chopped (just the white parts)
A little Worcestershire Sauce
Pepper + Salt
1.5 teaspoons granulated sugar
Garlic powder (to taste?)
Spring roll wrappers
(corn starch)

Pretty much, mix everything and cut pieces of of the spring roll wrappers into halves. Mix water and cornstarch together. Before you put a tablespoon of filling in the middle of the wrapper, rub the wrapper with the water constarch mixture. Fold the wrapper over the mixture and place on a baking sheet. Put in the oven at 350 F for 10-15 min, until the wrapper is crispy. (Makes about 8-10)

What do I have to say about this. Well, I was aiming at a lower fat, non fried version, which I think I did, but also, I didnt use wonton wrappers, and that was a big mistake. One I blame mostly on the local grocery stores, which don't carry them? (Damn middle of nowhere, I needed to go to a specialty store probably.) They were so amazingly perfect with this sauce, which is basically link. I mixed chilli powder, sugar, water, cornstarch, garlic and salt. Note that I forgot the vinegar. I also added more sugar later, because I thought it was a little spicy. It turned out really sweet! It was supposed to be paired with the shrimp, but it was amazing with the crab rangoon! The contrast was really great. That dish was very very delicious, and everyone involved thought so :) (My dishes cleaning friend got some too!)

The wine we drank with it was a 2008 Helfrich Gewurztraminer from Alsace. Something like $13 from Kroger. Went pretty well, although I wouldn't say that it totally excited the flavors. A good pairing, but I'm still open to other wines if I make this dish again. If the food were spicier (like if I'd pushed the chilli forward in the sauce etc.) it would have paired slightly better. The flavors were a somewhat pear-y front taste with more of a developed floral back taste. I have a big problem with a lot of whites that taste like spoiled pear juice, but this was a lot more developed and the floral really helped it out. I liked it.

My next post will probably be on the homemade pulled pork that is currently past due in the oven, yet still stuck at 170! I'm also doing a homemade bbq sauce, and I'm sure to deviate excessively from the recipe I'm (sort of) following, so good times!

Colorado Cuisine

This past week, I've been out of town. I was sharing an extended stay hotel room with 3-4 other people, and there were not enough dishes for that in the meager kitchen. So, even though we'd intended on cooking food, we mostly just ate out. If one of the guys had had any say about it, I think we would have eaten at Chick Fillet every night. The first Saturday we arrived at 10:10pm, all of 10 minutes after it closed, and then on Sundays it is closed! So. We went there two other times.

We also went to two italian places. Biaggio's was really good! I ate a great cheese ravioli with a cream, tomato and pesto sauce. Yummy. The bread was served with a oil/cheese mixture the waiter touted as "Biaggio butter", which was just olive oil, basil, pepper, parmesean cheese. However, when one of my friends remade it (because there was a lot of bread!) he called it "Biaggio butter alla Phil" or "Biaggio butter alla Awesome" because he added salt. I did it better though because I swirled the olive oil, which TOTALLY makes a difference :P The food was pretty great overall, although a little expensive. The other place wasn't very great, Zio's Italian kitchen. We went for lunch and I got a standard manicotti. They used a weird combination of cheeses (maybe some romano or something that was a lot sharper, which isn't great for Italian food?). I never ate the left overs, although I wanted to just on principle.

There was also a restaurant called SmashBurger. It wasn't as great as everyone was saying. I had a burger with bluecheese, and the standard toppings. I didn't really like the smash sauce and the rosemary fries were so so. The other middle class food (not FAST food but not a sit down restaurant) I ate was Noodles and Company. I eat that all the time at home, even just the simple buttered noodles. It was definately not as good as the stuff on the east coast. It probably has to do with the altitude though, athough I don't have much experience with cooking at different altidudes.

The only real thing that I cooked all week was a roasted red pepper and garlic chicken sliced over and garlic, cheese, olive oil pasta. The picture of it is near the top. It wasn't really all that great but for the place we had it was the best we could do. It was so strange not even having the basic spices around. I didn't even marinade the chicken myself; it was the Sassy Chicken from Whole Foods. I found it very interesting that half the pasta tasted extremely bland, and some of it was only so so. My friend had made half the pasta previously and so I could tell how amazing salt is for pasta since mine tasted quite nice. Everyone liked the dish though, so that was pretty great!

Anyway, I'm back now, will try to post more!

Cuppa Cupcakes!

My boyfriend's 21st birthday was this past week and so I decided to take a day off of work and mess up my entire apartment making cupcakes. Keeping with the event, I made them with a little fortification. Now, you might remind me that heat causes alcohol to evaporate and thus, my cupcakes were not actually taking advantage of his new found majority. To this I reply, you just have to make sure you use enough extra to let some of it boil off, or put it in about 5 min before you're going to take them out (this does mess with the consistency a tiny bit though.) Also, the icing never sees any heat! I brought them to the cook out we were having, and a party guest's kids were running around. It is so heart breaking to have to deny cupcakes to children.

So the first type I made were Irish Car Bomb cupcakes from here. I halved the recipe actually, which made thirteen. So the recipe is... well why don't you go to that lovely blog and follow the directions already so carefully written out! The only variations was that my friend left the whiskey and Guinness in a cereal box on my front door step. Which is to say, the front door step of the apartment down the block. And while he was apologetic and brought me some Guinness in the morning, unfortunately while 7-Elevens are open at 7am Monday morning, ABC stores are not. Therefore, I used spiced rum for the ganache instead of whiskey. Warning about these cupcakes: you won't have to worry about the booze in the cupcakes (and boy are they boozy, especially that ganache) because they are so rich that you couldn't eat more than one at a time! (But oh so good....)

The second type I made were Creme de Menthe Dark Chocolate cupcakes. What I did was basically loosely from here. But I'll give you my more specific recipe since that link isn't even alcoholic!

Creme de Menthe Dark Chocolate

1 cup coconut milk
1/3 cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup dark chocolate, chopped
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Creme de Menthe

For Frosting:
1 cup butter or margarine, room temperature
2 tablespoons soymilk
1 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
some chocolate powder
creme de menthe

Mix the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients (separately) and then combine them. Put into the oven and bake 20 min at 350 (until done, clean toothpick and all, which was more than 20 min for me.) 5 min before they're done, pull 'em out and pour a generous (or less generous if you don't want them strong) amount of creme de menthe on each cake. Let them finish, then cool. The icing, just combine it all. Look at the original recipe if you want to make it all special and perfect. Then ice! -Note- the cupcake liners were sticky from the liqueur so I double bagged them!

These were my favorite cupcakes. Don't get me wrong, ICB's were good, but SOOOO rich. These were just amazing. Other people agreed!

So, I'll go into the next two now. Pina Colada and Margarita cupcakes. The Pina Colada ones were controversial and the Margarita ones were generic. The problem with the PC ones (from here, although I deviated a lot, mostly by adding a lot of rum, and not using powdered coconut milk) was that they didn't feel like cake. That doesn't mean they were necessarily bad, but they were weird. Some people said they were their favorite, other people couldn't eat them. I had problems with them compared to all that chocolate, but they weren't horrible, particularly if you're into more fruity, less fatty/sugary desserts (although that is probably just an illusion, the health aspects). The Margarita cupcakes, from here, were good, although I had to add way more lime to the icing and I wish I had for the cakes too. The cake was a good consistency but really boring tasting. Also, I didn't like the cream cheese icing for the cupcake, I would have made something like the ICB icing, but with tequila! No one disliked them, but they weren't anyone's favorites either.

So in conclusion, I spent ALL DAY making these. I woke up at 7, went to the grocery store to buy ingredients, finished baking all the cakes by 1, took a 2 hr break to write an essay due at 5, and then finished icing just about at 5:45. (People were coming over at 6:30.) I still had to shower, clean, get together cook out stuff, and oh yeah, make the burgers. The result? The people who arrived at 6:25 walked into my messy apartment where I was frantically grubbing around in ground beef and blue cheese. (I made blue cheese burgers! Easy recipe! Ground beef + some msc amount of blue cheese depending on how much you want. Roll it into a ball then squish it and grill it.) My apartment still has bowls of icing and powdered sugar on the place mats and empty cupcake wrappers and empty bags of powdered sugar. But it was so worth it :) Happy 21st Birthday!

Feta Cheese Crazy!

I have been very into feta cheese lately. I'd been wanting to do something with feta and pesto again, and when I went out to a restaurant on Sunday night, I got a feta/mozzarela/pesto calzone.

Quick interlude. I have no pictures of any of this because my frickin' camera will take $130 plus tax and shipping to fix. AKA I need to buy a new camera. This was taken a while ago, but I wanted to experiment with decorating with fondant, so I made a firefly cake in honor of the summer! Here it is!

So then on Tuesday, I made a really yummy pizza with a pesto sauce with mozzarella and feta cheese. Quite yummy!! It was a lighter dish, but we ended up eating the whole thing between two of us, which was probably unnecessary. I wish I'd had leftovers. All I did was just make a basic pesto (a cup of basil, 1/4 cup olive oil, small amount of walnuts, 3-4 cloves of garlic, half a cup of parmesean cheese) and blended it. I say blend, because I don't own a food processor, and that's what I'm supposed to do, food process. Then I just spread it over a pre-made pizza crust (no time to make that) and put a light layer of mozzerella, then a thick layer of feta. Put it in the oven at 450 for 10 min (ish).

On Wednesday, I just made chicken, boneless chicken breasts that I forgot to marinate in advance, no less, but it turned out really well. I marinated it in a mixture of olive oil and milk, with a little garlic, salt, pepper, basi, and a LOT of rosemary. I only marinated for about 20 min, then cooked the two chicken breasts at 350 for half an hour (I always forget how long... THAT'S how long.) They were on the pinker side, so longer than that if you worry, but I really hate overdone chicken so I err in the other direction. ANYWAY, when I took it out, I generously sprinkled feta cheese over it. My boyfriend's reaction to it was, "Damn it, you watch too many cooking shows. This is really good."

Last night I made a shrimp scampi. I wanted to put feta cheese on it (because I'm so into feta right now) but I was convinced into parmesean. It was still pretty good. I'm also still eating the homeade fudge I made last week.... which was really easy! I mean, it wasn't fun to clean out the sugar-evaporated milk mix, but the results are really amazing!

As far as cooking in the future goes, I'm not really sure what I'm going to be making next week and whatnot. Groceries are getting pretty expensive, and while I'm in a feta cheese mood, I'm not really too inspired right now. Plus, I'm getting more and more busy, since I'm starting classes in addition to working a research job and 30+ other hours a week. But in any case, I'll try to blog more. Hope you're eating yummy things!

General Housewifery

I've been cooking my butt off recently. I started my 30+ hr work week, but somehow it's easier to get meals cooked each day. (My camera is broken so I couldn't take any pictures or anything, so I'll probably spice this blog up with random pictures stolen from the interwebs.)

Last week for my first day of cooking (my boyfriend's first day of work for his internship this summer!) I made steak and shrimp kabobs. They could have been a little more heavily seasoned, even though I could have sworn I put a ton of pepper on everything. Neither me nor him actually like the vegetables it seems (or at the very least, we like the meat more). We had a lot left over (it's really hard to cook for two), but unfortunately I didn't get to eat the left overs because he took it for lunch. (Picture from: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Steak-and-Shrimp-Kabobs, although I didn't use any particular recipe)

I also made lasagna one day, which was pretty good, although it could have used more tomato sauce. And of course nearly the entire pan was left over, because it was pretty thick and heavy (although good). It's pretty intimidating to eat for left overs, as far as I'm concerned, because cold it's pretty solid.

I'm really happy with my first meal of this week-- pesto pasta with feta cheese! The pesto recipe I used was at link. I had to change the ratios a little bit because I didn't have enough basil (it's so expensive, and I didn't want to kill my basil plants!) The sauce ended up being too garlicy, spicy, although the other eaters of it said this wasn't necessarily a bad thing? However, with the feta cheese, it was really perfect! I also made bruschetta, I thought the tomatoes would be a good contrast to the strength of the basil, and it was really good I thought, although usually I'm not too big a fan of bruschetta.

Last night I made pierogies, which was apparently impressive? They actually turned out really well, although I made them a little too big (I've never eaten pierogies before, so I had no idea what size to make them! The link I used was here. They were actually really good, although I wish they'd been smaller (so that the dough to potato ratio would be slower). The picture is from the website with the recipe.

Tonight I'm just making shrimp scampi, but hopefully it's good!

Contemporary Houses: Madison, WI Edition

I've been looking at applying to graduate school at various different places, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison is home to one of the places that I think is a good fit. Now, the program I'd be applying to is a PhD program, so I could be spending 4+ years of my post-college life there. It's not entirely impossible that I'd end up staying in the area. So I figured I'd do a round up of houses in the area.

Madison is actually extremely cheap. Like, originally I thought that the Roanoke area was probably cheaper, but I find that actually in terms of quality, it isn't. [The house to the right is, at 300k, more expensive than most things because it's actually in the city proper. The inside is not as nice as some of the Madison examples but at 300k it'd be legitimately a "starter home".] The houses I found that are the nicest are in the 300-400k range, which is really amazing. Plus points to the University of Wisconsin.

The first house I like the best is a really modern home in Madison proper. At 389k, I could buy it pretty much as soon as I got a job and saved up a down payment. It's custom and pretty much EXACTLY what I'd personally want. Of course, not everyone agrees on my style tastes so the disadvantage could be that it'd be harder to convince a significant other to go with it as well (as compared to a more hybrid, normal contemporary home) and at 26/27, a S.O. might be a relevant concern. Also, since I don't know anything about Madison, who knows about the area that it's in, and the lot is pretty small. But you know, since I doubt this exact house will be available in 6 or 7 years, it doesn't really matter.

Another really nice house comes in at 319k... that's 15o0 a month with a really insubstantial down payment. So, the moment I save up a down payment, that could definitely be bought. It's on more than 5 acres, and the lot looks really beautiful, so the big windows and what not will look really nice. It seems pretty far out of Madison proper, about 20mi, but that might be close enough to get good value for the land.

The point here is that there's an insane number of awesome houses for sale in the Madison area. Additionally, while these houses aren't that great, there're a lot of acceptable 2br+, 1200 sq ft + places on decent lots in not bad areas for 100k or less. That's $500 or less a month if I could come up with 10k in a year. That's much less than the cheapest rent in the DC area near schools I want to go to. Plus, I'd get some of it back when I resold the place 4+ years later. Originally, I really didn't want to get stuck somewhere like WI, but you know... it would definitely be a better experience, monetarily and house speaking. I could own a place in less than a year and a half! Wow. Anyway, a few more 300-400k places.


Okay... this last one is a house I designed in the Sims 3. (There is actually a roof on top of that window'd layer.) It probably would not cost 400k or less. But then, I don't really know about that in Madison, WI.

Green Pie for Saint Patrick's Day.... Totally Traditional Right???

Key lime pie is definitely my favorite type of pie. And while key limes weren't available at Kroger, and even if they had been, they would have stretched my budget (and March's money is already on its last leg), I decided that I wanted to give it a shot. I missed out on Pi Day this last weekend, so when Saint Patrick's Day came around I wanted to make key lime pie. Yes, it's not actually green, but as someone said when asked what the difference between lemon and lime is, "lime tastes green."

The recipe I used was really simple and here. The only thing I changed about the main recipe was that I added a little bit of confectionery sugar to the pie filling. Additionally, I added a topping. Some people like to put meringue on it, I don't.

Ingredients:
1 cup Ricotta Cheese
1 1/4 cup Whipped Cream
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup confectionery sugar
a splash of Kahlua

Combine all ingredients. Alter to taste. Whip together until creamy.

My final topping was a little runny, which is why I specify whipping. I just mixed it, but I feel like beating the product to put air into it will make it better. I put it in the center of the pie with a garnish of lime and around the edge. I will say though that when I ate the pie the cream did a really good job of balancing the tartness of the lime so either putting more on the pie or garnishing the plate with it when it's served is a good idea. I felt I needed a little extra.

Another thing to note is that four egg yolks called for in this recipe leaves you with four egg whites. This just happened to be exactly the amount I needed to make meringues though! So, if you have some extra sugar and vanilla, and some cream of tartar, you can make them too. However! If you don't have an electric beater, get ready to whisk the egg white mixture forever! (Like I did, haha).

In any case, I was afraid to try the pie afterward, because I'd had problems with lemon lime bars in the past where they taste somewhat eggy, and I was afraid this would happen again, but it actually tasted really amazing! I got a lot of compliments on the crust as well as the pie as a whole. I'm really happy!!

Those Biscuits from Red Lobster?

I was at Red Lobster with my boyfriend and waiting for our food, we got into a debate over what the flavors in the biscuits were. I guessed it was garlic salt. He continued to insist that it was something else. Of course, with the internet, we had a plethora of imitation recipes to confirm that the only spices were garlic, garlic salt, and oregano. The recipe I found was this.

I've made these twice so far. The first time, I followed the recipe linked. The biscuit base was just Bisquick and in the first attempt, I found the base (not the flavoring or anything else, but the Bisquick part) was a little bland? dry? They had a strange taste to them... The other two people I served them two liked them a lot anyway, and they were gone very quickly. So a couple days later, I made them with a different biscuit recipe. It ended up being a combination of a couple things. It was too flat actually, but I found out why-- I melted the butter and that means there weren't big enough air pockets, so they didn't rise properly, but once again people still loved them. So the end recipe ended up being this:

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3 tablespoons butter (cubed into small pieces)
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cup cheddar cheese (medium to sharp)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 tablespoons butter (melted)
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp garlic salt

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 F. Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. If you have a sifter, sifting these dry ingredients would make the biscuits more fluffy. Add the small cubes of butter, and mix into the dry ingredients. Mix in the cheese and garlic powder and mix. Then, add milk to make a soft dough. Feel free to add a little more milk to the mix in order to make a soft mixture, but the result should be firm enough to form rough balls of dough.

Spoon teaspoons of dough onto a greased cookie sheet and put in the oven for 10 min. During this time, melt the remaining butter and mix with the oregano and garlic salt. (If you don't have garlic salt, add 3/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp garlic powder-- I did this both times I made the recipe.) When you take them out of the oven at 10 min, brush the butter mixture over the biscuits generously and then put back in the oven for 6 more minutes. When you take them out, brush more of the butter mixture over them and then serve as soon as possible while nice and warm. They're also good leftover, just keep them in a sealed container so they don't get stale.

Notes: The seasoning is really the shining aspect of these biscuits. It's better to air on the strong side with the garlic powder and garlic salt, rather than under-seasoning. If you try them and there isn't a distinct salt/garlic salt taste (that flavor we were trying to pinpoint in Red Lobster), add more garlic salt to the remaining butter mixture (or melt more butter if there's none left) and brush another layer on the biscuits.