Sometimes I steal...

Clearly, I don't conjure up everything I cook from the aether. No, sometimes I scan other blogs and make exactly what I see there... minus the measurements... and usually plus more garlic. I think that this is a perfectly reasonable approach to life.

Recently I have had two that have gone over so well that I'm going to post them here for you. What can I say, I was a blob of uselessness for the holidays and haven't cooked nearly enough lately. Soon, I promise!

First we have a spinach soup by Pioneer Woman. I pureed the whole thing, mostly to demolish the onions in an effort to sneak them past my roommate should she want to try some (she came home too late, oh well, more for me!) and completely failed to measure anything, as per usual, but I followed the gist pretty well. It  was one of those soups that satisfies you to the core: warm, thick, does not strictly require tooth involvement and has enough spinach that you can pretend it's healthy. Perfect. You can find it here.

Option 2 for today is the other end of the spectrum: chocolate chip cookies. I actually made the dough for these when I was making cookies for my christmas cookie decorating party and just threw it in the freezer. Last night I had a dinner party to attend and nothing to bring, so I made a baker's dozen (yes, there is still cookie dough in my house)and took them over. They were still warm when I got there and quickly demolished amidst a chorus of "mmmmmmmm"s. In the interest of full disclosure, I did not love the taste of the dough when I first mixed it up: too molasses-y, but after a few days in the freezer, it was much improved and obviously the finished product went over well, thus the recommendation. Oh, you want the link? Here you go.

So yes, that's all I've got for you today, but I promise to have something more original next time!

Savory Snacks: Fancy Carbs (Soft Pretzels!)

If you aren't a carb person, I really just don't know what to do with you. Seriously. It's not that I don't want to understand it's that I quite simply can't. I love veggies and sometimes I get pretty strong meat cravings, but in my heart of hearts, I'm all about bread. For example, when I was in law school I managed to procure a free mini-loaf bread maker (thank you, LexisNexis) and for the next several days, I was in rapture. I made honey-oatmeal bread, tomato-basil bread, garlic bread (many times), and pretty much anything else you can think of (aside from sourdough, as I did not have a starter lying around). It was heaven.

One problem: I would eat the entire mini-loaf in a sitting. I would take it out of the bread maker, steam still rising from it, and inhale it with balsamic vinegar. Invariably I would get halfway through and think to myself "I should stop now and save the other half, but I'm still hungry." Then I would get three quarters of the way through and think "Soooooooooo full, but the last quarter isn't enough to save." The result of this dance being me in the fetal position on the couch for an hour alternating between "oh god so full" and "but it was so goooooooooood."

You didn't need to know that. I'm sorry, but here are bread-like items for your digestive delight! Does that make up for it? I hope so.

Savory Snacks: Meaty Delights

Cookie parties are fantastic, they really are, but you simply must have some form of salt-laden snacky goodness to combat the sugar high.

In an unrelated note, children are not the only people who respond amusingly to sugar.

Back to salt. I'm a huge proponent of having at least one or two warm snacks. This requires a little bit more attention to timing, in that you should be pulling things out of the oven maybe 10 minutes after people start arriving or you should be cooking as the night goes on, depending on your personal style, the location/visibility of your kitchen, and the likelihood that you will forget about something and set your house on fire. Please do not set your house on fire.

I opted for foods that can be assembled at any time during the day and then thrown in the oven right before people arrive, with a bonus of making the house smell pretty fantastic: (1) Andouille sausage wrapped in puff pastry dough and (2) Bacon-wrapped dated stuffed with goat cheese. Men will eat these, women will eat these, even children will gobble them down (though they may make a face when first presented with a date).

Christmas Cookie Party!

I get an inexplicable level of satisfaction from entertaining. It's just so enjoyable to me to have a bunch of people in the house, eating good food (preferably that I made) and making that contented-sounding conversational buzz. So, before I move, I wanted to put together a little holiday shindig with Dawn (roommate). We opted for a Sunday afternoon Christmas cookie decorating party, and it went really well. People were great sports, probably aided by the mulled wine, and, I have to say, there was some real creative talent in the room (not mine, I assure you).

Over the next few days I'll post several entries covering the savory appetizers that I put together to combat the overwhelming sugar intake that goes with cookie decorating, but I thought it made sense to start with the cookies themselves.

You do not want to know how much flour and sugar my house has gone through in the last 48 hours. You really, really don't.

Ok, Step 1: Make the sugar cookies (recipe below). I made a vanilla-almond cookie because I do like a wee bit more flavor than just sugar and flour. Also! Make the cookies a day in advance if you can. When you refrigerate the dough overnight, it becomes much more flavorful and much less ode du flour.

Beef Stew -or- Things to Feed a Cranky Girl

Do you ever have those days where you just know that the next day is going to be a little rough? You feel a cold coming on, you know you have to do something you've been dreading, the anniversary of something is coming up, etc. I had one of those days, and I decided that the best way to combat it was with comfort food, namely: a thick beef stew.

Truth be told, I've never made a proper beef stew before. Weird, right? I tend to make soups and the like with ground turkey, but that just cannot match the richness of quality stew meat. I say "quality" because you really don't want the stringy, tough, fat-covered "stew meat" at the store, it's worth it to upgrade to a slightly better cut. To aid me in this journey, I turned to Pioneer Woman, not only does she know her kitchen, she also makes generally awesome points. She has a really basic beef stew that looked like an excellent place to start. I happened to have some shredded carrot and a few other things lying around the house, and instead of noodles I was in the mood for rice cooked in, jambalaya style, so I had to thin the base out a little. It was delicious and, yes, it did make my less-than-ideal day slightly brighter.

In other news: It is impossible to take a pretty picture of a hearty stew. Impossible! I swear that the many many things that I will post over the next couple of months that happen to be stew-like are so much tastier than they look. Sigh.

Anyway.

Creamy Corn Chowder

I understand that the food-related zeitgeist these days can be boiled down to “bacon makes everything better.” Now, I’m pretty sure there’s a line, and I’m even more sure that said line is definitely on the near side of bacon vodka (sorry, Jacob), but there is one thing that bacon consistently improves: chowder.

Much as with cheese, I grew up in a bacon-free household. Oh sure, we had turkey bacon, but unless I was at my grandparents’ house inhaling 2-4 ethereal BLTs at a time, I never had the real thing. I had the lowest cholesterol on earth… or at least I would have if I didn’t drink milk by the gallon… but I never learned how to properly cook using bacon. This all changed when I started taking cooking classes: bacon happens.

One of the classes focused on stocks/soups/stews/pretty much anything that is primarily composed of broth. Before this class, I thought that putting bacon in chowders was a uniquely southern habit, and maybe it is, but the class was in Boston and they still did it, so I ‘m going to assume that it’s fairly widely accepted these days. That day, we made a fennel corn chowder that, if I loved fennel, would have been perfect. As I do not really favor licorice-y flavors, however, I then went home and messed around with the recipe to correct the potato-corn balance (there was way too much potato) and substitute a big pile of sweet onion for the fennel. Delicious!

I’ve made it for a bunch of people and it rarely has leftovers. In fact, it may be my most commonly requested recipe. I’m going to be nice, even, and give you both the “good” way and the shortcuts. So, here it is and, in case I have somehow been unclear, do not omit the bacon!

4 Layer Spice Cake with Citrus Filling

I. Love. Cake. Over the years, as I have aged (woe is me, hear the cracking of my bones), my sweet tooth has waned considerably. If I crave something, it's invariably savory. From time to time, however, I am presented with the option of cake, and those are good times. I am a grown woman and I still want the icing-drenched corner piece of store-bought birthday cake.

I love cake so much that I have rules for it: I'm not allowed to bake it in my home, only other people's (fortunately, my parents do, in fact, have a kitchen), I may not ever buy one, and above all, I can never be trusted to cut my own piece. [Edit: My friend Josh had this to say about my rules "That looks awesome. Your rules for cake, though, frankly suck. First rule of cake: there are no rules. omnomnom"]

You can imagine how I felt when this little gem showed up in my mailbox:



Obviously. I made the cake.

The only thing I would change is the icing. I think that a light cream cheese icing would cut down on the intense sweetness of this cake, which would make it pretty much perfect.

White Bean Risotto with Chard and Fried Okra

I said that I like it when people send me recipes and I meant it! My best friend's mother, ridiculously skilled in the kitchen herself, sent a link my way, so naturally I had to try my hand at it. I then proceeded to change it. Why? Because I just can't help myself. I thought that it might be a wee bit bland prepared exactly as it was (some of the reviews back me up on this), and I am too lazy to measure so anything I do is a bit of a hack job anyway. Oh, and the store was out of butter beans.

So, what did I do to it? I replaced butter beans with northern white beans, a less flavorful bean, but I knew that it would work just fine. Then I added prosciutto to the mix, used a bit more onion and probably some extra wine, and likely a bit more parm than the recipe called for. What didn't I change? I prepared the okra exactly as directed (except a lot more of it), and it turned out marvelously. I also handled the chard as recommended.

This means I now know an easy and delicious way to fry okra. Such things cannot end well.

Pumpkin Chili & Parmesan Biscuits

I love it when people send me recipes to try. Love it! Just the other day, Jenna sent me a Whole Foods recipe for a decidedly fall dish: pumpkin chili. Before you recoil and run away, let me assure you that it's not weird. I did find the original recipe a tiny bit bland, even with my lack of shyness around salt, so I baked up some parmesan biscuits to crumble into the bowl (WF suggests topping it with sour cream, which would probably also do the trick).

Delicious and Nutritious.

In other news, I have acquired a sufficient level of employment here in DC to allow me to look for an apartment. Exciting! I'm looking at a place this afternoon and hope to have my real life up and running early in the new year. When that happens, there will be the dinner party to end all dinner parties. Well that's an exaggeration, but I will definitely have people over and feed them. I'm slowly but surely getting back into some form of reality instead of my own, personal bubble of stopped time.

It's about time.

Butternut Squash Non-ravioli

I must have spent two days bragging about making butternut squash ravioli from scratch. Two. Days. First I was going to roll the dough myself, then I was going to shortcut it with wonton wrappers... then I was tired and they were out of wonton wrappers at the store, so I just made the filling and put it in giant pasta shells. Yes, I am ashamed of myself, but it was still worth eating.

In other news, I keep my trap shut unless I've already made something these days, so I do learn.

Now, if I were making actual ravioli, I would make some sort of sauce to top it. Despite the hack job on the pasta, I did put together a tasty sauce that consists primarily of wine and butter, so you know it's good.

Pinto Beans and Parmesan Polenta

Oftentimes, when I am cooking, I am aware that it's just for myself. This means that I take part in the time-honored tradition of making a big batch of something and then eating it for days... and days. Now, if I love the food, I am not going to complain about this. This is a food I love. I will eat it ecstatically the night I cook it, happily the next day, and awkwardly straight from the fridge, standing at the counter.

Mind you, this is not the sort of meal you cook quickly after work - it requires planning. First of all, you have to soak the beans overnight. That's right, you get dried beans and you soak them. You can do this. Do not, regardless of what the bag tells you, convince yourself that boiling the water and then letting them sit for an hour actually cuts it. It does not. You will realize this at some point mid-bite, and you will be sad, so just take my word for it. Secondly, it requires the patience of a saint. You have to let it sit on the stove for at least an hour and a half at an extremely low heat to really get the flavor right. Patience is a virtue (not, interestingly enough, "avert you," as I so firmly believed as a child... and possibly teenager... moving right along).

The payoff of this patience is a really flavorful vegetarian dish that is even good for you.

Fresh Bread Sans Fuss

There is something very satisfying about walking down the hall in my apartment building and thinking "Mmmmmmmm, that smells amazing. Oh wait! That's my apartment!" Delightful.

Oh, and there's no kneading. While I sometimes occupy the role of that annoying girl prattling on about how long, complicated cooking at the end of the day actually relaxes me and gee, what's wrong with a mountain of chopping, I do understand that sometimes it's nice to have something that does not require upper body strength.

This particular new(ish) bread making method seems to have taken the internet by storm and you can find variations on it pretty much everywhere. I happened to want to make something with rosemary and garlic, but you can substitute just about any herbs or cheese or fruit. Go crazy. Yes, baking is a precise pursuit, generally, but sometimes you are allowed to just throw some raisins in there and hope for the best. This is one of those times.

Apple Tart (in 5 ingredients)

Do you have a knife and an oven? Yes? Well then you can make this. In fact, if it weren't for all of the chopping with sharp objects and potential dismemberment issues, I would say you could make it blindfolded.

I adore fall, everything about it really. I love the way the air smells and how great that first breath in the chill feels. The trees are vibrant and beautiful, and even their fallen leaves (pain though they may be to rake) make a lovely sound scattering across the pavement. And while fall does not always go *well* in my life, I still find it comforting and peaceful.

Oh, and I look great in fall colors... but that's neither here nor there.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that fall food is fantastic. I can go a little overboard with the butternut squash, apples, and pumpkin. The pumpkin shortage last year devastated me; I was that weird girl in the Trader Joe's asking every three days if they had any pumpkin yet and then buying a bomb-shelter-sized stash when they finally did. I could write an ode to Thanksgiving food (especially stuffing) and who doesn't love mulled wine or a tangy cider?

Let us begin our journey into my fall repertoire with a simple dessert: an apple tart that requires no thought and, if you're brave, no measuring.

(M)ole!

Yes, I am aware that the above photo is a rather sub-par. Unfortunately it's the best I have at this particular juncture for a recipe that, while you may not realize it yet, you really want.

First of all, if you do not like spicy chocolate, you are dead to me. Just turn around and walk away now.

When I was in Charlottesville, I frequented a restaurant with face-sized margaritas and surprisingly good Mexican food. I mean, come on, it's in the middle of Virginia, what are the odds? Anyway, I invariably ordered the enchiladas drowning in mole sauce and ate every bite on the plate. Much to my chagrin, the plate was several times larger than my stomach, so the remainder of the evening was spent curled up in the fetal position contemplating an early death. Worth it.

Upon moving away, however, I decided that it was time to learn how to make my very own mole sauce with the hoped-for side effect that I would be able to moderate my consumption thereof. This has... sort of... worked. On the one hand, I do not eat enough in an single sitting to philosophise on the merits of lying face down on the kitchen floor to counter the internal stomach pressure. On the other hand, this just means that I eat it for dinner one night, and lunch and dinner the next or until someone in the house has polished it off.

We'll say it's a wash.

Sweet Potato & Pecan Upside-Down Cake

I adore sweet potatoes. I do not know at what point in my life I developed my uncommonly strong attachment to them, but good lord they are delightful. You can fry them, bake them, put them in a souffle or biscuits... and you can make a cake with them. Before I went to Atlanta for Dad's birthday, I was perusing the September issue of Southern Living for ideas and I happened upon a title that not only had "sweet potato" in it (for me), but also "pecan" (a great love of my father's). Clearly it was going to end up on the menu.

I was a little hesitant because there was no picture included with the recipe, but I have since discovered why: no picture can do this cake justice. Sure, it looks ordinary and maybe reminds you a little too much of that sweet potato souffle you had last Thanksgiving, but let me assure you that it is far from plain. This cake is uncommonly moist and the semi-candied pecan topping will melt any heart.

My Dad called me the other day just to remind me how tasty it is. It will, in all likelihood, become a staple of the holiday season at my parents' house. It's that good.

Because this is baking, not cooking, I have not changed the original recipe at all. As per usual, I'm sure that I was a little dicey with some of my measurements when I made it, but not terribly so, so there shouldn't be any substantial difference. Might I suggest, however, that you consider adding some amaretto or other similar liqueur (just a tablespoon or so) to vary the flavor a bit? You can replace some of the vanilla with it or just add it on top. I'm sure it will work out just fine. It would also probably go well in the topping, but it is so fantastic already that I hesitate to mess with it.

Tenderloin: Always a good decision

If I want someone to propose to me, I will make him this. If I want someone to forgive me, I will make him this. If I want peace in the Middle East, I will make them this. Though maybe I should just leave that to negotiators who actually know what they are doing. Still, you see where I am going with this.

I am back in Atlanta for my Dad's birthday and I wanted to make something especially special for the occasion. About a year ago, my best friend linked me to this and I have been desperate to make it ever since. So, I called my mom and told her to get sirloin cut Chateaubriand at the butcher. For a number of reasons, we ended up with tenderloin - it is never a problem to have tenderloin. Also, since I have an almost pathological aversion to cilantro, I had to tweak the sauce a bit.

I really cannot adequately express to you how delicious this is. Nor can I describe my glee when I managed to cook it perfectly (medium rare, cooked evenly). And I really cannot convey the look of unadulterated bliss on my Dad's face. The tangy topper compliments the buttery meat so well that it's just sinful.

You really need to make this. Right. Now.

Bomboloni- Italian for Fried Dough

This has been a big week for me. Huffington Post made me a legitimate blogger and my first articles went live, the ACC (lawyers, not sports) picked up my antitrust primer, and even AboveTheLaw, comment trolls and all, noticed me. While I'm at it, there's a book here.

Crazy stuff.

Anyway, I decided to celebrate by making something extremely delicious and extremely unhealthy. Not to mention that anyone who says that they don't like fried dough is either lying or selling something. But... well... why stop at frying things? Why not also stuff them with dark chocolate? Oh yes, I went there.

I did, in a sudden burst of generosity/realization that I would eat them if they stayed in my house, take the batch in to the contract job I've been working this week. My coworkers were kind enough to demolish the pile in short order.

Behold.

On rainy days and split pea soup

When I was a little girl, my mother found this weird powdered vegetable soup at Sam's Club and brought it home for my sister and I to be able to make as a snack. I was completely obsessed with this soup. It was thick and smooth (It was powdered after all, chunks would have been creepy) and was exactly what I wanted on rainy days. My sister did not share this passion, but that was fine, more for me! One day it stopped appearing at the house and I've never seen it since. My tiny heart broke.

Years later, I still revel in the idea of a thick green soup on overcast days.

This morning was one of those where, though you get out of bed at a perfectly reasonable hour, it's debatable whether you ever actually wake up. The apartment was dark thanks to a few drizzling cumulus beasts and I absolutely had to have soup. Of course, I didn't have what I needed in the apartment. Again. Blast! Off to the store I trudged to pick up some split peas and diced ham... and while I was there a few other tasty treats, but that's neither here nor there.

And now I have a delicious, non-powdered, split pea soup to get me through my sleepwalking day.

Oh? You want to know how to make it? Ok then.

Chicken Tetrazzini?

This is my baby (One day I will have the full set and, on that day, I will become invincible... in the kitchen... or something):
And I get to make things like this in it:
Tasty looking, no?

Southern Living has a section called "Mama's Way or Your Way," and last month that featured chicken tetrazzini. Usually I side with the "Mama's Way" side of things, butter and all (yes, I exercise a lot to make up for these decisions). This time, however, some of the changes in the "Your Way" portion appealed to me. Still, the thought of bottled alfredo sauce is quite upsetting to me. So, my brilliant answer to this problem is to combine the two. I've used the mornay sauce from the original, but tossed in the peas, mushrooms and some pancetta (instead of prosciutto)from the modern choice. The reason for the "?" in the title is simply that I'm not sure it still counts as tetrazzini after all of these changes, but we're going to pretend that it does.

I frequently combine bits of separate recipes to make one delicious dish, though it's rarely quite so convenient as two opposite pages dealing with the exact same food. If you're wary when it comes to trying to piece together a (yummy) Frankenstein (well, technically the monster) recipe, this is probably a good way to start. After you've worked on a few this way, you'll start feeling a lot more comfortable taking a hatchet to all sorts of recipes.

On to super secret option C.

Sometimes you have to atone

On occasion I try to cook something new, usually because I am out of food and hungry. Generally speaking, this goes very well, or at least is sufficiently tasty to get me through the night. There are days, however, that are a bit less successful. Monday was one of those days. I took a series of perfectly good ingredients and ended up, somehow, with a salt lick. Because I am as stubborn as the day is long, I still ate a good bit, once I removed the salty cheese portion. After this mini-debacle, I needed to make something new and tasty - both at the same time - thus reestablishing my kitchen prowess.

Bolognese sauce to the rescue! In what I believe to be one of the more embarrassing omissions in my self-training, I've never actually made a bolognese. Today, I remedied this, and learned a few things along the way. For example, did you know that there is a product in the grocery store called "Meatloaf Mix"? Well there is. It's a combination of beef, veal, and pork meat that is perfect for something like a bolognese, despite the inherent creepiness of a single ground meat product produced from three separate animals. However, in a concession to health..ish... I decided to use about 2/3 strange meat mix, and 1/3 ground turkey. Also, once again, the store has decided to sell things in annoying quantities. Namely: each ground meat product comes in a 1.3lb portion, and I really don't need to use more than 2 lbs of meat in a single dish. I mean... come on. A girl has to draw the line somewhere.

This is extremely tasty. Extremely. So, next time you're at the store, grab the nearest blended ground meat product and go nuts!

Bit of a risotto kick

First of all, allow me to freely admit that this is a fall recipe and it is wholly inappropriate that I made it in the middle of 85+ degree heat. Fortunately for me, a happy stomach knows no season. I made the (delightful) mistake of buying a lot more arborio rice than I could possibly use in one recipe. This has resulted in me making risotto at least four times in the last month.

I am reasonably sure this is not normal.

Since I do not want to deluge you with bits of my current obsession, I will discuss one today and leave the rest until I make one of them again far enough in the future that I do not run the risk of being a one trick pony. This is a butternut squash rosemary risotto. It. is. delicious. It's creamy, rich, flavorful and will be perfect when the fall comes around and people other than me start making these sorts of dishes. Even more importantly, however, I was able to hide the onions in it from my roommate (who thinks she doesn't like them) and even she inhaled it. And one more thing! I put the leftovers in the refrigerator and ate them the next day, even microwaved them, and they held up! Risotto is known for its inability to abide waiting or storage.

In short, I was thrilled and you will be too

Macaroons

Ooof. I have been slow on the update. Many apologies. Whilst away, I can assure you that I have still been cooking, though decidedly less frequently since I've been on a short contract project. Yesterday, however, I woke up with the all consuming urge to bake, so I perused the internet, various cookbooks, and my head until something struck my fancy. What was it, you ask?

Chocolate dipped coconut macaroons.

I can actually hear my dad make yummy noises upon reading that. I have never before made macaroons, however, as it turns out, not having the foggiest clue what I'm doing no longer stops me. So, off to the store I went to pick up some shredded coconut and melt-worthy chocolate. Of course, upon arriving at the store, I completely forgot whether I was supposed to be using sweetened or unsweetened coconut... and ended up with both, just to be safe. Also, since I was supposed to have 8oz of coconut and the bags are in multiples of 7oz (Why? Why would you use 7? It makes no sense, you never need anything in multiples of 7!), I ended up throwing in a handful of the unsweetened anyway. Mine turned out well, but in the future I would actually scale back the coconut to egg white ratio, so the recipe I'm giving you is tweaked to reflect that. Also, it allows you to purchase just one bag of blasted coconut and not have to worry about measuring. Tada.

On to the tastiness!

Refreshing

As a quick credit, I may have pilfered this idea from Joy The Baker. Also, if I ever use the word "may," I actually mean "will," "have," "did" or some variation on that theme. That said, today I have a salad for you. Well, it is technically a salad in that some green bits most assuredly exist within it and we're making a dressing, however, it's not a pansy little side salad. It is carb central. We have rice and potatoes and chickpeas and all sorts of good stuff. There is an argument to be made that it is healthy, though I wouldn't necessarily say that it's slimming.

Being who I am, I took Joy's recipe and made the dressing far more acidic and stripped down some of the embellishments since I didn't have a bushel of parsley sitting in my refrigerator. It's delicious and a really great summer evening meal when you just don't have it in you to eat something hot and straight out of the oven. The salad works equally well cold as it does with the potatoes and rice still warm, and if you make a sizable batch, you can snack on it for days... or feed it to your family, if you want to be nice.

Don't worry, making dressing is actually easier than shaking the bottle of the store bought kind enough to have the perfect distribution of floating bits.

Crepes! Part deux.

Now that we've covered how to make a crepe, I think it's time to make a main dish with them. Admittedly, you could just go out, buy some tortillas, and stuff them to the bursting point with this filling... or you could just leave the crepes off completely like I did in the top photograph because I happened to have some extra filling and wanted to eat it immediately. Yes, I could have made another crepe, but I didn't. I'm not sorry.

So! If you want to fill crepes with tasty quasi-Mexican goodness, I have a delightful option for you. As a warning, however, for those of you out there who love garlic even close to as much as I do, do not use more garlic in this, it will eat you alive.

That said, here we go...

Bookends: Desserts

So, the other evening I saw "Despicable Me." It was cute and charming and has the best theme song if you happen to be a smidge cranky. The chorus is brilliant. Here, take a listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lJRTeCMvGc

Now, when one is in such a mood, what is the proper response? Dessert! Yes, I'm cliche today, just acknowledge it and we'll move on. At my little dinner party with the ricotta pillows, I stole yet another Southern Living recipe for the desserts, with a few small modifications.

Original Recipe: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1990016

My changes were simple. First, I didn't have time to make the little pie crust cups, so I used store bought frozen pastry cups. Secondly, I did not use baking bars, but rather a couple of bars of dark chocolate because that's what I had in the house and I'm a firm believer that dark chocolate makes everything better. To make up for these forays into laziness, I did at least make the whipped cream myself with the whipping cream left over. I just threw in a completely blind guess worth of splenda and vanilla and whipped it by hand until it looked pretty and tasted amazing. I find that the vanilla addition to the whipped cream compliments the dark chocolate especially well.

And now you have an extremely simple crowd pleaser for your next dinner party. Added bonus: no tell-tale fork marks if you ate one before the guests arrived...

Bookends: Appetizers

I find that the most difficult part of having people over to the house for dinner is pulling together a coherent meal that includes something for them to snack on when they walk in the door, and is topped off with a sweet treat at the end of the evening. It's easy to pick one or the other, or the main meal, but having a series of items that make some form of logical combination drives me up the wall. Perhaps I just need more Thai appetizers to match my love of curries and coconut based desserts.

Yum. Coconut.

Ok, back to the matter at hand. Today we will discuss a fairly versatile appetizer that tastes amazing and appears substantially more complicated than it actually is. Basically, it's a ricotta-based filling for crepes that people can eat as finger food. It took my 5 guests approximately 3 minutes to eat 15 or so of these little gems. More importantly, you can serve it with Italian, some American, or French without worrying in the slightest. Yes, it requires you to make crepes, but they are so much easier than you think they are. In fact, they are not just "easier" (especially if you think they are "oh god what am I doing" difficult), they are downright simple.

But you need to buy a crepe pan. They aren't expensive and they are your personal vehicle to looking very fancy in front of your friends and having an excuse to eat Nutella whenever you want.

That said...

Pizza again? Yes, but this time it has tomatoes.

Ok, I know that last time you were a little disappointed that I didn't have any actual tomatoes on a pizza, nor did I replace them with a pesto or make a white pizza. But did I make an abomination?! No. It was tasty. This time, however, I will bend to more conventional pizza stylings and give you tomatoes. Not just any tomatoes, though, tomatoes that you don't have to farm yourself yet have flavor. How is that possible (you ask)? Well, you roast them and they become magically delicious.

The key here is patience, as the process itself is extremely simple. Go out and buy a bunch of roma tomatoes, cut them in half, remove some of the inner juices (otherwise they will explode upon biting), toss them in some olive oil and salt (I throw in a hint of balsamic vinegar as well), then put them in the oven at 250 for at least two hours. AT LEAST. You can decide when they are done, but you want to dry them out a bit to intensify the flavor. I tend to cook an extra tomato or two just to eat straight out of the oven, and might I suggest you do the same.

Once you have these lovely tomatoes, you get to make a pizza...

On dads and cheese

Today, we shall discuss two things: 1) How awesome my dad is and 2) a food he wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. Yes, this is how I show him my love on Father's Day, I post a recipe he'd hate.

First, the good part: during the official Father's Day call this morning, Dad informed me that he made some changes to his traditional grilled chicken marinade inspired by one of my posts. I practically glowed I was so pleased. It's the little things.

Now, it is unfair to say that Dad doesn't appreciate a good pizza, he loves them... as long as there isn't a shred of cheese present. In fact, my house was impressively cheese-free (except for one Atkins burst inspired by my mother) for the first eighteen years of my life. As a result, I've come a little late to the cheese game and have been trying to sort out the sweet from the salty and the creamy from the hard and the goat from the cow from the sheep. Incidentally, I still can't handle bleu cheese and Snofrisk goat/cow cheese is happiness in a plastic container. In this attempt to catch up, I've started making a lot of cheese-related foods. I started with a fancy mac & cheese, moved on to bechamel sauces with whatever I had in reach melted in them, and now have started making my own pizzas. They. Are. Delicious. I even made one without cheese for Dad when I was home, because I'm nice sometimes.

This particular pizza is a nice balance between a spicy sausage and the sweetness of caramelized onions and peas, topped with fontina for the creamy, mild flavor. It's a little bit different from your average delivery, but not so far out that it would spark an outcry. Of course you can, and should, put anything you want on your pizza. In fact, the dough recipe I'm about to give you makes enough for not one, but two 10-14 inch pizzas. I popped the second dough ball in the freezer for round two (oh my, was that a pun?) later this week.

Enough talk, time to eat.

Improv!

"This sauce is amazing. Can you give me the recipe?"
"Thanks, but I pretty much just threw things in a pot and hoped for the best, I can give you a rough list of ingredients though."
"Um... yeah... I dunno."

Tragic. Why is it so scary to just try something? I wouldn't do it for years, and some people never do. While in Boston, I sacrificed my precious, precious sleep on Sunday mornings for a couple of months to take a class at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. My teacher drove me nuts. It always seemed like he was right behind me, commenting freely on my style or whatnot. I was completely uncomfortable cooking with an audience and this made me really jumpy. He was also always telling us that the recipe was merely a guide and that we should keep messing with it until we liked the way it tasted. "Don't like eggplant? Then why is it in your dish!" I did not like this.

Loathe though I am to admit it, he was good. Over the course of the class, I grew accustomed to cooking with an audience and even ended up just sassy enough to put something together from whatever happens to be in my kitchen. Admittedly, it's not always fancy, but it's usually good. And you know what? If it's not, no one is going to die (it's not like I serve raw chicken). This is why I now understand why all of the celebrity chefs are so arrogant: they essentially have to be or they would never try anything new and interesting.

So, today, I will list out ingredients in two different dishes (based on similar principles), but not tell you how much of each or in what order I did things, in part because I do not know. Very traditional and simple combinations, very tasty.


Trust me. You can do this.

Feeling kind of lazy? No problem.

There are days where I am just tired. I don't want to cook; I just want to lay on the couch and be laaaaaaaazy. I am ok with this. Much to my dismay, these days seem to often coincide with me completely running out of real food. Tragic. On these days, I resort to slacker cooking. There are many permutations of this, but last night I just roasted some chicken and steamed broccoli.

Quick warning: I love broccoli and you're going to see it with some frequency. That is all.

Fortunately, roasting chicken breasts is extremely easy and hands off, yet tastes amazing. I used boneless/skinless breasts because that's what I had around, though of course using bone-in adds a richer flavor. I always have lemons in the house these days, a tip I picked up in cooking class once upon a time, and a handful of really standard ingredients which, as it turns out, make for a very flavorful roasted chicken.

So, for those days when you really don't want to stand over the stove...

Risotto for Dessert

Sometimes, against your better judgment and respect for your waistline, you have to do something obscenely indulgent. Well, next time you get that urge... might I make a suggestion? Perhaps you should consider a white chocolate risotto. Yes. You should. And, no, I don't even really love white chocolate, I'm an all dark kind of a chocolate girl. It does not matter. I mean, just look at this:



Those are dark chocolate shavings on top, just in case it wasn't decadent enough before. It takes a little bit of time, but a lot less than I expected from a risotto. The real key is that you have to serve it immediately. If you wait it gets a little hardened again and far less magically delicious.

Trust me, it's worth a look.

Maybe a bit sneaky

Things I have learned: my grandfather says that he doesn't like onions or garlic, but will inhale food laced with both of these things (in no small quantity) as long as they aren't pointed out. In fact, he will ask for seconds and wonder why there wasn't more of the (garlic and onion flavored) sauce. Good to know. Mind you, I've been doing this to people for years. If I've cooked for you with any frequency and you have some extremely common ingredient that you say you don't like (but are not allergic to), I've fed it to you. In my defense, no one has ever noticed or complained. In fact, there's often an abundance of yummy noises.

Of course, this makes me a huge hypocrite as I would bring about a swift end to anyone trying to slip fish into my dinner. Though who knows? Maybe someone already has.

Back to my original point: dinner was tasty and considered edible by several different palate persuasions. It's just a simple chicken dish with a carrot orzo, but it really went fantastically and is a good family meal.

Recipes!

Lavender... not just for Bath and Body Works anymore.

During the summertime in the south, there is the feeling that you should be on a porch somewhere drinking a refreshing, but clearly alcoholic, drink and strolling through a conversation with your friends. As I am not a mint julep girl, I'm always on the lookout for a new warm weather beverage. Yesterday, my friend Jenna was perusing my spice rack and found a canister of lavender. Well, when you find an interesting ingredient, you have to use it. So we started perusing the web for ideas and came across several variations on lavender lemonade. After picking our favorite bits from different ones and a surprisingly long grocery store trip, we (and by "we" I mean "Jenna") started juicing lemons. Lots of lemons. 15 lemons. Admittedly, they were rather small and not as juicy as one would like, but still.

After various preparations (to be detailed below), we decided to try the finished product with vodka in one glass and tequila in the other. The vodka just tasted like the lavender lemonade, hardly even added a kick. The tequila, however, blended perfectly with the tangy sweetness of the underlying drink, and we both decided to stick to that version for the rest of the night. I'm writing this the following morning and I still think that was a good idea. Of course, you can go with whichever suits your tastes better (or any fear of tequila you may have developed after particularly interesting nights).

Tasty beverage recipe after the jump...

Little Rascals

I have found that, when you reach a certain age, from time to time you will invite friends over for dinner and a few of these little monsters end up tagging along as well.



As I have a kid-friendly policy, I'm happy to have them along, but trying to cook a meal that will keep both adults and children happy is a bit trixy. Basically, you have two options: (1) make a real meal for the adults and mac & cheese or the like for the kids or (2) dream the impossible dream and attempt to put together a single meal that is both interesting to adults and, at a minimum, tolerable to children. Not being one to shy away from a challenge, I picked option #2. Of course. I suspect that even though this is my third entry, you aren't surprised.

The solution? Thai food. Wait! Before you make that face, think about it. Thai food has a lot of peanut dishes or, more accurately a lot of peanut butter dishes. And, aside from children with violent peanut allergies, peanut butter is loved by all. Actually, I'll even argue that such children would love it, were they able to try it.

Recipe for child-friendly food after the jump!

Caramel Cake

Let us take a moment to discuss one of the most perfect cakes in existence (I say "one of" because I've developed a weakness for coconut cream cakes): the caramel cake. It's a bit of a misnomer because the cake itself can be just about anything, the icing is the key. The traditional combination is with a pound cake, but even I can only eat a tiny bit of that at a time, so I tend to pair it with a lighter, mildly vanilla cake.

When I was a child, my grandmother would always bring a four layer caramel cake made by, I can only assume, the gods themselves when she came to visit and it was an act of extreme fatherly devotion and restraint that I ever managed to get a piece. My aunt, who doesn't even eat sweets, always managed to appear at our house 15 minutes after the cake did. Unfortunately, the woman responsible for this magical confection retired and I've been trying to find an acceptable substitute ever since. Well, today I have. As a warning: I do not recommend making this icing if you live alone and are not planning on taking it to a party immediately... you will eat the whole cake.

I present to you caramel icing that does not require a candy thermometer!

It Starts

Despite what the header to this blog may imply, I am not an empty shell of a woman, crushed by the wicked fates into a tiny ball of hopelessness (swoon). In fact, though I am single, unemployed, and generally without any idea as to what is next, I'm pretty much ok. Perhaps I should explain?

About two and a half years ago, my five year relationship ended... badly... as they do. I was almost done with law school and I decided that it was time to move somewhere completely different. Being born, raised, and educated all over the south, naturally, I chose Boston. The following fall I got a job at a swanky giant firm, settled in, made a bunch of friends, and proceeded to ride out the first waves of the collapsing economy in style. After all, I was safe! I had good reviews, billed out plenty of hours, and was very good about not making waves.

I'm an idiot (I know, you're shocked).

No one is safe. Just over a year after I started work, the firm held yet another layoff and this time, it was my turn. Mind you, this is November 2009... right before things started to improve again. Literally a month later the firm was so understaffed that the remaining associates started quitting, but I digress. In my new-found downtime, after an appropriate wallowing period, I started picking back up some of my old hobbies that had fallen victim to the billable hour. I took a few cooking classes to force myself out of my rut, practically moved into my yoga studio, and started reading again.

One day, the subscription to Southern Living ordered for me as a Christmas present from AuntieM showed up in my mailbox and I have bordered on obsession ever since. I just cannot help it. I love throwing dinner parties, and now I'm finally good at piecing together a real, coherent menu. I love reading about places I've lived or visited (like a multi-article feature on Nashville they did right before the flood) or getting ideas about possible day trips. And, ok, I do not have a garden, but I want one, eventually, and someone is going to have to tell me what to put in it as I have no idea.

Did I mention the recipes? Oh yes. Every issue has a new cocktail begging to be drunk on a porch or by the pool and at least a half-dozen recipes that I actually cut out and cook some variation of before the next issue arrives. So, yes, as a 27 year old lawyer with no accent, I am now trying my absolute best to epitomize the Southern Living image, or at least my (quite probably skewed) interpretation of it. As I do this, I'm creating my own recipes and compiling themed dinner party menus that will, in all likelihood, end up on this blog; along with whatever other stories or nifty tricks I happen to come across.

Obviously I do more than cook and drink, though clearly those are very important parts of my life, but the important thing is, I'm having fun. Yes, I need a new job and will keep looking for one and yes, there have been more ideal periods of my life, but that's fine. All of my diversions have really proven entertaining and sometimes, that's just what you need.