Cheers

Today is February first and the weather was glorious; it reached into the 60s. After last year’s miserable winter, I’d say that a day like today deserves a toast. How about we toast with my new favorite drink, the BLT?

Word on the street (or on the internet, to be more exact) was that Bulleit Bourbon was delicious. The problem was that no one told the package stores in Connecticut and I’ve been searching for it since the end of summer. I finally spotted it on the shelf of my local shop and grabbed a bottle this past weekend.

So then… what do I do with bourbon?  Gin drinks, rum drinks, even tequila drinks—I’ve got you covered, but for bourbon drinks, I needed some help.  I went straight to the source: bulleitbourbon.com and that’s where I found my new favorite.

It’s simple, it’s tart, and it’s surprisingly refreshing.  It’s a BLT (bourbon, lemon, tonic).

BLT
(recipe from bulleitbourbon.com)

1 1/2 ounce Bulleit bourbon
1 lemon slice
tonic

Fill a rocks glass halfway with ice, add bourbon, squeeze lemon and toss in, then top with tonic and stir.

Now raise your glass and make a toast to beautiful weather and 60-degree winter days. Welcome February!

What’s Cooking?

We are only a few days post-Thanksgiving and the last thing you probably want to think about is cooking, but I want to share with you these three recipes I’ve made recently that are so easy, you could make them in your sleep.

No. 1: Roasted Brussels Sprouts

This recipe from the November 2011 Cooks Illustrated looked too simple to call it a recipe, but it was requested for Thanksgiving, so I gave it a try. It did not disappoint. Basically three ingredients, 20 minutes, Brussels sprout perfection.

1 stalk fresh Brussels Sprouts
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Cut your sprouts off the stalk, wash them, and cut them in half. Toss them with the oil, water, salt, and pepper, then spread on a baking sheet and cover tightly with foil. Bake at 500 degrees for 10 minutes, remove foil, toss sprouts around on the pan, and bake for an additional 10 minutes. They will be perfect, I promise.

No. 2 Pancake Mix

Now, we’re generally a Jiffy Mix/Bisquick family when it comes to making pancakes and waffles, but this weekend, when we wanted pancakes and had no lazy mix on hand, I found this recipe on AllRecipes.com for Fluffy Pancakes. The name is not a lie.  The recipe uses basic ingredients that should be in your kitchen, it comes together in minutes, and it truly made the most fluffy, delicious pancakes I’ve ever had at home.  I will be making this recipe again and again.

No. 3 The Easiest, Most Delicious Soup Ever

This soup needs new name but I never know what to call it. Cheap, easy, no measuring, guaranteed deliciousness, anyone can make it… it’s the Easiest, Most Delicious Soup Ever. Sometimes I add frozen tortellini, sometimes I switch up the meat and use tiny meatballs or crumbled sausage, this weekend I dumped in a couple of big spoonfuls of cottage cheese at the end – you can’t screw it up.

1 package frozen spinach
1 large can chopped tomatoes
1 pint chicken broth
1/2 package Polish kielbasa, diced
1 cup small pasta, uncooked
Parmesan cheese for serving

In a large pot, add spinach, tomatoes, broth, and kielbasa. Heat over medium-high until the liquid boils and the spinach block defrosts. While water is still boiling, add pasta and cook until tender. Lower the hear to a simmer and add more broth if the soup is too thick for your taste. Serve in steaming bowls topped with Parmesan cheese.

There, now you have no excuse for ordering takeout tonight. Bon appetit!

Uncle

I’ve been fighting it tooth and nail. All of this pumpkin/cinnamon/apple-flavored, crisp weather, isn’t-fall-nice talk around here lately. I’m not ready to let go of summer. Alex asked me the other day when we were going back to the beach again and I almost burst into tears because the answer is: not for another year. SOB! Then today it rained and the temperature dropped and the weather forecast says that this weekend it’s going to be in the 40s overnight. So I stopped at Starbucks and bought a pumpkin spice latte. When I got home, I baked an apple pie. My house smells like cinnamon and I have the urge to go buy a mum. Fine, fall.  You win. AGAIN. I will accept you, but I’ll never love you as much as summer.

Conquering the Macaron

If you visit any cooking websites, you’ve undoubtedly heard of the French macaron. It appears to be quite the fad in the cooking world these days.  A quick search on Foodgawker brings up six pages of recipes in every color and flavor combination.  I really didn’t know what the allure was, I had never in my life tasted a macaron, but seeing them all over the internet, and then seeing my favorite Thursday Night Smackdown try (and fail) three times to make them, it made me want to give them a try.

The word on the street is that macarons are hard to make.  Even Wikipedia says, “Making macarons requires a great deal of discipline and is a process that is highly dependent on exactitude, technique, and proper equipment. For this reason it is a notoriously difficult recipe to master and a frustrating endeavor for the amateur baker.”  I laugh in Wikipedia’s face because, guess what?  This amateur baker got them right on the first try.

The only reason I can think of that I managed to make them right on the first try is that I read about forty recipes before trying to make them, and I heeded all of the warnings.  Each recipe, no matter how different the technique, said two things: age your egg whites (that means leave them on the counter overnight – gross, I know), and weigh your ingredients.  Now you my dislike for following recipes.  I hate to measure, but apparently I love to weigh.  It makes me feel fancy, like an olde timey apothecary.  100 grams of this, 25 grams of that, I loved it!  I even weighed the ingredients for the filling even thought it was essentially peanut butter buttercream and, really, you can make that without measuring at all.

I aged my eggs, I ground my almonds, I measured my ingredients, I let them sit for an hour before I baked them so they could form a crust and… voila! A few macarons cracked but they didn’t deflate so I consider that a success!  I let them sit in the refrigerator overnight before filling them with the peanut butter buttercream and, holy cow.  Now I know what all the fuss was about.  They’re light and crispy, then rich and chewy and the dark chocolate with the salty peanut butter, mmm… they’re perfect.

I wish I could link you to a recipe but I sort of blended a few recipes together.  I followed Tartlette’s instructions (about halfway down the page there’s a link to a PDF of her “tried and true recipe” which I followed, mostly) and My Madison Bistro is where I got the recipe for the filling.  I also read Serious Eats, David Lebovitz, and Bakerella before embarking on my own macaron journey – which I highly recommend.

And just so you don’t think I’m bragging about making macarons right on the first try, I have to tell you.  After filling the macarons and taking pictures of how pretty they were, I put them safely in the fridge, feeling pretty good about myself, and then burned an entire pan of brownies to a smoking crisp. You can’t win every time.

Still Thankful

I really have nothing new to say this week so I hope that it’s not too late to talk about last week’s excitement: Thanksgiving.

My sister hosted a delicious turkey dinner, and can I just stop right now and say check out her amazing, new kitchen?  It’s gorgeous as is, but if you ever saw it pre-renovations with its 1950′s design and ancient Thermador appliances, you’d be twice as blown-away.

Anyhow, dinner began with a Thanksgiving pledge read by Cameron, then we enjoyed champagne, turkey pinwheels, and butternut lasagna (YUM!) and then we retired to the living room to groan about being so full and play Wii archery.

(Yes, that’s a Christmas tree in the background. Someone likes to get the holidays started early…)  Cameron and Uncle Luke kicked Wii butt in archery and Alex and I played with our Wii frisbee dogs.  I love that Wii, I wish Santa would bring me one of my own.

Unfortunately he’d also have to bring me a TV like Andrea’s. Seriously. Look how clear it is.  It wouldn’t be the same on my ancient 25″ screen.  Either way, it was a lovely day spent with bits of both of our families for whom I am always thankful. I hope everyone had such a nice Thanksgiving day that you’re still talking about it a week afterward like I am.  Trust me, I could talk your ear off about that butternut lasagna (similar to this one but without the mushrooms – did I mention, YUM?).

Tasty Imposters

This past weekend I had two gatherings with friends for which I needed to make dessert.  I love gatherings like that.

As you know, I’ve been trying hard to keep with my cash budget and so I went looking for desserts that might use some of the ingredients I already had in my pantry.  Believe it or not, these fit the bill.

I made Dorie Greenspan’s Snickery Squares, from her cookbook Baking From My Home to Yours, and then I made – oh my goodness they were so good I am drooling just looking at the picture – Peppermint Patties from Gourmet Magazine.

Now the Snickery Squares are delicious – a layer of shortbread topped with a layer of dulce de leche (from a can!) and finished off with candied peanuts and melted chocolate – but the Peppermint Patties just blew my mind.  They were so simple and completely authentic-tasting.  I challenge you to tell the difference between mine and a York Peppermint Patty (if there were any left over for the testing, that is).  The only bad thing is that I now know what is inside a Peppermint Patty.  Crisco.  Or vegetable shortening, if that makes you feel any better.  And only a little, just about a tablespoon.  They are totally worth a tablespoon of Crisco. So if you’re feeling like making your own Snickers or Peppermint Patties, I say go for it.  Links to the recipes are below.

Snickery Squares - Here is a copy of the recipe with some great photos and tips from Nosh With Me. Recipe originally from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home to Yours.

Peppermint Patties - I originally found the recipe via Foodgawker where I saw this post from Ceramic Canvas. Recipe originally from Gourmet Magazine.

Peach Pi

This week is trying to break me.  Work has been colossally frustrating, after work has been busy-busy getting things ready for our vacation next week, and I am downright exhausted.  We were planning to have another at-home summer week but at the last-minute were invited to our friends’ lake house in Limerick, ME for a few nights starting on Friday.  I’m excited to get away, but at the same time, the older I get, the harder it seems for me to switch gears mentally and wrap my head around all that will be needed for two adults and one dog for four nights away in Maine where it could be warm and we will boat and swim, or it could be cold and we’ll be trapped inside needing things to do and, of course, eat.

In between flopping on the couch in exhaustion and making lists of things to pack, I’ve been trying to tackle that box of peaches I bought last Sunday at the Farmers’ Market.  They were starting to fade faster than I could process them into the delicious-sounding ginger peach butter I’m planning to make, so last night I went through the box to pick out the last few that weren’t too soft or starting to rot and look what I found.

It’s no face of the Virgin Mary, but that is clearly a Pi symbol.  A “Peach Pi.”  Get it?  Maybe I’m just too tired, but that was pretty funny to me at ten o’clock last night.  I almost hate to peel it and puree it into butter.

Anyhow, we’re off tomorrow for a few days.  The weather looks promising, but I’ve been tricked by Maine and its moody weather in the past so I’m not banking on sunny skies.  Just hoping.  And crossing my fingers and toes.  There’s no Internet at the lake house but I’ll be posting pictures as soon as we get home, to be sure.  Enjoy your weekend, and cross your fingers for me, would you?

Also, if you’re looking for something awesome to do this weekend, please go see Children of Eden, presented by Southington Summer Stage, the show my friend Amanda is directing and that I would be going to see if this trip hadn’t been sprung on me this week.  Go and take notes so you can tell me about it when I get back.

Devilishly Good

Before I head off for my week of fun, I thought I’d leave you with some tasty pictures and a recipe, if you’re so inclined.  For Saturday’s party, I made a batch of mini devil dogs using my sister’s famous, and ridiculously simple whoopie pie recipe, only instead of making them round, I piped them out with an improvised pastry bag (a gallon-size Ziploc bag with the bottom corner snipped off).  They came out perfect and they’re about the size of a Milano cookie.  Just right for snacking.

Here’s Andrea’s recipe for you.  Make them any shape you like, or make one big, huge one and eat it all yourself.

Whoopie Pies

Andrea’s famous recipe for moist and delicious whoopie pies.

Cakes:
1 boxed Devil’s Food Cake mix
1-1½ cups all-purpose flour

Filling:
1 stick butter, softened
1⅔ cup confectioner’s sugar
2 cups marshmallow Fluff
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°.

Prepare the cake mix as directed on the box. Add the extra flour, ½ cup at a time, and stir after each addition until the batter thickens to a consistency similar to cookie dough.

Spoon batter, a tablespoon at a time, about 2 inches apart, onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for 6-8 minutes, until the tops of the cakes spring back when pressed.

Let the cakes cool completely before assembling.

To make the filling, in a medium bowl, beat the butter until smooth. Add the confectioner’s sugar and mix until smooth. Add the fluff and vanilla extract and mix until combined.

Match cakes up into similarly-sized pairs. Spoon a teaspoon (or more if you like) of filling onto each bottom cake and cover with top.

Have a great week everyone.  I may be back on Thursday to tell you all about my Maine trip, but if not, I hope you all have a great fourth of July, too!

Fit For a Princess

This weekend we had a combination Father’s Day/Andrea’s Birthday celebration at my mom’s house.  My sister (who was turning 35, I might add) requested a princess cake.  What, might you ask, is a princess cake.  Good question.  After making Alex’s birthday cake in the shape of a dinosaur, I thought that maybe I should make Andrea’s cake in the shape of a princess, just for fun, but in the end I opted on this design, fit for a princess.

The cake is Dunkin Hines chocolate fudge (Shocker, I know! But they were on sale and they turn out so well when you really beat the batter and get it all fluffy!) and the frosting is this creamy chocolate recipe.  The center is this amazingly delicious fluffy peanut butter frosting recipe.  The sparkly stars matched the princess’s tiara and it was so good I had to leave the leftovers behind at my mom’s otherwise I would have eaten it for breakfast.  And lunch.  Yum.

Happy birthday Andrea! I hope that your princess cake was everything you wished for.

Strawberry Jam, Drunk Slugs, and Mozzarella

This was my weekend.  We had a lovely day on Saturday visiting with friends and enjoying the sunny weather.  The peony in my garden finally opened and stunned me with its appearance.  Not what I expected.  For some reason, I just expected that it would look like these peonies.  I think it knew I was disappointed because the normally long-lasting bloom faded after only a few days.

The gardens have been especially damp with all of this rain we’ve gotten and my veggie patch is overrun with slugs.  I mentioned on Facebook that I was looking for an organic slug repellent and several people suggested the beer trick – you bury small containers of beer in the garden so the lip of the container is level with the ground and the beer is deep enough for the slugs to drown in it.  The fermented yeast attracts the slugs, they climb in the containers and then they’re supposed to drown.  Only mine did not drown.  They climbed in, swam around, got good and tipsy, and climbed back out.  We went back to the faithful pick-and-flick method of slug removal and now I’m going out to go buy Organic Gardening’s #2 recommended cure, Sluggo.

Sunday it was Farmers’ Market day again.  Despite the morning rain, it turned warm and sunny by the time the market opened and I planned ahead and wore my Keen flip flops for slogging through the mud.  It was another packed morning at the market and I came home with two bags full of asparagus, mushrooms, sugar snap peas, granola, ramps, rhubarb, freshly made mini donuts (yum!), a giant frosted chocolate cherry brownie for Luke, and STRAWBERRIES!  Giant, overflowing quarts of ripe, red strawberries.  They were gorgeous.  I took them home and immediately crushed them to make jam.

My goal for the summer was to make strawberry jam, and boy did I make jam.  There were more than enough strawberries for one batch of jam so I made another batch and added rhubarb.  Wow, yum.  I still think that canning and preserving is like magic and I’m even more taken with it after tasting this jam.  Of course it might have something to do with the fourteen cups of sugar that went into making both batches, but let’s not dwell on that.  And just so you don’t start thinking that everything comes out of my kitchen perfect, I have to tell you about my cheese making failure.

Once again inspired by Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I asked for and received the book Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll for my birthday.  I ordered her beginner’s kit for making mozzarella and ricotta and set to making my first batch of mozzarella.  The photo, above, is in the middle of the process when everything was going well.  After that, it all fell apart and rather than coming out with smooth, stretchy cheese curds, I had grainy ricotta-like cheese that was spreadable but never in a million years would I have been able to stretch it “like pulling taffy”, as described in the instructions.  Ricki encouraged me to not give up, as “cheese making is just as much an art form as it is a science” so tonight I plan to give it another go.  After seeing me disappointed at the results of my first cheese making process, Luke told me “you don’t have to be good at everything”.  Huh… and I thought he knew me.