Shared Feast

Sweet & Sour Pork Ribs (Sichuan style)

2010-01-24T13:04:00.000-08:00

When I came to the US at age 13, my grandma made sure I was bringing with me not just the clothes in my luggage and their dreams of me having a better life, but something from home as well... something to remind me of my birth home, of the loved ones I left behind, especially the love she and Grandpa had for me.

For weeks before my departure, Grandma would make me practice making Chinese dumplings from scratch - mixing dough, turning dough into dumpling skins, and mix ground meat with vegi and sauce. I made so many dumplings that I couldn't bear to eat another for six months afterwards. :-)

In my luggage, she also packed two Sichuan homecooking books. My home province (state) is called Sichuan and famous for its delicious and spicy food. She didn't have enough time to teach me everything, so this is the backup plan (maybe?).

These two books have moved with me from state to state over the past 20 years, always found their way onto my bookshelves, quietly sleeping... until now.

I took them out last week and started bookmarking recipes that Danny & I both would like. They are now filled with colorful tags of possibilities. To start off, I tried the Sweet & Sour Pork Ribs.

Before we begin, just note quick note - Chinese measurement is very different from US ones. These are native Chinese scales passed down from ancient days and are still used today. However, since I am not familiar with the precious quantity, I pretty much wing it, with a bit Chinese cooking experience behind me. I'll try to give you the best judgement of scale as I can in this post, because the ribs turned out EXCELLENT! :-)

Step 1: - Babyback ribs, about 1.5 pds. If you can, ask the store deli to cut the ribs horizontally in half first, then you can separate each rib by the bone at home (as shown in photo below). This will allow the meat to absorb plenty of juice later.

Step 2: - Cut 1 tbs of ginger and garlic in flat thin pieces. Hand split 4 or 5 dried red pepper. Mix them with 1/2 tsp of salt, 1/3 cup of soy sauce in a small bowl. (If you have cooking wine, add 1/2 tsp of it.)

Step 3:

- Put 1/4 cup of cooking oil in a wok on high heat; wait until it's 60% hot to add the ribs.

- Stir the ribs so all sides are brown and no more water from the meat is present.

Step 4:

- Add the bowl containing ginger, garlic, dried red pepper, salt, and soy sauce. Stir to mix it with the ribs.

- Add 1 pd of chicken broth to the wok, or the appropriate amount to cover the ribs. Mix well.

Step 5:

- Cover and simmer on medium-low heat for 50 minutes. Stir occasionally to avoid things stick to the bottom of the wok.

- Towards the last 10 minutes of the 50 minutes, stir every 5 mins.

- Cover and simmer on low heat for 10 minutes. Stir every 2 mins. By now, all the broth is cooked way and evaporated.

Step 6:

- Add 2 tbs of sugar, 1/4 cup of vinegar, 5 green scallions (cut into 2 inches) to wok. Stir well with ribs.

- Mix 1 tbs of cornstarch and 1/4 of water in a bowl. Add to the wok and stir well.

- Taste the sauce. Add more sugar or vinegar if stronger taste is desired.

- When all the liquid is cooked away, your ribs are ready!

Step 7: - Serve with rice and your favorite vegi. The meat should be soft and full of seasoning. Don't be shy, use your fingers! ^_^

Red wine compliment Chinese dishes well, especially these tasty ribs!

If you happen to have leftovers, store them in the container in the fridge. Re-heat in microwave for 1.5 minutes (or less depending on quantity) and they are just as good.

Enjoy and let me know how yours turn out.

Happy Cooking!

Tiffany

Surpemes de Volaille Archiduc (Chicken Breasts with Paprika, Onions, and Cream)

2010-01-20T14:59:00.000-08:00

Three years ago I had the pleasure of visiting France for the first time. I had the amazing luck of staying in Lyon, the Capital of French Food, for a week. My friends who lived in downtown Lyon took me everywhere and showed me the best Lyon had to offer. Let me tell you, churches were nice, fashion was exquisite, but the best was its heavenly food.

In returning to the US, I bought Julia Child's The 40th Anniversary Edition of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Last night, I attempted her Chicken Breasts with Paprika, Onions, and Cream recipe. (Pg. 268-269)

"Supreme" in French cooking is the "breast of chicken when it is removed raw from one side of the bird in a

skinless, boneless piece". During the day I had joked with Reneed that the chickens are "Supreme" or heavenly, which she totally agreed because the end result is so heavenly. :-)

Step 1: - Since I made Chicken Cordon Bleu last week, all of the ingredients were already in my fridge. Amazing! I substituted lemon with lime juice and port with vermouth. (Thank god we drink martinis!)

Step 2: - I thawed the chicken and rubbed it with lime juice, salt and pepper.

Step 3: - I blanched the minced onions and cooked it with butter, salt, and paprika, for 10 minutes on low heat, with pan covered.

Step 3 (con'd): - After 10 minutes, the onion should be translucent, but not browned. All the liquid have evaporated by now.

Step 4: - In the bowl I mixed chicken bouillion (instead of the beef bouillon the recipe asked for) and vermouth. In the measuring cup is the heavy whipping cream.

Step 5: - Melt butter in the oven-proof pan and roll the breasts in the butter.

Step 6: - Add the cooked onion and paprika to the pan and lay breasts on top.

Step 7: - Cover the pan with tight lid (or tin foil) and bake in high heat. The recipe did not give a temperature, so I tried 400 degrees. I put it in for 6 minutes as instructed, but it was still a bit raw, so back in the oven they go for another 3 minutes. "When the meat is springy to the touch it is done." (I think mine took longer because I covered with tin foil instead of something tight that could hold in the heat better.) The safe way is to put in for 6 minutes and check. If not done, then try 2 minute durations. By the time the chicken was done, it was genuinely "springy to the touch".

Step 8: - I pour the chicken bouillon and vermouth to a pot with butter and boiled over high heat until liquid is syrupy. Then added the whipping cream until the new mixture is thickened too.

Step 9: - Lay the breasts on a plate, along with the sautéed onions. Add any side vegi dish you desire.

Step 10: - Pour sauce onto the breasts and now you have yourself a dinner!! A delicious one I hope...

... because we did! ^_^
A side note: I used cauliflower for side dish. Not knowing exactly what to do with it, I

--> Cooked it in boiling water for couple of minutes

--> Drained the water, added a small stick of butter, added parsley, basil and mixed.

--> They were still a bit hard and not tasty, so I added them into the sautéed onion & paprika pan (which by now is empty but had enough sauce still lingering), added 1/4 cup of water and let it simmer in medium-high heat. After the water is boiled away, the cauliflower was soft and the leftover seasoning added a real nice complimentary flavor too. Not bad for winging it. :-)

Bon Appetit!

Tiffany

Naked Apple Pie (real name: Fruit & Nut Baked Apples)

2010-01-19T22:28:00.000-08:00

I am blessed with good people in my life - family, friends and even strangers that are eager to help.

Several years ago, two friends of ours took pity on us starving kids and got me a Crock-Pot for my birthday. I have since made many delicious stews with it and it gradually became as important as rick cooker for me. (If you are Asian, you know how much rice cooker is part of your life, and equally important as romantic relationships. LOL)

In supporting my Crock-Pot "hobby", Danny's mom gave us a Crock-Pot Slow Cooker Recipes book for Christmas. It's a small book with two dozen plus recipes; the best part is that every recipe only has four major ingredients.

Armed with the pot and the recipe, I set out to cook my first dessert, ever!!

All ingredients purchased.

* Couldn't find Rome Beauty or Jonathan apples, but the store-suggest Honeycrisp was great!
* I forgot lemon juice, so lime juice would have to do.

Step 1 - Take out the apple core and make enough room for stuffing-goodness.

Step 2: - Combine chopped apricots, walnuts, brown sugar and cinnamon together.

Step 3: - Filling!
Step 4: - Put 1/4 cup of water in the Crock-Pot and stack the apples. Cook for 3 hours on low.

Ready for the taste test!

One for you, one for me... or maybe two for me. :-)

So good looking!

Yummy!

Tiffany

Chicken Cordon Bleu II

2010-01-19T21:48:00.000-08:00

While aimlessly browsing for something easy but tasty as the first dish of the year, I went on AllRecipes.com and found Chicken Cordon Bleu II. It looked fairly simple - few ingredients, few preparation, short cooking time... and the five star rating from its two thousand reviews made it a no brainer.

Original recipe - http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chicken-Cordon-Bleu-II/Detail.aspx?src=etaf

I read some reviews and followed MEGBY's variation posted on Nov. 3, 2003.

Step 1: - Pound/Jaccard the chicken breast; add ham and Swiss cheese in the middle and secure with toothpicks.

Step 2: - Brush chicken with egg, bread with breadcrumbs, then fry in butter until both sides are golden brown.

Step 3: - Put in oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Step 4: - Mix heavy whipping cream, white wine, chicken bouillon granules and cornstarch in a bowl. Simmer in a pot for 10 minutes or until boil right before the chicken is ready from the oven.

Step 5: - Blanch some great Sugar Snap Peas; season with black pepper.

Now, your dinner awaits. :-)

It was yummy! (First time I liked my own cooking)

The recipe I copied & pasted, with the second steps already incorporating the variation I mentioned earlier.

Tiffany

My first attempts into the World of Cooking!

2010-01-19T21:13:00.000-08:00

All my life, cooking was something someone else did... my job? It was playing around in the kitchen when I was young in China; when I was older, it was leaning over friends' kitchen counters, have a vino or two, catch up over good conversations, and watch the world of raw stuff being turned into dishes of delicious heavens.

While working the past ten years, cooking was always a chore - it only served to maintain my earthy body to continue functioning, though I've always admired people that can cook and have the patience to cook.

Maybe it's passing 30, maybe it's the final realization that corporate world isn't quite what was advertised in our childhood or adolescent, or maybe it's my recent layoff that triggered something deep in the brain, I have recently grown a fondness for cooking.

It started as part of the new year/post-layoff goal - dance more, start yoga, reconnect with friends, and try my hand in cooking.

So, from here on, the posts will be my juvenile dinners, desserts and maybe some appetizers.

The goal - cook as many different type of dishes from a variety of sources for as long as I can.

The joy is in the cooking!

Thank you for your support in advance! And a special thanks to Danny, for he is my guinea pig, my biggest supporter, and one that is not afraid of telling me the truth (when the food doesn't taste as good as Renee's... really, no hard feelings! LOL) ^_^

Tiffany

Oatmeal Buttermilk Bread with Flax and Walnut Oil

2009-09-01T21:32:00.000-04:00

This is a variation on the Oatmeal Buttermilk Bread recipe from the Macrina Bakery and Cafe Cookbook. I used walnut oil instead of canola oil and I exchanged one half cup of AP flour for one half cup of ground flax.

The dough was a little stickier than last time. I think I may need to only remove 1/4c of AP flour and add the 1/2c of flax. Also, the bread didn't rise as much as I thought it would. I think I need to let my oats cool down more before adding them to the yeast. I think I may have killed some of the yeast.

As you can see the bread came out of the oven with a beautiful golden crust. I remembered to put the oats on the top this time :P If you look closely you can see the bits of flax in there.

The bread came out sooooo good! Chris and I picked up a pyrex loaf pan at the goodwill store ($5 and a little elbow grease with a magic eraser and its as good as new!) so I made two loaves this time instead of the one huge one that I had last time. I lowered the oven temp to 375° this time (I think my oven is off ten degrees or so though) and reduced the baking time by 5 minutes.

I love the nuttiness that the walnut oil and flax give, it's subtle but there. The crust has just the right amount of crustiness to it and the inside is soft and fluffy.

I ate about half of one of the loaves by myself today... I had it toasted with apricot jam this morning, with my chicken salad at lunch and had a ham and cheese sandwich for dinner. Seriously, I can't resist it!

Sundays with Macrina: Brioche

2009-08-23T22:48:00.003-04:00

Chris wanted to make Brioche, so we used the recipe in Macrina... all I can say is WOW! So buttery, so light, so..... mmmmmmmmm.

Sundays with Macrina: Brown Sugar & Almond Coffee Cake

2009-08-18T12:13:00.003-04:00

On Saturday Chris was out with The Guys and I was kinda bored and couldn't decide what do to and I thought 'hey, I haven't baked anything in a while...' So I broke out the Macrina book and flipped through to find something that I could make with stuff I already had in the house. I found this Brown Sugar and Almond Coffee Cake that calls for fresh or frozen raspberries. Well, I had frozen mixed berries (raspberries, blackberries and blueberries) and I thought that was good enough. So I follow the recipe and it says I need a 9x9" pan to make this cake in. Well, I don't have a 9x9 pan, I only have an 8x8 pan. I poured it in and it was clearly too full and so I changed it to my higher sided round baking dish, thinking that it could at least hold it in if it puffed up a lot.

Well.....
I think the combination of the heavy almonds on top and the fact hat my oven is slightly tilted resulted in the almonds sliding off onto the bottom of the oven and making a huge mess. I really don't even think a 9x9 pan would have been big enough for the amount the cake rose.

This cake is delicious. It was super moist and really tasty. I happen to love almonds and almond flavored anything so it was perfect for me. I didn't really get a brown sugar taste from the cake and I probably would have named it Berry Almond Coffee Cake instead but either way, it was really great. My only complaint was that the berries sunk to the bottom, which I kind of suspected they would do. I thought about tossing them in flour to prevent this from happening but I thought that if I needed to do that, the book would have said so. Either way, yum. I will be making this again, but first I need to find a pan that can contain it properly :P

Summer Chicken Pasta Salad

2009-08-18T08:50:00.000-07:00

First, let me say sorry for the bad photos. My camera battery died (why can't I remember to keep it charged?) AGAIN so I had to use my crappy cell phone camera that has no flash. (Thanks, Samsung)

This is a dish that Chris learned from his Mom. She made it when he was growing up and he wanted me to try it.

Ok so we started with some really amazing Heirloom Tomatoes that we got at a local farm stand. Heirloom Tomatoes have a much better flavor than your boring old beefsteak tomato. We also got a few English cucumbers at the grocery store. We only ended up using the one large tomato because that was enough for the dish.

Next we pan seared some chicken breast in olive oil to get a nice crust on it. We only seasoned with kosher salt and some black pepper.

I made a vinaigrette with two cloves of garlic, pressed, half of a lemon's worth of juice, kosher salt, pepper, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and fresh thyme. Just whisk it in a bowl. I used a little more vinegar than olive oil and about double the amount of olive oil than lemon juice. (Algebra, anyone?)

So everything gets cut into bite sized pieces and then everyone goes into a big bowl with one can of black olives (drained) and one pound of rotini pasta (cooked al dente, we use Dreamfield pasta). Only use enough of the vinaigrette to coat everything, you don't want a big pool of it at the bottom of the bowl.

You can eat this salad hot/warm like we did for dinner or put it in the fridge and eat it cold. I usually take the left overs for lunch the next day and I don't heat it up. It is really refreshing and has a nice bite from the balsamic and lemon. We also added a little grated Parmesan cheese, but I really didn't taste it at all and you can save the calories and just leave it out. We might try adding some feta next time, but probably to the plate and not to the big bowl because I don't think it will hold up well in the fridge.

Kitchen Project: Magnetic Spice Rack

2009-04-22T19:48:00.001-07:00

Chris and I used to have all of our spices in the cabinet over the stove on a lazy susan. The problem was that we had more than really should fit on there so when you would spin it sometimes one in the back would get stuck and then a whole bunch would come flying out at you. Also, it was really hard for me to reach over the pot/pan that was being used on our gas stove without burning myself or being in fear that I would catch my shirt on fire.

We learned from Alton Brown on Good Eats episode "Spice Capades" that you really shouldn't keep your spices above your stove because the heat is not good for them. AB stores his spices in different size round tins that he writes on with what I think is a grease pencil and sticks to the inside of his cabinets with velcro. (I tried to find a picture, but I cannot. You can YouTube the episode though if you want to, its a good one)

I loved the idea of having my spices in tins and having easy access to them while I'm cooking. I went searching for magnetic spice racks and found them to be expensive and generally they didn't come with enough tins for the number of spices we have. Then I came across Amber's blog over at myaimistrue.com. She made a magnetic spice rack out of magnetic knife racks from Ikea and some tins from Leigh Valley. I thought 'Awesome!' I showed it to Chris, he loved it and so we got the magnetic knife racks from Ikea and ordered the tins from Leigh Valley... and I hated the tins when they came. They were thin and small and cheesy looking (they looked so great in Amber's pictures! I was really shocked.) So I sent them back. Leigh Valley was really great about it and returned my full price paid plus shipping to me in cash. So then I went on the hunt for tins... and I searched and searched and searched until I finally found these from Specialty Bottle :

And I absolutely love them. They were inexpensive, sturdy and (most importantly) good looking. I put all of our spices into the tins (with a few exceptions that we decided were 'baking spices' and so they went into the baking cabinet such as poppy seeds, pumpkin pie spice & caraway seeds). I wrote the names on the bottom with a black Sharpie marker. Then Chris got to do the manly thing and drill holes in the wall (after of course measuring three times and writing all over the wall in pencil, very necessary for a good home improvement project) and hang up the knife racks and then....!!!

Voila! They were done! I purposely did not straighted out the tins when I took that picture because I'm trying really hard not to be OCD about the fact that they are not at perfect right angles. They look great! Really colorful and very much a piece of usable art. We put the spices we use a lot of (oregano, basil, parsley) and our spice mixtures (Chris' Spice Rub and our homemade Taco Seasoning) into the big tins and all the other spices into the small tins. We also have about 12 extra small and two extra big tins for expansion in the future. Its been about two weeks since we put them up and they are really convenient since that is the counter we use to cook on. We made sure that I could reach them without a problem (or a step stool :P) before we put them up, so they really are at the perfect height.

We really love it.

Homemade Chocolate Covered Marshmallows

2009-04-12T10:59:00.000-04:00

On one of the few days I've been able to come home early from work recently, Chris and I decided to try and make marshmallows. We tried two recipes, one from Alton Brown and one from the Culinary Institute of America Cookbook. The CIA recipe was much more involved and the texture came out kind of weird. Also, the recipe called for honey as well as sugar and I personally don't like the flavor of honey in my candy. Great in mead, good in tea, candy = blech. The AB recipe was SO easy. You do need a stand mixer though. It was quick and fun to make and really tasted marshmallow-y. Better than marshmallow-y even because they came out fluffy and just a little gooey (which you combat with plenty of powdered sugar). I loved them so much that I cut them out with some spring shaped cookie cutters I have (flowers and butterflies) and then dipped them in chocolate and covered some of them in coconut and brought them to Easter dinner at Chris' family's house. Then I brought some to work and to our friends.

I'm seriously considering starting a marshmallow business. They were AWESOME! I tried a couple with cocoa powder but it made the texture weird. The fully covered ones were delicious but also seriously messy. The half covered ones were elegant and tasty with just enough balance of sweet marshmallow and bitter dark chocolate. The coconut just made it over the top in my opinion but then I love anything covered in coconut. Next time we make these, I will definitely get some good pictures so you can see how easy they are to make.

Sundays with Macrina: Fresh Fruit Muffins, Strawberry

2009-04-05T10:50:00.000-04:00

This is the first time I was unhappy with something I made from the Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook. It was completely my fault though. I thought the muffins looked done, toothpick test came out clean and they were in the oven longer than the recipe said. I don't know if it was the weather that day or just me not doing something right but they didn't bake all the way through. Of course I didn't realize this until AFTER I'd given some to Vina and her husband.... ugh. The flavor of the muffin part was good, but I really didn't like the flavor that the strawberries added. They also made the cooked part of the muffins soggy and wet (I HATE the texture of soggy bread). I would probably make these again, maybe with blueberries or cherries, just to see if they come out better.

St. Patty's Day Cake

2009-03-24T10:31:00.000-04:00

You didn't think I could let St. Patty's go by and NOT make a Chocolate Guinness Cake, did you? And of course it had Bailey's Buttercream on the inside. I made this for our St. Patty's day dinner at our friends house. Chris made Irish Soda Bread but I don't think he took any pictures. Seriously though, I have to get him to make it again and take some pictures because it was GOOOOOD! Although I don't know which was better, the bread, the cake or Vina's KICK ASS Corned Beef and Cabbage dinner. I ate so much that I ran back to our house to change out of my jeans and put sweatpants on (only after all the other already wearing sweatpants people yelled at me for thinking I should wear jeans in the first place :P) It was a great dinner with awesome friends... in other words, the best it could have been.

Sundays With Macrina: Oatmeal Buttermilk Bread

2009-03-24T10:02:00.000-04:00

This week I wanted to try my hand at another bread from the Macrina book. There are a ton of recipes for stuff other than bread but you can really tell that bread is Leslie Mackie's passion.

I didn't get to take any pictures of the actual making of the bread, but it was really easy. I wanted to try a starter bread but I do not have a food scale and I think starter breads are really one instance where you have to use one. So I opted for this loaf instead.
And like everything else I've made from the Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook, it was excellent. It came out really crusty on the outside (actually I think I may have baked it just a few minutes too long) and soft and fluffy on the inside. The only problem I had was with slicing it and that's just because I don't have a lot of experience slicing bread so my slices were THICK. I used this loaf all week for toast and to make sandwiches for lunch. It has a wonderful nutty flavor but its mild enough that it doesn't over power your sandwich. I don't know if you can tell but it also came out HUGE! Each slice was bigger than my whole hand with my fingers spread out. I think my stoneware pan, even though it says is 5x9, is not. I might try getting a metal pan but I really love the way the stoneware bakes.

I will definitely be making this bread again. It was SO delicious. I did leave off the oats that were supposed to be sprinkled on top... I really just forgot but also Chris doesn't like bread with 'stuff on it'.

Sunday's with Macrina: Morning Glory Muffins

2009-03-15T21:24:00.000-04:00

This week's pick from the Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook was Morning Glory Muffins. They sounded hearty and energizing and I thought they would make a great on-the-go breakfast. The recipe is supposed to make 12 muffins, but I made jumbo muffins so it only made 6.

I don't usually start off with a picture of the ingredients but in this case the sheer amount of them is definitely worth the top picture. These muffins contain: raisins, nuts (once again I swapped pecans for the walnuts called for), carrot, apple, pineapple, flour, sugar, raw sugar, salt, canola oil, eggs, baking soda, coconut, cinnamon, and lemon juice, butter and vanilla. And then the prep work....

I soaked the raisins in hot water to make them plumpy...

Toasted and chopped the nuts....

Shredded carrot....

... and apple...

Juiced this amazing lemon...

Don't even get me started on how I forgot to take pictures of my first ever chopping of a fresh pineapple....
Mix it all together in the super secret Macrina way...

Fill the tins to the tippy top....

(and I mean full!)

Then bake!

Ok that picture isn't the best but I really couldn't wait to eat this muffin! They smelled SO good baking! I can't even begin to describe how tasty these muffins are. I thought that all of the different ingredients would be overwhelming, but they weren't. My only complaint is that they were kind of crumbly.... don't get me wrong that didn't stop me from gathering all the crumbs up and squishing them so I could make sure I got all the scraps :P Chris loved them, I loved them, they were absolutely worth all the work that went into them. I will definitely be making these again!

Sunday's With Macrina: German Pancake with Apples, Rum, & Brown Sugar

2009-03-08T18:41:00.011-04:00

I picked this recipe to do first because Chris and I were looking for something fun to make for breakfast with stuff we already had in the house. The only thing we had to run out for was the apples. Also, because we wanted something a little heavier than a muffin or a scone.

Here's how it came together:

We had to substitute a few things for this recipe. The main thing was the rum. The recipe calls for dark rum, but we didn't have any and since we live in NY, liquor stores don't open until noon on Sundays. We only had Captain Morgan's Parrot Bay Passion Fruit Rum in the house, so we used that. The other two things were minor. First, I don't own a 9" saute pan, I own a 10" saute pan so we used that. Second, we don't drink whole milk, we buy 2% milk so that's what we used.

Wet ingredients: eggs, milk, vanilla

Dry ingredients: flour, kosher salt, sugar

Melting the butter.

While that melts, mix the dry and wet ingredients together until there are no lumps.

Then you pour the batter into the saute pan

After it cooks for a few minutes and starts to brown around the outside, you pop it into the oven to bake.

Meanwhile, you take the cut up apples...

And mix it with the melted brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, rum mixture.

Stir to coat and then cook them for a little while.

This is what the pancake looked like right before I pulled it out of the oven. It kinda made me crack up.

Then it deflated a little and we poured on the apples and dusted with powdered sugar.

Wow. Soooo goood. The pancake wasn't too heavy and really had a nice flavor. It was a great brunch and so easy to make that we will definitely make it again. The only thing was that the apple mixture was a little on the sweet side, but we are blaming that on our choice to use the fruity rum instead of dark rum. We may try it with a different fruit next time. Maybe apricots.

I'm so glad I chose this for the first recipe! I had a really hard week at work last week and wasn't so much in the mood to cook but I thought, hey, this is why I decided to do this in the first place. Chris and I had a lot of fun making it (and eating it!) together.

Challenging Myself... with Macrina

2009-03-03T10:03:00.002-05:00

I am going to bake my way through the Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook by Leslie Mackie. Cooking, in general, has always been something I love. When I was little I would pretend I had my own cooking show whenever I made something, even just PB&J. But baking... baking is my true passion. There is nothing like the feeling of taking something freshly baked out of the oven, the smell, the heat, the golden brown crust, the perfectly baked cake... it's like love in solid form. So why am I starting this adventure?

My job is stressful but it is not hard to do nor does it require a lot of brain power. Lately it has been a bit more stressful than usual because they are closing my office and moving my branch into another office to be shared with the team that is there from the company that took mine over. My boss is being moved to a different location than the rest of us, which leaves me as The One In Charge. So I've been working longer than usual hours and am a bit more stressed because of the extra responsibility and trying get all my work done while also doing all the things my boss normally does.

My point is that when I come home, I am mush. I don't use my brain at work, which I think is more tiresome than if I had to use a lot of brainpower. I do the crossword on my lunch everyday just so that I have at least 20 or 30 minutes of thinking to do during the day. I am not challenged at work. I do not have rewarding experiences at work. I mostly deal with complaints and problems, which can be wearing on the spirit. When I come home lately, I can't seem to get my brain to turn on to engage with Chris for more than watching TV. I'm cranky, I don't want to talk, I don't want to cook... I just want to put my pajamas on and veg out on the couch. Which is unfair to Chris and causes unnecessary stress on our relationship.

So what is the solution? Well, I can't just up and quit my job. It's a "good" job. So since I can't just quit, I've decided that I need to take matters into my own hands and challenge myself more. Do more things that require brainpower. (I also need to do more things that challenge me physically, but that's another topic for another day)

I've been reading through Carol Blymire's blog Alinea At Home, where she is cooking her way through the entire Alinea cookbook by Grant Achatz. She also finished cooking through the French Laundry Cookbook by Thomas Keller. Carol is really inspiring. I really could go on and on about her blog but really you should just head over there and check it out.

So why Macrina? Because there are things in there that I have only dreamed of baking. Intimidating sour doughs, croissants and other pastries....Things that will be hard, possibly frustrating, might make me cry but will be ultimately rewarding. The breads in this book sound so inviting to bake. There are also cakes, cookies, muffins, tarts, pies... the works. I also love the section toward the back that has the Cafe Favorites with savory dishes that make your mouth water just by reading the title like Egg Scramble with Delicata Squash, Spinich, Smoked Provelone & Beurre Blanc Sauce and German Pancake with Apples, Rum & Brown Sugar.

So I am going to make at least one new recipe per week from the Macrina book on Sunday. I hope to come out of this adventure a bit more intuitive about bread baking, more confident about pastry and with experience in a broader range of baked goods. I also want to gain a sense of accomplishment and a better understanding of what my plans are for the future. I also, for at least one day a week, want to feel passionate about what I am doing.

Wish me luck!

Quiche

2009-03-03T07:22:00.000-08:00

Julia Child's book has a great section on Quiche. I have made a variation of the basic recipe 4 or 5 times now. I made two different versions on Sunday to take over to Uncle Richie's birthday brunch. One was Jalapeno, Sweet Red Pepper, Homemade Sausage and Cheddar and the other was Baby Zucchini, Jarlsberg cheese and Homemade Sausage. (Sorry no pictures, there was an Incident Regarding The Number Of Eggs In The House which took up all my photo taking time. You can blame Chris :P) The Jalapeno version was SO good. We will definitely be making that one again.

I had some left over pie dough from Sunday so last night for dinner we made little quiche cups. I cut dough rounds to fit the bottom of my ramekins, pricked them with a fork and baked them in the ramekins for about 7 or 8 minutes. We added crispy bacon bits on top of that and pressed them into the crust (Julia suggests doing it this way). Then we added the egg mixture on top (eggs, cream, milk, salt, pepper, nutmeg) which had some Jarlsberg and sweet yellow and orange peppers. They baked for about 25 minutes. I did forget to dot the tops with butter the way Julia says to (which in all honesty might not be necessary but it sure does make it taste goooood). They came out great. It was a quick and delicious dinner for Chris and me. We made six and each ate two.

I really recommend making a quiche using Julia's recipe. Especially if you have friends coming over for brunch. You can put it in the oven and let it bake and serve it with some toast or bagels, maybe a pastry or two and you don't have to stand over the stove cooking while your company waits for you (because really you can't cook eggs early, they get cold and gross or dried out and gross if you try to keep them hot). You really can put whatever you think sounds good in there too. My only tip would be that if you are going to use something that is a little wet (like my shredded baby zucchini), you want to dry it out or drain it in a paper towel before adding it, or your egg mixture might become too watery. MMMmmmMMM! Yum!

Cookies!

2008-12-21T19:50:00.000-05:00

So for Christmas, Pat and Courtney got us a Silpat. Pat said that it would change my life. Well, I know what a Silpat is supposed to do and it sounded to me like the same thing that my Pampered Chef Stoneware Bar Pan was supposed to do. Non-stick, even baking, best cookies ever. So I put them up head to head on Sunday morning and made two batches of cookies. The first batch was White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies (recipe found here) and the second batch was White Chip Chocolate Cookies found on the back of the Toll House bag of white chocolate chips (and here).
Now I was going to post pictures of the top and bottom of each batch Silpat vs. Bar Pan, but honestly they came out almost exactly the same. The bar pan *did* cook a little more evenly, the bottom was done *exactly* the same amount as the top (one of the things that PC boasts is that food cooks at the same time all around) and the Silpat had the bottoms a tiny bit more done than the tops. Both Chris and I preferred the Silpat doneness, the little crisp on the edges was really nice but the middles were still soft and gooey.

Silpat top:
Silpat bottom:

Ok now I just feel bad and have to post the PC cookies too. Sorry about the bad lighting on the next one but it just wasn't working for me.

PC top:
PC bottom:On to the chocolate cookies!

Silpat top:
Silpat bottom:

PC top:
PC bottom:
So now you can see that they are pretty much the same. That said, I am in LOVE with the Silpat. It doesn't say on the PC website but the Bar Pan must weigh like 6lbs. I'm constantly worried about dropping it and honestly, its a little to hard on my wrist to carry it one handed, which makes it really hard to hold the pan and shut the oven. The Silpat weighs... I dunno... 4oz? maybe? Bar Pan: hard to store. Silpat: currently rolled up inside of a paper towel tube on the shelf. (Thanks btw to whoever blogged that a few weeks ago, I can't remember who but its a great tip) Both products are non-stick (I've cooked bacon a few times in my Bar Pan so its got a nice coat on it) but the Silpat seemed to be better at it. The PC cookies got a little squished from the spatula when I was moving them to the cooling rack. The Silpat cookies were perfectly round.

The winner? Silpat, hands down. I am so happy with it. If you make cookies, even once a year, you should get one (or two!) of these. It is totally worth it. I'm thinking about getting another one.

As a side note, if you like White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies, make that recipe! They were seriously some of the best Chris and I have ever had. And that is a favorite cookie for both of us.

Who Needs McDonalds?

2008-12-20T06:31:00.000-08:00

You may already know that Mom got us a KA mixer for Christmas this year. Chris' company gave him a $50.00 Amex gift card for Christmas. KA mixer + $50.00 =

YAY! We got the food grinder! We have been so excited at the prospect of making our own sausages that its not even funny. We decided to grind up a roast beef that we had in the freezer to make some hamburgers. I have to say, the grinder is quite disgusting. The meat looks really gross coming out and every once in a while it spits meat juice across the kitchen (or in my case, right onto my face). Luckily, I could get over it enough to really enjoy the process. Here is the final ground up meat:

So into the mixer it goes with all of Chris' special burger making stuff (I really don't know what he puts in there or I would tell you)

I know there are sauteed garlic and onions in there.

MMMmmmMMM! That is damn good! We even bought Ore Ida 'fast food fries' that go in the oven. They were pretty good!

Wanna bite?

We Were Christmas'd SO HARD!

2008-12-18T18:51:00.004-05:00

That's what our friend Pat told us the other day. He sent Chris a message that said 'I Christmas'd you SO HARD!' And it's true, we were. Now I'm not trying to brag or anything, and try not to get too jealous now, but here's what my Mom got us for Christmas:
Uh yeah... I've wanted one of those since I was like 12. It's so beautiful, even covered in flour like it is in the pic :P I've already made another loaf of Challah Bread and two cakes.

The first cake was for our friend Vina's birthday. It was a red velvet cake with white chocolate cream cheese frosting and homemade cannoli cream in the middle. Yes, I did say homemade cannoli cream. One of our friends gave us the recipe a while ago and I forgot (I know! How could I?!) that we had it. Let me just say, YUM!

The second cake was for our Potluck at work. It was a Chocolate Guinness Cake with Chocolate Ganache and yep, you guessed it, cannoli cream. (It made two pounds! I couldn't waste it!) I can't tell you how well the cannoli went with this cake. Oh. My. God. It was perfectly balanced between sweet and spicy (there's cinnamon in the cannoli cream). I put the absolute thinnest layer of ganache that I could to avoid making it too rich. I'm talking less than 1/8" thick.
I dusted cocoa powder on the top for some decoration but by the time I got to work it had seeped into the ganache. I think it may have made it better.
Ok that's not the most appetizing picture ever but that's because the leftover cake has been in the fridge since Monday and I forgot to take a slice picture until tonight (Thursday). I don't care, it's still delicious (of course, I had to eat the slice :P)

Back to being Christmas'd so hard:

These are gifts that some of our friends got us. Pat and Courtney got us the Silpat and the 8" chef's knife. Tom got Chris the CIA cookbook and me The Cake Book. Wow. Just wow. Awesome gifts. We are so excited to use all of them.

Now, not all of our awesome gifts were of the cooking nature....

If you read my other blog We Cook Together, you may already know that we are HUGE Giants fans. Anthony got us these awesome jerseys! Brandon Jacobs (27) for Chris and Eli Manning (10) for me. We already wore them on Sunday :)

I can't wait to use everything!!! And of course we are going to have to whip up some yummy goodies for everyone :)

Holiday Cookies!

2008-12-14T12:04:00.000-08:00

(NOTE: BIGGER slideshow on dannyburbol.com)

We're going to a cookie exchange party, so we baked lots of surgar and peanutbutter holiday cookies!

Our Favs are:

#7: that G-Bread man got hit in the head by a peanut butter cup flining ninja!
#8: just simple and classic
#13: cute star!
#14: Tiff was going for height!
be sure to check out #19 :)
#15: Yeah Baby!
#19: of course, this one is our top pick :)

Stuffed Pork Loin

2008-12-05T06:18:00.000-08:00

Mom came over for dinner. Chris decided to make stuffed pork loin. We have made this before and it is so easy and yummy.

First take your pork loin and cut it so that it is flat. You kind of have to go in a reverse spiral.

Next season with salt and pepper and place your fillings on. We used fresh mozzarella, fresh basil and roasted red peppers.

Roll it up and bake in a 350° oven for 45 min to 1 hr. We use our stoneware bread pan because it helps keep the shape without skewers. We served it with butternut squash puree and roasted potatoes.

Beef Provencale

2008-11-25T05:48:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, my mom was always getting these 'join our recipe club!' packages in the mail. With the invitations they would include a sample of the recipe cards. Mom never joined the clubs, but always kept the free cards. I have mostly inherited these cards since Mom doesn't really cook that much anymore. This recipe was from one of these sets. The set is called 'Simply Delicious'.

We decided to make this recipe during Thanksgiving week, since Chris and I both had off. We were going to go out on a 'date' but decided that we would probably have more fun and have better food if we just stayed home and cooked together. We also spent about half of what we would have for dinner.

The recipe is easy, but a little pricey. You take a beef tenderloin (go to the butcher, not the supermarket!), brown it in some butter on all sides and season with salt and pepper. Cover and let it cook over low heat for about 10 minutes. Remove it from the pan, cover it with foil and let it rest for about 30 minutes. Slice it into 1/2 inches slices, put it in a dish and spread with some garlic butter (6 Tbl softened butter, 2 cloves minced garlic, 3 Tbls finely chopped flat leaf parsley, mix together until smooth) and put into a 425° oven for 8 minutes.

Now you may notice the potatoes in the picture above. You should ignore them. They were part of the recipe that was annoying and should have been called 'Simply Bland'. I would serve this with a good gratin or mashed potato and some steamed veggies.

Now, this dinner (minus potatoes) was delicious. This is a very, very good cut of meat (1 1/2 lbs filet tenderloin cost us $35.00). It was tender and practically melted in your mouth.

The next day we decided to make lunch with the leftovers. Now dinner was good. We had fun making it. What Chris did with the leftovers was just simply the best sandwich I have ever eaten in my whole life.

He cut up the beef, mixed it with the garlic butter and basically made a grilled muenster cheese and beef sandwich out of it. The kicker? He toasted garlic in the pan before adding the bread. I know it sounds so simple but really it could not have been better. There was not one thing that either of us said 'oh next time we should....'

Yum!

Handmade Challah Bread

2008-11-07T15:24:00.001-05:00

We were having my uncle and his girlfriend over for dinner last night and I decided to make some homemade Challah. I got this recipe from the Macrina Bakery and Cafe Cookbook. I don't have a stand mixer so I made this by hand. 15 minutes of kneading dough is very good therapy!

After its first proof (2 hours) you form the loaf and then let it proof for another 45 minutes. I don't know if you can really tell but the loaf in the above picture is much smaller than the one below (after proof).

It only bakes for 30 minutes and comes out so beautiful!

I have to say that this has been my proudest moment baking. I made a delicious loaf of bread, by hand, for the first time. I really just want to run back to the kitchen and make more!!

Pumpkin Ginger Crème Carmel

2008-10-13T14:54:00.000-04:00

Chris and I were going to have dinner at my uncle and his girlfriend's house a few weeks ago and I said that I would bring dessert. I decided that I wanted to have something autumnal. So I went searching through my many, varied cookbooks. A while ago I had subscription to Food & Wine and they randomly sent me a cookbook. I took a look at it and tossed it aside because I thought that Food & Wine's Best of the Best was going to be the best recipes from Food & Wine from that year and I already had all the recipes in the magazines taking up space on my shelf. Well, I pulled it down to see if I could find anything in there since I haven't looked in it and most of my Food & Wines got tossed when we moved. It turns out that it is the 100 best recipes from the top 27 cookbooks published in the year 2000. Wow. It's awesome.

So I found a recipe for Pumpkin Ginger Crème Carmel that is from the cookbook The Olives Dessert Table. It called for eight 5-ounce ramekins but I only have 8-ounce ramekins so I made 6. I think I should have left them in a little longer because they were a little soft.

I decided to decorate them with Pepperidge Farm Gingermen.

This one had a broken leg. I ate him so he wouldn't feel bad about it.

Looked mushy but tasted yummy.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

2008-10-04T20:22:00.000-04:00

Saturday seemed to be the first day of fall that I could really enjoy. I opened up the windows and let the cool air in. I sat in the recliner and had a cup of hot tea. I was just thinking of the season, the leaves, the crisp air. It got me started on all things fall.

My favorite fall icon is the pumpkin. I love everything about it. It's shape, the warm orange color, the flavor, the smell. I especially love pumpkin when used in baked goods. So as soon as I realized that I had some pumpkin purée in the pantry, I went in search of a recipe. Now this took quite some time. I own a pumpkin cookbook. There are many websites dedicated to pumpkins. Many people seem to think they have the best recipe for pumpkin x. I settled finally on this recipe (second one down on the page) from the Pumpkin Patch website.

This recipe had promise. The ingredient list looked great and contained things that were already in my kitchen. It was easy to make. It smelled wonderful baking. It tasted....meh. There was definitely too much nutmeg going on here. I would cut it down to a scant teaspoon instead of the tablespoon requested. It was so over powering. There is no pumpkin, no chocolate, no pecans... just nutmeg. Its a beautiful bread. Golden. Moist. Just too much nutmeg.

Changes I made to the recipe:
1) I used pecans instead of walnuts
2) I used apple cider instead of water
3) I didn't have enough veg. oil so I used 3/4 c oil and 1/4 c melted butter.
4) I probably used a little more than 1c of choco chips because I wanted to finish off the last bit I had. I used a mix of Hershey's Special Dark chips and Ghirardelli Bittersweet chips.
5) I do not own three loaf pans. I have one. So I used one loaf pan and one Bundt pan. Came out great. I did lower the oven temp because my pans are dark. (325° for the first 45 min then to 300° for the last 15 min)

I will definately be making this again, but with the change to the nutmeg. I was thinking of using pumpkin pie spice mix instead of the nutmeg and cinnamon. I'll have to play with it a little to see how it comes out.

Chicken Soup - Grandma Katie Style

2008-10-02T17:45:00.000-07:00

Growing up, Mom always made chicken soup. She says the smell reminds her of her Grandma Katie. I don't remember Grandma Katie, so the smell of chicken soup reminds me of Mom. I feel like I've known how to make this my whole life. I remember watching Mom boil the chicken and then letting it cool overnight, skimming the fat, cleaning the chicken off the bones and then heating everything up again.

Recently, Chris and I made Roasted Chicken. I decided (before we even cooked it) that we would make chicken soup out of the leftovers. So on Thursday night, after work, we set out to make chicken soup. A lot of the work was done for us already. I had saved the gibblies from the chicken, along with the juice that collected in the bottom of my roasting pan, the bones of the chicken and some of the pieces that we didn't eat (wings, some breast meat).

First, we started a pot with water and the juices that were saved, which I skimmed the fat off of before adding to the pot. I cleaned all of the meat that I could off of the bones, separating the good meat, the bones and the sinew. The sinew goes in the trash, the meat goes in the pot and the bones get tied up in cheese cloth and then go in the pot. Gibblies get tied up in a separate cheesecloth and thrown in too.

We added about a half of a large bag of baby carrots, an entire package of celery, chopped, and an onion, also choppped.

Next are the spices. We added some oregano, thyme, sage, salt, pepper and 6 cloves of garlic, minced. I used these spices because that was what I made my chicken rub with.

We simmered it for about an hour, until the veggies were tender and the gibblies were cooked through. Just lift out the cheesecloth bundles, let them drain, and throw them out.

I don't like to put rice or pasta into my soup and let it sit there. I like it much better if you make the rice or pasta separately and then add it to each individual bowl before adding the soup. That way it doesn't break down too much and get soggy. We made rice this time.

We served the soup with a crusty bread and some apple cider (thanks for the idea, Vina!).

It was so delicious. Perfect for a cool night and worth the time we put into it on a work night (we didn't get to eat until almost 9pm since I got home from work around 7:30ish).

The best part was lunch on Friday. If possible (Chris and I agree 100% that it is), it was even better the next day.

Our pot was big enough for us to make dinner, lunch the next day and put a huge container in the freezer for another day.

Renée's Roasted Chicken and Potatoes

2008-09-28T16:40:00.000-07:00

Whole chicken was on sale and I was sick so I decided to make a roasted chicken and then turn the leftovers into chicken soup. This is the roasted chicken part of the plan. Unfortunately, my camera battery was dead from the French Toast Experiment so there are not too many pictures for you here. I will narrate to the best of my storytelling abilities.

First you unwrap your lovely lady (the chicken, not your girlfriend) and give her a lukewarm shower in the sink (make sure your sink is clean on the bottom). Rinse out all cavities and crevices, also remove the bag that has the gibblies in it and put it in the fridge for later use in chicken soup making. (I call them gibblies, you got a problem with that?)

Now this part is a little bit hard but you can do it. Put your girl on a cutting board and get a small, sharp knife. Starting by the neck end, you are going to pull the skin up in one solid piece, cutting underneath at the stringy parts that make it stick to the chicken until you have a big skin flap that you can see the whole naked lady under (if you are really good you should be able to get the legs uncovered too, but that takes practice and if you can't do it the first time, its ok). Do not cut it completely free of the chicken! it should still be attached at the opposite side.

Now wash your hands. If you are smart you have made your spice rub ahead of time and can just start applying, but I always forget and have to make it after the de-skinning step. I just mix whatever I feel like in a little bowl. This time I used about a tablespoon of each of the following: sea salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, rosemary and sage. Mix them together well.

If you want at this step you can use your meat tenderizer or a fork to poke some holes in your chicken. I recommend NOT going through the skin, but hold it up instead and work underneath it.

Now the fun part. You are going to give your lovely chicky a nice rub down. Get some of that yummy spice rub and rub it under the skin of the chicken. Make a nice coating under there. Now you are going to stretch the skin back in place (don't worry it will stay). If you have left over spice rub, put it on the outside of the skin.

I baked my chicken in a clay baker (with lid on!) at 350° for 20 min/lb. You will be tempted to take the lid off and look - DON'T! Just let it bake and all the juices and steam will collect on the bottom. After its done you can take the lid off for a few minutes and let the skin get crispy if you want to. You want to keep that juice and bones and leftover meat for the chicken soup.

On to potatoes!

This part is super easy. Wash and quarter about 2lbs of baby potatoes (I prefer red, but white is good too, this time I used both). Put them in a large bowl, season with salt and pepper and sprinkle on some dried rosemary. Enough so that every potato will get some. Add about 1/4c of Olive Oil and toss until evenly coated. Then turn out onto a baking sheet.
Make sure that one of the cut sides is facing down. Bake at 400° for about 35-45 min. (If you want you can bake them with the chicken at 350°, but they will take around an hour or so)

Sorry for the bad plate picture but the lighting was bad and the flash reflected off the plate and then the camera died and I was hungry and didn't want to wait until it charged to eat. Yum! Perfect moist chicken and yummy crisp but tender potatoes. Don't mind the icky pile of green stuff. That was our adventure in frozen artichoke hearts. All I can say is, 'DON'T.'

Breakfast Monte Cristo - Cheesecake Factory Style

2008-09-28T16:12:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago Chris and I were headed out for the day and decided to go to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. I wanted breakfast but since it was Sunday we were in luck because Cheesecake has an awesome brunch, only on Sundays. I decided to get the Breakfast Style Monte Cristo, which was scrambled eggs, bacon, Canadian bacon and Swiss cheese on French Toast. Let me tell you that it was so friggin' good. Their French Toast had corn flakes masterfully integrated onto the outside, forming a delicious crunchy crust on the French Toast. Upon seeing and tasting this, Chris immediately said 'I have to try and make that at home'. Fast forward a few weeks and here were are:

We decided to skip the two kinds of bacon and go for ham instead. Since the Jewish Holiday of Rosh Hashahna was coming up, we were able to get some beautiful, fresh Challah bread at our local supermarket. Along with your regular French Toast Fixins (a technical term) of vanilla, cinnamon, eggs and milk, we had our new additions of corn flakes, Swiss and ham. Don't forget your favorite tea!
We did the usual method of scrambling some eggs with a little milk, vanilla and lots of cinnamon, dipping in the bread and letting each side soak for a little bit (around 20-25 seconds since our bread was sliced pretty thick). Then it was a quick dip in the crushed up corn flakes and into a buttered, hot pan. We found that crushing up the corn flakes cooked more evenly and gave us a golden brown finish. See below:

Yummy!

It came out so good! Not exactly like the Cheesecake Factory but very close. Molto Bene! Note the finish of powdered sugar that Chris put on. It was VERY filling. I only ate one slice of the bread and most of the stuffing parts and I was absolutely stuffed. I cut up the rest and spread it around my plate so it would look like I ate more than I did. Shh! Don't tell Mom!

Renée's Football Sunday Chili

2008-09-14T17:47:00.000-07:00

Sunday Football in our house is a big deal, especially when the NY Giants are playing. This past Sunday it was kind of a cooler NY September day, not like the extended summer we have been having. The perfect day to watch some football, hang out with our friends and make some spicy chili. I did not use a recipe for this, I made it up, but I will tell you how I made it. It came out perfect.

In your crock pot (I think mine is 6 or 7 qts) combine, 2 large cans of crushed tomatoes, 1 chopped red bell pepper, 2 lbs of cooked ground beef, 1 lb of cooked Italian sausage, 1 can of corn, and 1 bunch of scallions chopped, green and light green parts only. Add 1 cup of water and mix it all together. Then I added the spices: chili powder, cumin, red pepper flakes, garlic, onion powder, paprika, oregano, thyme, sea salt, black pepper, Cayenne pepper. For everything except the salt and Cayenne pepper, I used the "cover the top" method of seasoning. This is how my Great-Grandmother taught my Mom how to add spices. She doesn't measure, she just coats the top of whatever it is she is putting spices in until you can't see what's underneath. It's definitely not an exact science so I would suggest tasting often to see if you want to add more of something. For the salt I added two big pinches and for the Cayenne pepper I just sort of sprinkled it on top. Cayenne is very hot and can easily overpower the rest of the spices, so use a light hand with it, you can always add a little more.

NOTE: I used onion powder because our friend Anthony does not like onions. If he sees them in his food he will typically not eat whatever it is. He told me that he wasn't a big chili fan and I didn't want to push my luck by adding big onion chunks. Feel free to skip the powder and add real onions. I may try grating the onions next time. I would use 1 medium Spanish onion for this dish.

I added four rounded tablespoons of sugar at this point. The sugar helps balance the acidity of the tomatoes.

I had the crock pot on high for two hours and then turned it to low until we were ready to eat. Since the meat is already cooked, you are really just waiting for it to heat up and let all of the flavors come together.

You can top yours with whatever you'd like. I prefer shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream.

Things you might like to add to your chili: black beans, kidney beans, different peppers, salsa, veggies that hold up well when cooked for a long time such as eggplant, zucchini and mushrooms, chicken.

Next time I make this I am going to try removing the casings from the sausages or buying crumbled sausage. The sausages were delicious and I wanted to have more sausage flavor in each bite instead of once or twice in a bowl (I had 8 sausages which I cut into quarters before I cooked them).

P.S. The Giants won :)

Haifang's Creamy Figs

2008-09-02T13:41:00.000-07:00

Another hit at our East Meets West Labor Day BBQ was Haifang's creamy figs!

She cut the top off the figs and then cut them into halves.

after that she put a dollop of creamy goat cheese on top of each one. (It tasted a lot like cream cheese.)

That blur is Haifang putting a sprinkle of balsamic vinegar on top by putting her thumb over the opening from the bottle.

Viola! Haifang's Creamy Figs! When we asked, she said she made it up with a friend. The final taste is sweet from the figs, creamy from the cheese and a little tart from the vinegar. Very tasty!

Make Your Own Sushi Rolls

2008-09-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

We went to a friend's house for Labor Day. We had a BBQ that was half hot dogs and hamburgers and half roll your own sushi!

Koichi, the host, picked up all the ingredients that morning:

Rice for sushi is mixed with a special type of vinegar to give it flavor and help it stick together. That's the bottle in the back on the left.

Here we have tuna, imitation crab, and some other fish.

This is mint leaves and (since we're in California) avocado.

This is a special fermented soy bean mix. Knowing Koichi, it's probably something amazing that you can't buy because he just whipped it up.

And don't forget, Wasabi. Koichi told us once that this style of powered wasabi (mixed with water), is pretty much horseradish. And the actual wasabi in Japan has a different flavor because it's made from a different plant.

Notice that we've completely wrapped the bamboo roll in plastic wrap because we're about to make a California roll, which has the rice on the outside (not the seaweed). This keeps the rice from sticking to the bamboo

And Now, Koichi shows us how to make a california roll! (note, no sound on this one.)

Things to note:

see how Koichi pretty much folds the bamboo roll in half and makes the two ends of the bamboo roll touch, then he shapes the sushi inside the bamboo. That is a key element to rolling the sushi correctly.

It's not in the video, but to get that thin strip of seaweed, you *don't* tear it off the bigger sheet. Instead, you just fold the seaweed and it snaps cleanly.

And now, an easy mistake to make when rolling (and how to recover) (note: this one *does* have sound).

Now go back and watch Koichi again and you'll see how he folded it in half and pulled on the top to roll the sushi inside the bamboo (rather than just wrapping the bamboo around the sushi).

Next, Koichi shows us how to make Hand Rolled Sushi. (again, this has sound)

Note how he rolls it in a cone shape so the filling doesn't fall out of the bottom.

Later, we asked Koichi: "So does every Japanese kid learn how to roll sushi?" Koichi says, "No, not the kind with the bamboo. They know the Hand Rolled kind, because Mom's not going to roll it for everyone. You have to fend for yourself."

Here's a final look at the damage after our East meets West Labor Day BBQ!

Renée & Chris Try Danny's Diner Style Cinnamon French Toast

2008-09-01T09:14:00.001-07:00

Today, Chris and I tried to make Danny's Diner Style Cinnamon French Toast. It was pretty easy and came out really good. Chris likes his a little darker than Danny suggests so that's why the plate on the left is different than the plate on the right (mine).

All of our ingredients:

Soaking our bread for 15 seconds:

In the pan with some butter:

All stacked up:

We found another brand of sparkling lemonade at the store last night. It's by Simply Enjoy. I'm not sure but I think it may be the store's new quality-type brand (generic but fancy). It was in our regular supermarket, Stop & Shop, and says that it is also from France, just like the other brand we tried, Lorina. This one was really good, just not quite as good as the Lorina, however it is half the price of the Lorina brand. I would definately buy it again.

Experiment: Herb Oil

2008-09-01T08:55:00.001-07:00

I had some left over fresh Thyme and Basil so I decided to make use of the cool sparkling lemonade bottles we have to make some herb oil. It's basically fresh herbs and olive oil sealed in a bottle. The book that I bought this spring to help me with my herb garden, Your Backyard Herb Garden by Miranda Smith, has a section on using herbs in oil, how to store them properly and how to minimize bacteria growth. Since I just made the oil this morning, I am going to let it steep a bit before I use it. I'll let you know how it comes out.

Two Ways With Poached Eggs

2008-08-31T18:01:00.001-07:00

Ever since Chris and I went to California to visit Danny and Tiffany in the summer of 2005, I have been ordering my eggs poached (in a cup!) when we go out to breakfast. This is because Danny let me have a bite of his Eggs Benedict one morning and explained that poached eggs were just like over easy eggs but without the butter used to fry them. Until this summer, when Danny came to visit us in NY, I had never attempted to make poached eggs at home. There was an episode of Good Eats on our dvr in which Alton Brown makes everything from poached eggs to poached fish and there are explicit instructions in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. So one morning, I jumped in with both feet and made some for Danny and myself. They came out great. Here I have two different breakfast choices that I've made recently. The first was made on 8.28.08 and the second was made on 8.31.08.

The trick is to not boil the water. I use a 10 inch sauté pan and heat it over medium high flame until the bottom is covered in little bubbles. Like this:

Both Alton and Julia talked on the use of vinegar if your eggs are not super fresh as a means of holding the whites together. In the first experiment, (which are all of the pictures in the pan) I did use vinegar to see how well this theory works. Another choice would be to crack the egg into a ladle held in the hot water and dipping it a bit to allow some water to come in. Once the eggs has set a little bit you can slip it out into the pan. I prefer to crack the eggs right into the pan, but it must be done slowly and with full attention.

I usually use my slotted spoon to flip the eggs over once in the water. I have no idea if this does anything or not to effect cooking, but it makes sure that they don't stick to the bottom of the pan.

Once the eggs are cooked (which only takes about 2-3 minutes) you can lift them out with your slotted spoon, wait a few seconds for them to drain and then plate. If you used vinegar, you want to rinse the eggs before serving to get off the vinegar. Usually what I do is set everything up first. I take out the toaster, put the bread in (but I don't turn it on yet), if there is any meat to be cooked or anything like that I do that first while the water is heating up. Once I am ready to cook the eggs, I put the toast on, crack the eggs into the water, stand there and watch them, flip them once and then take them out. By then the toast has popped, I grab it, throw it on the plate and top it with the eggs. If I have other ingredients to construct on top of the toast, I put the eggs into a bowl with enough room so that they aren't on top of each other.

The first plate is a buttered English muffin with poached eggs on top and sprinkled with cracked pepper. The eggs did hold together very nicely with the addition of the vinegar, however, I either didn't rinse them enough or I just didn't like the taste of the whites because of the vinegar.

The second plate is an Arnold Sandwich Thin (I really love those) topped with a slice of swiss cheese, ham that was heated for about 30 seconds in a pan, poached eggs with cracked pepper and a side of Potatoes O'Brien. You can find Potatoes O'Brien in the frozen french fry section of the supermarket. It is basically home fries with onions and peppers. I add a little black pepper and thyme to mine for some flavor. This is the batch that I didn't use the vinegar with and the eggs were definately more tasty, although they were smaller.

Danny's Diner Style Cinnamon French Toast

2008-08-30T10:22:00.000-07:00

I'm guessing you can probably make french toast already. So, I'm sure you're saying to yourself, "why did this guy waste his time posting an entry on how to make french toast?" It's because:

This recipe is subtle!

It's easy, in theory, but takes practice to get right ("wrong" = "it's good"; "right" = "extra fluffy and tasty").

Ingredients:

eggs
bread (normally "white" bread, but if you want to experiment --go for it!)
butter/oil (your choice)
milk
cinnamon
syrup (make sure you have some before you start :)

How much of each ingredient? Figure 1 egg per slice of bread (2 triangles).

Here you can see I've got 3 slices of bread which means I'm using 3 eggs. I put them in a plate, not a bowl. This is how we did it when I was working at the diner. They don't have some giant bowl of pre-mixed eggs, they just whip out a plate, crack in a few eggs and make 1 order of French toast.

I also encourage you to NOT crack open more than 4 eggs into the plate at a time. There's no need to make an overflowing plate of eggs. Crack a few eggs, make a few slices of bread, then crack in a few more as you go.

What's great about this is, it's easy to NOT waste food. Rather than mix-up a bunch of eggs only to find yourself with left overs as people get full, you can stop adding eggs the moment you feel you have enough French toast for everyone --or you can run back to the kitchen and make a few more without mixing up another giant batch of eggs.

Also, look back at that splash of milk. Realize that in the picture, the milk had time to spread some before I could grab my camera, that looks like more milk than it is. Imagine how much milk you put in coffee via those half-n-half creams you see on the table at restaurants. I put in the same amount of milk as liquid in 1 of those little half-n-half containers. One container's worth per egg.

Here's the first subtle part! DON'T BEAT THE EGGS! Lightly scramble them with the fork. I broke the yolks and then pass the fork through the eggs about 10 times. That's it. Not 50 times and not at some high speed blender rate. Lightly scrambled. See the big patches of egg white in the pictures? *Lightly.*

Here's the part you'll be repeating. Cover the top with cinnamon. Lightly mix it into the eggs. Then put a few triangles of bread in the eggs. This is another subtle part. The next subtle part: leave the slices in for 10 to 15 seconds per side --not 30 seconds or a minute per side. The bread will absorb the eggs if you just give it some time, you don't have to over compensate but you do have to give it a moment.

I find that the best result is when the eggs are NOT soaked through all the way to the middle of the slice of bread. When you get them that soggy, the middle doesn't cook very well and you end up with soggy, raw-egg middles while you're eating.

Remember, Here's what you repeat:

put some oil or butter in the pan
make sure you have enough eggs in the plate
sprinkle on some cinnamon and lightly mix in
10 to 15 seconds a side.
go directly into the pan.

Don't sprinkle any cinnamon over the pan. It will just burn and make later slices of French toast taste burnt as well.

I use triangles because they are easier to fit in the pan and easier to share when you put a big stack of french toast on the table for a group of people. Above I have 3 triangle because I wanted to cook half at a time. If you take the corners that are 90 degrees (the original corners of the bread that were not cut in half) and put them in the center of the pan, you can easily fit 4 triangles in the pan with the longest, cut edges facing outward.

The last subtle part: Cook until golden brown? No, cook until golden brown -buts still white. What's that mean? Look back at the picture. See how you can still see the white of the egg even though a lot of the toast is golden brown? That's what I mean. It's easy to over cook them and make the whole side golden brown, which actually ends up tasting a little burnt. It's also easy to over-brown one side which still effects the overall taste. So stay with them and watch *both* sides carefully.

Here's my assembly line. In the next picture, if you look closely at the slices in the center, they are overcooked because I was busy taking that last picture while they were still in the pan. See the subtle difference in color?

As they finish, I stack the triangles directly on top of each other to keep in the heat. Right before they go out is when I arrange them on the plate to look nice. This way they are usually steaming when they're placed on the table.

If I'm at your house, please don't put a big pat of butter on top of mine at the last second. I don't like that very much. You may want to ask your guests how they feel about it before you add the final pat of butter, or you can let them do it themselves at the table.

Variation: Omit the bread and just make lightly scrambled eggs with cinnamon. They're a little sweet and go great with bacon.

Enjoy!
~Danny

Chocolate Guinness Cake II

2008-08-28T09:13:00.008-04:00

On Friday, we had our friend, Anthony, over for dinner. To make dinner even better, I decided to make Chocolate Guinness Cake with "Bailey's" Buttercream and Chocolate Ganache. Anthony's brother, Mike, joined us for dessert after he got out of work. It was fantastic and so delicious. So much so, that we brought the rest to The Guy's house the next day for fear of eating the whole thing by ourselves!

There's nothing quite like three guys telling you how awesome you are through mouthfuls of chocolate cake :P

Things I did differently this time around were:

1) I used Guinness Stout instead of Draught (the first time the store didn't have Stout). I liked it both ways but this way was creamier and richer as opposed to the breadiness of the first Chocolate Guinness Cake.

2) The addition of the Bailey's Buttercream. It was so good. Not too sweet and the flavors went together perfectly. This buttercream is very thin and will need to be put in the fridge if you are going to use it on the outside of the cake.

3) Chocolate Ganache on the outside. This is not the same Ganache recipe I used for the first attempt. This one is much better, smoother and tastier. I decided to pour the Ganache and let it run down the sides however it wanted as opposed to trying to cover the whole cake. I did this because I didn't want the richness of the Ganache to overwhelm the cake. It worked exactly as I wanted.

**Edit on 8.30.08 to answer Danny's comment**

Danny said: "wow! what's the difference in taste between this one and the red velvet cake from my birthday?"on August 28, 2008 at 2:40 PM

This cake is different from the red velvet cake in that it is much moister and has a definite chocolate flavor. The red velvet is smooth when you eat it but it doesn't quite melt in your mouth the way this one does and it has a very nice flavor but it is hard to discern exactly what that flavor is other than to say it taste like red velvet cake, it's not vanilla, it's not chocolate, it's ???. I really am not a chocolate cake person. I think it is usually okay at best. Bare that in mind when I tell you that this is my favorite cake. It's not too rich, it's not overbearing, the texture is amazing, you are not sick of it by the end of the slice like most chocolate cakes. In terms of how hard they are to make, I would say the red velvet is harder, but not by much.

**end edit**

Here's how it came together:

Guinness and Butter in a pot on the stove:

Lining the pans with parchment paper (notice that I saved the butter wrappers to butter the pans with):

When the beer starts to boil you add the chocolate (mmmm):

Whisk until smooth!

All of the dry ingredients combined and mixed in a bowl:

Beat the eggs with the sour cream:

Until foamy:

Mix it all together and you get yummy cake batter:

Enough to fill 3 9 inch round pans very nicely:

Next is the buttercream:

Remember to scrape down the bowl!

I don't buy Bailey's Irish Cream, I buy Emmet's because its just as good and cheaper:

The buttercream was a little soft, I think because of the temperature in the kitchen:

I didn't really care because it was going in the cake, not on top:

Delicious with a glass of milk!

The buttercream started oozing out after I cut the cake:

Chocolate Guinness Cake recipe found on epicurious.com
Bailey's Buttercream recipe found on The Cupcakery Blog
Ganache recipe from Macrina Bakery and Cafe Cookbook

What could make a kitty turn upside down?

2008-08-27T19:19:00.000-07:00

Steak of course!

Tenderized and rubbed with Chris' Sweet with some Heat Steak Rub that is...

We weren't planning to blog tonight's dinner (so don't mind the messy plate!) but who can resist a purrrfect photo op?

Baked Pork Chops with Apples

2008-08-26T07:01:00.000-07:00

This was an idea I had based off of some stuffed pork chops I made last winter. Those are a little tedious to make and I didn't feel like spending a lot of time in the kitchen after a long day at work. So this is what I came up with.

First, we tenderized the meat with our new totally awesome Jaccard meat tenderizer (now with even more blades!). (This was our first time using our new toy, thanks Danny and Tiffany!)

The I sautéed half of an onion with one cubed Granny Smith apple in 1 Tbls of butter and a little olive oil. After they cooked for about two minutes I added some dried Thyme and a pinch of salt.

Next, I made some room in the bottom of the pan and added the pork chops. I browned them for about 20 seconds on each side. Then I put the whole pan, covered, into a 350° oven for about 20 minutes. (picture is before they went in the oven)

We made some baked potatoes and corn to go with and dinner was served! It was very good. Chris really loved it. I think next time I would add a little liquid to the pan before putting it in the oven, maybe some chicken stock or white wine. The chops got a tiny bit dried out. Also, I think I would brown them for just a little longer. They tasted fine and you can't really tell in the pictures but they were a little washed out and pale when they came out of the oven. A little more golden crust would make them looked even yummier. Lastly, I would peel the apples next time.

Definitely a great quick dinner.

Chicken with White Cream Sauce

2008-08-22T21:46:00.001-07:00

Tonight I made Chicken with White Cream Sauce from the Julia Child cookbook because we were having our friend Anthony over for dinner. I've made it once before and I think it came out better last time. This time we had a few things that didn't work out quite like I wanted.

1) I didn't realize that the bottle white wine I had in the fridge didn't have very much in it, so I ended up using less wine and more vermouth.

2) I didn't check how much Arborio rice we had left and had to send Chris and our friend Anthony to the store to get more when I had already put the chicken in the oven and started the onions for the risotto. The chicken was out of the oven for more than 20 minutes before we ate.

3) My camera battery died in the middle of me cooking so there are not a lot of 'in progress' pictures. This is a picture of the chicken breasts once I cleaned them, rubbed them with lemon juice and salt and peppered them.

This is the cream sauce bubbling after I added the heavy cream

The final product on a bed of risotto (also from the Julia Child cookbook).

The chicken came out a little drier this time (probably from being kept in the pan for too long while they ran to the store) but it was still really yummy. The risotto was perfect, in spite of me having to throw out the first batch of onions and start over once the new container of rice arrived. All served with a side of steamed broccoli.

For dessert I made Chocolate Guinness Cake with Bailey's Buttercream and Chocolate Ganache. Yuuuummmy. It was so good. Check out my baking blog for details on that.

Edit on 8.28.08 to answer Danny's questions:

For the chicken I used white wine (chardonnay) and vermouth because that is what I had in the kitchen. Also, I used chicken stock since I was making chicken (didn't make sense to me to use beef stock). I'm trying to remember but I'm pretty sure I read the recipe wrong. I thought it said a 1/4 c of vermouth and a 1/4 c of white wine, but looking at it now it seems to only say 1/4 of vermouth. Oh well, it was still yummy.

Next time I make this I am going to follow the variation recipe on page 269 for Chicken Breasts with Mushrooms and Cream, because that just sounds delicious.

For the risotto, I again used chicken stock because I was serving it with chicken. I don't know that I would change that if I were cooking beef only because beef stock can have an overbearing flavor and this risotto has such a delicate flavor.

Lemon Poppy Bread

2008-08-17T19:17:00.004-04:00

This recipe is by Emeril Lagasse. I found it here on foodnetwork.com. It was very easy, I had most of the ingredients in the house and even though it is technically a muffin recipe it worked very nicely as a quick bread with a little extra time in the oven. The only ingredients you may not keep regularly in your pantry would be the buttermilk, which I had due to another recipe use, and the poppy seeds, which I found very easily in the spice aisle of Waldbaum's (our local supermarket).

I made this in my stoneware loaf pan. It came out perfect. Moist, golden, not too heavy. Chris loved it. I hated it. I don't know if it was the buttermilk or too much lemon or what but there was a very sour-ish taste that I just did not enjoy. It wasn't tart, it was sour. (my buttermilk is fine, it's only a few days old, smells good) I really wanted to like it, I generally love lemon poppy bread/muffins, but this one I just did not like one bit. I think next time I will try to substitute the buttermilk or try a different recipe entirely. I chose this one because it did not involve plain yogurt, of which I have none. If you like the flavor of buttermilk, by all means, make this recipe. It really came out looking and smelling wonderful.

Anyway, back to the kitchen.....

Cupcakes? No, Cupcake Cake!

2008-07-27T11:12:00.002-04:00

We went over our neighbors' house for a little barbecue and I decided to make Gâteau À L'Orange (orange spongecake) Cupcakes with Crème Pâtissière (custard filling) and Crème Au Beurre (butter cream) flavored with Eau De Rose (rosewater). If the French didn't tip you off, I got all the recipes from Julia Child's book 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' (40th Anniversary Edition).

On a side note: if you do not have this book, you should buy it. It's excellent. There are tips and directions for everything from buying the right produce to how to use a knife effectively to how to perform seemingly hard culinary feats with ease (such as Soufflé and Roux). It is a teaching book, meaning sometimes it sounds like a textbook, but the directions are so explicit that you can't help but cook a delicious meal.

Back to our regularly scheduled blog...

So Julia's spongecake is supposed to be just that, cake. I decided to try it as cupcakes. Everything went very well, except that I left them in the oven too long, waiting for the tops to be golden brown while the bottoms burned. I thought 'oh no. what do I do? make a new batch? not bring cupcakes?!' Then I was hit with a very clever plan. I would make a cupcake cake!

Since only the very bottoms were burned I was able, with the help of Chris and Danny, to slice off the burnt part and have left the very delicious and nicely cooked tops of the cupcakes. I inverted 9 of them and placed them in a pyrex square dish, spooned over my custard, topped with right-side-up cupcake tops and then iced each cupcake with the Rosewater Butter Cream.

The verdict?

Cake? delicious!
Custard? delicious!
Buttercream? tastes like soap! ew.

It may not have come out very beautiful, but it sure was yummy (once you scraped off that icky pink stuff, what was I thinking with that color?).

So, they weren't the beautiful masterpieces that I envisioned when I started.... so what? This is the lesson of 'you can't always be perfect and sometimes that's ok'.

Orange Chiffon Cupcakes

2008-04-28T19:52:00.001-04:00

This weekend we were invited to our friends' house for a cookout in honor of her Mom visiting. I decided to make something new that I had never made before. I have been playing around with what flavors I wanted to try out and how I would decorate them. The inspiration for these came from the classic orange/vanilla creamsicle. Another big part of the deciding factors for these cuppies were the fact that I have not gotten to play with my new flower cutter or veiner at all since they arrived about three weeks ago in the mail from A & H Cake Design (and a special thanks to Louise from CakeJournal for telling us which cutters/veiners she uses!).

Anyway they turned out fabulous! The cake was light and fluffy with just enough orange flavor. I just used a regular lemon chiffon recipe and substituted orange for anything lemon and low acid orange juice for the water. The icing (adapted from this recipe on epicurious.com) was delicious and not too sweet (I used less butter and less sugar and more vanilla than recommended).

They were perfect for our first cookout of the season and I cannot wait to try some more of my ideas for flavors!

Anyway, back to the kitchen!

Chocolate Guiness Cake

2008-03-16T20:01:00.001-04:00

On Friday, we had two of our friends over for dinner since they helped us move into our new apartment in February. Chris was doing all the cooking (yes, I am a lucky girl, aren't I?) so I decided to make Chocolate Guinness Cake.

I first heard of this from Cupcakes Take The Cake. Immediately I knew that Chris and our friends would love it so I went in search of a recipe. I used the one I found on epicurious.com. The only changes I made were that we only had Guinness Draught in the house and not stout so I used that instead and my local grocery store did not have dutch-process cocoa so I used the old standyby Hershey's Cocoa Powder since I was on a schedule and didn't have time to travel to a different store.

Just out of the pan:

The cake came out fantastic. Moist and rich with a good balance of chocolate and a certain 'breadiness' as Chris put it, which I take to mean that even though the cake was quite dense the texture and taste is that of a much lighter cake. It was creamy on the tongue but not in such a way that it stuck to your mouth in an uncomfortable manner. It sliced beautifully and each slice held together very nicely, which I was a little surprised at considering the texture of the filing.

I did attempt the chocolate 'icing' that the recipe called for, but it did not turn out very well. This may have been because of my brain lapsing during my shopping trip and only buying 12oz of chocolate instead of 16oz, but I also think that the cream to chocolate ratio (2 cups cream to 16oz chocolate) would have been off anyway. The 'icing' did not harden in the refrigerator even though I had it in there for about 4 hours. It ended up being a lumpy mess. So I filled the cake with the chocolate mixture and dusted the outside with powdered sugar instead (I also did not level the top layer because it looked too delicious the way it was perfectly rounded).

I am so glad I decided to do this. The chocolate mixture was definitely too sweet to have iced the whole cake with. It was good for the filling in a very thin layer (because of the runnyness of it) but would have overpowered the cake if it had been all over.

The first slice:

Our friends each requested to take an extra slice home with them.

Next time I think I will try it again with this recipe I found on The Cupcakery for Bailey's Buttercream. I still don't think I will ice the whole cake, I will probably just serve each slice with a nice piped dollop of the buttercream next to it on the plate.

Overall: a delicious cake that I will definitely be making again in the future.