A Proper Tea Party

Yesterday I threw a tea party bridal shower for my best friend. I've spent almost six weeks planning it. Invitations went out a month ago and said that dresses and skirts were mandatory, but hats and gloves were optional. I had three types of drinks and five different foods.

The first drink was hibiscus mint iced tea. The recipe is easy enough- I bought hibiscus tea bags and boiled two quarts of water and soaked about ten tea bags for about ten minutes. Then I let it cool in the fridge over night. In the morning I cut and washed several sprigs of mint that were growing in my little garden and stuck them in. Poof! Done.

The next drink was red iced tea. This one I boiled six cups of water and then steeped eight bags of red zinger tea. I let it cool in the fridge overnight and then before the party I added half a container of apple cider and sliced orange and lemons. This tea was much lighter in flavor than the hibiscus, but both were good and neither needed any sugar added.

The last drink was lavender lemonade. Since a whole pitcher of real lemonade takes about 20 lemons and I don't have a juicer I just bought organic lemonade made up and added a couple sliced lemons and the long stems of lavender that were growing in my garden. It looked beautiful and tasted great.

All the food was either pink or had tea in it. First I made fresh raspberry scones. The recipe said to make the scones and then fold in the raspberries and it would look like this:

 

(http://www.marthastewart.com/336222/fast-raspberry-scones)

But for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to take delicious, tender, Oregon berries and fold them into the flour and butter mixture and then add the liquid. First, all the berries got smushed. Second, it took far too long to get the liquid incorporated into all the flour. Third, because all the berries had burst they were far too wet and didn't bake correctly. But luckily, they still tasted great and looked pretty good too.

Next I made strawberries and cream tartlets from Martha Stewart's Pies and Tarts (my new favorite cookbook). The crust is pate sucree which has sugar, cream, and egg yolk added to the plain pie crust to make it a tart crust. They were rich and sweet and still just a flaky. The cream was pastry cream which is like a custard but using only milk, cornstarch, egg yolk, and sugar. I think I would rather have made a custard with egg yolk, butter, and sugar instead because I could taste the cornstarch a bit even after cooking it. Then simple Oregon strawberries on top. One bite wonders that had everything you needed.

These tomato puff pastry tarts did not turn out anything like they were supposed to. I bought the frozen puff pastry because I didn't have time to make my own and usually it works out fine. I let it come to room temperature and when I took it out of the box to unfold it all the layers had melted together. So I had to roll it out to the thickness I needed, and with it's elasticity it didn't stay. Then I found out the house I was at didn't have a biscuit cutter wider then two inches, and my beautiful tomatoes were definitely bigger than that. So after placing tomatoes over the puff pastry I added a little salt, pepper, parmesan, and cooking spray before baking. They would have turned out beautiful if the tomatoes hadn't been falling off the pastry, but they still tasted good.

Two items I made were gluten free because the guest of honor has recently had to eliminate that from her diet. So the tea sandwiches I made were red pear, blue cheese, and white gluten free sandwich bread I found at the grocery store. Then the cake was a chai tea bundt cake from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. I used Bob's Red Mill gluten free flour with xantham gum added to help it stay together. I have never used gluten free flour and now I know why people don't recommend it. It's made up of all sorts of different vegetable flours and I could TASTE them. It was supposed to be a sweet and spicy cake but it was dry and had a strange aftertaste. And the second the wet and dry mixtures met the dough turned into glue because of the 1/2 teaspoon of xantham gum I added. I think when I make the wedding cake I'll use rice flour and more fat and eggs, less chemical adhesives to keep the cake moist and in one piece.

For the favors everyone went home with a little package of earl grey tea cookies. Every time I tell people what these are they sound a bit disgusted. Yes I take tea bags, cut them open, and pour the tea into the flour mixture before mixing it with butter and a little powdered sugar. These are like icebox cookies that you roll up and chill before cutting into rounds and baking them, but because of the powdered sugar they just seem to melt in your mouth. Every time someone actually eats one of these cookies they go on and on about how great they are. There's just a hint of tea, it's not overpowering or chunky. They are a delicious little treat for the end of a fantastic tea party.

A Heathly Breakfast Muffin

Majority of muffins that are sold in grocery stores and coffee shops should not be considered a suitable breakfast food. They are closer to a cupcake without frosting, and some of them even have frosting! I'm on the hunt to create a recipe for a breakfast muffin that is healthy AND good for you. I've had three tries so far, and I think I've almost got it.

Blueberry bran muffins by Lucinda Scala Quinn's cookbook Mad Hungry. I love this cookbook, I bought it a couple weeks ago and have already made several things out of it. The entire book is about making good, wholesome food and bringing families together. In this recipe she uses maple syrup to cut down on plain sugar needed, and the addition of wheat bran or germ adds fiber. When I made them they were very moist, but not too sweet. Just make sure not to use old frozen berries like I did and they'd be delicious.

Banana breakfast muffins were a complete invention of mine. Adding banana to anything breakfast is great because they have so many good nutrients, add healthy sugars, and make baked goods moist. These muffins were just a bit too hearty. I used whole wheat flour and wheat germ (which I've decided has a very strong flavor and should only be used in small amounts and it should always be toasted first). I used all the old bananas I had in the fruit basket (2-3) and honey as a natural sugar so I didn't have to use too much plain sugar. And just a bit of lemon juice to react with the baking soda since I used regular milk and not buttermilk (my favorite).

And the best of all three, my healthy breakfast muffins. The recipe was a combination of several different ones on MarthaStewart.com, and some things I threw in all on my own. The first additive was ground almonds mixed with whole wheat flour and regular flour. There were mashed bananas and honey and some buttermilk. The topping was a regular streuselwith brown sugar, oats, and butter. Next time I'll add just a bit more warm spices, and they have to be eaten the day they're made otherwise the topping gets soggy from the moist muffin. But these are healthy, hearty, and will give you a great start to your day.

A New Type of Chocolate Cake

The trouble with chocolate cake is that it is too easily a dry cake. I've been on the hunt for a new type of chocolate cake that is MOIST and CHOCOLATEY. To acheive both is difficult. My first attempt was Alton Brown's recipe for fudge cake (pictured above). It was extremely moist, but I thought it was a little lacking in chocolatey-ness. His recipe: only one stick butter, 2 1/4 cups brown sugar, 3 eggs, 3 oz baking chocolate squares, 2 1/4 cups flour, 1 cup sour cream, 1 cup boiling water. What's different about this recipe? The high amount of brown sugar, the low amount of fat (butter), the choice of chocolate (no cocoa powder), and the boiling water at the end.

So on my next try to get more chocolate flavor I melted chocolate chips and reincorporated the cocoa powder mixed with boiling water. I made a milk chocolate reeses cake for Uncle Randy's birthday. It was a hit, partly because everyone loves reeses and the cake was one step closer to the perfect chocolate cake. This recipe: 2 1/2 cups flour, 1/4 cup cocoa, 2 sticks butter, 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, 3/4 cup sugar, 4 eggs, 6 oz melted milk chocolate chips, 1 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup boiling water. Then with the addition of peanut butter frosting and rich chocolate frosting and some chopped reeses you have my cake.

The recipe isn't 100% perfect, yet. I'm still adjusting trying to find the best combination of ingredients, but I'm getting closer with every cake.

Banana Oat Smoothie

I saw this recipe a long time ago in Martha Stewart's Everday FOOD and I've been dying to make it ever since, so today I finally did. This is the heartiest smoothie I've ever had in my life, and of course I changed the recipe some. So, in a blender combine:

1/4 c old fashioned oatmeal (not instant)
1/2 c peanut butter
1 banana chopped
1/2 c milk (cow's or soy or almond or hemp or whatever you like)
2 t honey
1/4 t cinnamon

Blend until smooth. Makes one serving. Drink immediately or store in the fridge until ready.

It took me maybe 5 minutes from start to finish including cleanup. For a breakfast or snack that's completely healthy and filling this is perfect. And it tastes great too! The banana really comes through so make sure you use a ripe one so your whole smoothie isn't bitter. And since there's nothing frozen in here it won't melt. Enjoy!

The Biscuit Method

Alton Brown's cookbook I'm Just Here For More Food is broken up in chapters by baking method, not by types of baked goods like cookies, cakes, pies, and breads. He has the muffin method of throwing everything in a bowl, the creaming method (a recipe I'll write about later this week), plus others including the biscuit method. The difference here is that you mix all the dry ingredients together and then cut in the butter, also like a pie crust, then mix in the wet ingredients. Pat it out, cut it up and bake it.

Last week I made two different things using the biscuit method. The first was for Father's Day- cheddar chive biscuits. The recipe was a combination of about five of Martha Stewart's recipes for different types of biscuits, but I knew I wanted herbs and cheddar and there wasn't one that combined the two the way I wanted. So I mixed the flour, salt, baking powder like a normal recipe then added a little smoked paprika, chile powder, shredded cheddar cheese, and chopped fresh chives. Then I cut in the butter and mixed in buttermilk. I patted it out and cut it up and baked it just until they started to brown. They were so good! Perfect to go with a savory brunch or any kind of dinner. They were slightly salty, cheesey, oniony, and spicy. And they were a delicious moist biscuit.

The second thing I made was this past weekend, I whipped up some lemon poppy seed scones for a couple bridal functions I was going to. Again, I couldn't find a recipe from Martha that was exactly what I wanted so I used the recipe from http://www.marthastewart.com/341387/lemon-cream-scones for lemon cream scones and added a couple tablespoons of poppy seeds to the dry goods. And I don't think I added as much zest as the recipe called for so I added half a lemon's worth of juice. I know the acidity of the lemon juice would cause a chemical reaction with the baking powder and it would make them rise more and be fluffier inside. They turned out pretty good. The recipe called for eggs, which is a little odd for the biscuit method, so they turned out a little cakey but they tasted good and looked great.

The biscuit method is super easy, always quick, and the only way you can really mess is up if you follow the directions is by mixing it too much. I even whipped up a pie crust yesterday and it only took 10 minutes max.

Father's Day Present

For holidays and birthdays I like to give people a gift that is affordable and something I know they'll enjoy. I almost always bake something. For Father's Day this year I made my dad sesame soy cashews from Martha Stewart Living December 2003. It was pretty simple to whip up, I just had to bake it and stir it for almost an hour. But then end result is something amazing. I made this once before for a poker night party and my best friend and I made ourselves sick because we couldn't stop eating them they were so good.

The Recipe:

1/4 cup (abbreviated c. from now on) soy sauce

2 T (tablespoons) sugar

1 t (teaspoon) sesame oil

1 t fresh grated ginger

3/4 t ground ginger

4 c roasted cashews

1/4 c sesame seeds

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and then pour it out on a baking sheet or silpat. Bake at 250 for 45-60 minutes, stirring every 10-15 minutes until they're dry.

All these ingredients I already had, besides the nuts, even the ginger, which I've had fresh for a long time. I learned somewhere (probably from Martha) that when you buy a whole piece of ginger root at the store you usually only use a small portion. Keep it in a ziploc in the freezer and use a microplane zester (or very small holes on a cheese grater) while it's still frozen every time you need it. I don't even bother trying to scrape of the paper coating. You can't tell when it's all grated together. Then you can spend a couple cents on something and add a little bit of great flavor to many meals and make it last months.

The label came from Marthastewart.com

Gradutation Cupcakes

My little sister Faith graduated from high school this month and for her present I made 60 cupcakes, three different types. The first one she requested was a chocolate cake with mint buttercream frosting. I had made these before for a birthday party we went to and she loved them. Her second request was a mocha cupcake. The third one she let me pick. I called this one "surprise cupcakes."

I feel like every time I make chocolate cake it turns out dry. I don't have a single chocolate cake recipe I'd want to make again. Randomly, as I was thinking about this, I was talking to my best friend and she mentioned some chocolate cupcakes she had made that were the best she'd ever had, so I asked for the recipe. She googled it and found a recipe called better than sex chocolate cupcakes. But she told me to add a little bit of flour because hers was too thin. So I made them with 1 cup of flour instead of 3/4 cup and they were not too thin, on the contrary they were a little thick so I added a couple tablespoons of vegetable oil to the mix. They baked nicely, but were still a little dry. Turns out hers were thin because she used melted butter instead of softened butter, which makes a world of a difference. Next time I need chocolate cupcakes I'll try the recipe again but with only 3/4 cup flour.

For the mocha cupcakes I used Martha Stewart's recipe from her cupcake cookbook. It is almost impossible to find instant espresso powder, the grocery store had 100 kinds of instant coffee but no instant espresso, which I find surprising. So I got some that was a hispanic brand of instant espresso coffee, at least it had the word I was looking for. The cupcakes baked up beautifully, the most rounded dome on every single one, I almost didn't want to frost them! But again they were a little dry, even though I added a couple tablespoons of oil to these also. I think I'm going to have to start making my own cupcake recipes with a ton of oil in them so they actually stay moist like they're supposed to.

For the mint and mocha frostings I started with the same base- Swiss meringue buttercream. This is a more elaborate frosting, and I was trying to avoid doing it but Faith had specifically asked for the mint frosting that tasted like a cloud, and for that I had to use egg whites. This buttercream starts with whisking egg whites and sugar in a bowl set over a pan of boiling water, so it acts like a double boiler, but as soon as the sugar dissolves you put the bowl into the electric mixer and let it whip for 5-10 minutes until it's not hot anymore. Then you whip in an entire pound of butter. Frosting basically is just sugar and butter, but with the egg whites it is so light and fluffy, and it's firm to it'll keep any shape you pipe it in. I divided this mixture in half; one part I added peppermint extract and green food coloring, the other half I added more instant espresso powder. Both turned out perfectly.

Now onto my surprise cupcakes. With two kinds of chocolate cupcakes already I wanted to do something fruity, but Faith rejected most of my ideas. So then I thought of doing a cupcake like a jelly filled donut. I made yellow buttermilk cupcakes using the recipe from Martha's cupcake cookbook again (I use it almost any time I need to make any kind of cake). They actually baked the worst out of the three I was making. I made twice as many of these at one time so maybe the heat didn't circulate in the oven like it should have, but they all had muffin tops and spilled over the edges and none of them had beautiful domes like the other two batches. They still tasted pretty good, I think buttermilk makes anything taste better. After they had cooled I cut cone shapes out of the middle of each cupcake and filled it with my favorite raspberry jam. Then I made simple fluffy vanilla frosting- just butter, powdered sugar, and a little vanilla- and piped it onto the cupcakes to cover the filling so no one knew it was there. I thought these turned out great, exactly what I wanted and the twist Faith had asked for.

Overall it was a successful catering job for a party, although I didn't get paid I also didn't have to buy a present, because the ingredients and the time it took were expensive enough. And I'm always pleased when people like what I've made.

Pasta with Cream Sauce

It's been a long time since I've written so I have a bunch of things to write about.

About a week ago I made pasta for dinner with asparagus and cream sauce. I've tried to make this before just by using cheese and melting it with the cooked pasta and making it creamy with cream cheese or something else I had in the fridge, but it was pretty bland.

This time I made a bechamel as a base for the sauce. I used the recipe from my Julia Child cookbook. You start by melting butter in a saucepan and mix in flour and cook it just a minute to get rid of the raw flavor. Then you mix in warm milk. I added blue cheese to then make it a mornay sauce. It could have used some herbs but I thought it would be good enough and I couldn't decide what herbs to use.

I mixed the sauce with asparagus roasted with garlic, salt, and pepper. I like it with a little bit of black on it. Overall the pasta was good, but with a little bit of Chalula it was really good.

Marinated Bocconcini

On Saturday I went to my friend Shelly's bridal shower and brought a plate of hors d'oeuvres , marinated bocconcini. I got the recipe from Martha, http://www.marthastewart.com/332743/marinated-bocconcini, and I almost followed the recipe exactly. I mixed fresh cut rosemary, olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt, and mini mozzarella balls (I left out the lemon zest because I didn't have any and didn't feel like going and getting it). I let them sit in the fridge for two days and then the day of the party I put them on skewers with a basil leaf and a cherry tomato.

They were very impressive looking, but incredibly easy to make. I'm glad they were a big hit, but I almost felt guilty because I'm not the one that was impressive, it was the recipe. That's actually the key to most things I make, if I have a good recipe to go off of, even if I change it, it'll be great. I never make anything that doesn't look or sound great and unless something goes wrong it turns out that way.

Peanut Butter Pie

Tonight Brandon and I are going over to his parent's house for dinner to celebrate his sister coming home from college. I asked what I could bring, and as usual it was my favorite part of the meal - dessert. I was running around doing stuff all day so I needed something quick and easy and decided to make something I've always wanted to make but never have: peanut butter pie. I used a base recipe from http://www.marthastewart.com/258413/chocolate-peanut-butter-pie. I had all the ingredients, but not in the quantities that the recipe called for. I needed six ounces of cream cheese and I only had two ounces left over from another recipe I made, so I added some sour cream to make up for it. A very similar ingredient that I've used as a substitute before. Then I just measured out about a cup of peanut butter and beat those together until they got fluffy. I added 1/4 cup brown sugar, which is what another recipe for a peanut butter tart called for and it sounded good. Then I added a little salt and vanilla, just eyeballing everything. The key part of this pie is the whipped cream. A hint I heard of a long time ago from Rachel Ray, and that I've been doing ever since, is that you chill the bowl and the beaters along with the cream to make it hold better. So I whipped one cup of whipping cream and 1/4 cup of powdered sugar, also to help it hold its shape. Then I folded the the whipped cream into the peanut butter mixture and poured it into the pie shell.

Because I was short on time I was going to buy chocolate cookie crumbs and make a crust from that, but the grocery store I went to (Safeway) only had the pre-made Oreo crust so that's what I got. I hated the fact that I had to because of time, who knows what artificial ingredients and preservatives are in there. In the past when I had time I've even made my own chocolate cookies to crumble and make a crust from that. But this pie should still be good and satisfying, and it only took 10 minutes to put together. I hope everyone likes it!

Dark Chocolate Cake with Dark Chocolate Frosting

Today at work we celebrated one of the supervisors 40th birthday. The other supervisors were going to buy a cake but I convinced them to let me make it, so they gave me the money they were going to spend on an order. This is the first time I've been paid for what I was making, a very exciting time. I used a recipe I've used before that I knew was great, dark chocolate cake from http://www.marthastewart.com/333219/dark-chocolate-cake-with-ganache-frostin?backto=true&backtourl=/photogallery/chocolate-cake-recipes. I like it because the recipe calls for melted chocolate chips. A lot of chocolate cakes turn out dry and somehow tasteless, but this one is perfectly moist and chocolatey. The first time I made it is the picture below. I had just watched It's Complicated and how she had the exact life I wanted (except for being divorced) and the one night she made chocolate cake just because, I wanted to do that too. 

I think when it comes to cakes like this the frosting is more important than the cake. I used my new favorite frosting recipe. I think I've only made it about four times but it is AMAZING. Again, you melt chocolate chips, but you also mix in cocoa powder with boiling water, butter, and just a little bit of powdered sugar.It's extremely soft, silky, and chocolatey. I got the recipe from Martha Stewart's cupcake cookbook. It never fails.

Today was a good day; everyone loved the cake, I got several people asking if I was a baker. The answer would be yes, I would do this for a living if I could. Someone even told me I had missed my calling, that was almost depressing. I'm only 24, I still have a lot of time to figure out what I want to do with my life. But something in the baking/food world would be incredible.

Homemade Tortillas

I have always wanted to make my own tortillas, and tonight I finally tried. I would say that if I had a tortilla press these probably would have turned out, but tonight they didn't. I used a recipe on MarthaStewart.com (http://www.marthastewart.com/343224/corn-tortillas). The dough was fine, but trying to get it into a thin circle was virtually impossible. I tried patting it in my hands, I tried patting it out on my silpat. I tried rolling it with a rolling pin, nothing worked without tearing it. So I got it was nice looking as I could and put it on the griddle. It should have gotten a lot more well done, but Brandon was hungry and impatient so as soon as it was looking like you could make a taco with it he pulled it off. They tasted fine, like regular corn tortilla without much other flavor. But the recipe just called for water and masa harina. I would make them again, if I had a tortilla press and perhaps a iron cast skillet and not just the pancake kind.

Belated Mother's Day Dinner

Since Brandon was out of town for a baseball tournament on Mother's Day we had his parents over for dinner this Sunday to celebrate. We decided on a very spring menu. The main course was spice rubbed grilled salmon (http://www.marthastewart.com/312489/spice-rubbed-grilled-salmon-with-spicy-c) with spicy cucumber salsa (http://www.marthastewart.com/262044/spicy-cucumber-salsa). The side dishes were spicy roasted broccoli and Mediterranean pasta salad. It was delicious and everything turned out great.

For the salmon it was just a spice rub with sugar, salt, pepper, dill, coriander, mustard powder, and cumin. Let it sit at room temperature for 45 minutes before putting it under the broiler until medium rare (again, since we don't have a barbeque set up). The cucumber salsa was jalapeno, cucumber, shallots, white wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and a little olive oil. It was very refreshing, spicy, but a little too much onion for me. I don't like raw onions anyways, but everyone else liked it.

The side dishes were super easy also. I bought a bag of chopped broccoli and poured it on a jelly roll pan with oil, salt, pepper, and red chile flakes. Mix it up and roast until it gets just a little blackened. The pasta salad was from a recipe from a stand at Pike's Place Market that sells their own pasta. The pasta flavor was Italian pesto blend, but I only had half a pound and the recipe called for a full pound to feed that many people, so I added half a pound of farfalle. While the pasta is cooking I sauteed onions, garlic, asparagus, and red bell pepper. Then I added balsamic vinegar and let it reduce. The recipe called for sun dried tomatoes but I had fresh grape tomatoes and used those. Then I added some feta. The recipe called for kalamata olives but Brandon doesn't like olives so he made me omit them. It was good without them, but it would have been great with them.

The dinner was a great success, everything turned out the way it was supposed to and everyone loved it. It feels good when things happen the way they should.

Homemade Curry

On Thursday for dinner I made one of me and Brandon's favorites, chicken curry. I had clipped a recipe out of the Oregonian years ago for chiang mai curry noodles and I keep making it, with slight adjustments every time. The recipe doesn't call for any vegetables, and I think every dinner needs to have them, so I usually add a red bell pepper to make it red curry, but I had already used the red bell pepper I had in our previous dinner, so I used the green one in this. I also thought I had added onions in the past, but when I was eating it that part seemed different too.

The recipe calls for you to saute garlic in oil and then add the curry paste until it's fragrant, then add the chicken until it starts to cook through. This is where I added the vegetables, a chopped jalapeno, then coconut milk, chicken broth, tumeric, curry powder, and soy sauce. Let that simmer for a while until things are cooked. The recipe calls for rice noodles, but I think that it's too soupy and hard to eat that way so we always have it with rice. Jasmine rice tastes the best with it, but we had white rice so that's what I used and it works just fine.

Now to the flavor; this time I thought it was more bland than before. I used two cans of coconut milk when last time I only used one and decided that definitely wasn't enough. But I guess using one low fat and one regular isn't good enough either. Coconut milk is only going to taste good if it's real coconut milk. Also, I tried just sprinkling in the spices and I was supposed to have a teaspoon each of tumeric and curry powder, and maybe I didn't get as much as I needed. The recipe called for 1 3/4 cups chicken broth and I just poured some in that I estimated to be about a cup. Maybe next time I should omit it all together so that we get the strong flavors we want instead of watering it down. It was still good, spicy enough and hot enough temperature wise to keep me content. But it wasn't the kind of curry I've had before that you don't want to stop eating because it's so good. So a recipe I've made half a dozen times I still am trying to get it to be great.

Beef Skewers

It's been a while since I've written and we've had a few dinners in the meantime. On Tuesday Brandon was flipping through my Food Everyday 2 cookbook by Martha Stewart and wanted me to make the recipe for beef skewers with horseradish dipping sauce. Neither Brandon nor I really like horseradish, so Brandon asked me to make tzatziki (although he doesn't know the know what it's called, I've just made it before and he liked it). Brandon pretty much picked out the whole dinner. He also wanted rice, he always likes plain rice. And he specifically asked for one of his favorite salads: tomatoes, cucumbers, feta, and balsamic vinaigrette. Super easy and super delicious. I wanted to add some vegetables to the main course, so I cut up a bell pepper and half an onion. I sliced one piece of steak and marinated it in lots of garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, and olive oil with the pepper and onion for about 45 minutes and then put them on skewers.

It would have been really good on a barbeque, but we don't have room for one at our apartment so I did the next best thing- I broiled it.  It's like a barbeque in the way you put the food close to the heat source, and if you had a gas oven it would be exactly like a gas barbeque. I didn't cook it very long, because we were hungry and didn't want to wait, so the meat was cooked medium rare and the vegetables were still a bit crisp. But it tasted good, especially with the tzatziki that someone from work made. It was delicious. In all of this I never even glanced at the recipe Brandon had wanted me to make, we changed the style of what it was going to be with just the sauce, and I made up the rest from there with things I had eaten or seen before. And it turned out good.

A Completely Made Up Dinner

It's not very often that I don't even use a base recipe to make something. Tonight was the first night in weeks that Brandon (my husband) was home for dinner because he's a baseball coach and has had practice and games every afternoon and night. I had some asparagus and mushrooms I was saving for the rare occasion because I know how much he likes them. I had remembered seeing a recipe of asparagus and mushrooms in some kind of wine sauce, and I thought it was in Martha Stewart's Everyday Food that I get, but I couldn't find it. So I went to www.MarthaStewart.com and still couldn't find it so I decided to make it up.

First I sauteed two chicken breasts in oil and butter (oil so it didn't burn and butter because it tastes good) for a few minutes on each side until it started getting browned. Then I put them in a baking dish in the oven to sit at 350 degrees until done. In the mean time I sliced the 3/4 pint button mushrooms and the bunch of asparagus I had and put them in the pan the chicken had sauteed in with the oil and butter. After letting them cook a few minutes I added salt, pepper, dried French thyme, and Marsala wine. I was going to let it reduce but I wanted it to be saucy so I was going to reduce the heat and just keep it warm until I realized I wanted the chicken to be saucy too. So I poured the vegetables over the chicken and baked them until Brandon got home. As a side dish I warmed some rolls and made mashed potatoes out of a packet.

Now you have to realize I don't usually make anything out of a box or packet. I actually despise it. There's usually things in there that you don't know about and many things you don't need, like preservatives, salt, sugar, and fat just to name a few. But all I had was one potato and I had gotten the packet a while ago in case of emergencies. So I chopped up the potato and boiled it until practically falling apart. Then I mashed it in the water and added the packet of potatoes, stirred, and viola! Half real, half fake, still good, and Brandon never knew I had changed anything.

Overall the dinner was good. Not great, not impressive, but it was a good sit down dinner that we haven't had in a long time. This is probably something I would make again, most likely a little different but I'm not sure how at the moment. I'll just have to see what I feel like and what I have available at the time.

Mother's Day Brunch

Today for Mother's Day I made brunch for my family. The main course was leek and sorrel quiche. To compliment it I made dandelion salad with lemon vinaigrette. Then as a side dish I made root vegetable hash. As another side dish I made brown sugar glazed bacon.

The main dish was kind of a combination of different recipes I had read on MarthaStewart.com. I went looking for recipes Friday night so I knew what to get at the farmer's market on Saturday. It really just comes down to the fact that you can put pretty much anything in a quiche, you just have to keep the quantities correct so it'll bake well. I found sorrel, which I had heard of before but never seen, and leeks, which I thought would be a nice additive. I used farm eggs my mom had, and some old gruyere cheese, which can make practially anything taste good.

For the crust I used a recipe for pate brisee, I got it from my Baking Handbook by Martha Stewart, but it's a pretty common, basic pie dough recipe you can find a lot of places. And I think this is the best pie crust I've made in a long time. I have been trying to do it in a food processor, as Martha says is so easy, but the water doesn't mix into it well at all. I've gone back to cutting my butter in with a pastry blender, then I mix it with just my fingertips to make sure the butter is well incorperated and the dough is starting to stick together. Then I add cold water, usually more than the recipe calls for, and just make sure it's well distributed. Pat it out and let it sit in the fridge until you use it. People think making their own pie crust is hard and takes a lot of time, but it's only about ten minutes until it's ready to go. It really should sit for a while so the flour molecules can soak up the fat and water.

Dandelion salad I've heard of, but I've never seen them for sale anywhere. They were more bitter than I thought they'd be. I didn't tell my family what it was until they ate it, they have a tendency to not want to eat things that sound abnormal. But I was surprised when I told my mom and she supported me that it was actually something people eat. She claims she had it at a very fancy restaurant once. The dressing was good, a few tablespoons of lemon juice, a few dashes of white wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and probably about a third cup olive oil. It was exactly what the salad needed.

The hash was much more basic than my mom thought it was. Potatoes, onions, and carrots thrown into a pot with oil and sauteed until they started getting soft. Then salt, pepper, and paprika was stirred in and I added the leftover ham scraps from Easter. It was delicious. I should make different kinds of hashes more often.

I think my family's favorite part of the meal was the brown sugar glazed bacon. They went on and on about it but it was the easiest part of the whole meal. I laid bacon on a baking sheet and sprinkled some brown sugar on it then baked it until it started to get crispy. That's it. No turning or anything and it was perfectly cooked.

After lunch my grandma came over for afternoon tea, which I also made from scratch, and again it was much easier than anyone thought it could be. I bought a mint plant at the farmers market yesterday and this morning I picked a few stems of it, put it in my french press, and added boiling water. Let it steep for 5-10 minutes and drink. It was delicious, fresh and refreshing without caffine or sugar. To go with it, and since it wasn't really the kind of tea my grandma's used to, I made earl grey tea cookies. They were like shortbread but softer because I used powdered sugar. And you just mix a couple bags of tea into the flour before adding it to everything else. They were delicate, not overpowering, and everyone liked them a lot more than they thought they would.

Overall it was a big morning of making things, all from scratch, as many local and fresh ingredients as I could get my hands on, and I tried several new foods today. Happy Mother's Day.

Andouille Jambalaya

My first post is coming from the inspiration of my friend Hillary. She came over to make dinner with me and experienced what I experience almost every day. I have ingredients and want to make something, but don't have a recipe that fits what I have. So I take a base recipe and make it my own. Tonight's base recipe was chicken and wild rice soup from the FOOD everyday II cookbook by Martha Stewart. But really all I did was follow the method while using different ingredients.

First, we sauteed the sausage, took it out and sauteed chopped onions and garlic until softened and translucent. Then we added white rice, a chipotle chile in adobo sauce, then chopped celery, frozen corn, canned black beans, canned diced tomatoes, and chicken stock. We cut up the sausage and added it back in and let it simmer until the rice was cooked. When it was done we chopped an avocado and put it on each serving, along with some shredded cheese, sour cream, and cilantro. It turned out to be quite a display, and just as delicious. As we dug into our bowls this was the point that Hillary thought I should share my concotions with others for them to try. We even thought of a rating system. As far as taco soup type dinners go, this was one of the best I've had. I'll rate it an 8, because I know there's always room for improvement.

The point of this blog isn't just for me to talk about what I make, but to inspire others to be creative in how they make food. Nothing is too difficult. I will try anything once. I love trying new things and experiementing. I almost never make the same thing twice, I want to see what else is out there. I also almost never follow a recipe exactly. I use what I have and I make adjustments either to my taste or what I think will turn out better. Anyone can make great food, you just have to try.