Caprese Scramble

For some reason I had this craving for a caprese salad sandwich (tomato, fresh basil, mozzarella, olive oil and balsamic on a baguette) and ended up with more mozzarella than I needed. I tend to always have tomatoes on hand, and we have both dried and fresh basil in the house too. Yesterday morning I woke up rather hungry and settled on a scramble (mainly because I didn't have the right bread for french toast). I have made this scramble before, but I put a little more thought into it this time and thought I'd share:

Caprese Scramble
-2 eggs
-splash of milk
-salt n pepper
-a few shakes of garlic powder
-several leaves of fresh basil, washed, dried, and finely chopped OR several shakes of dried basil (I was too lazy to go allll the way outside and get some fresh...plus it was chilly!)
-about 1/3 of a medium sized ball of mozzarella, chopped
-a few pinched of Parmesan
-finely chopped white onion--maybe a tablespoon or 2? (I didn't have red which would probably also be good, although potentially too overpowering)
-half to 2/4 of a tomato, chopped

To assemble:
-Get everything chopped up
-Heat a medium-small pan over medium heat
-I just used Pam on it, but you can use olive oil if you prefer
-Toss in the onions first
-Whisk everything except the tomatoes in a bowl until all combined and nicely foamy
-Pour it in the pan (with the onions) and don't touch it for a minute until it starts to cook a little
-Sprinkle on the tomatoes (when you pick them up, shake them off a little to reduce the amount of liquid going into the eggs)
-Use a flat-ended wooden spatula and scrape everything around so that it doesn't stick. Scraping keeps the eggs light and fluffy.
-Keep scraping until the eggs are almost not runny at all and then put them on a plate since they'll keep cooking a little once out of the pan.
-Eat!
*Maybe add a splash of olive oil and balsamic at the end, if you feel like it...I just thought of it now, but I bet it would be fantastic.

A Cool TV Show

I think my love of cooking shows began with Iron Chef (the original one, none of this Bobby Flay nonsense). They made the most bizarre and exotic foods and everything looked so pretty! My dad was really into it, so we would watch it together and laugh at the insane judges and the strange ingredients they used. I forgot about it for a while until a friend introduced me to Top Chef, which reawakened my love for cooking shows, and I've been watching them ever since. I just discovered (today actually) "The Chef's Kitchen" which I found on sidereel. Some lady goes around to restaurants all over the country and watches while one of the chefs makes her a fancy dish. What I liked about this is that you don't just watch really talented chefs make awesome food, they do it step-by-step and you find out how much of each ingredient they use and all of their tips for making the food fabulous. For example, the episode I just watched was about fish and chips. Yes, I know that you batter some fish and fry it, but now I know the trick to really crispy fries, how to make the lightest beer batter, and to try it with vinegar instead of ketchup or tatar sauce. They have a really nice variety of foods too, so I'm pretty excited.

Bread!

I made bread for the first time!! I'm not totally sure why I've never made bread before, but I think it has something to do with the fact that I LOVE bread and I was worried that I would make bread and eat the entire loaf in a day...this almost happened. However, it's fun, easy, and cheap! I know a lot of people get scared by the time commitment baking bread requires, but it's really not that bad because most of the time is spent waiting for it to rise. It's a great thing to do one day when you have a lot of little errands to run or housecleaning to do since you can get everything done but you'll still be around home enough to punch the bread down, etc.

I got the recipe from The Wednesday Chef and barely adapted it at all. It's delicious but dangerously addictive. Here it is with my adaptations for your baking pleasure:

Ethiopian Honey-Spice Bread
Makes 1 loaf

1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 teaspoon sugar or honey
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger (at least, I used more)
1 large egg
1/2 cup mild honey
1 tablespoon ground coriander (or cardamom as I didn't have any coriander)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (at least)
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

*I added a few shakes of pumpkin pie spice since I had it on hand
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup whole milk, warmed
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
4 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1. Combine the yeast, water, sugar or honey, and ginger in a small ceramic bowl and set in a warm, draft-free place until it bubbles vigorously/looks all foamy on top

2. Combine the egg, honey, spices and salt in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer. Add the milk and butter. Mix in 1 cup of the flour.

3. Add the yeast mixture and beat until all the ingredients are well blended. Add more flour, 1/2 cup at a time, using only enough to make a soft dough. Use your hands, if needed, to work in the last bit of flour...I definately needed my hands for the end of it, it got really sticky.

4. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead the bread by folding it end to end, pressing down and pushing forward several times with the heel of your hand. (The dough will be sticky. Use a dough scraper to clear the board and turn the mass of dough. Avoid adding more flour.-->I don't have a dough scraper, but I warm sponge works just fine.)

5. In about 5 minutes the dough will become smoother and more elastic. Shape into a rough ball and place in a large oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel, and let rise until doubled in bulk...which took about an hour--maybe 45 min.

6. Heavily butter a 3-quart round baking dish that is 3 inches deep, such as a casserole or an enameled Dutch oven. Punch down the dough with a single blow of your fist. Knead the dough for a few minutes, shape into a rough ball, and place in the prepared pan. (Press the dough down so that the bottom of the pan is covered completely.) Cover and let rise again until the dough has doubled and reaches the top of the pan. I don't have a 3-quart baking dish, round or otherwise, so I just formed it into a loaf and put a towel on glasses on either side of it (so the towel wouldn't stick so much) and let it rise about 45 min or so. This worked just fine.

7. At least 20 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

8. Bake for 60 minutes, or until the bread is nicely rounded on top and a light golden brown. Leave in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove and transfer to a rack to cool completely before slicing. Since my oven is hot I cooked it for about 45 min maybe, so check it after about 40. Eat it while warm with butter and honey. Oh man. This stuff is good and SO easy.

An Excellent Representation of My Favorite Things

Storms and nature: I love storms, thunder and lightening, and especially this photo as an example.
Cooking, fall, and Halloween: I love to cook and bake, I love sweet things, and I LOVE Halloween. Also I made this and I want a slice right now. Yay it's october!
Champagne and glamour: Mmm vueve! Not only do I lovelovelove this champagne, I love the cute little carrying case and the woman's chic white outfit. I feel like she's in Paris and I should be too! Ahh fashion and glamor, love it, want it, am working on it!
Pets, Animals, and my family: this is my precious little dog daisy on her couch. She's so sweet and yes, she counts as part of my family. She is a fairly accurate stand-in for the rest of the family since my mom calls everyone precious and cutie (yep, me, my brother, my dad, and my dog). I love animals in general too, so this works nicely.
Art: I have no idea who this is by, but I love it and the swirling colors. I've always been fascinated by art and wanted to be an artist when I was little.

More of My Favorite Things

By Wayne Thiebaud--love him. I first learned about him from a a set of notecards someone gave me a million years ago and I rediscovered him when I was looking for ideas for my painting class. He's pretty awesome. I particularly love his food pictures, but I couldn't find my favorite one online, sadly. Still, this one is still pretty awesome.
I ADORE Remedios Varo. This is her work. I love that you can look at it forever and keep discovering new bits and pieces. Everything is interconnected and doesn't quite make sense. She's clearly been influenced by surrealism, but to me, she's more of a Magical Realism artist.
Remedios Varo again. I like that she creates almost scary or creepy art, but it feels more unnerving than dark.
I have no idea who this is by, sorry! It reminds me of the caribbean in a storm, which is exactly where I would like to be right now.
Roses are not my favorite flower, although I really like them (I like flowers that smell nice in general), but I really love how pale this one is and the way the light is hitting it.

Things I Love

Weellll, I've never actually seen the Northern Lights/Aurora/Whatever but I really want to. I love snow, I love color, what could be more perfect?!
Ahh Rainbow Brite. I love her. I went as her as one of my costumes freshman year for halloween. I had these sweet moonboots that tragically got holes in the bottoms (I did get them at the bins...) and wore a trillion layers of different colored shirts w different sleeve lengths, a blue rainbow brite shirt over the top, some skirt, and striped tights. I would say it was pretty crafty since it cost me NOTHING (I borrowed everything from dormies). All in all, I loooved Rainbow Brite when I was little and it has clearly carried over.
How freakin' cute are baby hedgehogs?!?! Ahh I want to squeeeezzze them...um, minus the spines, of course. While I generally find the lolcats/i can has cheezburger things a little annoying, Popples are another lovely memory of my childhood. I still have one at home. He is purple and his name is Popples...yeah, creative.
I LOVE KITTENS. Seriously. It's not cool that I do not have one yet. Sad for me. I especially love this one because, hi, look at it's little face!! AWWH!
Oh Alice, you're so much fun. Although I prefer the original books to the Disney movie hands down, I have to admit that the image in my head when anyone says "Alice in Wonderland" is definately the Disney movie. Therefore, she ends up here!

My Favorite Halloween Costumes

Halloween is my favorite holiday, well, it's tied with Christmas, but I mean seriously, how can you not adore the idea of getting all dressed up so strangers will give you candy?! So here are my top 10 favorite Halloween costumes that I've either seen or been (not in any particular order):

1. A praying mantis. Freshman or sophomore year I was at the big Halloween party my school throws and I looked up to see a guy on green stilts, holding some kind of arm-stilts, wearing all green, as a praying mantis. It was pretty impressive since he managed to not only walk in stilts in costume, but he also didn't step on anyone.

2. A cupcake. My lovely friend Angie has the most fabulous Halloween costumes and for the past few years she has been doing food-related costumes. To be a cupcake she wore: gold American apparel leggings, a gold cupcake wrapper that I'm guessing she made out of cardboard (?), a ruffly blouse, and a ruffly white hat that she my have made too.

3. Dead little red riding hood. This was one of my costumes last year (yes, sometimes I get a little carried away with costumes...). I wore a cute little red and white checkered dress with an apron attached that I got at goodwill, I added another petticoat thing underneath, white fishnets, black flats, and a red satin-y cape that my mom made me. Then I powered my face a bit to make myself look a bit more dead and topped the costume off with bloody wolf scratches all over my face and neck. For those who aren't quite as fairy tale obsessed as I am, Perrault writes a different version of little red riding hood where she gets killed by the wolf. That's the version I was.

4. A donut. Again, my friend Angie. This time she wore a krispy kreme shirt and an inner tube around her waist that she painted brown and decorated with "sprinkles" that she made out of something or other. She's clever that way.

5. Twister. My friend Maeve's mom made her the most adorable costume last halloween that she made out of a twister mat. She cinched it it around the waist and made the cutest strapless dress and put a petticoat under to puff it out. Maeve topped the costume off with an jauntily-angled hat made out of a twister board.

6. The "Welcome to Oregon" sign. My sophomore year this girl wore a cardboard sign around her neck cut out in the shape of Oregon. She wrote "Welcome to Oregon" on it and wore cute little reindeer antlers. Of course, this costume is only really amazing if you live in Oregon and know the sign I'm looking at.

7. One of those creepy blue-glove guys from firefly. Easiest costumes ever: get a black suit, white jacket, black tie, and blue hospital gloves. Totally easy, totally creepy, and unusual enough to get you excited when someone recognizes what you are.

8. A herd/pack/squad of unicorns. A bunch of girls did this in a group which really makes it that much better. They each were a different color unicorn and made their horns out of rolled paper (I think). Then they dressed up in the appropriate color to match their horn. The costumes mainly involved tutus and glitter and colored fishnets, but the fact that they went as a pack is what really made it cool.

9. A dead tennis player. My friend Leah dressed up as this for last halloween and did a lovely job. She wore a rather uninteresting white polo shirt and some kind of tennis-y pants. She cut a tennis ball in half and poked holes in it that she attached to fishing line or shoelaces or something to tie around her head. over one eye. She mussed up her hair to, and, to really make that dead-tennis-player look come across, she added a few drips of blood coming out from under the tennis ball.

10. Cupid. A few years ago one of my friends, Erlend, decided to let two other friends dress him up for Halloween. He promised to wear anything they wanted. Well, lucky for him, he isn't too modest, since they returned from the thrift stores with only pink feathered wings, gold sequined boy-short underwear, and a pink-spray-painted crossbow. He went along with it and even allowed them to sprinkle glitter all over him. One of the best costumes in quite a while.