I have new neighbors! Well, they moved in maybe a month ago, but still! They are very nice, they fit in well with the rest of us, and they fall into the "20's" age-range...all ideal. The only downside is that they often work weekends. One of my neighbors happened to have this past weekend off and suggested we do brunch. As you might have guessed, I love brunch and breakfast, so I was totally game. She made huevos rancheros which were excellent, I made a baked french toast (recipe follows), another neighbor brought some lovely garlic-cheese biscuits (alas, no recipe), and my other neighbor brought champagne and carrot-pineapple juice (which is not only the most fantastic shade of neon orange, and actually tastes quite good plain and with champagne.
Baked French Toast (aka easiest brunch dish ever), barely adapted from Smitten Kitchen:
-one loaf of cheap supermarket white bread (I used an "Italian" bread although she calls for Challah)
-butter (enough to grease a 9x11 baking dish)
-2 and 3/4 to 3 cups 1 % milk (or whatever you have on hand, also I used the lesser amount)
-3 eggs
-3 tablespoons sugar
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1 mini bottle of baileys (think airplane-size)
-a few splashes of triple sec (*next time I will just use orange zest or lemon zest, as I couldn't taste the triple sec)
-a splash vanilla (I don't think I even used a teaspoon considering how strong the baileys is)
-cinnamon (on top)
*This is one of those nifty things that you prep the night before and roll out of bed and shove in the oven the day of...ideal, in my mind!
The Night Before:
-Butter a 9x11 inch baking pan well
-Add two rows of tightly packed bread (her directions tell you to cut the bread into one-inch slices and it didn't occur to me until the next day that she meant bread that wasn't pre-sliced...so apparently being an idiot I cut my pre-sliced bread into one-inch slices. Upon eating it, I do not regret this because having slices of crust kind of scattered all through the french toast gave it awesome texture. It is extra work, and frankly probably wouldn't matter if you were feeling lazy)
-Whisk the milk, eggs, booze, vanilla, sugar, and salt in a bowl and drizzle evenly on top of the bread
-Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar to taste on top
-Tightly cover and stick in the fridge overnight
The Next Morning:
-Preheat the oven to 425
-Bake until puffed and golden (about 30 min) and eat immediately with syrup!
*Note: it puffs up a lot in the oven, so really wait until it's gold on top. If you don't eat it immediately, it will fall, but fear not, it still tastes glorious! It also keeps at least 2 days covered in the fridge.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Light Spring Pasta
In an effort to be healthy, I bought a bunch of veggies. Once I put them in the vegetable drawer, I completely forgot about them. A few days later I remembered them and knew I had to use them immediately. I've been trying to use up the various pasta and rice I've also bought and forgotten about (yay buying in bulk) that I have, so I figured asparagus pasta would be the perfect option. I started cooking everything and looked in the fridge for cheese...FAIL. Only cheddar! So then I noticed I did have part of a lemon and garlic, and figured out a fantastic pasta.
What I think I love about this the most is how light it is. Leaving out the cheese turned out to be one of my better ideas, and the still-crisp asparagus gives an excellent texture to the pasta. The garlic keeps it flavorful and the lemon keeps it fresh. Try it today!
Light Spring Asparagus-Lemon Pasta
-8 oz of your choice of pasta
-About 10 spears or so of asparagus, washed and cut into small chunks
-1/4 of a lemon
-salt
-lemon pepper (or regular if you don't have it)
-olive oil
-1 clove of garlic
-Put lightly-salted water on to boil
-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
-Meanwhile, clean the asparagus, put it in an oven-proof dish, drizzle olive oil on top, season with salt and lemon pepper and cook to your desired done-ness (about 10 min for still slightly crunchy)
-Once the water boils, add the pasta and cook to your desired done-ness (mine took about 10 min)
-Peel and finely chop or press the garlic
-Once the asparagus is done, chop it into small pieces (bite-sized) and put in a medium-sized bowl
-Once pasta is done, drain and add to bowl with asparagus, add the garlic, add a drizzle of olive oil, salt, lemon pepper, and squeeze the lemon juice on top. Adjust seasoning as needed.
What I think I love about this the most is how light it is. Leaving out the cheese turned out to be one of my better ideas, and the still-crisp asparagus gives an excellent texture to the pasta. The garlic keeps it flavorful and the lemon keeps it fresh. Try it today!
Light Spring Asparagus-Lemon Pasta
-8 oz of your choice of pasta
-About 10 spears or so of asparagus, washed and cut into small chunks
-1/4 of a lemon
-salt
-lemon pepper (or regular if you don't have it)
-olive oil
-1 clove of garlic
-Put lightly-salted water on to boil
-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
-Meanwhile, clean the asparagus, put it in an oven-proof dish, drizzle olive oil on top, season with salt and lemon pepper and cook to your desired done-ness (about 10 min for still slightly crunchy)
-Once the water boils, add the pasta and cook to your desired done-ness (mine took about 10 min)
-Peel and finely chop or press the garlic
-Once the asparagus is done, chop it into small pieces (bite-sized) and put in a medium-sized bowl
-Once pasta is done, drain and add to bowl with asparagus, add the garlic, add a drizzle of olive oil, salt, lemon pepper, and squeeze the lemon juice on top. Adjust seasoning as needed.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
End of Napa
My skills: there lies the top of the champagne bottle, cork and all! And the "saber" that I used.
Pouring the freshly sabered champagne (check the top of the bottle)!
Excellent champagne
Napa Cont.
V Wine Shop
Cool trunks
Robert Mondavi himself! In a fabulous cork jacket.
Wine barrels up close.
So much wine! Also, fun fact: they apparently paint those red stripes on the wine barrels so you can't see the drips and stains...pretty smart!
Napa Cont
Huge wine-making barrels
Checking out all the grapes
I miss California poppies
This would have been a lot cooler if we'd come when the grapes were ripe: the rock to the right says "chardonnay" and the one to the right is a different grape. Once the grapes ripen, you can taste each grape and see each side by side to get a better sense of the differences and similarities.
Napa
The only other thing to note since the Apple/Caramel/Awesome/Spice Cake before I tell you a little about my trip to Napa is our Easter brunch. I really like Easter as far as holidays go because I get to wear something girly and pastel, and because it often involves yummy food and chocolate. We had fourteen people this year in my little 2-bedroom apartment and it was a smashing success! There was totally enough food! We had: biscuits and (actually good) vegetarian gravy, blueberry buttermilk cake, fruit salad, quiche, deviled eggs, mimosas, bacon, mini croissants, and some excellent egg mess with homemade chips. So yum!
Anyway, back to the point of this post: I went to Napa with my mom and another mother/daughter pair for a short weekend getaway. It was my first time to the Napa Valley and hopefully not my last! The highlight for me was sabering open a bottle of champagne (and not hurting anyone or myself, dropping the bottle, or spilling too much), although the entire trip was fabulous. I loved being able to sit down with a sommelier and have them walk me through exactly how they figured out which wine was from where, what the year was, what it smelled like, etc. We saw how and where the wine making was done and got to try quite a bit too. The only downside was realizing that most of them are out of my price range! Oh well, I can dream.
The 5 'S's of Wine Tasting:
1. See. Is the wine red or white? Is there anything in it? Bubbles? What color red or white--dark or light (apparently red wine gets lighter with age and white wines get darker)?
2. Swirl. This apparently increases the surface area so the molecules of smell come out. This is also where you get to see the wine's "legs" (a term I find amusing). When you swirl a glass rather vigorously, you watch where the top edge of the wine has hit the glass and the lines that fall down from that are the legs. The faster and the slower they fall depend on alcohol and sugar content--the faster they fall, the less sugar or alcohol there is, and vice versa.
3. Smell. F.E.W: stands for fruit, earth, and wood: when you smell the wine does it smell really sweet? Then it probably has a lot of fruit in it...a chardonnay often has a more mineral-y smell which can be described as earth.
4. Sip. This is when you confirm or deny your guess of what the wine is like based on the first 3 'S's and you use the F.E.W. words again.
5. Spit or Swallow. Pretty obvious--if you like it, swallow it, if not, spit.
Pictures following!
Anyway, back to the point of this post: I went to Napa with my mom and another mother/daughter pair for a short weekend getaway. It was my first time to the Napa Valley and hopefully not my last! The highlight for me was sabering open a bottle of champagne (and not hurting anyone or myself, dropping the bottle, or spilling too much), although the entire trip was fabulous. I loved being able to sit down with a sommelier and have them walk me through exactly how they figured out which wine was from where, what the year was, what it smelled like, etc. We saw how and where the wine making was done and got to try quite a bit too. The only downside was realizing that most of them are out of my price range! Oh well, I can dream.
The 5 'S's of Wine Tasting:
1. See. Is the wine red or white? Is there anything in it? Bubbles? What color red or white--dark or light (apparently red wine gets lighter with age and white wines get darker)?
2. Swirl. This apparently increases the surface area so the molecules of smell come out. This is also where you get to see the wine's "legs" (a term I find amusing). When you swirl a glass rather vigorously, you watch where the top edge of the wine has hit the glass and the lines that fall down from that are the legs. The faster and the slower they fall depend on alcohol and sugar content--the faster they fall, the less sugar or alcohol there is, and vice versa.
3. Smell. F.E.W: stands for fruit, earth, and wood: when you smell the wine does it smell really sweet? Then it probably has a lot of fruit in it...a chardonnay often has a more mineral-y smell which can be described as earth.
4. Sip. This is when you confirm or deny your guess of what the wine is like based on the first 3 'S's and you use the F.E.W. words again.
5. Spit or Swallow. Pretty obvious--if you like it, swallow it, if not, spit.
Pictures following!
Julie and Julia Inspires Me: A Fancy Cake
My mom sent me the book Julie and Julia only a little while before the movie came out. I read it right away and really enjoyed it. I'm really bad about going to movies when they're actually playing (thanks to the $3, 21+ theater by my house where you just have to wait a few extra months and then you can enjoy any of the popular movies with a beer), so I didn't see Julie and Julia until a few weeks ago--yes, I'm a little behind the times. Part of the reason I made the roast described in the previous post was to bribe my friend and neighbor to download the movie for me to watch on his fancy TV...I guess it just wasn't his cup of tea (of course he watched it, though). The roast turned out wonderfully, if I do say so myself, but for Julie and Julia, I was just craving some ridiculous, fancy cake. Luckily, we didn't have a roast, garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus, AND a triple layer buttercream-frosted cake all on the same day, because I don't even think my athlete brother could have handled all that food!
While shopping for roast ingredients, I remembered that apples were in season and picked some of those up. Upon investigating my kitchen, I also realized that I had cream in the fridge. Over the holidays I made Gourmet's Spice Cake with Caramelized Pears and Maple Buttercream and it was spectacular. I figured, "hey, I've got apples and cream--I could make a caramelized apple version with a caramel buttercream!" Well, I realized after the fact that it's surprisingly tricky to find a recipe for caramel buttercream, but that didn't stop me! I just made a regular buttercream with less sugar and then added caramel...yes, rich, I know. Also delicious!
Spice Cake with Caramelized Apples and Caramel Buttercream
For Spice Cake, please see link: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Spice-Cake-with-Caramelized-Pears-and-Maple-Buttercream-355980
Now ignore the rest of the link and keep reading for the apples and caramel buttercream:
Caramelized Apples:
-4 or 5 apples of whatever brand you like (I believe I used Braeburns)
-1/4 c of red wine (really whatever you have along as long as it's not 2 buck chuck but ideally something fruity
-1-2 tablespoons of sugar (it's mainly to taste...also I used brown because I love brown sugar)
-1-2 tablespoons of butter
-Peel and core apples, then finely chop them
-In a deep-sided cast iron pan, heat 1 tablespoon of the butter until melting
-Add the apples
-Cook down for a bit and add sugar and red wine as the apples begin to soften
-If the apples start to stick, add a little more butter
-Cook until very tender and sweet
Caramel Buttercream
Caramel Sauce:
*This is my favorite caramel sauce recipe because they are the only one that suggests that you add water to prevent burning. Yes, the caramel takes a little longer to come together, but it's sooo much easier than having to constantly re-do burned caramel.
** I halved the main recipe, but I would even suggest quartering it
-1/2 c white sugar
-2 (it calls for 3 but I don't think you need it) tablespoons butter
-1/4 c heavy whipping cream
-1/4 c water
-Get all your ingredients measured and near you before you start--this makes things easier for you since you have to work quickly.
-In a tall, heavy sauce pan, add the sugar and the water over moderately high heat
-As the sugar beings to melt, stir it vigorously
-As soon as the sugar comes to a boil stop stirring (it's hard, I know)
-Once it looks nice and golden, add the butter and whisk until golden
-Immediately remove from heat and add the cream--whisk until smooth
-Add a pinch of salt if you like
Buttercream:
*any buttercream recipe will do--just add a little less sugar no vanilla
-1 cup unsalted butter or margarine, room temperature (use vegetable shortening when pure white icing is needed)
-1/2 cup milk, room temperature
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-2 pounds confectioners' sugar
-Combine all the ingredients in large mixing bowl and mix at slow speed until smooth.
-Add the caramel to taste
To Assemble:
-Cool layers of the cake
-Once cool, lightly frost the bottom layer on the top and add about 1/3-1/2 of the apples
-Repeat with the second layer
-Add the top layer and frost, adding any extra apples after (or just eat them plain).
-Enjoy
*PS-How cool are those colored candles?! We decided to pretend it was Cary Grant's Birthday...I mean, who doesn't like him?! Happy Birthday, Cary!
A Roast
For the first time in my life I made a roast. I'm not even sure if I've really ever eaten a roast before, but when a friend of mine asked if I could make one, I said "Sure, why not!" I probably should have been more nervous about making a roast for someone who had actually grown up eating them, but when it comes to cooking, I have somehow or other convinced myself that I can cook anything, as long as I do enough research on it. Luckily for both myself and Matt, the roast turned out just fine.
Pork Shoulder Roast with Rosemary and Garlic:
-1 4lb pork shoulder for a roast
-several cloves of garlic, sliced in long quarters or thirds
-a big bunch of rosemary
*garlic and rosemary depends on your preference
-Preheat the oven to 375
-Trim the fat off the meat as best you can (and get a sharper knife than I have to make this easier) and make several incisions all over the meat (this is where the rosemary and garlic will go)...really, just stab it all over (but this does not quite sound as nice).
-Stuff the incisions with a piece or two of the sliced garlic and a small bunch of rosemary.
-Season the meat liberally with salt and pepper
-place on a rack in a roasting pan and stick in the over for an hour and a half to two hours or whenever the internal temp reaches the appropriate done-ness for pork.
Fabulous Sides To Accompany a Rosemary-Garlic Roast:
Roasted Asparagus:
-1-2 bundles of asparagus, washed and the ends snapped off
-lemon juice and zest (if you want)
-olive oil
-salt n pepper
-Preheat the oven to 350 or 375 (you can just add these at the end when you take out the pork since they take no time at all)
-Place washed and trimmed asparagus in a pan or on a cookie sheet
-Drizzle olive oil over (to taste--I don't like a whole lot, but that's my preference)
-Season with salt and pepper and zest if using
-Cook for 10-15 min until tender (I would do about 10 since I like mine a little crunchy)
-After removing from the oven, squeeze lemon juice over and serve immediately
Garlic Mashed Potatoes:
-5 russet potatoes or more (I had leftovers but I don't eat a lot)
-maybe 1/2 a cup of milk
-salt n pepper
-smashed garlic--a few cloves or to taste
-2 tablespoons of butter or so
-Put the potatoes in a big pot and cover with water
-Boil until tender (maybe 10 min--not totally sure)
-Once tender, remove from heat and pour off almost all of the water
-If the pot isn't too hot, just use a potato masher or, ideally, a hand mixer to smash and whip them up. You can also use a very deep bowl
*Note-it helps to cut them up a bit before attempting to mash and whip them...if you don't, you may end up with potato pellets attacking you out of the bowl. Woops!
-Add the garlic, butter, and about 1/4 of the milk
-Continue whipping them and season to taste
-I like my potatoes a little chunky, but add more or less milk according to the desired tendency.
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