In With A Bang!

So, it has been eons (well months, actually) since I've posted, but I have returned. I got married, moved, went on an extended honeymoon, started graduate school again, and I have been busting my butt with documentary stuff. BUSEEE!

(My delightful stove with animal inspiration; including Basset Hound statue)

A lot of cooking / baking has happened since my temporary hiatus. There are things I have discovered:

1. How to make porkchops - seriously - finally pork chops that are not dry! The secret: butter. Loads of it and sage.
   
2. Julia Child and the delight that is, guess what: BUTTER!!! Oh sweet heaven I love butter.
   
3. Wine
4. Italian cooking. Seriously - where have you been all my life divine roasted chicken?
   
5. I really really like to bake.
6. I can now make delightful steak
7. Temperature control is your friend.

I have also learned to really enjoy cooking which is something I sort of could not figure out before. Cooking is fun - it is your friend. It is not a competition against yourself and your abilities, it is relaxing. It should fill you with a sense of accomplishment. It should NOT stress you out to the point where you accidentally drop the recipe on the lit burner and start a fire because you are so spastic about browning butter. It should also not fill you with fury if the recipe does not turn out. These are very important lessons. Cupcakes are delightful - creating them should be likewise.

My husband really cannot cook. As I learn more and more about kitchen how to, I learn more and more about kitchen how not from my beloved. The self-proclaimed king of the "One-Pot Wonder Meal" Essentially a stovetop stew of veggies, noodles (boxed mac n cheese, spaghetti, beans and rice, once even ramen noodles) and bacon. Seriously this is his heaven. This is the nightmare to me . Also, he makes the biggest mess imaginable when he cooks with the idiological one pot. It actually takes SEVERAL pots. One pan to boil noodles, one pan to saute veggies, one pan for bacon, a strainer - you get the gist. He calls it one pot, but really he is in denial.


Mary

Nigella's Yummy & Decadent Pizza Rustica All'Inglese!

We're getting fancy over here and if you want fancy Nigella is the way to go! Nigella is my favorite. I think she is beyond. I love her hair and I want her eyebrows - and her abililty to just throw together a perfect cupcake with fondant topping - you know... whatever just simple as that! I am dying to try fondant but fear outweighs desire.

I rented "How To Be A Domestic Goddess" from the library and have been waiting - WAITING - to bake something from it forever - I put it off because many of the recipes are involved. This particular one is a double-crust pizza thingy.Here is the recipe. BTW: I used a different filling than this recipe because I improvised.

I decided to try something I knew Kris would eat because sometimes he seems a little perplexed and frightened by my kitchen experiments, especially when I watch Top Chef and get inspired. (Can I PLEASE tell you how much I love that show. I recently watched Hell's Kitchen and no. Tacky, Tacky, Trashy, and Classless - and yes the Caps are ALL necessary.) He likes pizza so much he haggled with me to have it served at our wedding in lieu of any real catering. He could literally eat a frozen pizza or Pizza Hut everyday, so I decided I would make a fancy-pants gourmet version. Anyways, this 'pizza' was...ummmm... involved. BUT very yummy.

OK - before starting this you should know it takes like 2 hours, so don't do as I did and begin at 7:30 pm on a Friday night and expect to be out on the town an hour later. You are hanging out en casa with your oven if you undertake this so don't make plans.

Anyways, First I made the dough - I followed the recipe exactly and then added a little more water, because AZ is hot and dehydration happens. Even for foods. When you separate the dough into two balls make sure one is much larger than the other, not just a little bit bigger but double the size. Trust me - it is imperative unless you are an absolute expert at spreading dough out - I am NOT. While freezing the dough, do the innards (the pizza filling).

It is already about 95 degrees outside so when I took the dough out of the freezer to roll out it got hot and melty and super, super mushy almost immediately. Which was scary and caused me to panic. Also, I could not get an accurate measurement on the depth and width of the springform pan which is also scary and overwhelming - just like its misbehaving friend the dough. Several miscalculations ensued until finally I realized I did not have to make the dough TALLER than the pan, but I should take into account that the pizza will rise and I should just have enough to fold over the stuff inside (see the photo above from the cookbook for illustration of this).

The dough, was, needless to say, a problem...

Anyways I finally got it sorted out and then put in all the stuff I concocted in advance. One thing I did not do is time frying the pork and bacon - by the time the pie was completely cooked in the oven the pork was way overdone. I should have followed the recipe instructions about the frying time or even done a little less to make sure it was perfect. I also added a high quality chedder, but did not slice it thin enough so when the pizza was finished I had big giant tacky cocktail party cheese non-melted cubes distracting my otherwise quite tasty pizza. I also added peppers which were good - I should have also mixed in brocoli and spinach which I will do next time.

After putting the filling in I had further dough-issues when I tried to fold the edges over. For some reason things were NOT cooperating. After many futile attempts I did a 'good enough' job and put it in. This takes a loooong time to cook, but if you follow the cooking time give or take a couple minutes it will be just right. Also definitely follow the cooling advice. Do not serve until this is cooled. Nigella is right - it is MUCH better on day 2 and taste quiche-y. Which probably is because of the 5 million eggs in the recipe (which is akin to 5 million grams of fat).

WARNING: This is definitely NOT diet food so consider yourself aware that you cannot blame me if you make this and eat all 8 slices yourself in 2 days.

This was very yummy - Kris loved it and so, of course, did I because when I am attempting to lose weight and reach a goal eating things that are completely filled with cheesey lard or made entirely of butter and crisco are the only things I can possibly think of consuming.

Buckwheat Bonanza!

Let me just say, I LOVE buckwheat! Love it!! It adds a slightly more crumbly texture to things but I think the flavor is sublime. This week I made two desserts with buckwheat flour and I am about to make some pancakes today. mmmmm... I also want to try mixing buckwheat something with a strong cheese ala French style (they love buckwheat apparently). Any suggestions?

Dessert 1: Martha's Oatmeal Dried Apricot Cookies with White Chocolate Chips:

My mom got me a Kitchen Aid Mixer for an early wedding present in yellow (my favorite color!) and it is divine. I ADORE IT!! (overly effusive eclaimation points necessary to describe my love) I was so excited to use it and then I found this amazing cookie recipe on Food Gawker (go there now!)

Here is the recipe link from The Bitten Word and adapted from Martha Stewart. I thought this was a great cookie - very light sweet flavor. Kris and I ate them like there was no tomorrow - which is scary considering I am SUPPOSED to be on a pre-wedding diet to lose 10lbs (no success there!). I changed the recipe slightly: instead of 1 1/2 c. white flour, I did 1 c white flour and 1/2 c. buckwheat flour which toned down the syrupy sweetness of the cookies. Also, I baked these on 325 and left them in for 15 minutes which was perfect. They were chewy and the bottoms were not crispy. I LOATHE a crispy cookie!! These are really good cold, so leave 'em in the fridge. Enjoy! Also try them with ice cream or frozen yogurt for an extremely decadent desert.

Dessert 2: Buckwheat Scones from Lovely Morning:

I found this recipe on one of my favorite blogs: Lovely Morning. These are SO good! I made them once before and used sweetened dried cherries and they were less tart, but this time I used organic non-sweetened cherries and the scones were less cookie-like. I baked them on 400 because my oven is super persnickity and low-heat seems to be better for the it. It is always a toss up.

I had sliiiight difficulty cutting them into attractive looking wedges (ok lots - they did not resemble triangles so much as blobby squares) - certainly not winning and culinary arts awards around here! - so they came out a little wonky and mishapen like the reject cookie pile at bakeries. Whatever - they tasted great! Also, I could take or leave the almonds since I kinda hate nuts.

Tip: Make sure not to pat the dough too thin when you roll it out - the scones should be thick and crumbly. Enjoy with warm butter and good jam.

Healthy Baking (a conundrum if there ever was one!)

Keeping with the spirit of healthier (and hopefully thinner) and more earth aware living, I decided to make cookies at Delayne's. First of all - she has NO baking ingredients and NO baking equipment. We decided to do Sugar & Dairy Free Oatmeal Banana Peanutbutter Cookies. So, I brought over many of my baking accesories but no mixer. Thinking Delayne had at least some measuring cups I figured I would be ok. THIS LADY HAS NOTHING! No measuring cups, no measuring spoons and NO MIXER. Only a Magic Bullet, which is scary, weird and from early 90's infomercials. I still remember the one where they advertised using it to make mayonaise (which scared me for life after learning mayo is only eggs and oil mixed together - BARF!) No bueno.
I was not deterred. I forged ahead - sans a suitable mixer and without the aid of measuring devices - and I managed to make some fairly decent AND SUPER HEALTHY cookies! Seriously, almost no bad stuff in these if you follow the original recipe!

Sugar-free Oatmeal Peanutbutter Cookies:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350.
   
2. mix together the following wet ingredients: 1/4 c. honey or grade b maple syrup, 2 or 3 super ripe mashed bananas - they should be broooown - 1/4 c. butter (or if you are allergic to dairy Earth Balance Butter Substitute), 1/3 c. peanut or almond butter.
   
3. I tried to use the magic bullet to combine these - what a disaster!! The wet stuff was clinging horribly to the ridiculous mixer blades and would not come out. Then it made this scary grinding noise. I had to shake it like 400 times to get all the peanut-buttery goo off the blades. I ended up mixing by hand. Do not try a magic bullet for baking, REPEAT: No magic bullet for baking!
4. Mix together the following dry ingredients: 2 1/2 c. oatmeal (not quick oats),1/2 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp cinnamin, 2 -3 tsp stevia powder (natural sugar substitute) or agave (natural sugar substutute) These are waaay sweeter than normal fructose sugar so 2-3 tsp is enough. You can also use 1/2 c. of regular sugar instead if you want to.
   
5. Combine the wet and dry items.
   
6. Place on a cookie sheet with a spoon and press down to flatten. (see photo). bake 12-15 minutes. THESE WILL NOT EXPAND BECAUSE THEY ARE FLOUR FREE. You will know they are done when the bottoms look brownish.

** A word about Stevia: stevia is good for you - no calories or sugar! They make it in liquid and powder forms and it can be found at all health food stores. The one draw back is that it has a slightly bitter aftertaste. We used Stevia powder for these cookies, but next time I am going to try Agave. See wikipedia for more info on both!**

OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS:
Delayne and I made these sugar & dairy free because she is allergic and I am on a pre-wedding diet. For a less scary healthy version you can try adding sugar and using real butter. You could also add about a cup of flour to make more traditional tasting cookies.
Mix in some dried fruits, some chopped nuts, or some chocolate chips to the batter and lessen the oatmeal to 2 cups.

Amazing Resource!

My friend Delayne told me about this website that encourages everyone to eat organic and local. Eating locally, also known as being a locavore, is so much better for YOU and the environment. In honor of Earth Day. Check this out: www.vibranceorganics.com

Kris and I are ordering a medium sized food box!

Not Your Mom's Health Food - The Guerillas in the Kitchen Series - Week 1.

My fabulous friend Delayne and I have been working on a documentary about Naturopathic medicine, weight loss, and health centering around what we eat for the past few years called: "invisible me" (website coming soo-oon!) Recently we decided to embark on a weekly cooking extravaganza to promote our movie and eating healthily, but deliciously. A great cookbook to consult is: "Deceptively Delicious" The aim of the book is for parents to get their children to eat healthier, but the recipes are good, simple, and healthy.

Many Americans have health and weight problems because of allergic reactions to certain foods or items in food (such as dairy, gluten, sugar, or even odd things - I am allergic to NUTMEG!). To find out about how to get a food allergy test ask your doctor. Delayne and I, along with our friend Megan, decided each Thursday we would get together and cook dinner AND dessert that tastes great and does NOT include any of our allergans. Def. easier said than done!! :-) Delayne is allergic to sugar, banana, vanilla, dairy - pretty much EVERYTHING included in traditional baking. I am intolerant of sugar - my all time favorite food. Boo!

BTW: Did you know that Beef or cow products (including cow-based cheeses) are one of the highest contributers to global warming in terms of cows emitting toxic carbons into our atmosphere? scary! (See www.npr.org for more information.) Because I don't eat beef and turkey is healthier, Delayne and I made two traditional hamburger products using ground turkey. Way less fattening!!!

Two weeks ago we attempted turkey meatballs - actually YUM! First we made this amazing sauce that was completely sugar-free. Here's are our homemade recipe:

Turkey Meatballs and Homemade Tomato Veggie Sauce ala Delayne & Mary:

1. Meatball Ingredients: mix 2 tbsp of cornstarch, 1/3 c. soy flour (or buckwheat or any other kind of flour), 1 onion diced, chopped celery, garlic, salt & pepper, basil, and ground turkey together. We got our turkey at Trader Joe's. It was hormone free and free-range - you can get ground turkey at any supermarket though. Mix this all together with your hands and then shape into little balls. We had to do several mess-up batches before realizing we needed a bonding agent (cornstarch).
   
2. The sauce: mix together Organic Crushed canned tomatoes (or you can dice up your own tomatoes from scratch), tomatoe puree (14oz), veggies - we did peppers, onion, zuchini, and squash with garlic and heat to boiling on med heat. After the sauce boils reduce heat to simmering.
   
3. TO cook the meatballs: pan fry olive oil (about 2 tbspn) until boiling and reduce heat. Add meatballs. Cook for 10min over low heat or until they are firm and brown. Then cover them and add a couple tbspns of water to flash steam.
   
4. Add the meatballs to the sauce and cook for about 10 minutes.
   
5. Add to your favorite whole grain pasta (the whole grain is important for a well rounded meal!). I recommend the Whole Foods 365 brand.
   
6. IT'S AMAZING! And it only took about 30-45 minutes total to make. You can also make all of it in advance or in a crocpot.
   

TURKEY BURGERS!

1. You can also make Turkey Burgers using pretty much the same recipe. We added about 2 tbsn's of butter and some cumin to the above recipe (minus celery) and shaped in a patty form and then just pan fried with olive oil.
2. For maximum health benefits serve with toasted Omega-3 organic buns, avocado, organic ketchup, and lettuce. Another amazing thing to add (that is also great for the environment) is Veganise. WaAAAAY better tasting than traditional mayo and made organically from soy. Found at any health foods market. I think it is the best condiment I have ever had!!!! Enjoy!
   
3. We also added Sweet Potato French Fries. Which are sooo simple and healthy. All you do is scrub sweet potatoes, dice them up, mix with olive oil and salt, and bake on 325 - 350 for about 20-30 min. This also works with beets. Yuuuum!
   

Key Lime Love

My sweetness, Kris loves key lime pie. I must say I am not a fan - I hate tarty deserts, but I decided to make one for him after much begging on his part.

I am not sure how Key Lime Pie is supposed to taste because I avoid all lime flavored items - especially Sour Patch Kids. Yuck. He seemed to like it. It was SURPRISINGLY easy to make! I mean I have had many mishaps and this turned out ok. I used a recipe from Good Housekeeping "Best Loved Desserts" book. My cat, King Alobar, helped. :-)
Here is the recipe:

1. first make a graham cracker crust. Super easy. just mix crushed graham crackers with melted butter and smooth onto a greased pie pan. I used glass - I have no idea if a glass pan is better than a teflon one. Let it cool before adding the filling.
   
2. pre-heat oven to 375. In AZ use a lower oven heat because of altitude apparently(??). I set mine at 350.
   
3. grate the zest (peel) of 6-8 key limes and then juice them. I used regular for lack of availability. mix the zest (2 tsp) with 1/2 c of lime juice. Then add one can of condensed sweetened milk (14oz) and 2 large egg yolks. Beat all this with a mixer until it thickens. IT WILL NOT BE GREEN! If you want green add food coloring.
4. THEN mix the 2 egg whites (you will need to separate the eggs if you haven't figured it out - THAT was THE HARDEST PART. I am hideous at cracking eggs - I had to fish out a couple egg shell pieces and then I messed up separating about 4 times. hideous!) Mix at high speed until they are like hair mousse-like and stand up in peaks and horns (think Something About Mary!)
5. Add the egg whites to the other mixture with the limes and gently fold them in using a spatula.
   
6. Pour the mixture into the crust and bake 15-20 minutes. add whipped cream on top if desired. I had mine on side.
   
7. I also made a cutie-cute heart out of lime peel and put it on top with some lime zest. CU-UTE!!

Suggestion: next time I am going to add marscapone underneath (the cream they use in actual fruit tarts which I guess is really considered a cheese...) I think that would add a nice texture and break up the extreme limey-ness.

TAA-DAAA!

The drawbacks of being a domestic goddess (what Nigella hasn't told us).

Sorry guys! With the craziness of school, I have had a bit of trouble getting blogging. BUT I do have a funny story until I post some updates (with photos!) tomorrow.

So last week I went to the public library to check out some cookbooks. I am a HUGE Nigella fan (love a lady who cooks in heels!). While checking out "How to be a Domestic Goddess" and wearing a mini dress and heels I was actually hit on by a man who's opening line was: "You're pretty and you can cook... Are you married?" (ummmm... You're single - big surprise! haha) He then asked more than once if he could assist me with carrying my books to the car. Even the library attendant looked appalled and kept hovering near-by to observe the exchange. Truthfully if this is what Nigella has to deal with daily, I think I would give up cooking and opt to just wear the heels instead. ;-)

Slight drawback to attempting domesticity is that it is strangely alluring to middle-aged men. Oh, well I will not be deterred. In the last week I made a delush poached chicken, a disasterous mac n cheese, and one pretty scrumptious key lime pie with overly-whipped whipped cream. I also went to a scary scrapbooking store, checked out how to turn on my sewing machine, and stared at my chair but did not actually do anything. Also, Kris has been experimenting with natural cleaning products and will be doing a post about that tomorrow as well.

Please stay tooned and keep reading! I promise to update more frequently.

Tom Robbin's Risotto

DAY 1

Today I decided to cook. I had these beets I bought at Whole Foods, which I love and often buy outrageously expensive groceries from that I do not use, because Whole Foods makes everything tempting. I decided to get the beets because of Tom Robbin's book Jitterbug Pefume, which is amazing and all about beets. It is inspiring. :-)
Anyways, I bought these beets and decided on a dinner featured on Rachel Eats Food
for Seasame Crusted Salmon with Beets. I was excited all day and unfortunately realized when I got home that I had read the post wrong. I thought it said Beet Crusted Salmon (is that even posible?). Small snafu - I realized I did not have sesame seeds and that I do not think I like beets plain. I was not daunted. I was determined there was a recipe for Beet Crusted Salmon (ummm... there wasn't). I scoured gourmet foodie sites. Instead, I found a recipe - a v. complicated one albeit for a yummy mustard salmon and then decided to do something else with the beets. I found this: Roasted Beet Risotto. Delush. Disaster ensues...

First of all I began to make the complicated Salmon. I kept getting distracted by a) not having the ingredients b) not knowing what I was doing and c) running over to the computer to look at the recipe in the middle of the complicated steps. Did I mention my kitchen is the smallest in the world (photos coming soon) and has NO counterspace!?! tricky... First of all my biggest issue with cooking is that I never read the entire recipe before I begin or during. I skim and realize halfway in I am doing it wrong or cannot do it because I do not own a crucial ingredient. This was the case here. I had some salmon in my freezer for months, but I did not have heavy cream, whiskey (seriously shocking!) or a peppercorn. (I also did not know how to convert pints or other metric measurements into American portions fast enough which was difficult to do while watching a salmon steak. Lots of guessing and frantic googling... ) Whatever I improvised. I did have goatsmilk, cognac, and plain ol' pepper. When the sauce needed thickening I thought of gravy and added some flour -it worked! The hardest thing was monitoring all the heat settings involved in cooking... it was stressfull. It is very hard to watch all the things cooking at once!

The risotto was a different story...

Ok, I roasted the beets. I looked it up online, read carefully and did this: first, wash and scrub the beets - your hands turn really pink, hot hot pink. Then cut them up - dicing, I believe. Then get 1/4 c olive oil, liberal sprinkling of sea salt (surprisingly I own some, but my fiance had to run out and get olive oil for me), shake it up and wrap the beets in aluminum foil. Cook on 350 or 375 depending on your oven for about 40 minutes covered and 20 minutes uncovered. They are SOOOOOO yummy yummy yummy when you eat them just like that! I did not peel - too lazy and scattered.

Then I had to puree the beets with chicken stock. I had some broth, but not enough so I mixed with veggie broth.

I used my blender to puree, which unfortunately the bottom blade part was NOT securely screwed on and chicken/veggie broth dyed bright beet-y pink came pouring out everywhere! All over the stove and the floor. In my panic I raced it to the sink and then had to spill the beet cubes onto the counter with the pink stock drooling all over my hands and the floor. The dogs were ecstatic. I re-fastened the things together, luckily had extra broth and started again. I did not have the right rice, who cares - I used basmatti. Things turned out ok in the end, the rice was electric shocking Elton John disco pink and loooovely. A little mushy, but looovely. I did not take photos.

Next post... I promise. I am a beet fanatic now - they smell great! And I am sooo going to try to make soap using beet puree. I hope it does not stain your skin though...

Tomorrow's agenda: something scary with chicken and refinishing a chair... oh my...