The Life and Times of Whitney Drake
I didn't get to take a picture, so this is the picture from Martha Stewart.
I admit, I’m not a big fan of eggs. But when you have eggs, milk and cream mixed together with some cheese and fillings in a flaky pastry? It’s one of my favorite things to have. Read More…
I am in love with my ice cream machine. If it were possibly to marry an inanimate object, I might become a polygamist. Making your own ice cream is easy, and the end product you get is just as luxurious as Ben & Jerry’s or Haagen-Daaz, but at a fraction of the price.
For the Fourth of July, I decided I’d make a cherry ice cream, after I saw bing cherries at the market for a pretty great price. Of course, I bought too many cherries, so expect to see a fair amount of recipes. (Tomorrow I’m making a pie!)
This recipe is a slight tweak from AllRecipes.com, and adjusted for my 2 quart machine. Read More…
So, I got a Flip UltraHD for my birthday. I got it, on the promise that I’d take more videos of my children. But really, I had fond memories of my sister and I, making silly home movies with our camcorder. Somewhere there is a tape with our bizarre version of Wizard of Oz, lip-synching songs from Sleeping Beauty, Barf-o-vision, and naturally… a cooking demo by yours truly. My mom wasn’t thrilled that we didn’t clean up the kitchen before we shot it, but it was fun.
Then, when my point and shoot died a horrible death, I got a notion that I could make videos about my culinary exploits.
Which led to this video. I had already posted this recipe, but you get the video and the recipe:
Warning: I sound like I’m 14. Also, I didn’t have a tripod. So, it’s a little bit shaky. I also said “um” a lot.
Additional warning: I now have a tripod.
Without further ado, here’s the recipe: Read More…
I love cheesecake. As a kid, when my mom brought home the frozen cheesecake from Trader Joe’s, I knew I was ready for something special. When I was first dating TheBoy, I knew we were meant to be when I discovered that he made cheesecakes from scratch. It was a sign.
I’ve made a few cheesecakes over the years, including a pumpkin bourbon cheesecake the Thanksgiving right before my oldest son was born. That was a great cheesecake, which I personally ate a quarter of after it was decided that the teaspoon of bourbon the recipe called for must have burned off. (As an aside: when you cook with alcohol, not all of it burns off. In fact, flambeing a dish doesn’t guarantee it’s burned off. It takes a fair amount time cooking at a steady high heat to burn off a small amount.)
I started to follow Eli’s Cheesecake on Twitter when they started having a giveaway for free cheesecakes based on their number of followers. They’re still doing regular giveaways, so follow them! I was lucky enough to win (on a day when I really needed it) and after I gave them my address, I had cheesecake on my doorstep.
Yes, waffles on a Monday. There are many times that I lament the fact that TheBoy works nights, but Monday mornings are not one of them. With his schedule reversed, he’s usually up Monday morning, and we can have a nice big breakfast for just the four of us. Otherwise, we’d have to double the amount of bacon and batter being produced, just to make sure there were enough for the rest of the clan in the household.
My family was always big on weekend breakfasts. With how busy our lives were during the weekend, we’d come together to make them. My dad, sister and I would whip together pancake batters or my parents would make papas y huevos con pan ducle (we bought the pan ducle- however, it’s on my wish list of things that I want to learn to make). Then we’d sit down together and enjoy. Ah, food: the glue that binds families together- and even helps patch up the rough bits.
How serious were we about weekend breakfasts? My parents crafted a pancake/waffle batter that worked with my sister’s allergy to wheat. From the time TheBoy and I moved in together, we worked on crafting our own recipes. He’s long been convinced that he could have a waffle recipe that didn’t require separating eggs, but when we were looking for a different recipe to try… I said I’d make the waffles today since this was a bit more complicated than our usual attempts. Boy was it worth it!
(Note: I’m not saying this is a complicated recipe. Just saying it’s a bit harder than throwing all the ingredients into one bowl)
Waffles with Blueberry sauce
Waffle recipe: Emeril Lagasse, via foodnetwork.com
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs, separated
2 tablespoons sugar
2 cups whole milk
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Nonstick cooking spray, optional
Equipment needed
3 bowls (two for your mixer, if you have ‘em, though one will do)
waffle iron
Directions
Preheat your waffle iron. To make for easier cleanup, I recommend placing it on top of a cookie sheet with a rim so that if you overfill your waffle iron, the batter doesn’t go everywhere.
Using two bowls, separate the eggs. Whip up the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Make sure you put your mixer on the highest setting, and be prepared for your table to start shaking if it isn’t super solid. Set aside the egg whites. In another bowl, beat together the egg yolks and sugar until the sugar dissolves into the eggs and the mixture turns a pale yellow. If I had two mixer bowls, I’d just do this in another one- but I used TheBoy’s superior biceps and a whisk to get it done. Add the milk, melted butter and vanilla to the egg yolk mixture.
In the last bowl, sift together the flour, salt and baking powder. Sifting is extremely important for good waffles- it helps get the dry ingredients combined, but also incorporates air. Air is key to good waffles. Add in the flour mixture to the egg/milk mixture and whisk until just combined. Don’t overmix. Honestly, as soon as you stop seeing giant clumps of flour, it’s great.
Fold in the egg whites into the batter. If you’ve never folded in egg whites, don’t be scared. It’s simple. You dump the egg whites on top of the batter, run your spatula around the outside of the bowl, and use it to bring up the batter from the bottom of the bowl over the top of the egg whites. Repeat until it looks like you have a bowlful of beige clouds, instead of egg whites dumped on top your batter. Then stop!
Now, spray the waffle iron with a bit of nonstick cooking spray. Ladle in your batter into the various compartments- just enough to fill the bottom part. If you put too much in, it’ll just spill out. Think of the first batch as your gauge to see how much will fill it! Cook according to the directions for your waffle iron, and enjoy!
You can top them with syrup, melted butter… or a really quick and easy blueberry sauce!
Easy Blueberry Sauce
1 cup blueberry preserves
3 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp lemon zest
Microwave the blueberry preserves to warm them, and stir thoroughly. You’ll see it already starts to make a syrup. Add in the lemon juice, and stir to combine. That’s it! Perfect for spooning over waffles or pancakes.
(If you want to make it the real way, here’s a guesstimate on the proportions you’ll need. I usually wing it)
Blueberry sauce
2 cups fresh/frozen blueberries (if frozen, thaw first)
1 cup sugar
3 tbsp lemon juice
In a small saucepan, combine blueberries and sugar. Cook for 15-20 minutes, stirring regularly, until the blueberries have broken down and formed a loose syrup. Add in the lemon juice and stir.
The final verdict: The waffles were light and crisp and delicious! The syrup was sweet, but not too sweet and thoroughly enjoyable. I also dusted them with some powdered sugar. I’ve been informed that I’ll be making the waffles from now on, so I’m not the only one who liked them!
That’s right. I know of the worst food blogger, and I’m going to name names. It’s me. Maybe it’s because I’ve become so accustomed to food blogs filled with delicious looking food. You see, I have a big problem. When I make something- usually I’m so excited to dig in that I completely forget to take pictures.
Which is what happened yesterday for Easter dinner. Typically Easter dinner’s a big deal, with ham, all the family and a formal dinner. But it seemed time to scale it back a bit, and so I got to make dinner. I had the recipe in mind- a roasted pork loin with mustard crust, veggies and homemade macaroni & cheese. However, supermarkets aren’t known for their butcher’s counters, and there was no pork loin. So there I stood in Albertson’s with my phone out, looking for recipes with pork tenderloin (which they did have). I bought some Brussels sprouts and fresh broccoli, and it was back to home I went.
I read a lot of food blogs, and typically all the reviews on recipes that I think I might make. And well, I’ve noticed a lot of people who are angry at Food Network.
Once upon a time, there was a woman who revolutionized food television- indeed, she basically created it. Julia Child. A woman who showed us you can debone a duck at home and make beautiful French cuisine. Most people complain that now food television has devolved into celebrichefs like Rachael Ray and Sandra Lee who make their money off of being the anti-Julia.
This is true. What people are failing to take into account is that our societies are vastly different. Back in the 60′s, women were just starting to gain a foothold in the work place. For the most part, women were expected to stay home and to cook. They took classes or learned from their mothers and grandmothers. Cooking was a skill that any accomplished housewife was expected to know. Even coming off of World War II where the TV dinner was hailed as the next big thing, it wasn’t unusual to expect that a woman could cook.
This recipe has been in my bookmarks for almost a year now, after I saw her make it on an episode of Barefoot Contessa. Not too long ago, a dear friend wondered if I had a good recipe of macaroni & cheese, and I remembered this. So when we had a wonderfully rainy and dreary day, I decided it was time to give this a go.
Baking is sort of my thing. It has been since I was in middle school. Icing, however, is something I’m still learning about. This weekend, I was making a birthday cake for The Boy’s grandfather, and was running out of time. So when the layers were almost cool, I began icing. More on that. Since the cake was delicious, I thought I’d share the recipes that are quickly becoming family favorites.
Now, to the disaster. I had the bottom layer on the cake plate and put strawberry preserves in as part of the filling, and a bit of icing. Then I started icing the sides. I was nearly done, when it started to ooze out the middle. Quickly, I put it in the fridge and hoped it would set before all the filling had melted out. This is what we wound up with. An ugly, yet delicious cake. Lesson learned, wait until layers are completely cooled to ice them.
Restaurant Eve’s Cake
adapted from The Washington Post, found on chaos in the kitchen
2 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter melted, at room temperature
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup milk
Heat oven to 350°F and prepare cake pans with grease and parchment paper.
Combine dry ingredients (sugar through salt) in a mixing bowl.
Beat in melted butter for about 2 minutes and until mixture resembles cornmeal.
Combine eggs, vanilla, and milk in a bowl.
Add liquid mixture to dry mixture, beating constantly for 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl mid-way.
Pour batter into pans and bake for about 35 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.
Remove cakes to a rack and allow to cool before frosting.
Magnolia’s Vanilla Buttercream
from More from Magnolia
Makes enough for one 2-layer 9-inch cake or 2 dozen cupcakes*
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
6 to 8 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Add butter to your mixer bowl. Add 4 cups of the sugar and then the milk & vanilla. On medium speed, beat until and creamy (about 3-5 minutes) Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the icing is thick enough to be of good spreading consistency. You may not need to add all of the sugar. If desired, add a few drops of food coloring and mix thoroughly. (Use and store the icing at room temperature because icing will set if chilled.) Icing can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
I’m not sure how I wound up at this recipe. It might have been a link in a blog, or I might have googled ‘cranberry almond’ out of desperation, looking for something to bake.
Regardless, I wound up at The Wednesday Chef and her post for Regina Schrambling’s Almond-Cranberry Cookies. And I realized, that I had everything I needed to bake these cookies. You see, I’ve been putting off going to the grocery store. Knowing that I’ll be somewhere else next week tends to make me not want to buy food that I’ll have to use in one week or else. So, I’ve been creating out of what we’ve had.
Eons ago, I’d bought almond slivers and dried cranberries- intending to make scones from them. But inevitably, I was out of some ingredient I needed for the scones.
So I looked at the ingredients, and I had everything! Even the almond extract and the brown sugar! Only, my brown sugar was a hopelessly solid brick, so I used regular sugar.
Even with the substitution (which I thought was hilarious given that she made substitutions when she made the recipe), they were fragrant, crunchy with some give, and exactly what I was looking for. The oldest kidlet proclaimed them to be “scrummy,” which I think was supposed to be scrumptious and yummy combined. Regardless, the recipe yielded just a little under 3 dozen, and they were gone in two days flat.
