Blogging is FUNdamental

Here are some fun facts about me, for post # 98.

• I have this interesting habit of playing pretend. If I really want a certain ingredient, like frozen broccoli, but I have another frozen vegetable instead, I will cook in the same manner, using the other frozen veg, and firmly pretending that the other frozen veg is broccoli. I'm always a little surprised when I bite into my food and it's NOT what I expected, but since I was ignoring the facts all along, I get what I deserve.
  
  • Case in point: The other night I tried to make a variation on my Auntie Beth's yummy broccoli-rice casserole. It had to be a variation because it was 10 pm and I didn't have basically any of the ingredients, except rice. So I used my rice cooker and the handy steamer attachment to cook the rice and defrost some frozen spinach, I reduced some milk and a splash of chicken broth, seasoned it with salt, pepper, cumin, and a teeny bit of nutmeg, and shredded the last of my yummy leerdamer cheese. I put some parmesan into the milk sauce, mixed the rice, spinach, and Leerdamer together, poured the milk sauce over, and topped it with parm and breadcrumbs. Baked at 400 for 20 minutes.
  The whole time, I was imagining that my frozen spinach was, in fact, frozen broccoli. I was surprised when it wasn't. Even though I encountered its non-broccoli-ness every step of the way. But it was tasty. And bonus points for being an easily identifiable foodstuff: a casserole.

• I often say in my job that the level of work I've put in has earned me a cheeseburger. Or, "I deserve a cheeseburger". I really believe that payment in cheeseburger would work for me as a bonus incentive. I'm not saying I earned the calories. I'm not saying anything about how food can be earned in the psychological sense. I mean in the strictest physical sense, working till 8pm two nights in a row earns me a cheeseburger, and somebody needs to get on that.
  
  • Case in point: Last night, Jesse and I went to Bonnie's, which is Jesse's burger place from back when he used to live in the neighborhood. My burger place is DuMont Burger, and we are both fiercely loyal. Like, even though Bonnie's is less fancy and has quicker service and more places to sit, I will always prefer a DuMont burger. ALWAYS. Even if Bonnie's is just as good. So last night, sicne Bonnie's is closer to our apartment, and DuMont Burger is in Williamsburg which is close to nothing unless you live IN Williamsburg....we went to Bonnie's after I got out of work at 8pm, and had cheeseburgers. And for the first time in history. Seriously. I finished my entire cheeseburger and the majority of my fries. I would have eaten them all if Jesse hadn't been filching them off my plate, allegedly to scoop up the last of the amazing spicy mayo/french fry sauce they have. It was brilliant. It was delicious. When I took the first bite, I realized that I really, truly HAD earned a cheeseburger. Nom.

That's enough fun facts for now. I'll be back some other time, possibly tonight, with more fun and food.
Inching our way to the big 1-double-oh!!

Full disclosure part deux

I'm not, honestly, 100% sure what I just ate for dinner. I mean, I know what the elements of the food were. I know what went into my food, so empirically, I do know what I ate for dinner.

But knowing what went INTO a dish isn't the same as knowing what the dish......is.
Let me explain, before you all stop reading.

Last night, Jesse and I went out for Restaurant week. I think I've written about restaurant week before, but in case you're just picking me up, here's the jist: NYC loves their restaurants. New York knows that restaurants are expensive. So, to thank the New York faithful who continue to pay tons of money for the pleasure of eating fancy food, the New York restaurants pick a 12-day period in January, and again at the end of July, where fancy famous restaurants offer fixed-price 3-course menus at lunch and dinner.
In the past, we have gone to Steak Frites, Aspen, and Butter. This year, we went to Zoe. It was delicious. I need to give this place its own blog, but regardles, I have to discuss the mussels that I had as a starter. They were steamed in a red curry coconut broth. The broth would have been a fabulous soup all on its own. In fact, when I replicate it, I will serve it with rice and make it a soup. I will make it soup without the mussels. The coconut milk and red curry paste were so perfect, and I've only ever had mussels steamed in white wine, so it was pretty different for me. But it was delicious. I would have eaten just the mussels all night. But, fortunately, we also had delicious entrees and paradigm-shifting desserts. Life is good.

However, Jesse has either come down with a stomach bug, or contracted a mild something-or-other from the restaurant. So he is not eating. I therefore had to fend for myself.
As I've previously stated, I'm not big on cooking for one. Unless that one is Jesse, or someone else that I love. I'm not so good at cooking for just me. I'll usually just make a big plate of spinach and call it a salad, or scramble an egg, or make a grilled cheese if I'm feeling fancy. I'm clearly not very good at taking care of myself. But, tonight I was also starving, and basically needed some food.

So I made.... something.
I started out simple. Hashbrowns. Basically an excuse to eat 2 leetle red potatoes - I have no shame.

Then, I steamed the left-overs of a bag of frozen stir-fry vegetables, and melted some butter in a frying pan. I threw 1/4 of a cup of rice in, stired it around a bit, and then added a can of Muir Glen fire-roasted diced tomatoes with green chiles. I added about half a cup of chicken stock, and let it simmer away. I added probably another half-cup of chicken stock over the cooking, until the rice was cooked. Then I stirred in the steamed formerly-frozen veggies, and a whole ton of shredded "taco" cheese.
I put a couple fried eggs and some more cheese on top. I ate it. It was yummy. It wasn't a casserole. With beans it could have been huevos rancheros sans tortillas. With chicken, and baked, it would have been a casserole. My original idea was to make it a scramble, but we only had 2 eggs and that would have been dwarfed by the quantity of other stuff.
I'm going to be eating it tomorrow for lunch, hopefully.

Hopefully Jesse will be feeling better by tomorrow. Because I don't like ie when my love is sick. And of course I don't like cooking for one.

Woohoo!!! Celebrate!!

This is my 100th post.
Just so we're clear on this. That's huge. Because that means that roughly every 3-4 days since I started this blog, I've posted food talkings or food ramblings or recipes. That's a lot more frequently than I talk to my mom, a lot more frequently than I hang out with most of my friends, a lot more frequently than I keep track of putting my clothes away after work.

In celebration:
No, I did not take this in a chip shop. Not even in Chip Shop. This was taken in my own apartment, on my plate, a picture of fish, and chips, that I cooked in my kitchen.
Trust me when I say this. It is worth the effort. It is worth the lingering scent of frying. It is worth the small grease burns I received. The only way it would have been better is if I had let it drain properly, possibly if I had floured before dredging. But basically.... this was fantastic. Delicious. Frying potatoes is worth the time. Frying the fish is absolutely fantastic. The recipe I used wasn't really a recipe. I used 2 cups of flour, salt, pepper, a beer, and buttermilk. Basically, I poured in the beer, the batter looked like a dough, so I added buttermilk until it looked like thin pancake batter. Then, I dunked the tilapia filets, and dropped then in some 375-degree vegetable oil until they were golden brown. About 5 minutes. Tilapia cooks quickly. It's delicious.
The potatoes I sliced about a quarter-inch thick, and then cut them into fries. I fried them for 10 minutes, salted them, and left them to drain on a sheet of paper bag in the oven in a 225 degree oven afterwords.
The whole thing was dleicious with some HP Brown sauce and another Toasted Lager or two. The grease hangover will come. But for now... I am totally happy that I undertook this as my hundredth post.
Tonight, it will be fried chicken. NOT deep-fried. Just my traditional way. Maybe for post 101, I'll photograph the whole process, so you can see what I do and why my fried chicken is so good that my Oklahoma-born boyfriend requests it and calls it the best he's ever had. (He could be just being nice, but he's not like that. Seriously.)
Stay tuned!!


*EDIT* Blogger lied. This is not my 100th post, but my 96th post. Harrumph. Apparently, they count "drafts" as "posts". Even the abandoned ones that are nothing more than a title. So... I lied. But not really. We'll just celebrate again on my ACTUAL 100th post. So there!!

The inevitable slowdown

This week, I have been.... uninspired. To say the least. I've cooked. I've done things. The recipes are mostly out of books. I'm just... not wowed lately.
On Monday, Fresh Direct stretched their delivery policies to the limit. Saying that they will deliver between 8 and 10 has meant in my experience, that they're coming around 8:30, 9:00 latest. This particular Monday, Fresh Direct's drivers arrived at, no joking, 9:57pm. Amazing.
So once we got the groceries, and tucked them away, I set about making dinner. Sauteed turkey cutlets marinated in lemon juice and herbs, and sauteed green beans.
The turkey was pretty straightforward - honestly, it was 2 lemons' worth of juice, some thyme and sage, salt, and pepper, marinated for 10 minutes and then sauteed in olive oil.
As I've mentioned, I have a....problem with overcooked green beans. So I blanched them in salt water, shocked them in ice water, and then sauteed them in butter with lemon zest, salt and pepper.
The turkey breasts got to rest while I made a quick sauce of chicken stock, cream, and a little bit of butter. It was pretty tasty, especially a couple days later on a bed of spinach cold at lunchtime.


On Tuesday, we had miniature meatloaves with gorgonzola gravy, and proscuitto smashed potatoes. I was not wowed by this meal. From now on, I will make my own meatloaf, as opposed to following Rachael Ray's recipes. Because this meatloaf was a lot like a hamburger and not much like meatloaf. It was very intensive and dirtied a lot of pots. I would recommend that if you make this, do not make 4 mini meatloaves, sear them, and then bake it. Make 1 big meatloaf and bake it. It won't be a 30-minute meal, but it'll be better. Then you'll only dirty 1 frying pan, 1 saucepot, and 1 stock pot for the potatoes, and 1 cookie sheet for the meatloaf.

Oy. The meatloaves tasted a bit like hamburgers, only y'know.... made of veal and sirloin.... and drowned in a gravy that didn't really have enough time to develop any flavor. This is a common complaint with Rachael's recipes. I think this one is better done by oneself. Don't follow Rachael's recipe 100% if you're making this. Use it as a guideline, and season. seriously.

Wednesday, yesterday, I made Baked Eggs with Bacon and Tomato Bread Salad.
This is another Rachael Recipe, but this one was pretty good. I tried to beef it up, so to speak, because I didn't have a microwave to defrost the package of frozen spinach. So I added some sliced mushrooms, half an onion, and a couple garlic cloves to a skillet. When they were all nicely sauteed and stuff, I added fresh spinach, and some proscuitto shredded up. That all sauteed for a bit, before adding some chicken stock and cream. However, the double bulk of frozen spinach would definitely have soaked up more of the stock/cream than my 5-ounce package of fresh spinach did. Then, that mixture was seasoned (of course) and spooned into 2 small oval casserole dishes that will someday be used for creme brulee.... 2 eggs got cracked into each dish, the whole thing got covered in cheese, and it was baked for about 12 minutes in a 400-degree oven.

The salad was amazing. A couple slices of bacon, and some proscuitto, sauteed until crispy. 4 slices of bread, toasted up and then rubbed wtih a garlic clove and buttered. Then, cubed up, tossed with halved cherry tomatoes. The bacon drained and a quarter of an onion sauteed in the bacon grease and a little olive oil. Bacon tossed with the tomatoes and bread chunks. 2 tablespoons of balsamic went into the skillet with the onion and bacon grease. Then, a lot of black pepper and 2 tablespoons of olive oil.
The dressing got thrown into the bowl with the bread, bacon, and tomatoes... NOM!!!

Now tonight, I think we're having pasta with burst cherry tomatoes, green beans, and garlic. Tomorrow, Fish & Chips. Saturday, Fried chicken. CHECKIT!!

Here we are again!

Last night, I had cooking school!
Marla came over and I taught her to make Walnut Crusted Chicken, which I cooked for her almost a year ago now. Instead of the Goat cheese mashed potatoes I made last time, I used gorgonzola. Otherwise, incredibly similar.

We were incredibly classy, drank some Bud Light, and played a little Rock Band after the flour flew and the chicken cooked. :) It was a lovely night, and now Marla can cook this dish for several of her friends who are excited about it. I'm glad to hear that people are excited about Marla's explanation of my food!

Tonight, we used up the left-over walnut chicken breast, as well as a bigol' can of crushed tomatoes that was in the cabinet from last week's Tortilla Soup situation. I made a simple tomato sauce -- 3 garlic cloves, 1 shallot, the can of crushed fire roasted tomatoes, salt, pepper, and a teaspoon of sugar. I boiled some whole wheat pasta (Barilla. It. is. deeeelicious.) and when the sauce was all bubbly and yummy, I threw the cut-up chicken in. When the pasta was done, I drained it and mixed it in with the sauce, chicken, and some cheese. I've suddenly learned how to take decent photos of my food with a crappy camera, so we'll see more photos with some actual quality. Get excited!!

Full disclosure

I like cake batter more than I like cake. I like it a hell of a lot better than I like cupcakes. I'd rather just take the cake batter, and a spoon, and go to town. That being said....
these ones were pretty good, if I do say so myself. And oh-so-simple. Yellow cake, and, I'll admit it, Chocolate Fun-Fetti icing.
Enjoy. :)

I make good

Mid week post. Here we go.
I love planning recipes. I love figuring out what we're going to eat. I love sitting with Jesse and talking about the week's food, because he has some interesting ideas about flavor, about texture, about food in general. The last time we ordered groceries, Jesse decided that we should have Chicken Tortilla Soup. Mind you, he had never consumed said dish, nor had he any idea what was in said dish. But he requested it. And I live to serve. OR at least, to come up with 7+ meals a grocery trip.

Sunday, January 11
So Sunday, it was Chicken Tortilla Soup. I used a recipe that I found on Epicurious -- which reminds me, if you're not a member of Epicurious, shame on you. Shame shame shame. Join now. NOW.
I didn't really do the recipe the way it said to. I didn't want to buy chiles. I didn't want to buy fresh tomatoes. I don't know what on earth epazote is. So.... I went old school. I bought canned fire-roasted tomatoes with diced green chiles (I suppose this would be the spot for Ro-Tel?), I used homemade chicken stock, I used parsley, and I used tortilla chips. I'm a rebel. I'm a half-asser. I'm a crazy lady. You love it.
I did some shoddy math and I'll admit that. I used a whole 28-ounce can of crushed fire-roasted tomatoes. AND a 15-ounce can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes with green chiles. You should use JUST 1 15-ounce can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes with green chiles (or Ro-Tel) and NO BIG CANS. So I just mixed together the cans of tomatoes with the appropriate amount of other ingredients (couple-two-tree big sprigs of parsley instead of whatever epazote is) and let it go. I crumbled in tortilla chips. I used the blender. I used my own stock instead of stock-in-a-box but you could totally use the boxed. I just happened to have a big orange bowl of it in the fridge.
I don't know what cooking the tomato mixture in the oil did for it. But I fully respect that it was supposed to do something. In the end, it was way more tomatoey than it was, I feel, supposed to be. But I still enjoyed it. Garnished with chopped avocado, shredded cheese, and tortilla-chip crumbs, and served with cheesey biscuits, it was ..... well.... nom.

Monday, January 12
This was risotto night. As we all know, I love making risotto. I will put anything in a risotto that I can think of. Monday, it was beef broth (boullion cubes.... don't judge), marsala, red chard, sauteed mushrooms, cannelini beans, and gorgonzola. It was amazing. I didn't take a picture. I was too busy eating. I'm sorry.

Tuesday, January 13
Again, I'm sorry, no photo. Quiche. Pie crust was made in my new food pro from a few entries back, and I love it. So easy. So fast. So wonderful. My favorite thing about pie, or quiche, or tart, is always the crust. This crust was lovely. The filling was not my best, but by far not the worst. Caramelized onions, thick-sliced rind-on bacon, swiss cheese, egg, cream, parsley. Pretty good. Even better with HP Brown Sauce the next day. No lie.

Wednesday, January 14
There's some saying that necessity is the mother of invention, and invention is the necessity of mothers. Invention is also the necessity of girls who have nearly-empty fridges and don't want to have "Mus-go" night (when my mom would have left-overs for dinner, she called it mus-go night, becuase everything must go). So... as any 20-something would, I reached for the peanut butter. For my birthday last year, my mom got me a 6-pack of PeanutButter & Co.'s gourmet peanut butters. One of them, which we never opened, was their "The Heat Is On" -- spicy peanut butter. So tonight I made spicy peanut-garlic noodles. I boiled roughly 3/4 of a pound of whole-wheat spaghetti, and minced 3 cloves of garlic. When the pasta was almost al dente, I sauteed the garlic in olive oil for a few minutes -- 2 or 3 tops. I added the garlic to about 3/4 of a cup of the spicy peanut butter, which you can make by taking plain ol' smooth peanut butter and adding hot sauce, chili powder, cumin, and red pepper flake to your taste. Then, I added a cup of the pasta water, and the drained pasta. I shredded in a few leftover baby yellow carrots, and called it dinner. :)
I know, it looks like beige pasta. It looks boring. I assure you, it's not. It's spicy and delicious and it's almost like cold sesame noodles, which I (not-so-secretly) secretly love. Try this. Seriously. And bonus points for mixing your own spicy stuff with plain peanut butter, because then it's exactly as you like it.
And we all love that!!

Technically, this is two posts in one.

So I missed 3 posts in one week, but not really. Y'see, nobody counts Mondays as posting days -- especially not the first Monday back to work after a long break. And anyways, Saturdays shouldn't count, especially not this past Saturday, because I was cleaning. I did laundry. I picked up my floordrobe and put it all in the closet or the chest'o'drawers. That's gotta count for something, even if it's not actually blogging.
So this is the third post of last week, and the first post of this week. Sunday's a good day to start things over, right?

Wednesday, January 7
Our friends Steele and Laura came over for dinner!! I got to use my food processor!! I got to make ORZO!!! And Steele brought some of his amazing HOMEBREW!!!
It was a good night.

For dinner, I cooked a variation on Chicken Kiev, and orzo with spinach pesto. Mmmm....
For the compound butter, instead of shallot, garlic, and thyme, I used minced onion that had been rehydrated (why chop an onion when you're only using a tablespoon?), I think a small garlic clove, parsley, salt and pepper. And Butter. Obviously. I whirled it all around in my food processor Tuesday night, so that the flavors could get all comfy with each other overnight in the fridge. Then, I wrapped it up in parchment paper and let it sit.
Wednesday, Steele was incredibly helpful and smashed the crap out of the chicken breasts for me. I put 2 rounds of compound butter, a few spinach leaves, and some swiss cheese inside the chicken breast, and then rolled them up and proceeded as usual. They got to sit in the fridge for about an hour while we waited for Laura and Jesse to show up... which I think only helped things, because the recipe actually tells you to let them sit for about 4 hours after you've rolled them up - but who the hell has that kind of time??
They were baked as usual. WHile they were in the oven, I boiled the orzo and made the spinach pesto - about 2/3 of a bag of spinach, 1 garlic clove, some parsley, and salt, pepper, and cheese. Olive oil. A little lemon zest. WHIIRRRRLLL in the food-pro with some olive oil drizzled in until it was all delicious.

Thursday, January 8
Beer and pizza were required for watching the BCS title game -- Steele's homebrew, my cast-iron skillet pizza, and the Sooners..... sad. :(
The pizza, however, not sad. Delicious. I made my traditional pizza dough, no beer added because as much as Steele's delicious beer makes me want to bake, I wanted to drink it, not waste it in pizza dough. So, the crust got some flavor punch instead from some garlic powder and dried parsley. After it rose, I heated up some olive oil with 3 cracked garlic cloves, some red-pepper flake, and more dried parsley.
Once I formed the dough in the skillet, I brushed the bottom crust with the oil (which I never remember is not a good idea unless you're GRILLING the pizza - always makes it oily.), then topped it with sliced mozzarella, sliced tomato, spinach, thinly sliced shallot, more of the flavored oil, more torn mozzarella, and shredded parm. I baked it, sprinkling more parm over the crust at various intervals, and then.... finally.... nom!!!
Too bad the Sooners didn't do as well as the pizza. There's always next year, and at least I got to see the Sooner Schooner run around once! :)

Friday, January 9
This dinner was seriously whelming. So whelming, in fact, that I didn't want to take photos. The side dish was delicious and I will definitely make it again, but the chicken part wasn't as awesome as I was hoping.
I took 2 chicken breasts and seasoned them with salt and pepper, poultry seasoning. I cut pockets in both, and stuffed them with swiss cheese and sauteed mushrooms. I wrapped bacon around them at put them in to bake. Then, I sauteed some shallot and garlic, and added some chopped-up Red Chard. When it was all soft and darker green, I added about a cup of total liquid, which is too much. 1/3 of a cup of chicken broth, and 2/3 of water. I let that simmer away for a while, and then added about half a can of cannelini beans, with the liquid that was attached to the beans. And of course, salt, pepper, some red pepper flake. Usual suspects for when I make greens.
It simmered away until most of the liquid was reduced. I added about a tablespoon of butter and some grated parm, and served it with the chicken breasts.
I need to cut a bigger pocket in the chicken, I need a more flavorful filling, and I need to season more. Probably a stronger cheese. Maybe use skin-on chicken breasts if I can find them, I don't know. Something to work on. Jesse just suggested butterflying the chicken breasts, then stuffing and folding them over like a book. This is a good plan. We won't abandon this one just yet.

Saturday, January 10
The good old standby. RoniCheese. I used pre-shredded "seriously sharp" Cabot cheddar, and pre-shredded Kraft "nondescript swiss" cheese. I used tri-color radiatore. You may not know this about me, but I have some negative history with tri-color pasta. When I was in college, every time I'd buy the tri-color cheese tortellini from Barilla, I'd boil them in broth and eat them as a sort-of soup. And every time, the spinach ones would be undercooked. Spinach pasta and I have been at odds for a long time.
This time, however, the spinach pasta knew its role, and knew it was destined for some delicious cheese sauce bathing, so it cooked up properly and was pretty darn delicious. DuMont Burger uses radiatore pasta in their heavenly Mac & Cheese - the one that inspired me to make my own so I didn't have to pay 14 dollars every time I wanted some.... which is all the time.
I think I prefer the old standard of Cavatappi pasta, gruyere and ementaller cheese -- although the Leerdammer we had last time I made it was spectacular, so maybe we'll go with that instead of ementaller in the future.
In any event. This one was pretty good, and I can't complain. Especially because I'm about to go eat the left-overs. NOM!!!

Until next time. :)

A few thousand more words

I get bogged down with the pressure of blogging. I cook something. I take photos. I sit down or don't sit down but suddenly somehow it's 11:30, I've gotten completely wrapped up in a Law & Order, SVU mini-marathon on TBS or an hour of Diners, Drive-ins & Dives on Food Network, or the like.... and I've failed. Yet again. To blog.
Jesse offered me a less ambitious goal for the new year's resolution. 3 blogs a week. I can handle 3 blogs a week. IT's way less pressure than 7 blogs a week, way more likely I'll keep up with it. If nothing else, I can do what I'm about to do and just post a crap-ton of pictures.

Flashback!!!!
December 23. Big Plate o'Yum.
Fried Chicken, mashed potatoes, exchanging Christmas gifts with Jesse, making candy, wrapping gifts, etc etc.






Where else would you find a young, pretty 20-something on the first Friday night of 2009??
Of Course!
In her apartment....










...baking cookies on a whim. Trust me on this one: don't substitute shortening for butter. Even if you just bought butter and don't want to use up 2 sticks in one go. Use the butter. Becuase shortening is easy, it's friendly, it's always at room temperature.... and 30 minutes later, your cookies are hard as a rock and you're disappointed. Plus, they don't get all brown and yummy.

Continuing the trend of ugly but delicious food....
Java pot roast from Crockpot365. If you try this recipe, definitely use salt. Season the meat. Don't use balsamic. Just because it says "vinegar" on the bottle does NOT mean it's the same thing. I'd recommend using wine if you don't have Red Wine Vinegar. But the balsamic definitely left an extra *twang* that you're not always looking for to go along with a half-package of cream cheese.





And then, there were two great loves in my life....
My brand new (ok, ok fine.... refurbished) Cuisinart Food Processor that also has a blender caraffe!!!!!! (the other one is Jesse, so we're clear) which enabled me to make......
SPINACH PESTO!!!! Glee!!!
I am honestly ridiculously excited for the oncoming pesto-ness. Pesto with basil, with parsley, with spinach, arugula, piscachios, walnuts, hazlenuts, roasted red peppers, sundried tomatoes --joy. Plus, I can make milkshakes and my own mayonnaise (yes, I know using the blender would be cheating....) all sorts of amazing things.


Which brings us to tonight, when I made tomato soup and panini...all comforty-like...
True story: halving canned tomatoes and roasting them at 325 for half an hour ish really DOES make them taste better!! And if the sugar in the juices doesn't burn your parchment paper, you could probably roast them longer and it would make it even better. Not that I know anything about the juices of the canned tomatoes burning the parchment paper. Nope, not this expert cook. certainly not.

Alright. Round one complete. Next time.... round 2. Hopefully figuring out how to post recipes and pictures without getting all bogged down and stuff. Or at least ingredients. Procedures..... something..... I hope. :)

Wrap up, move up, catch up.

I love homey comfy foods. I've mentioned this before, I'm sure. But I do. I love foods that are rich and savory and simple and....delicious. They're not always the most photogenic foods, although I will admit to the occasional beautiful roast chicken. But most of the things I love to make aren't "money-shot" foods. They're just darn tasty.
Recently, we've had a lot of that. A couple weeks ago, I made a bangin' meatloaf. I used both beef and veal, sauteed carrot, celery, shallot and mushrooms, bisto, marsala wine, egg, crumbs, and parm. It was delicious. I'm not sure why it was so good.... but it was bangin'.
I made a roast chicken on Monday, one of the better ones I've ever made, and also one of the most winged ones ever -- I literally had no idea what I was going to do with it until I started doing it. Luckily, the amount of Firefly Sweet-Tea vodka that Lyssa and I had consumed throughout the day did not compromise the quality of the chicken. I salted it inside and out, sprinkled pepper and poultry seasoning over the skin and smeared it with olive oil. I snuck a pat or two of butter under the skin on each side of the breast, and a bay leaf. I stuffed half an onion and half a lemon in the chicken's cavity, and put it in my pre-heated casserole dish breast-side down, flipped it after 10 minutes, gave it another 10, and then added in some baby yellow carrots, turnip, onion, and garlic cloves that were all tossed with olive oil and salt and pepper.

Marvelous. And it's making a marvelous stock as well.
I also had a go at eggplant parm, which is funny because I've never cooked or eaten it before it my life. Luckily, parm is a pretty standard procedure, and baking breaded eggplant smothered in sauce and mozz was something I was down for.

Yesterday, to properly bring in the new year, I made New Years Lucky Lentils -- in some traditions, specifically the ones I ascribe to since Jesse doesn't like beans, lentils are eaten on New Year's day, because they resemble coins and are said to bring luck and money. They were ugly. But delicious.
I'm sure that this is a lot like how to cook collards, but having never had collards, I had to go my way. So -- an onion, and a rib of celery cooked until softened in some butter and olive oil. Then, garlic and proscuitto were added, while Red Chard was prepped. Salt was obviously added. The chard was sweated and softened and cooked down until it was time to add the lentils. These got sauteed sort of with the chard and the stuff, just generally trying to convince them to suck up some of the buttery vegetabl-y goodness. Then, about a quart of chicken stock and a couple red pepper flakes went in. It simmered for about 45 minutes, maybe an hour. Served over rice, it was delicious, but as I said before....ugly.

Tonight, it's burgers. Tomorrow, soup I think, from the stock I'm making tonight. Also, we have pot roast, in the slow-cooker, on schedule.

I resolve to blog more, try new things, give you pictures.

1,000 words

Perfectly-made falafel. 2 cans chickpeas, 1 partially drained, 1 fully drained. 1 teaspoon baking soda. 3 big tablespoons flour. Hot sauce. Parsley. Cumin, curry powder. Garlic. Shallot. Salt. Pepper. Mashy mashy with a potato masher.
Form into balls.
Roll in seasoned breadcrumbs.
Deep-fry in vegetable oil or sunflower oil or any kind of oil you feel like.
Try to not drool into the oil.

And then.... nom. Amazing. I have no more.

We have a winner

Last night, I made an old fave. One that I haven't made in probably 6 months.
Penne alla Vodka with Chicken Meatballs. Yum!!
And because I haven't had any batteries, and I suddenly got some really good batteries for my digital camera, I took pictures!! Aren't you excited? So, a photo-heavy entry it is.
Step 1: Meatballs are made and pan-fried:

These end up a little funny shaped, because they get cooked on one side until they are golden and gorgeous..... and then they get all turned about and golden and gorgeous on other sides:




Mmmmm..... Golden brown and gorgeous.




The sauce is onions and garlic sauteed together until they get all soft and pretty. Then, you add vodka, tomatoes, cream, salt, pepper, and eventually, the meatballs. Mmmm!!!










Then, you add the cooked pasta straight in, mix it all up, and plate. NOM!!!!













Also, this was a gratuitious chance to show off my Le Creuset again.

I love this meal. I love Penne Alla Vodka. Especially with chicken meatballs. And when the vodka is Georgi.

Enjoy!!

And here I'm drinking milk.....

Sunday is generally the day that I catch up on all the food blogs I haven't read during the week, pick out new recipes that I want to make or want to read again, and troll for new food bloggers that I don't read yet. We'll get to Sunday in a minute.

Saturday, Jesse and I were busy. We went out to brunch at Essex, the perpetual favorite, where I once again, for probably the millionth time, got the spectacular Mexican Matzo Brei. The table of tourists next to me asked me what it was, and one of them ordered it. It's delicious. Scrambled eggs, tortilla chips, all manner of veggies and cheese, with black beans and pico. Amaaaaazing. Mmm :)
After that, we walked up to the Union Square Christmas Market, and did some Christmas shopping. GLEE!! I love Christmas, and sending people gifts, and all that fun stuff. Combining giving people gifts, with a big meal, is the best idea ever. Trust me. My favorite holiday. Evar. Then, we headed to Target, to procure lights, ornaments, and the various acoutrements that accompany one's first Christmas tree. And, from a vendor on Atlantic..... THE TREE!!!! :)
We came home, set it up, and set our penguin topper atop the branches. It looks beautyful. I promise, I will post a picture once there are wrapped presents under it. :) We watched Rudolph and Charlie Brown Christmas. And then I remembered that I should probably get around to making dinner. So, I baked 2 butternut squash, for soup.

I cut them in half, scooped out the seeds, and poured butter with cumin and curry powder all over them, on the cut side AND the outside. And of course, liberal salt and pepper. I baked them at 440 for about 45 minutes.
(and then I cut Jesse's hair. I love at-home haircuts).

When they came out, I let them cool and diced up a shallot (small) and half an onion, and a stalk of celery. I put those in a soup pot with some olive oil to sweat out, and added a little salt. When the squash were cool enough to handle, I poured the last of my chicken broth (a cup and a half tops) into the soup pot with the aromatics.
After that went in, I started peeling the squash. Are you supposed to peel butternut squashes before baking? I always peel after. I dunno. So anyways, I realized that pulling off hte peel by hand was too slow. So, since they were mush already, I just grabbed a spoon and scooped out the flesh, into a bowl with all the juices and residual buttery goodness. I added that to the stuff already in the soup pot, stirred, and added 2 cups of water, as well as more salt, pepper, cumin, and curry powder.
All that came up to a bubble, I tasted, re-seasoned, and then, busted out my immersion blender. Off the heat, I buzzed the soup up. It's nice. Even more savory than last time. I think the stock was superior. Fresh Direct recently started carrying another brand of boxed stock, which is WAY better than College Inn's watery-looking stuff. Much thicker, cloudier, chickenier. Smells better. Looks better. Yields better results. I'm sold.

Today, after fiddling around for a few, I came upon a post at Cooking After Five, for Homemade Oreos. She got the recipe at Smitten Kitchen, which is where I got it from as well, when I made them today.

Both CookingAfterFive and I made a rookie mistake, making cookies that were way too big. Deb at Smitten Kitchen's recipe makes, reportedly, 25-30 sandwich cookies. I got 16. Next time, using JUST a teaspoonfull, no rounding, and I'm smashing them down. These did not spread and thin out that much at all. Also, it explains the OVER ABUNDANCE of cream filling I have left over. Next time.... and there will be a next time.... I'll do better.


Argh. I was trying to post a beautiful photo that Deb took of her cookies, but Blogger and I are having a fight. I'm going to go eat another Josie-O. Dunked in milk. So there.

...Ain't nothin' wrong with that!

Cornbread, immortalized by Chris Rock in "No Sex in the Champagne Room", is one of those things I should really make more often, considering how much I love it. And how easy it is. I made some off the back of a bag of cornmeal today while I was bored. And I was rewarded with some deliciousness. I'm sitting here, contemplating eating the rest of the pan, knowing I should save it for Jesse, or at least for us to share. It's difficult.
This cornbread is pretty dead simple:
1 cup of cornmeal, 1 cup of flour. 1/4 cup of sugar, 3 teaspoons of baking powder, 1(admittedly, heaped) teaspoon of salt. 1/4 cup of shortening cut into the dry ingredients. 1 egg & 1 cup of milk beaten together. Added to the dry mix. Swipe, swipe, swipe, allow for lumps, don't stress. Bake 22 minutes at 425. Nom!!

I'm making a lentil-and-kale dish to accompany some lovely salmon filets for dinner tonight.
The lentils went into a pot with 2 slices of thick-cut bacon, half an onion, and 2 chopped up garlic cloves. about 2 cups of water and a cup and a half to 2 cups of chicken broth. After 15 minutes, I added a few chopped-fine leaves of lacinato kale, and some red pepper flake and salt.

The salmon, I'm planning to just pan-cook, sprinkled with salt, pepper, and lemon juice. I don't go for fully-cooked salmon. Medium-rare is fine with me. :)

Mmmm.... lentils and cornbread. Yum!

But of course

So Giada DiLaurentiis is on tv, and that gives me half an hour to blog, because I can't really stand her and I don't feel the need to watch while she's on. So.... blogging.

This week was rough food-wise, because I've been working late every night. But this coming week will be spectacular (I hope)

Monday night I worked till about 8. I don't like working till 8. On my way home, I was feeling very bummed out, because I didn't want to eat left-over red beans and rice, and because I didn't want to have worked so late and.... anyways. I stopped at the grocery store next to the subway station, trying to see what they might have for dinner. I found a pound of London Broil (not a cut, but a mehtod, I know!) for ridiculously inexpensive. So I decided we would have, essentially, steak au poivre on the cheapy-cheap. London Broil, frozen french fries, pseudo-au poivre sauce. YUM!

I sprinkled the steak with olive oil, salt, pepper, and my uncle's dry rub (again, it appears to be granulated onion, garlic, rosemary, and possibly cayenne). I let it hang out for a while, turned on the oven for the french fries, and when everything was hot, I put the fries in the oven, and the London Broil under the broiler.

I sauteed some shallots in butter, and then added the left-over cognac from when I made Steak Au Poivre last time. I didn't flame it, instead just letting the alcohol boil off a little. Then, I added half and half, instead of cream, simmered it a little, and ta-daaaa, everything was ready!! Yum.

Tuesay, I worked till 8 again, and we ordered a pizza.
Wednesay, we had Velveeta shells & cheese. Don't judge me. I worked till 8.
Thursday, I made some bangin' biscuits. They're my basic biscuits, stolen from Alton Brown. I added a huge hunk of grated romano cheese too, because I wanted to have savory cheesey biscuits. And they were delicious. I added a quarter cup of extra milk because I was trying to compensate for the cheese adding bulk. I didn't need to, and ended up dusting with way more flour than generally necessary. BUT, I baked them in the cast-iron skillet and they came out delicious!!! :)

Last night, I made chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes. It was delicious. There are 2 CFS' left in the fridge, as well as some mashed tato and some gravy. I'll probably be having one of them for dinner tonight, since Jesse will be out at a surprise party and I'll be home alone watching the Big 12 Championship Game in hopes of seeing the Sooner Schooner run around the field after a score. :)

I'm a nerd.

Tomorrow night, we're having friends over for Mulled Wine and Macaroni and Cheese and Football and Rockband and Beer and ..... joy. :)

In which I hang my head in shame

Ok. I admit it. I fell right off that wagon. The one I was back on. I tripped, and I fell off. I can't even remember what I made, specifically, over the week and a half since I've last posted. Let's see. I know that I made chicken fingers on Friday the 21st, Chickpea and Leek soup and bread on Saturday the 22nd, Red Beans and rice, which deserves and will hopefully get its own post, on Sunday the 23rd.
Monday the 24th I made Chicken Cordon Bleu, and Tuesday the 25th I believe we ate left-overs. Wednesday, we departed for MA, and had pizza from Sorrento's after the journey. Thursday was a day of much cookery, involving roll-baking, pie-making, and risotto-crafting. Saturday around midday I made a wonderful turkey hash which will find its way onto the menu at 2 chairs during the holiday season. It was so easy too.... shallots and garlic in butter, then turkey and mashed potatoes mixed together in the pan, and pressed down so they got a little crusty. 2 eggs on top. Delicitude.
Saturday night I made Mac & Cheese, complete with a vegetarian version for my brother, which was pretty awesome despite not posessing any pancetta. I learned from my earlier mistake with the risotto, and tasted the vegetable stock compulsively, and the cream sauce compulsively, to make sure it wasn't too sweet to be delish. I am happy to say that it was comforting, or so I hear from my mom. The regular came out as it always does.... well. :)

Tonight was supposed to be left over red beans and rice, but when your ghetto grocery store is carrying London Broil for 4 dollars a pound, you get on that. So we're having modified steak frites.... London Broil, french fries, and a sauce of some sort.

And now, with 3 and a half weeks till Christmas, we're in a serious stretch, and we're approaching the fist anniversary of this blog. Scary, but true!!!

In which it's delicious

The boiled kale was great. It really was. And in an amazing turn of events, I managed to make perfect toast. Like.... it was gorgeous. Beautiful toast.
Of course, it got all sogged up with the broth and the slippery kale and the egg yolk and the melting gruyere.... but still. For a minute, right between when I pulled it out of the broiler and when I smeared it all over with a garlic clove -- just golden, still soft, but crispy too.... it was wonderful.

So, the recipe, in case you didn't click on the link to Orangette.
1 medium yellow onion, diced.
2 tablespoons of butter and about the same of olive oil.
2 finely sliced garlic cloves.
A pinch of crushed red pepper flake.
Reportedly, about 8 ounces of kale. I used a bunch of Lacinato kale.
About 4 cups of a combo of water and chicken stock.

Put the oil and butter in a pot to melt up, and then add the diced onion while you're slicing the garlic and stripping the kale leaves away from the woody stems. When the onions are clear, but a little soft, add the garlic and a pinch of red pepper flake. Start slicing your (well washed) kale leaves into little ribbons - I did this by rolling them all up together and then slicing them perpendicular to the longest part (aka I took a leaf, stood it up, rotated it 90 degrees so it was lying on its side, and then cut it across so that my knife was going up and down)

Add the kale to the pot, with some salt, and toss it all around until the kale is all wilty. Then, add the water and stock until your kale is covered by about 1/2 an inch. Or until you get sick of it and have decided that it's done regardless. Not that this is when I stopped pouring in water or anything.... of course not.
Bring the liquid up to a simmer, and cover the pot while turning the heat down a little. You want it, apparently, to keep simmering and not boil. Whoops.

After about half an hour, fire up your broiler, slice your bread, and get your eggs out. Taste the kale - you might need to add salt. I sure did. Toast the bread up, and fry a few eggs. Perhaps get out the left-over hunk of gruyere that's in your fridge from Mac & Cheese making last week. To plate, grab the bread from the broiler and rub it all over with a garlic clove.
Put it in the bottom of a soup plate.
Spoon the kale and some broth over it. Shred some gruyere over (or parm/romano/whatevs), and then top with a fried egg. I'd recommend sunny side up -- Jesse's plate looked much more beautiful with the sunny-side eggs than my over-"quick before the top cooks too much" egg. More gruyere is always welcome here.

Nom.
I brought out a second slice of gorgeous toast for dipping and soaking and the like, because the first piece got really soggy really fast.

And to my darling reader in Tulsa, OK -- I promise that as soon as I have more batteries for the camera, I will take more pictures. For now, they're being utilized by the drums. Smooches.

In which there is no ketchup

I'm going to post this lunchbreak, to catch up to where we should be. I'm not going to backdate, even though i kind of want to. SO I'll admit. I broke National November Blog Posting Month or whatever it's called. But I got halfway through. Legitimately. And I'm not giving up and letting it go for the rest of the month, even though It'll be tough because Thanksgiving is coming. But regardless.... here we go.

Monday. November 17th.
The plan had been to use the left over pork shoulder cooked on Sunday and do something fabulous with it. But since it was bad, there was no help there. And we didn't really have much else in the way of.... food. Because when the plan ends, you need another plan ready to go.
So I turned to the staple of frazzled cooks everywhere.

Fritatta.

I had eggs, potatoes, an onion, and I scrounged up some pancetta slices. I even had some cheese left. (Honestly, I had a ton of cheese left). So, I shredded my potato and half the onion on my grater, and put them into a pan to cook like hash browns. These potatoes are weird, and kind of wet, so I had to press them out with a paper towel to get some of the moisture out so they would get a little crispy, instead of just mushy. I sliced up the pancetta into similar shapes as the potatoes and onion, and I got them in the pan as well. While everything got happy, I whipped up 6 eggs and some cream. Y'know, to ensure that we would still get our caloric intake for the meal.
I poured them in, on too high a heat, but whatever, and began to scramble. Added a little hot sauce, salt, and pepper. A little curry powder went in with the onions and potatoes.
It was good. I put shredded cheddar and the feisty romano on top. We finished off the boxed soup from last week, and had a small salad. Deeelish.
And of course, we had some ice cream with salted caramel sauce on top. Naturally.

Tuesday. November 18th.
The original plan for Tuesday was to have Pizza. Wall*E had arrived on BluRay and in honor of hte Captain of the Axiom and his desire for a pizza plant, we were going to order a pizza. But some things went crazy with our finances (ahem, holler student loan payment going up unexpectedly) and while we sort of have the money for pizza, it's all tied up in savings accounts and suchlike. Not accessible. So regardless.... we made pizza instead.
We didn't have much, so I worked with what we had.

Basic Pizza crust, sprinkled with mozzarella. Half a thinly-sliced onion. Garlic cloves smashied. Arugula. Gorgonzola crumbles. Olive oil over the top. Baked at 425 for about 20 minutes. Delicious. INcredible. You'd never know this was a refrigerator clean-out instead of a planned meal. In fact, I probably shouldn't have told you.
Strike all of the above. This was a totally planned pizza. We wanted to make our own. And we thought that the above ingredients would go perfectly together. And they did. Teh End.

Tonight, I think we're having boiled kale, inspired by Orangette, probably some others, Rachael Ray, and basically, my desire to be warm. I've wanted this for days, and I've never even had boiled kale before.
So, you'll get a post tonight, my loves. I promise. I'm back on the wagon.

In which we have a roast

So my original plan for tonight's dinner was to do something fun and fabulous with the remaining Pork shoulder that I hadn't turned into yummy pork tacos last week.
I was researching different things to do with the porky goodness, when I ventured to remove it from the fridge. It had gone bad. I didn't realize that pork could go bad so quickly. I was used to chicken, which you can put in the fridge for a week and it's ok. But, this huge hunk of pork was not ok. I had to throw it out.
This wouldn't have been such a huge problem if my dearest Kristin wasn't coming over for dinner tonight!! So I ran to the store next door, which thankfully has really really ghetto pricing, and bought a pork loin roast. It was kind of fab. I used a combination of a Tyler Florence recipe and a Nigella Lawson recipe, because among other things, I've never cooked roast pork before. I had mixed Tyler's rub before I bought the smaller roast, so I went for it, even though Tyler's rub is for pork shoulder, which means tougher meat out of which one needs to coax juices. It had a lot of salt in it. So, I rubbed it all over the pork, and set it to marinate like Nigella and Tyler recommended. I roasted it according to Nigella's instructions, although eventually I needed to pour some water into the roasting pan because things were getting a little dry. But in the end, it was pretty delicious and I'm sure that if I were to do something else, like butterfly it, rub the inside with flavored butter and herbs, and then tie it up and roast it with the butter stuff on the outside too, it'd be even better. The flavor didn't appear to soak into the meat all that much. I didn't slit the meat to allow the flavor to get in. I'm nto sure what the real issue was But basically, I'm ok with it. And we had mashed tatoes, and salad, and I got to see my girl for a while and talk. It was good.

Roast Pork a la Tyler and Nigella
Tyler Florence's marinade:

4 pasted garlic cloves (I used my microplane)
A handful of oregano (I used parsley since I didn't have oregano fresh) chopped up fine.
A tablespoon of salt for each pound of the meat.
A tablespoon of coarsely grated black pepper
2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar
3 tablespoons of vegetable oil (I used olive oil)

Nigella Lawson's marinade:
6 tablespoons olive oil
4 pasted garlic cloves
1 teaspoon salt
6 bruised peppercorns
6 crumbled bay leaves

In both cases, you rub the marinade all over the meat, contain it, and leave it to sit for as long as you can. Tyler recommends cutting slits about an inch deep into the fatty part of your pork shoulder, and I would also recommend doing this if you've got a pork loin roast, to let the flavors get more inside the meat. It was probably too salty, although all the salt created much juiciness. Pork just doesn't really taste like much without some flavorant.

So once the marinating was done, I used Nigella's roasting method, although I have a bone to pick with it.
She says to slice up 1 onion and put it in the bottom of the roasting pan, and then put 10 bay leaves on top of the onion, and the pork on top of that. Then, you roast for an hour and 45 minutes, at 400 degrees, basting regularly with "pan juices".
#1 - my onion burned up.
#2 - I had no pan juices. Maybe this is a result of the salty marinade crust thing. Maybe I should have added 3 more tablespoons of olive oil to the pan. But there was nothing with which to baste this sucker. So I had to just pour in some water eventually, to keep the onions fron burning so badly that they set off my smoke alarm or made the porky goodness taste like burning. I welcome any and all input for why the hell this happened.

Regardless, once the pork came out an hour and a half later, it was juicy and tender and the juices ran out and created a lovely little jus thingie that I spooned over the pork and the mashed potatoes to feed my hungry friend and my love.
And now I've said good night to my friend, and taken out the smelly trash. My fridge no longer stinks, and I'm much happier about all the rest of this stuff. Now.... to bed, and byebye till tomorrow!!!

In which I win

So I just created a recipe. Like, a muffin recipe. I worked it out in my own little brain and I made it and it's pretty darn delicious.
Shock. Awe. Amazement.

Apple Pecan Muffins, with a Salted Caramel Drizzle.

they didn't come out perfectly. They're a bit moister than I'd like, although that can be adjusted either by baking longer or by adding a touch more flours. I'm pretty confident. Plus, I could have created a drier applesauce by not ignoring the author's indications regarding the right amount of water to go into the saucepan with the apples. I need to not get over-confident. I need to remember that I don't know how to intuitively make everything. Like applesauce. Also, I should probably research apples to see which ones hang onto themselves a little bit better while cooking, because McIntosh and Gala are went to mush. And I probably should have held out a little longer while making the caramel drizzle. I pulled it before it got the right color, so it just looks shiny atop the muffins, instead of caramel-y. But.... next time.
Howevs. Here is my recipe. Tweak if desired.

Step 1. Applesauce
I borrowed the particulars of this from the recipe in Bon Appetit for Chaussons aux Pommes (apple turnovers).
4 apples. I used 2 Gala and 2 McIntosh, feel free to pick your faves. Peel, core, and chop up into chunks. Put in a saucepot with 1/4cup of water. Bring to a boil, and then cover and simmer until the apples are soft. Mash them with a potato masher. Let the applesauce cool.

Step 2. Pecans
I like roasted pecans. So I put them on a cookie sheet, and toasted them up in a 350 oven for a few minutes, then reserved them and let them cool too.

Step 3. Muffins
Preheat the oven to 350 and grease your muffin cups.
Put the following in your mixer's bowl:
1 3/4 cup applesauce
1 stick softened butter
1 cup brown sugar
Mix until everything is light and fluffy. If you have little bits of butter showing in the mixture, that's ok too, I had that.
Once everything is incorporated, add 3 eggs, one at a time. This bit is very wet, and there will be batter flinging all around regardless of how careful you are. Accept it. Scrub your walls.

While the Butter/Applesauce/Sugar are mixing together, in a separate bowl, combine the following:
3 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Mix these to combine.

Once all the wet ingredients are combined, take your mixer bowl off the stand, grab a spatula, and start adding in the dry ingredients a little at a time. Don't over-mix.... once you can't see the flour in the batter anymore, add some more. When you can stand your spatula up in the batter and it doesn't tip over, it's done.
Add the chopped up pecans. I probably added about a cup.

Depending on the type of apples you used, you may not need all the flour, and that's ok.
I used an ice cream scoop to get my batter into the muffin cups. These don't rise that much, so you can fill the cups right up to the top. You can totally use the paper liners if you want to, but you don't have to.

Bake them for 23 minutes, and then test by sticking a toothpick into the center of one. It probably won't come out clean. These took around 25 minutes for me. Maybe longer. Keep testing and adding on a minute or two. I wasn't watching the clock, sadly, as much as I was watching my caramel sauce. Cool them in the pans for about 10 minutes, and then take them out and cool them on a rack.

Step 5. Drizzle.
Make the Salted Caramel sauce:
1 cup of sugar
4 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons light corn syrup.

Put those 3 into a pot, stir until the sugar is dissolved, and then cover and cook for 3 minutes.
Uncover and boil until the caramel is a golden amber color, shaking the pot to make sure it doesn't burn. When it's a golden amber color, remove it from the heat and amass the following ingredients:
1/2 cup Heavy Cream
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon salt.

After 30 seconds off the heat, add the cream to the caramel. This will bubble up, don't be scared. Be brave. mix in the cream, then add the butter and salt. It's delicious. Let it cool.

Once everything is cooled down, drizzle the caramel over the muffins (put the cooling rack over a sheet of parchment paper on a cookie sheet) and let it sit for a few.
Enjoy!!!


They're so good. I'm pretty satisfied. And I see the potential and it's infinitel I'm trying it with bananas and walnuts next. GET EXCITED!!!!