Belated 4th of July

It's pretty clear that my blogging habits are in a sad state. I am literally months behind! There is no way that I can catch up in chronological order, so prepare yourself for some very random posts.

Today's comes from 4th of July, almost a month ago!
The 4th is all about patriotism, and when it comes to food, there is some pretty standard American fare. But in Maryland, on the 4th of July, national patriotism turned to state pride, and a desperate desire to have the first crab feast of the summer.

If I remember correctly, the day was kind of disappointing in terms of weather. It was very hot, humid, and rain clouds were threatening the sunshine all day long.

My sister and her boyfriend ( whose family's house we would be celebrating at later that night) spent all morning searching for good crab supply. With crabs in high demand and low supply (check the state of the Chesapeake if you have any doubts), and jacked up holiday prices, the search was not easy. They finally arrived at seafood market in DC (I don't know the details), where they bought 2 bushels of live blue crabs. AWESOME! They brought them back home, and put them on ice for a few hours to kind of put them asleep before their imminent deaths.

Meanwhile, I went grocery shopping for ingredients for a Gooey Butter Cake. What is a Gooey Butter Cake, you may ask? Why, the answer would be ... heavenly divine. Its a St. Louis specialty, born of a cake-baking mistake. There are now a large variety of recipes, some featuring cream cheese as the gooey top filling. But in many opinions, there is none better than the true gooey butter filling. (The St. Louis Bread Co., now referred to as Panera outside of the city, has a gooey butter cake danish, which is actually the only gooey butter cake I remember for my early childhood in St. Louis.)

We made two versions, by combining 3 different recipes, which might not have been a good idea. Cake A was made with a pound cake bottom layer and a cream cheese filling on top. Cake B was made with bottom layer from yellow cake mix, and a very very very gooey butter filling on top. Any guesses which took the cake? (HA! pun intended)
Cake B, no questions asked. There is no way to beat that much butter.

The heavy storms arrived just in time for our holiday crab feast. Of course. But nothing can stand between Marylanders and their blue crabs. So we pushed on, and steamed them in both our family's turkey fryers. It was awesome. But since the weather was so crappy, we had to feast inside. Not really that much of a problem. But if you have ever been to a crab feast, you will know that the indoors is not ideal for this type of eating.

The day as a whole was great, full of delicious food and memorable moments.

Weekend Escape

I went home on Friday night to escape the high stress of the end of the semester. And, of course, to partake in some home-cooked food.

Friday night we had bratwurst fresh off the grill! So good! Talk about a summer dinner on the back porch! I had never made them on my own, but only watched my dad make them. This time I helped, and the satisfaction was even greater.

Just take a look at that plate--->

Does that look like summer or what?

Saturday morning, my dad made juevos con chorizo-- eggs, veggies, and hot chorizo, mixed with mexican cheese and wrapped in a warm tortilla. This is a family breakfast favorite.

Before going back to school, I always like to cook or bake something to take back with me. My personal favorite, to bake and to eat, is oatmeal raisin cookies. I would take an oatmeal cookie over any other kind any day of the week. Not only are the delicious, they also help trick myself into believing that I am eating a 'healthy' version of a sugar and butter packed treat. Seals the deal right there!

I also made pasta salad to share with my Relay for Life team. Relay is a 12 hour event, through the night, in which at least one person from each team must be walking at all times. (All proceeds go towards fighting cancer!) It was going to be a very long night, and we would need sustenance.

Now, I don't know why, but I think pasta salad always intimidated me just a little bit. I think maybe it has to do with summer block parties, and all of the mom's bringing giant pots of it to share. I don't know why this would intimidate me, even in theory it doesn't seem very complicated. Anyways, I made pasta salad for the first time this weekend, and it was pretty darn good. It kind of turned into an 'everything-but-the-kitchen-sink' dish because I didn't really have any idea of where to limit myself. So if something sounded tasty, I would throw it in. This could have proved disastrous, but it turned out fantastic. Although that might also be personal bias and pride speaking...

I used a pound of pasta, a mix of two previously opened boxes. Cooked and drained.
Mixed in olive oil (enough to cover all the noodles) and balsamic vinegar (to taste, which also gave the noodles a darker color).
Mixed in some cooked veggies (mushrooms, peppers, onions), quartered and uncooked cherry tomatoes, fresh basil and oregano, red pepper flakes and salt to taste.
The final touch was about a tablespoon of Old Bay. And this made all the difference! The salad seemed like it was missing something until I added this.

We did not have olives or celery in the house, so these traditional ingredients were left out. I don't know that I have ever had pasta salad with mushrooms, but I feel that it gave the dish a nice taste, as well a unique twist. And I think my Relay team agreed. They devoured it almost as soon as we had set up our campsite!

Pretending to be a Food Network Star

"A lot of food shows need only to tempt. Some food shows only need to inspire, to empower. And there are a lot of shows that do that. "~ Alton Brown


I recently received a request that I include videos of me in the kitchen so that whoever is reading this can follow- just like on TV! I figured I would give it a shot, just to see how it would turn out. Not too bad actually!

Some friends and I already had plans to bake last night for the Honors Humanities Relay for Life Team bake sale. What a perfect opportunity! So we set up the camera and started rolling. It was a little terrifying and quite awkward, but still fun. The only problem is that halfway through our baking adventure, we stopped filming. We only have pictures to document the finished products now, but please enjoy what film we have!



We made brownies (yummy), chocolate cookies (also yummy, though we did forget to set the timer, ad therefore burnt the first batch just a tad), and cinnamon sugar breasticks (yummiest just because they were an improvised creation.

To Make Cinnamon Sugar Breadsticks
1 cannister/ package of pre-made pizza crust, bread stick dough (Pillsbury)
sugar, cinnamon, any other spices you desire
cookie sheets
Roll out the dough and cut into strip of about 1/2 inch to 1 inch in width.
Fold strips in two.
Roll in cinnamon sugar mixture.
Twist strips and lay on cookie dough. Make sure to leave space between the strips, especially if you are using the pizza crust (it tends to rise and expand).
Place in 350 degree oven for about 15-17 minutes.
Take out, let cool, enjoy!

Happy Birthday to ME!!!

Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words. -Plautus

Yes! Today is my birthday!
And what did I do to celebrate? Nothing too spectacular, besides NOT eating at the dining hall. And any time I don't have to eat there, my life becomes a little brighter. Instead we went to an off-campus place: Plato's Diner. Picture a college town diner, with a light infusion of Greek food. Sounds good to me! I got a yummy stuffed eggplant dish. I had never ordered it before, but it was really very good. Picture moussaka, but just baked in a piece of eggplant. Followed, of course, with a desert of baklava.

But we started the birthday celebrations by baking a cake yesterday. Keep in mind, when I say that we "baked a cake" it might not exactly be the picturesque vision you would want to see. First, we had to find our way into the only public kitchen on this side of campus. Second, take notice of the term 'public kitchen'. Available for anyone who can figure out how to get in there. Once we began, we suddenly realized that we had no mixing bowl, no measuring instruments, no mixing utensils. Luckily, it was a Betty Crocker just-add-water mix. With our genius intellect, we just dumped the mix and water into the tin foil pan, and began stirring with plastic forks. The mixed batter looked quite a bit questionable, but we baked it anyways and it turned out looking and tasting okay in the end.

There was only one problem, discovered upon taking the first bite. I am not a huge fan of Angel Food Cake. Even with funfetti baked inside. Oh well. Twas an adventure in any case.

My friends got me a stir-fry cookbook for a birthday present. I told them that when I sneak an electric skillet into our suite next year, I might try one of the recipes. As long as the outlets don't explode from too much flowing energy from the (technically-illegal-to-have-in-the-dorms) skillet. Oh well. That too will be yet another good story to share from my wild adventure of cooking in my non-existent college kitchen. Can't wait!

Good night, and happy birthday to me and any other April 17th babies!

"Man Can Live by Bread Alone"

I spent this past weekend at home again. Any guesses as to what I spent most of my time doing? If you guessed cooking, you would be correct!

I recently had my eyes opened to the wonderful and addicting website TasteSpotting. Big mistake. Although its not one that I would take back. I have spent countless hours in the past week pouring over pages and pages of this site, absorbing great ideas and salivating over delicious food photos. So, naturally, upon returning home for the weekend I had many plans up my sleeves. After pausing to think for a moment, and after my parents knocked some sense in to me, I decided a safer option, physically and mentally for all involved, would be to only make two loaves of bread. My goal being to perfect the art of bread making. And I guess it is better to have under your belt the skill to make an amazing loaf of plain white bread than to make a mediocre loaf out of a complicated recipe (even if I would feel very proud even completing such a complicated recipe).

Immediately upon walking in the door on Friday afternoon, I began James Beard's recipe for a White Loaf of Bread from the Beard on Bread cookbook, which I love by the way. (PS- I recommend the Banana Bread recipe in this book. With raisin or chocolate chips it is even better!)

Anyways, after mixing, kneading, resting, waiting impatiently, kneading some more, resting some more, and finally baking, it turned out, as my mother said, "like the beast Wonderbread in the world, except with a really good crust that Wonderbread lacks." Pretty good, huh? I guess I may be on the path to making a great white bread.

Next, I began a recipe that I found while browsing TasteSpotting. It is a No-Knead-Bread (NKB) which probably took a total of 16 hours to make. Time consuming, but for the large part of that time, the dough sat on the counter rising.

To begin, mix 3 cups of flour with 3/4 tbsp of salt, 1 1/2 warm water, and 1/4 tsp of instant yeast OR 1/4 tsp of dry active yeast proofed in the warm water.
Let the dough sit in the bowl, covered by plastic wrap and a towel, for 8-12 hours.
After taking a long nap, wake up, dump the dough onto a floured surface, and shape with wet hands.
Plop (that's the technical term) into a bowl with a floured towel. Cover and let sit for another 2 hours.
Preheat the oven oven at 450 degrees. Place the dish/pot/bowl which will hold the loaf into the oven to preheat for 30 minutes.
Plop (again) the risen dough into the pot and bake covered for 30 minutes.
Bake for another 15-20 minutes uncovered, or until the loaf sound hollow when rapped upon.
When finished, and looking deliciously devour-able, let cool.
Then slice open and DEVOUR!! I recommend just plain butter or fruit preserves to top the slice. ENJOY!!


Photos from left to right/ top to bottom:
Dough doubled in size after resting overnight; Dough shaped into loaf, resting and rising in floured towel in bowl; Finished loaf on cooling rack; Cut loaf- just look at those bubbles!!


To see the full and original recipe, visit Steamy Kitchen.

Enjoy!

Home for the Weekend!

That's right! I am home, which means that I can COOK!! and EAT!
I am once again reunited with a stove and oven- a.k.a. my loves.

So last night, I made myself dinner: Chicken with apples and onions. Yum, although I will definitely have to work on that recipe.





Then, for an extra level of fun... DESERT!!!
I made a mixed fruit pie- apples, raspberries,blackberries, and strawberries. And then, just to add a little more stress to the process, I decided to make a lattice top, instead of just a plain piece of pie crust laid on top. After all, Paula Deen made it look so easy on the Food Network. True, it wasn't ridiculously hard, but yet again, I will need to practice!
PS- I think I might just make another pie tomorrow!

YUM!!!