I will be upfront... this post has nothing to do with food. But Recently Aric and I got photos taken by Ashley Mauro, an amazing local photographer, and we wanted to share them with you.
We had spent almost a year dating long distance and were lacking in pictures taken together. Obviously the main reason for this was the distance but it also had something to do with the fact that we forgot to take pictures whenever we were together. So needless to say, I was determined to get some decent ones of us once I moved to Ohio. I contacted Ashley right away as I loved how she documented the pregnancy of my friend Christina and newborn pictures of her beautiful daughter.
She did not disappoint. We had a great time during the session with her and were beyond thrilled with the recent "sneak peek" of the finished products she posted on her blog www.ashleymaurophotography.blogspot.com.
While I am not the biggest PF Chang’s fan, Dawn and I do like the lettuce wraps. We often find ourselves sitting with friends and family at an oversized table enjoying a family style dinner. The highlight for us is always the lettuce wraps, so I wanted to give them a whirl. I found 2 recipes online that sounded good. Neither one seemed to be quite right, so I split the difference and mixed and matched as I felt was best, or as my lack of ingredients dictated. As both Dawn and I agreed that the wraps turned out excellent, I’ll try to recreate what I put together.
Before we get into the wraps themselves, we have to make the “special sauce” to pour over the wraps when we’re done. Here are the ingredients you’ll need:
- 1/8 Cup Sugar
- ¼ Cup Water
- 1 Tbsp Soy Sauce
- 1 Tbsp White Wine Vinegar
- 1 Tbsp Ketchup
- 2 tsp Lime Juice
- 2 tsp Oil
- 2 tsp Dijon Mustard
- Less than 1 tsp Red Chili Powder
- 2 Tbsp Asian Sweet Chili Sauce
These measurements made enough for Dawn and I; if you intend to have more people you will need to increase the recipe. There is nothing special to this sauce, mix it all together, then stick in the refrigerator while you make the rest. I was pretty nervous about it because it smelled a little interesting, but the taste was actually quite good.
We made both a meat and vegetarian version of the wraps, just like PF Chang’s offers. Here are the ingredients you’ll need:
- 2Tbsp Oil
- 2 Boneless Chicken Breasts (or some vegetarian Chicken, we did 1 part meat, 1 part vege)
- 1 can Water Chestnuts
- 2-3 Shitake Mushrooms
- ¼ Onion
- 1 Garlic Clove
- 1 Cup Chopped Roasted Cashews
- Butter Lettuce (we got Boston)
- 1 Tbsp Soy Sauce
- 1 Tbsp Brown Sugar
- ½ tsp White Wine Vinegar
Directions:
Mince the chicken and set aside. Mince the Water Chestnuts, Mushrooms, cashews, Onion and Garlic. Place the chestnuts, mushrooms, onion, cashews, and garlic in a frying pan. Add the oil, soy sauce, brown sugar and vinegar and sauté for a minute or 2. Add the chicken and continue to sauté until the chicken is fully cooked. When everything has been fully cooked, scoop into a lettuce leaf, top with the “special sauce” and serve.
So what's the first thing you have to do when you have a new toy? Exactly, test it out. I wanted to make a dinner that would give us vivid color and be fun to shoot in the new photo studio. Dawn has her go to recipe sources, and so do I. I’ve been a Bon Appetite subscriber for several years now. Every time I receive my new issue I cut out all the recipes that I want to try and stick them into my own recipe collection. Unfortunately I didn’t have my collection with me when I decided to plan the menu, so I browsed http://www.bonappetit.com/ while I ate lunch. I found 3 recipes worthy of the new studio.
I wanted to start the evening with an appetizer so I made cherry tomatoes stuffed with marinated feta. When I cook, I like lots of flavor. I was a little nervous that the recipe I was given would prove to be to lackluster for my pallet, but to my joy, I was happily impressed with the result. Let me walk you through the recipe. You will need the following ingredients:
- 1 Package of Feta Cheese (I’d recommend a block rather than crumbled)
- 2 Tbsp Olive Oil
- ½ Tbsp Minced Shallot or Green Onion
- 1 tsp of Chopped Fresh Oregano
- Pitted Kalamata Olives
- Cherry Tomatoes (get the largest ones you can find)
First you’ll want to marinate the feta. You will want to cut the feta into little cubes. The size will depend on how big your tomatoes are. The end result is to stuff a cube of feta and a slice of olive into the tomatoes so cut your cheese accordingly. Take the cheese, oil, shallot (onion) and oregano and mix in a small bowl. Let that sit for a few minutes while you prepare the tomatoes. Add a little salt and pepper for seasoning.
Cut the tomatoes in half, scoop out the tomato pulp with whatever works. I used a small knife. Stuff the hollowed tomatoes with a cube of the marinated feta and a slice of olive. After stuffing all the tomatoes, drizzle with a little more olive oil and if desired sprinkle with salt and pepper.
This recipe can be prepared well ahead of the meal.
Dawn and I fully admit that our blog photos have not been the best thus far. There are several factors that have contributed to this. 1.) We don’t have a particularly good camera for the type of pictures we need to take. So far we’ve been using my point and shoot or our iphones. 2.) Neither of us are particularly skilled in photography. And 3.) Generally our meals have been planned with curing our hunger as the main purpose, not strategizing the best presentation methods.
I was not happy with our pictures and was very jealous of the new camera Tim and Sherilyn bought in anticipation of their baby girl Kara, but I really wanted to find a solution to our poor quality pictures without breaking the bank to buy a new SLR camera. I did some searching online and found this article. The article outlines a do it yourself project to create a photo studio out of an old moving box for a total investment of around $15.00. Dawn and I decided to try it out. Here is what the finished product looks like.
It may have hit 80 degrees yesterday afternoon, but it is mid-October, and seeing all the colorful leaves falling to the ground along with the budding Halloween decorations has put me in the fall food mood. Combine my new mood and Dawn feeling a little under the weather and you have a perfect soup storm, so I chose to make one of my favorite soups last night. I don’t have a lot of soup making experience, unless you count Top Ramen or Campbell’s as soup making experience. In fact I can’t recall ever making any other soup than this particular recipe. If you’ve read any of my other posts you are probably well aware that I like asparagus, so it should come as no surprise that my favorite soup is an asparagus soup. This is a very simple soup, so for any guys who may be reading our blog, tuck this one away as a way to impress your lady.
Here are the ingredients you’ll need:
- 2 lbs of asparagus (just grab 2 bunches or whatever packaging they conveniently sell at the store)
- 1 large yellow onion (chopped)
- 3 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 5 cups broth (the original recipe asks for chicken, I used vegetable)
- Leaves of 2 sprigs thyme
- 1/3 cup heavy cream
- A squeeze of fresh lemon juice
- Salt and Pepper
Directions:
Start by preparing the asparagus. I always remove the bases. Call it habit or neurotic impulse, whatever. The bases are often weird colors, dry and just rather icky. The best way to remove the unwanted portion is to grab the very base with one hand, and grab the stalk about half-way up with the other hand and bend the stalk. It will naturally break at the point where the junky part ends and leave you with just the fresh and ripe part. After removing the bases cut the asparagus into ½ in sections. Reserve a few of the tops for a garnish.
Cook the onion in the butter. You’ll need a pretty good sized pot, probably 4-6 quarts. Let the butter begin to melt over medium-low to medium heat. Once the butter has begun to melt toss in the chopped onion. (I don’t know about the rest of you, but the onion I chopped last night really got to me. I started tearing up, which is not an unusual occurrence for me when I am chopping an onion, but at my house I have an exhaust fan I can turn on to help. Dawn’s apartment doesn’t have that so I walked out of the kitchen to grab some fresh air, but Dawn was burning incense in the living room which just compounded the problem and made my eyes just water even more!) Stir the onion and butter until the onion is soft, then add the asparagus and a little salt and pepper. Let that cook for about 5 minutes then add the broth and thyme. Get that cooking at a slight boil for about 15-20 minutes until everything is very tender. I should note that the broth you choose as your base will impact the final look of your soup. The chicken broth leads you to a more typical asparagus green color, whereas the vegetable broth I used turned the soup a more orange color.
While the soup is simmering you can flash steam the tops for about 3-4 minutes until tender.
Once the soup has cooked, puree it until smooth. The first time I made this soup I owned a very old blender. It was so old that the top didn’t seal well anymore. I poured a few cups in and turned the blender on…. Only to have boiling hot water shoot all over me and my kitchen. That was the day my friend Tim Ko introduced me to this little bad boy - the Cuisinart Smart Stick Hand Blender With Whisk & Chopper Attachments (HB-154PC). What a great investment! It makes pureeing this soup a cinch! If you want a smooth soup you can pour the soup through a sieve to pull out any chunks. I prefer the texture so I left mine alone. Stir in the cream and lemon, and salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!
This blog posted while listening to Harry Connick Jr.
Happy Belated Thanksgiving to all of our Canadian readers! Even though I am now living in the States, it is still fun to celebrate and frankly, Aric loves the thought of now having two Thanksgivings a year! We happen to know or be related to quite a few Canucks here in Ohio so we all gathered together this past weekend to celebrate. It was a potluck affair, which is a pretty incredible event to look forward to, given that we are surrounded by great cooks who happen to be great friends to boot! I was put on “alternative dessert” duty, supplying desserts to partner up with another couple’s delicious pumpkin, pecan, and apple pies.
Before I jump into the food though, I will preemptively answer a few questions that seem to crop up about Canadian Thanksgiving: (1) Why do we celebrate in October and (2) Do we celebrate the same way? To be honest, I didn’t know the answer to the first question and neither did any of my fellow Canadians at our get together. Thank goodness for Google! It informed me that we celebrate to give thanks at the close of the harvest season. So now I can stick that in my back pocket for next year, in case anyone asks. As for the celebration itself, it pretty much follows the same agenda as American Thanksgiving: a food coma from turkey, stuffing, potatoes, pumpkin pie, and all the other goodies that go along with the all-day feast; family get togethers; football.
So with that said, let’s delve into the desserts I made!
I thought it would be fun to have a theme to these desserts and decided to do something to represent both the Canadian and Ohioan heritage coming together. And then I got carried away and decided to add another dessert!
First, for the Canadians, I thought I would make something that tasted of “home” and that wasn’t easy to find here in Ohio. Nanaimo bars were the first thing that came to mind (top tier in photo above). Layers of chocolate and coconut, with vanilla custard icing and melted chocolate - how can you go wrong? I just didn’t realize how Canadian they were until the party when every American in the room asked me what they were! Coming from Vancouver, which is a ferry ride away from Nanaimo, BC and, obviously, the origin of these no bake treats, these are an obvious staple in any local BC bakery. But after making multiple descriptions of these treats to the other guests, they dove and gave them a try. Whether you have never heard of them before or grew up eating these for dessert, they are a relatively easy goodie to make and are great for parties as they can be made ahead of time. I had never actually made them before myself but owe all the recipe credit to the Closet Cooking Blog. They tasted just as I remembered them!
NANAIMO BARS
Ingredients:
Base
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
5 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 egg (lightly beaten)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup walnuts (chopped)
Base
1. Melt the butter in a sauce pan.
2. Stir in the sugar and cocoa powder until smooth.
3. Whisk in the egg and vanilla extract and remove from heat.
4. Stir in the graham cracker crumbs, coconut and walnuts.
5. Press into a greased 8 inch square pan and chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.
Filling
1. Cream the butter.
2. Beat in the custard powder and milk.
3. Beat in the sugar slowly.
4. Spread over the the base layer and chill in the fridge until it sets.
Topping
1. Melt the chocolate and butter in a pan and stir until smooth.
2. Spread over the filling layer and chill in a fridge until the chocolate begins to harden.
3. Score the chocolate where you will cut it into bars and chill in the fridge.
4. Before the chocolate hardens, cut into bars. (Use an hot knife and wipe clean after each cut.)
Next up: Buckeyes. These peanut butter and chocolate bombs literally melt in your mouth! The name comes from their resemblance to the nut of Ohio’s state tree, the Buckeye, but all that really matters is that they are delicious. I had made these earlier this year, right after I saw the recipe in Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts ReinventedDessert Baking Books), a sinfully wonderful dessert cookbook. Again, not overly difficult to make and can be made ahead of time. The only tip I have is for the dipping: I have used a fondue fork to dip the peanut butter ball in the chocolate, which work really well and I highly recommend. And don’t fret about the hole it makes in the ball – if you dip it so that the hole is in the center of the exposed part, once the buckeye is dipped and back on the cookie sheet, it is pliable enough that you can just push the peanut butter together and voila! No hole.
BUCKEYES
Ingredients:
¼ cup cream cheese, softened
1½ cups peanut butter
1 cup graham cracker crumbs (about 9 full graham crackers)
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
10 tbsp. (1¼ sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
12 ounces good quality dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese and peanut butter until combined. Add the graham cracker crumbs and beat on medium speed for 10 seconds. Add the confectioners’ sugar and butter. Beat at low speed for 20 seconds to prevent the sugar from spilling over, then gradually increase the speed until the mixture is completely combined. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and beat again. The mixture will feel slightly dry. Set the peanut butter filling aside while you melt the chocolate.
In the top of a double boiler set over hot water, melt the chocolate, stirring frequently until it is completely smooth. Pour the chocolate into a small, deep bowl. Let cool to tepid (about 100ºF, body temperature) while you shape the peanut butter centers.
Assemble the Buckeyes
Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Scoop out slightly more than 1 tablespoon’s worth of filling and use your hands to form it into a ball. Place the ball on the prepared sheet pan and repeat the process until all the filling has been shaped. The balls can sit fairly close to each other, just make sure they are not touching.
One by one, using a fork or large skewer, dip each ball into the chocolate. Roll the ball around from side to side to cover almost the entire peanut butter center, leaving a small amount uncovered. Manipulate the buckeye so that the dripping chocolate covers the holes made by the fork. Let the excess chocolate drip back into the bowl and return each chocolate-covered buckeye to the pan. Refrigerate the entire sheet pan for about 30 minutes to set the chocolate before serving.
(Buckeyes will keep for up to 3 days, tightly covered, in the refrigerator.)
Finally, in my endless quests to make desserts for my vegan friends, I decided to kill two birds with one stone on the next recipe. I had previously mentioned that I was eager make the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough truffles found on the Love and Olive Oil Blog. Well, Aric’s mom actually beat me to it and tested them out first! And it was a unanimous approval from her and Aric’s dad, as well as all of her baking friends. I should note that Aric’s mom and I have been swapping recipes by email right from the get go, even before we had met in person. It is fun that we have something we can share together, even though we are about 2500 miles apart.
Well, after such glowing reports and a quick scan of the recipe again, I decided I could make these vegan by sticking to margarine, soy milk, and using Trader Joe’s vegan chocolate chips for both the dough and the chocolate coating (Bless you Trader Joe’s – your chips have solved most of my vegan chocolate issues!). And I just have say, these are amazing! Make sure to keep them frozen before eating – it doesn’t actually freeze the dough but keeps it firm enough to hold its shape. And to answer the question about keeping fingerprints off of the chocolate coating, I have found that dipping the dough into the chocolate with a spoon and then rolling it onto the baking sheet solves that problem. Just tap off the excess chocolate from the spoon before you roll it off and you should be fine.
CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DOUGH TRUFFLES
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup milk or soy milk
1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
14 oz dark chocolate candy coating or melted chocolate
Beat butter and sugars and in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add soymilk and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt and mix on low speed (or by hand) until incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips.
Cover and chill dough for 1 hour.
When dough is firm enough to handle (it may help to lightly flour your hands), form dough into 1" balls and arrange on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper. Place sheets in freezer and let chill for 30 minutes.
Melt chocolate candy coating in a double boiler or in microwave according to package directions. Using forks or a dipping tool, dip cookie balls into candy coating to cover. Tap fork on side of pan to remove any excess coating, and return to waxed paper-lined baking sheets. Chill until set. Store, chilled, in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
It was a fun filled weekend and I am going to have to amp up the yoga workouts this week to make up for all this food but isn’t that what Thanksgiving is all about, no matter what country you are from?
One of my favorite family meals as a kid was when we’d have fondue night. It was tasty, but quite frankly, it was fun. A big pot of hot cheese and an assortment of foods to dip, it doesn’t get a whole lot better than that. My mom used to make a family-friendly fondue that was cream cheese based and I’ll be honest, up until a few years ago I didn’t even know there was an entire world of fondue recipes out there. I didn’t know that there were restaurants like Melting Pot that were entirely dedicated to fondue. It wasn’t till I was out of college and was living on my own, trying to feed a fondue craving, that I found out just how many different recipes there are. Over the past few years, I’ve made an assortment of fun fondues, from a Mexican fondue, a Brie fondue, and a Champagne fondue. Dawn and I wanted to try something new so we tried making a Champagne fondue with brie and pesto. Here is a website that I’ve used in the past when looking for new fondue recipes. The recipe we used is loosely based on this Brie & Pesto recipe, but we ad-libbed a bit. The biggest differences we implemented were using champagne rather than the dry white wine and using some Swiss cheese in addition to the Brie.
For those who may have never made fondue before, it’s very simple. Bring the champagne to a simmer then start adding the cheese. You will want to make sure you toss some cornstarch or flour into the cheese to keep it from becoming to stringy. With this particular fondue you will need to make the pesto, which is also very similar. In fact, for those who enjoy pesto on pizza or anything else, save your money at the grocery store and make the pesto yourself at home. Blend about a ¼ cup of fresh basil leaves with a ¼ cup of parmesan cheese, a garlic clove and a ¼ cup of champagne (or olive oil for other uses). Add the fresh pesto to the melting cheese and blend.
The next part is the best part of fondue - choosing your dipping items! I don’t believe there is really any way to go wrong here. Dawn and I chose the following for our meal: apples, French bread, vegetarian sausages, tater tots, steamed carrots, and grilled asparagus. I’ve used many different foods as well, including: berries, meats, broccoli, potato wedges, and almost anything you might have currently sitting in your fridge or freezer. Try to make it fun and be creative.
This blog posted while watching Everybody Loves Raymond.
My best friend, Christina, (who happens to be Aric’s cousin) and I love nothing more than to throw a party together. New Year’s parties, Christmas parties, you name it. It seems like we are always looking for a reason to get creative and plan a themed event.
Lately it has been a lot of baby showers. At the end of 2011, there will be 11 babies born amongst our circle of friends just in this year alone! So it has been a great adventure to come up with new ideas or try out concepts we have cultivated from various websites and magazines. My go-to for party ideas has always been http://www.marthastewart.com/ but Christina has introduced me to the delightful world of www.pintrest.com, which is also a wealth of wonderful creations. I have since become almost as obsessed as Christina about this website, as my iPhone now houses the Pintrest application and quite often I can be found scrolling through it for ideas.
I digress though… Our latest party together was a baby shower (of course) for twins! Christina immediately came up with the idea of Dr. Suess’s Thing 1 and Thing 2 and we ran with it. I ran across an image of the most adorable cupcakes for this theme and knew I had to make them.
These are fairly easy to make. Either use your favorite cake recipe or your favorite box of cake mix (I used Martha Stewart’s Red Velvet cake recipe as I was trying to stick with the red, white, and teal blue theme). Then white icing – again, whatever icing you prefer works but I stuck with the cream cheese frosting that Martha uses with her Red Velvet cake. The blue hair is where it gets tricky! I don’t have a cotton candy machine and wasn’t looking to invest in one so I went on a search to find some pre-made. Well, that turned out to be wild goose chase but Christina eventually managed to buy some off of the concession stand at the local baseball stadium. Just be warned that as soon as the cotton candy is out of the bag and on the cupcake, you have about half an hour before these start to melt, eventually ending up with a glue goo on top of the cupcake!! But for the first half hour, they are darling.
To highlight our other treats at the party, we got Thing 1 and Thing 2 cookies made by Laura’s Cookies, a local favorite here in Dayton, OH. We also created a colored theme candy bar, seen at the top of this post. A friend made vegan coconut cupcakes.
We had the rest of the food catered to save ourselves time on the day of the event, as it was planned for right after work.
We even got them to make Shirley Temples for the expecting mom, as she has been craving them lately.
I had also been waiting for a reason to make pom-poms that have been featured oh so often online in party and wedding pictures recently. I followed Martha’s advice and turned up with some wonderful and inexpensive party decorations!
All in all, the party was a hit and we are excited to plan our next celebration!
Welcome to Cats. Crooners. Cook. We love to cook. Our cats love to cuddle. Turn on some Sinatra and come join us in the intersection of our life and our love.
. What a great investment! It makes pureeing this soup a cinch! If you want a smooth soup you can pour the soup through a sieve to pull out any chunks. I prefer the texture so I left mine alone. Stir in the cream and lemon, and salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!
, a sinfully wonderful dessert cookbook. Again, not overly difficult to make and can be made ahead of time. The only tip I have is for the dipping: I have used a fondue fork to dip the peanut butter ball in the chocolate, which work really well and I highly recommend. And don’t fret about the hole it makes in the ball – if you dip it so that the hole is in the center of the exposed part, once the buckeye is dipped and back on the cookie sheet, it is pliable enough that you can just push the peanut butter together and voila! No hole.
