Foodie Friday

Chef of the Month

I had another good week of cooking at home.  I mostly cooked meals from Michael Symons and he didn't disappoint.  

From his 5 in 5 I made Chicken Breasts with Mozzarella, Tomatoes and Basil.  I did a little altering because I don't have fresh basil right now so I used a little arugula that I had leftover.  It worked.  This was a great meal.  I served it with some fettuccine with a little bit of olive oil and a dried herb Italian blend.

From The Chew: What's For Dinner I made Symon's patty melts.  I've made similar patty melts and never had much luck but these turned out really good.  The special sauce is delicious in a thousand island-y kind of way.  I really don't like rye bread so I used sourdough instead.  I know an argument could be made that that's not a patty melt but it was still pretty good!  These were served with a side of oven baked fries cooked Bobby Flay style.   Also, from this book was Pan Seared Skirt Steak with Caramelized Onions.  Another Symon recipe.  My only problem is that my medium-high stove setting is obviously hotter than his medium-high setting because my steak cooked a little faster than he said it would.  The bacon/beer sauce was amazing.  I'll definitely try these again but either with lower heat or shorter time.

I did make Mario Batali's pizza crust from his Italian Grill cookbook.  The crust was good but not better than any other crust I've made.  Balali calls for the crust to be grilled but it was in the 30s that night and I'm not going outside to put anything on the grill and I don't happen to own a grill pan.  I didn't do the pizza in Batali's Margerhita style because I'm pretty sure there would've been an uprising if I'd serve a pizza that was mostly sauce with 1 slice of mozzarella.

Pinterest

I made 2 different types of cookies this week.  The first is these Moose Track Cookies from Inside BruCrew Life.  I had planned on making these a few weeks ago but someone (J) found the bag of Reese's minis before that could happen.  For future reference this recipe actually requires 2 bags of the minis so I was a little low on peanut buttery goodness.  This was one of those recipes where I didn't see anyway it was going to come together to be even mildly edible but somehow turned into airy chocolate-y cookies.  I probably won't make these all the time since I do have to buy a special ingredient but they'll definitely get remade and next time with the appropriate amount of Reese's.

I also made Andes Mint Grinch Cookies from Six Sisters Stuff.  I've made them at Christmas and called them Grinch cookies.  I've made them around St. Patrick's Day and called them Leprechaun cookies.  This time I made them in January and just called them good.  I did leave out the green food coloring though.  These are buttery minty deliciousness and are easy and make enough to share.  It does require one box of Andes mints to chop up but those are cheap so I don't worry so much about them.  I'm sure in a pinch mint chocolate chips would work though I do like the big chunks of Andes mints in these cookies.

    

Week 27 Cupcakes - Buckeye Cupcakes

Yesterday was one of those days that gets labeled with phrases like "Chicken with its head cut off" and "hamster on the wheel".  In short by the end of the day I felt crazy and exhausted but the list of what I got accomplished was pretty much nothing.  Plus I tried to rename a friend's child "Lily" for reasons known only to my poor chaotic brain.  But the greatest victim was these cupcakes

1. Source:  Sweet Pea's Kitchen - a blog that for some reason I don't follow.  I'm going to have to remedy.

2. Ease of Recipe (1 being cake mix/canned icing - 5 tons of steps and very time consuming): 4.  They're not difficult there are just a lot of stages.  You make the peanut butter ball, you make the cake batter using a double boiler, use make the frosting.

3. Changes Made:  None made on on purpose.

4. Problems:  Here is the tragedy.  The recipe calls for 4 ounces of chopped bittersweet chocolate.  I had a bar of 76% and a bar of 82% and my plan was to do 2 ounces from each bar (the bars were just over 3 ounces each).  Well for whatever reason I ended up chopping up all of the chocolate which was almost double what the recipe called for.  The cakes took longer to bake because of the extra liquid and ended up tasting hard and dense.  What makes this even worse is that I've made this cake before and it's delicious so I know how good these could be.  Also this problem was entirely of my own doing.  If you have a properly functioning brain you should be fine.

5.  Overall Impression:  These are soooooooo good.  The peanut butter frosting makes me forget every positive resolution and change I've ever made.   It's light and airy but still so wonderfully peanut buttery.  The peanut butter ball tastes like what I always want buckeyes to taste like.  A sweet peanut butter with just a hint of vanilla not tooth achingly sweet like they so often are.  Put these in the fluffy chocolatey wonder that the cake is supposed to be and I'd probably eat these until I was ill.  So maybe it was for the best but still...

6. Quantity:  17 though the recipes says 24

7. Make Again?: Yes but next time I'd make them correctly.

What's For Lunch Wednesday - Turkish "Kofte" Burgers

This week I was inspired (more loosely than I planned) by a recipe for Turkish "Kofte" Burgers I found in the book Relish by Daphne Oz.  I used lean ground pork instead of ground beef or lamb because the ground pork was on sale and then I didn't use a pita because I didn't want to waste the calories on bread.  Then I forgot to get feta at the grocery store which meant I wasn't able to make the whipped feta spread.  I ended up using some blue cheese crumbles and some garlic spread instead.

Pretty plate no? The tomato and cucumber salsa was a little onion heavy but otherwise good and very pretty and fresh.  I didn't end up loving the burgers.  I'm not sure if the meat switch was the issue but I don't think it was.  The texture was good but the spice combination just wasn't quite to my taste.  It used a huge variety of different dried spices - mint, coriander, cardamon, cumin, cinnamon and a few others.  I generally like cumin and have loved savory foods with cinnamon but I think the combination of the two with the mint was a little jarring for my fairly conservative taste buds.

The Good: Made plenty and would be easy to reheat through out the week.  Also loved the fresh vegetables in the salsa.

The Bad:  Too much onion in the salsa and found the spice combination in the burger themselves a little unpleasant.

The Verdict: Not for me.  Though I had high hopes for this I think I'll stick with my PB&J.

Try-It Tuesday: 8 Minute Yoga for Better Sleep

So this picture doesn't actually have anything to do with the post.  It's my Grandfather who turned 90 yesterday.  It was taken during his time in Korea.  This pin didn't actually have a product that I could take my usual badly lit photo of and I couldn't come up with anything that wasn't either weird or pointless so this picture is far more interesting anyway.

This pin was a little different from any that I've done before.  It was an 8 minute yoga workout for better sleep from Fitness Magazine.  It consists of 5 exercise that you're supposed to do for a certain amount of time.  It turned out that this was harder to fit in than I thought it would be which is probably why I have a difficult time sleeping in the first place!  I finally got around to giving it a try last night and had some mixed results.  4 of the positions were great.  They were simple and provided just the right amount of stretch.  I could feel tension leaving and was feeling all relaxed.  Then I got to the 5th position that involved rocking back and forth.  There was no way I could get it to work on the bed but when I moved the floor the angle hurt my back even though the floor is carpeted.  I also found keeping up with the amount of time specified distracting.  In all but 1 it was impossible to see a clock without having to move.  I'm thinking of trying to incorporate 4 of the 5 positions into getting ready for bed and maybe just do them to the count of 10.   

Source: Fitness Magazine
Verdict: Keep but with some tweaking

Next Week - I'm going to go to my House Stuff board and attempt to easily clean my oven.  It should be interesting.

Birchbox Review - January

This month's Birchbox theme is Go Time and is supposed to be products you can incorporate into your life with some inspiration.  I got 4 products plus 1 drugstore find.

Burt's Bees Intense Hydration Day Lotion
This was my drugstore find and came with a $3 off coupon.  The lotion is nice.  Thick enough to feel creamy but still rubs in evenly.  It did a good job on moisturizing my face which is good because it's crazy dry around here.  The label says it has clary sage in it and the scent if a nice herby-y scent without being too medicinal or perfume-y.  The sample size is 1/4 of an ounce in came in a little jar so I'll be able to tell if I like it enough to buy it with the coupon.

Nail Rock in Pink Glitter
To be honest I was surprised to see this in my Birchbox.  It's definitely something I'd expect more from Ipsy.  I was worried applying this would be a giant mess because you dip your painted nails in the glitter but it really wasn't.  There was no glitter on the table I was sitting at and it covered my nails quickly and evenly.  I definitely recommend putting a top coat over it though because I ended up with glitter in my hair, on my face, on my small child, etc.  This is very forgiving and it's very had to see imperfections even when you know they're there. It didn't last super long but it was easy to do and a fun look.  It came off without too much difficulty with regular nail polish remover.  This came in full size.

Klorane Gentle Dry Shampoo with Oat Milk

This is an okay dry shampoo.  It smells nice and sprays evenly but I don't get the same magic results I get with my beloved amika.  The travel sized can will still be nice for emergencies and travel though.

Coastal Scents Revealed Palette Set

I got 4 decent sized colors from this palette.  A light brown, a medium brown, olive and a dark navy.  The colors are well pigmented and blend nicely.  They last about the same amount of time as other high end eye shadows.  This palette is very reasonably priced at $20 and if I was in the market for a palette I would probably buy this over Urban Decay Naked palettes.

Harvey Prince Journey Perfume

I was excited to see a perfume sample in my box even though this isn't a brand I'm familiar with.  The scent is kind of a sweet fruity scent.  The mandarin note is definitely the stronger over the others in this one.  The lasting power wasn't great so I probably won't buy this but I won't mind using this when the weather gets a little warmer.



So of these 5 none really made my day but none were a miss either. I'm considering buying the palette in full size just because the colors are so pretty and I was impressed with the quality of the shadow itself.  I might end up with the moisturizer though I'll make my decision once I've used up the little tub and see how much it is in full size.  Now just waiting on Ipsy to show up!

Foodie Friday

This week I definitely met my goal of eating at home!  Every meal was a chef of the month meal too!

Chef of the Month:

First up was the baked ziti from Molto Italiano.  I did cheat a little and used a store-bought sauce.  I did make the besciamella sauce and chopped up fresh mozzarella.  The results were good but not that different from any baked ziti I've ever made.  Any recipe that involves a tomato cream sauce would taste about like that and it'd probably be easier to make.  Make again? Not with this recipe.

Then came another Batali recipe - Pasta Fagioli.  This came from The Chew: What's For Dinner.  It's essentially a bean and pasta soup and the results were okay.  I could eat it but it definitely wasn't a meal that you'd want to eat again.

So I took a break from Batali and made Michael Symon's Salisbury Steak from Michael Symon's 5 in 5.  Now this was tasty.  I served it with mashed potatoes which was perfect for soaking up the delicious sauce.  It was also quick to make which is kind of the purpose of the book.  The second 5 is for 5 minutes.  It wasn't quite that quick but it wasn't too bad.

So now back to Batali.  I made pork Milanese from The Babbo Cookbook.  I've made this type of dish before and this rendition is one of my favorites.  The arugula works well with the citrusy dressing and the crisp breaded pork chop.  It also makes for a very pretty presentation just don't let the pork chops get too browned.

Pinterest:

I was busy enough with the chef recipes that I only ended up making 3 recipes from Pinterest.  I did make a turkey club sandwich one night but that involved no recipe.  I did use chipotle mayo on it which reminded me that chipotle mayo is good stuff.

I did manage to make:
I made this White Cheddar Beer Bread from How Sweet It Is.  This is a good cheesey dense bread but the beer and cheddar didn't pair quite as well as I expected.  I think I prefer honey beer bread to those with cheese.  Still pretty good though.

Anne Burrell's Focaccia  - I made this a few times before and it is good stuff.  It does take 2 rises but it doesn't require a sponge like a lot of other focaccia breads.  I also like that you can change up whatever seasoning you sprinkle on it depending on what you're serving.  I've used Italian Seasoning, a cheese blend and just plain salt.

Soft Batch Style Chocolate Chip Cookies from Picky Palate - These are good.  Like possibly my new go-to chocolate chip cookies good.  I made them one time before and ended up over baking them but this time I was careful about the sizing of the cookies and the time.  I cheated a little bit because I didn't want to wait for the butter to soften or to get out my mixer so I just melted the butter and let it cool to room temperature.  It worked great.  Seriously these are everything chocolate chip cookies should be.

I was going to make these yummy looking Moose Track Cookies from BruCrew Life but someone (aka my husband) found the bag of mini Reeses cups in the pantry and helped himself.  I'm going to get another bag next time I go to the grocery store and will be making these cookies that day since the Reese's cups have a very short lifespan in my house.

Week 26 Cupcakes - Cinnamon Toast Crunch

This recipe has been floating around in my brain pretty much since I started wasting time on Pinterest. I figured this would be a perfect cupcake for the halfway mark.  26 cupcakes down and 26 cupcakes to go!

1. Source: Your Cup of Cake from the blog though the cookbook is great too

2. Ease of Recipe (1 being cake mix/canned icing - 5 tons of steps and very time consuming): 2.5.  The .5 is for having to crush up the cereal so I'm kind of being hypercritical.

3. Changes Made: None

4. Problems:  Not really a problem but when she says Cinnamon Toast Crunch ground to a powder she isn't kidding.  I finely crushed mine without reading the directions correctly and the tiny bits of cereal weren't very appealing.

5.  Overall Impression:  The cake is delicious.  It's buttery and vanilla-y with just the right touch of cinnamon.  The texture is nice and moist but still holds together.  I wasn't as in love with the frosting.  Maybe just a little cinnamon to a plain vanilla buttercream would've worked better.  Nothing really screamed Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal so I think I could have achieved the same vanilla/cinnamon mix with 1/2 teaspoon or so of cinnamon versus having to buy and then crush the cereal.

6. Quantity:  15

7. Make Again?:Yes but I will probably leave out the cereal and just have cinnamon toast cupcakes.