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By Amber, on October 28, 2010, at 10:56 pm Halloween season calls for something dark, delicious, and maybe a little creepy:
I have made this chocolate cheesecake many times with great success, and I was itching to play with the recipe a little. What I did was blend the non-chocolate ingredients of the filling, divide it in half, flavor the halves separately, and then layer them over the crust. I used just over two tablespoons of organic matcha, smelling and tasting as I went. Once it baked, the sugar sort of overpowered the matcha, so next time I’ll try at least three. I’d almost rather go too bitter than come up short again because the chocolate should balance it. That’s my theory, anyway.
The chocolate wafers in the crust recipe, by the way, are these. If you’ve never used them, they’re often found in the ice cream section, with the cones and sauces. I bought a package and somebody ate most of them, leaving me less than I needed for the cheesecake. Our grocery store hasn’t gotten a new delivery of these wafers in weeks, so I scraped and crushed some Oreos to substitute. Let me tell you: maybe don’t do that. It tastes delicious, but there was some unusual dripping out of the bottom of the springform pan that I use for cheesecake, making a smoky mess in the bottom of the oven. I’m just glad it didn’t drip into the homemade mac & cheese that I was cooking below!
The sugar skull is by Wilton and came in a pack of a dozen. They looked so cute all around the perimeter of the cake, but I was too impatient with the ganache and it came out a little ugly, so no photo. Maybe next year!
By Amber, on October 26, 2010, at 10:00 pm Last week there was a question about whether one of our speakers would be speaking this week. I volunteered to take her place and give my first speech, but then toward the end of the week it looked like she was back on, so I didn’t work on what I had written at all. Well, at the eleventh hour today, it was determined that I would speak after all! I made some quick edits and practiced all the way home from work, in front of the cat, and then all the way to the meeting. And guess what?
Taking a chance paid off! Except my speech was about being an introvert, and now the other members don’t believe I am one. I told them I only ‘turn it on’ for interviews and presentations!
Confession: I sort of bribed the jury.
The green ones are ginger-lime, from this recipe. The white ones are pumpkin with cream cheese frosting, from here. I highly recommend both.
I didn’t really do this to bribe the jury — I didn’t even think I would be speaking when I made these! The truth is that I went a little crazy in the Halloween/baking section at Michael’s last month, which pretty much meant I would be baking a whole lot of cupcakes and mini-cupcakes for Halloween. Tomorrow night I will frost the ones that I’m dropping off at the kennel on Thursday. The staff there is awesome and I like to treat them once in a while.
Who is on your ‘treat’ list this year? What about tricks?
By Amber, on October 24, 2010, at 10:48 pm I’m SO full right now, because of this:
Ms. Childfree Chic highlighted the recipe on her own blog recently, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before Mark and I were eating it! The recipe itself is here. As usual, I made a few modifications.
One thing I really like about this soup a the lack of vegetables that I have to work around. I actually like carrots, even though I blended them in the lentil & sausage soup. The only ingredient that gave me pause in this recipe was the onion. So I blended it! Problem solved. And even though I don’t like to see vegetables floating around in my soup, I do like to see herbs floating around, so I added about half a teaspoon each of dried marjoram, basil, and parsley. I could have added more and it still would have been good.
Mark and I were talking last night about people who think they can’t cook. I think a lot of people are under the impression they will ruin a recipe if they don’t follow it exactly, but that’s not necessarily true, especially for a soup. I used a little more beef than the recipe called for. It also called for three carrots, which I find silly, so I bought a bag of petite carrots, chopped them down to smaller pieces, and used all of them. I added potato chunks until they seemed about equal with the carrots. The last thing I did was double the broth so it would cover the ingredients — that was important because of the most substantial modification I made.
I just wasn’t up for all the steps in the recipe, so I reduced it to two: chop the things that need chopping, then dump everything into a crockpot. I let it cook on low for about 6.5 hours, and the beef was so tender it was falling apart. You just can’t mess up crockpot cooking.
Actually, you can, and I did once — but I’ll tell you about that another time!
By Amber, on October 21, 2010, at 10:00 pm My second-favorite thing about the State Fair of Texas was livestock, up close and personal. We started petting some sheep, and this one wouldn’t let Mark stop:
Every time he tried to stop, it would nudge his hand to continue. How can you not love that? These snuggie-wearing sheep reminded me of Sweet Pea:
Separated at birth, yes/no? By the way, in case you’re wondering:
Next my mom and I rubbed shoulders with a champion (more like our shoulders, his butt):
Then it was on to the bunnies. Is there anything quite as sweet as a bunny face? Unlikely.
Granted, some bunnies are sweeter than others.
One last bunny to fulfill your Thursday cute quota:
Have a great weekend!
By Amber, on October 17, 2010, at 10:00 pm By ‘they,’ I mean ‘we.’
We met my parents in Dallas yesterday for the Texas State Fair, the USA’s official proving grounds for all manner of fried foods. Did you know that there are people in this country who spend a couple months a year frying fair food, and make enough money that they spend the rest of the year thinking up new things to fry? (If you don’t believe me, you would if you had seen the line at the tent selling fried butter, the one thing I would really have liked to try but didn’t.) If that’s not the American dream, then I don’t know what is.
A sampling of the things consumed by our party, starting with my holy grail, the fried s’mores pop-tart (the funnel fries were conveniently offered at the same stand):
I consider myself something of a pop-tart connoisseur in the way Imelda Marcos is a connoisseur of shoes, or Elizabeth Taylor is a connoisseur of husbands. As such I eagerly awaited this treat, and it did not disappoint. I hope it shows up at the Houston Rodeo this year!
I was on the hunt for fried sweets, so I left the fried frito pie and fried broccoli to the others:
I did make an exception for chicken-fried bacon, because bacon is meat candy. The stuff at the fair was far better than what we got at the rodeo a couple years back:
I didn’t try the dipped cheesecake, but it looked good enough that I may have some at the rodeo this spring:
The one thing I tried but couldn’t finish was the fried gummy worms. They were like mini-churros with a hot, liquid candy center — delicious, but overwhelming:
Other fried items seen but not eaten: fried cookie dough (I was going to have some, but it was at the same place as the fried butter and I didn’t want to wait in that huge line), fried lattes, fried margaritas, fried grilled cheese, fried Texas caviar (black-eyed peas), fried club salad. I read that there was also fried beer and fried chocolate, but I didn’t see those.
After eating our way through the fair, would you believe that we went back to our hotel and ate?
By Amber, on October 12, 2010, at 10:00 pm Even though it’s been in the upper 80s here in Houston, I am DYING to start wearing my fall clothes. It’s just not cool enough, so instead I’m starting my celebration of fall with homemade soup!
I have been craving the lentil and sausage soup that they serve at Carraba’s. That soup is amazing, and there are tons of recipes to be found online so you can make your own version at home. But the thing is that they all have chunks of vegetables in them. I really hate the texture of most cooked-down veggies. So I picked a recipe and fixed it.
Any cook can tell you how essential mirepoix is, but what if you hate chunks? Or chopping? I’d have carpal tunnel before I got everything chopped to an acceptable size where it wouldn’t squick me. The answer: blend it! I threw the zucchini in there because I knew I wouldn’t want to eat that, either.
I ran out of room for the onions on the first pass:
So I added them for the second:
 Worst smoothie ever.
That’s a double batch of mirepoix, because the recipe only called for two stalks of celery and I didn’t want a bunch of celery rotting in the fridge. The bag of carrots had a little more than I needed for two batches, so I used them all. I really don’t think you could mess this up, since it’s just the base.
I put half in a freezable storage container for the next time I want to make soup:
I don’t think it will be in the freezer for long, though, because Mark went wild over this soup. It really is delicious! As for recipe tweaks, there are no measurements given for the spices, so I used a teaspoon of each and added rosemary. I think it worked great. You’ll want a lot more than a teaspoon of the red pepper if you want it to be spicy, though. I bought a 1.2-lb package of sausage, which is more than the recipe calls for, but if you love sausage like we do, go for two packages. You won’t be sorry!
The best part is that I made the mirepoix a day ahead, so making the soup was super-easy. Another tip: brown the sausage in the soup pot (before you add the other ingredients) so you don’t lose any fat. Fat = flavor!
In other news, I brought this home tonight from Toastmasters:
My question was about my biggest challenge. I talked about trying to fit into my current work environment, which values quite different things than my previous place of employment. Guess a few people could relate!
By Amber, on September 26, 2010, at 10:00 pm I was in the produce section and found something I’ve been wanting to try for a long time: dragonfruit! There was a basket of small yellow guavas next to it, so I grabbed some of those as well. I bought a banana for a thickener and some pre-cut pineapple for sweetness:
If you’re not familiar with dragonfruit, it is pretty neat. It grows on a cactus and tastes a bit like a kiwi, but milder. (To my disappointment, it does not taste like dragonfruit Starburst.)
You can cut it in half and gently pop the fruit out to separate it from the skin:
I’ve seen photos of the skin used as a bowl, with cubed fruit placed inside. I think that would be an adorable summer side dish! But I was going to blend the heck out of my dragonfruit, and I did, after slicing the stem ends off of the guavas:
I have to admit that this smoothie really didn’t do it for me. It was pretty mild, and Mark thought it was a perfect combination of sweet and tart, but like my smoothies really, really sweet — so I poured a bunch of mixed frozen fruit in there until it looked and tasted more like what I’m used to. I didn’t see any reason to share a photo of that.
If sweet and tart sounds good to you, I will offer this advice — make sure you blend the heck out of it with a powerful blender, because between the dragonfruit and the guavas, it’s seed city.
Have you tried dragonfruit?
By Amber, on September 12, 2010, at 11:01 pm The Houston Food Tour, Fall 2010 Edition, is going well. We still have a day to go, so this will be brief.
Tonight we ate at Rainbow Lodge. Last week Mark and I tried it for the first time, and we’ve been talking about the food ever since. If you visit Houston, you MUST eat there. Last week I had duck gumbo and the mixed grill, which included game sausage (made from venison, wild boar, and nilgai antelope), a small wild boar chop, venison backstrap, and quail a couple different ways. Tonight I had the antelope steak with fava beans, white asparagus, and truffled wild mushroom & foie gras ravioli. So amazing. I wish we could go every week, but I think we’ll go at least once a month!
I hope you had a nice weekend! I’m extending mine one more day!
By Amber, on September 7, 2010, at 10:00 pm One of the best things since moving to Texas is discovering chorizo. Actually, oddly enough, I first tried chorizo in Montana, so let me rephrase that — one of the best things since moving to Texas is the wide availability of chorizo. I would happily eat it at least three times a week.
What I don’t understand is how chorizo has never risen beyond the breakfast menu. It’s good at ALL times of day! My hope is that one day it will enjoy the kind of renaissance that bacon has seen for the last few years. Until then, I’ve got two preferred sources. The lazy source — that is, the nights we don’t want to cook — is La Mexicana, a great family-run restaurant that has served Houston for almost 30 years. They’re open late, the prices are a steal, and you can get desayuno all the time. I order chorizo scrambled with eggs, and refried beans. We always start with an appetizer of refried beans, melted cheese, and chorizo — so it’s kind of like having the same thing twice, which is awesome.
The other source I like is Whole Foods. They make it fresh, and it is outstanding. We have made chorizo-based breakfast tacos several times for company, letting everyone fill their own at an assembly line, and they’re always a hit. Despite the number of components, they are very easy and we usually have leftovers. We cook up the following:
- a quarter to half a pound of chorizo per person (half is totally overkill, but did I mention that I REALLY like chorizo?)
- two eggs per person
- a couple pieces of thick-cut bacon (cut into several smaller pieces) per person
- a family-size can of either black or refried beans
- tons of grated cheese
Sometimes we oven-roast one or two small red potatoes per person, diced and tossed in oil and assorted Mexican-type spices. Our grocery store makes fresh tortillas, so we’ll warm a stack of them in the oven while everything else is cooking on the stovetop.
Mark is the official breakfast chef at our house, so I beg him to cook this meal whenever we plan to have a lazy Saturday (Sunday, as you know by now, is spoken for). Sometimes I beg for it for dinner. :)
What meal can’t you live without?
By Amber, on August 19, 2010, at 10:00 pm I recently came across this recipe and decided to give it a shot with what I had on hand. My first attempt was much less fancy, but it tasted spectacular. The two things I like best about this concept are 1) how easily you can customize it to your tastes or a guest’s tastes, and 2) how little you need in the way of ingredients. If you wanted to get really gourmet, you would need hardly any of each ingredient that you used — this is a great way to get rid of the little bits of this and that in your fridge. This is all I used to make four frittatas for Mark and me to share:
As you can see, I used silicone muffin cups instead of a muffin pan, because I wanted to make sure everything fit. I think it would have been a challenge in a standard muffin pan. For each frittata I used one piece of thick-cut hickory bacon, one egg, one half of a thick slice of cheese (chopped), and one half of a sausage patty (also chopped). (Confession: those aren’t real sausage patties, they’re Morningstar Farms breakfast patties. They are so awesome that they can be forgiven for not being real meat.)
I curled the bacon around the inside of the cups and filled in with my cheese and sausage pieces:
 I beat the eggs individually and poured one over each cup of ingredients, then baked the cups at 350F for 30 minutes. If you end up with a little egg white at the top, the whites will look shiny and you may think they’re not done, but if you see the surrounding ingredients start to brown up, take them out.
 They puff up beautifully as they bake. Just give them a minute to rest and gently loosen the bacon from the sides with a fork, then pop them onto a plate. You may lose a little bit of fat from the bacon if you don’t spray the cups, but it won’t be much.
 These little protein bombs were a lot more filling than they looked. After two I don’t think I could have eaten anything else (except dessert — I always have room for dessert). Try it your way!
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