It's the end of your crap-tastic day and you're hungry. We all know wine solves problems (possibly sipping it while taking a hot bath), so a glass of your favorite wine is a given. Personally, a good oaky- buttery Chardonnay is always nice; feeling a red, maybe a bold fruity smooth Malbec. Pour yourself a big glass.
OK so wine - check.
Now for some substance. Bread is always good, and how about some cheese to go with that? Yes, sounds good. But being me wanting more than some cheese slathered on regular everyday bread, although good isn't great, some nice crusty bread pan fried with a good cheese sounds way better.
Get a loaf of your favorite crusty bread like French or Sourdough or maybe some Ciabatta. (I love some good crusty Sourdough.) Get a loaf, not pre-sliced; it's so much better when you slice it yourself. Cut 3 or 4 - 1 inch slices of bread. Get a sautee pan, preferably cast-iron, nice and hot with some extra virgin olive oil to just cover the bottom, a sprinkling of salt and dry or fresh thyme leaves on medium high. Right before the oil starts to smoke, i.e. really hot, place in your bread. Crisp on one side till toasty brown and flip. Take out of pan and put directly on your plate.
Now for the cheese. Buy a good gooey melty cheese or your favorite is fine. I am always in the mood for some gooey creamy Brie, but some tangy Goat cheese would be equally good. Make 1/4 inch slices of brie and place directly on top of the crusty bread. The heat from the bread will start to melt the cheese.
And there you go. Your's and mine's day might have been crap, but at least you can come home, simply toast up some bread and cheese and sip some wine while sitting in the cozy corner of the couch and watching your favorite show or movie. Problems from the crap-tastic day eaten away.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Unique Eats
Finally, I will supply you with my own unique eat. I absolutely LOVE the show on Cooking Channel "Unique Eats". It goes along with the enthusiastic followers I was talking about earlier. The chefs and everyday people who invent food ideas that they like and craft it into something everyone will like, brings smile. So, since I am a mega bacon fan, this recipe is an explosion of breakfast in cupcake form. In involves flavors of cinnamon, nutmeg, maple syrup, and bacon. The cupcakes are topped with a homemade bacon cream cheese frosting. This "French Toast Bacon Cupcake" is good anytime of day.
This recipe may look like a lot of ingredients and a lot of steps, but I guarantee a successful food dance.
Equipment: whisk, spatula, muffin tin with paper wrappers, electric hand whisk, 2 mixing bowls.
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Makes 24 cupcakes
*Hint* You can use yellow or white super moist box cake mix instead of mixing your own, but use 2 eggs and 4 oz. pudding mix instead; makes 18-22 cupcakes.*
Cupcakes:
~ Dry Ingredients ~
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
8 Tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sour cream
1 large egg plus 2 large egg yolks @ room temp.
1 1/2 good vanilla extra (no fake stuff here)
1/4 cup real maple syrup (do not use that corn syrup flavored crap)
8 strips thick-cut bacon, cooked, drained, crumbled
Method:
1. Whisk together all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl = flour, sugars, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pudding.
2. Add butter, sour cream, egg & yolks, vanilla, and maple syrup and beat the wet ingredients into the dry at medium speed until smooth and satiny, 30 -ish seconds.
3. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatular and stir in the cooked back by hand also making sure all the flour mix is incorporated.
4. Divide the batter evenly among the cups, filling 2/3 full. Bake until golden brown and toothpick insert comes out clean, 20-24 minutes.
5. Lift the cooked cupcakes out of muffin tins with wrapper still on, and let cool on a baking rack for about 40 minutes.
While the cupcakes cool.... make the frosting!
Frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened but still slightly cool
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened still slightly cool
1 1/4 cups confectioners' (powdered) sugar
1/2 tsp. good vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. real maple syrup
3 slices bacon, cooked, drained, crumbled
1. Combine cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and maple syrup in a medium mixing bowl with an electric hand mixer until smooth.
2. In about 3 batches, incorporate the powdered sugar.
3. Frost the cooled cupcakes with a frosting spatula or a knife and top with crumbled bacon pieces.
Enjoy breakfast in a hand-size bundle of delicious-ness. Definably food dance worthy in my book.
I know my brother and his friends love when I bake them off a batch and they appear on their door-step.
With love from his sister, Sarah.
This recipe may look like a lot of ingredients and a lot of steps, but I guarantee a successful food dance.
Equipment: whisk, spatula, muffin tin with paper wrappers, electric hand whisk, 2 mixing bowls.
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Makes 24 cupcakes
*Hint* You can use yellow or white super moist box cake mix instead of mixing your own, but use 2 eggs and 4 oz. pudding mix instead; makes 18-22 cupcakes.*
Cupcakes:
~ Dry Ingredients ~
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. fresh ground nutmeg
2 oz. vanilla instant pudding
~ Wet Ingredients ~
8 Tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sour cream
1 large egg plus 2 large egg yolks @ room temp.
1 1/2 good vanilla extra (no fake stuff here)
1/4 cup real maple syrup (do not use that corn syrup flavored crap)
8 strips thick-cut bacon, cooked, drained, crumbled
Method:
1. Whisk together all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl = flour, sugars, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pudding.
2. Add butter, sour cream, egg & yolks, vanilla, and maple syrup and beat the wet ingredients into the dry at medium speed until smooth and satiny, 30 -ish seconds.
3. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatular and stir in the cooked back by hand also making sure all the flour mix is incorporated.
4. Divide the batter evenly among the cups, filling 2/3 full. Bake until golden brown and toothpick insert comes out clean, 20-24 minutes.
5. Lift the cooked cupcakes out of muffin tins with wrapper still on, and let cool on a baking rack for about 40 minutes.
While the cupcakes cool.... make the frosting!
Frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened but still slightly cool
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened still slightly cool
1 1/4 cups confectioners' (powdered) sugar
1/2 tsp. good vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. real maple syrup
3 slices bacon, cooked, drained, crumbled
1. Combine cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and maple syrup in a medium mixing bowl with an electric hand mixer until smooth.
2. In about 3 batches, incorporate the powdered sugar.
3. Frost the cooled cupcakes with a frosting spatula or a knife and top with crumbled bacon pieces.
Enjoy breakfast in a hand-size bundle of delicious-ness. Definably food dance worthy in my book.
I know my brother and his friends love when I bake them off a batch and they appear on their door-step.
With love from his sister, Sarah.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Enthusiasts
I found some enthusiasts. A hand full of people who not only enjoy cooking, but enjoy it with a passion like mine that is well received through both the action of cooking the food as well as enjoying it. Where are these enthusiasts from you may ask? They're on the Cooking Channel. And yes, I am aware this network was developed by Food Network, which some chefs have carried over to CC, but a few of these chefs I really can relate to.
Chuck Hughes from "Chucks Day Off", Laura Calder from "French Food at Home", Roger Mooking from "Everyday Exotic", Nigella Lawson, and of course Julia Child "The Art of French Cooking".
These handful of chefs all display their passion and knowledge of food as one. It's really inspiring to know that there are these kinds of chefs out there today (minus Julia Child, RIP) who want you to feel the way they feel, image the smells in their kitchen, and understand the simplicity of cooking fresh, local, eat-good food.
I take pride in my cooking. When I serve something in my apartment, at my parents house, in my friend's homes, or even on the line in a restaurant, the best feeling is when you see that smile of pleasure spread across your family, friends, or customer's faces; it brings the utmost simplistic heart fluttering feeling. It feels damn great frankly. And I am not going to shy away from my feelings towards the rewards I get when I cook. It is one of my most prized possessions.
Chuck Hughes from "Chucks Day Off", Laura Calder from "French Food at Home", Roger Mooking from "Everyday Exotic", Nigella Lawson, and of course Julia Child "The Art of French Cooking".
These handful of chefs all display their passion and knowledge of food as one. It's really inspiring to know that there are these kinds of chefs out there today (minus Julia Child, RIP) who want you to feel the way they feel, image the smells in their kitchen, and understand the simplicity of cooking fresh, local, eat-good food.
I take pride in my cooking. When I serve something in my apartment, at my parents house, in my friend's homes, or even on the line in a restaurant, the best feeling is when you see that smile of pleasure spread across your family, friends, or customer's faces; it brings the utmost simplistic heart fluttering feeling. It feels damn great frankly. And I am not going to shy away from my feelings towards the rewards I get when I cook. It is one of my most prized possessions.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
What is The Food Dance?
Hello food advocates, my name is Sarah and I love food.
Friends and family know I am having a bad day when I'm not thinking about it. I cook it, I dream it, I think food all the time. If a day dream during class does not consist of a food thought, yea I'm pretty much lost. (Oh by the way people, I go to Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, NC - graduating in 2 months!) Food is my happiness; my piece of mine that I wish I knew more people like me as enthusiastic about the creation of food as I am. I'm not a big person, very tall - check, large appetite most of the time - check, like the smell of bacon and coffee to get me out of bed - check, check. But there's just that feeling you get when you are enthusiastic about what you love and that thing that you love so much makes you happy.
OK so I'm not a fan of those Campbell Soup commercials where you see people making casseroles and they're licking their wooden spoons and smiling because supposedly the soup made their attempt at dinner taste better (and no Campbell's chunky soup over rice is not a dish for dinner in my opinion), that smiley dance those actors do is in essence, I suppose, like the dance I'm thinking about.
Recently I made a really delicious, amazing tasting, best recipe of it so far, tomato sauce. Yea sure, I could buy it out of a can or glass bottle; but why would I do that when I can make it myself and usually for around the same cost to make it as it would be to buy it pre-made and probably over salted or too sweet or the numerous other problems I could point out. No, this tomato sauce recipe, marinara, was simple but totally food dance worthy.
Imagine the smell of rendering bacon... now sauteed onions, celery, carrots, and button mushrooms with garlic, thyme, and bay leaves sweating away in extra virgin olive oil and bacon fat. (Is your mouth already salivating? I mean who wouldn't with that bacon fat? no?) Now pour in Velvet Moon red wine, a mix of cabernet sauvignon and merlot, and let that reduce with chicken stock and crushed roma tomatoes. This concoction will reduce and meld together for almost 3 hours. Oooh yeaa, my apartment smelt A-mazing. Get ready for it...take a spoon, dip, and the sauce hits all your taste buds. But wait, what's that funny movement going on with my hips and the tip-top action across the kitchen, small as mine may be, that my friends is "the food dance". Once you taste something that just puts that big smile on your face and you do that wiggle, that's it. Your emotions for that food have exploded.
This is THE best feeling.
Friends and family know I am having a bad day when I'm not thinking about it. I cook it, I dream it, I think food all the time. If a day dream during class does not consist of a food thought, yea I'm pretty much lost. (Oh by the way people, I go to Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, NC - graduating in 2 months!) Food is my happiness; my piece of mine that I wish I knew more people like me as enthusiastic about the creation of food as I am. I'm not a big person, very tall - check, large appetite most of the time - check, like the smell of bacon and coffee to get me out of bed - check, check. But there's just that feeling you get when you are enthusiastic about what you love and that thing that you love so much makes you happy.
OK so I'm not a fan of those Campbell Soup commercials where you see people making casseroles and they're licking their wooden spoons and smiling because supposedly the soup made their attempt at dinner taste better (and no Campbell's chunky soup over rice is not a dish for dinner in my opinion), that smiley dance those actors do is in essence, I suppose, like the dance I'm thinking about.
Recently I made a really delicious, amazing tasting, best recipe of it so far, tomato sauce. Yea sure, I could buy it out of a can or glass bottle; but why would I do that when I can make it myself and usually for around the same cost to make it as it would be to buy it pre-made and probably over salted or too sweet or the numerous other problems I could point out. No, this tomato sauce recipe, marinara, was simple but totally food dance worthy.
Imagine the smell of rendering bacon... now sauteed onions, celery, carrots, and button mushrooms with garlic, thyme, and bay leaves sweating away in extra virgin olive oil and bacon fat. (Is your mouth already salivating? I mean who wouldn't with that bacon fat? no?) Now pour in Velvet Moon red wine, a mix of cabernet sauvignon and merlot, and let that reduce with chicken stock and crushed roma tomatoes. This concoction will reduce and meld together for almost 3 hours. Oooh yeaa, my apartment smelt A-mazing. Get ready for it...take a spoon, dip, and the sauce hits all your taste buds. But wait, what's that funny movement going on with my hips and the tip-top action across the kitchen, small as mine may be, that my friends is "the food dance". Once you taste something that just puts that big smile on your face and you do that wiggle, that's it. Your emotions for that food have exploded.
This is THE best feeling.
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