Paved with Good Intentions

Chipotle Re-do

2012-01-26T22:24:00.000-08:00

I have a problem with leftovers. Not leftover food, that always makes for some fantastic lunches. But leftover ingredients. When I only use half a can of beans the other half sits in my refrigerator where it gets forgotten about until it starts growing delicious white mold. Yum!

Part of my New Year's resolution was to get better about that. I've started taking those leftover ingredients and using them to create next week's meal plan. Which is how this barbacoa came about.

Chipotles in adobo are one of my worst offenders when it comes to leftover ingredients. Most recipes only call for one or two, and there are plenty more in the can. Typically I freeze each chile in an ice cube tray. Then I put the frozen chiles in a freezer bag aaaaaaaand forget about them for years and years and years.

So when I opened a can of chipotle chile peppers in adobe for the chipotle beef chili, I started looking for other uses for the chiles. My search led me to a post on my cooking message board suggesting using them in Barbacoa Beef. Unfortunately, the poster who suggested this was not a regular and appears to have posted one time only - suggesting this recipe. So I'm not sure what the original source is.

The idea of barbacoa instantly attracted me however for a couple of reasons. The primary reason is that the barbacoa at Chipotle (the eatery, not the chile) is absolutely delicious. And it seems a good omen that a Chipotle favorite would be utilized to use up chipotle.

Secondly, cooking giant pieces of meat means loads of the kind of leftovers I do like!

This recipe is FANTASTIC. No really, it needs caps lock because it is just that good. Spicy, sweet, tender, flavorful meat. Thatboy and I fought over the leftovers - even though there were enough for days of lunches and provided him a great dinner when I went out with the girls. We had it as tacos, burritos, sandwiches, and never got sick of it. I have a feeling it's going to be making a regular appearance on the menu around these parts.

Barbacoa Beef

3 lbs beef eye of round or bottom round roast, all fat trimmed, cut into 4 inch chunks

5 cloves garlic

1/2 medium onion
juice of 1/2 lime
2-4 chipotles in adobo
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp ground oregano
1/2 tsp ground cloves
salt and pepper
3 bay leaves
1 tsp canola oil
1 cup water

Puree garlic, onion, lime juice, cumin, oregano, chipotles, and cloves in a blender.
Heat canola oil in dutch oven over medium high heat. Season meat with salt and pepper and brown.
Add liquefied spices, water, bay leaves and simmer on low 4 hours, adding water as needed so that it doesn't dry out.
Remove the meat and place in a dish. Shred it with two forks.
Discard the bay leaf and return the shredded meat to the pot. Simmer uncovered for about 10 minutes to let the flavors penetrate.

Catching up on Chili

2012-01-25T22:22:00.000-08:00

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time you know I'm a chili fanatic. I just can't get enough. Especially in the fall/winter when the weather gets cold. I've been lagging a little this year on my chili-ing, but partly that was because the weather had been so temperate. Our typical December Downpours were practically non-existent.

And then January rolled around and the weather has gotten cold and wet. Hello winter in Southern California! And so I've been in chili overload. (Is there really such a thing?) Thatboy is ever so patient, but I know if I'm not careful he'll ask me to give it a rest. (We haven't had ham in ages since it overstayed its welcome in Thathouse.) So I've been good about only putting it on the menu one day a week. Week after week.

And I've been switching up the chili quite a bit. White chili, chicken chili, beef chili, turkey chili, with beans, without beans - Chili is one of those rare dishes that can be completely different from day to day.

I've been using some of my old favorite recipes, but I've also been blog-hopping to try new ones. I should probably point out that my secret to perfect chili is using Muir Glen Fire Roasted Tomatoes with green chiles. So any chili recipe that calls for tomatoes gets those. Below you'll see two new-to-me recipes where I've tweaked the recipes a bit, including adding my favorite canned tomatoes.

The first new one I made is a slow-cooker chili. I love the idea of using a slow-cooker to cook my chili so I can spend less time in the kitchen. (Especially important when my weekday runs were amping up in mileage) Plus we're big fans of the spice of Chipotle peppers.

My complaint about this chili is that it didn't have much of a sauce. It was tender beef, beans, and tomatoes, but it wasn't very stew-y or chili-y.

Slow- Cooker Chipotle Beef Chili (adapted from The Dainty Chef)

1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 chipotle chile in adobo, finely chopped
1 can Muir Glen Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes with Green Chiles
1 onion, finely chopped
1 green pepper, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 pounds beef chuck, cut into 1-inch chunks
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1 Sprig oregano
Salt and pepper

Combine chipotle chili, a tsp of the adobo, tomatoes, onions, peppers, and garlic.
In another bowl combine beef, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper to taste.
Place half of the tomato mixture in the crockpot. Place beef mixture on top, then beans, then the remaining tomato mixture. Cook on high for 6 hours.

The next chili we tried was fantastic. New favorite in Thathouse. It's not a slow-cooker chili, but it comes together so very quickly that you won't even mind. I've made turkey chili a number of times, but this was the first time I used black beans in a chili. And they really work. This was delicious the first night, but there was clearly not enough left over. I'm warning you in advance so you can make more than I did. Because I wanted more.

Turkey and Black Bean Chili from The Art of Living (as seen on Prevention RD)

1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 large onion, chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 lb ground skinless turkey
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can Muir Glen Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes with Green Chiles
1/2 can tomato sauce
1 1/2 Tbsp chili powder
1/2 tsp Ancho chili powder
1/2 tsp Chipotle chili powder
3//4 Tbsp ground cumin
1 sprig oregano

Heat the oil in a large nonstick saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion, bell pepper, and garlic; cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes.
Add the turkey and cook, breaking it apart with a wooden spoon, until no longer pink, about 3 minutes.
Stir in the beans, tomatoes, tomato sauce, chili powder, cumin, oregano, and salt; bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, until the vegetables are very tender, about 45 minutes.

And stay tuned because believe it or not, chili is on the menu for tomorrow night too!

Chips Ahoy

2012-01-24T21:53:00.000-08:00

A couple of months ago my food processor went kaput. I can't say it was entirely the fault of the food processor. I might have been partially to blame by not checking the garbage disposal before turning it on.

But let's not point any fingers.

Luckily, since I've been such a good girl this year, I got this brand new shiny toy for Channukah.

It's got far more bells and whistles than my old food processor. Including multiple slicing disks of varying sizes. I've been putting off getting a mandoline for years because I am completely short on kitchen space. This means that I have several things I'd like to make but just don't have the capability without something that can slice super thin. Because we all know that sure as heck isn't one of my strong skills.

I'm in love love love with my new food processor. Especially because it is whisper-quiet. But I really love being able to use it to make things I've never dreamed of before. Things that require paper thin slices of potatoes. Because thick slices of potatoes just don't make potato chips. They make french fries. And when you're layering potatoes, thin slices work so much better so each bite has the appropriate proportion of potato, sauce, and cheese.

I made the potato chips on a night that Thatboy was going out to dinner with friends. I wasn't smart enough to wait till after he left though and with each pass through the kitchen another couple of chips disappeared. He seriously considered staying home. Who would have thought the allure of sandwiches and chips for dinner would keep a man from his friends.

I learned from my mistake and made sure these scalloped potatoes were available on a night he was home for dinner. And yet, served as a side, he didn't have room for them. Figures, right? Don't worry he made short work of them the next day for lunch.

Potato Chips

2 russet potatoes

canola oil

salt

Peel potatoes and slice them very thin. This is where I used the thin slicing disk in my food processor.
Soak the sliced potatoes in cold water for an hour. Pat them with paper towels until they are very very dry.
Heat several inches of oil in a pan until a candy thermometer indicates the oil is 390F. Add the potatoes without crowding and fry, moving and turning them until they are golden brown.
Lift out and drain on paper towels. Toss with salt.

Scalloped Potatoes

3 russet potatoes

2 Tbsp butter

2 Tbsp flour

1 cup hot milk

cayenne pepper

salt

1 egg yolk

1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup bread crumbs

Peel potatoes and boil until tender - about 20 minutes. Slice the potatoes very thinly. Hello new food processor!
Melt butter in a skillet over low heat. Stir in the flour until a paste forms and starts to bubble. Slowly pour in the milk and stir until the sauce thickens.
Stir in the cayenne and salt to taste, the egg yolk, and the cheddar. Keep stirring until the cheese has completely melted.
Spread a thin layer of the sauce over the bottom of a casserole dish. Place a layer of potatoes on top of the sauce. Continue alternating sauce and potatoes, finishing with the sauce.
Sprinkle the bread crumbs on top and bake for 25 minutes.

All grown up

2012-01-23T22:14:00.000-08:00

This holiday season Thatboy, Thatbaby and I were very generously gifted giftcards to some of our favorite stores. We decided to use this weekend as a fun "shopping spree" trip for the three of us to pick some things up.

I needed some things for my typical "mommy uniform." I find that since having Thatbaby I tend to wear the same general thing every day. I wear all my old clothes - just your typical tops and bottoms. But when I'm cold I have to top it with something that opens in the front - either a sweatshirt, jacket, or sweater that buttons or zips. There are two reasons for this - the first is convenience for nursing. But more importantly, I wear Thatbaby a lot. Pretty much every time we go out. I'm not a big fan of strollers because they're hard to maneuver in stores and take up way to much room in aisles.

So for the holidays I had asked for big chunky sweaters that I could wear with our carriers. Large enough to close over the carrier for colder days to help keep little legs warm. I didn't get any, but the gift cards were an easy way to fix that.

This is obviously not me. But it is the sweater I got.

In addition to the sweater, I wanted to pick up a new pair of flats since I'm wearing mine to death. I'm usually a heels girl - I can use all the height I can get. But flats are super easy to slip on and off when I want to tuck my feet up underneath me. And they work equally well with my regular jeans, skinny jeans, and jersey skirts.

Both worked fabulously in action when we went to meet some friends for lunch. The sweater is roomy enough for me to button it right over Thatbaby.

Earlier this week Valli claimed that cheesecake was very "80's." Maybe it's because I wasn't around in the 70s, but for me, cheesecake is timeless. But it also always seemed very grown up when I was a kid. I mean, it's a cake with no frosting! And it's made out of cheese - which doesn't sound like something very cake-like. But I am, in fact, a grownup. So I can obviously appreciate a good cheesecake. My biggest problem with cheesecake however is the size. A cheesecake in our house seems to last forever. It's almost magical. No matter how many slices you cut, there's always a ton left. I decided to change around a cheesecake recipe to make a smaller, cheese-cake pie. It's everything you love about cheesecake, just less. Which means it disappears much faster. And I made it chocolate because I'm not that grownup.

Chocolate Cheesecake Pie

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (about 6 ounces)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup melted unsalted butter

8oz cream cheese

1/2 cup sugar + 1 Tbsp

1/4 cup cocoa

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1/2 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 375. Mix the graham crackers with sugar and melted butter and press into the bottom and sides of 9 inch pie pan. Chill while preparing filling.
In an electric mixer, cream cream cheese.
Add in 1/2 cup sugar and beat until light and fluffy.
Add in cocoa, 1/2 tsp vanilla, and egg. Beat until thoroughly combined.
Pour into prepared crust. Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool for 20 minutes.
While cooling preheat the oven to 425. Stir together the sour cream, remaining sugar and vanilla. Spread over the cooled pie and bake for 10 minutes.

The Mexican Test

2012-01-20T20:55:00.000-08:00

While we were in Palm Desert for New Years the "check engine" light went on in my car. Makes sense, it'd been a full 2 weeks since something was wrong with one of our cars. We brought it in for repair, which happened to be in a part of town near where I worked several years ago. While we waited to pick up my car I dragged Thatboy over to my old lunch spot.

If there's one thing San Diego is not lacking in, it's Mexican restaurants. But not all restaurants are created equal. Inevitably it's the little hole in the walls that are the best. This one doesn't even have a name on the outside. But it's delicious. As I got my typical pastor burrito, Thatboy ordered the chicken enchiladas.

"Enchiladas? Really? I'm surprised." Which is when he informed me that he always orders enchiladas at a new Mexican place - to test and see if the place is any good. It's amazing that after almost 12 years you can still learn something new about someone.

Personally, I think that's a weird test food. Firstly, because enchiladas aren't all that difficult a dish to prepare. Secondly (and this is related to the first), I can make enchiladas at home. And I do. All you have to do is make a sauce, toss together a filling, roll, and pour. And now that I have an all time favorite sauce, making enchiladas are even easier (and tastier). To switch it up from the chicken we recently had, I made these enchiladas vegetarian. Mashed black beans need little accoutrement other than heating.

It's hard to mess up enchiladas - but you go ahead and test out this theory yourself.

Black Bean Enchiladas

2 medium onions, chopped fine
2 jalapenos, seeded and chopped fine
2 tsp canola oil
6 medium cloves garlic, minced
3 Tbsp chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
3 tsp sugar
1 15-oz can tomato sauce
1 cup water
1 large beefsteak tomato, seeded and chopped

1 can black beans, drained, rinsed and mashed
½ cup minced fresh cilantro
¼ can diced green chiles
Salt and pepper
12 corn tortillas
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 450. Combine half the onion, jalapeno, and half the oil in a large saucepan.
Cover and cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, until the onions and peppers have softened, 8-10 minutes.
Stir in half the garlic, chili powder, cumin, and sugar, and cook until fragrant, less than 30 seconds.
Stir in the tomato sauce, water, and chopped tomato. Bring to a simmer, and cook until slightly thickened, 5 minutes.
Strain the sauce through a strainer into a medium bowl, pressing the onion mixture to extract as much liquid as possible.
Heat remaining oil to a large skillet. Add the remaining onion and cook until translucent.
Stir in the remaining garlic and cook just until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
Stir in the black beans and cook until warmed through.
Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup of the sauce, cilantro, and canned chiles.
Heat the corn tortillas until pliable (I use the burners on my gas stove for this - gives them a nice char too!)
Divide filling between the tortillas, roll, and place in a 9x13 baking dish.
Pour remaining sauce over the enchiladas and sprinkle with cheese. Cover and bake 2o minutes.
Remove cover and bake an additional 5 minutes until cheese is bubbly.

Creamy Potatoes

2012-01-19T21:00:00.000-08:00

You might have noticed I've been doing a lot of cooking with potatoes lately. It's a winter thing for me. In terms of seasonal produce, potatoes are just about as seasonal as it comes. Potatoes spend all summer growing and storing up starch, getting as fat as a bear preparing for hibernation. This growing and storing of starch makes them especially filling when the days are cold and the nights are long.

I love potatoes for thickening soup and stews. But where I come from, they are a pretty typical side dish. Thatboy grew up with rice as a side dish for most meals, but we always had baked potatoes, or stuffed potatoes, or oven fries.

This is a combination of those two things. These skillet potatoes use the potato's natural starch to create a creamy sauce, thickening the beef broth. It makes the perfect side, a nice change from your typical oven-cooked potato. And dicing the potato makes it cook fast enough for a weeknight. Gotta love surface area to volume ratios.

Creamy Diced Potatoes
1 Tbsp butter
1/2 onion, chopped
3 Yukon gold potatoes, diced
1/4 cup beef broth
salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Cook the onion until translucent.
Add the potatoes and mix well.
Stir in the beef broth and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer, covered for 10-20 minutes, until the potatoes are fork tendered.
Season with salt and pepper.

Penne Arrabbi-vodka

2012-01-18T21:10:00.000-08:00

I love spicy pasta. Well, I like spicy food in general, but I especially like spicy pasta. One of my favorites is arrabbiata sauce. Arrabbiata is Italian for angry, which is one of my favorite parts of the sauce. I mean, who doesn't like angry pasta?

The traditional arrabiata sauce is basically tomato, garlic, and red chili pepper cooked in olive oil. Which is easy. So easy in fact that I wanted to spice it up a bit. I decided to improve on an old favorite by playing around with the ingredients. I decided to make a vodka-arrabiata sauce. But I've never made a vodka sauce before. And while searching for a good recipe, I ran across Mary's vodka cream sauce. I thought the cream would serve as a nice counterpart to the spicy red chili pepper of the arrabbiata sauce. I did reduce the amount of cream though - it's not the primary aspect of this dish and you don't need a lot to make the sauce creamy.

The result is an impossibly creamy, spicy sauce. It's pasta with a kick. I made it with penne, but in the future I think penne rigate, or even rigatoni would be a better choice as the ridges would catch and hold the sauce a little better. Although, as you can see, this makes a nice, thick chunky sauce which seems to cling pretty well.

Penne Arrabbi-vodka
1/2 box of penne pasta
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 sprig oregano
1/3 cup vodka
1 can peeled plum tomatoes, drained
salt and pepper
1/2 cup heavy cream

Cook the penne according to directions on box. Preheat oven to 375. Heat the oil in an oven proof pan. Cook the onions until translucent.
Add the garlic, red pepper, oregano, and cook just until fragrant - 30 seconds.
Add the vodka and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer 20 minutes.
Add in the tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste. Cover and place in the oven for 45 minutes. Let cool.
Puree the tomato mixture until smooth and return to the pan, reheat. Add the cream and stir.
Toss the pasta with the sauce and cook until heated through.

Ready for another cake?

2012-01-17T22:12:00.000-08:00

As you may or may not have noticed, this blog has been inundated with sweet recipes. 3 cakes in one month? Pretty unusual for a girl who claims to be more into savory than sweet. But the holidays are a time when we all overindulge.

Now that it's January there are far fewer baked goods in Thathouse. There's a chocolate chip banana bread in the fridge Thatmom brought up last week, but other than that, nada. Now we go back to the savory and the only cakes you'll find round these parts are the occasional pancake. (Although to be fair, I haven't made pancakes in ages.)

But savory cakes I can definitely get behind. They make great side dishes. Technically this could be considered a baked mashed potato dish, because really, that's all that is. Mashed potatoes, formed into a cake, and then baked until brown. The eggs serve two purposes - the yolks act as a nice binder, and the whites, folded in, give it some rise. Then you can cut it into slices and serve it just like a cake. Without the frosting of course.

Potato Cake
2 baked potatoes
1 Tbsp butter
1 1/2 Tbsp heavy cream
1 egg separated
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375. Scoop out the inside of the baked potato.
Add the butter, cream, egg yolk, salt and pepper to the baked potato guts and beat until smooth.
Beat the egg white until stiff.
Heat the potato mixture over medium heat, gradually mixing in the egg white.
Form the potato mixture into a loafish shape. Place on a baking sheet and bake 10-12 minutes until browned.

As A Dog

2012-01-16T20:15:00.000-08:00

2 weeks ago I got some sort of 24 hour virus. It was a head cold, combined with a fever and chills. As almost anyone will tell you, the surefire cure for being sick as a dog is warm, comforting, soup. Which is only fitting, because Branny is once again hosting her Souper Bowl.

It's fitting for two reasons. The first has to do with the whole "sick as a dog" part because the Souper Bowl follows Branny's commitment to animals. Her home is overrun with dogs, horses, and a cat. Her heart is overrrun with kindness. Put the two together and this is a charity event that couldn't fit her any better.

The second reason me being sick fits the Souper Bowl is because of the whole "soup" thing. For every blogger who enters a soup post, Branny is donating $1.00 to the ASPCA. And we've been doing quite a bit of soup lately. Hey, it's winter, even if it is California. I thought I would round them all up into one post, plus they kind of lead into each other.

As I did last year, I'm dedicating this entry to Thatdog, because he's put up with a lot this past month. What a trooper. He's such a good big brother and doesn't seem to mind too much that we've completely disrupted his life with a loud, little, screaming thing.

And there's still time for you to enter - You have until January 31st if you'd like to enter some soup of your own!

We'll start with Channukah. I left this off the menu so I could include it here. Flipping through my holiday cookbook I found a "vegetable meat soup." Which is kind of a funny name when you think about it. I mean, I get vegetable soup, and I get beef soup, but the need to include both in the title would lead one to believe those are the only ingredients. Really though, this is a fantastic beef and barley soup, loaded with typical soup vegetables like carrots and celery, but also mushrooms, barley, beans, and peas. It's loaded with just about everything. It was my favorite part of the meal.

Russian Vegetable Meat Soup (From Joan Nathan's Jewish Holiday Cookbook)
3 carrots
2 potatoes
1 sweet potato
4 quarts water
2 lbs top rib, cut in 1 inch chunks
2 oz dried mushrooms or 1 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup dried lima beans
1/2 cup dried green split peas
1/2 cup barley
1/2 lb string beans, diced
4 ribs celery, diced
salt and pepper

Grate the carrots, potatoes, and sweet potatoes.
Bring the water to a boil and add all the ingredients. Cover and simmer 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

In fact, I liked it so much that I adapted it into a vegetarian version - a "vegetable soup" if you will. I added some extra mushrooms after I found a "Monterey Mix" at the store which had some of my favorite mushroom varieties. And I left out the potatoes which were no more than a thickening agent so it could be a little brothier and added garlic which I felt were missing from the first version. I'm a fan of barley soups in general, and this one is nice and not too heavy.

Russian Vegetable Soup
1 carrot, diced
5 cups vegetable broth
2 oz dried mushrooms (I used a mushroom mix which included porcini, oyster, shitake, and morels)
1 cup sliced cremini mushrooms
1/2 cup barley
1 rib celery, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper

Bring the vegetable broth to a boil. Add all the ingredients.
Cover and simmer 40 minutes or until the barley is tender.

As I mentioned, I made baked potatoes for our New Year's Eve feast. And we had leftovers. What do YOU do with leftover baked potatoes? I make soup. Especially in the winter. Potato soup is ridiculously easy if you already have baked potatoes. All you have to do is mash them and add a nice roux. The potatoes make it thick, the roux makes it even thicker and creamier. So much so that you don't even have to use cream - I make mine with skim milk. Which is nice, because then I don't feel so guilty about loading in the cheese!

Baked Potato Soup
2 baked potatoes
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
3 cups hot milk
1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
salt and pepper

Scoop out the insides of the baked potatoes and mash with the back of a fork or a potato ricer, or whatever you use to make mashed potatoes. Make them as smooth or chunky as you like.
Melt the butter in a pot. Gradually whisk in the flour until a paste forms. Cook for a minute or two until bubbly.
Gradually whisk in the hot milk. Cook until the milk thickens.
Add the potatoes, cheddar and salt and pepper to taste. Heat until cooked through.

And this is the soup that should be the star of this post. Only because this is the soup I made when I was sick and needed to get better quickly. Once again I used potatoes to thicken this soup so I didn't have to use cream, just vegetable broth. Although, with the addition of the vegetable broth, the potatoes, and the celery maybe I should call it "Artichoke and vegetable" soup?

Artichoke Soup
1 Tbsp. canola oil
1 potato, peeled and sliced
3 Tbsp onion, sliced
1 rib of celery, diced
1 can artichoke hearts, drained
1 clove garlic, minced
3 cups vegetable broth
1 Tbsp parsley, minced
1 sprig oregano
1 Tbsp basil, chiffonade
salt and pepper

Heat oil in skillet over medium heat. Add potatoes, onion, and celery and cook until the potatoes are fork tender. Let cool.
Place cooled potatoes, onion, celery, artichokes and garlic in a food processor and pulse until the mixture is smooth.
Place the mixture in a pot. Add vegetable broth, parsley, oregano, and basil. Bring to a boil. Cover, lower heat, and simmer 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Kitchen Helper

2012-01-13T21:14:00.000-08:00

This year for New Year's Eve we headed out of town. Thatmom had suggested a family trip to our timeshare in Palm Desert. Since it was just a quick couple of hours away, we thought it would be a safe first vacation with new baby in tow.

A couple of days before we were to leave, I received this email from Thatmom:

Hello my loved ones,

Next weekend we are dining at Zins in palm springs for dinner on Friday eve, then having breakfast at Cheeky's the next day. On New Years eve, we will cook indoors at the Time Share and if okay with you, I have assignments for dinner.

Thatbrother will do the appetizer (caprese is fine)
UDubb will do a small salad
Thatboy will pick out the wine
Thatgirl will prepare the filet mignon
Thatmom will do the side dishes
Thatbaby will do the desert.

Everyone had a job to do. And it worked out really well for the most part. I ended up making some baked potatoes to go with the filets, and UDubb and Thatbrother ended up bringing the wine. Really Thatboy was the only one who got out of doing anything. Even Thatbaby got in on the action, taking his duty of dessert very seriously.

Because my mocha walnut cake had been such a hit, he thought he should try a Fannie Farmer cake also. He chose a velvet cake - so called because of "velvet texture." The recipe was unlike anything I'd ever seen. It called for 1/2 a cup of cornstarch and 4 tsp of baking powder. And it called for beating the egg whites until stiff before folding them into the batter. I figured the cake would probably float away! Or explode.

I'll have to do some Alton Brown research on those ingredients, but I can tell you that they made this cake perfectly light, crumbly, and buttery. (Well the butter probably made it buttery.) With a simple boiled chocolate frosting, this cake is classic and simple, but a sure fire winner. Thatboy thinks it's the best homemade cake he's ever had. Which I'm sure is partly due to Thatbaby's loving hand in it's creation.

One tip - on New Year's Eve we cut the cake cold from the fridge. It was alright. It wasn't until the next night when we took it out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature that it really shone. So make sure you let it come to room temp before serving.

Velvet Cake (From the Fannie Farmer Cookbook)
1/4 lb butter
1 cup sugar
4 eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350. Spray 2 8-inch cake pans with baking spray. Cream the butter in an electric mixture.
Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy.
Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time.
Beat in 1/2 cup of cold water.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, salt, and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in stages and mix thoroughly.
Beat the egg whites until stiff, but not dry. Stir a third of the whites into the batter.
Fold in the remaining whites and spread the batter into the pans. Bake for about 25 minutes. Coll in pans for 5 minutes before turning onto racks. Cool completely before frosting.

Chocolate Butter Frosting
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1/4 lb butter
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate, melted

Boil the sugar and 1/4 cup water until the mixture reaches 240 degrees F.
While the sugar syrup is cooking, beat the egg yolk well. Pour the syrup over the egg, beating constantly.
Beat in the butter until it's incorporated.
Mix in the melted chocolate and continue to beat until the frosting is of spreading consistency.

Day Drinkin' - Must be nice

2012-01-12T21:20:00.000-08:00

Thatboy took off the week between Christmas and New Years. We decided this would be an excellent time to make the trip out to Temecula to our wine club. Mostly because we are completely out of wine. Some chick who lives in this house seems to be off her 9-month sobriety wagon.

We joined the wine club at Churon Winery for a couple of reasons:
1) We really like the wines.
2) It's only 2 wines every other month.
3) They don't send you random wine. Every other month you can go and pick out whatever 2 you like.
4) You don't have to go pick up every month, they'll hold your wine for you until you do go pick it up.

Since we hadn't been to Churon since May, we had 8 bottles to pick up. As members we get free tastings, so we took advantage to see if there was anything new we wanted to add to our usual suspects.

We packed up a cooler with cheese and crackers, packed up the dog and baby, and headed out.

We sat outside and enjoyed the day and our little picnic. We also got to try an unreleased late harvest tempranillo. Which was amazing. I can't wait to get a bottle at our next pick-up. Thatbaby can't wait either:

Don't worry - he wasn't driving.

We picked up a healthy dose of reds, including Thatboy's favorite port, and a couple of whites, including the new pinot grigio. So far the first bottle we've opened is the Ruby Cabernet, which is a fairly typical Cabernet. Cabs aren't generally our favorite, but we like the tobacco-iness of this one. And it pairs well with a nice heavy winter pasta dish. Like one of my favorite stroganoff recipes.

I like this dish because it's a true one pot meal - the noodles cook in the sauce/broth so you don't even need to dirty a boiling pot. If you find some nice meaty mushrooms, each bite fills your mouth with good, rich flavor.

Christmas at Home

2012-01-11T17:14:00.000-08:00

Every year Christmas is a huge, disappointing ordeal. We take time off work and head up to the inlaws where we sit and contemplate our navels for days on end. Everyone there is miserable and they spend the entire time we're there trying to get us to be as miserable as they are. And then the following week Thatboy tries to convince me that if we just moved closer, we could help everyone be less miserable. Which means I get to spend a miserable time there and look forward to some more misery when we get home.

One of the reasons I was aiming for an October baby was because Thatboy agreed with me that if we had a baby in October, there was no way we could trek up to his parents for the holidays. Not with a new baby! We broke the news to the inlaws when we went up for Easter and invited them to come down and spend Thatbaby's first Christmas with us. Even though they TMIL already taken time off work, that week, they declined. They didn't want to come down and see us.

As Christmas approached, Thatboy get more and more glum. He was sad about not going home, sad about not seeing his family. And I spent more and more energy into trying to make the holidays special for him.

Well, not just him. I wanted it to be special for Thatbaby too. A couple years ago I had made a stocking for a friend's baby. And I knew that I wanted to make one for Thatbaby too. I should have started it in November, but I didn't. All of a sudden it was December and I realized that I should probably get on it. Thatboy's grandmother had made him a green stocking with red trim, so he requested Thatbaby's be similar.

After a couple days of nonstop work it was complete!

(The other side has his name embroidered onto it)

Thatmom joined us for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Which meant she got some good baby holding time while we did fun things like make gingerbread houses.

(I think this is the best one we've ever made)

I let Thatboy pick out whatever he wanted for Christmas Eve dinner. The menu was rack of lamb, roasted broccoli and wild rice. And then the night before I realized I hadn't planned anything for dessert. Luckily, Channukah came before Christmas this year and one of my Channukah presents from Thatmom was Maida Heatter's Cakes. Growing up, Maida Heatter was who Thatmom turned to for desserts - literally. She actually wrote to Maida Heatter. This was, of course, before the internet and blogs where one can pose a quick question to a great baker. I felt sure that we could find an amazing dessert from the book. Thatboy picked out the Farmer's Daughter Cake - a classic: white cake with chocolate frosting. What makes the cake less classic is the fact that it is made without any butter/shortening/oil at all. All the fat content in this cake come from cream, which is why Maida dubs it the Farmer's Daughter cake - surmising that it was probably made on a dairy farm.

The frosting is thick and fudgey, a complement to the sort of plain cake below. While this cake probably would have gone over okay, since it was paired with the mocha walnut cake, it was definitely overshadowed.

Farmer's Daughter Cake (From Maida Heatter's Cakes)

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 tsp. almond extract

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1 cup sugar

1 cup heavy cream

2 cups flour

Heat the oven to 350. Spray an 8x8 pan with baking spray. Beat the eggs in an electric mixer.
Add the vanilla, almond extract, baking powder and salt.
Beat in the sugar.
Add the cream.
Lower the speed and add the flour, mixing until smooth. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 35-40 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes, run a sharp knife around the sides and cool another five minutes. Turn out onto a rack and cool completely before frosting.

Classic Chocolate Frosting

4 oz. unsweetened chocolate

1/2 cup milk

1 1/3 cup sugar

2 egg yolks

1 TBSP + 1 tsp. butter

1 tsp. vanilla

In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the chocolate with the milk and sugar. Remove from the heat and let stand for a minute.
Beat the egg yolks a bit and temper it by adding half of the chocolate mixture.
Pour the egg yolks back into the chocolate. Return to low heat and cook, stirring, for one minute.
Stir in the butter and vanilla. Let cool to room temperature.
Beat the cooled frosting for 10-15 minutes until it becomes thick and spreadable.
Here comes the "pro tip part." Maida recommends pouring half of the frosting over the top of the cake and letting it cool a bit. Then pour the rest of it over. This way, she says, it won't go crazy running over the sides and pooling at the bottom.

More lights!

2012-01-10T20:18:00.000-08:00

Christmas lights weren't the only lights to entertain Thatbaby this holiday season. He got to take part in his first Channukah!

(You can see he was really into it.)

Having a new baby during a holiday that begins at sundown meant that everyone came to me this year for celebration. Usually we get together with the family up at Thatmom's house during one of the weekend days of Chanukkah. But Thatbrother and UDubb were heading up to her family the second day, which meant we had to do our celebrating the first night.

Since everyone was coming to me, it only made sense for me to whip up a fantastic dinner.

The brisket was the main attraction. I went with a traditional recipe by Joan Nathan. I've made brisket before, but this was my first time with this recipe and Thatboy's favorite. He claims to have never had a brisket like this before, but he has, he just doesn't remember. It's a recipe that couldn't be easier - combine minimal ingredients, marinate, and then throw in the oven.

For sides there were sauteed bell peppers and a big green salad. The leftover peppers are a great addition to omelets, pizzas, or pastas. The sweetness really works well with the tangy brisket.

No Channukah would be complete without latkes! I've created my own little recipe which is a mix of my dad's recipe and a couple of others. It's a mix of potatoes and onions, an egg, and flour. Pretty basic, but I've found the ratios really do matter. My one egg is less than a lot of recipes and I add a little more flour to give it that nice crispiness. I also grate the potatoes and onions with a large grater, which seems to be another unique variable. I got a new food processor for Channukah that night and it would have made the grating of the potatoes and onions a lot easier.

A typical dessert for Channukah would be something fried - like sufganiyot. I went with cookies instead - almond horns to be exact. Thatmom LOVES almond horns. With a dusting of powdered sugar, they're the perfect winter treat.

Keeping Old Promises

2012-01-09T21:49:00.000-08:00

Way back in 2011 I promised you another fabulous recipe involving fennel and I alluded to the fact that we were going to attempt another Santa photo op with Thatbaby. Since it's now 2012 I think it's about time I shared both with you!

San Diego loves to get all dressed up for the holidays. The San Diego Botanic Gardens hosts the "Garden of Lights" in December when the entire garden becomes a winter wonderland - complete with snow. Thatbaby was fascinated by the lights when we took him to his first Santa visit, so we thought this would be a hit.

We were right.

I'm pretty sure if Thatbaby could decorate heaven it would be covered in Christmas lights. He was in awe the entire time we were there. Sure maybe he was a little over stimulated and maybe we messed up his routine by an hour or two, but it was worth it to see him light up as he looked at the world covered in a sparkly glow. He didn't want to sleep for fear of missing a minute.

Watching him watching the lights was entertainment enough, but Thatboy and I also managed to find the corner where they were pouring mulled wine. It was a nice enough evening - as you can tell by Thatboy's "warm winter sweatshirt" but warmed wined in the cooler winter evenings is still appreciated.

Once we were all wined up we headed over to see Santa!

Once again Thatbaby did great - smiling and cooperative. Our family picture actually has all of us looking at the camera and smiling and is one of the best pictures of us so far. See - my baby's not afraid of Santa Clause, he just doesn't like sketchy men touching him. I don't either, so he must have inherited it from me.

We toured through the gardens which are beautiful at night and covered through lights. But they also looked like they would be wonderful during the day and we can't wait to go back.

As we headed over to the snow, we passed the miniature railroad which was elaborate and fascinating. We have a miniature railroad museum here in San Diego but I like the incorporation in the gardens.

The snow areas were divided into two parts - one for free play and the other for sledding. Both were filled with smiling kids. By this time Thatbaby had fallen asleep so we held off on snowplay for another year and headed home.

The other part of my promise was for a good fennel recipe and it seems something warm and filling should fit in right here after tales of snow and Christmas. I mentioned that I've been going through a fennel phase recently and happened to have a bulb on hand when Branny posted the recipe for Lentil, Kielbasa, and Fennel Stew.

Talk about good timing, right? Lucky for me we always have lentils on hand. I use it in so many soups it has become a pantry staple. I changed up the recipe just slightly because I don't love kielbasa. Instead I used garlic chicken sausages. The result was something so delicious we couldn't wait to have leftovers for lunch. It's hearty. It's filling. It's the perfect winter night meal with a nice crusty piece of bread.

Ch-ch-changes

2012-01-03T21:50:00.001-08:00

2011 was a year of change. I think there were changes in almost every aspect of my life. The most obvious changes involved Thatbaby.

One thing that didn't change throughout the year was my hair. I think this is the longest it's ever been. I was terrified to cut it though -afraid that pregnancy hormones would have me irrationally in tears as it fell to the floor. I've never been afraid of cutting my hair before, because it will always grow back. And I really like it short. Thatboy usually isn't as much of a fan of my shorter hair, so I comprise and vacillate back and forth between short and long.

After Thatbaby was born it was time to go back to short. So in the beginning of December I lopped it all off.

Sure it may be a "mom do" but I was sporting long hair for years before I was a mom, so for me it's much more of a "Thatgirl do." And this may be one of my favorite haircuts ever. Even Thatboy, who loves neither short hair nor bangs admitted that he really likes my hair.

I pulled another switchup on Thatboy for Christmas Eve. Since it was our first Christmas not visiting his family, I let him dictate the menu for Christmas Eve. There was rack of lamb, roasted broccoli, and wild rice. But neither of us thought about dessert till the night before. I had him pick out a cake from a new cookbook (more on that another time) but ended up changing the dessert last minute to this mocha walnut cake. I'm SO glad I did. Like the hair change, this one went over so much better than expected. The cake itself was great, but I really think it's the frosting that sends this one over the top. Or licking plates. Thatboy described it as a caramel flavor, but after a couple more licks of the plate I decided that the flavor is much more akin to a praline. Since we both have a massive affinity for those southern sweets, it's no surprise that this frosting has become a quick favorite. See? Change is good!

Mocha Walnut Cake (From the Fannie Farmer Cookbook)
3/4 cup milk
3 Tbsp instant coffee
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 lb butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1/4 tsp salt
3 tsp baking powder
1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350. Spray an 8x8 pan with baking spray. Heat the milk and stir in the instant coffee until it dissolves.
Add the vanilla and let cool.
Cream the butter and add the sugar, beating until light and fluffy.
Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each egg is combined before adding the next.
Stir in the coffee mixture.
Combine cake flour, salt, and baking powder and add to the wet ingredients.
Stir in the walnuts. Spread the batter into the pan. Bake 45 minutes. Let cool in pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto rack. Frost with Penuche frosting.

Penuche Frosting (From the Fannie Farmer Cookbook)
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
3 Tbsp butter
1 1/2 Tbsp corn syrup
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix all the ingredients except vanilla in a heavy bottomed saucepan. Bring slowly to a boil and boil 1 minute.
Cool till lukewarm, add the vanilla, and beat until think enough to spread.

Wow December sure flew by!

2012-01-02T14:49:00.000-08:00

I know you've all been missing something as this new year begins. That little piece of Thatgirl that makes your life complete. But almost all my free time in December was dedicated to this little project:

More on that later, but suffice to say I was knitting on a schedule so blogging took a backseat. Which is a shame since we sure did a lot last month. (Which probably only compounded the timing issue.)

Like when Thatboy's best friends came down for the weekend. Our little home was filled to the brim with 5 adults, a toddler and a baby - which made the holidays even warmer. The last time we saw Ace he was 2 weeks old. Now he's a giant!

(picture taken seconds after Ace kissed Thatbaby's head and moments before Ace followed said kiss with a slap. Toddlerhood - it's a learning process.)

Their visit happened to coincide what has quickly become one of my favorite San Diego races - The Jingle Bell run. If you recall, I ran it last year and vowed to make it a regular part of my running schedule. It was just as much fun as I remembered, complete with jingling jingle bells on shoes, marimbas playing Christmas music, and an acapella choir who were singing "Steal my Kisses" for some reason - which I don't associate much with Christmas.

And of course there were the awesome costumes. I didn't get a picture of the guy in a green unitard on a unicycle, but I did capture Santa on Stilts:

The boys in the footie pajamas:

Santa and her sleigh of reindeer (these chicks won for best costume):

And other festive attire:

And we got into the spirit too.

Thatboy and the rest of the crew walked the race while I ran ahead. The nice thing about not being super speedy to begin with is I'm already back to my pre-pregnancy speed. In fact, at 2 months postpartum I actually finished this race 36 seconds faster than when I ran it in 2010!

After I crossed the finish line, I turned around and ran the course backwards to meet up with everyone. Which was fun because I got comments like "Hey - the finish line is the other way!" and I was able to give support to tired runners "The rest of the course is all downhill!" Around the halfway point I met up with these lollygaggers.

And we finished the rest of the race together.

Well, almost together. As we neared the finish line I ran ahead so I could capture Thatbaby finishing his first race. See that car behind us? That was the cleanup crew. We were the absolute last people to finish the race. But it was still a PR for Thatbaby!

Thatboy's favorite part of the race (and the reason he'll run it again next year) was the beer garden hosted by Stone Brewery.

Thatbaby was too young to come in, but we're such good parents, we kept an eye on him while we enjoyed.

While we were having houseguests I of course wanted to serve them up something home-cooked and delicious. Especially since we didn't want to go out the night before the race so we could all get to bed a little earlier.

I wanted to do something that would feed a large crowd but still be easy. I gave Thatboy some choices - roast chicken, lasagna, chili, or enchiladas. Not surprisingly he chose enchiladas. He always chooses enchiladas.

I used Nicole's adaptation for chicken enchiladas with red chile sauce. They were amazing. I really think making your own chile sauce is the key here. They were a big success and Magski even asked for the recipe to make at home once I assured her it was incredibly easy. Served with a nice salad and some Spanish rice it was the perfect way to spend an evening with friends.

"Chicken Soup" for a rough day

2011-12-15T21:51:00.000-08:00

Stick with me to the end on this one and you will be greatly rewarded. Trust me on this - it's worth it to scroll allllll the way down. You can do it now if you want - head down to the end and back up. We'll all wait here for you.

On December 2, Thatbaby turned 2 months old. And anyone with a young child knows what that means - the dreaded 2 month shots!

Thatbaby was a trooper. I mean, obviously he cried - even I cried when I have to get a shot, and I'm older than 2 months. But about 2.5 seconds after we got home, he was back to his normal self.

When I get a shot I wallow in the pain and misery. I don't get shots very often for this reason. And even though Thatbaby appears to have not inherited this delightful trait, I still felt like some comfort food should follow up this harrowing ordeal. Enter Chicken Cordon Bleu.

Can you think of anything more comforting than melted cheese? Cutting into a chicken breast and watching it just ooze out? And while most ooze verges on disgusting, oozing cheese is downright amazing. And topping it with an alfredo-like sauce sends it over the edge from ordinary to extraordinary.

The comfort-fest continues with our side dishes. Granted, I'm the weirdo that thinks pretty much any vegetable is comforting, but it's even more appealing when baked with cheese. I'm going through a fennel phase right now (you'll see more later this week). Raw fennel has a delightful black licorice scent, but when you cook it, it doesn't have that flavor. To me, it tastes like winter - warm and earthy. Like a sweater. And what could be more comforting than that?

Braised Fennel Au Gratin
1 head of fennel
2 Tbsp butter
chicken broth
salt and pepper
1/4 cup parmesean cheese

Preheat the oven to 375. Wash and slice the fennel in 1/2 inch slices.
Melt the butter in a skillet. Add the fennel slices and saute for 5 minutes.
Add 1/2 inch of chicken broth, cover and simmer about 18 minutes.
Remove fennel to a baking dish and boil down the liquid until only a few tablespoons remain.
Pour the reduced liquid over the fennel, sprinkle the parmesean over and broil until the cheese has melted.

And for those of you that have stuck around - we got back our photos from the sketchy santa shoot. We went because I'm a sucker for free professional pictures, but really, are they much use when they turn out like this?

Tell me that santa doesn't give you the willies? And look how comfortable Thatbaby seems...right?

Let's review:

Good Santa

Bad Santa.

I think we've got one more Santa option this weekend. And I'm counting on this one to be the winner!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

2011-12-06T10:23:00.000-08:00

Now that Thanksgiving is over I can start getting into the winter holiday spirit. And we go full swing tilt once that happens.

H had told us that her photographer was doing pictures with Santa at a local car dealership, so Saturday we headed down for another photo opportunity. I don't have the photos back yet, but I'm not expecting much. Thatbaby's first pictures with Santa went really well. He was all smiles and coos. But this time, there was a lot more tears, crying, and general unhappiness. And of course, the Santa seemed a little sketchy. If I could figure out a way to upload the video without sound you would seem him almost drop Thatbaby ass over teakettle.

After the Santa experience we brought Thatbaby over to Balboa Park which is all dressed up for Christmas also. Lights and giant trees. Every year the Old Globe Theater puts on The Grinch that Stole Christmas and so the Whoville Tree is also present. With a host of Whos dancing around the base.

We then went to pick up our very own tree. For some reason, our usual tree lot wasn't there this year, so we went driving around to find a new lot. Which is when Thatbaby decided he didn't like his carseat anymore, and he wanted to go home, and he didn't like these stupid tree lots anyway. Which made the experience a lot less enjoyable.

Undeterred, we picked out the perfect tree and decorated it after Thatbaby went to bed for the night.

He was pretty excited about it when he woke up. He loves looking at it, even when it's not lit. I love going through our ornaments when we put them up - so many have special meaning. Like the ones that hung on Thatdad's tree, or the ones marking trips we've been on, or the ones marking special events in our lives. Like the birth of our son:

This year we also added a couple from our trips this year. Like when we went to Tahoe for Fourth of July.

Or our anniversary babymoon at Cannon Beach.

And since we're in the holiday spirit, I'll take a break from the entrees and veggies and share with you the recipe for the Mexican Chocolate mini-pies I sent in with Thatboy for his birthday.

I found the original recipe in Food Network Magazine, for a full sized pie, but full sized pies are difficult to eat at work. Besides, everyone loves treats they can hold in their hand and eat without a fork or spoon. So I adapted the recipe to make individualized pies. I also switched the crust to an oreo cookie crust which I like so much better than a chocolate wafer crust. With potlucks and holiday parties abounding, these are a sure fire crowd pleaser. They disappeared from Thatboy's office in a matter of minutes.

Mini-Mexican Chocolate Pies (Adapted from The Food Network Magazine)
30 oreo cookies
6 Tbsp butter, melted
2 cups milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp roasted cinnamon
1/4 tsp almond extract
1 pinch cayenne
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
4 egg yolks
2 Tbsp cold coffee
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
4 oz semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350. Crush the oreo cookies in a food processor.
Add melted butter and pulse until moist. Divide between 12 muffin tins and press into the bottom and side of each cup. Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool while preparing the filling.
Heat the milk in a large saucepan until hot but not boiling.
In a separate bowl, whisk the sugar, cocoa powder, cinnamon, almond extract, cornstarch, and salt.
Whisk the egg yolks, coffee, and vanilla into the sugar mixture.
Temper the egg mixture by whisking in half of the hot milk into the eggs until smooth. Then whisk the egg mixture into the rest of the hot milk.
Cook, whisking, 3-5 minutes until it boils and thickens. Remove from the heat, whisk in the chocolate until it is all melted. Let cool slightly. Stir during cooling so a skin doesn't form.
Pour the filling into the muffin-tins and refrigerate until the pudding sets.

Arroz by any other name

2011-12-04T05:07:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure when I discovered Arroz con Pollo. I grew up in a pretty small town without a lot of ethnic diversity when it came to restaurants (or people for that matter).

I do know, however, that I discovered I could make Arroz con Pollo at home this summer. Which was a game changer here. I found a recipe which made the entire thing seem like child's play, because really, the thing that make arroz con pollo what it is, is this magic seasoning in a box - Sazon.

And of course, this little box contains more than one seasoning packet. Which I've been more than happy to make use of. I've started arroz con-ing on a near weekly basis. Almost anything I can get my little hands on because it's just that easy - make a sauce with tomato sauce and sazon, add rice, add protein of choice. It works just as well with chicken as it does with shrimp or pork.

Now that I shared with you my secret of how easy this dish is, I'll tell you a way to make it even easier - use pre-cooked meat! Which makes this a fabulous way to use up leftovers (anyone still have turkey in their fridge? Arroz con pavo!). And if you want to go even easier than pre-cooked meat, use precooked meat someone else cooked! I love some of the prepared meats at Trader Joes - their potroast, pollo asada, and most especially carnitas. I picked up a package of their carnitas, used a fork to pull it apart (okay, I'm not going to lie - I pulled it apart with my fingers, but if I were serving this for company I would most certainly use a fork) and threw it in with my rice. Voila - arroz con carnitas!

Arroz Con Carnitas
3 Tbsp canola oil
1 cup tomato sauce
1 packet Sazon
2 bay leaves
1/ tsp cumin
2 cups of uncooked rice
4 cups water
salt and pepper
12 oz cooked carnitas, fork-pulled

Heat oil in a dutch oven over medium heat.
Add tomato sauce, Sazon, bay leaves and cumin. Cook for 5 minutes.
Add the rice and cook for 1 minute.
Stir in the water. Season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil.
Boil for 10 minutes, then lower heat and simmer for 25 minutes.
Stir in the carnitas and heat until the entire dish is warmed through.

Scalloped Corn (From the Fannie Farmer Cookbook)
3 Tbsp flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp dry mustard
pinch of cayenne pepper
3 Tbsp butter
1 small green pepper, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
1 cup milk
2 cups corn kernels
1 egg yolk, slightly beaten
2/3 cup buttered bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 400. Spray a baking dish with baking spray. Mix flour, salt, paprika, mustard, and cayenne pepper in a small bowl.
Melt the butter in a skillet, add the green pepper and onion and cook until soft.
Stir in the flour mixture and cook, stirring for 2-3 minutes.
Add the milk while stirring. Bring to a boil
Stir in the corn and egg yolk.
Spoon into the baking dish and sprinkle with the bread crumbs. Bake 25 minutes.

Sufferin' Succotash

2011-12-03T05:48:00.000-08:00

Before a couple of years ago, the only time I had ever heard of succotash was when it was uttered, alongside what could only be gallons of spittle, by Sylvester the Cat. I assumed it was one of those nonsense phrases like "Gee Wilikers."

Turns out succotash really is something. A vegetable medley that's a little different than your peas and carrots. My discovery began with Trader Joes - as all good discoveries do. In fact, if Christopher Columbus had a Trader Joes by him, he would have known he hadn't landed in India because - duh, no masala to be found anywhere. However, he would have seen succotash, which should have clued him in that this, my friends, was America. Land of the free and the brave - until the Pilgrims came and took the freedom of the braves.

Trader Joes has an edamame succotash that I pick up every now and again for variety. But traditional succotash, it turns out, is a lima bean dish. And we all know how much I love lima beans. Further research indicates that succotash was originally a Native American dish that was popular during the Great Depression because it was inexpensive to make. Which makes sense, since for many years corn was considered food for livestock, and not people.

Now I'll eat lima beans anyway I can get them, but Thatboy isn't as entirely easy to please in that department. So pairing them with corn and cream seemed like a good way to get him interested. And I was definitely right on the mark with that. This is probably his new favorite way to eat lima beans.

Succotash
1 Tbsp butter
1 cup cooked corn
1 cup cooked lima beans
2 Tbsp cream
salt and pepper

Melt butter in a saucepan. Add the corn and lima beans and heat through.
Add the cream and stir to combine. Heat until the entire dish is warmed.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Mid-East Feast

2011-12-02T03:08:00.000-08:00

In general, I work from a meal plan. I write out what we'll be having for the week and use that to make my shopping list. It usually cuts down on grocery costs and saves me from that awful "what are we having for dinner tonight" moment where you stare blankly into the fridge willing an answer to emerge from it's frosty depths.

But a couple of weeks ago when we were at the supermarket a couple of extra things made their way into my basket. Like the pound of ground lamb that was marked down to $1. I love playing with ground lamb. More than any other ground meat, this is the one I like to try new things with. Beef almost always gets made into meatloaf, burgers, or meatballs. Ground turkey tends to get thrown into chili. But ground lamb is never pigeonholed.

Instead I use it as an opportunity to scour the internet in search of a new idea, use, or flavor profile. Which is how I landed on Aarti Sequeira's Ground Lamb Kofto Kebabs.

Thatboy, Thatmom and I all watch The Next Food Network Star, so I was familiar with Aarti and the fact that she brings some really great flavor to the table in a very accessible manner. These kebabs certainly highlight that. The baking soda in the meat mixture gives them an almost sponge-like consistency, and the marinade is fantastic. So fantastic in fact, that I would recommend making them much thinner than I did so you get more of a marinade to meat surface area ratio.

Aarti serves her kebabs with potatoes and cucumbers. I served mine with just cucumbers. Because they bring such a nice contrast to the highly spiced meat. Traditionally, the cucumbers would be a cold, salad like dish. But there's nothing traditional about me. And with the colder weather coming in, I've been braising a lot of my vegetables - cooking them down to their essence in a sweet and salty sauce. This time cucumbers got the treatment.

Braised Cucumbers
1 cucumber
3 Tbsp of butter
1 sprig parsley, finely chopped
salt and pepper

Peel the cucumber. Cut in half and use the tip of a spoon to remove the seeds.
Slice each cucumber half and place in a pan with 2 Tbsp butter, 1/2 cup of water, and parsley. Simmer, covered, for about 9 minutes.
Drain the cucumbers and toss with remaining butter and salt and pepper to taste.

French History

2011-12-01T02:50:00.000-08:00

When Thatmom met Thatdad she was an English major in college. Her career ambition was to go to the Sorbonne and translate French poetry. That obviously didn't work out.

Instead she went to nursing school and had a beautiful, smart, charming, and overall wonderful baby girl. And when that baby girl was a child, the family took a trip to Montreal where a sweet waitress, impressed with the girl-child's beginning French offered to take her and raise her and teach her French. That obviously didn't work out.

Instead the girl-child went home with her family, and began taking French classes as soon as she was able. She began reading novels in French, coaching teams for French competitions, and even winning a couple of blue ribbons herself. When she graduated high school, she applied to college in Montreal with the goal of teaching French. That obviously didn't work out.

Instead she has had to make do with eating lots of French food. Like turning a simple ham and cheese sandwich into a gourmet French dinner. Especially since she has currently become obsessed with the pre-grated swiss/gruyere mix at Trader Joe's. The perfect flavor for just about everything and great for melting. Which makes it really nice for any sort of grilled cheese sandwich. C'est magnifique!

Croque Monsieur
1 Tbsp crème fraîche
1 Tbsp dijon mustard
1/4 cup Trader Joe's shredded swiss/gruyere mix
4 slices of bread
2 slices ham
2 Tbsp butter

Stir together the crème fraîche, mustard, and cheese.
Spread this mixture on each slice of bread.
Add ham to half of the bread slices and cover with the other halves.
Melt the butter in a skillet and cook the sandwich, about 2 minutes or until golden brown. Flip and cook the second side for another minute or two.

To keep this truly authentic you should probably serve it with pomme frites, but as I mentioned before, we're corn crazy in this house, so I instead of pomme frites, I made mais frites - or corn fritters.

Corn Fritters
1 cup corn kernels, chopped
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup flour
salt and pepper
2 Tbsp butter

Combine the corn, egg, flour, salt and pepper.
Shape into small patties. Melt the butter in a skillet and fry the patties for about 4 minutes per side, or until golden.
Flip and cook another couple of minutes on the other side.

Repurposing Thanksgiving leftovers

2011-11-30T02:03:00.000-08:00

The only difficulty with having Thanksgiving at Thatmom's house is the lack of leftovers to play with. Usually there's enough for "second Thanksgiving" the next night, but that's pretty much it. And leftovers are never fun when you're eating them the exact way as the night before.

Luckily a lack of leftovers on my part doesn't stop me from sharing some great ideas with you. Because while I don't have leftovers from Thanksgiving, I do have the raw ingredients that many of you may have used in your own Thanksgiving feasts - namely, sweet potatoes and cranberries.

I've been using fresh cranberries a lot this year - ever since they showed up at the market. Mainly because last year I started getting cranberry antsy about a month or so after they had disappeared and so I've been storing up some good ideas since then. I made my own cranberry relish a few days before Thanksgiving. Between that and the cranberry butter, I had some leftovers in the bag which I felt would make an excellent topping for chicken. Reduced down to a thick and chunky chutney, this would work equally well over pork or turkey.

Cranberry Chutney
3/4 cup water
1 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp cider vinegar
1 Tbsp flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4tsp allspice
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups fresh cranberries

Combine the water, brown sugar, vinegar, flour, cinnamon, cloves, allspice and salt in a saucepan over low heat. Stir until the sugar is dissolved
Add in cranberries and cook slowly about 10 minutes, stirring constantly, until the cranberry skins pop and the mixture thickens.
Serve over chicken, pork, turkey, or use in a sandwich!

This year the sweet potatoes at our table were replaced with delicious butternut squash. But that might not be the case at your house. In years past there has been a bowl filled with baked potatoes - both of the regular and sweet variety. And there are always some leftover. Mashed potatoes are a great way to use up leftover baked potatoes, but these are so great and seasonal you may not want to wait until you have leftovers. Growing up, Thatdad would make squash with brown sugar and cinnamon, so the use of sweet additions to the mashed potatoes isn't too much of a shock. The maple and brown sugar make the sweet potatoes even sweeter, and there's something so perfect about maple syrup this time of year.

Mashed Sweet Potatoes
1 lb baked sweet potatoes OR
1 lb raw sweet potatoes cut into chunks, 1 cup apple cider, and 1 cup water
2 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1 Tbsp brown sugar

If using baked sweet potatoes, scoop out the insides and place in a saucepan.
If using raw sweet potatoes, combine the chunks, cider, and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and simmer about 20 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are tender. Drain and return to saucepan. Use the back of a fork to mash the potatoes.
Reheat potatoes over a low heat and add the butter, maple syrup, and brown sugar.

The Superiority of Women

2011-11-29T02:57:00.000-08:00

There is a definite difference between the sexes - and I'm not referring to the physical differentiation.

One only has to take Thatboy and I as a case study. We can turn our focus onto this very weekend.

We'll begin with the basics - multitasking. Thatmom and I can have an entire conversation, while the television is on. However, any attempt to involve Thatboy in said conversation is a futile endeavor. If you were to say, ask him whether his father would like an outdoor walking cap for Christmas, you would be met with silence. Further pressing the question would result in a grunt of some sort which would fail to answer the query. And of course, mentioning the conversation that was held at a later point in time would result in a confused, blank, stare.

Our second example involves illness. On Wednesday night, I wasn't feeling so hot. It was one of those days where I'd gotten very little sleep because of preparations for our trip and Thatboy's birthday. When I woke up Thanksgiving morning it had morphed from "meh" to "bleh." My throat was sore and I felt generally run down. I popped some emergen-c in a glass of OJ and rallied to help with Thanksgiving preparations. By Friday morning I was near 100% with only a runny nose to show for it. On Saturday night, Thatboy claimed that I contaminated him when he started developing a sore throat. By Sunday it had progressed into the bubonic plague. While I was able to pull myself together and function as normal, Thatboy has spent the past 2 days giving the cast of the Walking Dead a run for their money. He has a headache, a fever, chills, a cough that physically hurts him, and sounds like someone should take a wet vac to his chest. Pretty extreme, right? But don't worry, I'm sure he'll be 100% by the time the weekend rolls around.

The last proof I have that the extra X chromosome must be packing some pretty powerful stuff is the difference between Thatboy and I when it comes to pumpkin. See, I can't get enough of the stuff, but I limit my overload to the fall season. And as we approach December, that fall season seems to be slipping away. Thatboy, however has grown tired of the pumpkin pies, cheesecakes, breads, oatmeals, milkshakes, and the many other ways I have used that big orange squash. When he saw the chocolate cake portions laid out to cool he became unbelievably excited that I was making whoopie pies. (Or moon pies as he calls them, even after I've explained that refers to a different kind of treat.) So I probably don't need to tell you about his disappointment when I filled them with pumpkin cream cheese frosting. Which really meant, more for me! And since these freeze up so beautifully, there are a bunch in my freezer to enjoy when pumpkin everything season has passed. Besides, sick people shouldn't be eating a lot of sweets anyway.

Whoopie Pumpkin Pies (From Down Home with the Neelys)

3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
salt
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
2/3 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Using a stand mixer, add 1/2 cup butter and sugar and beat together until light and fluffy.
Add the egg, then the buttermilk and the vanilla.
Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.
Add the dry ingredients in increments to the wet ingredients. Mix until just combined.
Drop heaping tablespoons of the batter onto parchment lined sheet trays, leaving a 2-inch space between each cookie. Put in the oven and bake for 8 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on rack.
Beat together the cream cheese and remaining 1/4 cup of butter, in a small bowl, until smooth.
Slowly add in the confectioners sugar. Once smooth, add the pumpkin puree, the cinnamon and a pinch of salt. Beat until smooth and well mixed.
To assemble the cookie, spread a heaping tablespoon of the filling to the flat side of a cookie and sandwich with another. Repeat with the remaining cookies. Transfer to a serving platter and serve.

How I spent the rest of my vacation

2011-11-28T02:34:00.000-08:00

I was really looking forward to the Thanksgiving holiday at Thatmom's house. "Aha!" I thought, "I'll finally get a chance to relax." My reasoning was based on the fact that since I wasn't at my home, there would be no urge to do cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc. Just some good old fashioned catching up on sleeping and vegging on the couch.

In retrospect, this was a ridiculous notion. When I confided in Thatboy what my plans had been he shook his head, bemused I would even consider that. Thanksgiving weekend for us is always jam-packed with activities, most of which involve holiday shopping. There is no rest for the wicked.

Friday morning found Thatmom and I heading out for a run, but not before Prez came over to meet Thatbaby. She moved to San Francisco in August and this was her first chance she was able to meet the little guy. After our run, we headed out to hit up some Black Friday sales. Thatboy and I aren't crazy enough to head out at dawn, and we're not interested in the big ticket items, but we like to wander the aisles, picking up cheap cds, games, and other odds and ends for gifts. As soon as we got home from shopping, we passed Thatbaby off to Thatmom and headed out for Thatboy's birthday dinner at The Side Door - his favorite Orange County restaurant.

Saturday was equally busy since Thatboy had giftcards burning a hole in his pocket. So we headed out to the mall where he unloaded them on shoes and sunglasses. Mario Batali recently opened a new outpost of his Pizzeria Mozza in Orange County, so we ventured there for lunch before heading back to the mall for some more shopping. On the way home we stopped at Roger's Gardens so Thatbaby could have his first meet n greet with the man in red.

He was in awe of the lights and colors so I'm really looking forward to how much he'll enjoy Christmas - the tree goes up next weekend!

Before I knew it, Sunday rolled around. Time for one last breakfast with the family at Pacific Whey! Then Thatmom and I went for another run. After that it was time to load up the car for our trip home. We got home in time to get preparations underway for the week - so we can start all up again.

In honor of the Fall Harvest, and because there was decidedly little cooking this weekend on my part, I thought I'd feature what has been gracing our table often as of late - the last of the summer corn. I think Thanksgiving officially marks the end of corn season, and I'll be sad to see it go since late corn is always the sweetest - don't you think?

The beauty of corn is that when it's good, you don't even need to cook it. You could eat it right off the cob. But that means keeping cooking preparations simple is the rule. Why mess with a good thing?

Oven Roasted Corn
2 ears of corn
butter

Preheat oven to 400. Husk corn cobs.
Coat each cob in 2 tsp of butter and wrap in foil.
Bake 25 minutes.

Broiled Corn

2 ears of corn
butter
salt

Soak unhusked corn in cold water. This will prevent the husks from catching fire.
Broil unhusked corn for 20 minutes.
Pull off the husks and cornsilk and serve with lots of butter and salt.

Thanksgiving Recap

2011-11-27T20:32:00.000-08:00

I hope all of you had a fabulous holiday - is there any holiday more geared toward foodies than Thanksgiving? I mean, technically every Jewish holiday resolves around the holiday meal no matter what the celebration, but Thanksgiving is nationally recognized as the day about a turkey. If you don't have school aged children do you remember the actual Thanksgiving story?

We discussed the Thanksgiving story at dinner. I remember it being a way for the Pilgrims to thank the Indians for helping them make it through a long winter - but if that's the case, then how could it have been held in November? Before the winter even started?

Whatever the reason, now it is a great time to remember what we are thankful for and to join with friends and family in the beginning of the winter holiday season.

As usual, we spent Thanksgiving at Thatmom's house where the food was plentiful. I took a picture of the beginning of laying out the dishes - which is good, because shortly after this picture was taken I completely burnt all the marshmallows atop the candied yams. Which is especially sad since they're my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal.

We weren't the only ones to make the trek to Thatmom's house - our relatives always know where they'll be spending their holiday. And we always manage to pick up a couple of stragglers in addition.

Thatbaby was so excited to take part in his first Thanksgiving. Although I think next year might be more fun for him, when he can actually eat the turkey.

I completely forgot to take a picture of the dessert table. In addition to my cheesecake, pumpkin pie, and ice cream there was also apple crisp, an ice cream cake in honor of Thatboy's birthday, a cranberry hazelnut loaf, and a 20lb cake.

But Thatmom had also asked me to handle one more thing other than dessert - she wanted me to make a "bread" or, more specifically, biscuits. Eagerly I anticipated making my "crack biscuits" - a drop biscuit loaded with cream and butter. Thatboy and I eat them 2 at a time. But Thatmom didn't want my crack biscuits. She requested baking soda biscuits. Even when I told her that the crack biscuits had baking soda in them, she didn't buy it.

I've never made baking soda biscuits before. They were always Thatmom's thing. And, as always, when I go to make something new I turn first to Fannie Farmer. Thatmom said these exceeded her expectations, and since they were her request that's good enough for me. Although they probably won't replace my crack biscuits. I made some cranberry butter to serve alongside them and loved the flavor it imparted. As a side note, I used the butter on my leftover turkey sandwich the next day which was amazing.

Baking Powder Biscuits (From the Fannie Farmer Cookbook)
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 cup shortening
2/3 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 425. Grease two 8-inch cake pans. Put the flour, salt, baking powder, cram of tartar and sugar in a bowl.
Cut the shortening into the flour with two knives or a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse meal.
Add the milk all at once and stir just until the dough forms a ball around the fork.
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board and knead 14 times. Pat until 1/4 inch thick. Cut into rounds with a 2 inch cookie cutter. Place touching each other in the cake pans and bake for 15-20 minutes.

The Return of Eat to the Beat!

2011-11-26T20:17:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to lie - I play favorites. And Elly? She's one of my favorite bloggers. I would follow her lead the end of the blogosphere and back. So years ago when she announced she was going to do a blog event I of course jumped in with both feet.

Eat to the Beat requested bloggers to make and blog about a food or drink related to a song, album, band - something music related. It was fun to come up with ideas for my favorite songs or bands. And then it stopped. Probably because Elly got busy with that little thing she calls a "son."

This year marks Elly's fifth year blogging, and in honor of her anniversary she brought back Eat to the Beat. Yay! And I wanted to do something really fun. So of course, I sat around doing nothing for near a month. Then I decided I needed to get on it, so I thought of one of my favorite songs - House of the Rising Sun by the Animals. And then I sat around trying to think of a good food or drink to make related to it. Which wasn't going so well. I told Elly I was going to end up copping out and just doing something New Orleans related.

And then, the other morning, I was in the shower when inspiration hit. (Because that's where it always hits, right?) I started singing a song that is running through my head a lot lately - Christina Perri's "Jar of Hearts."

Who do you think you are?
Running 'round leaving scars
Collecting your jar of hearts
And tearing love apart.

And I thought, what if I did that? What if I made a jar of hearts! Heart-shaped cookies that is.

Thatboy agreed it was a great idea - as long as I made them pink like a real heart. Then I just had to figure out what kind of heart-shaped cookie I would make. I do a lot of shortbread cookies - because they're easy. But I wanted to do something different than what I always do.

Lisa recently blogged about Polish pretzel butter cookies, which reminded me of how much I love butter cookies and how much they remind me of my grandfather. He had Alzheimers and every time we visited him in the VA hospital we'd bring him a tin of butter cookies. So I decided to do a jar of butter cookie hearts.

I was going to do a pink frosting over top, and thought buttercream would be delicious on butter cookies, but a little too soft for a jar of cookies. Fannie Farmer (you knew she'd show up again, right?) tops her butter cookies with a meringue. I love meringues and they're the perfect consistency for the jar.

And so - without further ado - because the deadline is, after all, tomorrow: my Eat to the Beat entry.

Jar of Heart(shaped butter cookie)s
2 sticks of butter
1 egg yolk
1/4 + 2 Tbsp of powdered sugar
3 cups flour
1 Tbsp sherry
1 egg white
1/2 cup sugar
red food coloring

Preheat oven to 325. Cream the butter in an electric mixer.
Add the egg yolk and powdered sugar and mix thoroughly.
Slowly mix in the flour.
Add the sherry and make sure all ingredients are thoroughly combined. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Roll out the cookie dough till it's 3/8 inch thick. Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut cookies and place on cookie sheets.
Beat the egg white until stiff. Gradually beat in half the sugar.
Add a drop or two of food coloring and the other half of the sugar and beat.
Spread the meringue over the cookie and bake for 25 minutes.
Place cookies in a jar!

Happy Birthday to the "Other" guy in my life

2011-11-23T02:03:00.000-08:00

It's Thatboy's birthday and I'm all ready for him! The banners have been hung and the balloons have been placed. I whipped up some pancakes for breakfast before he headed off to work. Armed, of course, with mini-chocolate pies baked in muffin tins for his co-workers. I mean, I have to keep up with my reputation of super-wife somehow!

At some point before we pack the car up for Thanksgiving he'll open his presents from Thatbaby and me. And when we finally get to Thatmom's house tonight there's going to be cake. Not a bad day overall. I only hope he has an easy day at work. After all, you only have a birthday once a year!

I spent pretty much the entire day in the kitchen yesterday dealing with almost-last-minute preparation for both Thanksgiving and his birthday. (Today I'll be doing the actual last minute prep). In addition to the mini-chocolate pies, I finished up with the ice cream. Every year at Thanksgiving Thatdad always made ice cream. Growing up, it was the only time we had homemade ice cream and it's always been one of my favorite parts of the holidays. So after he died, I took that role over. I even use the ice cream maker he always used when I was a kid. And we learned years ago that the oven gets the kitchen too hot for the ice cream to set up properly, so it's always made a day or two ahead of time. Monday I made the chocolate ice cream with the fleur de sel caramel swirl. Tuesday was all about the classic Thatdad ice cream, no matter how much he played around with the second flavor, he always made a vanilla ice cream with a fudge swirl.

I also made the fancy butter to go with the baking powder biscuits I'll be making today, and some homemade granola for snacking and breakfasts at Thatmom's house. And of course, even with all that prep, I still needed to make something for dinner. (And hit up the gym for a run!)

Not too long ago on my cooking message board someone asked for Trader Joes recommendations and I was reminded it had been a long time since I had relied on one of their simmer sauces - which are perfect for nights when you want something warm, delicious, quick AND easy. No small feat. I grabbed a curry simmer sauce, a chicken breast, and just about every vegetable I had on hand and got to work.

Trader Joe's Chicken and Veggie Curry
1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped
1 jar Trader Joe's Curry simmer sauce
3/4 cup water
1 chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
1 tomato, chopped
1 carrot, thinly sliced
1/2 small onion, diced

Boil sweet potato in a pot of water for 6 minutes.
Heat the simmer sauce, water, and chicken chunks and cook for one minute.
Add the carrot and onion and cook 3 minutes.
Add the tomato and cook 2 minutes.
Add the sweet potato, and let simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Defying Expectations

2011-11-22T23:56:00.000-08:00

Like many places, San Diego has different areas where certain ethnicities are more prevalent than other areas. Last week on our Farmer's Market exploration Thatbaby and I headed to a part of the town that I usually consider to be very Mexican.

So you can imagine my surprise when we pulled into the parking lot of a large Asian market. It started to make a little more sense to me when I thought about it, after all, my favorite Thai restaurant was almost literally across the street.

This farmer's market was different than the typical markets I've been too. Of course they had the usual suspects - oranges, apples, eggs, etc. But there were also stands and stands of atypical farmer's market finds like bitter melon, daikon radishes, and lots of Asian greens. Not that you would know that by looking at my haul.

My $16 haul included:

1 ginormous bag of oranges (which is still in the trunk of my car. Hey - you try lugging around a baby and bags of groceries!)
strawberries
figs - totally wasn't expecting these! It's been a couple of weeks since I've seen them in the markets, but they're impossible to resist.
eggplants
onions
corn
cucumber
string beans

Given the amount of produce I brought home, you would expect to see some of it featured in the recipe I'm posting. But there you'd be wrong. Because aside from the strawberries and fruit, most of the produce is actually sitting around waiting for Thanksgiving to be over. For when I've eaten my fill of mashed potatoes and heavy starchy sides. Instead I'll give you one of those impossibly quick and easy meals that is perfect for when your kitchen has become overrun with all the Thanksgiving prep. It's equally fabulous for when you too are sick and tired of turkey and stuffing.

Thatboy and I made a meal of these little taco bites - ground beef cooked with my own personal "taco seasoning". The kick of the ground chipotle powder and the extra kick from the salsa over go over well in Thathouse. But these little finger-friendly treats work well as appetizers for guests or snacks for kids. And, between you and I, they're the perfect way to use up leftover wonton wrappers you may have hanging around your home.

Taco Bites
20 won ton wrappers
1/2 lb ground beef
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp chipotle chili powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 cup salsa
1/2 cup monterey jack cheese, shredded

Preheat oven to 350. Press won ton wrappers into a muffin tin so that they form little cups.
Brown ground beef in pan over medium heat.
Add cumin, onion powder, chipotle chili powder, and garlic powder to ground beef and continue to cook until cooked through.
Divide ground beef between muffin tins.
Top each with scant Tbsp of salsa. Bake for 10 minutes.
Sprinkle each taco bite with cheese and bake for 5 more minutes until cheese is melted and bubbly.

Goes Together Like Peas and Carrots

2011-11-21T09:48:00.000-08:00

Pairings are a funny thing. We were discussing this yesterday when The Actress and Armani came down to visit Thatbaby. As we were walking home from lunch, we reflected upon how different our lifestyles were when we all first met each other.

When I met Thatboy I was looking for a fun college fling. The fact that he'd be graduating in a little over a year meant, for me, that I wouldn't have to worry about anything long term. Unbeknownst to me, he had already had his fill of flings. He was looking for something more serious. And while he certainly wasn't looking for me, he quickly discovered I fit the bill perfectly.

The Actress and I were roommates and while I was trying to suck the life out of every last minute of college, she was incredibly homesick for the first 3 months - flying home almost every weekend. I was out to have a good time, and she was having near hysterical breakdowns over the amount of glitter that ended up on our floor. We laugh about the differences now and I point out that even our worst moments couldn't have been so bad, given how close we remain.

And as for Armani, I never would have put the two of them together - and trust me, I set him up with just about every one of my friends other than The Actress. I mean, she was as far from a party girl as you could get (her self-described "rebellious" period was when she started trying to become more independent from her family by calling them less.) And he was one of the main leaders of his fraternity, out almost every night. So, although I adored both of them, I never would have imagined them dating, let alone married for 3 years now.

It's been over 10 years since we've known each other, and it's amazing to see how we've grown, matured, and yet still remain the same. How this unlikely grouping continues to thrive despite, or perhaps because of our differences.

The pairing of peas and carrots is not nearly as unusual, or uncommon. We're very used to it. Except when you stop to think about it, the two vegetables couldn't be more different. Carrots, a root vegetable. grow underground. They're tough, hearty, and strong. Peas on the other hand grow barely suspended from a tendril. They are small and delicate. Even their vibrant hues are on opposite ends of the color spectrum. And yet, they just work together so well that the combination has become commonplace in households.

The easiest, and most common way to find this pairing is a simple chop and toss of the cooked vegetables. This carrot and pea custard is a little more unusual and a little more elegant. Served in slices like a pie it's both visually appealing and delicious - although that's not surprising given the ingredients. The beautiful colors make it a fine choice for both autumn and spring and it's perfect for a holiday meal.

Carrot and Pea Custard
2 1/2 cups cooked carrots
3 sprigs thyme, chopped
3 Tbsp melted butter
2 eggs, beaten
1 TBSP flour
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper
1/2 cup cooked peas

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a casserole dish with baking spray. Mash the carrots until mostly smooth. Some chunks are okay.
Mix all the ingredients but the peas in a bowl and stir until thoroughly combined.
Spoon into the casserole. Place the casserole dish in a shallow pan of hot water and bake for 45 minutes.
Press down the center of the carrots with the back of the spoon to create a depression. Fill the depression with the peas.

A Few of His Favorite Things

2011-11-20T23:18:00.000-08:00

We usually celebrate Thatboy's birthday with his friends the weekend before Thanksgiving since the weekend after people are inevitably either out of town or hosting out of towners. So last week I told Thatboy not to make any plans for Saturday, because it was going to be birthday extravaganza time.

Since I had waited too long to throw him a real birthday party, I decided to devote the day to doing things he loves. Thatmom came over to babysit since most of Thatboy's favorite things are not baby friendly.

I began the day by addressing his love of cars and driving fast by taking him to K1 Speedway for some go-cart racing.

Thatboy had done this once before, but it was my first time and something outside of my comfort zone. But I hadn't chosen this place for me.

It was very different than Mario Kart, which I excel at.

Thatboy, who does not excel at Mario Kart, came in second during our 14 lap race. He was happy, but that happiness grew even more when he discovered that the person who came in first place had the best lap time of the entire week. As for me? Well I was expecting to come in dead last, so I was just pleased as punch when I didn't.

Our second stop on the tour of Thatboy's favorite things was supposed to be at a place that serves the best burgers in San Diego. But we were running a little late, so instead we grabbed In N Out on our way to the main event of the day, Thatboy's mini-surprise party!

When trying to figure out what to do for Thatboy's birthday I stumbled across a new beer shop in town, Bottlecraft. Like a wine bar for beer (although how weird does a "beer bar" sound?), Bottlecraft is a beer shop with a "drink me here" philosophy. In addition they also offer flights of beer for tastings. Thatboy loves beer, especially craft beers which the shop specializes in, and so I thought it would be the perfect venue for celebration.

I emailed a couple of his friends asking them to join us, but warned them not to say anything to Thatboy. When we arrived at Bottlecraft, Thatboy was excited just to be there, but he lit up as he saw some of his friends start arriving. He does love drinking buddies.

He was like a kid in a candy store as he wandered through the store picking up beers for the table to sample. Bottlecraft has a healthy collection of our favorite local brews, as well as many craft beers completely new to us. And there were many small batch/limited edition beers they carried that of course we just had to try. We came home with a ridiculous amount in addition to the bottles we sampled while there.

And of course, it wouldn't be a party without cake. When I asked Thatboy what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, he said he would like either Thatmom's 20lb cake, her ice cream cake, or a storebought red velvet cake. Thatmom had promised to take care of the first two for his birthday and Thanksgiving, so I thought I would take care of the third for his party.

Thatboy's favorite red velvet cupcake comes from Elizabethan Desserts, so I naturally turned to them for his cake. It came out perfectly!

And thought this would be a good time to share my go-to cole slaw recipe I had promised to share weeks ago. Mostly because this is one of Thatboy's favorite meals I've made in a long time, so it's a great place to share it!

I started making pulled pork a couple years ago. It's great for dinner for two with loads of leftovers that freeze well, but it's also an easy dinner for a crown. But it's one of those things I didn't grow up with, and so, of course I didn't know where to begin.

So when I stumbled across the Cooks Illustrated as seen on Bridget's Blog I decided to give it a shot. Especially since it was a crockpot version that meant very little effort on my part. It quickly became my pulled pork staple and the one I made at home and brought to friends. I usually alter it very little, my main change being to add extra BBQ sauce at the end and mixing it in before serving because we like our pulled pork saucey round here. This time I made an additional, accidental alteration.

One of the first rules of cooking is not to measure your ingredients over the workbowl. I never follow that rule. Which is one of the reasons I enjoy cooking more than baking. Cooking is pretty forgiving when it comes to that extra bit of sugar or cumin that falls into the pot. But this time as I was mixing the spice rub, the cayenne came out much faster than I was expecting, leaving me with far more than the recipe called for. And I knew we would have some spicy pork on our hands. I tried to counteract the anticipated burn with extra brown sugar and something must have worked out with the proportions because it was the best pulled pork I've made yet. The extra cayenne gave it a delicious kick that had Thatboy asking for leftovers for days.

And with my pulled pork I usually serve coleslaw. In fact, I tend to put my coleslaw on my sandwich with the pulled pork. Thatboy likes his beside his sandwich - you can do whichever you prefer. I use an old school boiled dressing with my coleslaw which I prefer to mayonnaise (although it contains some of the same elements). Something about that vinegar kick just does it for me and the dressing makes for a less creamy side dish.

Coleslaw
1 small head cabbage, shredded
2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
1/4 cup cold water
1 TBSP butter
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

Mix the egg yolks with water, butter, and vinegar in a saucepan over low heat.
Continue heating, stirring until thick and creamy.
Toss the coleslaw with the dressing and serve.

The beginning for birthday boy

2011-11-19T00:01:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, when we were both still home with the new baby, Thatboy went surfing with one of his friends. When they came back, the two were talking about Thatboy's upcoming birthday. The friend noted that Thatboy had already declared that this year his birthday "was going to suck."

His birthday has always been a little on the sucky side. It's hard having a birthday the week of Thanksgiving. It is always overshadowed. And his parents never really did anything to celebrate his birthday separately from Thanksgiving. Instead they just added an ice cream cake onto Thanksgiving dinner. Even when we used to go up at the beginning of November to celebrate his brother's birthday, Thatboy's birthday was never acknowledged.

And then, of course, he met me. While dating, we still did separate family Thanksgivings, but once we were married he started attending the one my family hosted. And I started making a big deal of his birthday. The first year I decorated our entire apartment with balloons and streamers while he was out surfing. And when we reached my parent's home for Thanksgiving dinner, it was similarly outfitted. Since then, I've always made a big point of making his birthday extra special - whether that meant a surprise trip to Vegas to see one of his best friends, or driving around Thatboy and 14 of his favorite friends on a beer extravaganza.

This year, however, I really dropped the ball planning-wise. I blame the whirlwind that was our life in October, but at the same time, feel like I certainly had enough time to do something. And so last weekend the call went out. I emailed a couple of his friends to see if we could get together as a mini-surprise for his birthday and planned a day of fun for him. I'll fill you in on that tomorrow.

One of the people I reached out to was Workwife, who then decided to take it upon herself to make sure there was also a work celebration for Thatboy. (See - that's why she's his Workwife.) She initially emailed me to see if Thatbaby and I could make it to a lunch next Tuesday, but when I pointed out that Thatboy would be out of town for work that day she moved the lunch to Friday.

And so Thatbaby and I headed downtown yesterday to join in the frivolities with Thatboy and his coworkers at Extraordinary Desserts. Thatboy was very excited to try their dulce de leche cake which he had seen on Food Network's "Best Thing I Ever Ate." What? Your husband doesn't watch the Food Network when left to his own devices? There must have been nothing on Fuel TV. So after our lunches he ordered a slice and it was passed along the table. The consensus was that although the cake was delicious and decadent, it was a bit of a misnomer to call it a dulce de leche cake. More like a "chocolate cake with a smear of dulce de leche on top."

When Thatbaby and I got home, I set about making a quick and easy dinner. I know, you're all anticipating pasta, but I thought I would change it up a bit. It'd been a while since we'd had chicken, so I decided now was as good a time as any to start working it back into our meal plan. The original Tuesday lunch plan was at a Mexican restaurant, so when we switched over to Extraordinary Desserts I still had a hankering for something with a bit of Mexican flavor. Good thing I keep tortillas in the freezer! A casserole style dish is one of the easiest ways to make an easy dinner - since I can get all the flavors without having to stand over the stove playing with spices and heat. Just layer it all up and let the oven do the work.

And, like I said before, I'm going through a mild obsession with celery root. This one does require some standing over the stove time, but it cooks so quickly that I could wait until Thatboy came home and took over the baby to make it. And it combines some fantastic fall flavors - celery root, apple, and grape. With the cider and grape it's also good for those of you with a sweet tooth. Maybe not an extraordinary dessert, but definitely an above average side.

Taco Lasagna
1 chicken breast, cooked and shredded
1 can diced green chiles
16 0z of salsa
1 cup sour cream
12 corn tortillas
1 cup shredded "Mexican style" cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine chicken, chiles, salsa, and sour cream in a bowl.
Heat the corn tortillas. I place them over a burner on my gas stovetop till they get fire roasted. Use 4 of the tortillas to cover the bottom of an 8x8 square baking dish.
Place half of the chicken mixture over the tortillas and sprinkle with 1/3 cup of cheese.
Repeat with 4 more tortillas, the rest of the chicken mixture, and another 1/3 cup of cheese.
Place the final four tortillas on top and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake 30 minutes

Celery Root with Grapes
1 celery root
1 cup apple cider
juice of 1 lemon
3 Tbsp of butter
1 Tbsp of parsley, minced
1 cup of green grapes
salt and pepper

Peel and slice the celery root. Place the celery root, cider, lemon juice and butter in a saucepan, cover and cook over low heat for 10 minutes, or until the celery root is tender.
Add the butter, parsley, grapes, and salt and pepper to taste. Heat through.

The smell of success

2011-11-18T23:33:00.000-08:00

We're not really a cinnamon bun kind of family. Thatboy grew up with pancakes for special occasion breakfasts and I grew up with blueberry muffins. I know that for many people, cinnamon buns are one of those Christmas morning breakfasts, but the inlaws never do anything quite as fun. I've actually offered to make Christmas morning cinnamon buns and been shot down - because they'd rather stick with the usual fare. Know what the inlaws do for breakfast Christmas morning? Cold cereal. Merry Christmas one and all!

And yet, here I am recommending a cinnamon bun recipe to all of y'all. So something must be up, right? Well these rolls have a very easy explanation. They smell good.

I think it's a fairly common housewarming trip. one that certainly has been co-opted by realtors over the year, that baking cinnamon imparts a warm, welcoming, and lasting scent throughout any home. And so, when we were preparing for Thatbaby's open house, when Thatboy turned to me and said "I wish it smelled like something was baking in here," I knew exactly what had to be done.

Sure, I could have taken the easy way out and just stuck some cinnamon sticks in the oven. That would impart the warm fragrance with minimal work on my part. But roasting cinnamon sticks doesn't give you something to eat for breakfast for a full week. I had seen a copy-cat recipe for Cinnabon's Cinnamon Rolls a couple months ago in Food Network Magazine, and thought they would make a much better alternative.

See - I have this thing about Cinnabon. It's one of my secret guilty pleasures. Problem is, I very rarely get to indulge. Mostly because - have you seen the size of those things? I could never finish one in a sitting and I can't stand throwing a good portion away. So I've only ever gotten them if I can rope Thatboy into sharing one with me. When we were first dating, I could usually convince him anytime we were in an airport. But the San Diego Airport doesn't have a Cinnabon, so really it's been years. And if I was going to make cinnamon rolls - there is no other recipe I'd rather call upon, and making them myself I could make them smaller.

The recipe below originally said it made 6 cinnamon buns. But when I saw the uncut cylinder I knew that would make them far too big, so I decided to cut the roll into 8 pieces. Frankly, those were still a little large for my taste - but you make the decision for yourself.

As for the results? As the guests arrived they all commented on how good it smelled. Which was the purpose after all. And then of course, there was the secondary benefit. Thatboy had one of these babies every day for breakfast before his first week of work. Usually as he ate, he commented to either Thatbaby or Thatdog about how "mom sure makes a delicious cinnamon roll." And when they were gone, he was sad. He mused about it a couple of days later as we sat watching television one night. Seemingly out of nowhere he turned to me and stated that those cinnamon rolls I made were really good. This year we're spending Christmas just us, no inlaws. I think I know what's going to be on the table Christmas Morning, and though it probably will be served with milk, it's a far cry from cereal.

Almost Famous Cinnamon Buns (From Foodnetwork.com)
1 cup milk
1 packet yeast
3/4 cup plus 1/4 tspn granulated sugar
8 Tbsp melted butter
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 tspn vanilla extract
2 3/4 cup flour
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
12 tablespoons butter at room temperature
3 tablespoons ground cinnamon
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/3 cup heavy cream

Make the dough: Warm the milk in a medium saucepan over low heat until it reaches about 100. Remove from the heat and sprinkle in the yeast and 1/4 teaspoon sugar (don't stir). Set aside until foamy, 5 minutes.
Whisk in 4 Tbsp melted butter, egg yolk, and vanilla.
Whisk the flour, 1/4 cup sugar, the salt and nutmeg in the bowl of a stand mixer.
Make a well in the center and pour in the yeast mixture. Mix on low speed with the dough hook until thick and slightly sticky.
Knead on medium speed until the dough gathers around the hook, 6 minutes.
Remove the dough and shape into a ball. Grease the bowl and return the dough to the bowl. Cover and let rise in a warm, draft free location until doubled, 1 hour 15 minutes.
Roll out the dough into a 12-by-14-inch rectangle with the longer side facing you.
Spread the room temperature butter over the rectangle, leaving a 1/2-inch border around the edge.
Mix the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over the butter.
Brush the far edge with water. Roll the dough away from you into a tight cylinder and press on the long edge to seal.
Cut the cylinder into 8 pieces. Spray a large baking pan with baking spray and place the buns cut-side down in the pan, leaving space between each. Cover and place back in that warm, draft free space and let rise until doubled, 40 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 325. Bake the buns until golden brown, about 35 minutes. Cool in the pan 15 minutes.
While buns are cooling, sift the confectioners' sugar into a bowl, then whisk in the cream and remaining 4 Tbsp melted butter.
Transfer the buns to a rack and spoon the glaze on top while still warm.

A new tradition?

2011-11-17T23:32:00.000-08:00

Every year during the fall season I end up making a pumpkin cheesecake. I think it goes back to when I was in college. Every fall The Cheesecake Factory would have pumpkin cheesecake as their seasonal menu choice and 2 of my girlfriends and I would mark the date it came out on our calendar. We'd find a way to get to the nearest outpost and indulge.

For some reason, I remember it marking the celebration of some annual event - but given the time of year it could hardly be finals. It might have been midterms. Then again, it might have just been an event to celebrate the annual arrival of pumpkin cheesecake.

I don't think I've been back to The Cheesecake Factory to sample their pumpkin cheesecake in years - definitely not since college and that was many many moons ago. But once I started living on my own and cooking and baking pumpkin cheesecake seemed to make an appearance despite the fact.

It started out with Peabody's Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake. Which evolved into a version that was less swirl, and more pumpkin. And then a couple of years later I discovered my go-to cheesecake recipe, Ruth Reichl's New York Cheesecake. Over the years I've worked to make a pumpkin cheesecake that was more similar to that than the original.

I don't usually bring a pumpkin cheesecake to Thanksgiving, mostly because it's been made and eaten by that time. But this year has been a little different and I haven't had time to get my pumpkin cheesecake fix in. So I'll be sharing this with family at our Thanksgiving table. For those of you who want something a little different than Pumpkin Pie, this is a great alternative. Although in my mind you can never have too much pumpkin anything, so might as well serve both! After all, pumpkin is certainly cause for celebration.

Pumpkin Cheesecake
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (about 6 ounces)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup melted unsalted butter
1 1/2 pounds cream cheese
4 eggs
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups pumpkin puree

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix the graham crackers with 1/4 cup sugar and the melted butter and press into bottom and sides of a 9-inch ungreased springform pan. Chill while preparing filling.
Beat the cream cheese, brown sugar, and eggs until smooth. Add the heavy cream, flour, cinnamon and vanilla and blend until smooth. Add the mashed pumpkin and blend until smooth. Pour into chilled crust and bake for an hour, or until the cheesecake is set. It should be a little jiggly in the middle.

Pie Prepping

2011-11-16T23:30:00.000-08:00

Next week is a big week in Thathouse. The most obvious is Thatboy's birthday. I've been prepping for it all week. In fact, today Thatmom came over today to babysit so I could run around picking up presents for Thatboy.

But most of you won't be celebrating Thatboy's birthday (although all presents can certainly be directed here if you're interested in this very important event). For the rest of the nation, the big event for next week is Thanksgiving.

Don't worry - I'm prepping for that too. As usual, I assign myself dessert for our family Thanksgiving. Partly because I've taken over Thatdad's role of making ice cream. Partly because I make the best pumpkin pie.

Every year I try to do a little something different with the pumpkin pie. Last year the request was to make the crust with graham crackers instead of a traditional pie crust. I've done a pumpkin caramel pie and a pumpkin pecan pie. This year I decided to again play with the pie crust. Instead of the traditional pie crust, or even the graham cracker crust, this year I went with a chocolate crust.

Since I don't do a lot of chocolate crusts, I went over my options:
1 - chocolate wafer crust, which is usually what I do for pies. But it's a little dry and not too flavorful.
2 - oreo cookie crust, which seemed like it would be weird with pumpkin pie
3- chocolate shortbread crust, something I've never tried before, but comes from Dorie Greenspan's book and she knows her desserts.

So as you all know, the best time to try something new is when you're making it for a large group of people. This is why you'll see most people decide to host Thanksgiving and make a giant turkey for 50 people and start preparing the night before. Luckily, even though it wasn't a good idea I seem to take this risk every Thanksgiving, so why stop now? New untested crust it is!

Pumpkin Pie with Chocolate Shortbread Crust (adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorrie Greenspan)

1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
3/4 tsp salt
9 Tbsp unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 large egg yolk
2 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
3/8 teaspoon ground cloves
4 oz semisweet chocolate chips
3 eggs
1 can of pumpkin puree
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp ground ginger

Make the crust. Combine flour, cocoa, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, confectioners’ sugar and 1/4 tsp salt in a food processor and pulse a couple of times to combine.
Disperse the butter into the mix and pulse until the dough turns into pea-sized lumps.
Add the egg and pulse until the gets clumpy. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and knead just until all the ingredients are incorporated.
Press the dough into a buttered tart pan. Freeze for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 375. Cover the crust with aluminum foil and bake 20 minutes.
Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the bottom of the crust. As the chocolate melts, smooth it with a spatula. Let cool while you prepare the filling.
Whisk the eggs, pumpkin, cream, brown sugar, ginger and remaining cinnamon, ground cloves and salt.
Pour into the cooled pie shell and bake for 45 minutes until the filling is set.

Living for the weekend

2011-11-15T23:24:00.000-08:00

Weekends are a totally different beasts round these parts. With both of us around I can do my runs outside. And we can get out ourselves!

Thatboy had a 3-day weekend because of Veteran's Day. We spent Friday running some errands. Saturday the rain came down and we were housebound. So by Sunday we were ready to get out.

We headed to one of my favorite San Diego locations - Cabrillo National Monument.

I especially love coming here after a rain. The sky is bluer, the grass is greener, and the air just feels crisper.

But it was very very cold. Not at first. In fact, when I went on my run Sunday morning it was warm and gorgeous out. So much so that I accidentally added an extra mile onto my run. We picked up lunch on our way to Cabrillo and somehow in the middle of our picnic, the sun got scared and went away.

We had plenty of warm options for Thatbaby, but Thatboy and I got pretty freaking cold. So we called it a day early and headed home to fill up with something warm.

I made us Tyler Florence's Moroccan Stew. Basically it's a lentil and rice dish served in an acorn squash. The acorn squash added nothing to the meal. If you're going to make it I would leave it out entirely. In fact, today for lunch I took some of the leftover rice and lentils and mixed it in with some collard greens and bacon and that was a far superior dish.

Other than squash (and pumpkin) my current fall obsession is celery root. I love root veggies in general, but celery root has that great earthy taste with a little sweetness and a little green-ness that you don't find in turnips, rutabagas, or potatoes. You'll probably be seeing it popping up a lot since we've been eating it a lot. Here's a real easy recipe to try it for yourself.

Celery Root
1 celery root
2 Tbsp butter
2 cups beef broth

Peel the celery root and cut into slices. Place in a pan with the butter and beef broth.
Cook, partially covered 10 minutes. Remove the celery root from the pan.
Reduce the remaining beef broth and pour over the celery root.

The New Normal

2011-11-14T21:18:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned yesterday, Thatboy went back to work last week. Leaving me to play parent all by myself during the day. While he was home we worked out a pretty good routine which involved us taking turns taking care of the baby while the other one got things like laundry, dishes, and meal prep done around the house. In the afternoon, we'd take a nice, long 3 mile walk.

Things are a lot different now. Now Thatboy gets up and heads to work and I have time to do nothing but take care of the baby. Pretty much nothing gets done around here until he gets home from work and we trade off. So dinners are not labor intensive. Especially because I like to head to the gym when he gets home so I can get some running in. I mean the half marathon I'm running in January is not going to take "I just had a baby" as an excuse for poor training.

And I don't get my afternoon walks anymore either - although we do go for walks to the supermarket to pick up things I realize we need. So I've decided to use this time I'm home with Thatbaby to do some exploring. We're going to try to visit a different farmer's market every week. San Diego has 51 Farmer's markets that take place 7 days a week. Obviously we won't hit every one, but it'll be fun to explore and get us both out of the house.

Last week we went to the Carlsbad Village Farmer's Market. It was a little disappointing. The highlight was my favorite apple vendor and loads and loads of summer corn. I picked up A LOT of corn. We'll be eating corn for days!

For $14 I got 7 ears of corn, 2 onions, 2 apples, 2 asian pears, 5 tomatoes a bag of thai chiles, and a bag of bell peppers.

My new weeknight meals are thrown together during bathtime. When Thatboy comes home he gives Thatbaby a bath, a bottle, a story, and a cuddle while I run to the gym and throw things together in a pot. However, just because it's quick, doesn't mean you can't dress up dinner. Like taking storebought ravioli and creating a rich, enticing cream sauce, loaded with herbs, tomatoes, and mushrooms.

And to further take advantage of the fall bounty I served it with some roasted squash tossed with spinach and some chestnuts. With this colder weather coming in, a warm dinner full of fall flavors doesn't take long to make or enjoy.

Tomato, Mushroom, Basil Ravioli
1 pkg ravioli
1/4 cup butter
4 oz cream cheese
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup mushrooms, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
2 Tbsp dry white wine
1/4 cup basil, chiffonade

Prepare ravioli according to the package instructions.
While it's cooking, melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the cream cheese and garlic and stir until the cream cheese is melted.
Add milk and whisk until smooth.
Add parmesean, mushrooms, tomatoes, wine, and basil. Heat through and remove from heat. The sauce will thicken quickly.
Stir the ravioli into the sauce and serve.

Creamed Chestnuts
1/2 lb of shelled chestnuts
1/2 cup of beef broth
salt and pepper
1 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp heavy cream

Combine chestnuts, beef broth, salt and pepper in a pan. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
Add butter and cream and stir to coat the chestnuts. Heat through.

Meet Our Muppet

2011-11-13T21:14:00.000-08:00

One of the things I love about Thatboy is that we are on the same page about things more often than not. Like finding out the sex of our unborn child. Both of us wanted to wait until birth to discover whether we'd be having a son or daughter.

And not knowing made the whole pregnancy a little more fun. We got to envision what life would be like with a little boy or girl. We got to come up with two different name options. Many people expressed disturbance that we weren't finding out. Among other things, they told us we wouldn't be able to bond with the baby if we didn't address the child by name from the first moments of conception.

I blame my BA in theater, but I'm superstitious. Frankly, even if we knew the sex, we wouldn't have used a name until birth for fear of putting a kenahora on the health of my unborn child. Instead we lovingly used a pet name for Thatbaby all through the pregnancy and beyond. He was our Muppet - or Mupps for short.

The Muppets have always held a special tie between Thatdad and I. It goes alllll the way back to when I was a baby myself. There's a joke that for the first week I was home, I kept my mouth shut. Around week 2 it opened and I haven't stopped making noise since. I was queen of the colicky babies and the only way my parents could get me to sleep is if Thatdad kept me at a 45 degree angle against his chest. And so every night he would rock me to sleep while watching The Muppet Show. Our little nickname became a way of including Thatdad in the birth of his grandchild.

After Thatbaby was born we asked our friends to give us a couple of weeks to get settled before we'd start entertaining visitors. Last weekend we hosted an open house so that our friends could finally get a chance to meet the little guy they'd been hearing so much about.

It only made sense to theme our little get-together as a chance to Meet the Muppet. We chose to the host the party in the middle of the day so we could load our guests up with sugar instead of real food.

Don't worry - there were vegetables available too. Which is good, because Harvard informed me that he had a dentist appointment the next day.

And I once again enlisted the very talented services of Wan in creating the perfect Muppet-themed treat for our guests.

Since this was an open house, we weren't sure when the guests would leave, or when they would stop arriving - so I went with something easy for Thatboy and I for dinner. And you all know what that means, right? Pasta!

In this case a baked ziti is exactly what the doctor ordered. Since it only tastes better the next day and is quick to reheat. It also left lots of leftovers, which is important since Thatboy started back up at work last week. And having an easy lunch was such a nice thing to have when I was home alone with the baby for the first time.

Baked Ziti
1 box of ziti
3 cups of your favorite marinara sauce
1 lb of fresh ricotta cheese
2 cups fresh mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 egg
1 tsp dried oregano leaves
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
Parmesan cheese, thinly sliced

Preheat oven to 375°F. Cook ziti.
When ziti is cooked, mix it with half of the marinara, the ricotta, mozzarella, egg, oregano, garlic, and pepper.
Spread ziti mixture in a large baking dish and top with the remaining sauce. Spread the parmesan across the top and cover. Bake for 30 minutes.

Addition of Apples

2011-11-05T19:18:00.000-07:00

I think I've groused for months about missing out on apple picking this year. Obviously I'm upset. Mostly because I'm used to utilizing apples in many of my favorite fall dishes.

And I'm not just referring to baked goods (although I did manage to sneak an apple crisp into the freezer before Thatbaby's arrival) - apples are a welcome addition to many savory dishes. As you'll see this week, I especially love them with pork. The sweetness of the pork, the sweetness of the apples, they go together like peanut butter and chocolate.

I've been playing around a lot with conflicting flavors as of late - and this recipe is an prime example of that. I took my pork and apple philosophy and decided to apply it to sausage. Sausage and peppers is a fairly typical dish, but substituting the apples for the peppers is a more seasonal approach. I went with a really spicy sausage too, instead of the typical Polish sausage to give it a bit more kick. Spicy and sweet is usually a winning combination. So with the sweet and spicy taken care of, there was another flavor profile I wanted to include - something with a little bite. So I went with another stereotypical sausage pairing - sauerkraut.

To further emphasize my insanity, or my love for apples, I cooked the sauerkraut with apples too. Adding an ingredient to every step of the dish both makes you look like a looney and intensifies the taste of that ingredient. And I didn't want the apples to get lost in the spice and brine.

They didn't. What they did do was help to contrast the spiciness of the sausage - and boy did these things have some heat to them! They also helped to sweeten the sauerkraut and help to meld together the disparate flavors.

I thought long and hard for a creative name for this dish and came up empty. But maybe you'll have better luck. Or perhaps you'll be so busy eating that the age old adage "What's in a name?" will take on a more profound meaning for you.

Sausage and Apples with Sauerkraut
1/2 lb sauerkraut
1 apple, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup beef broth
1/2 tsp caraway seeds
salt and pepper
12 oz Italian sausage, sliced
1/2 onion, sliced

In a large skillet, combine sauerkraut, half of the apple, beef broth, and caraway seeds. Cook over low heat for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
While the sauerkraut is cooking, cook the sausage in a separate to the skillet.
Add the onions and remaining apple to the sausage. Cook until the onions are lightly browned and the apple is tender.
Add the sausage mixture to the sauerkraut and continue cooking for whatever time is remaining on the sauerkraut.

Dinner Dictation

2011-11-03T18:02:00.000-07:00

My friend Elly once told a story about her husband cooking something. The story entails her having to give him step by step instructions which led to more questions than he had originally and her doing far more work than she would have expected since he was doing the cooking. It was hilarious in that many of us could relate to the situation where a helping husband is more trouble than help.

Thatboy is always offering to help in the kitchen, but in truth, I rarely let him. I've tried on a couple of occasions which resulted in sriracha and spaghetti, and me having to walk him through dumping a frozen bag into a skillet. Usually I give him a simple job to do like shucking peas.

But throw a kid into the mix and you start turning to help in unlikely places. It was easy when we had frozen meals. Thatboy has become very adept at heating up frozen entrees in the oven. (Especially when his wife writes instructions on how to reheat on the foil covering it.) It's a little more difficult once those freezer meals are gone.

This is a dinner that was a complete joint effort, due in part to a fussy child. So while I took care of the baby, Thatboy asked if he could help get dinner started as it was getting late. I told him he could do the pork tenderloin if he was so inclined. Which really entails him running back and forth between the kitchen and the baby's room between each step as I dictated. Because of that, try to picture a 2-3 minute pause between each of these interactions.

Me: Turn the oven up to 375 and rub the pork with olive oil and seasonings
He: What seasoning should I use?
Me: You can use any seasoning you like. We have an entire shelf full of them.
He: I don't know what seasoning goes with pork.
Me: Well, I usually like rosemary. Why don't you use some rosemary, salt, and pepper.
He: We don't have any rosemary.
Me: I find that hard to believe. Did you check the spice shelf?
He: yes
Me: And the spice rack beside the oven?
He: Yes
Me: Uggh. I can't find it for you, I'm kind of stuck with the baby here. Why don't you use Cajun seasoning? We have two different bottles. The front one is unlabeled and that's the Emeril seasoning. The other is a giant bottle that says "Cajun seasoning" you can't miss it.
He: Which one should I use?
Me: Whichever you can find - I'm trying to make it easy for you. We've already been at this for about 15 minutes and the pork isn't even in the oven yet.

After that it got quiet for a bit, so I figured we were all good. Until of course the pork actually went in the oven and Thatboy needed advice on how long to set the timer for. And around this time I was ready to rejoin him in the kitchen and get to work on the side dish. So while the pork cooked, I tossed together some cabbage and bacon. But this time, I also added some apples. Sweet apples, bitter cabbage, salty bacon, along with some vinegar - all work together to create a sweet and savory dish. Better than coleslaw and a perfect fall dish. Especially served alongside some pork. And as for that pork? It came out delicious. I'm sure you're as surprised as I am. Although I think that I might be off the hook for cooking pork tenderloins. I might make them Thatboy's specialty for nights I want off!

ABC - Apple Bacon Cabbage

4 slices bacon
2 Tbsp sugar
1 onion, chopped
1 head red cabbage, shredded
2 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
2 Tbsp cider vinegar
1/2 tsp caraway seed
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 cup red wine

Cook the bacon in a skillet. Remove the cooked bacon, but leave the drippings in the skillet.
Add the sugar to the bacon drippings and cook, stirring, for two minutes.
Add the onion and cook slowly until lightly browned.
Crumble the bacon and stir it in with the cabbage, apples, vinegar, caraway seeds, nutmeg, cayenne and red wine. Cover and cook for 10 minutes.
Partially uncover the skillet and add 1/2 cup water. Cook for about 35 minutes.

Bringing back an old favorite

2011-11-02T10:10:00.000-07:00

When I first got back in the kitchen I wanted to make use of the items I already had on hand. Because the induction was unexpected, when I went into the hospital we already had a fully stocked fridge. A fully stocked fridge which the inlaws refused to make use of and continued to bring over new ingredients every night.

One of the "uncooked" items in my freezer was ground pork. I used about half of it to make the meatloaf Thatboy enjoyed for many lunches in the first couple weeks. The other half sat waiting to be turned into.....well, see, now I can't remember. So when I went to use it I turned to my old standby with leftovers - ma po tofu.

I always have all the ingredients on hand for this dish and it is one of my all time favorite uses for leftover ground meat.

To make it "special" I decided to turn this classic standby into a dumpling. Thatboy looked at me with fear in his eyes - "I think you're taking too much on, that's going to be really hard." Which I didn't understand at the time. And as I was stuffing the potstickers, he came over and peered over my shoulder. "Wow - those look really good! My mom and I tried to make potstickers one time when I was little and it was a disaster. It took forever and we made a mess everywhere. Yours look professional." Which explained his earlier comment. But I'll share with you my secret. The hardest part of making potstickers is the stuffing. Sealing them so they don't pop open and creating a beautiful little pocket. Elizabeth has the best most fabulous video to show how to fold and seal these suckers and it makes anyone look like a professional.

Ma Po Potstickers
1 (1-pound) package reduced-fat firm tofu, cut into 6 slices
1/2 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 to 2 teaspoons chili garlic sauce (such as Lee Kum Kee)
4 ounces lean ground pork
1 tablespoon grated peeled fresh ginger
3 garlic cloves, minced
won ton wrappers
1 Tbsp peanut oil
1 cup water

Place tofu slices on several layers of paper towels; cover with additional paper towels. Place a dinner plate on top of covered tofu; let stand 30 minutes. Remove plate; discard paper towels. Cut tofu slices into 1/2-inch cubes.
Combine broth, cornstarch, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and chili garlic sauce, stirring with a whisk.
Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add pork; cook 4 minutes or until done, stirring to crumble.
Add ginger and garlic; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly.
Add tofu; cook 4 minutes or until golden, stirring frequently.
Add broth mixture to pan. Bring to a boil; cook 1 minute or until mixture thickens. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.
Place mixture in a food processor and pulse a couple times to break down the mixture.
Spoon a scant tablespoon of the mixture into center of each won ton wrapper. Moisten edges of skin with water. Fold in half, pinching edges together to seal.
Heat peanut oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Arrange potstickers in pan in a single layer; cook 1 minute or until browned on bottom.
Add 1 cup water to pan; cover and steam 3 minutes.
Uncover and cook another 2 minutes or until the water evaporates.

Better with bacon

2011-11-01T17:56:00.000-07:00

In Thathouse cabbage usually comes in one of two forms - once a year on the 17th of March you will find it boiled alongside potatoes and carrots and served with corned beef. The rest of the year it is shredded and tossed with vinegar in a decidedly slaw-like manner. (And sometime later this week I'll be sure to share my go-to slaw recipe with you.)

But honestly, there's a limit to how much coleslaw one person can eat. And a whole head of cabbage would make a ridiculous amount of coleslaw. So I usually chop it in half. And then have half a head of cabbage that sits around growing disgusting until I end up trashing it and feeling incredibly wasteful.

This time I vowed not to let that happen. Knowing that bacon is what initially won over Thatboy and brussels sprouts, it seemed like a natural addition to cabbage. Or if not natural, at least something that would impart a delicious flavor.

Thatboy was instantly won over. "Bacon makes cabbage taste really good!" And you know what? He's totally right. So with that in mind, here are two variations on a theme - bacon and cabbage.

Bacon and Cabbage (1)
1/2 head of cabbage, core removed
2 slices of bacon
2 Tbsp melted butter
salt and pepper

Bring a pot of water to a boil Tear cabbage into bite sized pieces.
While waiting for the water to boil, cook the bacon.
Place cabbage in boiling water for a quick minute and drain.
Toss together the cabbage, butter, salt, pepper, and crumbled bacon.

Bacon and Cabbage (2)
4 strips of bacon
1/2 head of cabbage, shredded (I did it here with bok choy, just because you can do it with any cabbage you love)
salt and pepper

Cook the bacon in a skillet and remove the bacon (leave the drippings!)
Add the cabbage to the bacon dripping, cover and cook for 3 minutes.
Crumble the bacon into the cabbage, season with salt and pepper.

Fright Night

2011-10-30T23:17:00.001-07:00

Halloween. A time to revel in the spooky and weird. A time to be scared. Honestly? I don't really like being scared. I wasn't always this way - in fact, there's a running joke in my family that I didn't really "get" horror movies. Tales of me watching Poltergeist at a ridiculously young age. Stories of my parents walking in on me watching Candyman and crying about the sweet love story it portrayed ("He didn't want to leave her - even in death because he LOVED her!")

I blame The Ring. Honestly, that movie was the changing point for me. I spent a good portion of the movie on the floor of the theater, my face buried in the chair, hysterically crying. I'm fairly certain I remember Thatmom on the floor with me. Ever since that time I have been decidedly anti-scary movie. Or to be more precise, anti-psychological thriller scary movies. I'm totally fine with werewolves and vampires - as long as they don't glitter in the sunlight.

But during the month of October I give in totally and completely and let Thatboy go hogwild with the scary movies. Given that we're both currently home all day that means I have been treated to some real doozies. In fact, Thatboy has a new favorite - Satan's Little Helper which is basically the story of a child who must be mentally handicapped since he spends the entire movie helping a sociopathic killer choose and mutilate victims because he thinks the guy is Satan.

Today I got a small reprieve in the form of some much needed rest as I took a nap while Thatboy watched both the baby and his Halloween movie of choice - The Descent.

Of course, when I got up, that left me with a much more scary prospect - What's For Dinner? I know, words that can chill the bones of anyone faced with such a task. I decided to go with something Halloweeny and festive. A tribute to one of my favorite car songs as a child. As usual, the song was completely foreign to Thatboy, but perhaps you'll recognize it?

Great green gobs of greasy, grimey, gopher guts
mutilated monkey meat
little birdies' dirty feet
Great green gobs of greasy, grimey, gopher guts
and I forgot my spoon!

Great Green Gobs of Greasy Grimey Gopher Guts (Chicken and Pesto Pasta)
1 chicken breast
1/4 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp dried rosemary
8 oz spaghetti
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup pesto

Combine basil, oregano, thyme, and rosemary and use this picture to cover chicken.
Cook spaghetti to your desired doneness.
As spaghetti is cooking, heat oil in a nonstick skillet. Cook chicken 6-7 minutes on each side until cooked through.
When pasta is done, don't drain it - use tongs to transfer hot pasta directly into serving bowl. Reserve the pasta water.
Chop chicken into bite sized pieces and add to pasta.
Toss pesto with the pasta and chicken, adding reserved pasta water to create a sauce of your desired thickness. (If you like your pesto sauce really thick, don't add any water. For a thinner sauce, add more water.)

A different Halloween

2011-10-30T11:38:00.000-07:00

For the past few years we've celebrated Halloween by heading to a party hosted by Thatboy's friend Dr.P. It's one of those parties where we judge its success by how much of my costume I am still wearing when we walk through the door when we get home. (In the past I have left shoes, jewelry, scarves and other accessories somewhere on the path between the car and the door)

This year the party didn't sound like such a great idea - at least to me. Thatboy thought we should still go and make an appearance. Somehow I just didn't feel like bringing a baby to a party filled with really drunk people sounded like something I would be interested in.

In truth, we weren't planning on doing much of anything for Halloween. We didn't even get costumes! I told Thatboy back in August when we first discussed Halloween that I planned on going as a "mommy" and he could dress up as "daddy." However, we didn't want Thatbaby to miss out on his first Halloween pictures, so we picked up a unisex outfit for our future babe to wear. Not a true costume, but something comfy and seasonal.

But, as I've said before, this motherhood thing isn't nearly as difficult as I was prepared for it to be. Which was kind of my plan. As I told Thatboy, keep your expectations low and you'll never be disappointed. I had cleared our entire schedule for October.

Last week we got a call from one of the officers Thatboy works with inviting us to a "family Halloween party." He tried to entice us with the promise of a bounce house, beer, and soda. While I was pretty sure Thatbaby wasn't going to be able to avail himself of any of these things, I gladly acquiesced to the idea of the party. I mean, it wasn't like we had any other plans.

But of course that meant we had to figure out costumes. Since Thatbaby already had the skeleton suit, we thought maybe we should all wear skeleton costumes. We headed to Target to pick up said costume, only to not really like the costumes they had. And so we stood in the costume aisle trying to figure out what we were going to do.

Struck by inspiration, I suggested going as Labyrinth characters since Thatbaby has a red and white striped onesie.

Thatboy loved the idea and grabbed a blonde wig as we headed over to the women's section to look for poofy shirts. But on our way, Thatboy was struck with inspiration of his own.

Because Thatbaby also already has sleep & plays too. So we decided we could ALL wear sleep & plays since they had them in adult sizes. A far cry from most of the "sexy" style costumes, and far more appropriate for a family party.

We also picked up a little something for Thatdog who doesn't like to be left out.

Last night we got suited up and headed out.

I do believe this was the first year I haven't been freezing in my Halloween costume! And Thatbaby did great. He's fabulous at being held and he stayed nice and cozy and warm as well. And I have to say, it's nice to be able to have a drink at parties again! I missed that when I was pregnant.

It's a totally different experience celebrating Halloween as a grownup. And honestly, I have such mixed feelings about being an honest to goodness "adult." First, because I don't really feel like a grownup - I still feel like a kid playing house. But at the same time, I am now, without a doubt, a full fledged adult with a family I'm responsible to and for.

Thatboy must be feeling the same way, because he's starting to act a lot more grownup and responsible. Including the fact he's being REALLY good about eating his vegetables. Including those he's not too fond of. Like the other night when I made brussels sprouts. In general Thatboy doesn't like brussels sprouts. He'll humor me and have a few bites if I saute them with bacon or dijon mustard, but he certainly doesn't prefer them. With that in mind, I only made a few boiled brussels sprouts, so I could load my plate up and give him one or two little guys. Imagine my surprise when he told me he wanted more than one or two - that he actually enjoyed them! He claims these don't have the same bitterness brussels sprouts usually have. I can only assume I've either broken him down, butter fixes everything, or his tastebuds have finally caught up with his age.

Brussels Sprouts
1 lb brussels sprouts
melted butter
salt

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Wash and trim the brussels sprouts.
Add the sprouts to the boiling water and boil 7 minutes. You want them to be tender, but still have a crunch to them. And they should be a beautiful bright vibrant green.
Toss the hot sprouts with butter and salt.