...and the near future!
Chris and I decided to spend a quite New Year's Eve in at the apartment. Good thing we didn't make any plans that didn't involve lounging around and making food - we got snowed in! Happy (late!) 2009 :).
Blueberry waffles, and banana white chocolate chip waffles. Mmmm. Plus some bacon (YUM), cherries (still not as good as the Washington ones, but pretty good!), and coffee made with my new stovetop percolator and espresso cups from Nina! Plates from an old woman's closet at a craft fair Heather and I went to a few weeks before Christmas.
Yum.
Making Ham and Cheese Scones (recipe coming this weekend!), and to the right, fresh spinach artichoke dip. I use this recipe for the dip, and usually replace all/part of the mayo with ranch dressing (I usually don't have mayo in the house).
Everything on the coffee table! We also had olive oil + spices for bread dipping, and the Scharffenberger brownies. If you're wondering what Chris is doing...our couch ate the TV remote :(.
Happy (sleepy!!) 2009!
I woke up to this icy winter wonderland yesterday, and this morning was greeted with snow piled on top of all of this ice. Crazy! Apparently we're making some news here. I think this was my favorite quote of the day:
"This is pathetic," said Bob Cott of Portland, Maine, who lost power for the first time in 10 years. "I'm already sick of winter and we have nine days to go before it officially begins."
Lol. I went out to clean my car off late in the day, but I was afraid to venture out any earlier.
Again, sorry for the cell phone quality pictures...
Anyway, even though it was cold and awful out, I wanted a lighter lunch/brunch - I woke up at noon. I've been waiting for the right time to make this absolutely amazing looking tuna salad, but sadly I am out of beans, onions, AND fresh herbs. So instead I created my own recipe - not bad, I have to say!
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Quick, Easy Tuna Salad (without mayo!)
Ingredients:
1 can chunk light tuna packed in water
1/4 cup diced tomatoes (I used from a can)
1 tsp olive oil (I used garlic-infused olive oil)
1 tsp honey mustard
1 tbsp Parmesan cheese
1/8 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp Mexican chili powder
garlic powder to taste
salt and pepper to taste
Drain the tuna, then combine all ingredients and mix. That's it! This is especially good on top of a toasted English muffin, or on whole wheat bread in a sandwich.
The next few posts will be mostly cell phone pictures, my camera was full for awhile and I wasn't at my computer long enough to upload them/my computer wasn't working well enough to upload them...sorry!
Not necessarily food related, but there's coffee involved!
Coffee cup sleeve that made me smile the other day :).
Dinner that night - freshly made varenyky from the church, pan fried and eaten with sour cream and a salad. Ohmygoddeliciousness.
Bundled up for the weather.
Although I did shrink wrap my window this afternoon...
Breakfast
Lunch (Trader Joe's Brown Rice California Sushi, toasted English muffin with cheese, clementine/grapefruit/mango fruit salad with fig balsamic vinegar)
Dinner (Turkey soup/stew with wild rice, recipe coming soon!)
My roommate and I have an absolute love of Indian food. Now, to start off this post, let me say that I am aware that chicken tikka masala isn't technically an Indian dish. Anyway, there are a few pretty good Indian restaurants in the area - Shalimar in Troy, and the Curry House in Albany. Both of these places have awesome lunch buffet deals. The chicken tikka masala is excellent at Curry House, and Heather and I both had a craving for some awhile ago - she had the chicken, I had the crockpot and culinary skills. Yum!
This was a fairly easy dish to make, made even easier by the fact that I made it in the crock pot, and then took a nap while it cooked. Awesome multi-tasking! After the chicken was done cooking, all I had to do was set the setting to "Keep Warm", and cook up some jasmine rice. Enjoy!
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Crock Pot Chicken Tikka Masala
recipe adapted from Supah Weblog
1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast diced into large cubes
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
1 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cup plain yogurt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 small can tomato paste, thinned out with water
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp garam masala
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cayenne powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
salt and pepper to taste
Whisk together all ingredients except for chicken in crock pot. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add in diced chicken.
Turn the crockpot on high and cook for 3-4 hours, until chicken is cooked throughout. You may also put crockpot on low to prolong the cooking time. Serve over jasmine rice. This recipe also freezes well!
I've been attempting to write this post about omelettes for about two weeks, but something's just not clicking. So without further ado, I give you...omelettes for dinner!
Saute some onions in butter until they are almost caramelized, then throw in tomatoes, ham, and spinach leaves. Then sprinkle the cooking eggs with cheese and fold over the filling mixture.
This one was made with feta cheese, ham, and arugula leftover from a Trader Joe's trip when visiting my sister. I wasn't as much of a fan of the arugula in this omelette - I found it tasted much better in a whole wheat pita with feta cheese, maple champagne mustard, and ham.
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Basic Omelette Recipe
makes one omelette
Heat up a small skillet with 1 tablespoon of butter on medium heat.
Once the butter is melted, crack 2 eggs into the pan and beat with a fork until smooth. At this point, to make a fluffier omelette, add about 2 tsp of milk to the eggs. Add a pinch of salt and pepper.
When the eggs begin to bubble on the surface, and the edges of the omelette are dry, flip with a spatula. Add desired omelette ingredients on top of the omelette. Cook for a few minutes more, then fold the omelette in half with the spatula and let cheese melt. Enjoy!
Last weekend one of my roommates (not the apple picking one :P) and I hosted a very classy party, in honor of the opening of a new performing arts center at our (engineering) school.
The opening of this performing arts center has been the topic of a lot of controversy lately, over many issues that generally center around the need for other improvements on campus, and the sheer amount of money being spent on this new building.
While I have my own opinions about this, I won't go into them in too much detail on this blog. However, as a club officer, I was invited to the invite-only Gala Opening Event last Friday night. I definitely wanted to go check it out, mainly because I was sure there would be good food there (and I was right!).
It was black-tie only - so sophisticated! I've never been to such a "grown up" event, so I was pretty excited to get to wear my black prom dress again ;). Unfortunately, I forgot my camera and didn't get any pictures of the night! I have some bad-quality cell phone pictures, but it doesn't do anything justice. The pictures you see now are from re-visiting the building the next morning, with my mom.
So, anyway, I spent most of the day on Friday preparing for our unofficial after-Gala event - the anti-event! Julie (my date for the evening!) and I really enjoyed the irony in the party hopping we did. I present to you our menu for the evening:
The petit fours took the longest to make - about 2 days. I deviated a bit from the original recipe listed above, starting with the Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcake recipe, baked as a sheet cake, as the base. From the birthday cake mentioned in a previous post, I found layers were extremely easy to cut when using this recipe, so I didn't want to risk anything new! Especially trying to balance making all of this between classes and meetings.
The focaccia recipe's already made a debut at the Apartment Warming party, made by Chris both times! It's a huge crowd pleaser every time - everyone's usually surprised that it tastes so good, since the idea of grapes on pizza dough is a bit strange at first. I LOVE this stuff, and it was definitely a hit at the party.
(Can't have a classy party without champagne!)
These were just so good I couldn't resist blogging about them! Sometime in August, I made Cheddar Scallion Biscuits with Garlic Butter, blogged about at Cheap Cooking. The garlic butter was definitely an excellent addition, as the biscuits were pretty mild in flavor. I think next time I make them I might try adding in some bacon.
I have ALWAYS dreamed about making tiramisu. Back before I was in college, I was an absolutely hopeless baker. I loved it so much, but even mixes wouldn't come out for me. It was actually pretty sad, thinking back on it, how many times I attempted to bake a cake or pretty much anything and how often it failed.
I tried making tiramisu exactly once. I was so disappointed! The filling was horribly lumpy, not sweet at all, and the ladyfinger cookies were nothing but a soggy mush. Not to mention I felt pretty bad that my dad had bought me the (expensive) mascarpone cheese and I had clearly butchered the recipe.
When I saw a bag of real Italian ladyfingers at the local Italian deli, I decided to try again...and I have to say I was quite the opposite of disappointed! I used Pioneer Woman's Tiramisu recipe, and I CAN make Tiramisu, I can!
Mmmmm, look at that. :D
And of course, I have to post my go-to recipes for yellow cake and chocolate frosting (a birthday cake classic!). Culinary Concoctions by Peabody's Yellow Cake and Fudgy Chocolate Frosting are my standards. I refuse to try another recipe most of the time because these are just so perfect! This cake is moist, flavorful, and has the perfect crumb. And the frosting is super easy to make, spreads well, and is delicious!
For this cake, I actually (gasp!) used another recipe - the Magnolia Vanilla Cupcake recipe - substituting the self-rising flour (didn't have any), and baking it in a cake pan. The yellow cake recipe I use is a little too crumby to decorate that way I wanted to for this cake, so I tried the Magnolia recipe instead....wow! My roommate is the cake decorator in the house (she's great!) and she was very impressed by how flat the cake baked, and how evenly the layers cut. I have to say, I much prefer the taste of Peabody's yellow cake to this vanilla cake, but opinions on that have varied, I've found.
And last, but absolutely-certainly not least, we have....Fudgy Brownies from John Scharffenberger. Oh. My. God. You must make these! The recipe takes a whole lot of chocolate, so quality really matters here. I used half Ghiradelli's Baking Bar chocolate, half Lindt chocolate. Holy moly. The whole key to this recipe, other than quality of chocolate, is to really mix the batter until it's glossy and pulls away from the bowl. That's what creates the perfectly crackled/chewy crust on the brownie. So good!
