Wednesday

Some days you just need a giant cinnamon roll the size of your face. 

To share, of course.
Lucky coworkers.

Neighborhood Spot

Garnett's, I adore you. Your eclectic framed photos on the walls, cheesy mornay sauce on my Croque Garnett, and little slice of ever-rotating heaven for dessert. To you I will always be true.

Foods I Like

Lately I've been into three specific foods: brussels sprouts, kale and quinoa. I've talked about brussels sprouts before so I thought I'd give the other two some time in the spotlight.

1. Kale is a relatively new discovery to me but only recently have I been brave enough to experiment with. And truthfully I've only done one thing with it. Kale chips. There are all sorts of recipes for kale chips on the interwebs, but I tried and loved Smitten Kitchen's version and have made them approximately four times in the past two weeks. For reals.

Baked Kale Chips - via Smitten Kitchen
Adapted from a bunch of inspiring places

1 bunch (about 6 ounces) kale (I used Lacinato or “Dinosaur” Kale but I understand that the curlier stuff works, too, possibly even better)
1 tablespoon olive oil
Sea salt, to taste

Preheat oven to 300°F. Rinse and dry the kale, then remove the stems and tough center ribs. Cut into large pieces, toss with olive oil in a bowl then sprinkle with salt. Arrange leaves in a single layer on a large baking sheet (I needed two because mine are tiny; I also lined mine with parchment for easy clean-up but there’s no reason that you must). Bake for 20 minutes, or until crisp. Place baking sheet on a rack to cool.

2. Quinoa has been in my kitchen repertoire for a while now, but the other day I mixed it in with another tried and true combo and loved the result. Basic quinoa is one part quinoa to two parts water. I do 6 oz. of the little mini can of Spicy Hot V8 juice, 10 oz. water, and toss in some spices like chili powder, TJ's 21 Seasoning Salute (a no-salt mix of garlic, onion, lots of other things -- amazing!), and red pepper flakes. It gives the grain some extra oomph. While the quinoa is cooking I slice and pan-cook polenta circles and sauté onions, peppers, broccoli, jalapeños, and ________ (any other veggies we have). Top the polenta cakes with the amped up quinoa and veggies, and then top those with sliced avocado and a smidge of sharp cheddar. Avocado is key here! I wish I had a picture for you but it was too delicious to stay on my plate for long...

In other news, the sellers wouldn't make the repairs we wanted so we voided the contract on Sunday afternoon and are continuing our search. I'm really hoping relationship rules don't apply to house hunting because we scheduled a showing for a new house on Monday. Rebound? :)

Nom Nom

These are the fun little ceramic chopstick bowls I made for my sister for Christmas. She already put them to use with homemade pho on New Year's Eve! Love her. 

Happy weekend! 

Side Note

Do you like Brussels Sprouts? I'm kind of in love with them. I tried this recipe on Thanksgiving and made them again last night. So easy and tasty...together we can rid them of their bad reputation!

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds Brussels sprouts

3 tablespoons good olive oil

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

(some crushed garlic and red pepper flakes are a nice addition too!)

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Cut off the brown ends of the Brussels sprouts and pull off any yellow outer leaves. Mix them in a bowl with the olive oil, salt and pepper. Pour them on a sheet pan and roast for 35 to 40 minutes, until crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. Shake the pan from time to time to brown the sprouts evenly. Sprinkle with more kosher salt, and serve immediately.

Recipe via the Barefoot Contessa and Food Network, found here.

Popcorn

During a weekly farmer's market trip, my friend and I came across what looked like decorative corn cobs at our favorite produce booth. Turns out these little cobs are for making popcorn, and per the friendly gal's directions it was quite a success! All I had to do was place the corn cob in a medium sized paper bag (think Chipotle to-go size), roll up to the top, put it in the microwave on the popcorn setting, and voila! All natural popcorn. Shake in a few seasonings and you've just impressed the visiting out-of-state in-laws.

PNW

Kitchen Fail

Remember that *hopefully successful* endeavor I mentioned a few days ago? The bunny cake? Total fail.

When I was growing up my mom would bake a bunny cake for Easter or birthday parties to add a little pizazz to a traditional double layer round cake. The idea is that you bake two 9" rounds and use one as the face of the bunny. The other round is cut like a baseball (two arc-like cuts starting near the outer edge, cutting in close to the middle, then arcing out again) to create the ears, leaving the leftover middle part for your bunny's respectable bow tie. Frost, decorate with jelly beans and licorice for the whiskers, and you've got yourself a festive little treat.

Well. I bought a cake mix at Trader Joe's and a mix-it-yourself frosting (something I thought I'd try), donned my Anthropologie apron and gave this whole thing a whirl. I was afraid that Chris and I would probably be responsible for consuming the entire cake, so I made the I-should-have-known-it-would-be-fatal decision to go with cupcakes. Baby bunnies. I'd follow the same directions but craft these Easter cottontails into manageable, sharable cupcakes. I greased my pans with butter, lightly floured them per the advice of the directions, mixed the mix and popped them in the oven.

The aroma of chocolate permeated the house. I watched the cupcakes rise (and continue to rise....rise right into chubby bunnies) until the timer went off. Everything was going so well until those buggers refused to come out of the pan. I tried right away, I tried after letting them cool a bit. After many creative attempts I just had to scrape them out with a spoon, all crumbled and bottomless since half of the cake decided to stay put.

I managed to get a few out of their molds and to make the cuts for the ears and bowtie. Chris said my cake creation looked like Stitch. I didn't even bother mixing the frosting. Poor little chubby bunnies.

Official post-Easter decision: I'm making brownies next year.

Pack Your Bread and Water

It's official! For the seventh year in a row -- and for its seventh annual appearance -- my sister and I will visit Pike Place Market in mid-May for the vegan nightmare that is the Seattle Cheese Festival. Picture this: the hustle and bustle of Pike Place Market is inundated with long rows of tents and tables serving sample cubes of cheeses from around the nation and the world. FREE samples. We've had lavender cheese, Rogue Chocolate Stout cheese, fiesta cheese, Tillamook cheese, string cheese, goat cheese, and stinky cheese. Over the years we've really wised up and created a strategy; we arrive right when it opens to avoid long lines, bring bottled water and pre-sliced bread (Essential Baking Co. makes a mean loaf), and pack for all kinds of weather. Pouring rain or blazing heat, we've seen Cheese Fest at its soggiest (what do you expect -- it's Seattle) and sunniest (the cheese was melting before our eyes). CHEESE FEST CHEESE FEST CHEESE FEST I LOVE YOU.

Field Trip

In my book, a trip to Trader Joe's is like going on a field trip. Anticipation on the drive out, my face glowing as we see the sights, and a ride home with a special treat and a twinkle in my eye. Who knew the joys of childhood could be recreated with a simple trip to the grocery store? (Last year TJ and I had a long distance relationship....read about that here in "I Miss Joe.")

Welcome, November

Image via Hilda Grahnat

I love how baking serves three purposes in the fall:

1. The production of tasty, homemade decadent treats in roughly 30 minutes (I'm talking about you, little TJ's Reduced Guilt Brownies in the oven right now.)

2. The opportunity to lick the bowl (maybe I should move this to No. 1).

3. The byproduct of the heated oven also heating your chilly, single-paned apartment.

November, I welcome you in all your autumn-y goodness. And I blame you in advance for all of the baking apartment heating via the oven I will do in your honor this month. 

Holiday season, here we come.

Takes Me Back

If you ask my mom, she might say that I ate a lot of weird things as a kid. Frozen bread slices. Mustard sandwiches (to clarify,  just mustard on bread). But one of my elementary school lunch staples has made a comeback: applesauce and yogurt.

Okay, people made fun of me for it back then. Husby makes fun of me for it now. It's weird looking, I'll admit. There's just something about it that intrigued me after all these years of abstaining.

This time around I make the grown up version....TJ's unsweetened Gravenstein applesauce, TJ's nonfat plain greek yogurt, and a sophisticated dusting of cinnamon. 

For beginners I'd go heavy on the applesauce; for a protein-packed snack, give the yogurt an even chance. Swirl it around until it looks like cottage cheese. 

Now if I just had some leggings and braces, I'd be right back at the cafeteria lunch table at Durham Elementary.

Chilly weather calls for...

Late afternoon phone call.

Me: It got pretty rainy and cold* today, so I'm making some of Kelsey's famous chili tonight.

Mom: You are?! I love Kelsey's famous chili...I made it earlier this week!

I'm simmering some in the crock pot right now and consulting Joy (of Cooking) for a cornbread recipe. As for the rest of the weekend, I'm hoping that after a day of college football tomorrow I can steal Chris away from the NFL on Sunday for a day trip to the beach.

*Relatively. I know all you Pacific Northwest people are shaking your heads in shame. Would it be cruel to mention that it's supposed to be 74 degrees at the beach this weekend?

Not Mott's (or Treetop or Seneca for that matter)

Homemade applesauce is just about the best thing around. It makes the kitchen smell like autumn and while it's fun to make with others, it's also worth making solo (you can steal some hefty spoonfuls for yourself before a hungry husby comes home).

Here's the recipe I used as a guide, but didn't really watch the clock or measure all that much. I opted for seven medium sized apples--a mix of Braeburn, Jonagold and Golden Delicious. I didn't have a cinnamon stick, so instead I added about 1/2 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice and a generous sprinkling of ground cinnamon.  Near the end I added only 1/4 cup of brown sugar and probably could have done with less. (Recipe from The Joy of Cooking, and sorry for being too lazy to type it out.)

Chopped and ready to go.

Simmer down now, apples. Simmer down.

Served with homemade potato latkes. As you can see, very little effort was put into this shot but I was too hungry to make it look fancy.

Daily Vegetable

Tomorrow is the first official day of autumn, but evidence of the upcoming holiday season abounds. I saw Christmas lights on the shelves at Target (Christmas!!).  But lately I've been stuck on one festive treat: candy corn.

Must refrain, I said aloud today in the presence of no one but my cat. Candy corn should NOT accompany every meal. I think my bag has been laced with crack. Crack corn.

"Put that cookie down, NOW!"

Last night I was sitting on the couch reading my book and sipping some tea when I decided it was too early to wind down for bed. I hopped up, took down my Joy of Cooking from its perch in the kitchen, and started assembling some killer oatmeal-craisin-walnut cookies. Yummmm.......

Has anyone seen Jingle All the Way? (You know, that high-class Christmas blockbuster with Arnold Schwarzenegger...)

Neighbor: "Ohhhh, these cookies! I've gotta get the recipe from Liz."

Arnold: "Put that cookie down, NOW!"

Weekend

Saturday mornings seem to be made for sleeping in and baking yummy breakfast treats. Today I tried these perfect blueberry muffins and man-oh-man are they delicious. Let's not count how many I've already eaten...

(Recipe and picture from Deb at Smitten Kitchen)

Advent of Autumn

Don't these chai waffles look heavenly? They would be a perfect introduction to fall once the weather gets a little less stifling and more on the chilly, cozy side. (Note to self: must get a waffle maker...)

Oh, and after a scrumptious breakfast I'd love to head out on the town in this.

Fall dreaming....

Appliances

I never intended for this blog to have a food focus, but when you don't have a car and the weather is too darn hot to be outside, it's either food experimentation or online shopping. I think we all know which one trumps the other in regard to fun, but alas, baking and cooking seem to be the most cost-effective options at my disposal. (I do a lot of other things here too, you know.)

As I was reading the NYT headlines this morning, I saw an article about Roger Ebert and his new cookbook. One of my favorite professors from college was a huge Ebert fan, so I know plenty about Ebert's movie reviews. What I didn't know was that he liked cooking. Even more fascinating, I learned that he has been without a lower jaw since 2006 (how can he even like cooking if he can't eat any of it?).

Intrigued? Read the article and check out his book (due out this month) about the many things you can make in a rice cooker. I've never owned one myself, but now I'm tempted. Little did I know it can also be used for perfect oatmeal, yummy quinoa, and other types of grainy delights. Sounds like quite the little cooker to me!

Snack Time

Happy Friday! Can you even believe it's the last weekend of August?

As much as I love summer, I think autumn has to be my favorite season. Every year I want to join the back-to-school shopping madness like I'm in elementary school again (even a twenty-something could use some notebooks, glue sticks, and a new skirt, right?). But even though kids around the country are sharpening their pencils and stuffing their backpacks, I refuse to give up the tasty summer treat of TJ's frozen yogurt. It has no choice but to follow me into fall. (Last night I snuck some berries out of the freezer, heated them up a bit, added scoops of fro-yo and mixed the dark pink result into a soupy bowl of amazingness. TRY IT.)