Strawberries DO grow on trees...

And the race to enjoy the entire box of strawberries and to use my new tool as much as possible rolled right into Sunday morning with some parfaits and hash browns.  

Menu:

Strawberry, yogurt and granola parfait

Hash browns (#96)

The way to make breakfast of fruit, yogurt and granola look fancy is to do this in a small tumbler, layering each ingredient little by little.  It looks scrumptious and special.  For the potatoes and simply sliced with my handy mandolin and sauteed them in olive oil with salt and pepper.  That is it.  I let them cook for awhile to really allow them to get crispy.  

Perfect brunch, right from my kitchen.

204 to go...

Strawberry Belly.

Yes, our bellies here at the Balfour, or anyone whose eaten here lately would be one thing, - full of strawberries!  Whole Foods had been selling four pound boxes of strawberries for $7.99, and as I stood over the tower of red and delicious looking juicy berries, I felt a little like Bubba from Forrest Gump and his shrimp creations.  In my head I began "strawberry shortcake, strawberry icing, strawberry compote, strawberry parfaits..."  The list went on, and I felt I was up to the challenge of purchasing a four pound box of them without wasting a single one.  And I did.

Menu:

Strawberry and Mascarpone Tart with Brandy Glaze (#94)  **yes, this is a new one, I haven't used mascarpone before.)

Potato and Zucchini au Gratin (#95)

I even used the fancy pie weights.

 Um...yum.

I wish I could say the rest of this tart was left to be enjoyed at a later time.  And, while, yes, a bit was left, the weekend didn't leave us without seeing the whole thing completely devoured.  I'll take it as a compliment.

The other super awesome thing about last weekend is that I purchased a new kitchen tool!  A handheld mandolin for slicing the most beautiful disks of vegetables, etc in the simplest of ways.  That is, of course, if you are careful not to slice off your finger.  Which I should say, with a mandolin, is something you really need to be careful not to do.  So far, I still have ten fingers.  And I've used it quite a bit.

205 to go...

Friday foreign film. (and fish.)

Amalie and I have been talking about watching L'auberge espagnol forever.  We finally nailed down last Friday at my house and dinner.  She has been wanting me to see the film, because it is set in Bar-the-lona, and I lived there over this past summer.  Amalie also lived in Bar-the-lona for awhile a few years back.  Listening to the mixture of Castilian, Catalan and French was perfect.

Menu:

Breaded Grouper (#91)

Cannelini beans and arugula (#92)

Sauteed asparagus

Brandy whipped cream (#93) with strawberries

The recipe called for shrimp, but when I went to the fish section of the grocery store, the shrimp had been frozen.  Not good.  Grouper was fresh and looked delicious.  It made a perfect substitute. 

I normally just make whipped cream with a dash of sugar and about a teaspoon or two of vanilla extract.  I decided to toss in a bit of brandy, and wow was I glad I did.  Just about a tablespoon and a half adds a really nice flavor next to sweet strawberries.

 Clearly we liked it.

207 to go...

Thursday nights are fun.

Thursday is great.  I don't watch much tv regularly, but if it were up to me, The Office and 30 Rock would be new every night.  I wouldn't need a single other channel.  So, after weeks of not having new episodes, last Thursday was made so much better by the return of new ones.  Molly came over for some Liz Lemon and food therapy, which is a little Thursday night routine we used to do a whole lot of when we lived in adjacent buildings in Glover Park.  It was great to have another night of watching Liz Lemon put our single women fears out there for everyone to see.  Yes, it is true: slipping in the shower, having to give yourself the Heimlich, singles mingles kickball and dinners of cheesepuffs and miller lite, - we all secretly fear them.  But even though behind our laughter is "Oh my God, I've thought of that!", a night of dinner and laughing is worth it.
Menu:
Once-baked-twice-baked potatoes (#89)
Sauteed snow peas with turkey sausage and pine nuts (#90)
Green salad

The idea of twice-baked potatoes is absolutely heavenly to me, and although I've probably only had them once or twice, I've always wanted to try them out.  But the thought of having to bake the potatoes for just shy of an hour prior to even starting the cooking, - no can do on a Thursday.  So, I microwaved them!  Prick them with a fork, wrap them in paper towels and microwave for about 10 minutes.  Voila!  Then, scoop out the potato inside, mix with a teaspoon of chopped garlic, teaspoon minced chives and a dash of salt and pepper.

But the mixture back into the scooped out skins and top with a mixture of shredded cheddar and pepper jack.  Bake a 350 for about 25 minutes.


210 to go...

 Molly brought the clean-up crew, Caroline.

I chopped off my hair!

Leave the gun, take the calzone.

You'll be glad you did.  Mollie Katzen's new cookbook Get Cooking! is awesome!  I'm loving everything about it.  Her ideas are simple, relatively inexpensive and delicious.  Since I passed the page with the picture of the Broccoli Cheddar Calzones that I saw in the bookstore, I've really been wanting to try it out.  I picked up this amazing homemade refrigerated pizza dough from Vace, the Italian market with locations in the Cleveland Park DC neighborhood and Bethesda, and decided to use ingredients I already had in the fridge to fill the calzones.

Menu:
Spinach and Three Cheese Calzones (#87)
Tomato Salad

and then made them again the next night closer to Mollie's recipe...
Broccoli Cheddar Calzones (#88)

Both were delicious.
I used the recipe linked for both batches of calzones, I just subbed the ingredients to the first batch.  I had ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan and spinach in the fridge.  I mixed the ricotta with the bit of roasted garlic I had left from the Tomato Soup and layered the spinach and cheeses in the little rounds of dough.  I mean yum.

I spread some cornmeal on the pizza stone and then arranged them on there for baking.  This gives a nice crunch to the bottom of the crust and ensures no sticking.  It is a good trick for anything with a bread or pizza dough crust that cooks directly on a stone or baking sheet.

 Spinach and cheese filling

 Broccoli cheddar filling

*I also added pepper jack cheese to the broccoli batch.  It gave it a good kick and another flavor dimension without any work!

Overall, I strongly recommend taking the calzone over the gun.  It is still a tough call for me about whether to take the calzone versus the cannoli, but I figure it is pretty win-win.

Unless of course you wake up with a dead fish on your doorstep.  In which case I'd avoid any window seats in that Italian restaurant.

212 to go...

"The healthiest thing you've made."

Indeed, it is true.  I think that the soup from last night was possibly the healthiest thing I have made (for this blog).  Butter-less, sugar-less, extra virgin olive oil-less, nearly-cheese-less...but delicious-less?  Hell no.

Menu:
Roasted garlic (#84)
Tomato basil soup (#85)
Baguette croutons (#86)

 This made the house smell amazing.

There is a new cookbook in my life.  Which I couldn't be happier about.  Mollie Katzen's Get Cooking is great.  Her nonchalant, simple way of writing about food, how much she loves it and how much she wants you to start loving to cook it, is perfect.  All three recipes came from her book.  The soup, with freshly roasted garlic, was not only delicious and light, but was ready in 15 minutes!  I mean, really!  What a great Monday night dinner.  

For the croutons, slice fresh baguette thinly, brush with olive oil and put in the oven for 5 minutes on 375 degrees.  Perfect croutons.  Who knew?  Maybe you did, but I didn't.

I think they liked it.

214 to go...

Real mac & cheese.

In my house mac & cheese came from a Kraft box with dried macaroni pasta and a foil pouch of creamy cheddar cheese.  I loved being asked to mix it when the macaroni was ready.  I loved eating it, too.  Mac & cheese is so yummy.  But I never make it.  Or order it.  I've always felt I'd be disappointed if it wasn't the Kraft tasting goodness from my mom's kitchen.  Boy was I wrong.  Wednesday's Washington Post brings the Food section to my door every week, and thank goodness for that!  Last week was all about shrimp doused in spicy sauces from little bottles and a mac & cheese recipe suitable for a holiday meal.  Yes, it had many steps, no, I didn't care.  Yes it was worth it.  And I will definitely make it again.

Menu:
Mac & cheese awesome style (#79)
Turkey breasts with hot sauce (#80)
Lemon sauteed asparagus (#81)
Salad with parsley vinaigrette (#82)
Brown sugar and butter marinated berries (#83) with ice cream

After a couple of days thinking about this amazing mac & cheese recipe in the paper, I decided to have some friends over for dinner Friday night and try it out.  I wanted to pair it with something that was spicy, and perhaps try out a new spicy sauce from the grocer that was either in the article or off the shelf.  Whole Foods didn't have the one mentioned in the paper, so I tried a jar of Bone Suckin' Sauce Hot and Thick.  And, yes, I felt ridiculous buying it.  I got over it pretty quickly though.  

 Working hard...

 hardly working.

Schaeffer's job was to shred the cheese.  But giving Schaeffer this job has both pros and cons.  He certainly takes it seriously and gets the job done.  But he eats a lot of cheese along the way.  Be sure to have extra.  That, I did.  


The turkey breasts, which I thought came out just the slightest bit dry, had a great flavor.  I had seasoned the meat with salt and pepper and poured the sauce in, turning the meat to cover it.  It sat in the fridge, covered, for about an hour or so before going in the oven. 

The peppery, spicy flavor went well with the mac & cheese, and the lemony asparagus was a good, crunchy complement.  I don't have a grill, so I just sauteed them on the stove for a few minutes.  Oh, and I think the blanching/ice bath shenanigans in the recipe is completely unnecessary.  Perhaps when I become a grill master I will appreciate it. 

The mac & cheese came out perfectly in the cast iron skillet.  And it looked so nice in there, too.  All in all, it was a hefty plate of goodness.

Molly and Damon

Dessert was strawberries and blackberries covered in a mixture of brown sugar and butter; I combined the last two ingredients in a food processor.  I put the whole thing in the oven for about 10-15 minutes or so at 350 degrees.  I drained the berries, put them in bowls and paired with ice cream.  Really skeptical upon seeing them come out of the oven, and the whole recipe was really an accident, because I forgot the flour in the food processor that would've made a cobbler-type dish, they really came out yummy!  Good to know.

  
217 to go...

Little sister, angel hair and shortbread.

My little sister is so adorable.  She walks in the door in her cute little outfit all smiley with her red hair all over the place.  Yes, we all have red hair, but neither my older sister nor myself can pull off the long-out-of-shower-locks like Regina.  Thursday night dinner with Regina is awesome for so many reasons, but one of my favorite reasons is that we will inevitably be laughing out loud in about 8 minutes from the time she walks in.  We also have this odd way of knowing what the other is thinking.  A glance over at one another across a dinner table, a mildly narrowed eye or slightly raised eyebrow, and she and I are on the same page, thinking the same thing and laughing again.  Nate, her boyfriend, finds this incredibly annoying.  But, really I think he finds it endearing; he just doesn't say so.  Last week was, of course, the same.  

Who wouldn't cook for this face?

Menu:

Asparagus, pine nuts & shallots over angel hair pasta (#76)

Salad with lemon vinaigrette (#77)

Shortbread with ice cream (#78)

Last week was a long one, and by Thursday afternoon I couldn't wait to get home in the kitchen and make some supper.  A sprint through the grocery store to grab some items, while I was trying to ignore my grumbling stomach, had me pass by the fresh pasta in the refrigerated section.  I had high hopes of making a quick batch of fresh pasta to go with the asparagus and pine nuts, but when I saw the little package, I thought otherwise.  And I was glad I did!  This stuff is delicious.  I added shallots to the recipe, and sauteed them with the garlic initially in the olive oil.  

I wanted a simple dessert and was thinking back to being in grade school at St. Joseph's in Somers Point, NJ.  The secretary there, and still, Mrs. Harvey, used to make shortbread around the holidays.  She'd pack it in these tins and then give it out to family and friends.  We were a family under the 'friend' category, and it was a good thing because that shortbread was something else!  I decided to try some myself to go with vanilla ice cream we had in the freezer.

 Turns out, shortbread is easy!  And a great way to have a delicious and fancy looking dessert really quickly.  The dough has a thick, sticky consistency and you use your fingers to press and spread it in the pan.  I used only about 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar to coat the top instead of a 1/4 cup.  It was plenty.  Be sure to slice the wedges prior to putting the pan in the oven.  It makes cutting them after it is baked much easier.

Next to a scoop of ice cream, it was a perfect ending to Thursday.

222 to go...

"Something light that goes with white wine."

This was the request from Schaeffer for a simple Monday night dinner.  He greeted me at the door with a bunch of incredible orange rununculus flowers that were beautiful.  It is weird when someone starts to know you kind of well, you know?  You see, I'm not the dozen roses type of girl by any stretch of the imagination.  I am more of the flowers from the grocery store put in old tomato sauce jar type of girl.  It is likely due to the fact that I think you should have fresh flowers all of the time.  Not just special occasions, not just because you're saying you're sorry, not just because you screwed up.  Rather, because life is just better when you have fresh flowers around the house. 

Menu:

Lemon and olive chicken (#72)

Pan-fried roasted potaoes (#73)
Salad with greek vinaigrette (#74)
Peach cobbler (#75) *this failed.

There is a famous Moroccean restaurant in DC, Marrakesh, that serves delicious food you eat with your hands while lounging in a dark room of pillows, while a belly dancer comes out for entertainment.  I went here a couple of times when I was in college in DC and remember the most incredible chicken dish.  Lemony and olivey and everything that should be chicken that falls apart and melts in your mouth.  It is so perfectly good.

I found this simply recipe to try and replicate the feeling that chicken memory gives me.  Not too shabby.  The chicken came out really moist and had just enough lemon.  I've talked before of my hesitancy of lemon because of the oh-so-fine-line between too much lemon and too little.  This one had just enough.  I especially liked adding the zest to the flour for dredging the chicken in prior to pan searing it.  Oh and cumin.  I mean, is there anything better than cumin?  Ok, maybe butter.  But that is it.

I put the baby yukon potatoes in a cast iron skillet on the stove with melted butter, salt, pepper and three garlic heads that were ready to be thrown out.  Then I put the whole thing in the oven at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.  I was showing the apartment to a couple of prospective new roommates, as sadly, Beth the roomie is moving out at the end of our lease.  This meant, the timing was all off.  In an effort to get the potatoes done quicker, I put them on the stove top to sort of brown them up quickly.  They turned out alright with a dash of extra salt, but really when a feat of being both overcooked and undercooked at the same time.  Oh well.

Overall it worked nicely.  I made a simple Greek vinaigrette by experimenting with the following: olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, parmesan cheese and oregano.  The oregano really makes Greek dressing so unique and tasty, and I subbed the normally called for feta with parmesan. 

Sadly, the peach cobbler didn't go well.  The butter for the crust was soft, so the whole thing became a soupy peachy buttery mess.  Can't win them all.

225 to go...

Little green monsters.

Why do brussels sprouts have such a bad reputation?  Those poor little green monsters of a vegetable are always being put at the end of phrases like "Oh, no, Mom!  I'll do anything, so long as I don't have to eat the...".  But you know what?  I think people who give brussels sprouts the short end of the stick have no idea what they are talking about.  I bet they haven't even tried them.  And there is nothing more annoying than someone who "doesn't like" something they haven't even tried.  But that is a different story for a different blog post.  Brussels sprouts are delicious.  They taste like a cousin of broccoli to me, but look so much cuter.  Which is precisely why I'm ranking them higher. 

Menu:
Roasted brussels sprouts, shallots and mushrooms over capellini (#71)

I had every intention of making homemade capellini, however, when I walked by the fresh stuff in the refridgerated section of the grocer, I couldn't pass it up.  Plus I was starving, and it cut the time I'd have to wait for dinner in half.  The brussels sprouts were tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper and two tablespoons of minced garlic.  Spread on a barking sheet, they roasted at 400 degrees for 20 minutes; I turned them a couple times throughout. 

While they were roasting, I sauteed the mushrooms and shallots, sliced thinly, in butter, salt, pepper and about 3/4 cup of brandy.  I added the brussels sprouts when they were ready to the pan, sauteed another 3 minutes or so, and poured it all over pasta. 

Those green little monsters were delicious. 

229 to go...

Flowers, food and friends. Easter brunch.

Having spent a good portion of March away from DC, I wanted to bring everyone together for a serious Easter brunch spread at my apartment.  One of my absolute favorite flowers are back on the market, so I filled my arms, and thus about six vases, with rununculus bunches, tied on my apron and cooked up a big ol’ brunch for the gang. 

Menu:
Turkey Sausage, spinach, roasted pepper and mozzarella rustic tart (#70) *
Bacon.  Lots of it.  Turkey bacon, Peppered Turkey bacon, Pork Bacon and Peppered Pork Bacon
Scrambled eggs
Crepes with strawberries, whipped cream and nutella

Quite the sight.  Oh, and the food was good, too.  :-)

It was amazing afternoon of food and laughter.  The sun was shining so bright.  We spent the afternoon under cherry blossoms on the Tidal Basin downtown on a bed sheet reading the newspaper.  Perfect Sunday afternoon.

230 to go...

*I substituted turkey sausage for the porky variety for the many food preferences of my guests, and mozzarella and parmesan for fontina for the many cheese preferences of myself.

Scar party

One year ago my dear friend and colleague, Molly the science teacher, had a case of appendicitis that nearly killed her!  Her appendix exploded appendix juice and bits all over her body and she needed multiple surgeries to fix this and was out of work for weeks and weeks.  I hated not having her at work.  Which really just means I got so much more done when she wasn’t there.  It was awful.  Clearly. 

Coolest part?  She has the gnarliest scar from the whole ordeal.  I’ve seen it.  It took her awhile to accept the gnarliness of it all, but I think she officially has. 

So to mark the year anniversary of the crazy night one of her internal organs exploded and to celebrate the wonder of life itself, she had a Scar Party.  Instructions were to bring all your scars and the awesomely embellished stories that go along with them.  Oh, and she challenged everyone to bring a dish that was scar-inspired.  Hmmmm. 

I don’t have many scars.  And the scars I do have would need such crazy embellishing to match the stories I thought I’d hear at the party, that I opted for the latter creative challenge.  And, if I do say so myself...I really nailed it.

Menu:
Vanilla Cake (#68) with Strawberry Frosting (#69)

I threw ideas around for cupcakes that had scars drawn on them, a cake shaped like a man with all kinds of wounds and scars, etc.  Then I thought of my own scars, one of which I was marking an anniversary of my own.  And, so I decided to make a cake to represent our emotional scars.  

So I baked the cake in a square pan and a circle pan, cut the circle in half and attached the halves to two sides of square.  I frosted the cake.  And then I cut a big jagged piece off.  Viola.  Emotional scars.  Because...they hurt too!

It was quite the hit.  And it tasted awesome, too. 

231 to go...