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Archive for the ‘Eats’ Category

2012’s first culinary pursuit: the perfect Bloody Mary

Posted in Eats, Photographs, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 29, 2011| 2 Comments »

Not that I’ve spent my life in search of the perfect Bloody Mary, but I found it at the Todd English P.U.B. in Vegas.

A mix of tomato juice, horseradish root, sriracha sauce and olive juice, Todd’s Sssinful Bloody Mary had the perfect amount of kick to it. Meaning that it’ll be too spicy for some people.

The few Bloody Marys that I have consumed inevitably got their spiciness from a dash of Tabasco sauce. The flavor never made me come back for more, perhaps because Tabasco is the go-to hot sauce of the Gulf Coast and the flavor simply begins to blend into the background after a while.

The sriracha sauce (better known as rooster sauce to many fans) in this concoction, however, gave it a bold, unapologetic heat that I am compelled to try to reproduce. I haven’t been able to find any Todd English-specific Bloody Mary recipes, so I’m going to start with the Sriracha Bloody Mary Recipe published on the White on Rice Couple blog.

Since the Bloody Mary is, after all, a breakfast drink, I ordered a brunch dish to go with it: corned beef hash, poached eggs on toast and asparagus. (Full disclosure: I ordered the brunch mostly because it came with the Bloody Mary, which would have cost $15 by itself. For only $7 more, I got food too — a bargain basement price on the Strip.)

Delicious. The eggs were poached to perfection (again, compelling me to tell myself that I should really learn to poach eggs), and the corned beef was surprisingly delicious. Apparently, the corned beef that I had several times as a teenager, which was so overseasoned that it almost made me gag, is NOT the norm.

Even the asparagus was delicious. (And I say “even” as if properly cooked asparagus isn’t one of the tastiest things ever.)

I will test and update. In the meantime, if you have any tips on making an awesome Bloody Mary, send them my way.

And be sure to check out The Oatmeal cartoon illustrating the glory that is sriracha sauce.

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Removing cookies from a pedestal

Posted in Eats, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 28, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Two years ago, I completed a successful search for a recipe that tasted like the fabulous Gingeroos that I bought at a Las Vegas Trader Joe’s but couldn’t find in Nashville.

The husband and I spent Christmas in Vegas this year, and when I spotted the bags of Gingeroos on the shelf at TJ’s, I knew it was the perfect time for a taste test since we had just polished off the last of this year’s Triple Ginger Cookies a couple of days earlier.

The verdict? My cookies are actually BETTER than Gingeroos. Either I originally gave these cookies more props than they deserved, or the recipe has changed over the last three years. They were lighter than I remembered, more like a basic gingerbread than the spicy cookies I’ve been making. The big chunks of candied ginger that I recalled simply weren’t there.

Don’t get me wrong: Gingeroos are still one of my favorite store-bought cookies (granted, this is not a long list). They served as a delicious impromptu hotel snack and got us through the last 30 minutes of a long flight home.

The revelation that they’re not the best cookies in the world, however, has made me realize that I not only can make foods that are just as good as store-bought, I can make them BETTER.

End-of-the-year ego boost? I’ll take it.

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Virtual cookie swap offers tasty treat possibilities

Posted in Eats, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 21, 2011| 2 Comments »

I participated in a virtual cookie swap earlier this week hosted by Kat over at She Cooks, He Eats. I can tell you from experience that this swap was a lot less stressful than a real-life cookie swap.  Kat only wanted links, photos and recipes, whereas the real-life cookie swap hostess actually made us bring cookies.

Kat offers delicious-looking recipes for everything from versatile shortbread cookies to peppermint brownies, all submitted by a variety of bloggers. Recipes from Entirely Adequate include my favorite treat, spicy Triple Ginger Cookies, and the troublesome-to-make but scrumptious Glittering Lemon Sandwich Cookies.

Head over to the swap and check out all the recipes if you’re looking for a new holiday baking project.

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Nostalgic foods aren’t always satisfying

Posted in Christmas, Eats, Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 12, 2011| 6 Comments »

I have purchased no eggnog this year.

Normally, I would be on my second carton by now.

When I first spotted cartons of eggnog in the dairy aisle a few weeks ago, however, it just didn’t seem worth the calories.

Part of this attitude, admittedly, results from attending boot camp at 5:30 a.m. three days a week. I’m not negating that much hard work with 6 ounces of sugar and fat.

Part of it, though, is the realization that eggnog is simply a nostalgic food for me, a trip back in time to childhood.

When I was a child, eggnog was something that I drank only at my grandparents’ house, and only in the days leading up to Christmas. We drank it out of these fabulous Santa mugs:

As my friends Kristen and Harold have noted, however, nostalgia can be burdensome. I can’t re-create those Christmas scenes, and I shouldn’t want to. Every day of the year gives us another chance to create NEW memories. Trying to redo the past, even the little pieces of it, can only lead to bitterness and disappointment.

My brother’s kids are going to remember that Tia always made red velvet cake pops for them at Christmas, and Tia’s going to remind them that, for little girls under 50 lbs., they ate an impressive number of the rich morsels. And in 20 years or so, I hope they come up with their very own tradition, leaving cake pops in the dust if that’s not really their thing anymore.

I’ll give them the Santa mugs, though, if they decide that eggnog is their thing.

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The end of Nutella experiments

Posted in Eats, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 5, 2011| 2 Comments »

I’m about to say something that may just break Pinterest: I think recipes that incorporate Nutella may be overrated.

I know, I know. Who hates on Nutella, that rich, delicious hazelnut spread imported from Europe?

I don’t want to hate on Nutella, but I do have to suggest that it may just be too much trouble and/or too sweet for a lot of recipes.

The first Nutella recipe I tried, Nutella Cookies, were delicious (although, honestly, a tad on the sugary side), but they didn’t age well. The cookies that we didn’t eat within 12 hours of baking had to be tossed.
The latest experiment, Nutella Banana Bread, was delicious, but it was also entirely too sweet for my taste. It was reminiscent of a brunch the husband and I once had at Max Brenner in Manhattan, a brunch which will forever be referred to with the catchphrase “Would you like chocolate with your chocolate?” Because the husband got banana pancakes that, I promise you, came with chocolate syrup, and may have contained chocolate chips. I don’t remember exactly what I had, but I do recall eating a sugar-dusted biscuit topped with chocolate gravy.

Admittedly, my tolerance for sugary foods has gone down over the past few years as I’ve reduced my sugar intake. The less sugar you eat, the more intense sugary foods taste when you do eat them.

Nutella’s also a bit of a pain to use. The opening isn’t designed to allow you to measure out large spoonfuls. (I’m using the extra big jars from Costco, BTW – anything smaller will bankrupt you when baking with Nutella because you’re going to use A LOT.) And it’s a gloppy, messy ingredient, with a consistency somewhere between peanut butter and molasses.

So, I’m going to stop trying to make Nutella into an ingredient and enjoy it as is, spread on a graham cracker, a banana or apple slices. Or, perhaps, melted and poured atop a sugar-dusted biscuit because CAN’T YOU JUST IMAGINE?

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Why make cake batter-flavored goodies when you can just make cake batter?

Posted in Cats, Eats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , on October 23, 2011| 1 Comment »

Everybody knows that the best part of the cake-making process is licking the beaters. And the spatula. And any batter than may have dropped down the side of the mixing bowl.

The batter. The best part of the cake-making process is the batter.

I’ve been seeing a lot of cake batter-flavored recipes lately. Cake batter pancakes. Cake batter truffles. Cake batter bars. Cake batter pie.

The choices seem kind of exhausting when you could just make some cake batter.

But you never know, right?

I needed to make a couple of things for a bake sale recently (go back to college, get roped into a bake sale — live and learn), so I used it as an excuse to try a trendy-sounding recipe: Funfetti Cake Batter Fudge.

I need to point out that my mind skipped right over the “Funfetti” portion of the recipe title, since that word implies the use of sprinkles and sprinkles are the worst thing that can happen to a nice, clean kitchen except for glitter or a grease fire.

It called for only five ingredients: sweetened condensed milk, white chocolate chips, vanilla extract, almond extract and sprinkles. I melted the first two ingredients together as instructed, then stirred in the extracts. I did NOT stir in the sprinkles, since the recipe kindly warned me that the fudge would turn an “ugly muddy color” if the sprinkles were stirred for too long and I am always likely to stir things for too long. Instead, I poured about half the melted goop into the pan, tossed some sprinkles in, and then poured the rest of the goop on top before tossing more sprinkles on. I let the fudge set up overnight.

Did it taste like cake batter? No. It tasted like almond extract. Really sweet, really rich almond extract. With crunchy sprinkles.

Little kids (and, apparently, some college students) will love it. Me, I’d rather make a cake and lick the beaters.

Bonus Behind-the-Scenes Footage

Yang inspects all Entirely Adequate photo shoots, provided he's awake.

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Nutella cookies have a short shelf life

Posted in Eats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 15, 2011| 3 Comments »

The Internet seems to be bursting at the seams with Nutella recipes. Folks are mixing the hazelnut spread into everything from ice cream to hot chocolate.

As a friend pointed out, the only thing needed for a good Nutella dish is a spoon. It is a product that may be best unencumbered by other ingredients (although you should really try encumbering it with sliced bananas — heavenly).

I’ve never been one for unencumbering things, however. I’ve been scoping out Nutella recipes on Pinterest for a few weeks, and finally chose Four Ingredient Nutella Cookies from A Busy Nest to test. (Note that I also purchased the super-deluxe family size pack of Nutella at Costco. If you’re going to use Nutella as an ingredient instead of a light spread, you’re going to need this, too.)

The recipe made the driest cookie dough I’ve ever worked with. You’ll see in the recipe’s comment section that this freaks some people out, since the dough will easily fall apart during handling.

The solution: Put on a pair of food-safe gloves and gently roll the dough into 1-inch balls, pressing it together as you go. Instead of using a floured glass to mash the cookies into circles, I simply pressed the balls flat between my palms.

The result: Delicious, melt-in-your-mouth cookies with strong Nutella overtones and just a hint of caramelization. The centers were delightfully underdone and chewy.

The drawback, however, is that the cookies only stayed chewy for a few hours. The next day, they were crunchy all the way through. Good if you want to dunk them in a glass of milk, I suppose, but not what you’re looking for if chewy is your thing. And chewy is, most definitely, my thing.

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A day of wine, friends and fun, just north of Huntsville

Posted in Eats, Photographs, Travel, tagged , , , , , on September 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

What’s within two hours of Huntsville and is so much fun that I forgot to take any pictures except for this one shot, complete with a thumb in the viewfinder?

Arrington Vineyards, just south of Nashville. The husband and I met a group of friends there on a recent Friday, and great fun ensued.

After a complimentary wine tasting, during which we each got to choose six wines to sample, we gathered on the patio for a picnic lunch, wine and brilliant conversation. Gloomy Bear, pictured above, even got in on the action.

I understand that the place is ridiculously crowded on weekends, so it’s probably worth your time to take a weekday off for the journey. Definitely bring a picnic, a mascot and a group of hilarious friends, and appoint one of them as designated driver.

And whatever you do, have some blueberry wine. It’ll make any day taste like spring.

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Almost foiled by frozen blueberries

Posted in Eats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , on September 10, 2011| 2 Comments »

The downfall of my attempt to make Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Cookies? Frozen blueberries.

And when I say downfall, I don’t mean that they were inedible. On the contrary, they were delicious, with a cake-like consistency that made them very much like tiny, round blueberry muffins.

The recipe didn’t specify whether to use fresh or frozen blueberries, but I’m pretty sure fresh blueberries would have held up better. I added the blueberries while they were still frozen, so they held up well during the mixing process. No matter how careful I was when I rolled the dough into balls, however, I inevitably broke a blueberry, resulting in a slippery, slimy ball of dough.

Next time, I think I’ll leave the blueberries out of the dough entirely, and then mash a couple of frozen blueberries into each ball of dough before baking. Mushy problem solved.

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Goat cheese, basil, bacon and pecans add up to tiny, delicious treats

Posted in Eats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 28, 2011| 2 Comments »

I love cheese. I love cheese balls. I do not love the awkwardness involved in slicing off a small, bite-sized piece from a large, cold, hard-to-carve cheese ball.

Problems, problems. I know.

Anyway. If there’s anything I love better than plain old cheese, it’s goat cheese, so when I saw this recipe for Goat Cheese Pops with Herbs, Pecans and Bacon on Pinterest, I knew I had found a new culinary mission. Luckily, two events popped up on my social calendar this weekend, giving me an excuse to make a fancy cheese dish.

I did not put my goat cheese balls on lollipop sticks, so I can’t technically call them goat cheese pops. I also neglected to serve them with apple slices, since apple slices start turning brown the second you grab the paring knife and the parties I was supplying snacks for both had a relaxed buffet-type thing going on, meaning everything had to be stable at room temperature for a couple of hours.

Besides, every other apple I buy, any time of the year, turns out mushy and halfway tasteless.

If I make these again, I’ll probably use more goat cheese than cream cheese (the recipe linked above uses a 1:1 ratio of goat cheese to cream cheese — I’ll probably make that a 2:1 or even 3:1). The cream cheese probably helps with the consistency, but I think it also slightly masks the tangy flavor of the goat cheese.

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