Dinner at my place yesterday

Homemade burgers! Comment for the recipe

This is what happens with you leave me alone with the Weber

Also, I've relocated in the Western hinterlands. I'm now in Groveland, CA, working as an archaeological technician for the US Forest Service. I'm basically right next door to Yosemite, which is drop dead fucking gorgeous, but the Groove-land is a little mountain forest town. If you crossed hippies and hicks you'd have all 2900 people who live here. I work 10 hour days doing surface survey, excavation, and site evaluations for the Archaeology department just up the road.

The beer and food are fantastic so far. I have yet to use our stove and I've been here over a week. I've just grilled pretty much every day. Life is good, except for a few downers.

Livin' the dream though! Livin' the dream!

Remember 2 hours ago, when I said I wanted Peanut Thai food?

I do, in fact, remember.

It began as another lazy sunday in Boston, chilling out with Tom, post classes, pre finals. But when do I not chill with Tom? About 3 hours ago he craved peanut Thai food. Wheels turned, inventory was taken and voila:

This meal brought to you by Tom's food cravings.

The Chicken

2 tbsp Soy Sauce
2 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 minced garlic cloves (or to taste)
1 tsp curry powder
2 chicken breasts

1. Cube chicken to desirable sizes.
2. Heat pan with soy sauce, brown sugar, oil, curry and garlic, until brown sugar is no longer solid.
3. Add chicken and sautee until cooked through.
4. Remove from heat, save excess liquid.

The Noodles (I cheated!)

~ 3 cups of cooked wheat spaghetti (obviously can be substituted for trafition rice noodles
3 chopped scallions
1/3 cup of bean sprouts
1/4 green pepper, diced

1. Cook spaghetti.
2. Remove from heat, chill noodles until not warm to the touch.
3. Stir fry in chicken-excess-liquid. Add vegetables toward the end to maintain crispness while integrating flavor.

The Peanut Sauce

1 can (14 oz) coconut milk
4 tbsp peanut butter
1.5 tbsp Thai red curry paste
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp lime juice

1. Add everything to a saucepan on medium heat.
2. Stir until blended well (not chunky, as coconut milk will sometimes do), ~10 minutes.
3. Add more or less curry paste (or cayenne pepper if you have it on hand) to suit spice level you want.
4. Remove from heat, serve over chicken and noodles.

A++ would make again. I wish only that I had made the peanut sauce spicier! This might be better with grilled chicken than stir-fried. Definitely going to try to recreate it at another time.

Post coming soon with delicious things made in the last months I have not posted. Schools been rough and though there's always time for delicious food, there's not always time to blog about it. Expect an update soon!

Breakfast as usual

This my friends is what I make myself when I am hungover.


Excuse me while I scarf this stuff. That toast is about to be BUTTAH'D.

Eatin' fancy, Feelin' pretty

Yesterday, I made the most fancy of diners I have concocted thus far.

Bacon wrapped scallops
Lemon curd
Goat's milk brie
Green salad with raspberry vinaigrette
Peach Mango cobbler

Here is a picture of the scallops to add to your ever growing food porn collection

Opulence

16 toothpicks (or as many as you'd like)
32 bay scallops
11 slices of bacon, cut into thirds
Salt and black pepper
olive oil

Soak ~16 toothpicks in water for 20 minutes, so they don't burn in the over. Set your oven to broil. Season scallops lightly in black pepper and salt. Take 2 scallops and wrap them tightly in a piece of bacon. Use a soaked tooth pick to hold them together. When all scallops are prepared, move them to a foil covered oven sheet. Drizzle eat wrap with olive oil. Put in oven for 6-10 minutes, depending on size of scallops. Be warned that though they may not burn, the oil and bacon will create a lot of smoke, so be wary of this when you remove them.

The lemon curd was delicious, but definitely not a curd at the time of serving (and therefore not pictured) This is the recipe. Its delicious and apparently keeps for a week.

The goats milk brie was to DIE for. As someone who is lactose intolerant, finding a happy medium with my cheese and milk-less meals is pretty hard. But after a few years you get used to it. Things get easier. I don't like taking the pills and its gotten easier to say not to cheese over the years, which is why I've never really ventured into stores, hunting for goat cheese. It was kind of a whim to walk into Trader Joe's yesterday, but on a whim I picked up this:
HO. LY. SHIT. I would have eaten the whole thing if I didn't know what was good for me. But I do. Still..... /salivate

The peach-mango cobbler. Oh, peach-mango cobbler.
The recipe I used (this one) was honestly not tasty to me. And the smell is nauseatingly sweet. I can smell it now because its still on my stove. However my dinner guest did enjoy it, so I guess that's good?

Its spring break now and I'm spending a lot of my time down at the Boston Archaeology Lab in the North End. Tomorrow Leslie, the other intern, Ellen, the City Archaeologist and I have been promised a food adventure to a place that serves nothing but raw food. It's called Grezzo and it's in the North End. If they let me take pictures I will try to blog about it. NO PROMISES.

ALSO It's raw vegan? WTF? Hopefully they actually don't use dairy. That would suuuuuuuck for me.

So much new food!

So we've missed a couple things!

I made Guinness cupcakes last week. This recipe is not made with the cream cheese frosting in the link, but with a vanilla buttercream frosting requested my my resident, Meg. Also, once again, I forgot that putting frosting on hot cake MELTS THE FROSTING. One of these days I'll figure it out though.

Yes. Beer in the cupcakes.

I made BBQ pulled pork yesterday.

TASTY BUSINESS

Kate's BBQ Pulled Pork

4lb pork shoulder
1 1/2 small onions (or one large one) thinly sliced into rings (or strips)
salt (amt at your discretion)
black pepper (several vigorous dashes)
1 c apple cider
1/2 c white vinegar
3/4 bottle Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp green tabasco sauce

Threw it all in my nifty little crock pot for 6 hours on the high setting, then drained the liquid. Reserve half of this liquid! Shredded the pork by hand as soon as it cooled enough. Threw the shredded pork and the reserved liquid back in the crock pot for another 2 hours on the high setting. I prepared sandwiches on white rolls with a small helping of the rest of my Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce, no slaw (read: not Cincinnati style).

Result? Spicy, sweet and tangy, but not from what you'd expect. The excessive cayenne pepper and the cider really affected how the pork came out (DIVINE). It was first sweet on the tongue, and then a spicy after taste that made me and my dinner guest, Tom, smack our lips and down a beer. A++ would make again.

Today I am making stuffed mushrooms for my RA potluck (finally something to do with all those mushrooms) (see earlier post)

Look at them glisten.

Mushrooms are my favorite fungus.

Stuffed Mushrooms
4oz goat cheese
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp basil
2 finely chopped scallions
1/8 c bread crumbs
2 strips chopped prosciutto
14 med/large white button mushrooms

Set oven to 400 F. Toss all ingredients together except mushrooms. Core mushroom caps (remove stems, you can leave in ribbing if you like. I do!). Put foil over baking sheet and brush sheet with olive oil. Stuff the caps tightly until they are overflowing a little. Bake 15-20 minutes until golden-grey. Do not freak out when you hear the oil crackling but pay attention so you don't start an oil fire. Filling can be made hours in advance and popped into the oven before serving.

DELICIOUSNESS WINS AGAIN.

Only thing about making these were 14 WAS NOT ENOUGH! ....And they kinda shrunk in the oven :< . But everyone thought they were great! Note to self: when buying a pound of button mushrooms, plan on making stuffed mushrooms and buy a second pound.

Farmer's Market Haul

Everyone! Check out my farmers market haul. $15 for the spread, but WHAT DO I MAKE AAAAAUGH.

Look at them glistening... begging to be ATED

Kind of colorful, neh?

ANYWAY. Comments with what to make would be awesome KTHXBAI

Pissed

I WAS GONNA UPDATE AND THEN BLOGSPOT ATE MY FUCKIN POST SO HERE HAVE SOME FOOD PORN AND WISH YOU KNEW HOW TO MAKE IT BUT YOU DON'T I DO AND ITS DELICIOUS.

AND I ATE IT ALL.

Bacon, lettuce, pineapple salsa and lime guacamole over wheat

Blackberry Apple crumble

Pics or it didn't happen!

This week I've prepared apple pork pie with caramelized onion crust. Need I say more?!

Well, yes.

It is made of savory win.

(recipe)

pre- my oven

post- my oven

The consensus from the people who ate them at the potluck was that they were sweeter than savory and they couldn't taste the pork very much. The apple juices, sage and other spices pooled at the bottom though so actually the end of the pie-lets was the best part. A couple of the RA's asked for the recipe, even! I am very pleased with myself (again), but seriously they are the best people to cook for. Its a little cook's ego trip. They are always so complimentary and think that I put in time (sometimes I do, sometimes I lie) and are always very appreciative of that time. Residents, dinner guests, and ex-boyfriends are not nearly as polite or happy to eat my food.

I want to try making a thinner crust, and making them smaller. If they were smaller they'd be phenomenal hors d'oeuvres. Needs more sage in the future, and I need to invest in a food processor or blender, a rolling pin, and some allspice, not necessarily in that order. I wonder if its worth buying it all beforfe I move away?

Smoke and Snow

Today it looks like this

I'm really surprised it stayed white so long.

Just saying...

So I made this

mmm.... seafood recipe from a Midwestern newspaper. WAIT.

Yeah, ok so my stove is kinda dirty. WANNA FIGHT ABOUT IT??

Smoky Tomato and Seafood Soup
(adapted from Chicago Tribune's 'Good Eating'
4 ripe plum tomatoes or 1 can, 8 oz diced fire-roasted tomatoes, undrained
2 tbs olive oil
2 large shallots, chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded, chopped, or 1 bottles roasted red pepper, diced
3 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 can, 15oz vegetable broth
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/8 cup tomato paste
1 tsp salt to taste
1 teaspoon paprika
1/4 (15 count) raw peeled, deveined shrimp
1/4 pound of bay scallops

In original recipe, but not used in this instance:
1/2 pound of clams
1 small leek
1/2 pound boneless skinless fish fillet, such as tilapia, pollock or snapper, cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces

1. If using fresh tomatoes, set broil to high, halve the tomatoes and arrange on a foil sheet in the broiler. Broil 10-12 minutes occasionally turning. Let cool, peel, and chop coarsely, colleting all the juices.
2. Heat the oil in a dutch oven or deep saucepan. Cook shallots (and leek, if using) until soft, about 4 minutes. Stir in the red pepper and garlic; cook 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, broth, water, wine tomato paste, salt and paprika.
3. Add clams; cook 3 minutes. Add shrimp and fish; cook 2 minutes. Add scallops and cook 1 minute or until all the fish is opaque but still tender.
4. Serve in large deep bowls with a dollop of sour cream, or garlic mayonnaise in the center. garnish with parsley.

Enjoy and stay warm!

WHOOPIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE pies

How do bakers get over boys?

Me? I bake all the things that remind me of them and try to make a completely new memory for it. I got the chance to do that the other day when Rory came over with a mission. A mission to bake.

So we baked motherfucking PUMPKIN WHOOPIE PIES WITH MAPLE CREAM CHEESE FILLING. BIG FAT ONES. (recipe)

Who needs boys when I can be fat?

Anyway. Classes began yesterday. So far I have attended all of them. I feel pretty good about my Thursday classes. I'm waffling on that computer science class though. What's the point now anyway?

I'm over boys; lets move on to men finally please.

Burgers in Winter

Today I was bored. So I made a chicken curry burger. Wanna know what's hard to do without a meat grinder? Make ground chicken. You have to mince the raw chicken and then crush it with the flat of your blade. It takes about 25 minutes to "grind" a normal sized chicken breast.

Worth it?

OMG GENIUS

*salivate*

VERY MUCH SO YES.

Here's how to make the burger.

I also have curried mayonnaise as a dressing. For that I just added a strong dash of paprika and a 1/2 tsp thai red curry paste to 3 tbsp Hellmann's Mayo. In addition the burger is garnished with iceberg lettuce and Newman's Own Pineapple Salsa (medium). The taste is super lean but in the future I am adding more curry powder to the chicken mixture. I only made one patty, even though the recipe called for 4, but reducing the amounts must not have worked out. I'm just gonna eyeball it in the future.

It was also made in an oven set to broil, NOT on the grill. I dont' know how well the chicken mixture will stand up to an open grill, since it was not firm at all and I had to use a pan in my oven for it.

P.S. If you have the time to prepare the meat, I cannot communicate how AMAZING this burger tastes. Try it!

Locked in... with brownies

As an RA, I sometimes get assigned a really really shitty shift. Usually I can plan out this shitty shift and put it on a day that I wouldn't mind having it on. Aparently though, if you exercise your right to come back early from break, you are auto-assigned the worst shift possible. This happened to me.

I had planned to spend most of the day miserable, until my friend Liberty, also an RA, IMed me. She got my attention by talking about baking, and the next thing I knew she had come over and we were making some heavenly cream cheese brownies.

YEAHHHHHHH

Oh, they were tasty

Here's the recipe!

Grilled Brownies (don't worry, we didn't grill them. I don't even know why they're called this.)

They turned out fluffy and cake-y, which, if you know me, is not my ideal brownie. I like them dense and fudge-y. But after I got over that, I found them a pleasant, tasty surprise. Try it!

100 Things I should have said in 2008

Cross post!