Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Week 5, Day 3 - More Please!

Oh my goodness, as I write about tonight's dinner all I can think of is how badly I wish we were still eating it.  One of those meals in which you don't even want something sweet to follow it up because you want the taste of dinner to linger as long as possible in your mouth.  Nothing super fancy - not by a long shot - but flavorful beyond measure.



First, we start with the chicken.  Deb actually only recently posted this recipe - I mean, possibly last week if I can recall correctly - but it sounded so simply wonderful I wanted to take it on right away.  I only started marinating it this morning, though Deb suggests doing so anywhere from 24 to 48 hours in advance, but I don't know the chicken suffered for it (probably because I don't know what I'm missing from the longer marinade).  A buttermilk, garlic, paprika mixture that came together in seconds and brought plain chicken legs to a level of deliciousness I was hoping for.  I made six legs, thinking 3 for the husband, 2 for me, and 1 for the kids if I could get them to eat it.  If?  Heh - I couldn't get them to stop eating it.  When they had finished one and half my second one I selfishly cut them off.  A girl's gotta eat, too.

No worries because I made a green bean salad on the side that also had my older son asking for more.  Seriously, a two year old saying "Mmmmm" is the best compliment any food dish can receive.  This side dish is one that, had it not been for this project of insanity, I probably would have never tried.  Never a fan of green beans and really what is fennel?  But yet again - the beauty of forcing yourself to make and eat things you normally wouldn't.

I have some desserts planned for this week - so stick with me through this dinner exclusivity for a bit.  I promise things will get sweeter (oh the pun...).

1/31
- Buttermilk Roast Chicken
- Green Bean Salad with Fried Almonds

Monday, January 30, 2012

Week 5, Day 2 - Southern Cooking

Weather reports are predicting the next couple of days to be nearly in the 60's.  I would never complain about such lack of sincere Jersey winter weather.  However, it has put a twist on my plan to cook most of the winter food in the Smitten Kitchen.  I mean, who wants to eat a hot bowl of chili when you feel compelled to wear nothing heavier than a light sweater?

Fortunately for this week's menu, today was a typical winter day so we felt no remorse warming up to some chili and cornbread.  What my husband affectionately referred to as "southern food".  He went crazy over the thought of having cornbread with dinner, which goes to show that I have never made cornbread for us before.  Selfishly because I don't like cornbread.  Well, I didn't like cornbread, until tonight that is.  Of course I cook Smitten Kitchen's cornbread and suddenly I can't remember how many pieces I've had.  Honestly, it had a lot to do with it's partnering up with the chili.  I didn't care for it much on it's own.  But slathered in butter or sopping in chili - albeit cheating - worth the happiness it brought to the hubby.


The chili was a bean chili, which I especially appreciate as I don't always feel up for defrosting and cooking meat.  I've made vegetarian chili before and my recipe wasn't far off from this one.  Nothing that blew me away, but on this last day of winter weather for a little bit, it hit the spot.

1/30
- Deb's Three-Bean Chili
- Cornbread with Cheddar, Jalepeno, and Green Onions

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Week 5 - Let's Catch Up!

Well hello there!  I get so used to being here every day, that when I miss two days I feel like I have been gone for weeks!  I apologize for my absence - I was vacationing in Mexico  gambling in AC  catching up on sleep - alright, truth be told I was being culinarily lazy.  I hardly made anything and even forgot to take pictures of some of them!  Ah well, let's catch up.

Let's start with breakfast.  I made cottage cheese pancakes Tuesday morning and realized I never told you about them. Probably because they were hardly memorable.  In the pancakes defense, I have made this Smitten Kitchen recipe before, and they were wonderful.  Who would have thought to put cottage cheese in pancakes?  And not even pureed into smoothness - just in their natural lumpy state.  But this time around, something was being fickle - the pan, the heat, the batter - I'm not quite sure.  They stuck over and over and when they weren't sticking they were burning.  But like I said, they've worked before, and regardless of their ugly state both my boys ate three a piece and left their mommy with only two!


Friday however, breakfast success - baked eggs in spinach and mushroom.  Similar to the eggs in tomato recipes I made earlier, sub lots of spinach and mushrooms and cream.  This is what breakfast should be - always.

Saturday night I made potato pizza for myself and some friends.  Yes - potato on pizza.  We talked about the fact that none of us would have even considered such a topping on pizza before.  It was delicious - the rosemary helping significantly like it did in the bianca pizza.  We did, however wish for cheese.  Perhaps it's pizza naivete to say that all pizza requires cheese.  And we're not saying all pizza requires it, but felt this pizza did.  But not a mozzarella - a strong cheese, with a bite - perhaps feta (though this could just be my love affair with feta speaking out).



Well, it's Sunday.  The start of week 5 - woohoo!  But I kicked off the week with zero recipes today.  Eh - that's a negative way of looking at things.  Rather, how about we focus on another 14 recipes down!

1/28

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Week 4, Day 5 - Italian Sausage Take Two

You didn't think I had forgotten about the rest of that Italian Sausage in my fridge, did you?  Surely not!  But I'll get to that in a minute.  This afternoon I overwhelmed my dainty little house once again with several friends and all our ankle-biters precious children.  I made a classic child's lunch - hotdogs with macaroni and cheese.  Although, it's hardly fair to the cheese to call this dish macaroni and cheese.  Really it should be cheese and macaroni.  Because the 1/2 pound of macaroni was hardly a match for the pound of cheddar and added cup of cottage cheese.  I was a bad friend in that I never warned my friends of the calories laden within this dish, but who am I kidding?  These are friends who pull two toddlers in a bike trailer while controlling their pitbull on a leash while pregnant (you know how you are).  Besides, against Deb's suggestion of sticking with the basic elbow macaroni, I used vegetable spiral pasta.  See, healthy.



And now part two of the Italian sausage.  Tonight's dinner was similar to the sausage risotto - tomatoes and that flavorful addition of white wine - but added the fullness of mushrooms and was paired with pasta rather than rice.  We ate and ate and ate until I realized it was all gone and I hadn't taken a single picture of it.  Food blogging 101 - Take pictures before you eat.  Lesson learned.

1/26
- Easiest Bake Mac-and-Cheese (By the way, note the word easy.  She's not lying - mix, bake, enjoy)
- Pasta with Sausage, Tomatoes, and Mushrooms

Week 4, Day 4 - Cake, Soup, and Pudding

Typed this up last night, but went to bed before I posted.  So read this as if it were Wednesday...

Since I've only been writing here for a few weeks now, I haven't gotten much into details about myself personally outside my culinary experience and various other tidbits here and there.  With that, let me share something new about myself - I make cakes.  That seems very anticlimactic, I know.  They're not just cakes, they're custom cakes.  I mean, I'm not here to boast about myself, but they're fairly cute, people who order them seem to love them, and I simply love doing it.  For details on the cakes, go here.  Anyway, let's get back into the Smitten Kitchen, shall we?  The reason I bring up the cake side of me is because today I began baking my first cake project of 2012.  I'll be making a Thomas the Tank Engine themed cake for a little boy's 2nd birthday.  The boy's mom wanted a vanilla cake and seeing as there are dozens of cakes in the Smitten Kitchen, I knew vanilla wouldn't be hard to find.  I chose a recipe Deb had previously used when making a tiered wedding cake, so I knew it would be perfect for a tiered Thomas cake.  So this afternoon I completed the beginning process of baking, cooling, wrapping, and freezing 8 layers of vanilla cake.  Decorating to take place next week.



Having already spent a nice amount of time in the kitchen, I opted for a simple dinner of potato soup and a green salad.  This soup was easy to make, requiring very little effort as I think homemade soups should, yet was superbly filling and delicious.  Warm, soft starchy potatoes covered in cheddar cheese and sour cream.  Was there any doubt this would go wrong?



We topped off the night with some rice pudding.  I've only ever eaten this cold, but when you make it yourself it's too difficult (at least it was for me) to wait for it to cool down.  I'm glad I didn't too because it was wonderful warm.  Both my boys agreed - even though I cut the recipe down to serve one it successfully served three (bonus!).

1/25

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Week 4, Day 3 - Italian Sausage, Take One

The last time my husband placed our food order from the farm, he ordered me a pound of sweet Italian sausage.  Wonderful, until we got home and realized he forgot to type the word "links" in the order, so we had been presented with a pound of ground sausage.  Knowing it was waiting for me in the freezer, I went on a hunt and managed to find two sausage-containing recipes that call for breaking up the links.  Perfect.


So, tonight was round one of sausage dinners.  Let me start out by saying that before I started this project I would have thought myself a decent cook.  Not afraid to try new things, open-minded, experimental.  Ugh - apparently not true.  Because tonight, I made risotto for the first time.  Seriously, poached eggs, galettes, risottos - what else have I not made?  Anyway, I'm very familiar with what a risotto is, but I never made one before because rice has never been a favorite of mine minus that which is swimming in soy sauce or served within my mom's stir fry.  I learned, though, that you can hardly refer to risotto as a rice dish since it is swamped with other things - in this case tomato, sausage, onion, spinach, parmesan.  It was horrible...complete lie.  I just wanted to type some different for once.  In an attempt to avoid redundancy, let me refer to my thesaurus here.  This dish was ambrosial.  How's that for a new one?  Actually, that word more refers to the wonderful smell it emitted, but let me just tell you about that smell.  The dish had white wine in it (Ah - another new one for me!  I never cook with alcohol cause we never have it in the house.  Please don't hold this against me Deb.)  Two minutes after I added it to the dish, my husband walked in the house and exclaimed "Something smells good!"  To which I replied "It's the wine!"  Gracious what a difference it made in flavor, too!  I'm overjoyed that there are several servings leftover for the next couple days.



After dinner, it dawned on me that I had only made one recipe for the day.  That just wouldn't do.  So I scanned the eternal list of cakes and managed to find one in which I had all ingredients on hand.  Chocolate muffin/cupcake darlings that - get this - Deb says you can eat with breakfast.  Another reason for my children to love me?  Yes please.

1/24
- Tomato and Sausage Risotto
- Chocolate Yogurt Snack Cakes

Monday, January 23, 2012

Week 4, Day 2 - Cookies, Finally!

Yes, after days of longing, I finally made cookies!  But wait, I was a good girl and ate my dinner before dessert. So let's talk about that first.

If you will recall, not even two weeks ago I made and nearly cried over my first-ever galette.  Cried, that is, because it was so good.  I managed to let an entire week pass by without making one, but could hold off no longer. Tonight's galette was filled with butternut squash, carmelized onion, and fontina cheese (which I bought for the first time this morning).  I'm feeling like a broken record here - it was delicious.  This particular galette was more filling than the first, but I will say that the crust did not quite live up to the previous crust.  The butternut squash galette was one of Deb's earlier galette recipes while the zucchini ricotta galette was posted years later.  In that time, she nixed a few things from the recipe, made the process a bit easier, and brilliantly added the egg white wash.  I will use that recipe every time I make a galette from now on.  Speaking of making more galettes, when my husband heard we were having another one so soon, he asked how many galette recipes Smitten Kitchen had (assuming there must be many).  Sadly, this is number 2 of 4 savory galette options.  Not that I can't repeat a recipe, but it's a little silly when I have so many other things to get cooking.  So Deb, if you're reading this, I strongly encourage you to make another.  If I'm correct, you haven't added a new one since 2010.  It's time. 



Alright, now those cookies.  Chocolate chips nestled inside a chocolate cookie.  Soft and gooey - the type of cookie that won't make it til tomorrow (at least not in this house).  Truth be told, I did cut the recipe down by 75%.  Sadly my 9 count recipe resulted only in 7 cookies, but that's probably a good thing in the end.  Because aside from the one my son ate and the whopping zero my husband will eat (ah to have his discipline), I will no doubt have my fair share of chocolate cookies.  The fridge and cut process of making them wasn't something I would normally opt for, but even after rushing them along via the freezer, they still turned out beautifully.



1/23
- Butternut Squash and Carmelized Onion Galette
- In Which World Peach Eludes Me (chocolate chocolate chip cookies)

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Week 4, Day 1 - Orecchiette and Savory Biscotti

Ah, the beginning of another week.  In all honesty, this project has been pretty easy up until now.  Despite what many often ask, I don't spend hours on end in the kitchen day after day and I don't regret starting this adventure. But I'll be honest, these past few weeks have been rather quiet.  It's been the day-to-day, no more no less.  But that's not going to keep up for long.  I have a rather hectic couple of weeks ahead of me - ok, hectic couple of months - and I'm anxious how I'm going to keep up with all the cooking on top of everything else.  Alright, enough with the worrying.  Let's talk food.

Food - of which we had none in the house as of this afternoon.  We go food shopping on Monday mornings, so it's not a lone case that we find ourselves scraping the bottom of the barrel on Sundays.  Typically we would use this as an excuse to treat ourselves to takeout.  That was before I set my sights on cooking some 700+ recipes this year.  Besides, cheaper to buy a few odds and ends to get a dinner together than to buy an entire dinner out, right?


I threw together a simple pasta dish with cherry tomatoes and the last of the arugula I had in the house.  I'm so happy to have experimented with arugula - it's rocks a normal pasta dish like most greens don't seem to do.  We followed it up (only because they weren't done in time to eat them in true appetizer form) with parmesan black pepper biscotti which we dipped in spiced up tomato sauce.  Seeing as we ate dinner hours later than we normally would, my food coma has carried me straight to bed and I'm about to drift off with a belly of contentment.  Goodnight all.

1/22
- Orecchiette with Cherry Tomatoes and Arugula
- Parmesan Black Pepper Biscotti

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Week 3 - A Pizza Ending

I've eaten a lot of pizza in the last two days, and I am not complaining.  I spent Friday night with my two little boys and made a very simple rosemary-sprinkled pie as well as a ricotta and tomato sauce rendition for my little one who seeks for things to look "normal" before he eats them.  The rosemary crust was delicious, though next time I will be sure to add even more rosemary as it made the pizza pop.



Tonight I had plans to make yet another pizza, this time being so kind as to let my husband choose which kind (from the Smitten Kitchen, of course).  He chose the fresh ricotta and red onion pizza which meant I needed to make fresh ricotta.  Deb has two recipes for this on her site that I am aware of.  The first is included on the aforementioned pizza's post.  The other has a post all of its own.  I decided to go with the latter due to the fact that I had no buttermilk on hand, as the former recipe needed.  I dreaded having to use 3-4 cups of milk to make a cup of ricotta when we are currently going through nearly 3 gallons of milk a week at $7/gallon!  So, I cut the recipe in half and combined it with the remaining store-bought ricotta I had in the fridge.  Sadly, my ricotta never amounted to anything non-liquidy, but I think my use of cheesecloth is to blame, and I plan to get it right on the next recipe (yes - goals!).  Regardless of my lack of fresh ricotta, this pizza was superb.  I ate my first three slices and made the adult-like decision to not overindulge and instead save my final slice for lunch tomorrow.  Truth be told, "lunch tomorrow" became 30 minutes later...but it only helped me to learn that this pizza is somehow better when it's cooled down to room temperature.  See, overindulging can have its advantages.


I'd like to say that I ended the week out on a sweet note.  Especially after pizza - my body begs for something sweet after pizza.  But alas, my kitchen is currently void of sugar and there is still snow and ice on the ground that would require more energy to get out to the store than I could possibly muster.  Sigh.  Perhaps cookies tomorrow.

1/20

1/21

Friday, January 20, 2012

Week 3, Day 5 - Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Once or twice a month we order food from a farm in Pennsylvania.  Organic meat, eggs and raw milk.  But I'm not here to get into the raw milk discussion, I'm here to talk about the chicken.  Same as in the store, the chicken is cheaper when purchased whole.  Typically I pop these guys into my crockpot with some seasoning and call it a day.  But there's no crockpot chicken in the Smitten Kitchen.  There is, however, whole roasted chicken.  It was beautifully seasoned and browned - delicious without doubt.  I will say, though, that for efforts sake, I'll probably return to the crockpot next time around.  However, I'm switching to fresh herbs - huge difference.



The time spent on the chicken was all forgotten though when I tasted the bread salad.  I had great expectations for this dish - a stuffing (er, dressing for my southern friends)-like mixture on top of a bed of greens with a vinaigrette and chicken drippings dressing.  Are you drooling yet?

After the little one went to bed, I brought my older son into the kitchen to help me make cookies.  Earlier I had browned some butter into a brown nutty liquid and popped it into the fridge to resolidify, so all we had left was to finish off the basic final steps in making cookies I've been eyeing up for over a year.  Brown. Butter. Brown. Sugar. Shorties.  Five simple words that were meant to be together.  I want so badly to say that these cookies panned out just as the bread salad did, meeting every high expectation I had set for it, but it just wasn't the case.  I could not get the dough to be doughy - I was left with sand.  If I were one for expletives, I may have pulled a Lily here.  But here's where Deb's honesty pulls through.  You see, I'm not the first to have issues with the recipe, so Deb put a warning right up front that the recipe has failed some.  I knew going into it that it was a possibility.  After pulling a couple baker's tricks, I managed to salvage the batch and though they look nothing like Deb's cookies, they're brown butter scrumptious.



In the morning I whipped up a cream cheese pound cake and some mixed berry coulis to bring to playdate.  It was flawless.

Finally this evening I used the leftover chicken (as one is usually two meals, plus broth) to make chicken tacos and salsa fresca.  Nothing new in this household, but enjoyed none the less.  Even without cheese, which is nearly criminal in my tacos, these were wonderful.  So much so, it never even occurred to grab my camera.  Luckily, I think I can safely assume you all know what a taco looks like.

1/18
- Zuni Cafe's Roasted Chicken and Bread Salad
- Brown Butter Brown Sugar Shorties

1/19
- Cream Cheese Pound Cake and Strawberry Coulis
- Chicken Tacos and Salsa Fresca

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Week 3, Day 3 - Comfort Food

It rained today.  And despite the rain, I still took both little ones out to run a couple of errands.  One of those things where beforehand all you want is to get them out of the house, then as soon as you are out, all you want is to get back inside.  Battling the process of getting in and out of the car multiple times in the dreary weather took it out of all three of us to the point where my older son actually asked if we could take naps.  Music to a mother's ears.  So I napped, but not for long as I had ravioli to make.  Yes, Deb has become such a driving force in my day that I actually sacrifice nap time to get in the kitchen.  Ok, not really - my dad taught me how to power nap years ago - but still.



Anyway, did you notice the part where I said I made ravioli?  Before today, making ravioli meant boiling water.  Heating up red sauce if you were really feeling crafty.  But oh no, not when you're in the Smitten Kitchen.  First, I made the pasta dough -  from scratch.  Deb rolls her pasta dough into beautiful thin strips with a pasta roller.  I don't have one, but of course that didn't stop me.  After meticulous rolling, interspersed with distractions from junk I should not be worried about catching up on, I made 4 raviolis.  I had cut the recipe down by...I don't even remember how much.  But once I topped it with her basic pasta sauce, it was the perfect sized lunch.  Considering by the time I was finished making it all it was 3pm, I didn't want to overindulge anyway.  I didn't want to spoil my dinner...


The beef, barley, and leek soup was again so appropriate for the weather conditions.  It's like a crockpot meal in that you basically throw it all into a pot and come back hours later and it's wonderfully waiting for you.  Unfortunately I didn't pull the recipe up til 4pm, and it required a minimum of 3 hours to simmer.  Now, for most of you, eating dinner at 7pm is not only fine, it's normal.  Well, think of us as the Beavers or the Waltons or one of those other tv families I'm really far too young to be siting.  We eat at 5:30pm, sometimes even 5pm.  Eh - crank the heat up a bit and distract the family til 6pm..?  It worked.  When dinner was finished the combination of satisfying warm food, watching my children actually eat some vegetables, and knowing we would be staying indoors all evening, sent me into a euphoric state of contentment.  One of those moments where you sit in your seat smiling for seemingly no reason at all.  Which made me declare out loud, "Tonight is a cookie night."

Fast forward past following my one year old on his brother's quad throughout the house and listening to my husband sing Thomas songs over and over and an unfortunate run to the store for more butter, and I had 18 mini muffin cookies brownies baking in the oven.  I changed my mind on the cookies.  Two brownies topped with vanilla ice cream while nestled under a blanket and watching a Brad Pitt movie.  Sheesh - you can't make such idealistic scenes up.  A wonderful ending to a comfortable day.



1/17
- Basic Tomato Sauce
- Fresh Pasta
- Arugula Ravioli
- Beef, Leek, and Barley Soup
- Best Cocoa Brownies

Monday, January 16, 2012

Week 3, Day 2 - Cabbage Cuisine

I begin today with a confession.  Every year my mom cutely makes stuffed cabbage on St. Patrick's Day.  And every year, being the supreme hostess that she is, she invites me over for dinner.  Here's where the confession comes in:  I think I decline every year.  The reason is, I childishly don't like stuffed cabbage.  Now, I'm not saying you're childish if you don't like a particular food.  I'm saying it's childish to claim you dislike a food you have never tried.  Seriously, my mom makes it every year, claiming it is wonderful, but I have refused to even taste it.



I think you know where I'm going with this.  Yes, tonight I not only made stuffed cabbage, I actually ate it too.  Is it an overdose of repetition if I say that I really enjoyed this dish?  It's strange because as I was making it I was certain I would hate it.  There didn't seem to be enough spices (ahem, none) and there were no exciting levels of flavor.  I also threw it together in a maddening rush as I finished rolling the last one at the very time I should have been arriving to my haircut appointment.  Regardless, the flavor was rich - almost spicy - and the texture wasn't at all slimy as I had always imagined.

Due to my lack of cabbage confidence, I made the potato roast to go alongside, thinking I could mix the two if necessary.  But the juggling of cooking around my appointment got the better of me, so the potatoes weren't finished until the stuffed cabbage was enjoyed and leftovers refrigerated.  I cut the roast recipe in half and fit it perfectly into a 6in pan.  Let's just say the leftover stuffed cabbage will not have a potato friend this evening.



Earlier in the afternoon I enjoyed a cabbage-based salad, knowing I would feel better having gotten two dishes out of the bowling ball vegetable I never purchase.  The dressing paired perfectly - always a bonus to save the $4 on salad dressing, too!


Days like today are a wonderful reminder of why this project is so good for me.  How many years would I have gone without tasting cabbage?  Maybe it didn't change my life, but I think I grew up just a bit tonight.

Ps - You can follow this site on Facebook now, too!  I'll provide a status update whenever a new blog post is available to read.  Thanks again for following!

1/16
- Napa Cabbage Salad with Buttermilk Dressing
- Alex's Mom's Stuffed Cabbage
- Crispy Potato Roast

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Week 3 - Lazy Sunday

I'm not going to lie, today was a rough kitchen day for me.  Lazy, if you will.  See, as I sat at my kitchen table after church, I had 2 options.  Here is what I saw when I looked to the left and to the right:


So, curl up on the couch in the warm sun with my snuggly, fat dog OR clean the dishes piled in the sink (apparently I have no shame) only to fill it again after I diligently cooked something.  Must. Cook. Food.  Must. Resist. Nap.  So I cooked - heh, hardly the truth.  I cleaned and tore up some kale, popped it into the oven, sat back down on my butt, then removed them 20 minutes later.  And those dishes...?  Let's just say I knew  they would be there waiting for me when my energy returned.

Posting two days in a row?  And on the first day of the week?  What gives?
Ah yes - again, this is an ever-evolving project.  Original goal - post once a week.  See, the project is all about the cooking, not so much the blogging.  Well, my wordiness got the better of me, so I split week 2 into two parts.  But last night I spent two hours getting things together to post (albeit, all the while slightly distracted by the Miss America Pageant and nursing my pride over another year of not picking the winner).  Meanwhile, I'm actually writing every day, and just saving until the grand post on Saturday.  But now that's seeming silly.  From now on, if I'm writing, I'm posting. 

All that to say, I wrote earlier that today had been a lazy kitchen day.  And it had, except that I did return to it once more and made myself some creamed spinach.  Admittedly I measured a bit incorrectly and therefore had significantly more cream than spinach - think spinach dip - but sometimes we need more creaminess in our lives - especially when it's some 26 degrees outside!  My 1 year old also thoroughly enjoyed this - so much so he pulled me down and we ate it together, right there on the kitchen floor.



And now, as I have yet attended to those dirty dishes, I must in preparation for another day of cooking tomorrow!

1/15

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Week 2b - Cream Cheese Enlightenment

As I draw to a close on week 2 of this culinary adventure, I amazingly find myself looking forward to the week ahead.  I've started planning my menus further in advance, so as I recount the delicousness of this past week, I also salivate for the one ahead.  But I won't get ahead of myself.  First, a recap:



Thursday morning began with a simple late (always late) breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast.  I've taught my 2 year old how to make scrambled eggs, so what revelation could possibly come from something obviously so easy to make?  Well, slathered on the toast was a nice layer of cream cheese (Deb used goat cheese, of which I am not a huge fan, but graciously offered cream cheese as an alternative).  I've never combined the flavors of egg and cream cheese before, as I usually opt for butter, but the marriage of the two and the chopped scallion ending was a delight I did not anticipate.  That night for dinner I made a gallette - turn here for details.  I admittedly had never even heard of this before, but the zucchini ricotta galette I made was this amazing hybrid of quiche, pizza, and even lasagna with its cheesy creaminess.  And that flaky brown crust..?  Goodness I am about to run off right now and make another.  I had the final surviving slice for breakfast on Friday, woefully wishing there were more.  So simple, yet so delicious.  I implore you - make this as soon as you can.  The carrot avocado side dish was consumed almost entirely by my son, so doubt it was a winner.  In an attempt to start knocking out some of the Smitten Kitchen cakes (because there are a lot) I let a good friend of mine pick one out for a Friday treat (if you're wondering how you can get such special treatment, be the one who gives me a paycheck every other week, then we'll talk).  She chose the root beer float cupcakes, which I cutely topped with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream, minus the cherries.



Friday afternoon I whipped up a meatball rigatoni dish for neighbors of mine who just had their first child.  Before you go giving me any neighborly awards, let me admit to having lived here 3+ years and never having introduced myself.  In fact, not only did I not know their names when I went over there, I did not know whether they had had a baby girl or boy.  I'm happy to say I now know their names as well as their precious daughter's name.  Anyway, I had made this warm dish last year, so I knew it to be a crowd pleaser. I fly solo with the kids on Friday nights, so instead of trying anything new I went over my parent's house and mooched off their cooking instead.  They supply food, I supply grandchildren, everyone is happy.

Remember that first picture I posted on here last week of my shakshuka breakfast?  It's been an entire week - let me refresh your memory.  Tomato, garlic, egg, feta cheese, toast - you know, world's best breakfast.  Well Deb has an earlier more simplistic rendition of this that still made a great start to the day.  No shakshuka, but no short of wonderful.  Later we started dinner off with small bowls of Dominican beans.  This little dish required an hour and a half of simmering.  Really?  I knew people in Tennessee who spoke of cooking beans for days, yet still over an hour seemed extensive.  I mean, they're beans.  But I did as I was told, starting dinner prep at 3pm, and - no surprise here - these beans were fantastic.  I'm talking lick-the-bowl goodness.  Seriously Deb, how do you do it?  I chiastically ended the second half of this week with yet another cream cheese eye opener - blended and baked into a spinach quiche.  A new staple for me.



I've changed things up a bit, as I'm still getting settled into the new site.  If you clicked on any of the above links, you may have noticed it took you to one of my personal pictures.  I will continue to list the dishes with their official names at the bottom of each post, but it's those links that will take you to the Smitten Kitchen recipe.  Click and cook - you will not be sorry.

1/8
huevos rancheros                                                                                                  
mushroom marsala pasta with artichokes
martha's macaroni-and-cheese

1/9
artichoke-olive crostini
escarole and orzo soup with meatballs
salted chocolate caramels

1/10
feta salsa
grilled lamb kebabs + tzatziki
crisp rosemary flatbread

1/11
crisp black bean tacos with feta and slaw
charred corn tacos with zucchini-radish slaw
blondies, infinitely adaptable
acorn squash quesadillas + tomatillo salsa

1/12
scrambled egg toast
zucchini and ricotta galette
roasted carrot and avocado salad
root beer float cupcakes

1/13
baked rigatoni with tiny meatballs

1/14
eggs in tomato sauce
spinach quiche (includes Dominican beans)

Another 24 recipes down!!

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Week 2a - Going Strong

Week two has begun, and boy am I loving it!  (Remind me of this 35 weeks from now when I'm acting like this.)  

I kicked off the week with two pasta dishes for a church dinner and a familiar lunch for myself.  The mac n' cheese with its bread cube crust was...well, do I really need to say?  Carbs layered over carbs and saturated in full-fat cheese, milk, and butter?  Yes, please.  I wasn't a huge fan of the marsala pasta, but I've only once liked mushrooms and that was when I made them à la this lady, so I wasn't anticipating a new 'shroom eye opener.




Despite the fact that it actually hasn't been that cold this winter, soups are always a staple in January.  So Monday night we enjoyed some meatball soup.  Frustration here - escarole is so prominent in the soup it's in the title, but Whole Foods didn't have any.  Now, if I mimicked the expertise shopping of my mom, I would have been flying solo and thus easily nixed the menu and planned the shopping trip around a whole new menu.  But alas, I shop with all three of the men in our household, so it's somewhat of an olympic sport to get the items I need while feeding the kids free breakfast samples.  So yea, changing menus not an option thus I resorted to kale.  Unlike Deb and another guy I adore, I'm really quite fond of kale.  So, it went very well, but still wish I had the ingredient originally called for.  I also made artichoke olive crostini, but I like olives less than mushrooms so...moving on.  I finished off the night making salted caramel chocolates (yes, you wish you could claim this about your Monday night), but had to wait til Tuesday to taste, as they would be cooling well beyond my bedtime (which, ironically, was the case for Deb when she first made these as well).






Said caramel chocolate was the first thing I ate on Tuesday.  Delicious - though obviously not boiled long enough as they were softer than fudge.  Yet I heard no complaining.  Tuesday night I had my monthly dinner with friends I've known more than half my life.  We choose a different cuisine each month, and this month's was Greek.  Deb has one recipe in her Greek section (sorry to call you out on it, Deb!).  So naturally we enjoyed lamb kebabs with tzatziki but since I consider anything with feta and/or olives "Greek" I also made a feta salsa and rosemary dill flatbread for dipping.  I've known these girls 15+ years, but still find ways to impress them.




Wednesday morning I met with a whole different group of friends.  These I have known less than 5 years but we have one key thing in common - kids.  I hosted the weekly playdate and easily catered to my vegetarian guests with Deb's tex-mex taco renditions using corn and black beans.  And since no child's lunch - or any meal for that matter - can end without something sweet, some blondies to boot.  Further tearing through the tex-mex section of Smitten Kitchen, I served up some acorn squash quesadillas for dinner with salsa verde.  Can I just tell you how I worked at a mexican restaurant for over a year and wouldn't even have imagined trying salsa verde.  But tonight I not only tried but even enjoyed it.  Got me again, Deb.




Though the initial intention was to post here once a week, I've decided - at least for this week - to split this up into two.  My family has often told me of my tendency towards annoyingly babbling eloquently elaborating.  But they're family, so they have to put up with it.  You, however, I will not subject to such verbal excess.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Week 1 - And So It Begins...



I'm the type that starts considering a New Year's resolution about a day before the event.  Which gives me no time to truly contemplate the resolution, so chances of success are usually slim, at best.

This past holiday was no different.  Two days before the dawn of 2012, an idea popped into my head that no doubt had been placed there by previous book readings and movie watchings.  "Perhaps this year I will cook my way through every recipe posted on my favorite food blog."  That shouldn't be too difficult.  To confirm the level of zeal this would require, I went straight to the source.

Smitten Kitchen is a food blog written by Deb Perelman, a woman whose wit and humor draw me in equally as much as her gorgeous food photos.  I've been following her site for a year or two now, and I'm no short of obsessed.  Deb and I, though we have never met, are on a first-name basis in this household.  So I emailed her to find out how many recipes she thought were on her site.  Get this - she responded.  Those of you unfamiliar with the food blogging world may see this as insignificant, at best.  But here in this house...well let's just say I was a little giddy.  Anyway, count came in around 700 recipes.  Add the 100ish she will post this year, and I'm looking at 800 recipes, give or take.  Tapping into my now rarely-used math skills, that lands me at 15-16 recipes each week.  And with that, I was out.

I have a husband, two kids, an untrained dog (entirely our fault), and a quaint little house I attempt to keep semi-clean.  This just was not possible.  And so, I made the painful move of emailing Deb and informing her that, despite her excitement towards the idea, I would be backing out before I even began.  

Then the thoughts started whirling.  I could not drop the idea.  I kept thinking of it over and over, recalculating and re-reading recipe after recipe.  In the 2 days before the new year ensued, it ate away at my every thought.  Until finally I gave in.  

I decided to test the plan out for one week.  One week, cooking at least 15 recipes, and doing so within our skimpy-for-organic-eaters budget.  The first week has come to a close.  I am 25 recipes closer than I was 7 days ago.  I'm in this for the long haul.

And so now I turn here.  A resolution of this magnitude is hardly worth it without some sort of record.  So I will be here at the end of each week, owning up to what I have or have not cooked.  Armed with pictures (when I remember to take them, and not slightly as professional as Deb's), I will recount how the week went cooking through the Smitten Kitchen.

Many have asked me what I am hoping to get out of this.  Turn this blog into a book?  No, certainly not that verbally talented.  A movie deal?  Ugh, I hate unoriginal movie plots and this has definitely been done before.  No no, I'm just seeking a culinary challenge.  Something that pushes me hard (sometimes to the point where I scour my kitchen for enough ingredients to make a Deb dish because it's 3 o'clock and I haven't cooked yet that day.  Yes, I've already done this).  And to look back and say, "God allowed me to do that?"  Yes, that would be quite awesome 51 weeks from now.

Alright, let's get rolling.  Amidst my rambling, did you see where I said I made 25 recipes this week?  Here's the lineup using their official Smitten Kitchen titles, for easy searching on her site:

1/1:
- Pear Cranberry and Gingersnap Crumble

1/2:
- Edna Mae's Sour Cream Pancakes
- Spaghetti with Cheese and Black Pepper
- Zucchini, Ham, and Ricotta Fritters
- Big Crumb Coffee Cake
- Black Bean Confetti Salad
- Meatball Sliders

1/3:
- Shakshuka
- Dark Chocolate Tart with Gingersnap Crust
- Beef Chili + Sour Cream and Cheddar Biscuits (2)
- Monkey Bread with Cream Cheese Glaze

1/4:
- How to Poach an Egg, Smitten Kitchen-Style
- Really Simple Homemade Pizza
- Lemony Zucchini Goat Cheese Pizza

1/5:
- Apple Pancakes
- Tortilla de Patatas
- Classic Grilled Cheese + Cream of Tomato Soup (2)
- Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Coffee Cake

1/6:
- Pizza with Red and Yellow Peppers
- White and Dark Heart Brownies (2)
- Apple Sharlotka

1/7:
- Crispy Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Due to first-post excess verbiage above, I won't go into much detail about this week except to say that it was a delicious week.  Special feature goes to that little number up top.  It's called Shakshuka and was the most delicious breakfast I've had in a long while, if ever.  Try it, then invite me over to share.