Cupcake Currency

I've enlisted the help of a business strategy/planning/promotions/marketing guru for this here food blog, and I'm paying her in pie and other baked goods.

For our first business meeting, my retainer fees were paid in the form of a Devil's Food cupcake with a rum creme and a slightly caramelized pear and banana compote, all dusted with some organic cocoa powder.

While I would choose a slice of pie over a slice of cake 9 out of 10 times, Devil's Food cake is very hard to resist. Plus, check out how healthy that dessert is. All that fresh fruit that was definitely not cooked down in sugar and rum to make a syrup used to sweeten the whipped cream.

I ended up making three dozen cupcakes for a total of three people, which seems like an appropriate awesomeness to consumer ratio to me. 

I think the next time I have to pay the credit card bill, I'll just try sending some cupcakes in the mail. I'm sure that will be fine, just fine.


--Isaac

An Ode to Romance

This post is for all the lovers out there. Now I know when you conjure up an image of a romantic dinner, you are all dressed up in a fancy restaurant enjoying gourmet food. For me – I’ll take the gourmet food, but I want to be in my pajamas. This post is a tribute to two wonderfully romantic meals I have shared with my husband – in our PJs.

First – an “a little late but worth the wait” post regarding our New Year’s Paella. Now, I will be the first to admit that my paella is not “auténtico”, but it is amazing – so back off. I do not use saffron (just can’t justify the expense) and I don’t use a paella pan (just too lazy to buy one), but the end result is phenomenal. I made my first Dutch oven paella on December 31, 2009 with crab, lobster and andouille sausage. It was good, but this New Year’s version blew it away completely. This proteins used this year were lobster, clams, and chorizo (Spanish, not Mexican) and it was delicioso.

Now, no romantic dinner is complete without a luxurious dessert, and our New Year’s celebration was no exception. As the recipient of a mini blow torch this holiday season – it only seemed appropriate to make crème brûlée, however, to keep with the Spanish theme of the evening I chose Crema Catalona (same technique as crème brûlée, but lemon and cinnamon instead of vanilla bean). 

 

Add champagne and a fire – perfection!

Now on to Valentine’s Day – admittedly one of my least favorite holidays. Forced romance, plus  a nearly 100% mark-up on red roses is just ridiculous (Don’t get me wrong – still love receiving said flowers, but still...) In the wondrous tradition of gourmet food in our jammies, for Valentine’s Day I decided to tackle lobster risotto. (Just saying “risotto” made me fear that Gordon Ramsey was going to knock down my door and tell me I was rubbish, but I appear to be safe for now). 

The recipes I had found for lobster risotto disappointed me when it came to one key component – the stock. Most suggested either vegetable or chicken stock. This seemed like a cop-out to me, so my first challenge became making my own lobster stock.

After roasting my two lobster tails in the oven, I removed the meat and added the shells to my moiré poix (carrot, onion, celery) that had been sweating for a few minutes.

Next came the garlic, fennel, parsley, tomatoes, mushrooms, bay leaf and white wine.

I added enough water to cover everything by 2-3”, and then I let it simmer for about 90 minutes. Now, my chef bio mentions that my favorite thing about cooking is all the smells of a dish coming together – and making lobster stock was no exception. Wow – the apartment smelled AMAZING! Isaac returned from work and immediately asked “oh – so you started lobster-ing” to which I was able to respond , “Oh – I’m just making lobster stock for our risotto.” A sly smile crept across his face…he knew this was going to be awesome!

A quick strain through some cheesecloth (thanks for taking this photo, Isaac) yielded a magnificent batch o’ lobster stock.

Now from tons of reading (and despite watching Hell’s Kitchen), risotto itself did not appear challenging. It just requires patience. I bought the appropriate Arborio rice, sautéed some shallots (I thought onion might overwhelm the delicate flavors) added a splash of brandy, and then patiently ladled my glorious lobster stock one half cup at a time until I was rewarded with creamy, delicious risotto. I folded in my cooked lobster tails, oven roasted some asparagus (that had marinated in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and sliced garlic) and bon appétit– Valentine’s Day Dinner!

Now from the previous menu, you know that this had to be followed up with a scrumptious dessert. In a Bacon v. Pie first (and in honor of the only our favorite chef couple, Pat and Gina Neely) we decided to prepare dessert together. Now don’t get me wrong, we have both contributed components to each other’s meals in the past, but these collaborations have followed the strict code of “while I’m in the kitchen, you better not be”. We each have our own methods in the kitchen, and have found that it’s best if we leave the other chef alone.

The dessert of choice was chocolate soufflé. I melted chocolate and mixed in the yokes, Isaac beat the egg whites. Together we produced perfection. (Please note Isaac’s robe – and you thought I was kidding about the jammies thing…)

After a quick 20 minutes, we had wonderful, puffy soufflé.

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

--Mary

Bakin' Bacon

The non-competitive side of our recent Super Bowl par-tay was equally delicious. The main attraction were the meat-popsicles my dad made. He spent weeks carefully refining the recipe stole the recipe from some contest winner on the Food Network website, and we could definitely see why the recipe won. Ground pork, Bacon!, and green onion, dipped in a sweet chili sauce. Genius.

The double pork meatballs were skewered on a stick of lemongrass, which begged the question: which came first, the lemon or the lemongrass? And furthermore, why isn't there more grasses and fruits that taste alike? What makes the lemon so special? I'd skewer all sort of stuff with banana-grass sprigs. Or a stalk of peach-grass. Someone needs to go science those into existence.

As paninis were on the menu, I made some focaccia...

...and ciabatta...

Whenever I bake bread, I'm always pleasantly surprised when the dough actually rises. Since yeast is so fickle, I usually just expect it to collapse into a dense mass or turn purple and sprout wings. However, if the above ciabatta bread turned into a purple winged thing, I'd probably still grill it up nicely with some turkey and cheese. It was fantastic.

-Isaac

Super Food Fight!

Happy tax season everyone! No? Just me? Fair enough. How about Happy Super Bowl! Better? 'Kay.

Between the butchered national anthem, sub-par commercials, and embarrassment of a half time "show", there was a very good football game. Congrats to Aaron Rodgers, who apparently went to my rival middle school for two years, if middle schools even have "rivals".

Since moving out, I've always gone over to my parent's house for the Super Bowl festivities every year. My dad and I are more interested in the game, and my mom and sister are more interested in the food. In an attempt to out-do ourselves this year, on the behalf of Bacon v. Pie, I challenged my dad and my sister to the inaugural Bacon v. Pie Food Fight.  The dish of choice: Chicken Wings. Classic football party food. We were each going to prepare our own chicken wings, plus a dipping sauce, and then cook and judge (and consume) in the hours before kickoff.

My toughest challenge as it turned out was just getting the damned chicken wings. I had planned to get all of my ingredients after work on the Friday before the Super Bowl. Fred Meyer's was packed and I didn't have the patience to deal with the hordes of shoppers. Then while standing in line at the register, the guy in front of me was buying an EPT test and two Toblerones. He definitely had the makings for an exciting Friday night, but probably a very different kind of exciting Friday night compared to the one he must have had two weeks ago.

I then tried to go to Haggen's to get my chicken wings. As I was walking through their sliding doors, I read a sign that said: "Only 8 days left!" My first thought was: "Well that doesn't make sense. The Super Bowl is just two days away." And then I read the giant, 15 foot, bright yellow banner hanging above me: "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!!!" I rounded the corner to the produce/deli section and....nothing. No food. Just rows and rows of empty bins, shelves, and displays. No wings, but the wine was 30% off, so I told Mary and she went back the next day to help them clear our their wine inventory.

To make up for my two grocery failures, the next day I found success at Costco. 10 pounds of success.

Only slightly smaller than a Smart Car

I went Mediterranean with my wings. The base of the overnight marinade was Greek yogurt, which worked fantastic. My dipping sauce, really more of a spread, was the classic Old Country recipe: "Roasted Until My Propane Grill Ran Out Of Gas" Red Pepper Pesto.

My sister went Greek-ish as well, but went with a cucumber tzatziki sauce spiked with some Tabasco.

My dad stayed true to the classic buffalo wing style preparation.

The scoring was out of 30 points, with up to 10 points awarded for the wings, the sauce, and overall respectively. After the votes were tabulated, the winner with a perfect score of 30 points was.......

Me. (yaaay!).

My sister came in second, ever though she said after the contest that she didn't even like her own wings, so, you know, whatever.  This left my dad in "distant fourth place" as he put it. While it is great to start things off with a "W", win or lose, I was going to get to eat some wings. And by some, I mean many.

I think the Packer's wide receiver Greg Jennings summed it up the best during his post-game interview: "It is a great day to be great." How true that is.

--Isaac.

Fruit Tarts

I would imagine that tarts want to be pies when they grow up. Unfortunately, the life span of a tart is very, very short. Mere days really. They live a short and delicious life.

Good ole Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early Spring the other day. I hope he is right, because I could go for some temperatures that don't resemble my fridge. Bill Murray living Groundhog's Day over and over again was a topic of conversation on the radio. From a culinary standpoint, having an eternity to cook and eat anything would be fantastic. No cost, no calories, endless possibilities. From the mental health standpoint though, I'd probably go crazy at some point. But until that point, I'd just start at the front of the cookbook and work to the back.

Thinking back to Bill Murray for a second though, how many years or even decades did he spend re-living Groundhog's Day over and over anyways? He had time to learn French, ice sculpt, play the piano- all would require quite the time commitment I'd imagine. I never really tried counting how many days were shown in the movie, but thinking back now, and watching clips on YouTube, Bill Murray was stuck in 1993 for a very long time. Rough.

Below are the apple tarts on the left and the pear tarts on the right.

Or maybe it is apple on the right and pear on the left. I guess it doesn't really matter. They all ended up in my mouth.

--Isaac.