101 Salads, Thank-you Mark Bittman

Check this out!!

101 amazing salads thanks to Mark Bittman. Awesome x 101! Seriously, this is such a wealth of knowledge/recipes, perfect for summer.

Some favorites:

12. Combine sliced fennel and prune plums; serve with vinaigrette spiked with minced ginger. Nice pairing.

27. Cook whole, unpeeled eggplant in a dry, hot skillet or on a grill, turning occasionally, until completely collapsed and soft. Chop and toss with toasted pita, toasted pine nuts, cooked white beans and halved cherry tomatoes. Dress with olive oil, lemon juice and lots of black pepper. Or a (non-vegan) yogurt dressing is good, especially one laced with tahini.

29. Pit and halve cherries (or halve and pit cherries), then cook gently with olive oil and a little balsamic vinegar until they break down. Toss with chopped radicchio, endive, escarole or a combination, some toasted hazelnuts and more oil and vinegar, if necessary.

81. Soak sliced prune plums or figs in balsamic vinegar for a few minutes, then add olive oil, chopped celery and red onion, shreds of roasted or grilled chicken, chopped fresh marjoram or oregano and chopped almonds. Serve on top of or toss with greens. So good.

The Finer Foods in Life

Here's a list of some of the finer things in life: Food Edition

• Toasted nuts
• Good chocolate
• Freshly baked breads
• French (or homemade) butter
• Perfect fruit
• Olives
• Good coffee
• Caramels with sea salt
• A perfectly cooked steak

This is the first image that appears when you type "Food" into the Google Image search engine.

The Best Oatmeal Ever

I just did something really really well. I'm going to brag about it in this post, and then make you do it too. Here we go.

I just made the most kick-ass breakfast in a long while, and without a recipe. Note: this is a very rare occurance, since generally I tend to follow recipes rather diligently. But this morning (yes, it's only 9 am, but I've already had this great breakfast and I find it necessary to post about it right away) I woke up to a kitchen with absolutely no food in it.

You see, my parents are out of town, so I (of course) neglected to go food shopping. There is no cereal. No bread. Only 1 egg. No milk. Yeah, it's bad. But, there was oatmeal--albeit only about 3/4 cup, but that's just enough. So I set out to make myself a nice breakfast to eat on the back porch early in the morning, so I could take advantage of the beautiful morning of what will be the hottest day of the year so far (they say it will reach 100º!).

Now, as I mentioned, I like to follow recipes, so I quickly perused TasteSpotting for inspiration for some oatmeal. I came across a couple recipes, but decided in the end to just throw the usual stuff into my oatmeal: toasted nuts, cinnamon, agave nectar, fruit, you know. But here's the kicker: peanut butter!! I guess I missed the boat on this cooking phenomenon, since several recipes I found were incorporating various nut butters into their recipes, but I'm glad I finally did it. It added this amazing bite to the sweet oatmeal and made it heartier and just incredibly fantastic.

In addition to peanut butter, I chopped up the last white nectarine hanging around the kitchen, toasted some pecans, and swirled in some agave nectar. I brewed up a huge pot of coffee, busted out my favorite bowl and cup (Look! C'est le Petit Prince!!), and sat out on the back porch to enjoy my Sunday morning. Perfect. I am so happy right now.

Now it's your turn. Make this:

Early Summer Oatmeal
Makes 1 serving

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup water
• pinch of salt
• Cinnamon
• Agave Nectar
• Pecans
• White Nectarine (or any old stone fruit)
  
• Peanut Butter
  

Directions

• Boil 1 cup of water. Add oats and salt, bring back to a boil. Then reduce heat to medium and stir occasionally until oatmeal has absorbed most of the water and it's your preferred consistency.
• Meanwhile, throw a handful of pecans into the toaster oven and toast.
• Slice up the white nectarine into chunks, and save a few slices to eat while you prepare the rest.
  
• Add a few generous shakes of cinnamon and a swirl of agave nectar to the oatmeal. Taste, and adjust accordingly (I sound so professional right now, I'm loving it).
• Pour oatmeal into your favorite, prettiest bowl. Add a dollop of peanut butter (I added about 1 teaspoon) and incorporate. Top with nuts and fruit and another swirl of agave nectar.
• Go outside. Eat it all. Drink your coffee or tea. Done and done.

Real Cake Fake Cake

Hello everyone. I'm going to take a break from all this fashion posting, and show you what I baked the other day (that wasn't cookies!). Lemon Meringue Cupcakes! My first venture into the world of meringue! For so long I had seen these adorable, toasted treats and I really wanted to try my hand at them. Plus, I could have a chance to use my new cupcake carrier, which is a plus.

Lookit how cute and safe they are! I love efficient storage!

Anyways, I made these cupcakes for an art opening at the gallery I help out at. The opening was to celebrate their 1st year anniversary, and also the opening of their new show, which featured the work of Ana Rodriguez. I seriously fell in love with her cake paintings, some of which were 2-dimensional, others 3-dimensional. Check it out:

Brilliant, no? They're all made out of styrofoam and acrylic medium and plastic fruits and doilies. Some are a little burnt, messy, or broken, and they are all just overwhelmingly darling. I love how they are placed so precariously on the table, leaning on each other all willynilly! Great stuff, very inspiring.

Anyways, I made some more cookies, so be sure to check out my other blog for the recipe! As for the cupcakes, I got the recipe here (thanks!). Until later, friends...

Death Valley, Part Two

I think it's official--I'm putting this blog on a semi-hiatus. This basically is just so I can give a name and reason to why I am posting so infrequently and sporadically. I dunno, I just feel like this blog has no direction, and I never really want to post to it. I'm sure I'll get back into it (probably this summer), but until then, I'll just post photos every now and then.

Never fear, though! My other blog Every Last Cookie is still up and running and in full swing. Last week's Banana Walnut Chocolate-Chunk Cookies were so good, but this week I think I'm going to try to make something a little fancier or lighter or something (meringues?). We'll see...

Delicious Beef Sandwich with Gravy--if looks could kill...

I really wish that pie was better than it really was.

Oh, and by the way, I might be going on a road trip across the United States this summer (hopefully stopping by the Badlands and ending up in Chicago or something). My goal is to visit a bunch of random, obscure diners along the way (specifically ones that are not on the internet), and try all their pies and coffee and sandwiches and burgers and all that fatty stuff. I am going to document my ventures with both my camera and pencil in hand, and a bloated stomach. I am in search of the best pancakes, pies, coffee, grilled cheese, you name it. I hope I don't go into cardiac arrest along the way, but if I do, publish my research in a respectable academic journal--thanks.

Until next time!

Food Improvement

It happens almost the moment I land in Los Angeles: my diet improves. And by diet, I in no ways mean an eating regime in which I lose weight. I am strictly referring to the quality of food which enters my mouth. Gone are the lousy dining hall "entrees," gone are the plates of pasta with canned tomato sauce. It's all tasty home cookin' and nice restaurant meals while I'm back at home.

This morning, my dad and I went out for breakfast at Bistro de la Gare, and I got the Pain Perdu. It was real good, but admittedly, nothing to write home about (and yes, I realize that expression doesn't really work in this situation, since I'm already at home...). But, point is: the atmosphere was fancy and the food was prepared pretty-like and I loved it. Oh, and fresh OJ was a nice change from the crap that the machines at the dining halls spew out.

And the weather's pretty sweet too...

Announcement: Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery, Awesome!

I do not have any pictures for this post, which saddens me. But I think that the overall importance of the post will outweigh its lack of imagery. Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery, located in the Lower East Side, has the best cupcakes I have had (so far!) in the city. Better than Magnolia, but I haven't been there in a while, so I might have to try those out again too (But, everyone says they are better than Magnolia Bakery, and I think I'm going to believe them.) Better than Billy's Bakery in Chelsea, too.

I had a Lemon cupcake, and it was divine. Perfectly soft and fluffy cake, with just the right amount of frosting: not overbearing and goopy, but not spread too thin either. And nothing about the cupcake was too heavy, which is a good sign. At $1.50 a cupcake, I highly recommend.

image courtesy of sugar Sweet sunshine Bakery

Sugar Overload!

[Public Announcement: I have started my new Martha Stewart Cookie Blog, documenting my adventures in baking all 150 cookies from her cookbook. Please check out the new blog! It's called Every Last Cookie!]

I just realized that I never shared with you guys my birthday party! Granted, probably all of my readers were present at said event, but I will post the photos regardless, for my own satisfaction. And I can tell this post is going to take me a while to complete, because I'm trying to watch Top Chef, and that needs my undivided attention.

A little scary bugger, no?

Beauties, every one of them!

The theme was a cookie decorating party complete with as much baked goods and treats as possible. It had a sort of side-theme which was Wintery desserts: lots of peppermint, gingerbread, hot cocoa, you know, the works. In retrospect, the extraordinarily large amount of sugar and fat wasn't the best idea, even though my mother did prepare a beautiful veggie plate (which we all greedily devoured, to be sure).

Myself, diligently manning the vat of hot cocoa

So, the day before, I made peppermint marshmallows, dough for gingerbread cookies, and dough for Moravian Spice cookies. The day of, my mother made her famous apple pie (see first photo with the sexy stud), Nutella hot cocoa, and the veggie platter. Everything was quite tasty, but all combined, I felt completely nauseous and jittery. I even got really ill the day after, but I think it was unrelated and I just got the flu. Regardless, I couldn't even THINK of gingerbread without wanting to throw up! UGHHH.

I'm sure you really wanted to see gingerbread dough right after I mentioned
throwing up, right?

Anyways, we all had a really swell time and decorated cookies and gossiped and giggled and shouted and laughed and were obnoxious. I save my best, most charming behavior for my friends, no doubt.

P.S. I really love those Geico ads where someone is in some inane situation and then asks "What is that?!" and another person responds "Oh, that's the money you could be saving with Geico" and it's that cute little stack of cash with the googly eyes. Makes me giggle.

Pfeffernussen, and the Martha Stewart Experience

February is halfway complete, and if that doesn't blow your mind, I don't know what will. Maybe these cookies? Eh, they're good, but not necessarily mind blowingly good. These Pfeffernussen--"Peppernut" in English--cookies are tasty and delightful, but nothing too remarkable. But really, they are very very tasty, don't get me wrong, but they aren't very different. I recommend you make them, though, because they are tasty and simple! Crowd pleasers too! And the name is so fun to say; plus, it sounds complicated and gourmet and makes you sound like a fancy pastry chef.

You see, the premise for baking these cookies is all part of my new experiment/project: I want to make every single cookie from the Martha Stewart Cookie Cookbook during the 4 years that I am here at college. I have no idea if this is completely impossible (I think it is), but I definitely want to try. So far, all the cookies I've made from her recipes turned out really delish, so why not go all out? Yes!

The Pfeffernussen in particular were so easy to make and were texturally spectacular! Yes! They had just the right amount of crunchyness on the edges while still maintaining a perfectly soft pillow-like texture in the middle. I also really loved how every so often you could taste a bit of ground black pepper in the cookie; a little bit of spice!

And look how cute they are!! Aw! I just liked looking at them all lined up on the baking sheet like little pyjama buttons. HOWEVER, be forewarned that they are ridiculously messy to eat! Confectioner sugar flies everywhere when you bite into them.

So, back to my whole "bake every Martha Stewart cookie in four years without becoming obese" project. I think I'm going to make a new blog devoted to each cookie I make throughout this long ordeal. What do you think? Does that sound fun, or will it just get mundane and boring after a while?

Neat

Pretty neat. All my food photos from Flickr!

Hope you had a pleasant weekend!

Hello Birdies

Did I tell you about the amazing decorated bird cookies that my good (and incredibly meticulous) friend Anne made? I'll let the photos do the talking...

Incredible, no? I couldn't eat them! I just couldn't bring myself to do that! But, now I really wish I had one right here, here in my dorm room, so I could devour it anyways. Because I could really go for a cookie right now. Yumnumnum...

Meyer Lemonettes!

Ah, yes, candied fruit. One of the many sweets on the list of foods that highlight my old-ladyness. The list also includes the following: butterscotch candies, dates, figs, dried apricots, cashews, Poppycock, licorice, Calcium supplements (thanks Ma!), high fiber cereal, and the list goes on. But instead of boring you with 75-year-old eating habits (let's not forget rye bread!), let me tell you about these Candied Lemon Rinds!

Okay, I'm not gonna lie. These were quite time consuming and tedious. But if you are making them with a friend (hi Allison!) and having the world wide web at your disposal, I'm sure you can have a good time as you boil and reboil the rinds in sugar water for three or four 20 minute intervals. Allison and I divided our time between Facebook, of course, and looking for other recipes.

You see, we did this during Winter Break, back in sunny California where my mother has a Meyer Lemon tree that sort of went completely overboard with its harvest. So many lemons, so delicious. So in addition to these candied rinds, we made Lemon Curd (oh my god oh my god oh my god make this right now ahhhhh!!!!), terrible tartlettes to but the lemon curd in (huge failure, more on this another time), and lemonade! We were so absurdly efficient with the lemons that even we were surprised. We used the juice, the rinds, the zest, everything!

So, in conclusion, if you just made a bunch of lemonade, and you've got all these beautiful rinds sitting around and you don't want to waste them (which you shouldn't!), make some of these. So tasty to snack on! Next time I want to make Orangettes and dip them in chocolate. And candied ginger, that too! (Oh, and definitely make the Lemon Curd...I can't express how insanely delicious and lemony it was. Like, true lemon flavor, not just sour. Oh man, oh oh! But I can't find the exact recipe we used...I know! I'm sorry; I'm sure most recipes are the same though.)

Okay, that was a poor ending to this entry, but I can't seem to wrap it up any better. Until next time!!

Some Pictures of Some Places

So winter break is over this Sunday. I'll be leaving the wonderful 83 degree California weather and entering the realm of 30 degrees and quickly dropping weather of New York City. I'm not that excited about that aspect.

But I had a really great break, and if it was any longer, I think I would really start to get bored. Over the summer, I hope I can get a job or internship, otherwise I am really screwed. All I want is to work at an adorable knitting store! Ah, dreams.

In other news, I made these Lemon and Honey Tangerine (I actually used Clementines) Gratins from Tartelette, and let me just say how delicious they are! It was a lot like a zesty creme brulee with Clementines sitting inside. So good. So bad for you. Whatever, this break did not set a good example of healthy eating.

When the task came to caramelizing the brown sugar on top, the recipe recommending using a flame torch, so my dad grabbed his (which is by NO standards a culinary flame torch), and it didn't work. Maybe we just didn't have the right hand technique or something, but it just burnt the sugar crystals instead of uniformly browning the surface. So instead we put the gratins in the oven at the top shelf and set the oven to broil for a few minutes. That worked perfectly, and made the surface hard when you tapped it with a spoon. Perfect!

I also went on a hike that was very pretty and snowy! I probably saw more snow there than I will in New York, but I'm probably going to eat those words in a few weeks.

Anyways, I will leave you with some adorable pictures of my dog, kissing a plastic hunk:

Tea Party Photos, As Promised

Oh my god, I love tea parties. Especially the ones that my friends host, because they are always undoubtedly completely divine! Honestly, who can resist butter wafer cookies with lemon curd and raspberries on them? Or crostinis with olive tapenade/bruschetta? How about a really pathetic, underisen, dense, too chewy, ladybug-esque shaped Challah bread? (Yeah, that was my contribution, and it was pretty lame. Photos on my flickr...I'm too embarassed to post it here). But really, in the end, it's all about dessert, right?

One of the main activities at this particular tea party was cupcake decorating! The overall theme was a "Children's Tea Party," so it made all the sense in the world to start covering funfetti cupcakes with pounds of sugar and candies. Good stuff. Nauseating, at times, but overall quite fun. I didn't eat one, however; maybe I could have 10 years ago, but today, just...too...much...

Let me show you what I mean by "sugar":

Granted, on this cupcake, my friends and I just tried to cram as much crap all over this one cupcake as physically possible...it's not like we would eat it (right? right.)

Oh god. Pretty disgusting, in retrospect. Fun at the time, to be sure; but now...ugh!

Aside from decorating cupcakes, we gossiped, giggled, talked about inane things, listened to Indeep, took thousands (more like 300) closeup pictures of our faces making ridiculous expressions, acted way too girly, and had fun, blah blah blah. Whenever I tell my family or other friends that I have these tea parties, people look at me funny, but it's true: my friends just like to get dressed up and make food and be fancy. It's ridiculous, but I love it. Oh, and the 75º weather and sunshine is pretty great, too.

Until next time!