Archive for the ‘Food’ Category

So Steven can make croissants now

Steven got this Craftsy course on croissant making on Black Friday. Making croissants is finicky and takes a long time, so of course Steven loves it.

Croissants take a lot of butter, yo

Croissants take a lot of butter, yo

Usually, Steven has trouble making doughs and I end up swooping in to save the day, but not this time:

The outfit must have helped

The outfit must have helped

The process involves a lot of folding your sheet of butter into your dough:

Yeah, that top square is all butter

Yeah, that top square is all butter

Of course you have to measure to get everything precise

Of course you have to measure to get everything precise

Rolling pin action!

Rolling pin action!

Finally, after much toil, they started to look like croissants:

Laaaaaaaadies

Laaaaaaaadies

Unfortunately, he had to leave them proofing to go to orchestra practice:

Hella professional proofing set up

Hella professional proofing set up

So it was left to me to actually get them in the oven:

Steven trusts me too much

Steven trusts me too much

Luckily, my part wasn’t that hard, and they turned out beautifully:

Perfection

Perfection

The insides are just the right flaky consistency:

We each did our part

We each did our part

Next time: Pain au Chocolat/I die of joy

All Star Thanksgiving 2014

Despite my being three different kinds of sick this week, Steven and I still managed to have a delicious Thanksgiving! This is almost entirely due to Steven’s skillz.

As usual, we bypassed the usual subpar Thanksgiving fare and each chose 2 favorite foods to cook. This year’s lineup:

Me: Biryani and peach smoothies
Steven: Spinach pomegranate salad and cherry pie

Success!!!

Success!!!

I’ve chosen biryani before, but I can’t help it–it’s one of my favorite things Steven makes. And it’s so warm and filling once it gets cold outside! See his recipe after the cut.

The spinach pomegranate salad also had pear, pecan, and feta. A really easy (and Christmas colored!) salad that tastes delicious. I modified it from the one found here.

I’d never made a cherry pie before, and Steven had never had one made with fresh cherries instead of that questionable filling from a can. But I’m not going to dump can filling into my beautiful crust, so I had to try it! We used this recipe for the filling, and both agreed that it was pretty good, but needed something to combat the intense cherriness. Cinnamon? Vanilla ice cream? Steven will have to perform experiments to find out. My easy-awesome crust tutorial can be found here. Steven helped roll it out! Like a pro, of course.

Smoothies don’t need recipes, they are delicious no matter what!!!! This one had frozen peaches, frozen mangoes, peach nectar, vanilla yogurt, honey, and almond meal.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pie Crust Tutorial: Life is too short to eat mediocre pie

The world would be a better place if we made more pie. If you don’t believe me, it’s possible that you’ve never actually had pie, not good pie. More than once I’ve served someone pie only to have them exclaim in surprise “This is good! Usually I don’t like pie, especially the crust. I just scrape the filling out and eat that by itself.” This, my sadly deprived friend, is because you’ve probably never had pie crust. You’ve had those terrible cardboard shells you can buy in the grocery store freezer. Maybe you’ve had the frozen plastic crust people can buy to “roll out themselves” as if that magically makes it homemade.

Don’t mistake me, I’m not Steven. I don’t want to grind my own flour or churn my own butter. I’m perfectly happy to buy things at the store instead of making them from scratch. Some things anyway. But pie crust should never be one of those things. It’s just not worth it. Really. I’ll prove it with a graph.

A PIE graph? Sorry

A PIE graph? Sorry

I find with cooking in general that enjoyment and work tend to have a direct relationship. Things you put some work into generally taste better than things you bought at, say, a drive-thru. But there is a point where this relationship peaks and suddenly the more work something is the less you enjoy it. Maybe you’re just too tired after all that cooking, or no cookie is really worth hours and hours of your time, no matter how tasty. That apex where enjoyment is maxed out is probably at different places for different people, so obviously I’m not suggesting everyone make a pie every week. But I am saying that if you’re using a frozen crust, the chances are you’re already doing the same amount of work as me, with way, way less enjoyment. Here are your pie options:

Buy a Pie: As you can see on the graph, buying a pie is no work for you! Yay! Unfortunately, store or restaurant bought pies can really vary. Just because you’re paying someone else money to make it doesn’t mean they’re any better than you re: using terrible frozen crust.

Buy a pie shell: To the pie novice, these seem so convenient. A lot of them come already in a crappy disposable pie tin! You just dump your filling in, and bake! Are you even making your filling yourself? If not, you basically just heated up canned bullshit and cardboard all for the sake of pretending to cook. Stop. Stop this right now. Either buy a pie, or learn how to actually cook, you monster.

Sorry, I get a little emotional about this. I’ve suffered too much at the hands of people who’ve offered me “homemade pie” only to be met with this travesty against tastebuds.

Of course, maybe you make your own filling because you are a proud baker! Good for you! But half your pie is still frozen cardboard. I think the problem is that a lot of people see the pie crust as just a vessel to serve the delicious filling. No! Pie crust is at least half of the pie experience, and should be given the same consideration. I don’t understand people who go to all the work of making a nice filling and then put it in something that is basically a soggy bowl. If that’s what you want, just make a crumble, god.

Buy frozen pie crust: These are more work than the pie shell and usually a little bit better quality. They’re sheets of pastry dough that you can roll out yourself to give you the illusion that it’s not cardboard and you’re totally rocking this cooking thing!

Except it still totally tastes like it. What are you doing with your life?

Make a pie crust: You can’t really say you “made” a pie unless you made the crust. It’s not just wrapping paper–it’s half the dessert. The reason people don’t is because they think it’s too much work. They put it more where I put “French Macaroons” on my Pie Graph–waaaaay too time consuming and finicky to ever be worth the effort. And if you’re a pie purist, that’s probably true. “Real” pie crusts involve cutting cold butter into flour until it’s a crumbly texture, which is pretty annoying because you’ve gotta make sure everything is just the right temperature and rolling it out can be tricky. Ugh, who has time for that?

You might be surprised to hear: definitely not me. Fear not, pie crust challenged! Today I will share with you the secrets of my success! My pie crust recipe may not be the fanciest or best, but it MAXIMIZES the work/enjoyment relationship. I’ve done the butter crust as a comparison, and can report back that the extra work doesn’t really make significant gains as far as enjoyment goes.

Plus, my recipe is so easy I once taught James Fox to do it over the phone. If you’ve ever played with Playdoh, I think you got this. It’ll probably take less than an hour, including preparing the filling. Let me show you how: Read the rest of this entry »

Pi Day 2014!!

Happy Pi Day!! As you might recall, Pi Day is the most important holiday in the Ladd family, and it’s always hard for me to be away from home. But my Mom usually mails me a gift of a new calculator or some fancy graph paper or what have you, and, of course, I always make some kind of pie to keep the tradition alive. And to avoid a year of careless math errors, because that is one superstition I am afraid NOT to follow. I do way too much math (sewing, cooking, stats at work) to risk becoming bad at it for a whole year!

This year’s celebration will be a little more subdued (although of course Steven and I will break out the word problems later tonight) because I can’t really eat pie right now. I decided to make one for Steven to take to work, and since normal pie can be messy to pass out, I lifted my ban and agreed to make mini pies in my muffin pan. Don’t worry!! I had a few bites of one before he left to avoid math ruin.

Hand delivered in bed, because Pi Day is classy like that

Hand delivered in bed, because Pi Day is classy like that

These mini pies went a lot better than last time. My previous experience informed the crust cutting-out step, and there wasn’t an awkward lattice top crust to worry about. Plus, the filling was actually delicious because I used a legit recipe. Still more work than a normal pie, but I might be convinced to do it again sometime.

The perfect portion!

The perfect portion!

The filling is pear ginger, and you brown the butter with ginger and vanilla bean for a smooth, well-balanced flavor. Pear on its own would be too bland, but adding just enough ginger makes it pop. I was really pleased with how these turned out!

Happy Pi Day!!

Oranges All Over Everything

As often happens when my parents visit me, I’m left with a giant sack of oranges and grapefruit. They are delicious, but numerous, so Steven and I have to conscientiously try to eat them all before they go bad. To that end, we once again had a ORANGE CHALLENGE SURPRISE dinner on Sunday. It’s kind of like Iron Chef, and the secret ingredient was orange. I’m not sure which of us won this one. Here’s what I made:

I'm not giving you the recipe, because it sucked

I’m not giving you the recipe, because it sucked

On the plus side, it used up three oranges and one grapefruit, so it beat Steven’s on that score. If only it had used them well. It was supposed to be a kind of orzo pasta salad with citrus, red onion, mint, and basil. Yeah… Mint and basil are a super weird combo, and I’m not sure which was the main flavor problem or if it was somehow both of them. Also, red onion always tastes unpleasantly like acid to me, no matter how finely chopped, so each bite basically just tasted like eating raw onion. Bleh.

Luckily, Steven’s was more successful:

He made homemade truffles, like a fancy person

He made homemade truffles, like a fancy person

Usually when Steven tackles these fancy, difficult projects, they end up kind of weird if they end up as anything at all. So you can imagine my shock when it was my easy, sensible recipe that failed hardcore, and his that was a delicious success. He made two kinds: the ones pictured, an orange liqueur truffle, and some orange ginger ones. The process was long, and fraught with peril and messiness, but they are incredibly delicious. Almost too delicious, like I can barely eat a whole one, they’re so rich. This project only took one orange, but it used it wisely.

Back to eating them for breakfast and snacks for me!

Lembas

My penpal sent me a recipe for lembas that she found on tumblr! I was pretty excited to see if one small could “fill the stomach of a grown man.”

Unfortunately I didn't have any giant leaves to wrap it in

Unfortunately I didn’t have any giant leaves to wrap it in

The process was pretty straightforward, except I needed more cream than the recipe called for. I also added more cinnamon, and it still is only lightly spiced, so if I do it again I may add even more. Like most shortbready type recipes, the only annoying part is mixing in the cold butter with a pastry cutter, but I’m a pro at that. Then you roll it out and cut it into squares:

Only a few ended up actually being perfect squares, but the ugly ones will taste better because they've got more to prove

Only a few ended up actually being perfect squares, but the ugly ones will taste better because they’ve got more to prove

And after 12 minutes of baking time:

Silicone baking mats ftw

Silicone baking mats ftw

These are pretty good, although definitely not as nutritious as their LOTR counterpart. They’re halfway between a scone and a cookie, with a crunchy outside and soft inside.

Next time, with more cinnamon!

Next time, with more cinnamon!

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients
2.5 cups flour
1 tbl baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon (I added at least 2)
1/2 tsp hoeny
2/3 cup heavy cream (probably closer to 1 cup)
1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions
Preheat oven to 425F. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Add butter and mix well with pastry cutter. Then add the sugar and cinnamon. Add cream, honey, and vanilla, and stir until dough forms, adding more cream or flour for consistency.

Roll the dough out about 1/2 inch thickness. Cut out 3-inch squares and transfer to cookie sheet. Criss-cross each square from corner to corner with a knife lightly, not cutting through the dough.

Bake for about 12 minutes, until dough is set and light golden.

2013 Cookbook Project: Coca-Cola: Refreshing Recipes

I wanted to start off my New Year’s Resolution to make one recipe out of each of our (completely underused) cookbooks with this one, partially because I considered it a challenge! Also because we’ve had it for like two years (I think it was a Christmas gift to Steven) and have never used it once.

Plus, I spent at least once of those years thinking it was a joke

Plus, I spent at least once of those years thinking it was a joke

This book actually has a ton of recipes in it, with chapters on Soups & Starters, Beef & Pork, Poultry & Seafood, Sides, Sauces & Salads, and Desserts. A lot of them don’t really use that much Coke–maybe a little in the sauce where you might normally use sugar–which would explain how they could work in so many different kinds of recipes, from Asian beef to paella. But, let’s be real, you could easily make any of these without Coke. In fact, for most of them I think you could follow the recipe in the Coke cookbook, but omit the Coke, and still be fine. It really didn’t seem like it made too much of a difference in most of these recipes, which is probably for the best tasty-recipe-wise. The one I decided to make was “Sweet and Spicy Shrimp Tacos with Mango Salsa” (recipe after the cut):

It turned out pretty delicious

Steven and I are both pretty bad at folding tacos so the stuff doesn’t fall out so we usually don’t even try

It turned out delicious! I’m always a little nervous about cooking shrimp, and the process usually involves me yelling “What do you think now?” at Steven multiple times before we both agree that they’re probably beyond done. I really liked the mango salsa, although we started late so it didn’t get to steep the required 1 hour in the fridge before we ate it. This meal was kind of weird, but good, and not really as much work as its length made me think it would be. I guess this book makes the cut, even if it is a little silly. Especially since I still want to try some of the desserts, like Coca-Cola Float Cupcakes.
Recipe: Read the rest of this entry »

November Apology

It’s time again for my annual November Apology for being bad at updating. I like to blame NaNoWriMo for this, but recent evidence suggests the problem goes further back. For instance, of the 14 years I’ve kept a journal, November is easily my least prolific month. May, the month during which I’ve written the most entries, has twice as many.

Of course I made a chart, do you even know me?

In fact, of the seven days on which I have never written a journal entry, 3 (or 43%) are in November:

Also a bunch of them are on the 6th for some reason.

So clearly this problem dates back to 1998, way before I ever heard of NaNoWriMo. Incidentally, since I know you’re curious, the date I’ve written the most journal entries (7) on, is a tie between February 6th and October 17th:

Anyway, this year is my 5th doing NaNoWriMo, so it’s a little less exciting. I write a lot, so I’m pretty good at churning out the required word limit every day. I decided to try to spice things up by writing a Pick Your Own Adventure novel, complete with so many grisly death scenes. This is more complicated and confusing, but actually makes it easier to write a lot of words. I’m already three days ahead.

The green bar is James

He was ahead of me, until the third day, and then never regained his lead. YOU CAN DO IT JAMES JUST GOTTA BELIEVE IN YOURSELF! In case you don’t remember why this is important:

Come on, James, if you can learn the Hoedown Throwdown, you can do this

Anyway, in the meantime, I managed to make a peach slump:

Peach and berry!

Slumps are kind of weird. I like that they don’t require an oven, and therefore seem like less work, but the way the biscuit topping is steamed in the pot on top of the fruit instead of baked gives it a weird consistency that Steven hated and I was just kind of meh about. Probably will not be slumping it again!

Also, this is the tree outside my window right now!!!

Fall!!! I love you!!!

So, yeah, I have stuff going on. Expect reports on how I am still MASTER OF MY OWN THANKSGIVING soon!

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