Sandwich!

Cheese meets English Muffin meets Onion meets Rosemary meets Pear meets Spinach


My first sandwich here! I remember someone telling me a really bad joke about sandwich in third grade. Something about a witch. Actually I don't think 3rd humor was at this level yet, but I just thought maybe it was about a beach-y witch. Ahah, get it?

Kay, anyhow. I got this idea from here . Except regular onion instead of red. Pear was not ripe, sad story and not grilled, which would have been better. The laughing cow cheese is bomb. I most definitely recommend.

Eat this like this .

-Amanda

The Chard Didn't Char, Wilted Instead!

I couldn't find rainbow, but this chard was red and it worked. Except it wilted quick. I got it on Friday I think, so I probably should have used it sooner than today. It's alright. This smells good and you get to use stems!

It's all from this prettiness.







I left out the thyme and used extra rosemary instead, very good. Maybe one less egg?

This is what you'll be saying to them stems.

-Amanda

Tahini Brownies

Do you ever have dreams of chocolate halvah but fluffy? I do.


Here it is. From here.

They'll be going like ...




The end.

-Amanda

Crack Pie!

I did it! It's good. It should have cooked more but that's okay. Not too hard. Got to pull out food processor. Would have benefited from the addition of some rum or something else fun. Imperfect rhyme?

Thank you L.A. Times, where you slump in theatre reviews, you make up for it in providing me recipes.

This fits .



-Amanda

Return of the Muffin

Apple Bran and Oat Muffins
These are fallish. They have bran, but don't really taste like it. They called for raisins, but I'm not a big raisin fan so I replaced the raisin with a chopped up granny smith. Sadistic?



I went here and adapted.
France would have probably had a muffin deficit. So yay! I like muffins.
-Amanda

Naked Cake: Tres Leches

Tres Leches is supposed to have whipped cream on top.
I'm not supposed to gawk at my RSS feed while making whipped cream, because whipped cream turns into butter, which with sugar and vanilla is really nasty.

Anyhow this cake was kind of bomb anyway so it's okay. Especially since I used kirsch instead of regular brandy (and too much of it).

Also, I put blueberries on top but only to distract from lack of whipped cream. Make this: time consuming, but not too much effort.
Credits to here.



(switched shot)Changeling?

-Amanda

Cupcakes or Beef Stroganoff?

The man at the counter guessed the latter, when confronted with my purchases of a few last ingredients. I understand him--I don't instantly think of cupcakes when I see heavy cream and sour cream, and nothing else.

This is what they were actually for!


I'm so glad I had an urge to make traditional cupcakes. It's fantastic. This blog's photo brought something out of me. I want to use the word nostalgic, because of Mad Men, and I'm close, but I can't. Maybe if my mom made me cupcakes as a child or something. Nostalgic for my food-making childhood? Ok I can buy that! I will! Nostalgic :)

I didn't like buying sour cream, and I hated putting it in my cupcakes. It wasn't yogurt! But I think if I thought about it less, the taste wouldn't have bothered me. These were so moist and delicious. The dough is usually never perfect! It was lightly goldened, up and rounded, delicate, cohesive, filling, scrumptious. The topping was the part that drew fans, but that's the easy part, so it's never the part I focus on.

Oh, and the batter tasted just like cream cheese frosting.

I followed the recipe all the way home, but I did use a bit less cream (237ml) and a few ounces less of chocolate. Oh I also did the chocolate-melting in a double boiler.



I want one more! But it's on to bavarian sugar cookies for me now.

-Anna

Vinaigrettik with a pickle!

Salat Vinaigrette-- something I was very skeptical of as a child. I did not like beets. They were red and squirmy!

But then I grew up, and now, here I am, recreating recipes from memory (and a few google searches just to make sure I had the basics down).

Let me break it down for you:

4 small beets
4 small potatoes (I think I had yukon gold? They were buttery and sweet and delicious.)
1 pickle (I used a persian cucumber I pickled myself. See recipe below)
1/2 med red onion
approx 1 tbsp olive oil
approx 1/2 tbsp chopped dill

Steam your beets and potatoes. Dice them up into semi-small pieces. Usually smaller is better, but it depends on your liking level of laziness.
Toss them into a bowl.
Add in diced pickle.
Dice the onion, and throw that in.
Add the olive oil and chopped dill, and mix everything together gently. It will all be pink! This includes your hands, if that's what you like to mix gently with. Be careful not to mush when you mix.



Pickles! (And pickled tomatoes!)

These were so unbelievably easy. Everything is surprising me so well!

I based my attempt on this

What I used:
6tbsp apple cider vinegar (as per my friend Maddy's recommendation)
3c water
3tbsp salt
many cloves of garlic
lots of fresh dill
tomatoes and cucumbers

Dissolve together the water, vinegar, and salt. Then throw in the dill and garlic. Then lower in your tomatoes. Splish splash. After a few days in the refrigerator, taste one! You will note that the tomatoes have cracks in them. Gorgeous. I can't imagine anything more beautiful, frankly. But beware--they spurt! All over your keyboard, in fact.

Then, when the brine is tomato-free, you can slice up some cucumbers and throw them in to pickle. A few days later, you have perfect Vinaigrette-making material.



I really liked the apple cider vinegar note of the pickles when in the Vinaigrette. The salad is a bit sweet because of the beets, so my sweeter potatoes and pickles seemed to mesh really well. I don't want to toot my own horn, but that may have been my favorite Salat Vinaigrette, of ever. That may also be because I haven't had any in a long time..

Maybe someday soon I'll make Salat Olivier for you too!

Til then, byebye

-Anna