No-Fly Lemon-Amaretto Cake

I want to thank everyone for being supportive of my blog. It's fun to write and I appreciate all the comments - and all of the suggestions of what to cook next. Today's recipe was suggested by my friend Mike. He says he has been making this Lemon-Amaretto Cake since he was about 10 years old, minus the alcohol in his formative years.

I actually made this cake back in December, divided into 2 loaf pans, and took them to Finland with me as hostess gifts for the families that I was visiting. You can see slices of the cake on the table (left) during a morning visit with the extended family. (The other photos are from the farm I stayed at during Christmas). Although the cake was well received with morning coffee and was the perfect post-sauna (pronounced "s-ow-na") snack, I would estimate that the loaves added about 5 pounds of weight to my carry-on and I was a little worried that I might have some trouble with getting through security. Alcohol drenched pound cake is a perfect terrorist weapon - brick like and perhaps a good vessel for chloroform. Does anyone else spend time thinking about ways to get things passed through TSA? Really, I would like think they make us safer, but if there are terrorists as smart and as creative as I am...well, we should be afraid. I hope this post doesn't put me on the no-fly list.

I had some discussions with Mike about the best way to soak the cake in the Amaretto syrup to get the most absorption. When warm? When cold? My final strategy was to apply the syrup with several applications, applying both when warm and when cool.

Lemon-Amaretto Cake

source: Cooks.com

Ingredients 

Cake

1 1/2 c. sliced almonds

1/2 lb. unsalted butter, softened

2 c. granulated sugar

1 tbsp. finely grated lemon zest

2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. lemon extract

5 eggs

Syrup 

6 tbsp. granulated sugar

4 tbsp. Amaretto liqueur

3 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

Instructions 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread almonds on a baking sheet and place in oven for 8 to 10 minutes, or until just golden. Remove and set aside.
2. Lightly grease and flour two 5 x 8 loaf pans  Sprinkle 1/2 cup of toasted almonds evenly between the bottoms of the two pans (1/4 cup in each pan). See #4 in the notes section.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter, sugar and lemon zest together until pale yellow and fluffy. Add flour; stir just enough to blend.
4. Add lemon juice and extracts. Stir. Add eggs, one at a time, stirring after each addition.
5. With a rubber spatula, gently fold in all of the remaining toasted almonds.
6. Scrape the batter into the prepared pans and bake until cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour and 5 minutes. (After 30 minutes of baking, cover top of cake tightly with aluminum foil).
7. While cake is baking, prepare syrup: In a saucepan, slowly heat the sugar, Amaretto and lemon juice, stirring, until sugar melts. Reserve until ready to use.
8. When the cake is done, remove from oven; with a cake tester or a shish kabob skewer, poke holes all over the top of the cake. Carefully pour or brush on 1/2 of the syrup until it is absorbed into the holes. You may need to make several applications because the entire amount probably won't absorb all at once. Cool cake in the pan on a cake rack for 10 minutes.
9. Gently invert the cake onto another rack and remove from pan. With cake tester, poke holes in the bottom and sides of cake; brush each side with remaining syrup. 
10. You can keep brushing the cake with straight liqueur if you want or put some Amaretto in the bottom of the pan and put the loaf back into the pan for soaking. I think used an additional 1/4 cup of Amaretto, and probably could have used more.
11. Let cake cool completely before placing in gift container, gift-wrapping and taking to your airport's security check.
Serves 12 good size pieces. Per serving (with the syrup) : 481 calories, 24g fat, 130mg cholesterol.

Notes about this recipe: 
1. If you don't have lemon extract, don't worry. You can just use a little more lemon juice or leave it out for a less lemony cake.


2. To apply the syrup, I ended up using the squeeze bottle shown in the photo, and poured liquid directly into the holes I created with the cake tester/skewer. I also tried a pastry brush but had less control of where the syrup went. I think you could also just use a teaspoon to help pour the syrup into the holes.
3. You can also use a single 10-inch nonstick Bundt pan (instead of the 2 loaf pans) and cook for 1 hour and 10 minutes.
4. If I make this recipe again as loaves, I will probably sprinkle the almonds on top instead of the bottom. The idea is to have a decorative top of your cake. With a bundt pan, the top is the bottom, so you should put the almonds on the bottom of the pan before adding the batter. For loaves, the top is the top so the almonds should be sprinkled on top, after the batter is put in the pans.

Pot Luck O' the Irish - Asparagus with Honey Garlic Sauce

 I really love pot lucks. You can always count on at least one really, really good thing - more if you have friends that can cook.  My good friends from Boston are staying with me and they conveniently organized a dinner party at my house. I was away in Vegas and a little too distracted to say yes or no. I think they knew I would say yes....I love to host parties, dinners, etc. Pot lucks are great are even better because it's less work.

Here is the recipe I made for last night's pot luck. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Asparagus with Honey-Garlic Sauce
Adapted from Cooking With Beer

Ingredients
1 pound asparagus
1/4 cup dijon mustard
1/4 cup dark ale or beer (I used Brooklyn Brown Ale)
3 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 crushed dried thyme leaves
1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions
Trim edges of asparagus. Mince garlic. Bring water boil. While water is heating up, combine mustard, ale, honey, garlic, thyme and salt. Mix well. Add asparagus to boiling, salted water. Cook covered, about 2 minutes or until barely tender. Drain. Pour dressing over asparagus.

Notes about asparagus: Asparagus tastes best when cooked soon after purchase. You should make sure your supermarket refrigerates their asparagus or stores it standing upright in cold water. When you bring asparagus home, wrap stalks in damp paper towels and store in the crisper until ready to prepare.

The Go To Moves: "Booty Call Shrimp with Tomato, Basil and White Wine over Pasta" Finished with "Framboise and Ice Cream"

First off, I need to give some blog love to my dear friend Kathleen - she has guest posted here several times. She also writes her own blog which makes me laugh out loud. Last week, she posted about her  one of her "go to" moves, as she describes, "Moves we whip out when we’re aiming to woo, impress, or make the sexy time." She named her "go to" move "Booty Call Shrimp with Tomato, Basil and White Wine over Pasta." You can read more about it with her post and you can find the recipe at the bottom of this post. Get ready to giggle.

I've spent the last few days thinking about how to segway this topic into a new recipe of my own. I was at a Freakin' Frogs in Las Vegas last week - the biggest beer bar on the West Coast according to menu at the restaurant. I'm not sure if this is true, but I do know for a fact that they are the biggest beer bar with the suckiest name in all of the U.S. Aside from the name, it was a great place. The bartender was friendly and very knowledgeable and showed us the cooler with all of the beer selections. He also gave mad props to my city, calling Philadelphia a beer mecca.

Don't worry, I'm about to ramble back onto the topic of go-to moves. One of Freakin' Frogs specials was beer floats - vanilla ice cream with either Lindeman's Lambic Framboise or Young's Double Cream Stout - reminding me of a very good "go-to" move for those of you who fear the kitchen, who are challenged dessert makers, or those who are just too busy. There are other fruit Lambics available, so you can choose your favorite flavor:  framboise (raspberry), kriek (cherry), pêche (peach), cassis (black currant), and pomme (apple).

A "go to" move must be impressive, easy and reliable. I think this one fits the bill. Yeah, it's kind of cheating as far as actual baking skills, but it is such a delicious combination, people will be wowed by the taste, especially if they never have had Fambroise Lambic before or if you live in Pennsylvania and it's kind of a schlep to find a package store that sells this beer. (Read more about the challenges of obtaining beer in Keystone State).

In search of photos for this recipe, I came across a whole blog post about different types of beer floats. Ooo and here is a recipe for Lambic Sorbet! Yum, I'm hungry. 

Booty Call Shrimp with Tomato, Basil and White Wine over Pasta

Subtitle, “I shaved my legs today.”

You really should go to Kathleen's blog and see the wonderful photos and she's funny too. The recipe below is as she wrote it.

Ingredients

1/2 lbs uncooked shrimp per person. I’m persnickety about springing for larger, fresh water shrimp, but do whatever your budget will accommodate.

1/4 cup kosher salt

lots of tomatoes, I like a mixture of plum, vine ripened and cherry

green onions

lots of basil

a few cloves of garlic

salt

pepper

olive oil

a hunk of butter

white wine (cooking or drinking)

pasta

Parmesan cheese

optional additions: spinach, lump crab meat (although i find this to be a low ROI addition)

Instructions

1. Peel and de-vein the shrimp. Make an ice bath with kosher salt and brine the shrimp for 30 minutes.  

2. Meanwhile, quarter and seed the big tomatoes. Discard the seeds and juice. Dice the flesh. Chop the green onions, garlic and basil. 

3. In large saute pan, heat olive oil and butter to medium high. Saute garlic for a minute or so. Don’t let it burn! Add shrimp and green onions. Saute for 4 - 5 minutes, until you can see that the shrimp are fully cooked. If you don’t know what fully cooked shrimp look like, google it. Turn the heat down to medium. Add spinach here, if you’re doing it. Saute until it’s wilted and reduced. Add the diced tomatoes, basil and the white wine, about a quarter of a cup if you’re cooking for two, then splashes as needed. Not too runny! Add salt and pepper to taste. Add cherry tomatoes and cook until they are still intact but the skins look like they’re gonna break. At the last minute gently fold in lump crab meat (if doing), just enough to warm it, but not enough that it breaks up and is lost in the slush.

4. Serve over cooked pasta. Top with parmesan cheese and crushed up roofies. Fluff your hair, touch up your make up, and enjoy!

Lindemans Framboise Float
Vanilla ice cream
Lindemans Framboise – Raspberry Lambic

Fresh raspberries (optional)
Lady fingers or other sugar cookie of your choice (optional)
 

Scoop ice cream into pint glass. Add Lindemans Frambiose. Garnish with one or two cookies and raspberries, optional but adds to the wow-factor.

Note: Lady fingers are a little fancy pants for a cookie garnish, but happened to be in my cupboard when I first made this a few years ago. If you buy lady fingers for this, you might as well buy some marscapone so you can make Tiramisu. Don't worry, there will be a blog post for that sometime soon.

The photo to the right was taken from flickr.

 

Bacon Bourbon Caramel Corn

 I saw a post somewhere today (maybe on DailyCandy?) advertising Bourbon Bacon Caramel Corn and couldn't stop thinking about it all afternoon. When thinking about what to have for dinner, all I could think of was sweet and bacony crunchy popcorn. These thoughts were fueled by the actual presence of bacon in my refrigerator and some popcorn kernels that had been sitting in a Tupperware container on my counter since 2 ears of dried corn showed up in my farm share last summer.

A search on google only found the product for sale, already made. I was only able to find a recipe for caramel corn and used this for my starting point.

I haven't made popcorn from without a microwave since I was young. It was fun to relive these memories. Did anyone else sneak homemade popcorn in brown paper bags into the movies when they were younger? 

Some things I learned while making this recipe:
1. 1/3 to 1/2 cups of kernal popcorn yields 3.5 quarts
2. Don't try to reheat unpopped kernel - the ones that do pop are sadly disappointing, they half pop, kinda like those fireworks that go up and explode into one spark and make you say "Booooooo" instead of "Ooooooooooo"
3. Don't try to taste test boiling caramel sauce, it's still really hot even after you've removed it from the stove for 5 minutes.
4. Try not to burn your bacon. I just got a new griddle. It captured and held heat so well the bacon was done before I knew it.

Popcorn and Bacon

3-5 strips bacon
3 Tablespoons canola, peanut, or grapeseed oil (high smoke point oil)
1/3 cup of high quality popcorn kernels
1 3-quart covered saucepan

Instructions
1. Cook the bacon until crispy, place on paper towels to remove grease, cool.
2. Heat the oil in a 3-quart saucepan on medium high heat.
3. Put 3 or 4 popcorn kernels into the oil and cover the pan.
4. When the kernels pop, add the rest of the 1/3 cup of popcorn kernels in an even layer. Cover, remove from heat and count 30 seconds. This step first heats the oil to the right temperature, then waiting 30 seconds brings all of the other kernels to a near-popping temperature so that when they are put back on the heat, they all pop at about the same time.
5. Return the pan to the heat. The popcorn should begin popping soon, and all at once. Once the popping starts in earnest, gently shake the pan by moving it back and forth over the burner. Try to keep the lid slightly ajar to let the steam from the popcorn release (the popcorn will be drier and crisper). Once the popping slows to several seconds between pops, remove the pan from the heat, remove the lid, and dump the popcorn immediately into a wide bowl. With this technique, nearly all of the kernels pop and nothing burns.

6.  Crumble bacon. Add bacon to popcorn and toss.

If you don't want to add the caramel and bacon you can....
7. Add butter, you can easily melt it by placing the butter in the now empty, but hot pan.
8. Salt to taste.
 

Makes 2 quarts, a nice amount for two people, or for one hungry one.

Bourbon Caramel Sauce
1/2  cup real butter

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup maple syrup (or light corn syrup)
1 to 2 Tablespoon Bourbon
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda

Instructions
1. Heat oven to 250 degrees F.
2. Bring butter, brown sugar, and corn syrup to a boil, stirring constantly.
3. Reduce heat and boil for 5 minutes; remove from heat.

4. Stir in boubon, vanilla, salt, and baking soda and mix.
5. Pour over popped corn and bacon.

6. Spread coated popcorn into (2) 11" X 9" X 2" baking pans.


7. Bake in a 250 degree oven for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.

8. Cool for 1 hour, then break up before storing.

Swoop There It Is

Ah, the swoop....one of my favorite things in the world. It's been several years since I've had a good swoop. The swoop is so elusive and unpredictable. But when it happens, it is exciting and makes you glow.  The swoop is not the Philadelphia Eagles mascot.  The swoop is when you meet a fantastic guy who sweeps you off your feet so unexpectedly. He actually calls you and asks you out on dates. He sends you sweet texts messages. He is real and open and honest about himself. He opens the door for you and makes you soup. He makes you laugh. And he asks you out on dates, yes, actually asks you out. All you want to do is spend your time with this special person and share with them and learn more about them.

So, I've been swooped and that's what I've been up to for the last 2 months. One of the many great things about my swoop is that he likes to cook too. So, there has been a lot of cooking going on, some of it while drinking alcohol...but I haven't really been inspired to cook anything with alcohol in the actual recipe. At the end of this post is a rundown and links to some of the recipes I've worked with in the last month: S'Mores Pie, Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes, and Chocolate Chipotle Flourless Cake....all amazing, just like my swoop.

In the midst of the all this swooping, I spent some time in Finland and Sweden over the holidays with my good friends Heather and Mikko. Christmas was spent at Mikko's family farm in the village of Suojoki, northwest of Helsinki. After Christmas we took an overnight boat (think carnival cruise ship) to Stockholm, Sweden to spend a few days in a city of lights, design, and H and M. We headed back to Helsinki for a New Year's Eve Russian dinner and then ringing in the new year at a multi-roomed club that played all the favorite american rock and dance hits plus some SoumiBod (Finnish Rock music). Oddly, the Finns don't count down to midnight. Celebration by Kool and the Gang blaring from the 2 rooms over was the only sign of the beginning of 2010. Although there wasn't an official countdown,  Heather did bring some USA to the party with party hats, leis, and noise makers and we had our own countdown at 12:10 am.

I've also been taking viola lessons. As a joke, I offered to play Sunrise Sunset at my friend's wedding this coming October. I had played this piece at my sister's wedding over 20 years ago. I've had about 3 weeks of lessons, starting at the very basics - learning how to hold the bow and viola. This past lesson I've been actually reading music and playing simple songs. Next week I start Suzuki book 2. We haven't picked out the official wedding song yet.....hopefully by October I'll be up to something more wedding-like than Ode to Joy.

I hope to get back on track with posting more soused recipes on a regular basis. I do have a little bit of a backlog from tasty things I made over the Thanksgiving/holiday party season. For now, here are some non-alcohol but otherwise fantastic recipes, leaving you more alcohol to actually drink.

S'More Pie
From Smitten Kitchen
Did you know that National Pie Day was January 23? I attended a Pie Celebration and brought this tasty S'More Pie. Unfortunately I do not have a photo of my own pie. Although really fun to make and a bit of an exciting challenge to make my own marshmallow, this was all about waiting. There are 3 main parts of the recipe 1) graham cracker crust, 2) chocolate cream filling, and 3) marshmallow topping, with a total of almost 5 hours of waiting time for things to cool or set. That's a lot of time for wine. Don't drink too much because you'll need some faculties for part 3. Making your own marshmallow is awesome, but you could also use mini-marshmallows instead. Second to making marshmallow, you get to "toast" your pie using the broiler setting of your stove. If your lucky, it will catch on fire and you'll rush to remove it from the oven and blow out the flame...bringing you that much closer your campfire memories

Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting 
From the Barefoot Contessa

The frosting was delicious and will become a go-to recipe for frosting for future chocolate things. I'm still in search of a better chocolate cupcake recipe. This one turned out a little dry which might have been because I did doubled the recipe and mixed too much but most likely because I did not sift the dry ingredients. Thinking about this recipe and the S'More Pie recipe has me thinking about possibilities for S'More Cupcakes - YUM!




Chocolate Chipotle Flourless Cake
Adapted from Simply Recipes and YumSugar
If you are looking for an easy but totally impressive, melt-in-your mouth with a bit of spice chocolate fix, look no further. I combined two recipes for this, one for the flourless cake and one for a chocolate ganache icing. The cake puffed up while cooking and looked a little rough when it came out of the oven. The frosting, decorated with some of the remaining chocolate chips gave it a finished look. Ghirardelli chocolate chips are flat and can be easily pushed into the frosting/cake. Props to Mr. Feeling for the great decorating idea.

Cake Ingredients
10 oz. of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
7 tablespoons of unsalted butter, cut into pieces
5 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon of chipotle chili powder
Dash of cayenne pepper
Pinch of salt
Powdered sugar for dusting (optional)

Cake Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line the bottom of a 9 ½ inch springform pan with a circle of parchment paper. Grease the sides and the parchment with butter or non-stick cooking spray.
2. Melt the chocolate and butter together over a double boiler or in the microwave, stirring occasionally until smooth.
3. Whisk together the eggs and the sugar in a large bowl, and then slowly, a bit at a time, whisk in the melted chocolate. Add the salt and spices and taste, adjusting the spices if needed.
4. Pour into the springform pan* and bake for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
5. Allow the cake to cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Then carefully remove the sides of the springform pan. Cover the top with a wire rack and invert the cake and the rack together. Carefully remove the bottom of the pan and peel off the wax paper. Place a second wire rack over the bottom of the cake and invert it once again, so the top faces up. Allow to cool completely on the rack.
6. Dust with powdered sugar or cover with icing (below) and serve.

*I only have a square springform pan as shown in my photo. I would have preferred to use a round one. You can also just use a round cake pan.

Chocolate Icing Ingredients
4 tablespoons butter
2 oz unsweetened chocolate
2 oz semisweet chocolate
3 tablespoons whipping cream
2/3 cup sifted confectioner's sugar (kosher, if desired)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Icing Instructions
1. Melt the butter and both of the chocolates in the top of a double boiler over simmering water, whisking constantly. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the cream. Add the confectioner's sugar and the vanilla and whisk until smooth.
2. Place the cake on a rack on top of a baking sheet to catch the drips, or just put your cake on your serving plate/tray and let the it catch all the drips. Pour the warm icing over the cake. Spread it with a long, thin cake spatula or knife, making sure the sides are iced too. If you want a dripping down the sides effect, let the icing cool and thicken a little bit and then push it over the edge to create the drips. Let the cake rest for two hours for the icing to set.

Boeuf a la Bourguignonne: Rachel Ray wouldn’t touch this recipe with a ten foot pole.

I admit it: I’m totally on the Julie-Julia bandwagon. I had heard about the Julie/Julia Project, one woman’s quest to cook all 536 recipes in Julia Child’s legendary cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 365 days, in passing years ago and read the book a few months ago. The whole concept is right up my ally, for a few reasons. First, it combines two things I love, cooking and writing. Second, it resulted in a not-so-secret fantasy of mine coming to life: a normal girl’s blog launching her second career as a writer.

Wipe that smirk off your face and stop laughing. I ask you - what’s so damn funny about that??

Also, as a side note, from someone who has read Julie/Julia, seen the movie and is working her way through Julia Child’s autobiography My Life In France, they are all worth a read/view if you love to cook. Julia/Julia, the book, goes into great detail about the food - from the quest to find marrow bone to the trial/error/error/trial of making the perfect an edible crepe to more information than I ever wanted to know about aspics, it’s all there. The movie goes into much greater detail about the life story of Julia Child, which Julie Powell's book only touches on and is inspiring to anyone who would like to believe her life’s course is not set in concrete by age 30. My Life in France, of course, goes into even greater detail. None of the three are particularly drama-ridden or fast-paced, but I loved them all. You may or may not.

For these reasons and because on Christmas morning I unwrapped my own copy of MTAFC, for my second spot on the Soused Chef, I have decided to step it up a bit, moving on from nuked alcohol-laced cheese to one of Julia Child’s signature recipes, Boeuf a la Bourguignonne - Beef Stew in Red Wine, with Bacon, Onions and Mushrooms.

Some observations I made along the way:

1. First off, I know one of the points of this blog is to post the recipes, but for this one, I highly recommend just picking up a copy of MTAFC if you want to try it. (Available on Amazon for as little as $20.00.) Simply put, there is more to Boeuf a la Bourguignonne than just the recipe.

2. If I were attempting to cook my way through the entire book, attacking BB would’ve enabled me to cross off not one but three recipes, as during the course of the recipe one must also cross-reference and prepare Oignons Glaces a Brun (Brown-Braised Onions) as well as Champignons Sautes au Beurre (Sauteed Mushrooms).

3. This cookbook gives painstaking detail as to not only what you should or should not be doing, but the why behind it. In My Life in France Julia describes her style as one of “culinary exactness” with a “scientific approach”, and the book relays example after example of recipes she went round and round and round perfecting. Much of this painstaking work I will never benefit from, as seen in Exhibit A:

“Through trial and error, for instance, I deduced exactly how much gelatin must go into exactly how much liquid per exactly how much mayonnaise so one can make pretty mayo curlicues on a fish dish.”

But as one who is a self-admitted lover of detail and process, I can appreciate the effort.

One side effect of all this exactness, though, is an almost paralyzing intimidation, the likes of which I have never faced in the kitchen. Most cookbooks do not list the negative consequences of not following the recipe to a T; at times, Julia does:

“Successfully sauteed mushrooms are lightly browned and exude none of their juice while they are being cooked; to achieve this the mushrooms must be dry, the butter very hot, and the mushrooms must not be crowded in the pan. If you saute too many at once they steam rather than fry; their juices escape and they do not brown.”

The implied, unwritten next sentence being, “and you will forever be a miserable failure, whose biggest culinary feats will be undercooked Raman Noodles and anything done on a George Forman Grill.”

Even when a consequence is not spelled out, the premise under which you wind up cooking is that Julia specifies a certain amount or parameter because she’s tried it every other way with inferior results. That being said, imagine my horror when after spending an afternoon crawling all over Charm City looking for a “9 to 10 inch fireproof casserole, 3 inches deep”, I came home only to unpack a dish that upon measurement ended up being eight inches across and four inches deep. In a panic, I placed a call to my parents’ house, where one cook and several individuals with advanced degrees in mathematics were congregated. My mom passed the phone to my sister, to whom I shrieked, “I don’t want to talk to Half-Assed Cook Laurie, I want to talk to Math Genius Laurie - will this casserole dish be big enough??”

Together, we pieced together our learnings from 7th grade algebra:

Still, I proceeded very uneasily.

4. This recipe takes time. I cannot fathom why any sane person would attempt to cook and serve BB on a weeknight. I chose to whip through it on a Saturday afternoon to serve for Sunday dinner, as the recipe states it can be prepared a day in advance, subtly hinting it may even be better that way. I started cooking at 3PM, knowing full well I had dinner plans that evening. Two pieces of serendipity saved me from winding up in the dog house that evening: first, the beef cooked in less time than stated (see below). Second, my dinner companion for that night is a champion who can roll with the punches, not batting an eyelash when I opened the door with crazed look on my face, a spatula in my hand and sweatpants on my bum and acquiescing when I requested we grab a quick drink at a bar on the corner, so I could pop home and throw the cooled stew in the fridge before heading across town to dinner. Well played, sir, well played.

5. The recipe states, “Regulate heat so liquid simmers very slowly for 2.5 - 3 hours. The meat is done when a fork pierces it easily.” Thankfully, I set the kitchen timer for 2 hours, for when the buzzer sounded, I discovered a completely cooked stew, though thankfully, not overcooked. I wondered if it was because the casserole dish I used was cast iron, and this puzzled me tremendously to the point of asking the chef at the restaurant to stop by our table so I could ask (another piece my date took in stride). He thought it much more likely that my oven is not calibrated, something I will need to investigate. Bottom line, check in regularly with yo beef. Saying my life flashed before my eyes is a dramatic understatement of how I felt at the two hour mark.

6. Boeuf Bourguignonne is friggen off the hook good. Right out of the pot, served for dinner the next day (better), and lunch the day after (even better yet). Humina, humina, humina.....

7. This whole kitchen color thing is getting a tad out of hand.

To quote the great Carl Weathers, “Now wait a minute. This is just purely a social call. You know, just two adults getting a stew on, man.”

Getting my stew on,

khop

PS: Some additional pictures from along the way....

Tipsy Fruit Salad

My friend Missy and I had an abundance of frozen sausage from the summer farm share. We decided to go Iron Chef and create our holiday party around this secret ingredient. And because it's fun to be silly and immature when you are an adult, we decided that all non-sausage items had to be ball shape. Yes, my parents would disapprove. Hopefully they won't read this post.  Just as they feared, here is proof that I was corrupted by our high school basketball t-shirts. I was in high school in the early nineties - you know when those "Big Johnson" and "Co-Ed Naked" t-shirts were popular. (Perhaps the Big Johnson T-shirts were only a hick, backwoods Maine popularity?)  So along the same lines, one of our team moms thought printing "Lady Cougars Know How To Handle Balls" on t-shirts was appropriate for 16 to 18 year old girls to wear. Thus began my downfall into immaturity and inappropriateness.

I took a cantaloupe, a melon, and a papaya and used a melon baller to create fruit balls for my salad. Unfortunately the snow put a damper on the party and not too many people were able to part take in Tipsy Melonballs. I find the original recipe (below) a little ridiculous - why would one actually measure out fruit for a fruit salad? I think it's best to get 1 to 2 of each fruit you like and then cut it up and throw it in the bowl - don't worry about measuring, that is crazy! I used raspberry preserves for the sauce because that is what I had. It tasted great, but it turned the sauce a brownish color which was a little off putting. I also think you can cut back (or exclude) the confectioners' sugar, especially if your fruit is ripe. Now that sounds like the beginning of a good t-shirt.....

Tipsy Fruit Salad
Source: About.com
 
Ingredients
3 Tablespoons lime juice
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
3 Tablespoons Grand Marnier liqueur
2 Tablespoons apricot jam (I used raspberry preserves)

Fruit of your Choice, such as
1 cup mandarin orange sections, drained if canned
1 cup seedless grapes
1 cup hulled strawberries, cut in half
1 cup blueberries
1 mango, peeled and diced into 1-inch chunks
1 cup peeled diced apple
1 cup peeled diced pears
1 cup miniature marshmallows, optional

Directions
Place lime juice, sugar, Grand Marnier, and jam in a small bowl. Whisk until combined. Set aside.

Place your fruit (and marshmellow) into a large bowl. Drizzle on the Grand Marnier dressing and gently toss to coat all of the fruit.

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Check out these post ballin' photos. I love these two colors together and I wish I was a little more artistic and had a better camera to create a cooler photo. The texture, shadows and shininess in the remaining fruit was a great contrast.