Thursday Night Dinner

Who do we think we are?

Thursday night dinner looks very fancy thanks to the generous wedding gifts including the plates, silverware, serving bowl and wine opener, but believe it or not, these are left-overs. Pesto pasta from last night (which Evan lovingly refers to as $2 dinner), tomatoes and cucumbers left-over from our vegetable tray from yesterday thrown on a bag-o-salad with turkey lunch meat and the wine. Well, the wine isn’t leftover. It is actually the first bottle we opened from the bottles we picked up on our honeymoon in Napa.

Married life is sweet.

Buttercream Frosted

I have been really inspired after my trip to the newly opened Bethesda location of Georgetown Cupcake. Although I make cupcakes often, I rarely make my own frosting from scratch. So this morning, I was feeling motivated and made a cream cheese buttercream frosting to go with my spice cake cupcakes. I still have to practice more to get them looking as professional as the GT Cupcakes, but it is a delicious project to work on.

Cream Cheese Buttercream Recipe

1 package Cream Cheese, softened
1 stick of Unsalted Sweet Cream Butter, softened
1 lb of Confectioner’s Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla

Mix cream cheese and butter in mixer using the paddle attachment. Mix in sugar scraping the sides occasionally. Add in vanilla and mix some more!

Pumpkin Roll

A couple years ago, while living in Arkansas, I hosted an October Bunco party. I planned my menu for weeks. I chose foods that would fit with a Halloween theme, witches fingers (vienna sausages wrapped in puff pastry), coffin dip (pumpernickel bread cut like coffins with dill dip) and a blood ball (shrimp ball drizzled in cocktail sauce). I made sugar cookies in the shape of pumpkins and witches hat cookies. Everything fit my theme and my only stress was the “day of” execution. I always get stressed on the “day of” and once in a while, Evan and I will get in a tiff because of it. Evan had made a Pumpkin Roll and wanted me to serve it at my party. I was irritated because it didn’t go with my theme and I wanted the menu to be things that I had prepared. I had worked so hard to plan it out and prepare everything. And to be perfectly honest, I wanted the credit when the guests oohed and aahed. By the time the first car pulled in the driveway, I had kicked Evan out and let the Pumpkin Roll stay. Big mistake.

Guests arrived and grazed through the spread of food with the regular, “how cute” type of polite comments. That is, until they came to the Pumpkin Roll. These ladies went crazy over this Pumpkin Roll! There were extraordinarily loud “MMmmmms” and they were all dieing over the filling. Three people asked for the recipe and one woman suggested that I email it out to the whole Bunco listserv. Then the conversation went on and on about how difficult it is to make “rolls”. It was everything I could do not to lose it when I had to announce that I didn’t make it. I think some of the crowd was genuinely disappointed or worried that I didn’t have the recipe to give. So the party went on and I didn’t mention much about it. The week following the party, I received two phone calls asking for the recipe since I did not send it out.

Fast forward a couple weeks to Thanksgiving and I was planning a potluck with two couples in Arkansas. Both women were in the Bunco group and asked me to ask Evan to make the Pumpkin Roll. That stupid Pumpkin Roll would haunt me forever. I swallowed my pride and told him to prepare it, but I could no longer keep my feelings to myself. I had a couple glasses of wine and spilled my guts about my Pumpkin Roll animosity. That only set the stage for everyone to moan loudly and go way over the top when he served it as the finale of our Thanksgiving feast. And now looking back, I can’t even remember what I brought to that potluck.

The teasing is ongoing, but these days I have come to terms with the Pumpkin Roll. I know I can’t compete with it and have just accepted the fact that it is the best dessert at every party we take it to. This year was no exception. One of the guests at our Thanksgiving dinner had, not one, but two pieces of Pumpkin Roll, leaving no room for a piece of apple pie that his wife made special for him. Another women defeated by the Pumpkin Roll. I know her pain so well.

Halloween Cookies

It has been quite a busy and rainy Halloween weekend, and it's not over yet. We didn't buy candy this year. Last year we didn't have any trick-or-treaters. So in place of our left over snickers and butterfingers, we will be enjoying Halloween cookies today. Happy Halloween!

Apple Pie (from scratch!)

Everyone knows that I love to bake, but did you know that Evan does some baking? Well, he does! This weekend he made this apple pie from scratch! He came home with a half dozen apples from the farmer’s market and announced, “I’m making an apple pie.” It was absolutely delicious!

Cake Project

Although I probably won’t make my own wedding cake, I thought it would be fun to try. My beautiful blue cake stand was sitting on my kitchen counter just wishing for a cake to hold. I am on vacation this week, so I had nothing but time to attempt this project. I don’t have any experience making layered cakes, especially not from scratch. I found a red velvet cake recipe that looked pretty straight forward and decided to just use canned cream cheese frosting. I did find simple cream cheese frosting recipe, but I didn’t want to overwhelm myself. I had to double the cake batter recipe to get all of my layers. I was also working with two different round pans, but the sizes were almost the same. (If I decide to make my own wedding cake, I will invest in matching pans.) Looking back, this project was not set up for success. I had mismatched pans, a brand new recipe and had to make several visits to the store to get more frosting, extra food coloring and new buttermilk. I am on vacation this week, so I didn’t mind the three trips to the store and it didn’t matter that it took me two days to finish the cake. The final result turned out pretty impressive if I do say so myself. We haven’t cut it yet, so I don’t know what it tastes like, but I want to savor the look of it for a few more hours.

(this is what I look like when I'm baking)

Server Inspired Cupcakes

It is not often that a chef’s food is inspired by their serving pieces. I am in no way calling myself a chef, but in this case my cupcakes were totally inspired by the dish on which they would be displayed. During her visit last week, Evan’s Mom, Jane, brought us this Pink Etched Depression Glass server that belonged to Evan’s Grandparents. It goes beautifully with my Great Grandmother’s china that we recently unpacked. It just happened to work out that I had a can of Strawberry Mist frosting sitting in my cabinet that I was planning to try out. I just used my box mix of white cake and then frosted the cupcakes in a manor inspired by a post I recently saw on Bakerella. Her cupcakes (below) were from Retro Bakery, a professional cupcake bakery in Vegas. My cupcakes are store bought mix and frosting, so they do not compare, but they sure are adorable.

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

I wanted to put up this quick post to remind everyone how incredibly easy it is to make chocolate covered strawberries. I whipped these up in less than 10 minutes. All you need is 1 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips and a handful of strawberries. I washed and dried the strawberries, put the chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl and put them in for 1 minute, stirred, and 30 more seconds. Then I dipped each strawberry, stuck them on my cutting board covered with parchment paper and stuck the cutting board in the freezer for 5 minutes. That’s it! They don’t look perfect, but who really cares. Now that strawberries are in season, I have to remember to make these more often.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Cheese Sampling

One of my favorite things to order in a nice restaurant is the cheese sampling. I even order a cheese plate in not-so-fancy places, like the VFW. (I recommend the first option, but the second makes for good laughs.) Two nights ago, Evan and I went to the new Whole Foods store in Annapolis and I decided to get the advice of the expert to pick out cheeses to make my own cheese platter. I really don’t know a lot about different types of cheeses and am still learning the difference between pasteurized and unpasteurized, which cheeses should be served at room temp and which should be chilled, or what is different about cheeses from different regions. I can’t say that I learned all of that at the cheese counter (I probably could if I was there longer), but I did get some great recommendations to start experimenting.

I told the cheese advisor (not sure what is her official title) that I know that I like brie cheeses and I also have a fancy for a hard salty cheeses. Evan is a big fan of blue cheese, so that gave her a great place to start to make some suggestions. We ended up taking home 5 different cheeses to try. For Evan, a super moldy blue cheese from France and a Pecorino pasteurized sheep’s milk cheese. For me an Aged Mimolette, pasteurized cow’s milk cheese and a Murcia Curado Raw Goat Cheese. And for both of us she chose, Fromager d’Affinois, double-cream specialty brie from France. I never knew that Brie is named after where it is made much like Champagne. I almost found that hard to swallow (pun intended) because you can buy Brie in almost every grocery store in America.

The only cheese we didn’t care for out of the 5 was the blue cheese. I’m not a big fan of blue cheese in general and the one we got was particularly pungent. We decided to replace that cheese with a dollop of port wine cheese we had in the refrigerator. The other four were all cheeses I would buy again. The Pecorino had a stronger scent and a really nice flavor. I would say that it almost tasted like a goat cheese, but a little saltier. The Aged Mimolette was two thumbs up for me and one thumb up for Evan. It was a really salty cheese almost like cheddar that I would imagine would be really good with beer and pretzels. The Murcia Curado, goat’s milk cheese, was a light version of goat cheese. Not too strong, but definitely flavorful. The favorite by far was the Fromager d’Affinois. It was a buttery brie, that melted deliciously over a cracker or right off the knife. I would definitely recommending seeking this one out in your local stores’ if they carry a cheese selection.

It was a lot of fun to have our own sampling with a glass of Cabernet on a Tuesday night. Next time maybe we will have to add a sampling of meats, like prociutto and salami, or add in some olives for Evan. This could turn in to a decadent weekly tradition.

St. Louis Trip Part 1

I apologize for the delayed post. It has been crazy getting back on schedule after a three day weekend. It didn’t help that Evan and I both have sore throats and stacks of work to get through by this weekend on top of getting our place ready for guests and Evan’s last minute trip back to Michigan. It is safe to say that we are a bit scattered this week. It is all worth it, because we had a wonderful trip to St. Louis last weekend. I posted our shots on Flickr if you are interested in pictures of my friends (not a whole lot of scenery shots).

Vin de Set
We had a delicious dinner on Friday night at a rooftop French restaurant called, Vin de Set. We got a bottle of Garnacha (red wine from Spain) and a delicious cheese platter. I can’t resist a gourmet cheese selection at a restaurant because I’m still learning about cheese and this is the best way to sample different types. Unfortunately, none of the cheeses impressed me enough to remember what types we had. Evan ordered a pasta dish and I had the steak special that was prepared in what tasted like a blue cheese on top of golden potatoes. I would definitely recommend this restaurant if you are looking for fine dining in a more casual atmosphere in St. Louis.

Schlafly Bottleworks
Day 2 in St. Louis we went to lunch at Schlafly Bottleworks, the largest locally owned brewery in St. Louis that just happened to be walking distance from our friends’ house. The Brewery was hosting a BBQ Pork Steak competition in the parking lot with live music, but we opted to eat inside because it was pretty hot on the pavement in the blazing sun. The brews were really good. I had their Hefeweizen. Evan and I both ordered the pulled pork sandwich, but I traded up my side for their Smoked Gouda Gratin, thinly sliced layered potatoes baked with a Gouda cream sauce. Heaven.

Anheuser Busch Brewery
We went from one brewery to the next so that we could tour the huge Anheuser Busch Brewery (not locally owned anymore, therefore the largest foreign owned brewery in St. Louis). I was hoping that this tour would be a little more “history of Budweiser and other Anheuser Brands” and less “this is why you should drink Budweiser”. I’m not a huge fan of Bud, but I am a fan of learning about brewing. It didn’t help that there was a group of 3 people who were clearly already drunk before the tour began that were talking through most of the lecture and being pretty annoying to everyone else on the tour. At the end of the tour, you get 2 free beers, so I guess that draws a drunk crowd. We only had time for one sample because we had to be at the Arch. I had a Shock Top, which tasted like a wheat beer, but I really don’t know anything else about it because it was never mentioned on the tour.

(I had to do this in two parts because I couldn't get it to format.)

Batter Blaster

Evan picked up an amazing invention at the grocery store the other week. Batter Blaster! It is organic pancake mix that comes in a can like Reddi-wip. It is already mixed pancake batter, so you just pour in the pan and cook. The pancakes turned out light fluffy and amazing! I don’t know if we will ever go back to regular pancake mix. The package is really fun and I also like the whole branding of the Batter Blaster, like a spaceship blast off at breakfast. Their jingle is “Make a Better Breakfast Faster, Batter Blaster.” If you go to their site, you will hear it. It’s cute.

Just this weekend, Evan and I were at the liquor store and saw a guy wearing a Batter Blaster t-shirt and I just had to take his picture. He said that he worked at Whole Foods and the vendors give them t-shirts and other fun stuff. He said that the propellant for the “blast” isn’t nitrous oxide like a Reddi-wip can, he said it was fermented brown rice, or something like that. I looked at their website and one of the ingredients is Organic rice bran extract. Maybe that was what he was talking about. Either way, it is a pretty cool product and yes, the packaging can be recycled for all your greenies out there.

Easter Candy

My all time favorite candy is Cadbury Mini Eggs. When I was in college, my college roommate and I used to buy a whole huge box of Mini Eggs and keep hidden stashes from our other roommates. This was a big expense at that time, but totally worht it. We would stalk the drug stores in early March and call each other with the first sightings of Mini Eggs. I’ve got a whole unopened bag that should take me through the next few weeks and then I’ll just have to wait until next year.

Baked Ziti

Baked Ziti is one of my favorite comfort foods. This is one of my 5 recipes that I can cook with confidence and everything else is an experiment. This is my “go to” recipe when I know we have guests that will be staying for a few days. It refrigerates and reheats really well, so if people get hungry they can scoop some Ziti. There are only four ingredients, my kind of recipe.

1 lb box of ziti, cooked al dente (penne will work, too)
1 lb ground beef (or turkey)
2 24oz jars of tomato sauce
4 cups mozzarella cheese

1. While the Ziti noodles are boiling, brown meat in a large sauce pan until cooked thoroughly. Drain meat and stir in tomato sauce.

2. Spray bottom and sides of a baking dish (I use my Pampered Chef Stone). Layer the tomato sauce and meat mixture then noodles then cheese. Repeat the layers. Make sure your top layer of cheese completely covers the noodles or else they will dry out.

3. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes or until the top of the cheese starts to brown.

I HEART Cupcakes

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day this Saturday. Evan gave me the best Valentine's gift possible. He told me that I could stay on the couch all day and watch as many romantic comedies as I could stand. I watched the Jane Austin Book Club, Definitely Maybe and Dazed and Confused. I know Dazed is not a romantic comedy, but it is one of my favorites. I took a short break from the movies to make cupcakes. I have been wanting to make these V-day inspired cupcakes since my birthday last year when I received my cupcake recipe book. "Cupcakes and Other Goodies". They didn't turn out quite as beautiful as in the pages of my book, but they were still fun to make. I baked regular chocolate cupcakes with a cake mix and cut off the tops. I used a mini heart shaped cookie cutter to put the heart in the middle and frosted in between the top and bottom with canned frosting dyed with food coloring. This is low maintenance baking recipe was a nice distraction from the movie marathon.

Peppermint Cupcakes

In the last two weeks I have conducted several baking experiments that I was too embarrassed to post on the blog. I made my first ever Angel Food cake with the new Kitchen Aid Mixer, but it stuck to the pan and came out in pieces. I tried a double layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting with mini chocolate chips and vanilla frosting on top, but it was not very photogenic. I also made a quite decadent and a batch of brownies with cream cheese and chocolate chips, but they crumbled in a million pieces after I pulled them out of the pan. All of the recipes tasted good, but I have a lot of work to do on my finishing. Finally last week, I managed to successfully make a batch of peppermint cupcakes from a cupcake recipe book that my good friend Stephanie gave me for my birthday last year. These were a better site to see then my previous experiments. The recipe (using a box cake mix) made very moist cupcakes with just enough mint to be refreshing. I combine the cupcakes with the regular old canned vanilla frosting and some sprinkles and that’s it.

What you need:
1 package white cake mix
1 1/3 cup water
3 egg whites
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ teaspoon peppermint extract
3 to 4 drops red liquid food coloring
1 container prepared vanilla frosting
½ cup crushed peppermint candies (I used sprinkles because I didn’t have peppermints)
Muffin Pan
Paper baking cups

1. Preheat oven 350 degrees and line muffin tin with baking cups.
2. Prepare cake mix as usual and add peppermint extract and food coloring while beating with electric mixer.
3. Spoon batter in muffin cups and bake 20-22 minutes.
4. Remove and cool on cooling rack
5. Spread frosting and sprinkle with crushed candies (or sprinkles).

Holiday (or Anytime) Casserole

I have never been too thrilled with the traditional holiday meal at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I am a pretty picky eater, so I don’t do stuffing or green bean casserole. I won’t usually touch the cranberry sauce (unless it is from a can) and I didn’t realize that I like pumpkin pie until two years ago. For me, at a holiday meal, my plate would be filled with turkey, mashed potatoes with butter and canned corn. You can see why I don't get too excited for the big feast. I’d much rather order a pizza. That is, until we shared Thanksgiving with our friends in Arkansas last year. My good friend, Nicole, made one of her Mother’s classic Thanksgiving recipes, Corn and Macaroni Casserole. This has since changed my outlook on a holiday meal, forever. When we moved to back to Maryland, Nicole gave me her Mom’s recipe and I’ve made it at Thanksgiving, Christmas and when Evan’s parents were in town. It was a major sensation every time! It is so easy and can work with any meal. I don’t recommend trying to count how many calories are included in a serving size, but do recommend having more than one serving.

1 Cup uncooked pasta (this seems like not enough pasta, but it is)
1-1 1/2 lb Velveeta, cubed
1 can whole kernel corn (do not drain)
1 can cream corn
2 tablespoons butter/margarine

1. Mix uncooked pasta, cubed Velveeta, whole kernel corn and cream corn in a medium sized baking dish.
2. Drop 2 tablespoons of butter/margarine on top in small pieces.
3. Cook in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour, stirring after 30 minutes.
4. Serve and accept the praises.

Good Stuff Eatery

A month or so ago, I walked by a new restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue in DC and an older gentleman stopped me. He told me that I would have to come by when their restaurant is officially opened. I told him, I was headed to the salon less than a block down the street where I was working and his reply was, “I love all those gals at the salon, come back and see us very soon!” I thought nothing of this random friendly encounter from a fellow business on the block and went on with my day.

Earlier this week I found out what this new restaurant was all about. Good Stuff Eatery, a burger, fries and milk shake joint, co-owned by Spike from Top Chef and his family. I’d like to think the man on the street was Spike’s father, but who knows. As a Bravo TV junkie, I was so excited to try it out, but the past few times I’ve been by around lunch time, there was a line down the street. Today I finally got in the door and there was Spike, working the counter, passing out orders with a smile and hustling his line cooks.

I got a burger, Spike’s French Fries and a diet coke. I patiently waited for my order while thinking of what I might say to Spike when he handed me my to go bag. Unfortunately, he traded spots with the milk shake maker when my food arrived, so I didn’t have the chance to tell him my life story and my connection to Bravo. The burger wasn’t made to what I had ordered, but that turned out to be a good thing because I usually order a burger plain and the toppings were excellent The Fries were delicious. They weren’t your ordinary Fries. They were tossed in rosemary and some other spice that was absolutely delightful (and I am a self proclaimed French Fry connoisseur). The wait was a little long, but I will definitely make another stop at Good Stuff. I am really excited to have a Top Chef in the neighborhood. After all, Top Chef is my second favorite Bravo Show ;)

Who are you calling Betty?

Please, excuse my silly blog title. Since I have been baking up a storm lately, my coworkers and friends have lovingly called me names such as Betty Rocker, Betty Bi**h and other versions of the classic homemaker variety. Baking, cooking and being domestic in general is a new thing for me in the past year. I think that it is funny how much it surprises my friends. They think of me as the hostess in heels not the slave of the stove. I still get skeptical looks from people when I tell them, "I made this cake!"

Even though I just posted a cake last week I had to share. I am so in love with my new torte pans, I can stop myself. I did this one with a devils food cake mix and a teaspoon of cinnamon to make it a Mexican chocolate cake. Our neighbors had a Mexican themed party this weekend, so I though this recipe perfect. I added the strawberries and whipped topping just like the yellow cake, but also added Evan’s homemade chocolate sauce and powdered sugar to top it off. The cinnamon added a spicy flavor to the cake, but I’m not sure it was a hit. The next time I do a Mexican chocolate cake, I will do it from scratch.

It is going to be a yummy week as I have a bunch of new recipes that I want to try. Here is my menu plan including dinner yesterday:

Monday – Taco salad (Evan loved it!)
Tuesday – Turkey sausage, broccoli and couscous
Wednesday – Lemon cakes and strawberry amaretto pastries
Thursday - Savory Vegetable Mini Quiches
Friday – No Dinner Plans, it will be baby shower planning freak-out time

Strawberry Delight

I ordered a set of torte pans from Pampered Chef with the bonus that I earned for my first two months as a sales consultant. As soon as I took them out of the box, I had a million ideas of what I wanted to do with them. It is a little funny that I have been so excited to bake now that the weather is warmer. Most people don’t turn on their oven this time of year, but I have been filled with baking ideas. For this strawberry delight, I used a regular yellow cake mix and added orange rind. On top are strawberries and a whipped topping accent. That’s it! I was planning to do an orange glaze, but didn’t have time. I have recipe for a lemon glaze that is lemon juice, sugar and butter. I was hoping I could just switch out the lemon juice with orange juice, but maybe I should do some more research. I think this will be a staple dessert recipe for summer get-togethers. Throw some blueberries on there and it is perfect for July 4th.

Baking Experiment

Updated with pictures:
I haven’t been baking as much now that the weather has gotten warmer, but I just had to try this recipe that I found on Bakerella via Hostess with the Mostess. A cupcake in the form of a lollipop is kind of an odd thing to make, but I am trying to find things to do for the upcoming baby shower and thought these might be cute. The concept is pretty easy, but they just take some time to prepare. I used a red velvet cake mix, a tub of cream cheese frosting, lollipop sticks and some colored candy melts. You will also need a block of Styrofoam for drying.

Here is what you do:
1. Prepare cake mix and bake according to directions on the box.
2. Let cake cool completely and then crumble in a large bowl.

**This is where it gets messy**
3. Mix in the tub of frosting. I had to use my hands to get it all mixed together.
4. Roll into small balls (about 1 inch diameter) and place on cookie sheet.
5. Refrigerate for several hours (or stick in the freezer for 20 minutes)

6. Stick in lollipop sticks and refrigerate for at least another hour. I left them in overnight.

7. Melt candy and coat the ball by spooning mixture over the cake. Don’t dip or you will get cake crumbs in your candy melt.

8. Stick the lollipops in a Styrofoam block to dry. My fatal mistake was that I stuck them back on the cookie sheet, so I ended up with a flat top instead of a nice round one.

9. If desired, wrap each lollipop with a small square of colored cellophane and tie with a ribbon.

There are a bunch of variations to this recipe. You could use chocolate or white chocolate bark to cover the outside instead of the colored candy melts or you can lose the stick and make little cake bites. For my next batch, I am going to use a yellow lemon cake for the inside.

I took these little guys to work to do a sampling and they got really good reviews. People love red velvet cake, which kind of surprised me. Here is an important tip: do not leave these in the car on a 75 degree day. I made this mistake and melted half the batch. :(