Category Archives: Cooking

Christmas Book List 2012

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Books 2012
1. The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook – long awaited, it is being raved about. I can’t wait to see the photos, I’ve heard they’re fantastic.
2. Local Pacific Northwesters know the Tom Douglas name well. This isn’t his first cookbook, but it’s definitely his sweetest: The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook.
3.  Okay, maybe I’m a little late to the Design*Sponge book party, but as an avid follower of the blog. I would love to flip through these DIY pages: Design*Sponge at Home.
4. Also one of my favorite blogs, this one is back ordered right now, but I’m hoping to have a copy before they come to Tacoma in January: Young, House, Love.
5. Okay, I’ll admit, I don’t know much about canning, but I’ve been learning the last couple of years and would love to have a go-to to work from: Canning for a New Generation.
6. I just heard a story about the Jerusalem: A Cookbook, on NPR, it sounds like it’s a mix of cookbook and cultural photography at the same time. I’m intrigued.
7. My go-to for down home cooking, The Pioneer Woman knows her strengths – comfort food, step by step photography for the recipes, and a quick wit. It reads like an actual story, and you can’t help but feel welcomed into Ree’s ranch life.
8. Admittedly, I don’t know much about The Sprouted Kitchen cookbook, and am totally judging a book by it’s cover. But, I can guess that if you’re like me, you’re trying to eat cleaner, more in-season, and more local, and this looks like it could be the inspiration ticket.
9. One that I’ve been coveting for a while: Domino.
10. 10 favorite ingredients like caramel, peanut butter, booze, and chocolate? Baking? I’m in: Baked.
11. Cupcakes and Cashmere is another one of my favorite blogs, Emily has great entertaining ideas and excellent taste. I’m sure this book is an extension of her style.
12. For the coffee table, these photos of Underwater Dogs will truly make you LOL. There is also a calendar option available.
Okay – maybe it’s a little cookbook heavy, but what can I say? I love photos of food!
xx
-h

Lemon Blueberry Coffee Cake

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I’ve had a stash of frozen blueberries that I kept adding to over the summer. So, this week, when I cleaned out the freezer, I found my blueberries and instantly remembered pinning this breakfast cake recipe from Alexandra’s Kitchen. I had a lemon that needed to be used, so I did what anyone with an inkling for blueberry coffee cake would do, I started zesting.

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I had thawed the blueberries, and then coated them in flour, per Alexandra’s recipe.

IMG_1938I got half way through the recipe and realized I was out of vanilla extract. But, I had some vanilla beans leftover from making Kahlua (recipe to come). So I scraped one bean in (about equal to 1 tsp of vanilla extract).

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I got the vanilla beans from Beanilla.com, they’re pricing is significantly less then a supermarket or Costco. Shipping was fast, and there are a ton of options. When I scrape a bean into a recipe, I like to take the outside part and put it in a bottle to make homemade vanilla extract. To make extract, you simple take sections of a bean (scraped or not) and put them in a bottle or jar and cover with cheap vodka. Let it soak for 6-8 weeks and gently shake the bottle once a week to disturb the contents. The longer you let the extract sit, the more intense the flavor will become. I like to just add whatever extra bean parts I have over time. This would also make a great gift!

Anyways, back to blueberries and lemons, oh my! My favorite part of any coffee cake is the crispy/flaky top and edging, and by sprinkling a little extra sugar over the top, this is achieved beautifully.

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Additionally, I ended up baking the cake for a total of about 45 mins.

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Enjoy, and thanks Alexandra for the delicious recipe!

xx

-h

Festive Table

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I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and mini-vacation. Although, the holiday has passed, I wanted to share our festive table. R and I hosted this year, and I was pretty proud of how well everything turned out.

Here are the deets:

  • Table runner from Target (actually a tablecloth folded)
  • Pumpkins from Terry’s Berries and Scholl Farms
  • Brass candle holders – vintage, the tall ones were wedding presents to my parents that they lent us
  • China – vintage from my grandmother’s aunt
  • Silverware – Vintage Gense gifted from the Nana
  • Flowers from Metropolitan Market arranged in stemless wineglasses
  • Water glasses – double Manhattan glasses from when Canyons Resort hosted the MLS All-Star Game events
  • Champagne Glasses – Stolzle
  • Water pitcher – Gurgle Pot
  • Napkins in Golden Yellow and Henna  – World Market

Some highlights from the actual meal:

  • Turkey, braised using bourbon and fresh rosemary, I sort of made the recipe up. I would recommend buying a turkey that has the belly button that pops when it is done. It makes it so much easier to gauge if the turkey is ready to be pulled from the oven or not.
  • Brown butter green beans from Real Simple.
  • My mom brought The Pioneer Woman’s Stuffing.
  • My brother and sister-in-law did an amazing cheese platter, with tons of cheeses from Grocery Outlet (whaaaat?) and crackers from Trader Joe’s.
  • Bourbon-Apple Crumble Pie adapted from this recipe.

Drinks

So many things to be thankful for this year, and always.

xx

-h

Safari Cat Dancers and Acrobats

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Last night I went to Safari Park Hotel for dinner and a show.  To start, the hotel is amazing.  It has beautiful grounds and includes six restaurants, a casino and a nightclub.  I visited the Nyama Choma Ranch where they have a large variety of meats that are cooked in a massive barbeque at the entrance of the restaurant and the chefs walk around and serve you off the skewer.  I tried the lamb, beef, pork ribs, crocodile, ostrich and goat.

The menu at Nyama Choma

One of the chefs at Nyama Choma and the giant BBQ filled with meat

Getting my first piece of meat (pork ribs)

After dinner, there was a really fun show of dancing and acrobatics that was on the stage right in the restaurant.  From my table, I was basically front row.  The acrobats were my favorite, doing tricks like standing four people tall on each other’s shoulders and limboing under a flaming stick.  After the show, I sheepishly went on stage for a photo-op with the performers.

Safari Cat Dancers

Fire Limbo!

With the Safari Cats

All in all, it was a really fun night!  I would definitely recommend, that if you are visiting Nairobi, you go to Safari Park Hotel’s Nyama Chroma for dinner and see the Safari Cat Dancers and Acrobats.  The performance is every Saturday night at 9pm and the show is 500 KSH or free with dinner.

xo

-s

 

Carrots and Brussels Sprouts

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If there are 2 vegetables I do not particularly like they are carrots and brussels sprouts. When we were kids, our lunch consisted of sandwich or tortilla rollup, apple, carrots, juice box and fruit snacks. Do you know how hard it is to trade carrots for cheetos in the lunch room? Now, I thank my mom for instilling good eating habits in me, but due to the excess amount of carrots consumed at a young age. I can’t seem to munch them raw very often anymore. Until recently that is, I’ve ventured back to carrots after trying some of the newer varieties. We can thank the heirloom vegetable movement for that.

My mom forwarded her friend Jane’s photos of her solar yellow carrots that are from her garden in the Spokane, Washington area.

photo: JB

They truly look like tiny space ships.

She also sent a photo of  her brussels sprouts and cabbage.

photo: JB

And although I never cared for steamed brussels sprouts plopped on my plate as a child, while living in Park City, I had the opportunity to experience the Talisker on Main Roasted Brussels Sprouts Salad. I am now singing a different tune. Could be the bacon….mmmm bacon.

Here is the TOM recipe via their FB page:

Ingredients:

  • 20-30 brussels sprouts, petals only (discard the hearts)
  • 3 Tbsp. hickory or double-smoked bacon, large dice
  • 1 pomegranate, seeded
  • 1 shallot, diced
  • 2 Tbsp. sherry vinegar
  • 1 tsp. olive oil for sautéing
  • Salt & pepper to taste
  • Optional: blueberries, dried cranberries, diced strawberries

Sautee and render out the fat of the bacon. Add brussels sprouts petals and shallots. Sautee for 2-3 minutes over medium heat. Add sherry vinegar. Add salt and pepper to taste and finish with the pomegranates and any optional fruit. Serves 4.

Enjoy!

xx

-h

Chai on my mind

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What’s not to love about a great chai tea?  Most coffee shops make chai tea with similar ingredients, one specifically-chai concentrate.  Chai concentrate makes for creating a delicious chai tea quickly.  It contains a blend of teas accented with sweet cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and vanilla.  After it is combined with steamed milk, it creates a hard to beat combination-or so I thought.

Here in Kenya, they make their chai just a little differently.  It seems to be a staple throughout the country.  Dormans Coffee for one, provides chai tea for a morning and afternoon teatime every day for all employees.  It is made in massive amounts and no one misses it when teatime rolls around.

Although chai concentrate makes a killer chai, I personally believe the fresher the better.  If you want to try the Kenyan way at home, check out this recipe (this is a large batch and from one of the amazing women who makes it at Dormans):

Ingredients:

  • 6 cups water
  • 7 teaspoons tea leaves (or five bags)  black tea
  • 6 cups milk
  • 10-15 teaspoons sugar (to taste)

Directions:

  1. Heat together water and tea leaves in a saucepan.
  2. Boil 10 minutes and add milk.  Heat to near boiling.
  3. Strain leaves.
  4. Add sugar to taste.

Teatime Chai at Dormans

Maybe you can drink  it with the  Chai Shortbread Cookies with Pink Salt recipe H recently posted.

xoxo

-s

Chai Shortbread Cookies with Pink Salt

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Aw Fall, time for Pumpkin Spice Lattes from Starbucks, Pumpkin Pie, Pumpkin Bread, Pumpkin anything. To be honest, I love pumpkin flavored things and I’m especially a sucker for those lattes, but sometimes I get a little burnt out on the pumpkin. When I was tasked with bringing dessert for family dinner the other night and knew we were having pasta, I went with cookies. I figured they would be a *little* lighter then anything else.

S and I have been able to talk pretty frequently while she is in Kenya via imessage or email and she reminded me what a huge part of the culture chai is there.

So, thinking of S, when I found this recipe for Chai Shortbread Cookies, I was excited to test it out.

I used Caffe D’Amore Chai Serenity Mix that my friend K gave me awhile ago, but any chai powder mix will work.

When I tasted the cookies once they were done baking, I didn’t think they had super strong chai flavor, so after spreading the chocolate on top I decided to add a pinch of the powder plus a sprinkle of salt. For the salt, I used Pink Himalayan from World Market because it has a milder flavor and I like pink.

The sprinkle of chai mix on top added intensity, but using actual chai tea leaves would make it even more flavorful.

Think I’ll eat one of the extras over an afternoon tea tomorrow.

xx,

-h

Jalapeno Jam

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I always say, when life gives you Jalapenos, make Jalapeno Jam. Wait, I never say that. But when your coworker gives you a huge bag full of spicy jalapenos, and another bag full of thai chiles, you can’t just eat them raw. You’ll die. Well maybe you won’t, but you won’t be comfortable or happy. So, take those peppers and add a bunch of sugar, some vinegar, and some pectin and you have jam.

Seed and slice red and green bell peppers into chunks.

Wash and pat jalapenos dry.

Half jalapenos and remove the membrane and seeds on most of them. I left some in tact to add some extra spice. When you are doing this I would recommend wearing plastic gloves. I did not do that and regretted that decision later.

Here’s my secret ingredient. Half and take the seeds and membrane out of one thai chile. Whew those babies are spicy. In a food processor pulse the peppers together until everything is juicy but some peppers are still small dice size.

You will need 1.75 oz of pectin, Sure-Jell sells it in packets this size, but I decided to buy this because it was cheaper, so I weighed it out. Oh snaps, I forgot to take photos of the rest of the process. 

I finished the jars with labels from Cottage Industrialist.

Judge wants to know what 1000 Wonderful Things is up to and if he can have any. He’s pretty food obsessed, and no Judge you can’t have Jalapeno Jam.

Recipe adapted from My Kitchen Addiction.

Jalapeno Pepper Jam
Makes 16-4 oz jars

  • 4 cups of seeded, membrane removed peppers (about 12 jalapenos, 1 thai chile, 1 green bell and 1 red bell)
  • 1.75 oz of pectin
  • 4 cups of sugar
  • 1 cup cider vinegar
  • 1/4 tsp salt

Prepare a boiling water canner, sterilize jars and lids.

In a large pot combine ready peppers and vinegar. Gradually stir in the pectin and bring the mixture to a rolling boil. Add the sugar and salt and return the mixture to a boil. Cook this for an additional minute or until the sugar is dissolved.

Pour into prepared jars, wipe rims, and put lids on. Process in boiling water for 15 minutes.

Let it sit overnight or until all the tops have popped. The lids popping is by far the best part about canning things.

If you’ve never used a water canner, be sure to read up about what the best strategies are because it’s not exactly as easy as making a grilled cheese.

My favorite way to serve this jam is with crackers and cream cheese. The cream cheese cuts the spiciness of the peppers, same reason everyone tells you to drink milk if your mouth is on fire from hot sauce competitions with your siblings. Oh, you never did that? Huh.
The final product will have some chunks of the peppers and have a golden color.

Enjoy

-h

Nacchoooooooo

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Sometimes when you’ve had a few too many to drink the night before you need comfort food that will put you back on your feet. For me, that is usually some sort of Mexican delight including cheese. Last weekend, I decided I needed some nachos but we didn’t have any chips. *Dramatic groaning and noises.* R said he would go to the store for me but I was being a baby, “noooo, it’s fiiiine”. I remembered that in the freezer we had a huge stack of corn tortillas and decided this was the perfect opportunity to heat up some oil and make my own chips.

It’s pretty simple, heat oil in a heavy bottom skillet such as a cast iron until when you drop a fleck of tortilla in it sizzles. Cut your tortillas into chip sized pieces. I started by doing quarters and then decided sixths would be better. Fry 4-5 pieces at a time, flipping after 30-45 seconds and transfer to a baking sheet lined with paper towels. Sprinkle with salt and lime juice and let cool.

Then you know what the next steps are. On a baking sheet, layer chips, cheese, whatever meat you like (in this case – SHRIMP!), tomatoes, olives, green onion, etc. The key to good nachos is in the layering. You don’t want to eat the first chips off the top and then get to the bottom and have chips without cheese melted on them. That would be sad. Bake until all the cheese is melted and serve with sour cream, guacamole, salsa, and hot sauce.

Happy nacho-ing.

xx

-h

Homemade Ice Cream Sandwiches

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Last week S and I were tasked with providing dessert for a “Meet New Baby” party. We started brainstorming ideas and decided on homemade ice cream sandwiches. Given the temperatures last week in this area (90 plus) transportation was a little difficult for these babies, so if it is going to be hot I would suggest serving these for a party that does not require moving them from freezer to freezer.  Melting and re-freezing aside, I loved them. We made 3 types all in mini form: chocolate chip cookie/coffee ice cream, funfetti cookie/vanilla ice cream, and pineapple cookie/pineapple coconut ice cream. I missed my chance to snap a photo of the pineapple ones but I did manage to capture the other two flavors.

I used this recipe for the Funfetti Cookies, and they turned out fantastic. Once the cookies cool, place a small scoop of ice cream and sandwich, we rolled the edge in sprinkles like a tire for a bit more detail.

I consulted All Recipes for the Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe, and swapped mini chips for normal ones since we were shrinking the size, I also skipped the nuts.

Other flavors we considered making – peanut butter cookie/strawberry ice cream, ginger cookie/peach ice cream, sugar cookie/lemon sorbet. My mouth is watering thinking of the endless possibilities. Summer isn’t over yet!

xx

-h