The Works Burger. Angus beef patty with caramelized onions and mushrooms, Swiss cheese, Bacon, and Bourbon sauce served on a brioche bun.
Breakfast this morning. Steamed asparagus on top of a fried egg, thick applewood smoked Bacon, and French bread, accented with orange hollandaise and a side of tempura battered green tomatoes.
Sesame chicken with bell peppers and snap peas. Made for a coworker on request.
Chicken tortilla soup with lime infused sour cream.
Anonymous asked: You have such a wonderful blog, keep up the good work! I would love to see you bake more though--I have a sweet tooth and I need to see more cupcake pics ;)
Will do. I am busy this month with finals for school, but I will try hard to get some new pics up.
Smoked sockeye salmon on multigrain sesame crackers with cream cheese. Aka…heaven on a cracker.
Baked brie with caramelized onions, per request from Amanda. Inbox me for the recipe!
Thick globs of cinnamon-vanilla meringue, waiting to be popped into the oven. They taste similar to a snickerdoodle cookie. Here’s the recipe I used and have always used for meringues, it’s very open for flavor alterations and is a good base for many different things.
- 2 egg whites
- 1/8th tsp cream of tartar
- 1/8th tsp iodized salt
- A little under 1/2 cup sugar
- splash of vanilla (please use PURE vanilla extract, not the imitation stuff…it makes a difference!
- cinnamon to taste (I usually use about a teaspoon’s worth if I’m adding it in)
Preheat your oven to 225 F.
Whisk the egg whites, cream of tartar, and vanilla in an electric mixer until it reaches the soft mounds stage (I giggle every time I say soft mounds, and I’m not apologizing) if you’re using a different flavoring, be careful not to use oils as a flavoring (such as orange oil) because it can sometimes mess up how the meringue forms. Mint and chocolate have a particular affinity for one another, though, and those extracts are very widely available at the grocery store.
Add in the sugar gradually while the mixer is still running, and turn up the speed a bit. It will start to look glossy and smooth and very slick and sticky after a few minutes. Now is the time to add any dyes (mint ones are cute when they’re green, okay?) or spices like cinnamon.
Using a piping bag, or a ziploc with the tip cut off in a VERY small circle, pipe out kisses about 1 tsp each onto parchment-lined baking sheets. You can make whatever shapes you want, it doesn’t have a lot of spread when it cooks so it’s fun to poke around with designs.
Leave them in the oven for an hour. Trust me, they’re not burning, or bubbling, or doing anything at all. Do NOT open that oven door. DON’T DO IT. Set a timer and walk away. After an hour, you still don’t get to see them. Sorry. Turn the oven off, and leave them in for another hour to dry out further.
VOILA! Delicious, light, melt-in-your-mouth meringues.
Greg’s birthday cake. Not my best piping work, but I did it at work, and the kitchen is very warm. The peanutbutter cream cheese frosting was melting considerably more than normal and I had to hurry to get it back in the refrigerator so it wouldn’t end up a globby mess…
The cake is a dark chocolate pudding cake that I’ve used many times before, and the frosting is from The Smitten Kitchen and is heavenly. I would make the recommendation to cutting the sugar in the recipe down to at least 4 cups, though, and possibly down to 3.5. It was VERY sweet and the cake amplified the taste of the peanut butter tenfold. It tasted just like a Reese’s cup!
I’m getting more creative with the little tasks I’m given at work during slow season. I wish I had a better (and portable) digital camera to take more professional shots for you guys, but this is the best I have to work with currently.
This was for a six person group, and I made two more vases just like these, but they had blueberries filled up the top afterwards. They looked so cute and springy!
I know this doesn’t exactly count as a “cooking” update, but nonetheless this is a cute picture and it’s of tea which is very nearly almost a food group for me.
Hmm…two different cups. Short and classy and tall, colorful and flamboyant.
Could this be Amanda and I in teacup form?
Anonymous asked: can you give at least a rough recipe for the cheese tarts? they look amazing!
The recipe for them can be found right here. Enjoy!
I have an unhealthy affair with pumpkin. I was making a protein smoothie this morning and opened up a new can to add in some pumpkin and after I added some I just sat there spooning it into my mouth straight out of the can. I don’t even care.
If you mix it with a little almond milk and a lot of cinnamon and nutmeg it tastes like fat kid’s diet pumpkin pie and you cannot dispute the deliciousness of pumpkin pie, so…
Steak salad for Amanda. While I’m not a big fan of red meat (or most meat) this salad was delicious. Caramelized mushrooms on top of spring greens and blue cheese crumbles that melted into delicious little globs of earthy, dairy goodness. Lots of peppery, smoky bits as well and I’m assuming you get the picture by now that it was delectable in every day. You really don’t want to know how quickly she finished this salad, actually…
Simple tomato bruschetta to use up the extra tomatoes we had laying around. I can’t wait until harvest time on my tomato plants. Home-grownproduce just make everything taste better, especially bruschetta.
