T-Gives

I guess I should start updating this bad boy again.

Let's talk about Thanksgiving. Because, I mean... come on. It's a holiday all about food. Who can hate Thanksgiving?

Who else hates when Thanksgiving is totally overlooked for Christmas? Because let me tell you, I look forward to Thanksgiving every year WAY more than I look forward to Christmas. The only holiday I look forward to more is my birthday, which is conveniently either on or a few days around Thanksgiving. Clearly November is the month of the Gods. Anyway, I'm so excited for next week! My mom is an excellent cook, and this year I feel competent enough to actually contribute to the meal. I'll post about what I make!

Last Thanksgiving, I went to upstate New York and celebrated with Mandy and her family, and it was absolutely wonderful. Jurgen's smoked turkey was quite possibly the most delicious thing I have ever tasted, and drinking way too much warm spiced wine was just delightful. The entire extended family was there and I felt nothing but welcomed and happy. That is what Thanksgiving is all about. I think it is way better than Christmas, where there is so much pressure to find the right presents and get the decorations looking classy yet festive... I'd much rather share a tasty meal with people I love.

And then take a long nap. Heck yes.

Atmosphere

Warmth in a restaurant is a delicate thing. There’s a fine line between being friendly with customers and being so overbearing you chase them off. For instance, for my last few months at TCNJ I refused to eat at the Parkside Diner because one of the waitresses there would frequently sit at our table and talk to us with absolutely no indication on our part that we would like such a thing. And I’m sure you’ve all been to that restaurant where the waiter is too chatty, and annoyingly comments on everything you order (Ah, good choice, this is my favorite. Oh, I don’t care for that, but it’s because I don’t like cilantro.). It’s just something about that type of friendliness- where the individual wants you to like them, as a person, rather than their establishment- that makes me, as a diner, uncomfortable.

But in other instances the place can be too cold- like stuffy steakhouses that make you feel like you don’t deserve to be there. The night before my graduation my parents and I went to Acacia in Lawrenceville, and my goodness was it wonderful! The fish was the most tender thing I’ve ever tasted, my mom’s duck tasted like steak, and the mocha cake my dad got for dessert was a little piece of heaven. However, the gorgeous young woman who served us couldn’t seem to give a damn what we thought of our meal- she spoke to us without any inflection whatsoever. And I can’t blame her; I’m sure she gets hit on plenty at work, and since she didn’t personally prepare the food it probably didn’t matter to her what we thought about it. But it just takes away from the experience to be waited on by someone who seems to feel that you have no business interacting with them. (And I’ll admit, I was guilty of this at my job at GameStop- I had a hostile attitude towards all of my customers, and I regret this. My job was to serve them, and I did it begrudgingly.)

If, however, you can find that magical place where the owners really understand what a restaurant is all about, it’s just wonderful. There were several places in Ewing that understood that concept- Villa Rosa, of course, and this wonderful Mexican restaurant called Mariachi on Parkway (which, I will admit, is run by my old landlords). When you go to Mariachi, which you totally should, Viridiana, Eugenia, and Ricardo are happy to serve you- they want you to enjoy yourself. I’ve seen this in their interactions with other customers as well, so I know it’s not just because they know me personally- they are proud of the food that they make, and they are happy to have people enjoying it. The same is the case with a bar and restaurant near campus called Erini. I’ve never been there for food, but when I went there for a couple of informal senior nights, it was great. The owner was out there with everyone and he genuinely wanted people to have a good time. That is what an eating out experience should be like- if you run an establishment meant for pleasing people, then you should take pleasure in having your customers enjoy themselves. I feel like this is lost on a lot of places, and it’s really a shame, because there is no greater joy than being around people who are happy to have you in their establishment.

Clusters and Hops, Tallahassee

So, I guess I should start updating this thing again- I can’t believe the chef at Villa Rosa liked it! I mean, I did gush about the food there, but that is only because it’s wonderful- I’m so honored that someone of importance actually looked at my silly project.

Tonight, then, I’ll write about another truffle mac ‘n cheese I had- at Clusters and Hops here in Tallahassee. (Side note: I’ve moved to Tallahassee, FL. It’s really sad, I desperately miss NJ, but I’m trying to make do.)

First of all, I’ll admit I wasn’t impressed with the place. (I should also point out it's very hard to find- it's a small little place attached to a sleep center on Monroe, with no visible sign. Keep an eye out!) The establishment itself was pretty cute- there’s a nice little gourmet shop at the entrance with fine cheeses and truffle oil and imported chocolate, and I thought that was pretty awesome. And it was a nice dining location- beautiful bar, nice lighting, all that good stuff. But I just felt a little out of place there- the wait staff didn’t seem to take as much pleasure in making their customers happy as in other restaurants; they seemed to take more pleasure in their own prestige. I'll admit I'm pretty sensitive, so maybe it was in my head, but I went to this place wanting to like it. Our waiter was very nice, but when I ordered their 9-cheese macaroni and cheese with truffle oil, he asked, “are you sure? This dish has a very strong truffle flavor, sometimes people who haven’t had truffles before don’t like it.” I don’t know, it just rubbed me the wrong way that he assumed I wasn’t familiar with gourmet food. I suppose given my youth it is a fair assumption, but I don't think anyone ever likes it when a waiter indicates that they have made any sort of judgement about them.

He was right though, it did have a very strong truffle flavor. That's not to say it wasn't delicious- the cheese sauce was wonderful and the pasta just the right texture, and there was some sort of herb mixed in but I’m not sure what it was. But the truffle almost overpowered the cheese sauce, which is a shame with something as complex as a sauce made of nine cheeses. I’m not saying the dish was bad- it was lovely- but I would personally prefer the truffle be toned down a bit. I also got a root beer float with my meal, and my gosh if it wasn’t the best root beer float I’ve ever had in my life. The vanilla ice cream was noticeably of a very high quality, and the root beer was just divine.

Moral of the story: I plan to go back to sample some of the other things on their menu- and to get that wonderful float again- but I don’t know if it’s friendly enough for me to become a regular. It’s worth going at least once, the food is lovely and I found the prices to be reasonable.

What I'm Doing Right Now

I really need to get a camera because what I'm doing right now requires documentation.

Tomorrow in my Spanish class I'm giving a presentation on Mexican food, so I decided to bring in a tres leches cake to share with the class and butter up my teacher. (Anne, I still remember that paella you sent me to class with in high school.) I'm using the Pioneer Woman's recipe again, the one that I recommended you guys make and no one did. I'm recommending it again. This cake is so good. Here is how good it is:

Instead of making one big cake to take in to class and share, I have instead divided the batter between a medium-sized pan and a small one, so that I can have my own personal cake to eat right now, once the milk mixture is done setting. Everyone else in class is going to get a skimpy disappointing piece of pastel de tres leches, all because I couldn't wait until tomorrow to eat some of this bad boy.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/09/tres-leches-cake/

Shhh, just make it. Comment here and let me know how it turns out!

(Fun fact: In my presentation I'm also talking about Sor Juana de la Cruz and her writings on the "magic" of food- she was extremely educated which of course drew the attention of the Spanish Inquisition, and when questioned about witchcraft she reported that the only magic she was familiar with was the amazing transformative abilities of eggs. They really are magical, for this cake you divide the egg whites from the yolks, then beat the yolks with sugar and mix it with the flour, and then you beat the whites and essentially make a merengue. Then you fold that in with the batter and that's how you make a sponge cake. It's amazing how different this cake turns out than if you had just cracked the eggs right into the batter. Eggs are rad.)

I'm back! Let's talk about burgers!

I am a devoted carnivore. For most of my life I’ve eaten nothing but animal products, and red meat and cheese are my favorite food groups. Only this year did I add broccoli to my diet. What I’m saying is, I don’t eat vegetables. Especially not onions, oh hell no. Hell. No. Onions are disgusting. They’re squishy and crunchy at the same time- almost slimey- and they have that weird flavor that's savory and strangely biting. It's like an assault on the taste buds. I get shivers just thinking about it.

Except… caramelized onions.

It turns out I like those.

This weekend my friends and I went into NYC, and we found this place called 1 2 3. They serve sliders for a dollar, shots for two, and beers for three. Being a bunch of poor college kids, we were pretty thrilled, but we were certainly not expecting the burgers to be any good. We were standing in the bar sipping our beers (I’ve recently discovered a beverage called “Shock Top,” which is a light beer with an orange flavor… lovely), and they brought our burgers out on one big platter and handed them to us. I was horrified to see that they were covered in caramelized onions, but I was standing in the middle of a crowded bar with the burger in one hand, my beer in the other, and no table in sight. I was starving. I had no choice but to eat it without picking the onions off. So I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and took a bite… and a chorus of angels started to sing. That burger was GOOD. I know I tend to be hyperbolic when talking about food, but I honestly can’t recall ever eating a more delicious burger. How could this be? How could I be consuming- not just a vegetable, but the most vile and horrible of all vegetables- and be enjoying myself? This couldn’t be possible.

I decided to conduct a test. Maybe it was just all the alcohol I consumed that made me think I liked the burgers. Maybe it was something about those specific onions that made them special. Ina had a recipe for burgers with caramelized onions in Barefoot Contessa: Back to Basics that I set out to test. If I made my own onions, I could see if I really and truly did like caramelized onions. I also decided to make my own hamburgers rather than buying the frozen kind, and I'm glad I did. I got bison meat, because I’ve always loved buffalo burgers, and I was real happy with the results, and I invited Gavin over to help me make them, mostly because I didn’t want to touch the gross raw meat with my delicate lady hands. So I had him mix together the buffalo meat, about 1tbs of Dijon mustard, salt, and pepper. He formed them into patties and grilled them to perfection, and they finished just after the caramelized onions, which I couldn’t believe I was making.

You put 2tbs butter and 2tbs olive oil in a pan, apparently this cuts down on the smoke. Cut up an onion into half-rings, and put those on LOW HEAT for about 20 mins. I put them on medium heat and made a delicious batch of charcoal, and got really grumpy and upset and I’m surprised Gavin put up with me. I chucked those and started again on low heat, and after about 20 minutes they looked beautiful. I mean, for onions. Ina recommends you splash them with… I forget how much, but just splash them with sherry vinegar, or in my case white wine vinegar, and sprinkle them with salt and pepper, and cook ‘em for about 2 more minutes.

Everything was all ready. My Kaiser rolls were toasted, I put a little bit of spicey mayonnaise on them (at the Pioneer Woman’s recommendation, it’s just mayonnaise and Tabasco sauce), and I piled some blue cheese on my still cooking buffalo patty. I transferred that to the bun, covered it in the onions, and took the first bite. It was delicious! Oh my goodness!

I like onions!

This is truly a glorious day for me. All sorts of doors have opened up. Today I ate French onion soup and actually ate it, instead of just dipping in the bread so as to avoid consuming onions. Goodness me, hallelujah, I like onions!

I highly recommend you cook your own burgers sometime, it’s incredibly satisfying and you can freeze the patties and cook them again whenever. Fabulous. Gavin said he enjoyed the burgers but if he could do it again he'd leave the mustard out, but I thought it added a nice flavor to the meat. To each his own.

Rachel masters hollandaise sauce, now only poached eggs stand between her and homemade Eggs Benedict!

Okay guys, here is the thing about hollandaise sauce: It’s really, really good. Heavenly. Mind-shattering. When you finish your eggs or asparagus or whatever you’ve prepared it with, you’re going to think, “gosh, that was so incredibly, unbelievably delicious. I want more. I’ll just… I’ll just make some toast to dip in some of my leftover sauce. And maybe some broccoli. Maybe I’ll lick my finger just once.” Don’t listen to that voice! That voice is evil! It wants to hurt you! I had dinner at 5 and am just now starting to feel like a normal person again. With that warning out there I will now tell you how I tackled one of the five French mother sauce recipes. I’m so proud of myself.

I got my hollandaise sauce recipe from the copy of Martha Stewart’s Cooking School that my wonderful mother purchased for me when I was first becoming interested in cooking. So far I’m really happy with this book; it has lots of pictures and explains things in a way that people totally clueless in the kitchen- me- can follow. I have to admit that it felt like a betrayal to use Martha’s recipe instead of Ina’s, but Ina’s recipe is a “blender” hollandaise while Martha’s belongs to the more prestigious bain marie family- which means that you cook it in a double-boiler (or in my case a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water). I’ve never tried making a blender hollandaise sauce and so I have no point of comparison, but I can say in all my years of restaurant Eggs Benedict eating, this is the most wonderful hollandaise sauce I've ever tasted. I honestly didn’t know I was capable of making something so incredible. Though, I suppose anything that is comprised about 75% of butter is pretty likely to be delicious.

So here’s what you do:

Put a medium pot of water on to boil- you’re going to use this for the bain marie and also to scoop out 3 tablespoons of water for the reduction sauce.

Mince a tablespoon of shallots, and throw that in a pan with ¼ cup of dry white wine, 1tbs champagne vinegar, and some ground black pepper. Cook it over medium-high heat until it has reduced, I think Martha said to 1 tbs. I just cooked it until it looked like there was less in the pan than there had been.

While it’s cooking you’re going to want to set aside 3 egg yolks. Once the mixture has been reduced add 3 tablespoons of boiling water, and then strain it into a heatproof bowl using a fine mesh sieve (I was so excited that we had one of those, I wasn’t looking forward to picking out the shallots with a fork). Reduce the boiling water to a simmer. Off the heat, add the 3 egg yolks to the bowl with the reduced mixture and whisk them until the mixture is pale yellow. Then you’re going to put the heatproof bowl over the pot of simmering water and whisk the eggs constantly for about 2 minutes, until the sauce thickens. Don’t stop whisking or some of the egg mixture will solidify…

Once it’s thick, you’re going to add a stick and a half… yes, a stick and a half… of butter to the sauce, one tablespoon at a time, off the heat. So ideally you want the butter to be room temperature, and you want to have sliced it into little chunks. Add it one chunk at a time and incorporate each chunk thoroughly. You can put the sauce back over the simmering water if it gets too cool to melt the butter. At this point mine looked pretty funky, and I was just sure that I had messed up, but I kept whisking away and gently heating anyway. And when I was done… I had something that looked like the stuff you get on Eggs Benedict at restaurants! I added a couple shakes of salt, the juice of one lemon, and a pinch of cayenne pepper, and then I tasted it. And then I rejoiced. It was heavenly! HEAVENLY! How had I created something so wonderful? Goodness, it was wonderful. I decided I was going to create “Eggs Rachel Ehrlich,” which would have been a dish comprised of corned beef hash, fried till crispy, topped with a poached egg or two, topped with hollandaise sauce.

Sadly, no matter how closely I read Martha’s instructions nor how many eggs I tried, I could not poach an egg. I have since looked up this video: http://www.wikihow.com/Poach-an-Egg and plan to try and poach an egg again soon.

Anyway, I used a fried egg instead, and Eggs Rachel Ehrlich was a huge success. The hollandaise sauce went really wonderfully with the corned beef hash, though I’m sure you could serve it over cardboard and it would be a dream. Seriously, make this sauce. After I finished my meal I dipped some bread in the sauce, and then licked the spoon after I transferred it to a Tupperware container (which I’m not sure if you can do, I have a feeling that hollandaise sauce won’t reheat well. We’ll see!). Then I spent the rest of the night in bed contemplating my impending death and wondering if I should make myself throw up. My wonderful housemate Larry gave me a can of Coke, and that helped, but seriously- don’t eat as much hollandaise sauce as I did. Don’t do it.

But do make it. It will make your whole life seem better.

East Sushi

Well, Lent is upon us. I initially decided to give up Facebook, but I just don’t feel right about that. So going without Facebook for as long as I can will be a separate side project, and for Lent I am giving up Stouffer’s mac ‘n cheese (which, yes, is absolutely horrible for you, but gosh is it yummy). That way I can still eat Villa Rosa mac ‘n cheese. I do not consider this cheating.

Man, was Fat Tuesday fun though. Gavin and I went to East Sushi, which is the wonderful Chinese/Japanese restaurant next to Villa Rosa. I’m not very knowledgeable about sushi but the stuff we had last night was really good- I got an order of white tuna sushi, which is never on the menu but most restaurants have anyway, and Gavin got regular tuna and salmon. The tuna was buttery soft and had a slightly sweet flavor, and was complimented nicely by the bottle of “Silk” sake I brought with me.

Now, the Silk caused me to ponder a little bit on word play and languages. Because above the English word “silk,” it was also spelled out in Hiragana-しるく (Shi ru ku). I doubt most of you are familiar with Japanese, but Hiragana is the set of characters used to spell out native Japanese words. They have another set of characters- Katakana- for writing foreign loan words phonetically, and that is the alphabet that the word silk should have been spelled out in-シルク. Why did this company use Hiragana? Is it just because Hiragana is more aesthetically pleasing? Is this the Japanese equivalent of the intentional misspelling of Krispy Kreme or the backwards R in Toys R Us? These are the things I think about.

Well, regardless, I thought it tasted nice. Kou had a little bit later that night and explained that it probably came from the top of... whatever they make sake in, and that is why it was so light. He prefers sake that comes from the bottom and is heavy and super sweet. I will have to learn more about sake. But I thoroughly enjoyed my dinner of white tuna sushi and sesame beef- which is also amazingly delicious, with a sweet sauce that compliments the savory meat, and a delightfully crispy fried exterior. Mmm. It is understandable why so many people ignore Villa Rosa to go into East. Gavin got the Tonkatsu Don, which he was also very happy with in spite of the presence of onions in the meal. Go to East Sushi!

Fat Tuesday and Lent

So I guess tomorrow is Fat Tuesday, and I need to come up with something awesome to do to celebrate and also something to give up for Lent. Do my dear readers have any suggestions for either?

It seems that both occasions revolve around food- Fat Tuesday the eating of it, and Lent the giving up of it. As you might have guessed, I love food. I don't want to give anything up for Lent. 40 whole days without chocolate? Macaroni and cheese? Cookies? The horror! But I have to give up SOMETHING, even if I cheat a little and make it not a food item. I mean, I don't want to go into all of my complaints about organized religion and how I don't believe in it, since this is a place for food and as such should be a safe, happy, religious-free zone; but it does annoy the hell out of me that I don't believe in any little bit of the Bible or any religious text but I still think I will have bad luck if I don't give something up for Lent. Thanks, Mom.

So, what could I do? Video games are out of the question- I would go crazy. I could try and improve my health by giving up sweets or junk food... but a little part of me dies inside just thinking about it. No delicious barbecue chips? I'm getting a little hysterical. Facebook?

Now there's a thought.... Hrmm, I think I could do that. I'll have to ponder on this. In the meantime, post your suggestions! Try to talk me out of it! Share what you're giving up, if you were also raised with a healthy does of Catholic guilt!

Super Bowl! Nachos and Dirt Cake

Man, you know what it turns out is really fun? Watching the Super Bowl when you actually care which team wins! I realize this post is super-delayed, but listen, I’ve been real busy, okay?

Every year at the Ehrlich household, we watch the Super Bowl and eat delicious treats. Sometimes we’ll order Buffalo wings, sometimes Mom and Dad will have a whole bunch of people over and order sandwiches and cookies and all sorts of goodies, and I’ll never forget the party we had the year that the Bucs won. But the one thing that really stands out in my mind is my mom’s nachos.

These things are bitchin’. I’m sorry, but that is the only way I can describe them. Mary Jo’s nachos* are absolutely off the chains. They are savory and tangy and spicy and complex, and I was always thrilled whenever she made them. They had green peppers and onions in them, yes, but that elusive flavor was so addicting that I didn’t mind eating around them. The Super Bowl and Mom’s Nachos are always going to be connected in my brain.

*Apparently they are actually Anne Kremer's nachos. Anne, your nachos are delicious.

So this year, trapped in my snowy house with only my housemates for company (which isn’t a bad thing- again, they’re great guys), I decided that I would have my own Super Bowl party just for me. I was gonna make Mom’s Nachos and dirt cake, and I was going to eat them and watch the gosh darned Super Bowl. AND I was going to cheer for a team! Hah! Take that, winter!

During the afternoon I made my dirt cake, and I’ll put the recipe at the bottom of the page because I have a feeling not very many people actually want to read it.

I made my nachos after the first quarter. I got out my ingredients: 1 lb ground beef, 2 cloves of garlic, a can of dark red kidney beans, a 16oz bottle of ketchup, a jar of Chili powder, a jar of garlic powder, salt, and Tabasco sauce.

“Who are you rooting for?” Andrew asked me as I minced the garlic.

“Um… I dunno. Who is playing who again? There’s the guys in gold pants versus the guys in blue…” I answered, dropping the minced garlic into my pan of simmering ground beef.

“Yeah, the New Orleans Saints are playing the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts are the guys in blue, they’re up by 10 right now,” Andrew informed me as I dumped a can of drained dark red kidney beans to my delightful meaty medley.

“New Orleans, huh? Popeye’s Chicken and Biscuits is from New Orleans. I LOVE Popeyes fried chicken! I am going to root for New Orleans,” I happily declared while adding a generous amount of chili powder, salt, and garlic powder to my pan.

“Things aren’t looking good for them, Rachel,” Andrew reminded me as I dumped about half a bottle of ketchup onto my meat.

“That’s alright, I’m loyal to fried chicken,” I added a couple shakes of Tabasco sauce.

“Man, that smells really good.”

“Right? Let’s pour this over some chips and melt some cheese on this bad boy!”

In no time at all Andrew and I were back in his room, watching the Super Bowl and eating some spectacular nachos. Cooking for yourself is awesome because you can leave out the things you don’t like, such as the green peppers and onions. Eugh.

After we finished our nachos I cracked open my dirt cake, and we indulged in that while watching team fried chicken win an amazing and totally unexpected victory. What a great Super Bowl! Go Popeyes! If I had been a true fan I would have gone to Popeyes to celebrate, but at this point I was pretty full.

Dirt Cake:

Ingredients- 1 package Oreos, 2 packets instant chocolate pudding, 4 cups milk, 1 packet cool whip, 1 bag gummy worms (or gummy bears, in my case.)

Follow the directions for the chocolate pudding and get that all made. While the pudding is setting, crush up about 7 Oreos and place them at the bottom of whatever you are serving your dirt cake in. Then, mix in as much of the cool whip as you’d like with the chocolate pudding- I use the whole thing so the pudding is fluffy and light. Layer some of the pudding-cool whip mixture on top of the Oreos, and then add another layer of crushed Oreos. At this point you can top it with some gummy worms if you’d like- some people like to only have them on top, others layer them throughout the cake (or, really pudding). I put some gummy bears in the middle, and decided to call mine “horrible earthquake cake” rather than dirt cake. Add one more layer of pudding, and then top it again with a layer of crushed Oreos and gummy bears/worms. Simple, but so delicious!

Golden Delicious Cupcakes

I’m definitely too new to cooking and baking to be inventing any of my own recipes, but I have to admit I have one recipe I consider to be mine. It isn’t mine at all- I got this recipe for red velvet cupcakes from the Food Network website. It’s listed under Bobby Flay’s show but I’m not sure if they’re actually his cupcakes. But, either way, over time they have evolved into MY cupcakes, and they are now Golden Delicious cupcakes. Here is why:

The first time I made these cupcakes was with my very dear friend Caroline. We had both just been getting into baking, and at the time we only had a chocolate cake under our belts (Beatty’s Chocolate Cake from The Barefoot Contessa: At Home). We both love red velvet cake so we decided to try the Bobby Flay recipe, only without the red food coloring. They came out pretty well despite the fact that we kept getting teaspoons and tablespoons confused and having to scoop out excess baking soda, etc. My housemates loved them, but since they were skeptical when presented with non-red Red Velvet cupcakes we decided to start telling people that they were Golden Delicious cupcakes.

A few weekends later my housemates were throwing a very small party at our house, and at about midnight Andrew decided he wanted cupcakes. I won’t lie to you; we were pretty drunk.

What I neglected to mention earlier is that Bobby Flay’s recipe is described by weight, rather than measurements. So instead of say, 2 cups of flour, it calls for 15.5 oz. When I baked the cupcakes with Caroline, she looked up the conversions as we went along and we didn’t bother to write them down, so Andrew and I had to start from scratch. No problem! We are college students! We can totally do math!

…we were wrong.

I’ve saved the conversions Andrew came up with, and they still make me laugh. What makes this especially funny is we were trying to halve the recipe:

7 ¾ cups flour

5/8 tsp salt

5/8 tsp baking soda

5/8 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder

¾ cups vegetable oil

13 tablespoons sugar

5/8 cups buttermilk

1 ½ eggs

Look at this thing! SEVEN cups of flour with less than a teaspoon of salt and baking soda? What were we thinking? Also, we completely forgot about the apple cider vinegar and vanilla which the original recipe called for. I also think Andrew and I trying to figure out how to halve an egg was the highlight of everyone’s night. Needless to say, our cupcakes did not turn out well. They were dry and bland, even though we only used a little bit of our ridiculous mixture of flour when we realized it was far too much for the liquid ingredients we had. The next day I realized we’d made a terrible mistake, and I still had all this leftover flour mixed with cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. So I scooped out about 2 cups of the mixture, added a full teaspoon of salt, baking soda, and cocoa powder to it like a sane person, and used two WHOLE eggs in the liquid mixture since our earlier cupcakes had been so dry. Batch number 2 turned out pretty decent.

Over the past few months I have been making these cupcakes pretty frequently, and I’m actually ashamed to admit that for the first four batches I made I was still measuring out 13 tablespoons of sugar. We don’t have a tablespoon measure, only a half tablespoon, so it took me four occasions of counting out 26 spoonfuls of sugar before I decided that, maybe, I should convert the measurement into cups instead. But anyway, eventually I worked everything out to a pretty stable recipe which I had the good sense to write down- including a recipe for cream cheese icing that I came up with all by myself! (It only has four ingredients so I can’t really be THAT proud.) The last time I made these (last week), I decided to look up the Bobby Flay recipe and do the conversions again, and I was delighted that our recipes were almost identical (his calls for some water which I never bother to add). Through trial and error, I worked out the same proportions as a professional cook! I rule!

So, here is my Golden Delicious cupcake recipe:

Ingredients (cupcakes):

~2 cups flour 1 2/3 cups sugar

1 ¼ tsp baking soda 1 ¼ cups buttermilk

1 ¼ tsp salt 3 eggs

1 ¼ tsp cocoa powder 1 ¼ tsp apple cider vinegar

1 ½ cups vegetable oil 1 ¼ tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350, of course.

First I mix together my flour, baking soda, salt, and coca powder. You’re supposed to sift these things, I know, but I’m lazy and I don’t have a sifter. They still turn out just fine.

Then, in an electric mixer you’re going to blend the oil, sugar, and buttermilk (which I shake before opening). Once they’re nicely combined you can throw in the eggs, vinegar, and vanilla. Then with the mixer on low, add the dry mixture a little bit at a time until the batter is at the consistency you’d like. I usually end up using all of it. Make sure you don’t over mix! That’s supposed to make the batter too tough.

Then, you know, pour it into a paper-lined muffin tray, and pop it in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Ingredients (icing):

1 stick butter ½ cup powdered sugar

1 oz packet cream cheese 1 tsp vanilla

Whip all that stuff up in an electric mixer! I like to microwave my butter for about 15 seconds before I mix it with the cream cheese so that it incorporates better. Then I blend together the butter and cream cheese, and then I add the sugar and finally the vanilla. Delicious!

You should make these and give me credit for the recipe.

And on a totally un-related note, I saw this invention on Parks and Recreation last night and the idea is absolutely hilarious to me. I hope someone actually creates a DJ Roomba: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt0wBL2GGlA

My Wonderful Living Companions

The guys I live with are totally great guys. I am so happy to be living with them this year. How awesome is this:

A little bit ago I stumbled in the house, unshowered, exhausted, and miserable. I had a horrible night last night and was up way past my 12 o'clock bedtime, and I embarrassed myself in front of a professor who I really like and admire. Don't get me wrong; I realize there are worse problems out there, and that there are people who don't even get food on a regular basis and would stab me to death if they knew I was complaining about having a bad day attending classes my parents are paying for so that I can have a more comfortable life. But, still, a heart full of regret is a heart full of regret. I digress.

So I return home and my housemate Andrew is in the kitchen frying up some corned beef hash.

"Oh, hey Rachel- you're just in time. I cooked up this whole can of corned beef hash but I only want half of it, do you want the rest?"

Oh, god, yes. After having only been home a minute I was enjoying a wonderful meal of crispy corned beef hash, fried eggs, and a nice cool glass of milk. Does life get any better than that? I don't think it does.

Sorry! Make a 3 milk cake!

So, in my head I was going to be updating this thing every day, but I don't think I can do that. Maybe I'll shoot for 3 times a week, Penny Arcade style! We'll see. Anyway, Wednesdays and Thursdays are pretty crazy days for me, so most likely there will not be updates then. But I'm going to try and have a post on cupcakes up soon. Please forgive me, devoted readers (aka Mom and Dad)! I love you!

To hold you over, here is a recipe for a delicious pastel de tres leches, which I made over winter break with my friends and we all agreed was heartbreakingly good:

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/09/tres-leches-cake/

Give it a try! It's pretty easy, and so tasty it might make you cry.

P.S. For those of you who don't know, Penny Arcade is a webcomic that updates on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. The guys who write it are hilarious and witty, and you should read their comic. Well, unless you don't play video games, or if you're offended by swearing or penis jokes. Awesome, I've just alienated anyone who might actually read this.

Dumplings!

Okay, so I lied about writing about my dining experience with Caroline. That will come soon, I promise! Today I wanted to write about the dumplings I made for dinner on Sunday night.

On Sunday I was pretty bummed. I’d spent the weekend cooped up doing Spanish homework while my friends went out and did awesome fun things, because somehow I’ve ended up with the most work-intensive courseload of my college career. So I was bummed about homework, and bummed that a lot of really cool people in my life will no longer be in my life in a few months, and bummed about a lot of other stuff as well. I was bummed. I needed cheering up, which of course meant I needed to eat something delicious. But after splurging on my delicious Villa Rosa dinner with Caroline (which, really, I’ll tell you about eventually), I needed to make something delicious and also cheap. Which made me think of a post I’d read recently on the Amateur Gourmet about do-it yourself Chinese dumplings:

http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2010/01/do-it-yourself.html

It was perfect! I love dumplings, and I love things that are easy to make! I went to Stop & Shop (which is slightly more expensive than ShopRite but it’s not constantly crowded with disgruntled Trenton residents and their screaming children. Grocery shopping should be pleasant, not a hassle!), where they didn’t have ground pork, but they did have a package of pork tenderloin on sale! I decided I could chop it up real thin and that would be just fine… This was a mistake.

I mean, it turned out quite tasty, but it took me about 30 minutes to cut up the whole thing of meat. 30 messy, gross minutes. The meat wanted to squirm out from under my knife with each slice, and it had been packaged in some kind of slimy fluid. Eugh. I also decided to cook while im-ing, so every few minutes I would look at my computer screen, and if I needed to reply to someone I would wash the gross gooey pork slime off my hands, type my reply, and then go back to cutting. Probably not the best idea, but a girl needs her Internet. And the good news was my bad mood was already dissolving! The anticipation of the delicious meal ahead of me along with the warm company of my computer and the delightful sounds of the Dirty Projectors were doing wonders for me. Hooray cooking!

Everything else was pretty easy- I just followed the instructions in the video. The hardest part for sure was the dough. It is just mixing flour and water, and that’s all well and good, but I don’t have a rolling pin. So I decided to just tear out little chunks of dough and smash them in my hands to flatten ‘em… this took me roughly an hour. I really need to get a rolling pin.

Once everything was all done, though, I tossed the dumplings in a pot of boiling water -which I’m glad no one documented, because me putting things in boiling water consists of me standing a few inches back and throwing the food towards the pot while screaming. I’m really scared of getting splashed by boiling water! Anyway, I waited until they were floating at the top of the water, and then just scooped them out (with a slotted spoon, not my bare hands) and I had delicious dumplings! The dough was super thick and filling, so if you’re more into paper-thin dumpling pastry you might wanna try those wonton wrappers Adam mentions.

I made the ginger/vinegar/soy sauce and it was super-tasty and a perfect compliment for the dumplings. And, best of all, by this point I was in a great mood! I was totally impressed at having cooked such a legit meal for myself. That is the word Gavin gave it, when he biked over to taste some after I im-ed him a link to Adam’s blog (you know, while I was slicing my pork). He bit in and exclaimed:

“Wow, Rachel, these are legit!”

So, in conclusion, if you have a rolling pin, and you hunt down ground pork, I definitely recommend these! You’ll be so impressed with yourself.

Villa Rosa Macaroni and Cheese

I had the most divine macaroni and cheese the other night. I mean, this was life-changing macaroni and cheese. I’ve experimented with macaroni and cheese recipes- I have one I’m particularly proud of that I make with goat cheese, cheddar, baby bell, and bacon. But this macaroni and cheese was a revelation. Where did I consume this divine meal? The Villa Rosa Ristorante. You know, the place attached to the pizzeria in that shopping center on Scotch Road? The place you’ve never considered going into because it’s right next to East Sushi, and, come on, sushi! Yeah, that place.

I discovered it on accident on Friday, when Gavin, my first and best friend here at TCNJ, had me call in a pizza for pick-up for him on our way back from rock climbing. We were famished. I did not want pizza. I wanted Taco Bell, but I acquiesced to pizza, because I’m a good person.

“Hello, I’d like to call in an order for pick-up. I’d like a large pepperoni pizza and…. Ummm… hmm. I’m sorry, just a second… Gavin, what do I want?”

“Get fettuccine alfredo. You like fettuccine alfredo.”

“Eh… Hey! Do you guys serve mac ‘n cheese?”

“Macaroni and cheese? Yeah, we have that.”

“Yay! Okay, yeah, a large pepperoni pizza and a small mac ‘n cheese. Thanks!”

I hang up the phone and Gavin comments, “Why would you order mac ‘n cheese? You have a pantry full of Kraft at home. You should take advantage of going out for Italian.” I defensively point that I am hungry, and mac ‘n cheese is simple and satisfying.

We get to the pizzeria and pick up our food, and at this point I am too hungry to wait so I open up my container of mac ‘n cheese right in the car. It is dark, and all I can see is a layer of pasta topped with what I think is parmesan cheese, and I am hungry and grumpy. “Ugh! They just improvised! They just poured parmesan on pasta! UGH!!!”

But then, the smell hits us. In the past, I have experimented with truffles. I splurged once on a container of d’Artagnan white truffle butter, with which I made Ina Garten’s tagliarelle with truffle butter. It was divine. For my parents’ anniversary I made them, again using Ina’s recipe (I love Ina), truffled fillet of beef sandwiches. They were to die for. My point is, even though I’m a shitty 22 year old college kid who up until recently had survived on Chef Boyardee, I know what truffles smell like. So imagine my surprise when I catch that unmistakable earthy smell wafting from the container of macaroni and cheese in my lap. Gavin notices it too, commenting, “Hey! That smells just like that Ina pasta you made over the summer.” (I’ve trained him well.) Incredulously, I dig my plastic fork in. Underneath the parmesan (what was actually bread crumbs) layer, there is a creamy delicious wonderland. A wonderland with, yes, truffle oil! And bacon! Well, it is more likely pancetta, but still! Meat! My first bite was like a chorus of angels singing in my head. I moaned. I grinned. I forced a bite on my driving friend, who also let out several noises of surprised delight. And insisted I feed him more bites. For the rest of the car ride I waxed poetic on that mac ‘n cheese.

“What if we had decided to get Taco Bell, like I wanted?”

“I know.”

“What if I’d just shared a pizza with you? What if I’d listened to you and ordered fettuccine?”

“Greatest tragedy ever.”

“What if I hadn’t decided to come climbing with you?”

“It’s destiny.”

“It IS! I think this is proof that the universe loves me and wants me to be happy.”

“Definitely.”

And that, friends, is the story of how I discovered Villa Rosa macaroni and cheese. Upon returning to the restaurant the next day, I found out that the cheese sauce was made of fontina cheese. How were they only charging 9 dollars for this? I mean, the entrée version is 18 bucks, but the appetizer was plenty of food for me; I even had leftover. If you love yourself, you will go there and consume some.

Introduction

So, I've endeavored to make blogs before but they've never been very successful. However, last night I was browsing through the Amateur Gourmet archives, and I found this entry: http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2006/11/chutzpah_truffles_alain_ducass.html

"This guy got a truffle dinner for FREE just because he keeps a blog? I could keep a blog!"

Now, I know that I am no Adam Roberts. I love Adam Roberts. He is the man who got me into cooking. I'm also no Pioneer Woman. I have no illusions that this blog will be as interesting as established ones, but I figure I can write about culinary opportunities here in good ol' Ewing and maybe give fellow TCNJers some food ideas or something. I mean, thanks to The Internet, I can have a voice too! Plus it is a good way to practice my writing, since in my heart of hearts I still hope to someday be a writer.

Normally I am a pretty pessimistic motherfucker, but when I am eating food or thinking about food it puts me in a damn good mood. Maybe I'll have that as a theme in this bad boy; bad moods fixed by meals. We'll see!

Oh, and I swear. All of my fancy-schmancy college lit classes have taught me that's okay. I just gotta be me!