Desire: The Weekend

This week has already been insane. Yes I know it is only Tuesday but once and a while Tuesday seems like Thursday and all you can think about is the weekend. It is definitely one of those weeks.

Last Sunday Boyfriend and I decided it was a pancake kind of a day. I made strawberry pancakes for him.

And whole-wheat banana pancakes for myself. My bananas were pretty ripe so I ended up mixing the mashed banana into the batter. Both versions were delicious topped with warm maple syrup. Boyfriend is from Massachusetts and takes syrup very seriously. He grew up across the street from a maple-sugaring shack. 

Syrup with fillers or additives is expressly forbidden in our house. His sister brought us this bottle earlier in the year.

Several years ago I started seeing frozen pancakes nestled next to the Eggos on store shelves. While these are good, everyone knows they are not as good as homemade pancakes. I like to make a big batch of pancakes, cool them, wrap them in plastic wrap and then freeze them. 

They heat up really well in the toaster (although I have only ever tried with a fairly hearty whole wheat pancake). I had one, spread with a little peanut butter, yesterday for a pre-workout snack, it was delicious. (It also works well with pancakes or waffles with nuts and dried fruit). 

Craving: A new spin

I have been trying to figure out how to make my blog more unique and focused. Boyfriend is super supportive in this endeavor and came up with a fantastic idea for me! (He has an amazing blog that is unique, focused and well written. And, if you are into baseball, I mean REALLY into baseball you will love it.)

Anyway I love gourmet food but I totally don’t have the budget to cook that way right now. So, the plan is to take gourmet concepts, flavors, textures and put them in a low budget frame. Tonight was my first attempt. I took some left over steak (from a date night meal), a couple of shrimp and a potato- voila! surf and turf twice baked potato.

Twice baked potatoes were a staple in my house as a child. Mom would use them as an excuse to use up all the vegetable and cheese scraps. They are also pretty quick and easy to whip together. Scrub the potato, scour the edge where you would cut it in half (so it doesn’t explode in the microwave), microwave the potato and carefully scrape out the insides with a large spoon (take care not to rip the skin). Rub the skins with olive oil and coarse sea salt (crucial for a crunchy and delicious skin). 

Mix butter, milk, and cheese in with the still warm potato insides and place the mix back in the skins. Bake at 400 for around 20 minutes. Time varies depending on what your stuffing is but I typically find that sufficient.

I ended up making two separate potatoes. The steak with extra sharp white cheddar.

The shrimp with lemon, parmesan, Italian seasoning and topped with bread crumbs. 

I will make this meal again with a slightly different slant, next time I will use crab, instead of shrimp, and combine all the ingredients with a modified béarnaise sauce. 

Need: Quick and Easy Meals

School is back in full swing and I am struggling with my new schedule. Over the summer I typically got home around 5:30 or 6:00, plenty of time to plan and cook a meal. Now, I get home around 7:45 and the last thing I want to do is cook. 

My go-to meal for nights I really can’t get it together is a quick mix of whole wheat or spinach pasta topped with peas, some pecorino romano and a side salad.

This weekend was one of my last lazy weekends. Saturday involved reading Last Night at Chateau Marmont cover to cover and watching some college football, somehow in the midst of all the, uh excitement, I missed lunch. I ended up having one of my favorite easy snacks mid afternoon.

I like to cut the rind off the brie, it doesn’t melt well and the change in texture bothers me. I am picky, I know.

Tart green apples are the perfect compliment to buttery brie. Not the lightest of meals but in the grand scheme of football watching foods it is not that bad. 

Craving: Gourmet Burgers

Food trends pop up fast and by the time they finally leave you are utterly sick of whatever the hot ingredient/ food was. South Carolina usually gets the trends a little after the rest of the world but they still hit hard. Four years ago the pork belly fad nearly killed me, if I never see pork belly on a menu again I will be happy camper. The more recent trends aren’t quite as ubiquitous or, well, fatty. Most cupcake bakeries in town are still holding on (my personal favorite being the almond cupcake at Sugar Bake Shop), food trucks are even starting to pop up in Charleston.

One food trend that hasn’t hit Charleston too hard yet is gourmet burger restaurants.  Save one or two, my favorite being Sesame, which is fantastic, AND uses hormone free beef and local ingredients. 

I took a quick weekend trip to Atlanta to see some girlfriends and they took me to Flip Burger Boutique. To avoid the 45-minute wait we chose to sit outside on their patio.

I had the Butcher’s Cut, which has caramelized onions, bleu cheese, red wine jam and pickled shallots. The meat was perfectly cooked, the ingredients were well balanced, and the size was just right for me. For a side I had zucchini fries that came topped with parmesan cheese and lemon zest.

For desert, a Nutella milkshake with toasted marshmallows. My friend Zoe had a turtle milkshake that was out of this world. After a delicious meal the girls and I hit the town and ended up at one of their favorite neighborhood haunts, Hand in Hand.  

All in all the trip was fantastic but ever since I got back I have been craving some Flip Burger, I guess I will have to head back to Atlanta soon.

Need: A slow start to the semester

It is that time of year again, the beginning of school. There are so many crazy things going on in my life right now that I really do need a slow start to the semester. It is my third and final year of law school and I am not looking forward to the real world, at all. My pre-school trip to Atlanta was amazing, but more about that later.

This weekend the Boyfriend, his father, and I began the task of setting up a new apartment, always a massive undertaking. The place was fantastic to begin with but hopefully with our new additions it will be even better. We took down the ceiling fans and put up some bright new lights, set up cabinets in the kitchen and the bathroom, and we are thinking about slightly redesigning the closet. I have loved this project and it has gone very smoothly. I will, hopefully, get some pictures up soon!

Need: Redemption in the Kitchen

After my recent failures I was determine to redeem myself and prove once again, that I can, in fact, cook. I went back to basics, a simple cake, no icing, no fancy ingredients. I found the perfect Chocolate Banana cake on Week of Menus and while it is not anything the Boyfriend can eat, it looked delicious (and I just so happened to have a pile of overripe bananas). 

The cake came together beautifully, fluffy and rich. The flavor is deeper and not overwhelming sweet due to the bittersweet chocolate. The banana flavor is fairly delicate, next time I may use 4 bananas to intensify the flavor. I used a 9.5 inch Pyrex pie pan, I should have used a round with higher sides but it worked out ok.

Chocolate Banana Cake (from The Cake Book by Tish Boyle)

9 X 5 inch loaf or a 9 inch round (serves 8-10)

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup Dutch processed cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/3 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup sour cream (I used 0% Greek yogurt and it worked well)

4 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped (I went a little over)

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 350.  Grease bottom and sides of pan.

Sift together flour, coca powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl.  Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, using paddle attachment beat butter at medium speed until creamy, about 1 minutes.  Gradually beat in the sugar and beat at high until well blended, about 2 minutes.  At medium speed, beat in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.  Add the mashed bananas and vanilla extract and mix at low speed until blended.  Add the flour mixture at low speed in three additions, alternating it with the sour cream in two additions.  Remove bowl from the mixer stand and stir in the chopped chocolate.  Scrap batter into the prepared pan and smooth top with spatula.

Bake cake for 55 to 65 minutes (loaf pan) or 45 to 50 minutes (round pan), until a cake tester into the center comes out clean (except for any melted chocolate.)

Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes.

Unmold cake onto the rack, turn right side up and cool completely.

Epic Cookie Fail

I have always prided myself in being able to bake. I grew up spending a ton of time with my grandmother (Nana) who could do no wrong in the kitchen. We spent hours together making hand cranked pasta, cakes, cookies, chocolates, and homemade rose vinegar (if you haven’t tried it, you should, I was 13 before I realized there was any other type of vinegar). I didn’t get her green thumb but I thought I got some of her cooking skills. The past couple of weeks have certainly made me question that. I seem to destroy even the simplest of recipes. Last week I made fluffy tasteless chocolate chip cookies and last night I made cake like sugar cookies. They seemed perfect when I was shaping them.

You see I am typically a cake/bread type of girl. I have an oatmeal lace cookie that family begs for, a banana walnut bread that is to die for, and a coconut cake recipe that, if I do say so, is the bomb. I would always request the cake for my birthday. I thought I had the real recipe but when Nana passed, and I got her recipe box, I found five different versions. I had to try every single one to figure out which cake was the real recipe (hint- it was a combination of all five). Southern women have a habit of changing little things before handing off recipes, yes even grandmothers to their only granddaughters, the kitchen can be a cold, harsh place.

Why have I deviated from what I am good at? Well I have this adorable boyfriend, who due to a freak medical issue can no longer eat some key ingredients- mainly nuts, chocolate, bananas or dairy. So I have been trying to master recipes he can eat. Hence the cake like sugar cookies. While their flavor was delicious the texture was all wrong.  I tried to slightly make up for it by being totally cheesy with the last batch.