A New Experiment

Dear Friends,

For all of you that have followed my cooking chronicles for the last four years: I appreciate your perseverance and devotion. Unfortunately, I have decided that maintaining two blogs is unfair to all of you since it means that I don't post often on either. So, I have decided to attempt to remedy this situation by merging them. As of today, you can find all the posts from this blog on my other blog. And all my future adventures in cooking will be found there as well. I'd encourage you to hop on over and then you can read not only about my adventures in cooking but also about my adventures in grad school, my adventures on the east coast, and anything else I can think of (and find the energy to write about). I hope you enjoy this new experiment in my attempt to be a blogger.

Love always,

Me

Brussel Sprouts with Roasted Grapes

So a while back I saw this recipe on Two Kitchen Promenade that looked pretty interesting. Brussel sprouts are one of those foods that have a reputation for being pretty awful. In fact, until I made this recipe I had never ever had a brussel sprout before. I think the only reason I was brave enough to try them was because I have known 3 or 4 people in the recent past who think brussel sprouts are pretty amazing.

Unfortunately for me green grapes were what was on sale so my dish didn't have the same color appeal that this one had, but c'est la vie. I will say that brussel sprouts are pretty delicious. I'm not sure how they ended up with such a terrible reputation, but I'm glad that they are coming back in style. One thing I will say though, is that they are much better fresh; they don't reheat well at all--actually, it's mostly the grapes that don't reheat well. Next time grapes (and brussel sprouts) go on sale I will definitely be making this one again.

Hot Cross Buns

So back in 2010 I posted about Hot Cross Buns and you probably thought it was a one-time occurance. Well, I've made them again (though I don't think I made them any times between then and now). And today I want to tell you a little more about their history. These buns are a traditional Good Friday food, and so naturally that's when I made them. It seems that the cross represents the crucifixion but Wikipedia (aren't my sources great? and I call myself a librarian) doesn't seem to say anything about how it came to be a tradition, so I guess we will just have to remain unenlightened for a while longer (maybe next year when I make them I'll be inclined to doing more proper research).

When I went to make these this time I looked for the recipe I used ages ago, but I really have no idea where it came from and the one I ended up using was significantly easier, though I didn't actually love it. (I also have no recollection to what my last attempt tasted like for a comparison.) I think that next time I'll try another recipe yet again because these ones were kind of dry and I didn't love that. One thing I did like though was that I used cherry juice-infused craisins instead of raisins and that was pretty tasty. Though I was just reading about a variation that uses chocolate chips instead and that would probably be even better. I was prompted to try these fancy craisins to see how the might work to solve the great tea-ring debate. I have another package of craisins and I want to try them in the tea-ring in concert with a recipe for glace cherries I found to see if that will solve the issue--I'm not sure that it will really be an adequate substitute.

Potato Pizza

This seems like forever ago that I was on my pizza kick, but for a while I'm pretty sure I made pizza (usually with zuccini and squash on it) at least once a week and maybe more like twice. I'm not sure what happened. I guess I got busy (which I definitely did, if I look at my life in January and my life now they are completely different). But back when I ate pizza all the time I saw this recipe for potato pizza and thought it sounded pretty tasty. Though when I made it I admit that I made some changes because I had neither shallots nor gruyere (though if I did that would've been pretty fantastic). Sadly, it's a little hard to remember, but I'm pretty sure I used cheddar cheese. And I also learned that you definitely need to make sure the potatoes are cooked all the way through before you put them on the crust because they won't finish cooking in the oven. But other than that, the pizza turned out pretty fantastically. Writing this makes me want to make pizza again soon, maybe I'll get ingredients for one next time I do a shop.

Spinach

So for no apparent reason I was under the impression most of my life that cooked spinach wasn't very good. I don't know where I got that impression because I definitely also knew that eating spinach makes you strong enough to punch the living daylights out Bluto--Popeye's nemesis. But so a couple of weeks ago I had a whole bunch of spinach that was starting to wilt, and so it wasn't ideal for a salad, but I still needed to eat it so I looked up a recipe for cooked spinach. It is surprisingly tasty. And since spinach cooks down so much I feel uber healthy eating half a bag of spinach in about 4 spoonfuls.

Spinach with Sesame and Garlic

Cherry Tea Ring

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is the cherry tea ring that my mom makes for breakfast on Christmas morning. She always makes it the night before and then it rises in the fridge overnight (in theory it least). By now you're probably wondering tea ring? What's that? Does it really have tea in it? To which I answer no. It has no tea in it (think coffee cake). But a tea ring is similar to cinnamon rolls only a different shape. Basically you make cinnamon rolls but instead of slicing them completely apart you only cut them partway and it makes this lovely ring. And we put chopped up candied cherry pieces inside and on top.

Before I cooked it.

The candied cherries always cause a bit of consternation in our household. If you have ever gone on the hunt for candied fruit in this country you know the trouble it is to find it. Granted at Christmas time it is a little bit easier, but it's still hard to find small packages of just cherries. Mixed fruit is much easier. And no matter what you find they're incredibly expensive. So a couple summers ago when I was in England I stumbled upon small pots of just candied cherries for 79p. You can't beat that price. Even if the exchange rate is 2:1 $1.60 is about a third of what you'd pay for candied cherries in the States. So I quickly snapped up two packages. I still had one left at Christmas this year but completely forgot to take them home and so I decided that it was time for me to use them up. Mine didn't rise as well as I'd like, but I blame that on my poorly heated house. But it tasted fantastic.

Check out that gooey deliciousness.

Black bean and sweet potato tacos

It is amazing to me just how versatile the sweet potato is. I would never have pegged it for being a good taco-filling, or even for going well with black beans. But it is, and it does. Once again I will beg your forgiveness for the lack of a photo. While my taco turned out very deliciously, it wasn't really attractive enough for my to take a picture. (I used too big of a tortilla, and put in too much filling and ate it like a burrito, except with the filling falling out all over the place). Instead, I will have to refer you to this blog instead, and to her picture, because hers is excellent.