Sangria Saturday

Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone! I know for most Americans this is just an excuse to have a taco and a Mexican beer, but the holiday does of course have deeper roots. Fortunately, recent years have brought us ignorant Americans greater enlightenment, so most people no longer believe that it is a Mexican Independence day. Before that wide information wave, the rumor probably started because 5th of May sounds so much like the 4th of July, but Mexico's independence is celebrated on September 16th. El Grito de Independencia is marked as the day that Father Hidalgo (and others) rang the bell of a local church to signal the start of their fight for liberty from Spain. My understanding is that original plans had the revolt starting in October, but they were discovered and started things a bit early. Just like my rum mixing this morning. ;) ;)

No, Cinco de Mayo marks the Battle of Puebla, an unlikely win the Mexican army pulled against French forces during the American Civil war. That was about 50 years after Hidalgo did his thing.

And since the Spanish had nothing to do with Cinco de Mayo, I have no problem serving (vaguely) Spanish Sangria at my boyfriend's birthday party tonight. While I love celebrating Mexican heritage and culture (and all cultures!) I love celebrating him more. ;)


The ingredients for this recipe are approximate, and per pitcher. If you are having more than 6-8 people over, I recommend 2 pitchers and up. You don't need very many glasses of this stuff to really really feel it, but it is super tasty with all the fruit and people will come back for more! The apples soak up rum really well and give a great burst when you bite them. YUM.

Sensational Sangria
a joyful foodie original

Ingredients:
750ml bottle of red wine*
1 1/2 cups spiced rum
1/2 cup sugar
1 orange, sliced
1 lemon, sliced
1 lime, sliced
1 apple, cubed
any extra fruit you can find, including strawberries, blueberries, peaches, plums, pineapple, mango, etc. (I've never tried banana...hm.)
1 can lemon-lime soda or flavored seltzer

Directions:
Wash ALL fruit (even the citrus, the peel is going in the pitcher). Slice all citrus into thin rounds. (Be sure you start at the stem, so you get a nice cross section. Chop the apple into bite size pieces. Add rum, sugar, and fruit to a pitcher. Stir or swirl to make sure the sugar isn't sitting on top of the fruit and is down in the rum and to coat all fruit.

Chill for at least 6 hours, overnight would be best! You can speed it up if you must, but maybe use simple syrup instead of sugar so it is dissolved.
In the morning, or at least 2 hours before party time, add the red wine and continue chilling.
When ready to serve, add 1 can of lemon-lime soda OR 1 1/2 cups of seltzer in a complementary flavor (think: mixed berry seltzer if you went heavy on the berries, etc).



*Red wine note: I've always used box wine. That works out to be 3.17 cups of red wine, so I do basically 3 1/4. A little extra wine won't hurt. ;) If you want to use an actual bottle, I've heard really good things about Blackberry Merlot in this recipe. :)


Tips and tricks:

If you are an organic produce shopper, this might be a good occasion to bend your rules. Usually, you only need to buy organic produce that you will not peel, ie apples, pears, berries, etc. However, the whole peel is going in the pitcher on this recipe, so if you are really conscious of pesticides etc, consider picking up all your fruit on the organic wall of your local shop this time. :)


If you are having a big big party, and going big punch bowl with this one, you can expect to need something more like:
2 apples, 3 oranges, 3 limes, 3 lemons, 2 quarts of strawberries, and much more of a 5L box of wine!

Depending on your punch bowl this is super easy to scale. Basically, you want 1/2 cup sugar and 1 1/2 cups rum for every three cups red wine. Keep in mind that a box of wine is almost 7 bottles (like 6 2/3), so you can scale up a LOT with one box, but you will need extra bottles of rum. (I need a whole 750ml bottle of rum for 3 pitchers, consider doing a handle if you are scaling up a lot.)
Add as much fruit as you want from there!! The more the better, really! It makes the punch bowl super pretty and adds such great flavor.


If you don't have a punch bowl and want to have refills handy, soak extra fruit in rum and sugar in a sealed container in the fridge. Then you can add to the pitchers as necessary throughout the night. The balance won't be quite the same, or mingled, but people will be quite a bit along and they won't notice. ;) Do keep an eye on the fruit though, as people tend to try to snitch pieces. XD


Whatever you are up to this lovely cinco de mayo, I hope you have a lovely time at it. And maybe have an extra one for me. ;)

Edit 2/10/13: I'm trying to make my recipes more printer friendly. If you like this format for printing, please do drop a comment and let me know so I can decide how best to proceed with user-friendlyfying this place!

Chocolate Lava Cakes

I am so excited about this recipe I have to start the post before they are even finished cooking!! The last chocolate lava cake recipe I tried was from Cooking Light. They were just OK. They called for espresso powder and I found they were just a little too... dark. The flavor was kinda smokey. Don't get me wrong, we ate most of the cakes the batch yielded, but I knew there had to be better.
Tonight's recipe came from my new favorite blog. I found it while trying to refresh my memory on an old favorite salmon recipe. The pictures are gorgeous, the recipes simple and encouraging, and the whole thing made me completely miss cooking. As you may have noticed (or forgotten due to my looooooong absence), I have had a new teaching position this year. (Did I even mention? 4th grade math.) It has been exhausting (beyond any teaching job I've had before, with the exception of student teaching and the semester with mono).

Brian has done all of the cooking since I got the job.

I think I have made breakfast two or three times on the weekends. And there was a chicken pot pie (which he learned how to make and made the next time). And something else more recently... that I can't remember.

So when I stumbled on this blog tonight, I was... engrossed. Perhaps obsessed. Every few entries was another "ohhh, I want to try this one" or "Oooooh, look at this picture!!" So while Brian finished making our salmon dinner, I read about lemon poppyseed cake and latkes and chocolate lava cakes. After dinner I seemed restless. When queried as to what was the matter, I whined, "I miss cooking." Brian asked if I wanted to make dessert. He had trouble reading my reaction, as I limped my tired feet back to the couch to check the still open laptop. Did I have the ingredients for those magically looking molten chocolate piles of heaven?? Butter... check, Brian restocked tonight. Eggs... check, exactly the right amount. Flour... always. Semi-sweet chocolate... I buy the chips in bulk at Costco. Powdered sugar... I always have powdered sugar, in case there is a frosting emergency. And whipped cream. Hmmm. Maybe?? There was a can at least... maybe?? Brian checks; there is! HOORAY! I leap into action.

Everything on the counter.

No powdered sugar.

I realize then that I have not baked since we arrived in August. Well, French Toast while the family was still here. But not a cake. Nothing with icing. All the powdered sugar I remembered was in Massachusetts. Not North Carolina. I had decided it was cheap enough to not bother packing, and left it for the roommate (who also bakes). That would save me worrying about a powdered sugar explosion in the moving boxes.
Then I got the job. And stopped cooking, for reasons of sanity. Lesson plans, assessments, paperwork, new acronyms, filing systems, 53 fourth graders (at last count, if the "he moved" rumors prove false). o.0

Brian, seeing my disappointment, ran to the store. Is that love or what? (I joke sometimes I can't tell if it is of the dessert or me, but we all know. <3

Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes
from Rachel at homesweetandsavory

New Grill -- Shrimp and Pineapple Kebabs

There is nothing like grilling in the summer. We've been fortunate in Boston to have either my landlord's grill or my roommate's grill, so we've never had one of our own. Luckily there were never any "ugh, they left the gas on AGAIN?!" moments or surprises. Once we got here it seemed important to find a grill as quickly as possible. It happened pretty quickly... we found one today! Best part? It was free!! Thanks be to craigslist. A very kind gentleman posted a grill his friend had left behind, and was asking $20. The starter is broken, it has some slight cosmetic rust, but it works! And he didn't want a dime. Said he didn't want scrap metal seekers bothering him. Bonus; he took one look at Brian's compact car and threw it in his mini van.



To celebrate, we've had two of three meals hot off the grill today. :D Basic hotdogs for lunch, and never fails to make me swoon shrimp and pineapple kebabs for dinner. Wouldn't you know this is another recipe I can't recall where I first saw it? I know I read it the first time... I've just made it from memory - or as close as I can get - every time since then.

Shrimp and Pineapple Kebabs
from ???

40 raw shrimp, peeled and deveined (tails on)
1 pineapple (you'll use about 3/4 of it)
1 red onion
1/4 cup teriyaki sauce
1 tbsp sesame seeds

Cut up the pineapple; start by cutting off the top leafy part. Then cut down the sides to shave off the outside spiny bits. Then cut off the bottom outside bit. If you look at the middle, there is a core - this part is woody and not good for nomming on. Cut off sections of the pineapple leaving that part behind, just like you would an apple. If you cut too far into it, you'll know, just trim it off. Cut those pineapple portions down into rough cubes, about 1 inch chunks. The idea is that the pineapple will char before the shrimp, and help protect it from overcooking and drying out, so don't get them too small. Plus, they split when skewered if they're too small.
Of course you can skip all that if you are substituting canned pineapple cubes. ;)

Cut the red onion into quarters or eighths (depending on number of skewers planned, and how cooked you want the onion). My pictures show eighths.

Toast the sesame seeds for a couple of minutes. Do not burn them! I find 4 minutes at 350*F is usually enough, it may finish faster in a toaster oven (I don't remember toaster times, and don't have a new toaster yet to try it).


Mix the sesame seeds with the teriyaki sauce.


Recruit a partner to help skewer the ingredients. I go every other pineapple, shrimp, pineapple and so on. Make sure you have a pineapple on each end; this helps keep the slippery shrimp in place, and boosts them off the grill. Put a red onion quarter/eighth near the middle of the skewer. Keep going until all skewers are full! We got 6 skewers out of the ingredients listed. It just depends on the size of your shrimp and pineapple pieces.





Use a silicone basting brush to brush on the sauce/seed mixture. The silicone really grabs the seeds, I was pleased with how easy this made it. Just brush them off on the pineapple chunks!



Grill for about 6 minutes, turning once. Shrimp are done when pink. Make sure they aren't grey, but don't leave them on the grill to dry out!




Tips:
*to pick a pineapple, look for 3 things: color, smell, leaves. Color: it should be yellow, not green or brown, over much of the outside. Some green or some brown is ok, but too much means its either not ripe yet or past the ideal. Smell: if you smell near the base of the pineapple or the yellowest parts, it should smell like pineapple! Funny thing, huh? Leaves: my mom's fiance Steve swears by the leaf trick; grab a leaf and pull... if it comes out, its probably ripe. If they don't budge, don't buy it.
* you can easily sub a can of pineapple chunks if fresh pineapple isn't affordable/available/ripe.
* grill the extra pineapple to serve with vanilla ice cream for dessert. You can chill it a couple of days and then nuke it for a few seconds and it will still have that smokey grilled flavor. You can even make a simple glaze for it... though I bet a simple carmel sauce drizzled over it would be yummy.
* this can be prepped a few hours in advance. Then you're all set to throw them on the grill at dinner time! I wouldn't do it more than 4-6 hours early... you don't want the pineapple to dry out or anything weird. I'm too excited to eat this recipe to try longer advance prep times!
* Get the kids involved making their own skewers! Just be sure to help them with the onions (if they want onions... I don't eat them, but Brian loves them) since they can be tricky to stab through.
Notes on skewers: Some people swear by metal skewers. I haven't gotten around to buying a set yet. I find the wooden ones you pick up at the grocery store work fine. For shrimp, you don't usually have to do the pre-soak step because the cook time is so short. However, if you want to cook something that has to be well done (like chicken, or thick steak), soak the skewers in water for around 20 minutes before you load them up and grill. Once we get to more chicken and beef grilling, I may revisit my stance on not getting the metal ones. ;)


Tonight I served the kebabs with sliced French bread. It was handy and quick. This is also lovely with rice, cous cous, or grilled pita or naan slices. Start the meal with an appetizer salad while you wait, or be sure to have an extra helping of greens at lunch. ;) Just don't try to do too much once the kebabs are assembled - shrimp grills up really fast! (And gets cold quickly.)



Joyfully,
Kristen


PS: I just hit 1000 site visits! Thanks guys! :D

Welcome to NC Baked French Toast

I've officially moved. Not the usual blog announcement kind of move... I'm on the same host site and server, all the usual. In fact I've been reminded its time to renew my domain name, so I may actually get around to linking that up soon.
No, this time its the good old fashioned move. The kind that requires lots of boxes.



Two days of driving later, Goodbye Boston! Hello North Carolina! Its hot, its humid, but hey it is August... its all down hill from here!

First night was the traditional order pizza and colapse sort of evening. Day two we... well, Brian and his brother... emptied the truck. Brian's sister and I started unpacking! So we had a fair amount of the kitchen out of boxes by dinner, and Brian made us a lovely Chicken Parmesan. I got adventurous and made a soak-overnight-bake-in-the-morning French Toast.



I've done one/two slices at a time in the frying pan French Toast. I've done stuffed French Toast. But this was new. I really like how it turned out! I started with a pretty basic recipe, and modified it based on what we had on hand. Brian stuck it in the oven before I got out of bed, so I didn't do the final "flip the bread over" step to make sure it was evenly moist. I liked the effect though... the crunchyness was not overwhelming and gave a nice texture contrast. Especially after pouring the melted butter and brown sugar on top. Mmmmmm. It was so good, we didn't even use the maple syrup.

Baked French Toast
modified from recipes of assorted contributors on allrecipes.com

loaf crusty bread (can be a couple days old!)
6 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup brown sugar (approximately, anyways...)

Cut crusty bread diagonally in 2in slices. (My bread was pre-sliced at the bakery, this time.) Arrange bread in the bottom of a rectangular baking dish, such as pyrex.
In a medium bowl, beat eggs, milk, vanilla, and cinnamon until combined. Pour over the bread, making sure to drip it down all parts of bread that are showing. Cover (my pyrex has a matching lid, or you can use foil or plastic wrap) and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, take the pan out of the fridge while you heat the oven to 350*F. This will let the pan warm a little so you're less likely to shock the pyrex (and break it). Turn the bread over to make sure both sides are moist. (I mentioned before we skipped this step - still turned out fantastic!) Bake covered with foil for 20 minutes. (I think we had it uncovered... oops? Again, loved it anyways!) While it is baking, heat the butter in a small saucepan. Once it is melted through, remove from heat and mix in the brown sugar and stir until completely dissolved. Pour as much as looks good over the french toast and bake for another 20 minutes uncovered. Serve with maple syrup if desired, but I found the brown sugar butter was syrup enough! :)




Possible modifications;
* sprinkle with raisins before baking.
* use a mix of milk and cream or half and half (original recipe suggested 2 cups milk and 1 1/2 cup half and half or using JUST half and half. I modified it partly because milk is what I had on hand and partly for the calories!)
* make it in the morning, if you forget the night before! Stick it in the fridge for an hour or two, turn the bread a couple extra times to be sure its soaking in, and bake like normal!
* use as much sauce as looks good! I cut the amount down a good bit and still didn't use it all. Top it till you like the look.
* alternate sauce; I didn't have corn syrup and that looked like too much butter! A phrase I'll have to unlearn here in the South ;)
3/4 cup butter
1 1/3 cups brown sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
In a small saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar and corn syrup; heat until bubbling. Pour over bread and egg mixture.


Anyways, everyone claimed to enjoy it, and I had a blast cooking it. It felt really nice to be set up in a new kitchen - that I don't have to share! ...besides Brian. ;) - and back to playing with food. I miss it a lot during those hectic school months. I've got a couple of weeks left before the school year starts. I don't know yet if I'll be at the front of the classroom or the back (Masters degree still lurks...) but I intend to cram as many posts in before it starts and life gets frantic again as I can!

Joyfully,
Kristen

Cooking with Isaiah

Hello everyone! We've had quite a month here in New England; locally I think we've topped 50 inches this month?? That just sounds insane to a little desert born thing like me. Last week I officially joined the ranks of true Bostonians though... and placed a lawn chair in my dug out parking spot. Brian spent over an hour shoveling it out after the prior week's huge two days of school canceling storm. And within about 20 hours, someone had stolen it from him. He only got to park in it once, and he was very thorough since he intended to keep it. He was so excited; its the best spot on our street (for our house anyways) and he was in it before the snow started! So last week I shoveled it (miraculously empty in the morning when accumulations started!) and staked my claim. Kept thinking of the boston.com ads while I did it too... "this is not your boston". Tee hee.

---

A good bit back now I had the pleasure of preparing a meal with one of the kids I work with, Isaiah. He has recently taken an interest in cooking, and asked me one day when I was tutoring him if I would teach him to cook. As a teacher, and a big fan of food, that's a hard request to turn down! After a very successful batch of peanut butter cookies one night, we planned a meal together. He even helped me type up the recipe and our thoughts on it after we finished and cleaned up. I give you;


Pepperoni Calzones

1 tube of Pilsbury Pizza Dough
Cornmeal for sprinkling
1 egg, beaten
1/3 grated Parmesan cheese
1 2/3 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 1/2 tbsp minced Italian parsley
1/8 teaspoon salt
20 pepperoni slices
1/3 cup milk
red sauce for dipping

1) Gather your ingredients.


2) Heat the oven to 425*F

3) Prep any ingredients (chop parsley, measure ingredients, etc.)



4) Mix the filling ingredients in a medium bowl: 1 egg, parmesan and mozzarella cheeses, parsley, salt, and milk.
5) Sprinkle cornmeal on a cookie sheet.
6) Put the pizza dough on the cookie sheet and cut it into four even pieces.
7) Put about 1/4 of the cheese and parsley mix on each dough piece. Add 5 pepperoni to each.
8) Fold each calzone over and pinch seams together. Use some water to be sure they really stick! Otherwise the filling can leak out (messy).
9) Bake in preheated (425*F) oven for 12-15 minutes, until golden brown.


10) Serve hot, with red sauce for dipping!


Tips: For really picky eaters, leave out the parsley. The "green bits" are just a little too suspicious…



Next time, I'll try:
We should leave more room at the edges. Our filling leaked quite a bit. We need to be really careful about pinching the two parts together.

Arizona favorites, visited in November

While in Arizona in November for Farfar's birthday I got the chance to enjoy one of my favorite childhood treats. Of course, as a kid I ate it covered in powdered sugar and honey.


Indian fry bread. YUM.

Last time I was home we got to try a new place my mom had read about in a magazine, called Cafe Laguna. That trip we actually went to both locations (2235 S. Power Rd,
Mesa AZ. and 11518 E Apache Trl Apache Junction, AZ) because the first one was closed that day. They are about 45 minutes apart, if I remember right. This time we got lucky and caught them about 20 minutes before closing time and got our food to go.






The menu board has helpful pictures, so you get the gist of what you are ordering.

They, too, honor the Arizona shredded beef tradition. However, I opted for the ground on this particular visit.



The first time we tried to track down fry bread on one of my trips home, we went to an art fair. That was where I always got them as a kid. Prescott, when my Farmor and Farfar lived, always had these great art fairs with tons of booths. And to feed all of those hungry art goers, there were tons of food booths. Basic fair fare, typically... lemonade, hot dogs, kettle corn, etc. But also fry bread.
So my mom found an art fair in Scottsdale, and off we went. It was beautiful, and we both bought a couple small things. And there was fry bread, sort of...
...but it was covered in nacho cheese, and had no extras (tomato, lettuce, etc).

And my mom dropped her camera in hers, trying to document the occasion. XD

Silly Mommy.

---

Every time I visit home, I have to go to Manuel's for my Mexican food fix. This time we went straight from the airport... I hadn't even been to the house yet!
Usually, I order al a carte. However, they now have daily specials, and as it was Tuesday, it was cheaper for us to each get a combo and have leftovers for lunch.

To start:

A cheese crisp, done right. Open faced and crunchy, the perfect quesadilla.

Pardon my post flight tired look...


My mommy!


You'll notice I'm a beans, and she's a rice. We both had to modify our orders. XD

My main course:

A shredded beef taco, cheese enchilada, and beans. I took the enchilada home... that's a ton of food!

Closeup:


Not the prettiest view...

Shredded beef tacos are definitely an Arizona thing. They simmer the beef until it just falls apart. Makes it moist and yummy! My mom grew up with ground beef Mexican food (New Mexico). Each region has distinctly different styles. That's why I don't usually bother trying Mexican food in New England!

And my mom's plate:

Anticipation

I have been dying to share my big news with you all!! I have had a ton of excitement.

My dad was in town for most of a week.
I had something like 5 interviews while my dad was here. It rained and poured interviews the first few days of November!! I had 4 total since last Thursday!!
I flew home to see my Farfar for his 90th birthday. I was so blessed to get to fly home and share it with him.
The job I wanted the most (and had a second interview with, the morning I flew to AZ!) said they would call Tuesday night (the day I flew). So I spent the whole flight expecting a voicemail on the other side! YIKES. Let me tell you guys, this airplane ride was the longest since the one to visit Brian in Hawaii when I only got to see him every six months. What a miracle… God sure does work in mysterious ways. All those interviews right before my trip, but late enough that I didn't have an offer yet and I still got to go still! Amazing.

SO! I didn't find out until Sunday evening... but they offered me the job!! I wanted to wait until after I signed paperwork, but everything wound up moving so fast that I wound up completing my first week before I've had a chance to sit down and post this!!

So in case you're skimming at this point, since I've babbled a lot and there are no pictures in sight...

I got a job!!!!! I'm teaching 8th grade math, and have three levels of classes, 5 periods total. My kids are awesome, and I am having a blast. It is exactly what I've been wanting.


I've been planning my celebratory "I HAVE A CLASSROOM!!!!!!" meal since… well, its been at least a year and a half, probably more like two years. I went to this restaurant during restaurant week back in college with a friend and it was one of the best meals I've ever had. You'll have to forgive the gaps in remembering… this was several years ago. I will review the place again after a more current visit! (Hopefully in the next two weeks...)

The Wine Cellar
Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA

The waiter was very versed in the expensive wine list that entitles the place to its boastful name. We were quite new to wine at the time, and leaned heavily on his recommendations. My friend had recently discovered that she liked Reislings, but we decided that wouldn't go with the food. Instead we selected a Cabernet Savingion. I would have no hope of telling you the vineyard or… well, anything specific about it, but it worked very well with the dishes. We nursed the one bottle through the whole meal and giggled all the way home.

First Course: We split their cheese fondue starter. It is a two person minimum, but we had agreed in advance. :) It was served with bread for dipping. I will visit the website and report on the cheeses more specifically, but this was the kind of dish you wanted to curl up inside of. YUM. I mean you really can't go wrong with melted cheese (unless its American, eww).

Second Course: I had the fondue main course as well. This was a broth served with meat, which you let sit in the hot broth to cook it. I had never seen such a thing! I was in love. My friend had something non-fondue, but I have no idea what.

Third Course: Chocolate Fondue. I think we had dark chocolate with Grand Marnier mixed in. They serve it with cookies and fruit and pound cake and marshmallows to dip in it. I'm pretty sure we licked the thing clean.


So when Brian and I started planning for our grand somedays I went to the website to see if it was something we could afford to do as a non-restaurant week date. We can… but only as a special occasion. So I declared when I got my job I would go to The Wine Cellar with Brian. That day may finally be just a week and change away!! They have a fondue based dinner for two that looked very appealing… I hope there is still something like that.

I have tried on a couple of occasions to make an acceptable fondue on my own at home. I do have an actual fondue set now (…in the basement, I think) so I will share some of my attempts. And future successes. ;)