I’m a self proclaimed spice addict. If there is a spice shop anywhere I’m visiting you can rest assured I’ll be going in. I love buying custom blends to remind me of the places I’ve visited – Lake Geneva Spice Blend (like Old Bay), Napa Valley Rub (the best Italian blend), and various seafood blends from Alaska are just a few in my collection. I even received from my parents RawSpiceBar’s monthly blends for a Christmas gift. I love spices. Why? Because while the initial investment can be pricey a little goes a long way and they will transform simple ingredients into something amazing. This is especially true if you use whole spices where you can and grind them up in a mortar and pestle – yes it is another dirty dish, but once you smell the difference once you will never go back.

Just look at how pretty they are…

I decided to make this to use up some butternut squash from our CSA. Our CSA is amazing and in the winter provides frozen already pureed squash which really simplifies prep. The recipe I used from TheKitchn’s Emma Christensen – http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-southwestern-butternut-squash-soup-recipes-from-the-kitchn-213095 – walks you through how to work with a whole squash. I love the freshness of that, but know that the near butchery act of deconstructing a butternut squash can be a huge deterrent in trying a dish like this. Many grocery stores have frozen squash puree. It was a staple of mine in college and would be perfect here.

I didn’t make any changes aside from starting with puree from TheKitchn’s recipe. In my experience their recipes are generally spot-on so I don’t alter them unless I’m missing an ingredient and need to do so. If I were to make this for one of my good friends who is spice adverse I’d use extra paprika instead of the cayenne. I always do that when working with the spice averse then you add flavor instead of just removing spice. I also pretty much always use greek yogurt in place of sour cream for a topper, for the most part you can’t tell the difference. I found it was perfect with just cilantro and the greek yogurt on top.

A number of years ago I made a New Years Resolution that I’d highly recommend to any cooks who claim to not be bakers – I resolved to “become a baker”. And I was successful, perhaps too successful. I conquered scones, biscuits, yeast dough, and even bread. I became the go to cake baker and found a carrot cake recipe that my dad requests for any and all events where he’s the guest of honor (Father’s Day and his birthday especially). Before that year began I made a bundt cake using the pan one of my very best friends got me as a wedding gift.

This first bundt cake was perfect –

And so was the second –

That whole year of becoming a baker I made no other bundt cakes, clearly I’d already conquered it. Then last April I decided to rebel from my dad’s request and make him a root beer bundt cake. It was decidedly unperfect. It was so unperfect it had to become a trifle as no portion came out of the pan into anything that looked like a cake. And that trifle was great, nobody refuses cake chunks integrated with cream cheese frosting, or at least nobody I know.

Then, I gave up for months. The worst thing you can do in cooking or baking is follow an almost failure turned improvised success with inaction. I didn’t want another disaster on my hands.  Then for aforementioned dinner party I made another – it was okay. Not perfect, but not an epic disaster. It did not come out in one piece, but it could be salvaged and pieced back together. I was getting closer! That began a string of bundt failures as I hoped to edge closer to success. The most epic failure looked like this…

That’s when I decided no amount of greasing or letting it rest was going to work. We needed to look at other failures and learn from their mistakes and methods. One popular method involves a combination of resting and steam. You boil water in a kettle and then you dump it all over a dish towel. The methods diverge from here some suggest draping it atop the pan and others suggest sitting the bundt on top of one – for maximum success I did both. And again it was closer, but not there yet.

That’s when I caved and ordered a fancy baking spray from Williams Sonoma. As far as I could tell this is a common bundt pan issue. The first 2-3 are perfect and then something goes awry with the coating. I was admitting semi-defeat and enlisting more professional tools. And you know what – it worked.

The moral of the story is twofold and both are classic life lessons. 1) If at first you don’t succeed, try try again. 2) Good tools may not be everything, but they sure can help.

My mom is a wonderful host. She throws parties so casually she’d sometimes make the Barefoot Contessa look flustered. Ever since my now husband and I moved into our condo I’ve aspired to be that easy going while entertaining. Now that we have a house selected carefully for its entertaining potential that aspiration has elevated. They say practice makes perfect…and I’m working on it and I’m getting there.

I’ve found the best way to practice is to have slightly more people than you can easily cook for without thinking much about it and to make sure all those people are good friends. A few weekends ago my friend inquired what I’d be doing for the season premiere for Downton Abbey. I let her know I was thinking of having my mom over and she and her husband were welcome to come for dinner before the show. And with that it was off to menu planning.

I’d just rented Rachael Ray’s “Everyone is Italian on Sunday” through the digital lending library. I know plenty of people don’t love Rachael and I can even see their points – she may or may not have used ghostwriters in the past, she is not a true “chef”, etc. But me? I love her. I can’t help it. She was one of the first cookbooks I purchased when I discovered my love for cooking on my own terms. She also makes everything look easy.

I settled on pork loin, roasted broccoli, mashed potatoes, and a salad all from her new cookbook. I also opted to make a chocolate bundt cake from a recipe I’d found online. How’d it go? I have no pictures NONE. No photos of my using all coordinated white servingware, even a gravy boat. No photos of the completed (and delicious) dishes. No photos of the nicely set table. No photographic evidence of my greeting guests who were 15 minutes early while I was in the middle of the final stages of preparation with a calm smile on my face and questions about their lives and how they were doing. And that to me is the sign of a good dinner party. I didn’t get a chance to take a quick picture because I was too busy living.

As we approach New Year’s Day I’m reflecting as most people do on what I’d like the coming year to look like. One of those things is to take my hobby of cooking and expand on it and share it. Maybe someone will read, maybe they won’t, but there’s only one way to find out. I hope you’ll join me in 2016 for healthy recipes, indulgent recipes, projects, fast meals, and more.

Cultures all over the world have traditional foods to bring luck in the new year. In the US South black eyed peas and greens are common. In Germany, sauerkraut. In Italy, lentils and sausages. Most of these traditions have to do with green vegetables bringing green (dollars, clearly) in the new year. The traditions around beans tend to be because they are a cost effective option that manages to double in size, doubling in size is something most of us would not refuse for our luck or the money in our pocketbooks. Lentils are because they look like coins, as do the sausages when cut.

I’ve never made these traditional foods on New Year’s Day for good luck. I did try making yeast cinnamon rolls once for the first time over a new year’s eve. Which is a poetic idea I like, as the beans do, so too does yeast when rise, double in size.

Along that idea I decided an Indian feast for New Year’s day was in order. My husband will eat beans or lentils, but a bowl of them would not be his idea of good luck. I perused a wide variety of cookbooks and recipe clippings to decide on the final line up. Some say a good cook doesn’t need recipes, but all cooks have to start somewhere, and me I often like to start with recipes. I may not always follow them to the letter, but it works for me.

Since I had the day off, it seemed a great day for a project recipe.Homemade Onion Naan from an issue of Bon Appetit http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/onion-naan last year fit the bill. When they published that they also included a recipe for Spicy Sauteed Spinach http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/spicy-saut-ed-spinach. Good luck references and spice for my husband? I’d add that to the menu.

But I didn’t stop there. I added Red Lentil Daal from Cooking Light’s Global Kitchen, the closest recipe I can find for that is this one http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Red-Lentil-Dal-101019, also from them. If you don’t have this cookbook, but like to eat light and try new cuisines I’d highly recommend it. Last but not least I added Tandoori Shrimp from a cookbook I got called “Indian” at Five Below. What can I say, I’m a cookbook fiend, I leave no stone (or upscale dollar store) unturned.

It turned out great.

I don’t know if it will bring us good luck, but I certainly enjoyed flexing my cooking muscles in the kitchen.

 

 

 

Fall’s my favorite season for a variety of reasons, but among the top are that it means football and football in our home means chili. For the past two years I’ve dedicated every Bears game to trying new chili recipes. I’m pretty lax in what I allow here. I am not from Texas, so beans are fine. It does always involve meat. While I lean to a vegetarian diet when left to my own devices, my husband…let’s just say he’d not be a big fan of a bean stew masquerading as a chili. Though I do have several favorite vegetarian chili recipes, more on that some other day.

I’d love to be one of those people with a signature chili, and maybe one day I will be. Though I feel like you’d need a signature in each category: ground meat, ground meat with beans, cubed meat, chicken/turkey, and vegetarian. I guess that makes it clear why I’ve not found my signature(s) yet… too many things variables. Why perfect, when I can experiment?

This year we’ve tried all those types, including even a buffalo chicken chili, but today is the first day I’ve made anything resembling a white chili for my husband. I guess that’s not true, I’ve made a corn and potato chicken chili for him, but admitted it was basically a glorified stew. His main beef (pun on a chicken post entirely intended) with white chili is that it isn’t spicy, which is true enough, that’s the whole point. So what can I do? Find ways to make it more acceptable, because football season is long and sometimes a nice plain white chili is what you most want.

My mom has previously made Giada’s White Bean and Chicken Chili and it was delicious. Something about the ground meat made it feel more chili like than those white chili recipes with shredded turkey or chicken (which I also love, let’s be honest). You can find the recipe here http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/white-bean-and-chicken-chili-recipe.html. I did not alter this in anyway other than the tragic fact that I was a teaspoon short on cumin and had kale from our CSA and used that instead of the swiss chard. It also has chili powder which I think helps and has a stir in and infusion of red pepper flakes for the last ten minutes. The garnishes work in its favor, a little parsley and a little Parmesan with the option of extra red pepper flakes just adds to it all.

So how was it? I think if your husband eats all the chili left overs for days on end…maybe you should not force him to have white chicken chili. Even if it was delicious.

 

 

Meatloaf Cupcakes, alarmingly delicious

A Great Gimmick, and Meatloaf for All Tastes

Meatloaf doesn’t have a reputation of being the most innovative food around. Often times with foodie writers want to mock old fashioned “stale” cooking they will poke fun at the poor meatloaf. The Meatloaf Bakery is here to prove all those naysayers wrong. Not only can it be innovative, but it can be gimmicky to the point of exhaustion. Some might not appreciate 8 varieties of meatloaf that are available in mini muffin loafie size, regular cupcake size, and cake/tart/loaf size. I on the other hand do, because as stated previously, I love a good gimmick.

 Meatloaf Cupcake topped with Mashed Potato Frosting

Good gimmick no? Each variety is topped with a complimentary starchy or vegetable based “frosting”. I have to admit I had my doubts thanks to not so positive reviews on yelp. Many of which were complaining about quality or being over priced. I don’t agree with this. I ate 4 different loafies, and all of which were exactly how I like my meatloaf, and I didn’t think the price was absurd. Yes a mini cupcake size piece of meatloaf for $2.00 is not cheap, but it is a gimmick and that is the point, so you are going to pay for it. I didn’t find myself regretting the price tag, so that is a good sign.

My friend and I were able to sample a bit of the Yentil Lentil Loaf (the only vegetarian offering) and it was moist and tasty. It was a loaf made with lentils, brown rice, mixed veggies, and cheese topped with bell peppers. It also happens to be gluten free.

My friend, classic as she is tried The Mother Loaf in full size cupcake form. Their traditional offering of a blend of beef, pork, an veal mixed with onions and ketchup, topped with Yukon Smashers. She allowed me a bite, and it was also moist and tasty.

I opted for 3 loafies the A Wing and A Prayer Loaf, Omega-3 Loaf, and Chicken Shish Kaloaf. The Wing and A Prayer loaf is made with crumbled bleu cheese, ground chicken, celery, and hot sauce. It really did taste like wings in meatloaf form. The Omega-3 Loaf was a risk, a salmon meatloaf could go one of two ways, their execution was moist and the lemon, parsley, and dill in the mix added to the flavor. The salmon was topped with wasabi mashed potatoes which did not overwhelm the flavor of the meatloaf, nor mismatch the otherwise more Scandinavian flavors in the mix.  The Chicken Shish Kaloaf was the plainest of the ones I’d selected, it was tasty with mild Mediterranean flavors of lemon, parsley, red onions, and herbs topped with garlic potatoes. Of the one’s I tried it was my least favorite, but still quite tasty.

The Meatloaf Bakery is located at 2464 N. Clark St., Chicago, Illinois 60614

Overall: 4/5- I’d go back again, and each time I’m in the area I wish I was getting meatloaf cupcakes

Food:5/5- It is a great gimmick, and there is something for everyone the classic eater, the adventurous, your vegetarian friend, and the one who wants to try a bit of everything

Service:4/5- It is a small cafe type set-up but the people working (maybe also the owners) were delightful, answering questions, humoring my food network loving friend, and overall making it an enjoyable experience.

Ambiance: 4/5- null

Happy New Year!

Starting with, Cinnamon Rolls.

I started off the New Year by finishing up a cooking project from yesterday. The fiance and I hosted one other couple for a relaxed New Year’s Eve dinner and appetizer event. Before the couple came over I decided it was time to finally get up my gumption to try to make cinnamon rolls. You see I had this bizarre compulsion to start traditions for our first Christmas in our first home. What makes a great morning tradition for Christmas? Cinnamon rolls, obviously. So I scoured a recipe from my recipe folder (yes I am old school like that I clip them from magazines and newspapers), and found a recipe for Raspberry-Swirl Sweet Rolls. However…they did not make it to Christmas morning. It turns out making Cinnamon Rolls from scratch, or any similar roll like object involves many steps, steps you don’t want to wait for on Christmas morning. So they were postponed for a good occasion…New Year’s Day.

Strawberry Swirl Breakfast Rolls

Is really what I ended up with. They turned out good, which I was thrilled about. I had never worked with active dry yeast before. I always feared the killing of it with too hot water (which I’d read about) or the overtly long kneading process (turns out not that long a process, and mildly relaxing). Something I did run into was an issue with the dough not rising as it should … too cold in our loft-y kitchen. A quick search on my friend the internet and I learned…your oven with the light turned on is just about perfect dough rising temperature of 85 degrees.

Aside from dealing with the active yeast and kneading, the most important thing I learned was…baking is not nearly as scary as my brain thinks it is. You can adapt it. If your recipe from Bon Appetit magazine says in step one to use an electric stand mixer, you don’t really need to. Maybe the proportions should change so you can search for a similar dough recipe in your Cooking Light cookbook and find one that lets you just use a spoon. The rolls probably aren’t as fluffy, but you made homemade breakfast rolls with glaze on them, complaints will not be happening regardless. And if the store has no frozen raspberries, strawberries are fine. It turns out baking has plenty more leeway than I knew. Yes measuring is still more important than in cooking and there are a few more steps, but overall might be worth learning more about. There is no need to fear baking!

.Hashbrowns in Chicago, a Great Gimmick

Shokran Moroccan Restaurant

Delicious upscale Moroccan BYOB on Chicago’s Northwest Side

That sort of sums it up. But I can elaborate.

Shokran Moroccan Restaurant is located at 4027 W. Irving Park in Chicago. They are conveniently located just off of the Blue Line Irving Park stop, and right where 90 and 94 converge.

Shokran is a serious contributing factor to my issues with playing favorites. I am so lucky to live in Chicago where I can have a favorite Moroccan restaurant. To be fair I have not gone to another Moroccan restaurant in Chicago, but once I found here there was little reason to continue my search. I grew up and continue to live on the Northwest side of Chicago, and this place is a gem that should be garnering attention from those in River North and Lincoln Park, giving them reason to venture outside those zones.

Good food, great service, awesome atmoshpere

My fiance and I decided we were in the mood to go out for dinner this evening, a beautiful Summer Thursday. He suggested Moroccan, and I gladly complied. We drove the short five minutes from our condo, parked and walked to the host stand. There we were greeted by the host and the owner who showed us to the front area (we had only ever eaten in the back areas before). Water was brought promptly, and a corkscrew for our BYOB experience.

While we browsed the  menu our waiter brought us freshly grilled pita, harissa (a spicy Moroccan condiment) and olives to wet our appetites. After some deliberation the fiance and I decided on two appetizers we had not had on our two previous visits, and his old stand by favorite tagine (basically a Moroccan stew).

Shortly after we devoured our pita and harissa olive mixture they brought out our Taktouka which consists of roasted green peppers and tomatoes made into a delicious dip. The fiance liked it, but I loved it, notably I love any and all veggie “goos” as I call them, that can be spread on a bread-like substance. Afterwards came our Briwats, a Moroccan version of an egg roll where phyllo dough is wrapped around seasoned vermicelli and little salad shrimps, a unique flavor and delightfully ungreasy despite being called a “Moroccan style egg roll” on the menu. In the past we have also tried the Merguez sausage, the Kefta meatballs, and the Chicken Bastilla. While I enjoyed the Merguez and the Kefta, and they are great introductions to Moroccan classics, the Chicken Bastilla remains my favorite. The Chicken Bastilla manages to be almost dessert like consisting of phyllo dough stuffed with ground chicken layered with an egg based sauce, and crushed almonds, all topped with sugar and cinnamon. If you are interested in unique taste sensations, it is definetly worth a try!

For our entree we shared the Chicken Casablanca tagine featuring chicken, potatoes, olives, and Moroccan spices. It was tasty with a subtle preserved lemon flavor . It is the fiance’s favorite. I have a soft spot for the Sweet Chicken couscous which reminds me of my studying abroad in the south of Spain in Granada and a week long visit to Morocco. The Sweet Chicken features almonds, raisins, and onions in a classic Moroccan combination. We have tried a variety of dishes and all have been good. If you are a lamb fan who likes the mixture of sweet and savory I recommend the Lamb Fez, which is flavored with prunes, almonds, cinnamon, and honey. Please note the lamb dishes vary in being served as lamb shank or lamb cubes, I would ask how they are prepared if a bone-in preparation is not your favorite. 

We finished our meal with a coconut and mango layered cake, which was quite light and a good ending to the meal. If by some miracle you have room left in your stomach you should get a plate of Moroccan cookies and an order of the mint tea. Tea is serious business in Morocco (given that they are culture that does not drink) much of the socializing revolves around tea, and this SUPER sweet stuff does not disappoint. For me, it also brings back vivid memories of Granada’s teteria’s.

As we were leaving, the owner suggested we scope out the back room. Funnily during the meal I had lamented to the fiance that anyone only seeing the front is only getting half the experience. The front is nice, but the back area is like being transported to a new world. I told him we had been before on a previous visit, but thank you anyway. If you get a choice I would try to get seated in the back area, it really has great ambience.

Overall:

Food:5/5-a great example of the cuisine, with a wide variety of options and serving sizes

Service:5/5-the perfect kind of attentive where you feel paid attention to but not smothered

Ambiance: 4/5-5 for the back area, 3 for the front, average 4.