Nice Day for a Grand Picnic.

Oh no!
We were planning on having a Grand Picnic
Birthday Feast on Saturday...

Picnic cancelled?

Good thing I made cupcakes anway.......

Because twenty minutes later....blue skies!

Happy birthday Abbey and Nate!

Oh no...stormclouds over Chicago...

Here comes the rain again.

Time to run home and eat some more cupcakes!

Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Icing
~from America's Test Kitchen
~makes 12 cupcakes (I would double it if I were you)

The secret to these deliciously chocolately cupcakes is the instant espresso powder in the batter. The result is a cupcake that is dark, moist, and full of chocolate flavor.

Cupcakes:
1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
12 tbs. (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter
1 ¼ cups sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup nonalkalized cocoa, sifted
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:
½ pound (2 sticks) of butter
½ pound confectioner’s sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Adjust oven rack to middle position.
Line a cupcake tray with cupcake liners.
With a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter at a medium-high speed for 30 seconds. Add the sugar slowly and beat for three to five minutes, until the mixture is fluffy and almost white.

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating 1 full minute after each addition.

Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, cocoa, and instant espresso powder in a medium bowl. Combine the milk and the vanilla in a liquid measuring cup.

With the mixer at the lowest speed, add one-third of the dry ingredients to the batter, then a third of the milk mixture. Mix until the ingredients are almost incorporated into the batter. Repeat process twice more. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to gather any remaining dry bits, then beat on low speed for 15 more seconds. The batter should be smooth and satiny and sooooooooooooooooooooo delicious and I can’t stop eating it.

Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake liners.
Bake for about twenty minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

While cupcakes are cooling, make the frosting.
With a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter until soft and creamy.
Turn the mixer down to the lowest setting and add the confectioner’s sugar in parts, beating after each addition.
When sugar is blended, add the vanilla.
Turn the mixer to medium-high and beat until creamy.
When cupcakes are cool, frost. Use a lot of frosting.

On the Subject of Job Interviews, Soup, and Proboscidians.

Roasted Sweet Garlic, Bread and Almond Soup

Have you ever been in a job interview where they asked you to describe yourself in one word? I have decided that the next time that I am asked that question in an interview, I will say, “eat.” If that’s not the answer they’re looking for, then I don’t belong there.

The first time I was asked that question, I asked the interviewers if I could use three words instead of one. They smiled and said no. They were so mean. Do they think that human beings should be able to reduce their characteristics to a single trait? Those two obviously did, and the one-word traits I picked for each of them were dim-witted and emaciated, respectively.

After the interviewers shot down my sensible request, I was thinking about asking them if I could combine three words into one word. For example, enthusiastic/creative/cheerful would become would become cheerativiastic, and needy/selfish/sarcastic would become sarcaneedfish, but I figured they would say NO to that too because they wanted me to be a robot like them.

Then, I considered pensively scratching my head and rubbing my chin (at the same time) for a full ninety seconds, which is a really long time in an interview, and then coming up with a marvelously random word, such as ‘proboscidian,’ which FYI is a massive herbivorous mammal having protruding tusks and a long trunk. Any way you look at it, with proboscidian, I would win. If they pretended to know what it meant and said, “Oh yes, I see, that’s very profound,” then I would win, and if they asked me for the definition, then I could either give them the real one, and then I would win (what do you think about that, robots, was that the answer you were looking for, robots?), or I could make up a false definition that required me to use the first three words that I wanted to use in the first place, and then I would also win. Take that, robots.

Regrettably, after a full second of aforementioned, mischievous contemplation, I surrendered to their merciless request, sheeplishly smiled, and said, "nice?" - articulating it more as a question than as a confident exclamation of the definitive state of my niceness.

I did not get the job. I guess they wanted a mean teacher instead of a nice teacher.

Years later, I think of all the absurd responses that would have made the moment so wonderfully and magnificently awkward:
“AWESOME!”
“Royalty. If you don’t believe me, I brought my papers as well as my tiara.”
“1/64 Native American.”
“Glittery. I have glittery starts on my underwear, do you want to see the glittery stars?”
“Can I burp my answer?”

Given the fact that I don’t have the courage to sabotage myself in an interview like that, I probably wouldn’t even have the courage to say “eat,” which, as I stated earlier, is my current strategy. But outside of a formal interview, “eat” is how I describe myself in one word, and what I plan to do to this soup, which has nothing to do with anything I have written so far, except that it is food and it is delicious and you can sip it through your proboscis. Unless you are robot, that is.

Roasted Sweet Garlic, Bread and Almond Soup
~from Jamie's Kitchen, by Jamie Oliver

3 heads of garlic, separated into cloves but not peeled
1 medium white onion, peeled and finely chopped
extra virgin olive oil
1 cup heavy cream
1 ¾ pints chicken or vegetable stock
1 large loaf of ciabatta bread
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar or white wine vinegar
7 oz. whole blanched almonds, lightly toasted
salt and pepper
3 oranges, peeled and segemented
1 handful fresh cilantro (leaves only)
1 handful fresh mint (leaves only)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Roast garlic for 30-45 minutes until it is soft to the touch.
Meanwhile, heat 4 tablepoons of oil in a large pot, add the onions, and cook over medium-low heat for 10 minutes, until soft and translucent.
Add the cream and the stock. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
When the garlic is done, cool slightly and squeeze the wonderful garlic paste into the soup.
Stir in the garlic.
Cut or tear the crusts from the ciabatta, rip the bread into small pieces, and add to the soup. Add the sherry vinegar and simmer for 5 minutes.
In a food processor, blend the soup. Add the toasted almonds and blend those in as well.
Season to taste.
Ladle into bowls and garnish with orange segments, cilantro and mint. Drizzle with olive oil.

sans garnish

Ode to A Dutch Oven

I love you, Dutch Oven.
I shall name you Sadie.
I had been saving the name Sadie for my firstborn daughter, but now I realize that I love you more than I will ever love any of my children.
I love you, Sadie.
You are red.
So far you have not destroyed any of my meals,
but only showered them with glorious, porcelain-enameled, cast-iron kisses.
I shall never eat anything again that is not braised in your glory.

oh no what have I done now the cats are jealous

Don’t worry, I did not cook the kitties. I have a feeling the orange one is poisonous. I don’t know why, I just have a feeling about it.

I made Pozole Rojo instead. Pozole is a hearty stew that dates back to pre-Columbian times, and it tastes better than my orange cat. It tastes better than lots of things, for that matter. It tastes better than almost everything.
This recipe uses pork shoulder, slowly braised in its own juices and other ingredients’ juices. Other essential components to a pozole are hominy (dried corn kernels treated with lime to remove the rough outer shell and make the germ more palatable), ancho chile puree, and various crunchy and refreshing garnishes such as radishes, avocados, and cilantro. The red tomatoes and the ancho chiles give pozole rojo its red color, while tomatillos and jalapeño chiles lend their green-ness to pozole verde.

pozole rojo

Pozole Rojo
~adapted from America’s Test Kitchen

Stew:
5 lbs. bone-in pork shoulder (ATK recommends bone-in for more flavor…I used boneless because that’s all I had and it was still delicious)
salt and pepper
2 tbs vegetable oil
2 medium-large onions, coarsely chopped (about 3 cups)
5 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press
1 14.5-oz. can of diced tomatoes
1 tsp. dried Mexican oregano
6 cups chicken broth
1 bunch of cilantro stems, tied or rubber banded together
3 large, dried, ancho chiles
1 ½ cups boiling water
3 15-oz. cans of hominy

Garnishes:
2 limes, cut into quarters
½ head romaine lettuce, sliced into thin strips
6 medium radishes, sliced thin (a simple vegetable peeler works very well for thin slices)
1 small onion, minced
1 bunch of cilantro leaves, roughly chopped
¼ cup of ancho chili puree (prepared with the stew)
tortillas, soft or hard

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Trim fat off the pork shoulder and cut into several large pieces. Rub a generous amount of salt and pepper into the pieces.
Heat oil in your wonderful and magnificent Dutch oven. Cook onions for about 4 minutes, until softened. Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Don’t let the garlic burn!
Add the meat and bones and cook for about 8 minutes, stirring often, until the outside of the meat is no longer pink.
Add the tomatoes, oregano, broth, cilantro stems, and ½ teaspoon salt. Increase heat to medium-high and bring to a simmer. This will allow fat scum to come to the surface, which you can skim off with a wooden spoon.
When you have removed enough scum, cover the Dutch oven and put it in the oven. Cook the meat for 2 hours, until it is tender and falling apart.
Meanwhile, remove the stems and seeds from the ancho chiles. Soak them in the boiling water for 20 minutes. Puree the chiles and the soaking water in blender, then pour the purree through a fine mesh sieve.
When meat is done, remove the meat and bones from the pot. Throw away the bones.
Add the hominy and ¾ cup of ancho puree to the stew. Cover the stew again and simmer it on top of the stove over medium-low heat for about 30 minutes, so that the hominy can soak up the flavors of the stew.
Remove the bunch of cilantro stems from the stew and discard. They have served their purpose and I am grateful to the cilantro stems.
When meat has cooled, shred it with your hands or the tines of two forks. Stir the shredded meat back into the stew.
There might be more fat scum on the stew, which you can skim off again, if you like, or not. Fat scum be gone!
Ladle the stew into bowls and top them with the garnishes.

Stress Relief for Cubists

If you were a Cubist painter in the early twentieth century, you probably spent time reducing objects into basic geometric shapes and reassembling them on the canvas, utilizing a two-dimensional artistic medium to present a three-dimensional view.

I like to think of myself as a Cubist, but for a different reason, and that reason is just that I like squares.

In junior high, instead of socializing with other teens or practicing my violin, I played Tetris. I spent hours and hours and hours trying to fit shapes made with squares into holes made from the absence of shapes made with squares.
Also, when teachers told me to circle something on a worksheet, would I circle it? No. Rebel that I was, I would put a square or rectangle around it instead.
I even developed my own block-letter font:

Years later, I maintain my affection for all things square by coming home from work and commencing to chop things up into cubes. I obtain copious amounts of glee from cubing potatoes, hard cheese, and occasionally raw lamb meat.



Chopping objects into squares can provide stress relief for self-proclaimed Cubists like me. Similarly, abstract expressionists might find inner peace by throwing raw eggs at walls in order to experience the pure emotion of the color yellow. If one is in a less destructive mood, smearing an entire countertop with chocolate icing has the same soothing effect.

Perhaps you are a Cubist and you don’t even know it. Next time you are feeling anxious and overwhelmed by the trammels of everyday life, and you only have 34 cents, which is not enough money for a vacation or even a massage, but does happen to be enough money for a potato, try chopping that potato into squares and see if you feel better afterwards.

Start with slicing a side off of the potato to give you a flat surface.
Place the potato on the flat side and continue to slice off the rounded edges, until you are left with a block of potato. Blockato.

Cut the blockato lengthwise into rectangles about one centimeter wide. Turn the blockato on the next side and cut lengthwise again. You should have long rectangles that look like square French fries. Fun!

Now cut the blockato crosswise, so the long rectangles are divided into squares.
Hooray, happy potato cubes!

Do you think I am a nerd?

A Side for your Gordita

arroz rojo (red tomato rice)

Please ask yourself how many times you have made gorditas for dinner and have not prepared the appropriate sides for them.
Actually, I have never made gorditas, but I have made tacos about 37 times, and there have been more than a few times that I have not had the perfect side for them.
Those days are over.
Lovely arroz rojo has come into my life, and from now on, that is what I shall serve alongside my tacos.
Now I just have to figure out how to make a gordita.



Arroz Rojo (Red Tomato Rice)
~adapted from Mexico One Plate at a Time, by Rick Bayless

4-6 plum tomatoes or 2 medium round tomatoes, very ripe, cored and chopped
OR a 15 oz. can whole tomatoes in juice, drained
½ small white onion, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
1 ¾ cups chicken broth
salt
1 ½ tbs. vegetable oil
1 ½ cups white rice
2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped into ¼-inch cubes
3 serranos or 2 jalpeños, a slit cut down the length of each one
¼ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley (I going to try cilantro next time and see how it goes)
1 ½ cups defrosted frozen peas or cooked fresh peas

Combine the tomatoes, onion, and garlic in a food processor or blender. Blend into a smooth puree. Reserve about 1 cup.
In a medium saucepan that has a tight fitting lid, heat the oil over medium over heat. When the oil is hot, add the rice and cook for 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the grains turn from translucent to milky-white. Add the tomato mixture and the carrots, stir until mixed, and cook about 2-3 minutes until the liquid is reduced.
Meanwhile, heat the broth in the microwave. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and stir until the salt is dissolved.
When the tomato mixture is looking dry, add the salted broth, chiles, and parsley, stir thoroughly and cover the pan. Cook the rice on low, low heat for 15 minutes.
Remove the pan from the heat, uncover it and quickly strew the peas over the top of the rice. Let it sit for 5 minutes.
If the grains of rice are still hard, re-cover the pan and set it on low heat for another five minutes. If they are dry, you can add one or two tablespoons of water before you put it back on the heat.
When the rice is done, fluff it with a fork to release the steam. Pour into a warm bowl and serve. You can remove the chiles and discard them, or you can put them on top of the rice as a garnish. Pretty garnish.

Whole Paycheck Trail Mix

Whole Paycheck Trail Mix:

Go to the bulk aisle at Whole Paycheck (commonly known as Whole Foods).
Buy stuff you like.
Mix it together in a bag.