Welcome!

Welcome and thanks for reading! I've been busy looking for work (and my oven was broken for a few days) but it's fixed now and I'm ready for some cooking inspiration. Feel free to post any recipes you love, or would like to see me cook and photograph.

Mushroom Risotto & Powder Puffs

I guess the heat isn't bothering me that much, because despite having no air conditioner in the front of my apartment, I have not let that stop me from 1) standing over a stove (literally) for almost an hour stirring risotto yesterday and 2) baking on one of the hottest days so far (today). Maybe I'm just crazy.

The risotto is based on a basic risotto recipe, but I add garlic to almost everything, so there's 4 huge cloves in there, along with 12oz. of cremini mushrooms. This is my 4th time making risotto and the last two times I still found many undercooked grains of rice, even after cooking for over the 30-40 minutes. The next day, it's all good.

The first time I saw these powder puffs on Laura Calder's French Food at Home, I knew I had to make them. They taste like giant eggy macarons, and are a lot easier to bake - no worrying about if they rise properly or grow their "feet." Filled with vanilla whipped cream and raspberry jam, they are insane - though you may want to hold back having too many because I'm having a total sugar rush right now!

Beef Bourguingon & Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake

It feels like forever since I've been able to cook, photograph and post! My third time making beef bourguingon, but first time photographing. I use Anthony Bourdain's recipe from his Les Halles cookbook. I couldn't find a good chunk of beef, so wound up using thin chuck steak which is nice and marbled which means lots of flavor. The broth that results is so rich in flavor, it's unbelievable how simple it is.

May is the start of birthday season for most of my family and friends, so one of the cakes I've made is a chocolate chip sour cream coffee cake from Smitten Kitchen's awesome blog. The batter is thick and rich and that just tells you how moist and dense the cake will be. I also love the combination of cinnamon and chocolate chips. I didn't even use all that is called for the in recipe and it was still very chocolately.

Strawberry Lemonade Cookies

I hardly ever go to Walmart - it's nowhere near me and I have mixed feelings about doing "real" grocery shopping there, but my dear friend A. offered to take me for some necessities that somehow there's never time to buy during the week (like soap and conditioner). But being hungry and it being Walmart, I wound up buying a whole bunch of snack foods that offered no nutritional value, unless orange cheesy powder counts, but lots of nostalgia.

The healthiest item I bought was a bag of frozen strawberries, which threw me back on the hunt for a strawberry baked good that actually uses fresh strawberries. Ninety-five percent of the recipes on the internet either use strawberry cake mix, strawberry gelatin or strawberry jam to achieve their flavor and signature pink color. Go on, google it. I refused to make any of them and decided to find a good basic cookie recipe and convert it into a strawberry recipe.

The result? Martha Stewart's glazed lemon cookies sans glaze, plus a cup of thawed chopped strawberries. Oh and a little pink food past, just because. Pretty yummy if I do say so myself.

Acorn Squash Tea Bread

I'm a rebel. I bought my first acorn squash - at the end of winter/squash season. I was planning to just heat it and eat it, but while researching cooking methods, I came upon a recipe for Squash Tea Bread. So I, uh, made a cake out of it instead. Hey, it's from EatingWell.com, so it's healthy, right?

Moist, dense and spicy. Yum.

Curry Deviled Eggs

My first deviled eggs. I have some issues with mayonnaise that I need to resolve, because there are a lot of recipes that use it. I just threw a few things together for this filling, including honey mustard, curry powder and sriracha, but no mayo.

Oreos

My day off was a nice relaxing cooking day. I won't say much since this recipe is everywhere online, but they all go back to Smitten Kitchen's blog, and there isn't much variation between recipes. I will say that 1) This is one of the fastest cookie recipes I've done and 2) I need new cocoa powder. My sister reminded me the can I almost finished was from my trip to California 7 years ago -- eeek! In my defense, I didn't cook much back then. It was a sweet tasty cookie, though it lacked that something extra that makes the chocolate wafers in an Oreo so good. Possibly the cocoa Nabisco uses isn't 7 years old. Possibly.