Cupcake Day!

Hey all, Lisa here...

I've really come to enjoy baking recently, and anytime I feel like making cupcakes, I knock them out and then send them to work with Brian.  That led to my very first "professional" (paid) cupcake order, from one of Brian's co-workers!

I prepared by scouring Pinterest for decoration ideas to match my customer's theme, purchasing all the tools, accessories and ingredients I'd need, and making sure all of my equipment was spotlessly clean.

Then, it was finally time to make them!  The order was for 3 dozen, including 2 different flavors and 3 different decorations, for the customer's parents' 50th wedding anniversary celebration.  She wanted a rustic, lakeside camping theme, so we landed on fish/ water, trees, and campfire designs.

It was my first time making/ decorating that many cupcakes at once, and I had a blast (even though after 8 solid hours on my feet in the kitchen, I had useless bricks for feet!).  I'm so pleased with how they turned out, and most importantly, so was the customer!

Of course, being the photography enthusiast that I am, I photo-documented everything.  Enjoy!  :)

Setting the scene

An obscene amount of butter

Details

Dry ingredients ready to go

I used light blue and brown cupcake liners to designate between the 2 different flavors

Using my handy-dandy metal scoop to evenly fill each cup

Using this much butter at once... is just this side of disturbing.

The buttercream icing is made!

Aren't they cute?  And so full of potential.  :)

Cupcakes for days!

My 5 different icing colors - 2 blue shades for water, green for grass, and brown & orange for the campfires.

A fish/ water cupcake!  I like how the fish appear to be leaping out of the water.

The full dozen

A tree cupcake!  With icing "grass" and a few cute flowers to spruce (pun intended) it up.

The full dozen

And a campfire cupcake!  I cut up mini Twix bars to serve as the wood logs.  Sooo cute, amirite??

The full dozen

Making and photographing cupcakes is pretty much my heaven, so this was just awesome.  And I've heard through the grapevine that more orders may very well be coming my way soon, which I'd definitely eagerly accept!  So fun!

Thanks for reading!

Homemade Mozzarella

I absolutely love fresh mozzarella- with tomatoes, basil, oil, vinegar, on pizza, on sandwiches, all by itself...there's no wrong way to eat it. Unfortunately, fresh mozzarella isn't exactly cheap, and the quality varies widely from brand to brand. Luckily, it's way easier to make a ton of it on your own for a tiny fraction of what you'd pay in the store for considerably less.

Today I will be your guide (or change the "e" to an "o" and i'll be your Guido....) on a journey into mozzarella heaven.

You're going to need only a few ingredients:

1 gallon milk

Citric acid powder

Rennet tablets

Kosher (non-iodized) salt

So first of all, I got my citric acid at Whole Foods in the health and beauty area. Yeah, it's a little weird, but it's in over by the handmade soaps. It's cheap, so no worries. Second, you'll need rennet tabs. I used the Junket brand. Feel free to use whatever you want, but Junket is the easiest to find. The milk you use is up to you- I prefer to use whole cow milk, but you can use goat milk just as easily. Anyway, once you have all of this, you're ready to go.

Delicious beauty supplies

It looks like milk that has been in the fridge too long...

The first step is mix about 2 tbsp of citric acid in 1 cup of water and set it aside. Then mix 1 tablet of rennet into 1/4 of a cup of water and set that aside. Pour the gallon of milk into a large pot and heat it over medium heat until it's 90 degrees. If it gets a little higher, that's fine. I use a regular thermometer because it'd be stupid to buy a real cooking one for something like this, plus, i'm cheap.

Separating...

Ok, so once you've got the milk warming, add the water that has the citric acid and the water that has the rennet to the milk. You'll notice it starting to curdle almost immediately, and it's pretty cool to see. Stir it gently, and check the temp to make sure it's almost at 90 degrees. Once it is, remove it from the heat and let it sit uncovered for 5 min or so. You'll see it start separating and part of it turning yellow. The yellow stuff is the whey. 

Whey.

 After it's started separating, you'll notice it's starting to kind of getting clumpy. That's good...so now, turn the heat back on and take it up to about 105 degrees. Try not to let it get much hotter than that or you end up with runny (but delicious!) cheese. Once it hits 105 degrees, remove it from the heat and let it cool down (i've let it cool overnight covered, but 10-15 minutes is fine). At this point, there should be an island of kind of firm but not really curds on the top of the whey. Using a skimmer, get as much of it as possible out of the whey and into a bowl.

If this is your temperature, please seek medical attention immediately

Skimming off the top

Shortly after, the Baskin-Robins was closed down by the Health Department

Whey removed, ready for microwave

Once you've got as much as you can into the bowl, remove as much whey as possible from the bowl. I used a turkey baster, but you can do whatever you want. After they whey is gone, pop the bowl into the microwave for 30 seconds. It'll come out and there will be even MORE whey in there that needs to come out. Drain that and then put the bowl back in for another 15 seconds. Drain the whey again, and sprinkle about 1 tsp of kosher salt on top of the curds in the bowl.

Ready to fold!

 Using either a spoon or your hands, start to fold the cheese over on itself to get the salt totally integrated to the curds. 

You'll notice them starting to get more solid as you work them. Once they've started to get a little more solid, begin shaping the cheese with your hands. The important thing to do at this point now is to stretch the cheese. Think of it like pizza dough- stretch it and then push it together. It'll start to get tighter, if that makes any sense. Then start rolling it into a ball. It will eventually be about the size of a softball, and weigh about one pound. Put the ball into a container, cover it with some of the whey from the pot (you did keep it, didn't you?) and put it in the fridge. It'll keep for about a week, but you're only fooling yourself if you think it'll actually still be there in a week.

Try not to eat the whole thing at once. Seriously. 

Congratulations, you're a cheesemaker!

The Comfort Casserole (or "What can we throw in a pan?")

Most of the time I am making dishes from scratch- carefully breaded chicken, homemade sauces, soups that take longer to create than they do to eat. Then there are those times that I want something easy. Something thrown together. In this case, that something was a casserole.

This wasn't going to just be any casserole. It was going to be a comfort casserole. I was at work having a particularly difficult day, and started thinking about what I wanted for dinner. I wanted something comforting, and in this situation, that meant something cheesy, potato-y, and chicken-y.

What part of the chicken do the rings come from? 

I really love those bags of frozen chicken rings. Basically, they're just small chicken patties with the centers cut out, but yum. Seriously. I had a bag of diced potatoes, and a random package of marked down bacon, a bag of white onions, some green onions, a few Roma tomatoes, and a couple of half-empty bags of cheese.

I cooked the chicken rings in my toaster oven, then lined the bottom of the lasagna pan with them. The diced potatoes were cooked on the stove top with a little olive oil, and the bacon was done in a smaller pan on the stove top. I topped the chicken rings with a mixture of the browned potatoes, sliced onions, crumbled bacon, and shredded cheese. Popped it into the oven for 20 minutes or so at 400, and took it out. As I spooned the gooey concoction onto my plate, I topped it with some diced tomatoes and chopped green onion, and finished it off with some ranch dressing.

Not one of my more elegant dishes, but I'll be damned if it wasn't delicious. Sometimes the comfort foods are the best remedy for a bad day.

Feeding the book club- Part II

It’s that time again- time to feed the book club! As I've said before, I look forward to it more than anything because I love cooking and serving groups. This time, I didn't spend that much time coming up with a specific dinner- it all just kind of happened randomly as I wandered around Kroger.

The first piece of the puzzle happened when I found some marked-down organic veal sirloin cuts. The price was too good to pass up, so I grabbed them. It’s been a while since I've cooked veal cutlets like that, and I didn't want to just do plain broiled or grilled. I ran a quick trial on some pork medallions to test three different methods and spices- broiled/chimichury, broiled/salt and pepper, lightly fried in olive oil with breadcrumbs and yellow curry. Lisa and I tried them all and settled on the fried variety. The trick was going to be A) not overcooking it and B) not having too much oil. This was going to be cooking without a net on the day of book club.

Pre-breading 

Post-breading

Sizzle sizzle!

The next piece of the puzzle was figuring out what to serve alongside the veal. I was thinking about doing a baked potato, but then changed my mind when I thought about what the veal sirloin looked like- mini steaks! So what would you have with a mini steak? Mini baked potatoes! I got some baby red jacket potatoes and cooked them like a regular baked potato, split them, and served them with the usual accouterments.

I forgot to get a picture of the potatoes, but they looked similar to these.

The last piece was the most difficult to conceptualize. I knew in my head what I wanted. Kind of. My doodles were the genesis of what became my crispy spinach salad, but it went through a couple of revisions before I had it right. 

Right in between interview questions and ERP implementation tasks. Where will YOU be when inspiration strikes?

It started with thinking about doing a spinach salad, but again, that’s a very expected side to go with veal and potatoes. I wanted to see if I would be able to make spinach crispy by either frying it or baking it. I decided to try baking it first- 350 degrees for about 10 minutes, single-layered on a baking pan. The spinach dried out and got crispy as I had hoped, but I ran into some problems with it sticking to the foil, so I tried again with a little spray of PAM. This time it worked great, and I was able to get the spinach off without any issue.

Baked and crispy spinach

The first pass was to stack spinach, provolone, and then more spinach, and top it with a bit of vinaigrette. It was, for lack of a better word, boring both visually and taste-wise. My second attempt added a tomato slice to the bottom, and this time I stacked the spinach, cheese and spinach on top of the slice of tomato and cooked it at a low temp on the stove top to melt the cheese and give the tomato a bit of a cooked flavor. I topped the finished product with Parmesan cheese and a drop or two of vinaigrette. This was miles better than the first try, but still was lacking…something. I wanted to have something that would add a savory flavor to the side. I went through my refrigerator and found exactly what I needed- Genoa salami!

Tomatoes on top of salami, waiting for the spinach and cheese

The final revision was the same as the second version, only this time the tomato/spinach/cheese was placed on top of a slice of salami and then cooked. A happy accident occurred when, as the salami heated up, it curled up and over the edge of the tomato slice, which looked really nice. I eliminated the vinaigrette, as the salami/tomato/cheese had enough intermingling flavors that it was no longer required.

Lid on to help melt the cheese

Fully assembled but not cooked

With the dinner planned, all that was left was to make it for everyone. One thing that I’ve always excelled at (even back to my days as head cook at Hoggy’s!) was getting everything to come up at the same time. It’s a strategy, to be certain, figuring out how long everything needs to cook and raising or lowering temperatures speed or slow things. This worked out great- the veal with the breadcrumbs and curry was flavorful, tender, juicy and crispy. The salami/tomato/spinach/cheese “salad” was as delicious as it was unique, and the baby baked potatoes were the perfect complement to the rest of the dish.  

Yes, I even created a menu for them!

In the end, this dish wasn't as impulsive as the rest of the meals I've blogged about, but it is interesting to follow the train of thought from idea to plate from time to time.

Until next time!

Sllabtaem yseehc

Dreams are like repressed desires of things we wish we could have. In this case, my repressed desire consisted of a cheesy meatball risotto. I mean, if you're going to dream, dream big.

Do they serve meatballs in the Black Lodge?

Basically I had a dream where I was eating meatballs in a creamy, cheesy sauce, but it was a little spicy and had a lot of tomatoes in it. Think sort of like a tortilla and cheese soup, but a little thicker, served over risotto. Why? I don't know. Most of my dreams are typically night-spanning epics, involving subplots and cliffhangers, but this...this was different. Maybe it was a commercial? Anyway, I wanted to make it.

Since I had other things going on that night, I opted for pre-made meatballs and baked them in the oven. The sauce was going to be 100% trial and error. I started with about two cups of water and a few chicken bullion cubes. I added about 3/4 cup of milk as well. I brought that to a boil and added Velveeta (well, the Kroger version) and a can of diced fire-roasted tomatoes to the sauce. I let that all start to simmer and then added a small can of chipotle sauce that I had purchased a bunch of when they were marked down to $0.29. 

 

The sauce began to thicken and the meatballs were nicely baked, so I removed the meatballs from the oven and combined them into the sauce. I figured any mingling of flavors would be good while the risotto cooked. As the risotto finished, I ground some black pepper into the sauce. 

I plated the dish with risotto on the bottom and meatballs on top, covered with the cheesy sauce. It didn't turn out as thick as it was in my dream, but then again I literally threw this together with stuff I had at the house (and I had spent most of the evening working on my Mustang, so it was nearly 8pm when I started cooking!)

Gratuitous picture of my Mustang

In the end, it turned out to be delicious! A little spicy, lots of tomato, oodles of cheese, and a really nice risotto base. It made a ton, so I am looking forward to eating the leftovers. 

I've taken up smoking

For Father’s day this year, my wife got me a charcoal grill and smoker- something that I had wanted for a while. I had never once in my entire life cooked with, or even eaten food cooked with charcoal, but had chicken that was and knew I needed to have one.

No, got-dangit! Taste the meat, not the heat!

My inaugural meal on the grill was the old standby- ribs. While I have no photographic proof, you’ll have to take my word that they were fantastic. It really isn’t that hard to get a charcoal grill going, but it is a little disorienting cooking without a flame, only heat. I was using the charcoal that already had the lighter fluid in it, and getting it started was a breeze.

Gimme some of that mmm mmm good, meat falls of the bone...baby i'm hongry, i said baby you hongry?

After doing the ribs, I wanted to try burgers, which were delicious. I mixed in some A1 steak sauce with the beef and grilled them. I’m pretty sure I could never go back to gas grilling!

Artist's depiction of a burger

The real test came when I wanted to smoke something. I initially tried smoking some chicken, but had no idea what I was doing. I had the wrong kind of wood, didn’t soak it, etc. It turned out ok, but was very wasteful when it came to how I actually proceeded.  This time, I bought a really nice looking pork loin, some applewood chunks, and I was ready to roll.

One yummy pork loin

Soaking the wood was something I didn’t know you were supposed to do, but it makes sense- otherwise the wood burns too quickly and you don’t get any smoke. Well, very little smoke, and for a very short time. So the wood was soaking, and I made a simple rub for the pork, consisting of sea salt, red wine salt, black pepper, onion powder and seasoned salt.

Charred...coal?

I had read that you want to slow-cook the pork, and that required a lower heat. I lit the briquettes, then added the wet applewood to the top and let them start to smolder. I kept the heat inside of the grill around 200 (occasionally spiking to 250 when I wasn’t paying really close attention…) and occasionally freshened the wood chips. With about 30 minutes left, I put on a coat of Open Pit BBQ sauce. For what I wanted, which was basically just to have a glaze, it was perfect. As the pork neared completion, the sauce turned to a dark, sweet glaze. The aroma wafting up from the grill was damn near indescribable. As my wife put it, the whole yard smelled like the fair.

What's wrong with the license plate? I should get that looked at.

It took about 3.5 hours from start to finish. I had to add a couple of pieces of charcoal, and I found some chicken quarters in my fridge and tossed them on the grill as well.

Do not drool on your keyboard (or iPhone or Android...)

I wish I could show you picture of everything plated….but I was so excited to carve into the pork loin that I didn’t get any pictures. If you don’t have a smoker, you really should get one. It opens a smoky door to another smoky world. I can’t wait to try more! Anyone out there have any recommendations? Wood type, meats, etc?