Bagel Shop Observations

Bagel shop observations of the day: aka observations from a creepster people watcher:

¨ familiar table of senior citizens sitting and chatting away the morning hours- all with free refill cups of coffee
¨father sitting with his three kids- taking them into school later after special breakfast
¨older gent sitting by himself with a HUGE college sort of ring that has a massive diamond in the center of it daintily tapping at an iphone
¨fashionista high school aged girl dressed in short short shorts with the only redeemable part of her outfit being her purple american apparel sweat shirt
¨kid that I went to high school with that back in the day had a massive white boy fro, taking payment for bagels
¨ super gwaky man in his mid to late 30's driving up in a mazda sports car breakfasting with wife daughter and perhaps mother (and in law)
¨group of moms and preschool aged kids eating breakfast of champs (fruit cups for them bagels for the kids)

attack of the orange and chocolate craving.

So i woke up saturday morning with a craving for some orange and chunks of chocolate concoctions, and after going through my food network magazine and wanting to make the orange and chocolate bread pudding... and consulting with mama callimanis- and her shooting down the idea (she's not the biggest fan of bread pudding- and i had to take her word for it since i have never had the stuff myself) i went on an googling extravaganza. I ended up with four tabs open on my browser when i declared times up for recipe searching (mainly because the office dvd i was watching had ended and i had to get up anyway to put on a new disk... but that's another post all together.) One was Ina Garten's mini orange and chocolate chunk cake- which satisfied my need for orange and chocolate chunks, but didn't include the nifty new (really old school) way of infusing orange into deserts when i came across a fellow bloggers orange and olive oil cake- which i would have loved to add chocolate into but the crumby texture that olive oil adds to cakes was not going to satisfy the craving. And a tasty kitchen recipe for double chocolate and orange cookies which would allow me to use my nifty new cookie dough scoop which i got for making truffles... but after some internal debate the mini orange and chocolate chunk cake won over... with a slight change to the original recipe- I used the old school way of boiling and orange for around an hour- then letting it cool in the water that it was cooked in and then pureeing it in the mini Cuisinart. The dough used about half the orange mixture, and tasted a little bitter, so i added a bit more sugar- Ina's original recipe called for a orange syrup to be poured over the cakes then a ganache. The cakes turned out delicious - slightly dense, but satisfied the orange and chocolate chunk craving wonderfully.
Now what to do with the left over pureed orange? After going through my yia-yia's joy of cooking book, it hit me- marmalade. its so surprisingly easy! soaking the pureed orange in the water it was cooked in for an hour, the boiling it for an hour. After the boiling the book recipe wanted around 4 cups of sugar- I cut it down to 3/4 of a cup to make it equal proportions of orange puree and water, it was a little runny when it was still hot, but thickened up quite nicely as it cooled. However when tasting it on toast this morning- a bit more sugar probably would have made it even better. But the good news in all of this- i've been bitten by the jam/jelly/marmalade bug! eek.

Truffles the good the bad and the ugly.

I just wrote a long long post about my adventures in making truffles, how I went to William Senoma got offended by the prices but then realized one day perhaps I'll be able to purchase nice things, then went to Crate and Barrel and fell in love with about 50 thousand kitchen gadgets, so on and so on, then it went on to describe the process, my current obsession with Good Eats, and some more things- but then it got deleted. It was very sad, so now all I'm going to write is that I made truffles they were delicious and surprisingly easy to make all thanks to alton brown.

The End.

adventures of truffles

I finally made truffles this afternoon. They was something that I had been wanting to make for a while after seeing an episode of Alton Brown's Good Eats where he focused on anything and everything chocolate... it was 30 minutes of drooling. Anyway, he made them look so easy to make, and since recently I've been craving coconut and chocolate for months now (and mini mounds bars just aren't cutting it anymore) I decided to take the plunge into candy confection making.
First came the hunt for the proper tools, since a melon baller is the one thing mama callimanis doesn't have in her drawers filled with kitchen gadgets, the quest was on. Alton recommended using either a melon baller or one of the mini ice cream scoops with the swishing swingy thing to loosen up the deliciousness in the scoop also known as a cookie dough scooper, off we went on a adventure to William Senoma... and after lusting after all the gadgets, and recovering from the fainting attack that I felt coming on from the prices (30 some-odd dollars for a cookie dough scooper)... we decided to hit up Crate and Barrel where once again I lusted after kitchen gadget after kitchen gadget, with much more realistic prices (12ish dollars for a cookie dough scoop), my truffle making dreams were becoming more and more tangible.
Saturday was going to be the day... but the comforting familiar rain made it difficult to do anything other than playing around with the newly installed internet on my blackberry. Waking up this Sunday I was committed to the cause, I was going to make truffles. And so I did.

The first part put me at ease, melting chocolate adding heavy cream and brandy or in my case metaxa ( you know me always have to throw some greek into the mix), the closest thing to brandy that we had in the liquor cabinet, then put in the fridge for an hour... the next part was a little more labor intensive, having to use the new scooper and put them back into the fridge to get nice and hard. After a hotdog lunch break, back to truffle making I went. Alton's strict instructions not to let the coating chocolate to get above 94 degrees got me a little overwhelmed but then I was what eva alton its chocolate if it goes above 104 degrees its still going to be delicious and tasty! Then I got to coating, leaving the tray of uncoated truffles in the fridge so they stayed cold, and taking them out as needed, which meant that I had to wash my hands quite frequently because I gave up on his instructions of using a spoon to lightly coat the trufs and used my fingers instead, then rolled the coated truffs in the truffle toppings of toasted walnuts, coco powder and cinnamon, and toasted coconut. Rolling the truffles in the toppings proved to be the most difficult part since my hands were coated in chocolate then the toppings got stuck to my fingers which made it hard to open the fridge to get out the remaining truffles but was a tasty treat indeed!
Finally the coating process was finished and back into the fridge they went.
Then came the dishes, the worst part of the truffle making experience, and since I don't want to disturb you with the amount of dishes that are required to make and then are disturbingly dirty after you finish making them, I'll leave you with a picture of them all nice and clean and drying.

December 25

Is so far filled with
Stockings yet to be touched
Four very filled stomachs crammed to the gills with scrambled eggs, pancetta, panatone, and hash browns
Christmas music enveloping the house,
Bloom Bread proofing in the oven
Neighbors sticking their noses out of their houses wondering why there is a smokey meat smell invading their houses at 9 in the morning
Phones blowing up with merry Christmas wishes
A blinding sun melting frost off the roof and grass
Curiosity as to what is under the wrapping paper of the gifts under the tree
A certain sadness since we are missing a sister
Another sadness since there will be no "pray for me" call to yiayia this year

thanksgiving day menu

BREAKFAST
Toast

Selection of Cheeses

Coffee

LUNCH SPREAD
Mozzarella rolled with prosciutto and basil
Gourmet hot dog pigs in a blanket
Brie
Crostini with pesto and ages Parmesan
Selection of salamis
Hot croissant ham and cheese sangwiches
Mixed olives
Peperoncinis
Beer

MID AFTERNOON SNACK
Aged english cheddar
Toasted flat bread crackers
Stuffed mushrooms
Wine, beers, and mixed coctails

DINNER
Grilled Turkey
Orange Cranberry Sauce
A selection of Sesame, poppy seed, and salt crispy bread sticks
Cranberry Stuffing
Poblano pepper cornbread
Gravy
Selection of roasted vegetables
Balsamic Green beans
Wine and some more wine then some more wine

DESERT
Pumpkin Pie
Hazelnut Chocolate Pie
Both served with Vanilla Bean Whipped Cream
Peach Champagne (WOOOOO)
and homemade limoncello

in the midst of a frenzy

i've read over 80 recipes and could not settle on what to make... until i came across these two lil heart breaking, stomach growling recipes... and since i could not decide on one of them, and did not have the urge to spend $20 on a bottle of booze that i wouldn't drink again... I mixed the two together... and threw in some left over vodka from a flask, and this is what I got...

Dips.

No not the exercise (from which i now have a giant bump / bruise on my leg... thanks theo.) but the food.
I love dips. Not only are they mostly creamy and oh-so-tasty but you get to eat them with bread and cracker and uncooked veggies!! some of my favorite things!
And i have now discovered my new favorite food blogger (for the moment) because he has created my ultimate bad for you but oh so tasty frozen food appetizer and made it into a dip... jalapeno popper dip to be exact. I think i may be in love. Then after lusting over this recipe he has a click to try other recipes you may like and can you guess what those were?? MORE DIPS!! Hot spinach and artichoke dip, Hot sweet onion dip, not to mention the Baked brie with sundried tomatoes, and the baked brie with cranberry chutney! oh how my heart now belongs to the nerdy looking boy named kevin from Canada.

I propose a day devoted to dips.

summertime and the livin's easy

after a delicious cup of homemade lemonade at the market yesterday i was stung by the summer drink bug, today i made rosemary lemonade.
wonderful. That started without use of a recipe which means that after i made it, i was curious as to what the ratios that other summer drink makers used where i found website after website of drinks that is my new goal for the summer to make
tomorrow or the next free day that i get, i have decided to make peach ginger iced tea, and i'm very very excited about it!!

my next step is to get a cute pitcher to house these wonderful drinks that I plan on enjoying from now until summer fades away.



my inspiration.

Lemon Bars

I've been craving these for just about a week and tomorrow I will make them... SO EXCITED!!
Crust
4 1/2 oz unsalted butter
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
confectioners sugar for dusting
lemon topping
4 eggs lightly beaten
1 cup sugar
1/4 lemon juice
1 tbs lemon zest
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

preheat oven to 350 lightly grease a shallow baking pan.
cream the butter and sugar with electric beaters until pale and fluffy.
fold in the flour with a metal spoon.
press into the tin and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown and firm.
beat the eggs and sugar with an electric beaters for 2 minutes or until light and flurry.
stir in the lemon juice and lemon zest.
sift together the flour and baking powder and gradually whisk into the egg mixture.
pour onto the base.
bake for 25 minutes or until just firm.
cool in the pan and dust with confectioners sugar.

love superbowl left overs

Because they come together to make some of the most amazing nachos I've ever eaten!!

thankful

I'm thankful for the amazing friends that i have, and for the families that they have that invite me to stay with them and invade their family holiday.
i have bomb friends. bomb.

cheese

this just looks so amazing right now.

the FATTY melt

The Hamburger Fatty Melt, a Burger with Two Grilled Cheese Sandwiches as Its Bun

ummmm is it bad that i'm so hungry i'm willing to eat this?? god i love what jake and amir find!!