"YUMMO!"

So I’ve been told a million times that I look like Rachael Ray (I don't really think so, and hopefully they mean pre-alcoholic bloat and smoker rasp). Brian even told me I looked her the night we met. If ever start talking with my mouth full, slap me. As much as she can be annoying, she has some good points that I have always agreed with, but I’ve got some of my own too. Here’s some of my basic principles of cooking:

1. EVOO - Okay, I know everyone wants to smack Rachael Ray when she says this, but it is so true. It makes all the difference in the world to use real Extra Virgin Olive Oil. And pick a high quality one too. I like Whole Foods 360 brand. It tastes great, and is a great value, and with how quickly Brian and I go through olive oil, by God, we need the value.

2. Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese - But seriously, She’s right about the EVOO, and she’s right about the Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. You can buy the stuff in the green can for popcorn (love that!), and you can buy the slightly fancier grocery store shredded concoction in the plastic deli tub (which I do buy to sprinkle on top of soup out of a can or a frozen dinner). However, if you want your homemade pasta to have umph! Or to raise the bar on your salad, you have to use Parm-Reg. The real stuff. It is expensive, but worth it.

3. Good butter - Like a good man, good butter is hard to find. Good thing I found both! Like my men, I like my butter European Style (Brian may look like an All-American rebel without a cause, but he was partially educated in Europe, and can talk European painting better than a professor, and he knows his French wine regions as well as a sommelier). I love Plugra European Style butter. It may be straight from the Heartland, but it tastes as good as those butters on the breakfast buffets of European hotels in which I always whined, “Why doesn’t American butter taste this good?” Well it does - at least Plugra does. Good butter makes all the difference in baking. If your butter is bland and has absorbed your fridge smells, whatever you made is going to be bland and taste faintly of leftovers. Once again, it is expensive, but so worth it! Horizon, Central Market, Archer Farms, and Challenge also make good butters, but none hold a candle to Plugra. It doesn't even separate when you melt it.

4. Sea Salt - I can’t stand that Morton Salt girl anymore*. Iodized salt is salt with an added iodine - a chemical. The result is salt that tastes chemically, which results in food that tastes chemically. I never noticed before, but once I started using sea salt, I just can’t use the other stuff anymore. Unlike Rachel Ray, I don’t throw it over my shoulder. I don’t find it very lucky to have to re-sweep the floor because I purposely threw salt on it. (*I have to say in pinch when I couldn't get across the Trinity to get to Central Market, I picked up some Morton Salt Sea Salt at Tom Thumb. I don't hate her so much anymore).


Other rules I generally follow:

* Don’t substitute low fat or nonfat crap for the real stuff in recipes, unless it says you can. The only exception I have found with this is milk, and sometimes I am still wary. If you want to eat low fat, find recipes that were developed specifically to be low fat.

*Do a taste/sniff test. Taste and/or smell all ingredients before you use them in a recipe. If anything is off, the whole recipe will be off. It really will be. Sometimes butter absorbs fridge smells, but sometimes garlic or onions are a little off too. Sometimes spices go bad. A little sniff sniff before you cook can save you some real tears after.

This one of my favorite Rachael Ray recipes: Cheesy Orzo. It's a great basic recipe that lends itself to your own creative whims.

Here's Rachael's recipe:

Cheesy Orzo
Recipe courtesy Rachael Ray
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 turns of the pan

1/2 small onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 cans (14 ounces) chicken or vegetable broth or stock

2 cups orzo pasta (enriched rice may be substituted) 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano or Romano Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat a 8 inch pot with a tight fitting cover over moderate heat. Add oil, onion and garlic and saute for 2 or 3 minutes. Add broth to the pan and bring to a boil. Stir in orzo and return broth to a boil. Cover pot and reduce heat to simmer. Cook 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until liquid is absorbed and pasta tender. Remove lid and stir in cheese. Season with salt and pepper to your taste. You favorite fresh herbs may also be stirred into the orzo or rice to strengthen the flavor even more.
Recipe SummaryDifficulty: Easy Prep Time: 5 minutes Cook Time: 20 minutes Yield: 4 servings
User Rating:
Episode#: TM1B58Copyright © 2006 Television Food Network, G.P., All Rights Reserved

I usually add a handful each of chopped fresh basil and parsley at the end of the baking. Pictured below, I added those herbs, and also a handful of sun-dried tomatoes.

That's one big plate of food! The orzo is served with baked Dover Sole with peppers and olives, and a spinach salad. Don't worry, I'm not going to say the "Y" word again, but this is awesome:

Chocolate Cherry Almond Oatmeal Cookies

Brian was having a no-good-awful-very-bad day. In an effort to cheer him up, I made him all the Brian comfort foods I could think of: Pizza, Hummus, and Oatmeal Cookies.

For the oatmeal cookies, I took the recipe for Nestle's Choc-Oat-Chip cookies and altered it to make Chocolate Cherry Almond Oatmeal Cookies. I know that sounds like a lot in one cookie, and I was worried too many flavors would be overkill. However, they came our really good.

Chocolate Cherry Almond Oatmeal Cookies

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons almond extract
2 1/2 cups quick or old-fashioned oats
1 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp cardamom (optional)
1/2 cup White Chocolate Chips
1/2 cup Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips
1 cup dried cherries
1 cup sliced/slivered almonds

Directions:

PREHEAT oven to 350° F.

COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat brown sugar, butter and granulated sugar in large mixer bowl until creamy. Beat in eggs, milk and almond extract. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in oats, cinnamon, cardamom, chocolate, cherries, and almonds; mix well. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE for 9 to 10 minutes. Cool on baking sheets for 1 minute; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Brian liked them, and judging by how they disappeared at work, I'm thinking they were pretty good!

Shrimp and Spinach Tacos

Shrimp and Spinach Tacos

Olive Oil
1 or 2 cloves garlic
Red Chili Flakes, to taste
3/4 Cup chopped onion
3/4 Cup chopped bell pepper
1-1/2 Cups Shrimp
Splash of Wine (I would normally suggest white, but red works so well with the sundried tomatoes)
1/2 Cup Sundried Tomatoes
2 TBSP Taco Seasoning
2 Cups Fresh Spinach
Cheddar Cheese, grated
Sour Cream
Tortillas

Saute onions, bell pepper, and garlic, and chili flakes in olive oil. Add shrimp, sundried tomatoes, and seasoning, and wine. Saute until shrimp is done. Fold in spinach. Add additional olive oil, salt, and seasoning if needed. Cover, and cook until spinach cooks down. Serve in tortillas with cheddar cheese and sour cream.

In the photograph, I tried to make a roasted red bell pepper sour cream sauce for the tacos. While it tasted good, it made... pink... taco... sauce. Yeah, I won't make it again just because of that.

Hummingbird Cupcakes

Why haven't I heard about this marvelous-sounding confection before? The Hummingbird Cake recipe is Southern Living's most requested recipe of all time. I grew up in the South, and I always flipped through my mom's Southern Living Magazine. I have to admit, the first time I heard the ingredients listed I thought it sounded odd - a can of pineapple mixed with cinnamon bananas and pecans- gross! Then I thought, wait a minute, I LOVE pineapple upside down cake, so the more I thought about these, the more they intrigued me. Doing a little googling, I've realized I am not alone.

Apparently, Hummingbird Cake is younger than me (at least in print). Recipes vary slightly, but all the elements are there in each one. If you want to know more about the cake, you can read all about them on the following sites:

• The Food Timeline



• The Joy of Baking.

I first ran across these when I stumbled onto The Cupcake Bakeshop. She said she has made them about 20 times. Then I pulled out a book we have a library, Southern Cakes.

Hummingbird Cupcakes (adapted from Hummingbird Cake recipe in Southern Cakes)
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 8oz can crushed pineapple, do not drain
2 Cups mashed bananas (about 4 medium-sized bananas)
1 cup finely chopped pecans

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Arrange 24 foil baking cups on a large sheet pan (or line muffin tins with paper cups). Set aside.

Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl, and use a fork to mix well.

Mix in the beaten eggs, oil, vanilla, pineapple, bananas, and pecans (the recipe doesn't say to mix those together separately, but I did). Mix well, stirring gently just enough to form a thick, nubby batter.

Divide evenly between cups. Bake for about 20 minutes, until it passes the toothpick test.

Cook cupcakes on wire racks.

Although the frosting in the book sounded great, I did not follow it exactly because it called for 1/2 cup more pecans. I would have used them, but Brian had to help crack open pecans (direct from the streetz of the OC, baby!), and it was getting too tedious to come up with 1/2 a cup more. So here's how I made the frosting:

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8 oz. package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon

With a mixer, combine all ingredients on medium-high speed. Test consistency, and add more sugar until it gets to desired consistency.

If you so choose, you can add the following step: Remove whisk attachment from mixer. Lick. Yum.

Once cupcakes are cool, slather on frosting.

I made these for a co-worker's baby shower, and they seemed to go over well. I liked them! They tasted like moist banana bread, and the pineapple wasn't all that discernible.

I will definitely makes these again! (*The photo was taken with my camera phone - so no flash and bad lighting).

Asian Salad

Here are the ingredients I used to make an Asian Salad. Measurements are approximate.



Broccoli Slaw
Spinach
Shrimp
Soy Vay
Toasted sesame seeds

Dressing:
Olive Oil (about 2 TBSPs)
Toasted Sesame Oil (about 1 tsp.)
Chili Garlic Sauce (about 1/2 tsp.)
Soy Sauce (about 2 teaspoons)
Rice Wine Vinegar (about 1 TBSP)
Coriander (a couple dashes)
Ginger (fresh grated or or ground to taste)
Salt and Pepper (to taste)

Marinade desired amount of shrimp in enough Soy Vay to cover. Heat a skillet up on medium to medium-high heat. Toss the shrimp, and saute until fully cooked.

In a small bowl, whisk all the dressing ingredients except for the Olive oil. While whisking, slowly drizzle in the oil.

Toss together spinach, broccoli slaw and dressing. Plate, and then top with shrimp and sprinkle sesame seeds on top.

Southeast Asia

I love Asian foods, but I cannot cook them. Not that any of the ethnic foods I make are completely traditional and true to their heritage, but the best I can do with Asian foods is to leave to the restaurants (especially with Indian and Chinese), use a box, or just incorporate the flavors into my own Americanized style. Last weekend, Brian and I wanted Asian, but neither of us could place our tastebuds on what we were craving. I mean, Asia is a big continent. We decided on Southeast Asia via Tom Thumb and World Market. Brian loves Pad Thai, but the only way I can make it is from a box. We picked up a box of Thai Kitchen Pad Thai noodles and sauce. Thai Kitchen is fairly good, but we discovered that the A Taste of Thai box was slightly more authentic (at least to Bangkok City standards. On a side note, I watched a show on the Travel Channel about Pad Thai, and that the red Pad Thai we get here is an Americanized way of making it. It's not red in Thailand.)

I followed the Thai Kitchen box fairly close, except instead of using bean sprouts, I used broccoli slaw, added shrimp, and a glob of peanut butter when I added the pad thai sauce. I usually top with crushed peanuts and chopped green onion, but I forgot about the green onion when we were at the store. Darn! It came out pretty good. Not as good as a restaurant of course, but acceptable to satiate our craving.

To go along with it, I also made spring rolls. I don't make them very pretty, but they are good. They are super easy to make, they just require a lot of steps. You can put almost anything in a spring roll, but I tend to just like vegetables and bean thread noodles best. Any veggies work, but cucumbers seem to always be in spring rolls when I order them.

Spring Rolls

Cucumber, cut into matchsticks
Red Bell Pepper, cut into matchsticks
Carrots, shredded (after peeling the carrot, I used my peeler and made carrot shavings)
Sai Fun Bean Thread Noodles
Spring Roll Wrappers (Rice Pancakes)

The ingredients:

You have to soak the rice pancakes in warm water before rolling. Make sure it's not too warm, because then it will curl all up and look like a jelly fish!

Then you quickly blot on a tea towel to dry:
I set the rice pancake on a plate, and then line up the ingedients. Then I sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds:
To roll, I roll up one side, then the bottom, and then the top, and then I roll it as tight as I can without the stuff poking out (I'm not very good at this yet):

I also made peanut sauce for the spring rolls. I came up with my peanut sauce recipe to mimic the peanut sauce of some of the Vietnamese restaurants in Arlington. It never comes out the same because I just drop ingredients, whisk, taste, over and over until I think it tastes okay. This time, I wrote it down as I went. This isn't exact, but I never make it exact anyway. It's fairly close the restaurants - well, it's close enough!

Peanut Sauce for Spring Rolls

2 TBSP Peanut Butter
1 TBSP Roasted Peanut Oil
1 1/2 TBSP Soy Sauce
2 TBSP Rice Vinegar
1/2 tsp Chili Garlic Sauce (or more if you like it spicier - I'm a spice wimp)
1 tsp Toasted Sesame Oil
1 tsp Mirin

Whisk all ingredients together until smooth. Top with crushed peanuts.

This is the first time I've used Mirin in it, and it seemed to make a positive difference. I got it at World Market, and I'll be honest, I think I heard it was rice wine, but I wasn't completely sure. A google search found this incredibly useful blog: The Perfect Pantry: Mirin. Of course then I had to start reading this other entries, and wasted a lot of time! Blogs are like reality TV - they suck you in!!

Blondies, Revisited

Back in December, I decided to try to make Blondies for our holiday staff party. I had never made Blondies before, but had some made by friends before and loved them.
I used this recipe out of my Hershey cookbook, and changed it up a little bit.

Three Great Tastes Blonde Brownies
2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 cup butter or margarine, melted
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup (of each) HERSHEY'S
Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips, REESE'S Peanut Butter Chips, and HERSHEY'S Premier White Chips
Chocolate Chip Drizzle (recipe follows)

Heat oven to 350°F.
Grease 15 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 1-inch jelly roll pan.
Stir together brown sugar and butter in large bowl; beat in eggs and vanilla until smooth. Add flour and salt, beating just until blended; stir in chocolate, peanut butter and white chips.
Spread batter into prepared pan.
Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely; cut into bars.
With tines of fork, drizzle Chocolate Chip Drizzle randomly over bars.
Makes about 6 dozen bars.
Chocolate Chip Drizzle: Place 1/4 cup HERSHEY'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips and 1/4 teaspoon vegetable shortening (do not use butter, margarine, spread or oil) in small microwave-safe bowl.
Microwave at HIGH (100%) 30 seconds to 1 minute; stir until chips are melted and
mixture is smooth.
Recipe and photograph provided courtesy of The Hershey
Company, Copyright ©1995-2005.

My version of the Blondie:

Blondies
2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 cup butter or margarine, melted
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup chopped pecans
1 10 oz. bag semi-sweet chocolate chunks

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 15 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 1-inch jelly roll
pan.
Stir together brown sugar and butter in large bowl; beat in eggs and vanilla until smooth. Add flour and salt, beating just until blended; stir in Spread batter into prepared pan.
Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely; cut into bars.

Verdict on this one? It's kind of a weird thing - I'm not sure exactly what a blondie is "supposed" to be like, but it came out a lot like the brownies I make and love, so I suppose it was a bit of success. I believe my biggest problem was that I used mostly dark brown sugar instead of light brown, because I ran out of light brown. That could have added more moisture to the mix.

For Christmas, I received a big (and I mean big!) box of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts. I knew I would never eat them all, so I tossed them in the food processor, and folded them into another recipe for Blondies (Butterscotch Blondies to be exact) - also from the Hershey's cookbook. I just substituted the chips and nuts for the chopped up chocolate covered macadamia nuts.

Butterscotch Blondies

3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-3/4 cups (11-oz. pkg.) HERSHEY'S Butterscotch Chips
1 cup chopped nuts(optional)

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 13x9x2-inch baking pan.

2. Beat butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar in large bowl until creamy. Add eggs; beat well. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, beating until well blended. Stir in butterscotch chips and nuts, if desired. Spread in prepared pan.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until top is golden brown and center is set. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars. About 36 bars.

When I was spreading the mixture out into the pan, I first tried a rubber spatula. That did not work at all. Then I tried a knife. Better, but nope. Then I tried a pastry scraper, and that didn't work really either. So I went to my method of spreading out rice crispy treats - a big piece of wax paper. Smash down with the wax paper - it's quick and easy!

The verdict on this one - completely different than the first. It was more like a standard chocolate chip cookie dough than brownie batter. They were really good, and I think these were better!