Pretty dishwater

I took this shot yesterday while washing up my mess from making a rainbow colored cake. Inspiration via The Morale Agency. More pictures soon!

Sometimes I just like to say "edamame"

We made lentil-edamame stew last night and it was delicious.


Yield: 4 servings (serving size: about 1 cup)
Ingredients
1 cup dried lentils
3/4 cup frozen shelled edamame (green soybeans)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups minced red onion
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Dash of ground cloves

Preparation

1. Place lentils in a large saucepan; cover with water to 2 inches above lentils. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes or until tender. Drain well, and set aside.

2. Place edamame in a small saucepan; cover with water to 2 inches above edamame. Bring to a boil; cook 2 minutes or until edamame are tender. Remove from heat; drain well.

3. Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic, and tomatoes to pan; sauté 6 minutes or until onion is translucent, stirring often. Stir in lentils, edamame, juice, and remaining ingredients. Cook 2 minutes or until thoroughly heated, stirring often.

Cause I like to share good things

This patty melt recipe is fan-freaking-tastic:

Patty Melt with Grilled Onions


Yield
4 servings (serving size: 1 sandwich)

Ingredients
8 (1/8-inch-thick) slices Vidalia or other sweet onion
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
Cooking spray
1 pound extralean ground beef
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons creamy mustard blend (such as Dijonnaise)
8 (1-ounce) slices rye bread
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded reduced-fat Jarlsberg cheese

Preparation
1. Arrange onion slices on a plate. Drizzle vinegar over onion slices. Heat a large grill pan over medium heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion to pan; cover and cook 3 minutes on each side. Remove from pan; cover and keep warm.

2. Heat pan over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Divide beef into 4 equal portions, shaping each into a 1/2-inch-thick patty. Sprinkle patties evenly with salt and pepper. Add patties to pan; cook 3 minutes on each side or until done.

3. Spread about 1 teaspoon mustard blend over 4 bread slices; layer each slice with 2 tablespoons cheese, 1 patty, 2 onion slices, and 2 tablespoons cheese. Spread about 1 teaspoon mustard blend over remaining bread slices; place, mustard side down, on top of sandwiches.

4. Heat pan over medium heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add sandwiches to pan. Place a cast-iron or other heavy skillet on top of sandwiches; press gently to flatten. Cook 3 minutes on each side or until bread is toasted (leave cast-iron skillet on sandwiches while they cook).

Delicious

For dinner tonight we had the most amazing soup. Everytime we make it, it's eye-rollingly good. Here it is:

Mushroom Barley Soup


Yield
4 servings (serving size: 1 1/2 cups)
Ingredients
1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 cup thinly sliced carrot
1 (8-ounce) package presliced mushrooms
1/2 cup uncooked pearl barley
4 3/4 cups rich turkey stock
1/3 cup finely chopped celery
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh or 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
Preparation
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, carrot, and mushrooms; sauté 7 minutes or until golden brown. Stir in barley, and sauté 2 minutes. Add stock, celery, and salt, and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes. Add thyme, and cook 5 minutes.


It's from Cokking Light magazine and so seriously good. Oh - and you can easily substitute chicken stock for the turkey stock. I thought it was better with the chicken stock actually.

While I'm on the subject of cooking and baking

What are your all time favorite cooks? Here's mine:

1. Ina Garten - something about her is so comforting and soothing. I want her to adopt me as her long lost niece.
2. Nigella Lawson - she uses words like "squidgey" and who doesn't love that?
3. Alton Brown - he's adorable in his passion for food.
4. Tony Bourdain - also very passionate about food and I love his ultra opininated views.


I also must confess a deep affection for Lynne Rosetto Kasper of A Splendid Table. I adore her podcasts.

Dreaming

I love baking wonderful things and passing them off to friends, family, and co-workers. I love the challenge of a recipe mostly. (Isn't that odd? It seems like I should love the enjoyment of those eating the treats more than the mastery of a set of instructions). Things like this calendar make me daydream about quitting my job and becoming someone who bakes and delivers cookies all day.

Admittedly though, cookies are my weak point. I'm dazzling at cakes and cupcakes though.

Addiction

I have to share my overwhelming love of Margaret's Artisan Flatbreads. I discovered these immense (about as long as my fore arm!) and delicious crackers in my neighborhood bakery a couple of weeks ago, and I'm completely hooked. I really really love the rosemary and sea salt and the sun-dried tomato and olive varieties.

Mission accomplished

I completed my second daring bakers challenge and I'm still standing. Yippy!

The danish braid recipe was chosen by bakers at Sass & Veracity and What's Cookin'? You can find the recipe at either of their sites. Here's what I learned:

1. When looking for cardamom, it comes ground or in whole pods. The pods still work if you take the time to grind them in a food processer. If you think you can crush the little black seeds, you will be wrong. When you throw the seeds in anyways, the dough will look charmingly flecked with little black dots. However, the flavor will also be restricted to those little zingy black dots as well.

2. When you're filling is way too juicy, you should consider straining out some of those juices. When your what the hell attitude prevails and you spoon in the filling with all that extra liquid, don't be surprised when it leaks all over the place and makes your kitchen look like a crime scene. Raspberry juice will also burn to the bottom of the pastry. Luckily, the burnt jiuice peels off easily.

This is one of the prettiest baked goods I've ever attempted. I took it in to work for coworkers to devour and stunned them with my bravery at attempting this recipe. It was pretty darn delicious.

My first official daring bakers challenge

So I finally sign up for the Daring Bakers after having been intrigued by them for ages. And of course, instead of waiting for a sensible time in my life, I decided to sign up just as we're in the middle of packing and preparing for our big move. It was definitely a challenge!



My opera cake had layers of buttercream, almond cake, raspberries, white chocolate mousse, and a white chocolate glaze. With all that white chocolate I was worried about it being much too sweet so the tartness of the raspberries reassured me. I'm so glad I included the glaze. Once it hardened up, it really gave the cake and extra stability and glossyness.

I also had a personal deadline for this cake. We had a dessert auction the friday before Mother's Day and I was determined to have this ready for it. So of course, that Thursday night I was up until midnight working on the glaze, assembling the cake, tripping sleepily over moving boxes, and ignoring my husband's expression that plainly revealed his doubts about my sanity.

Late night baking or not, everything turned out swell. I was happy to trim the ugly edges off so I could taste them and make sure I wasn't auctioning off something wretched. And there were plenty of scraps! It wasn't as pretty as I would have liked. My cake layers weren't as even as they should have been. I didn't smooth them out well enough before popping them into the oven. The buttercream was from the modified recipe and it came out wonderfully.

I'm so glad I didn't completely mess my first challenge up. I was scared when I printed off the pages and pages of instructions. If you're up for a challenge, you can see the recipe at Cream Puffs in Venice.

Next challenge will be done in my brand new, kinda ugly, but with way better light kitchen at our first real home. Can't wait!

101 Update!

I have an update for my 101 things in 1,001 days. I tried sushi last night and it was so good! So I'm counting it towards #97 Try 5 different fish dishes I’ve never had before.

We went out with friends who steered me in what to order and I now adore spider rolls, spicy tuna rolls, and some wonderful eel roll that I can't remember the name of.

Yay for progress and deliciousness!

Blueberries and honey

Last night I was a bit restless so I decided to do some baking. I had a recipe for blueberry honey muffins that I'd printed out forever ago from Food Makes Me Happy.

They were so good! You can't make it out from above, but the key thing is to drizzle them with honey when they're still still hot.

These will come in handy for some wonderful breakfast for the next overnight guests.

Madness - with veggies

Following a fitness resolution with one about food is nuts, but I've been meaning to post this recipe for a few days. Recipe found here. I would probably add a bit more spice to it - maybe more pepper and basil and oregano. Its originally from Cooking Light so not too too terrible in small quantities. It made a ton for freezing for later and it really helped with my immense veggie craving I've had lately.

Chocolate and Raspberries

This chocolate crepe recipe from The Domestic Goddess is divine. Mine didn't look nearly as pretty as hers, but the taste was killer. Mmmm.....

Sexy dessert

I can't believe I forgot to post about the most delicious thing I've made recently - sexy black pepper cherries. Actually everything on the Blood Sugar blog looks divine, but this one I actually made myself and it tasted as good as it looks and sounds.

Absolutely delicious and unexpected.

So good!

This Simple Harvest cereal is my new morning crack habit. The brown sugar pecan kind is so seriously seriously good. I consider telling you all about this to be my good deed of the day.

Mmmmmmm

This recipe is SO good! Yum:

Red Beans and Rice

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound fully cooked smoked sausage (such as hot links or Kielbasa), sliced into 1/2-inch-thick rounds
1 onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
3 14 1/2- to 16-ounce cans kidney beans
1 cup canned low-salt chicken broth
1 teaspoon Creole or Cajun seasoning or 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 cups cooked rice

Preparation
Heat olive oil in heavy large Dutch oven over medium heat. Add sausage, onion and garlic and sauté until onion is brown, about 15 minutes. Mix in kidney beans with their juices, broth and Creole seasoning. Reduce heat to medium-low; cover and simmer until flavors are blended and mixture is very thick, stirring occasionally, about 45 minutes.
Divide cooked rice among large shallow soup bowls. Spoon bean mixture over rice and serve.

Cake!

The only thing I created yesterday was cake (that counts, right?). Oh and more origami stars - but my plans for them are so big that I won't have a finished project with them to show for eons. I can't ever think small. Anyway, here's the cake:

It's Blueberry Lime Curd Cake. Recipe is here: Delicious Days

Drippy lime curd detail. This cake was perfect - summery and fresh and nothing like the weather i'm seeing out this window. I want to try almost everything on her site. Maybe next it'll be the honey cake. Yum.

Middle Eastern Lamb and Cranberry Pizza

We made this pizza tonight and man was it good!
Recipe from Cumin & Coriander food blog. Yum!