How Long Gone

It feels like a long time since my last post. I haven't had a lot of extra time lately, but I'm going to try and update more often.

This particular post, however, will be short and sweet. The last time I had attempted to make creme brulee, I had actually made a creme anglaise. The difference being the one I wanted was a custard, and the one I made was a cream sauce.

I made an actual creme brulee in this attempt. I used a recipe from Chef Michael Smith. Those of you familiar with the Food Network will know him from Chef at Home and/or Chef at Large.

The final result was delicious, and custardy!

That's Amore

When it comes to books turned movies, I always make a point to read the book before the watching the movie. I find that sometimes Hollywood screws with the book so much to make the movie, that if I watch the movie first it will ruin the book for me. Take, for instance, The Devil Wears Prada. The book was good, but I wasn't a huge fan of the movie because it strayed so much from the plot of the book. When this happens I get offended on behalf of the author.

Sometimes when a book turned movie comes out, I may have read the book a while beforehand, so I re-read it closer to the movie day so when I do see the movie I am familiar with how it compares to the book. With the recent release of New Moon, I have started re-reading the Twilight series.

I heard a quote from Stephenie Meyer, the author, that when people read New Moon they have a habit of trying to read it very quickly, and that everyone should read it twice. I just read it for the second time, and I would have to agree with her. I liked the book more the second time I read it.

Those of you who hate Twilight, and hate hearing about it... I'm sorry. I will be the first to admit that they aren't extremely well-written, however they are very entertaining. I was absorbed from page 1 of the first book to the last page of the fourth.

I also liked the first movie, but I have also read the book. And I think to enjoy the movie at all, you would have had to read the book. I enjoyed the second movie even more. I think it was mostly due to Taylor Lautner.

Not to say that I have switched from Team Edward to Team Jacob, because I am still on Team Edward.

And while on the subject of moons... I made pizza the other night. It was a very lazy night for me. I topped a pizza crust with some jarred sauce, real bacon bits, grated mozzarella, sliced mushrooms, and sliced onion. I baked it until the cheese was melted, and the crust was golden.

Note how cute I arranged the carrot sticks.

And I am including a picture of my sister's "Super Soup". She will not give me the recipe, but there's canned tomatoes, and zucchini involved. The soup also gets "help" from a little white talking oven mitt. Very tasty soup... if I can get the recipe I will post it.

She's Not Pretty, She Just Looks That Way

Mussels are incredibly tasty. They also look a little unappetizing. I made this dish for my mom the other night, and she couldn't get over how they looked. Or apparently the texture. So I ate them all. Here's a classic recipe from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Moules à la Marinière or Fresh Mussels Steamed open in Wine and Flavorings

Ingredients:

2 cups light, dry white wine or 1 cup dry white vermouth

An 8- to 10-quart enameled kettle with cover (I used a Dutch oven)

1/2 cup minced shallots, or green onions, or very finely minced onion

8 parsley sprigs

1/2 bay leaf

1/4 teaspoon thyme
1/8 teaspoon pepper

6 tablespoons butter

6 quarts scrubbed, soaked mussels

1/2 cup roughly chopped parsley

How to make it in my own words:

1) Scrub the mussels. Throw out any that didn't close, they are dead and will make you sick if you eat them. The closing mussels are pretty weird, you don't expect them to be living so when they close on their own it's kind of freaky. Remove the beards (or the hairy string thing that hangs out of the shell) with a paring knife. Soak them in water for 1-2 hours so they expel any sand they might have in them. (I soak them in water with a bit of flour in it since Julia said this might make them more succulent)

2) In the Dutch oven add everything but the mussels and chopped parsley. I used white wine for the base. Bring to a boil and reduce the liquid for about a minute or two. Also, I used shallots, and I would recommend them over the onion or green onion.

3) Add the mussels into the boiling liquid. Cover the pot. Put on oven mitts, and grasp the handles at the same time as holding the lid closed using your thumbs. Shake the pan in a back and forth manner so the mussels are being redistributed in the pot.

4) The mussels are finished when they are open. This will take maybe a minute or two.

5) Throw out any that didn't open. They are dead and unfit for consumption.

6) Using a slotted spoon, scoop mussels out and put them into bowls. The parsley sprigs will now look like rotting seaweed so throw those out, and the bay leaf.

7) Let the liquid rest for a minute so any other sand will sink to the bottom. Ladle the broth into the bowls with the mussels. Top with the chopped parsley.

Serve with sliced bread to dip into the broth, and a lemon wedge.

Saturday Night

On Saturday I went to a local Italian grocery store. I have been wanting to go for a while now. I have heard excellent things about their produce, deli, and cheese sections. I found trumpet shaped pasta which I have seen several times in Everyday Food, but never at my grocery store.

I also found the balsamic vinegar aisle. Balsamic vinegar, to me anyways, is like candy. I get intense cravings for it sometimes. I found a couple of neat looking bottles so I had to buy them.

So what did I do Saturday night? I had a balsamic vinegar tasting for one.

To have a balsamic vinegar tasting you need some extra virgin olive oil, some bread (like a loaf of French bread, or ciabatta...not your regular slice loaf of bread though), and some balsamic vinegar. Obviously. In the picture above I have just the vinegar on the plate, but below I have artistically added some olive oil to the plate.

Some people do exciting things on a Saturday night. I am not one of them.

Caramel

I am not a baker by any means. I am the most impatient person on the face of the Earth. The reason I love cooking so much is that everything is open to interpretation. Back when I thought chipotles in adobo were as fictitious as unicorns, I would use Tabasco Chipotle sauce in place of them in recipes. I could remove any item from the recipe I didn't like, and omit anything that I didn't have. If a certain recipe called for only two slices of bacon, I could throw in four.

Baking on the other hand, is a real b...witch. Some recipes even call for you to spoon and level the needed flour. Are you freakin' kidding me? Who has time to spoon and level anything? There's so many dishes wasted too. If a non-baking recipe calls for a cup of something, I eyeball it. In baking, one must actually find the measuring cup.

I was scouring the web the other day and found a picture of the most delectable brownies I have ever laid eyes on. I looked up the recipe, and saw how simple this recipe was, and knew I had to make the Caramel Brownies

The blogger is right. The most annoying part of making the brownies was unwrapping all the caramels. That and trying to save some for the brownies.

The only thing I did differently was used a cake mix for Swiss Chocolate cake. I couldn't find a German version.

Nowhere With You

Earlier this week I had a craving for an Everyday Food recipe Lighter General Tso's Chicken. The chicken has a garlicky, almost sweet taste. The recipe can be made very quickly, and it is fairly healthy.

EF recommends you serve this with brown rice. That is crazy talk, since there is such a thing as fried rice. I googled easy fried rice recipes and looked through a bunch of them until I came up with one of my own inspired by what I saw. All of the recipes call for eggs. I love eggs, just not in my rice so I ommitted that ingredient.

I cooked up some jasmine rice and let it cool spread out on a baking sheet. In a large pan I heated some safflower oil. (Just enough to cover the pan). To the hot oil I added a cup of cold, cooked rice, soy sauce, and green onion. You could also add grated ginger, minced garlic, chopped carrots, frozen peas... the rice is your oyster. Though next time I make it I would add carrot and peas.

I fried the rice until it was heated through, and some of rice was getting a bit crispy. The end result was so tasty, and pretty. The rice took on a glossy sheen and I have not ever had better fried rice.

I also made pot stickers. They turned out less pretty, so I am not showing pictures until I have made them successfully. Which has happened before so I know it is possible!

You can note the following in the above pictures:

1) You can't see the pretty sheen of the rice that I mentioned

2) Those are square bowls. I purchased them last weekend at Crate and Barrel. The coolest store on Earth

3) I am very anal about presentation and wipe all the sides of the bowl down just like on Iron Chef America

Take it Easy

Lasagna is a dish that a lot of people don't attempt to make because it looks difficult to assemble, and is time consuming. Lasagna can be time consuming, but in all honesty I don't think it takes a long time to assemble. The lengthiest part of lasagna making is the baking time and in that hour you can easily accomplish many other household tasks.
I don't use a recipe for lasagna. From reading recipes, and trying other people's lasagna I developed my own.


I start off by making the sauce:

1) Cook 3 or 4 strips of chopped bacon in a large skillet/saucepan. Remove bacon

2) add a chopped onion and a chopped carrot to the bacon fat and saute until onion is soft, about 2 minutes. Add in one or two minced cloves of garlic, cook for another minute. I add a tbsp or so of tomato paste at this point and let it coat the vegetables. Set the veggies aside with the bacon.

3) In the now empty skillet, add a pound of ground meat. I used beef, but you can use beef, veal, pork or a mix of them.

4) When the ground meat is cooked, add the veggie/bacon mix back to the skillet. Pour in a large can of whole plum tomatoes. (I puree the tomatoes first in a food processor because I don't like large tomato chunks, if you like the chunks just add the tomatoes to the pan and break them up with a spoon). At this point add some seasonings and flavorings, such as dried basil, dried oregano, garlic powder, chili flakes, salt, pepper, or cayenne pepper. I had some leftover chipotles from the tacos so I chopped a couple up and added them to the sauce.

5) In a casserole or baking pan place a bit of the sauce so it covers the bottom. This is so the bottom layer of pasta will absorb the liquid and cook. Layer oven ready lasagna noodles so they cover the bottom of the casserole. *Use oven ready lasagna noodles! Why waste time cooking the noddles first???*
On top of the noodles place a layer of the meat sauce, then a layer of ricotta cheese, and a layer of mozzarella cheese, and then noodles. Repeat. On top of the third layer of noodles place a thin layer of sauce. I prefer my lasagna to have a harder, sort of crunchier outside edge so I don't cover the entire top layer of noodles with sauce. Then cover that with mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese. Bake for an hour @ 350 F

Below is the picture of my lasagna. Because of not covering the top noodles with sauce my lasagna is considerably browner than it would be. I also don't cover mine in the oven. You could cover it for half of the baking time and it would yield softer top noodles.

A Whole New World

I love photographs. I like taking them, and I love looking through moments that have been caught on film. Pictures have the ability to say so much without saying anything at all. I have been through art galleries a handful of times (not that I am all that cultured or artistic), and my favorite displays are the photography ones.

A few days ago one of my friends posted a link on Facebook for a photo collection. The photographer is Dina Goldstein, who is based in Vancouver, B.C. The collection, Fallen Princesses, is really really thought provoking. I'm a pessimist by nature and I love the take she has on "happily ever after" for the popular princesses from fairy tales. My personal favorite is the Snow White picture. Let me know what you think of the collection.

Snow White:

Sleeping Beauty:



Not-So-Little-Red-Riding-Hood:

Rapunzel:

Princess and the Pea:

Cinderella:



Belle:

Ariel:

Jasmine:

I had no luck finding somewhere online to order prints, if anyone has more luck than I did please let me know!

Digital Get Down

I have been sitting in front of a computer for the past eleven years of my life. After grade 10, I had had enough of high school in a regular setting. I finished grades 11 and 12 over the computer. I did schoolwork in the morning, and in the afternoon I was working part time.
After graduating I decided I would work for a year before going to back to school. This is hilarious, because I have been working at the same job for the last nine years, and no time soon do I plan on going to school again.
All this to say, even though I have been sitting at a computer for at least eight hours a day since the time I was seventeen, I am completely Internet challenged. Last night I learned how to "hyperlink", and this is a pretty big highlight of my life. Yes, my life is so exciting that hyperlinking is a big deal.
Those of you as Internet savvy as I am, might be thinking "what the heck is a hyperlink?"
Well. Instead of posting an entire link to a web page like http://youmissarenolady.blogspot.com (by the way, this site is awesome, I recommend you check it out) I can set up a word that if you click it, it will link you to the website such as SUPER AWESOME BLOG
Why is this so cool to me? Well now if I post the link to a recipe it won't be as long or messy looking.
Readers who have been with me since the beginning may have noticed that the posts are labeled now, and there's a list of labels on the right hand side of the blog. Now if you are wondering to make for dinner and you say "What was it that Miss Lady made from Mastering the Art of French Cooking?" you can just click on the French Cooking label and you will be lead to only the posts with my MtAoFC recipes. Sweet no? Also, noticed how I hyperlinked the words Mastering the Art of French Cooking to where you can purchase said book. And you should purchase it!
Those of you who already know all this, I am very sorry to be boring you.

Sick & Tired

Today I woke up and was so excited about it being Friday. Then reality checked in, it's only Thursday. I find it hard to be positive on Thursdays. Actually I find it hard to be positive on most any day. I'm no Pollyanna.

I got to work today and things actually started to turn around. I am having a really good morning. Every Thursday myself and a couple of my friends update our Facebook statuses and call it Things I Love Thursdays. This idea was taken from the blog iCiNG written by Gala Darling.

Every Thursday she makes a list of things that she loves. I find it difficult sometimes to come up with my list. How sad is that? My life is pretty awesome. In a time when most people are worried about job security, I know I have a job and I will have that job for a long time. I have a car that is paid for. I have a wonderful apartment that I own. I have a family that I love. I'm never worried about when my next meal might be, though I do drive my one sister nuts by always wanting to know what those meals might be days in advance. I am blessed with good friends, and overall good health. Yet, I can find 100 things to complain about.

I was scouring through some other blogs, and I came upon this real estate listing. I love this house. If I had 3 million dollars I would be moving to San Francisco tomorrow. (Anybody who has an extra 3 mill kicking around... feel free to pass it my way)

The listing can be found here:

How sick is this house??? Look at the fireplace, no house these days has that!!!

If you get a chance I recommend looking through all the pictures included on the listing. This house is insanely wonderful, and it has a crazy history. The owner of this house bought it as a part of a partnership. Her and the other buyer ended up hating each other and went through a vicious court battle over the house. The owner has been sued by her family, and people she rented rooms to as well. It's been rumored that even the Rolling Stones have partied in this house. San Francisco has declared it an official landmark. I love this house, I really do...

Last night I had a friend over for dinner. I made smoky beef tacos from the Everyday Food magazine.

I did a couple things differently. Instead of making it in the oven, I placed all the ingredients in my slow cooker for the day. TIME OUT. I love my slow cooker. As a joke I call it "the wife". (I recommend you stop reading this if you are offended by sexism) I call it "the wife" because it always has dinner waiting for me when I get home from work.

The recipe calls for 1 cup of water to be added into the pot, and since I was using a slow cooker I only added half a cup. (Slow cookers tend to create a lot of moisture on their own, unlike baking in an oven which draws out moisture) This was also excessive, next time I wouldn't add any water.

Any of you who checked out the recipe would see that it calls for chipotles in adobo sauce. THEY ACTUALLY DO EXIST! My friend Angela from Adventures of the Homemaking Mommy, knows someone who sells them and she picked some up for me. Very exciting!

The tacos are the perfect heat. You can still taste the food, and there's a lingering heat in your mouth, but the heat doesn't overwhelm the taste of the beef. Perfect.

Everyday Food recommends 3 different toppings for the tacos. One was an avocado and red onion relish. I was going to make this, but upon opening the avocados I discovered they were a hideous brown color and they had to be discarded. Another topping was a corn and tomato dish but I didn't make it because I have an aversion to corn being part of a dish. I love corn on the cob, I even like corn as a side dish, but I do not like corn in salsas, chilis or the like. The last topping was a lime crema, which was a mix of sour cream, lime juice, and cilantro. It was perfect on the beef. It was super refreshing.

This was a very easy meal to put together. The picture above includes: the taco filling in the slow cooker, in the saucepan is some Mexican rice (made by Old El Paso), the lime crema, red onion and tortillas

Now I must talk about "the wife" a bit more. I love love love this slow cooker. It was a gift from my mom. My old slow cooker wasn't used a lot because it was rather small, and the liner wasn't removable which made cleaning very difficult. My new slow cooker is the Ferrari of slow cookers. Not only can you remove the liner, which makes for an easy clean, you can BROWN THE MEAT IN THE LINER! This is so magical. There is no need to take out a skillet to brown the meat/veggies, and then transfer them into the slow cooker. Why is browning the meat in the liner way awesome? The browned bits from the meat will stay in your meal, which enhances the flavor. And there is one less dish to clean up. I love this slow cooker!

I also made dessert for after the meal. The recipe comes from my own mind. I took mini angel food cakes from the bakery section and topped them with a berry sauce and whipped cream. The berry sauce was made from taking about a cup of frozen four berry mix, sprinkling sugar on top, pouring Cointreau on it and letting it thaw in a bowl for a couple hours. I then pureed the mix in my mini food processor and strained it into a small saucepan and heated the mix just a bit. The whipped cream idea came from one of my aunts. I chop up a Skor bar and mix it into some Cool Whip. Delicious.

Sick

In order to be at work on time, I have to leave my apartment at 6:45 am. I have to be out of bed at 6:00 am. Every night I set my alarm for 5:00 am, so I can hit snooze for an hour. That is how long it takes me to gain the will to live in the morning. However, I don't actually drag myself out of bed until about 6:10-6:20 which causes me to be about 15 minutes late for work everyday.

This morning when my alarm first went off at 5:00, I had a sore throat and a stuffy nose. By 6:00, the conditions hadn't improved. I am sick. My nose is stuffy, my ears hurt, and my throat hurts. My body jumps back and forth from being chilled, to hot flashes rivalling those of menopausal women.

I also have no appetite. Which is ok, because my lunch is yesterday's leftovers and I wasn't too crazy about supper last night.

I made crab cakes. I pulled the recipe off the Internet, but I'm not going to share it because I wasn't crazy about them. I used canned crab, and possibly the problem I had with my crab cakes was my aversion to canned seafood. Overall, I think I wasn't crazy about the taste. They were very mayo-y.

I also dipped them into cheater aioli. Aioli is a dip of homemade mayo with garlic and lemon (at least the basic one is). Cheater aioli, is using actual mayo instead of making it with eggs and olive oil.

Cheater aioli is gross. Although I am usually a fan of a certain "miraculous" mayo-type spread which I find a bit tastier than regular mayo, and I was using regular mayo so maybe that was the problem.

I plan on tinkering with the recipe a bit and see if I can improve upon the crab cakes.

The other night I made Julia Child's Potage Parmentier. Which is potato and leek soup. The ingredients are:

8 cups of water (I really can't get over the use of water as a soup base, most everyone uses a stock of sorts, and when I first saw this recipe I was so skeptical of how good it would taste)

4 cups of peeled and diced potatoes

4 cups of thinly sliced and cleaned leeks

1 tbsp salt

Bring to a boil, reduce heat, partially cover, and simmer for 40-50 minutes. I kid you not, this is it. When it's done simmering you are supposed to run it through a food mill. I do not own one, so I used a hand immersion blender the first time. Which I wasn't too keen on since there was no food bits left. I used a potato masher last time, and the texture was way better. (In Julie & Julia, the book by Julie Powell, she uses a potato ricer).

To finish off you stir in 2-3 tbsp of softened butter, or cream. And you can top it with chopped chives or parsley.

This soup is so tasty, and it's so simple. I still can't believe the flavor that comes from so few ingredients.

Little Queen

Hello everybody,

I have had a crazy week this past week. I have been working extra long hours, and it has been a bit stressful. One night I ordered pizza for dinner, and another night I made a soft boiled egg with toast. Not my normal week night dinners.

There has been a lack of time to make dinner, and a lack of time to blog about anything. I am back now and ready to tackle the week ahead. This past weekend I received the chipotles in adobo that I didn't believe existed. (I refer to them as my food unicorn) I also went out and bought a bunch of kitchen things I have been needing, like a meat thermometer and a turkey baster. Excitingly enough, the kitchen store was having a sale on these items, and they were KitchenAid brand. Anyone who knows me, knows I have a love for all things KitchenAid.

I also have a love for Le Creuset. I hope to one day own everything they make in the color of cherry. So far I have four, super cute, heart shaped ramekins. And while I hope to one day own everything, at the top of my Le Creuset wish list are:

A shallow roasting dish:

The grill pan:

The large casserole:

Sadly, Le Creuset is very expensive, and I would need a second mortgage to afford every piece, but I can dream...

While shopping on the weekend, I discovered my newest KitchenAid wish product... a roasting pan:

(Images were found at www.lecreuset.ca and www.kitchenaid.ca)

Anyways, back to this upcoming week. I have planned out a couple of my meals and I can't wait to make, eat and share them. I am leaving you with a glimpse of what my kitchen table looks like during meal planning:

The books on the table are:

Chef At Home by Chef Michael Smith

Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child

Everyday Italian by Giada De Laurentiis

Feast by Nigella Lawson

The magazine is a ground beef issue by Taste of Home, that I have borrowed from my mom, and she seems to have forgotten I have it...