Let it Snow!

I woke up this morning and my half-closed eyes looked between the cracks of the blinds and I saw snow. The scene reminded me of Christmas movies, ones where there is no snow on Christmas Eve, but when people wake up the next morning there was a Christmas miracle and it snowed six feet worth overnight.

(I just think this picture is so cute)

I have underground parking, and the beauty of this is that I don't have to scrape off my car in the morning. And my car is warm without me having to idle it. (And right now my key fobs have been driving me mental by not working half the time, so that is a good thing)

The snow and road conditions didn't bother me until I had made it to Tim Hortons. As I slowed down to pull into their parking lot, my car resisted stopping and was sliding. I am enough of a coffee addict that my biggest fear was that I was going to slide past the parking lot entrance, and not that I was going to crash into someone else.

My day at work was fairly uneventful, but it was long. I left at 18:45 after having started at 7:15. Side note: I prefer the 24 hour clock. If I can get my clocks to read 24 hours, I do. Those of you who don't know how to convert the 24 hour clock into the regular boring time, you subtract 12 from the number. 18-12 = 6, therefore I left work at 6:45 pm.

The ride home was terrifying. One of my biggest fears is winter driving. I have been in several car accidents in the winter (NONE OF THEM BEING MY FAULT!) So I am a big bundle of nerves in the winter. My car also has a mind of its own. Even if I start from a complete stop at an incredibly slow rate, I will always spin out.

Now at this point I was at work for a little over eleven hours. I'm stressed out. And work also had me out in the snow and it got into my shoes so my feet were so cold they hurt. I wanted nothing more than to get home and never leave my place again.
I stopped at Sobeys first. I love Sobeys. I go there probably 4 or 5 times a week, and I pretty well know where everything is. So much, that when I make a grocery list I can pretty well put my list in order. I don't just mean produce, to meat, to deli, to frozen section. I mean I can put the produce in order of where the produce is located so that I just walk down the sections without having to backtrack. (yes, I do know I have no life)

I thought that the most perfect way to get over this day was a hot bowl of soup, with homemade biscuits, and blondies to finish out the meal.

For the soup, I made a soup adapted from a cheese and potato soup in a Williams-Sonoma cookbook.

Cheesy Potato Soup

Ingredients:

4-6 slices of bacon, chopped

2 leeks, thinly sliced and rinsed

3 large baker's potatoes, peeled and cubed

3 cups chicken broth

2 cups milk

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

To make:

1) brown the bacon to your desired crispness in a medium saucepan. Remove bacon and set aside on paper towel to drain

2) In the leftover bacon fat (remove some of it if there is a lot), saute the leeks. Note, you should include the white, the light green, and the darker than light green part of the leeks, but not the dark green part.

3) add the potatoes to the pot and stir so that each cube gets coated in the bacon

4) pour in the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for about 20 min to half hour, until the potatoes are fork tender. Maybe simmer is the wrong word, keep the heat on about medium.

5) When the potatoes are tender pour in the milk and bring the soup back up to a boil. Remove from heat. At this point I use a potato masher to mash up the potatoes. I like my soup to have pieces of potatoes and leeks. If you like yours completely smooth you can blend it.

6) stir in the cheese

7) divide into bowls and top them with the cooked bacon.

I also made biscuits tonight, and the recipe for biscuits left me with and extra half cup of whipping cream. I didn't want it to go to waste so I used 1/2 cup whipping cream and 1.5 cups of milk instead of the 2 cups of milk in the soup.

I have made this soup about eight or nine times, and I have to say this was the best one I have had. I am crediting the cream for this, and it is unlikely I will make this soup without the cream in the future.

The biscuits. I was nervous about the biscuits. The last time I attempted a biscuit, they turned out more like rocks. My sister called them biscotti biscuits. They were not good. Tonight's though, were amazingly good. So light and fluffy, and they were EASY. I hate baking and this recipe was simple for me. Chef Michael Smith's Cheddar Biscuits can be found here

Lastly... the blondies. Blondies are most commonly described as brownies made with brown sugar, not chocolate. I made Toffee Crunch Blondies. The blondies have chocolate chips and toffee bits in them, and then are topped with more toffee bits. Now, the recipe states that it makes 36 bars. I don't know who was deranged enough to cut them so tiny that one would get 36 out of a pan, but I made mine so that I had 16.


Tonight's meal was so good that I couldn't even wait until tomorrow to blog about it. I have plenty of dishes waiting to be written about, but this one pushed its way to the front. I was dead tired (still am) but I fought to stay awake long enough to post this.

Now I am heading for bed.

Too Much

A movie that I really enjoy is My Big Fat Greek Wedding. If you aren't familiar with it, the movie is about a woman, Toula, who is from a large Greek family, who pressures her to marry a nice Greek boy, and make lots of Greek babies. Toula ends up meeting and falling for a man who is not Greek, to the dismay of her entire family. One of my favorite parts is when Toula's aunt invites Toula and Ian (the non-Greek) for dinner. Toula says to her "He's a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat". And the aunt looks horrified (as would I) and says "He don't eat no meat? It's ok I make lamb".

The other day I was talking to someone I work with and I had asked if he was going to have a turkey dinner for Christmas and he said no because his wife was a vegetarian. It took all my will power not to say "She don't eat no meat?"

I am a carnivore through and through. I can't think of very many meals of mine that don't contain an animal of some sort, my very favorite being beef. Last weekend was a good weekend for beef. On Friday night I went to dinner at The Keg, which is one of my all time favorite places to eat. I ordered the prime rib. On Saturday I had my friend and her family over for dinner and I served Beef Bourguignon. That same family invited me over on Sunday for prime rib. By Monday I was feeling a little beefed-out and was planning on making chicken. Then I saw a recipe for chimichangas and I had to make it, so once again I had beef. I drew inspiration from the recipe I had found, and changed it enough that I can call this one my own.

Chimichangas

To make the filling:

1) I browned a package of ground beef

2) I added a can of chili beans (it included kidney, navy and a third kind)

3) I also added a pack of taco seasoning and the amount of water it instructed to add

Take a tortilla, place some of the filling in the middle, top with grated cheese (I used cheddar) and wrap it up like a burrito. I did this by folding the bottom up, folding in the right side as tight as possible, folding down the top, and bringing the left side over to the right as tight as possible.

Heat some oil (I used safflower) in a skillet over med-high. Just enough to over the pan. Place a burrito in the oil and cook until browned, flip and brown the other side.

Serve with salsa and sour cream.

(is anyone else thinking about that part in Napolean Dynamite when Summer says "So, who wants to eat chimichangas next year? Not me")

Since I had company I followed up dinner with dessert. I made the Bananas Foster, from Everyday Food. This particular recipe involved heating dark rum and brown sugar together until they form a syrup. Then placing cut bananas into the syrup to heat them through. It's served with ice cream. Delicious. Sadly my pictures turned out pretty crappy, so if you want to look at them all delicious-like, click on the link.

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.