Just a Tip

I've said it before I will say it again: drawer liner is a cook's best friend. Put it under blows for mixing, bowls for dipping, bowls for kneading and it won't wiggle around while you work.

Preggers!

No, I am not! 

But the adaptation of a Buckeye recipe to pretzel-stuffed-chocolate- covered-peanut-butter-balls could only have come from the crazy cravings of a pregnant woman. When my colleague Vanessa was pregnant with her son Ethan all she wanted was peanut butter, chocolate, salty and sweet. For her baby shower, I made these. Later when Vanessa's hairdresser was pregnant, she asked for the recipe and that is how they got the clever label of Preggers.

Thirsty Thursday: New to Me Negroni

The subtitle of this post should be "Or how I accidentally got drunk on a Sunday afternoon".

A Heap of Breakfast

Atlanta has a chain of breakfast diners that got it right. Key locations, good coffee, counters, quick waitresses, and even quicker line cooks. Although I will debate the validity of a whole wheat biscuit, I love Thumb Ups Diner. I particularly enjoy their breakfast heaps, which consist of homefries, and whatever else you want, fried up, covered with cheese and topped with eggs, all just how you like it.

I don't like to wait, however, and sometimes I can't guster the muster to get in the car and wait twenty minutes for a table or seat at the counter on a Saturday morning. Good thing I like to cook.

Death, Taxes and Banana Bread

Inevitably, you will have brown bananas. Ugly, spotty, squishy bananas. You are not even particularly fond of bananas and yet, here there you are, you and ugly bananas, together. You have tried every trick you know, and nothing will make those bananas look better. So here's what you do: you mash the life out of those bananas and you butter them up, egg them on, and share some bourbon. You really show those frickin' bananas what's what and they give you delicious, comforting bread.

Just a Tip

I am, like, the world's worst garlic mincer. It's a task I do not enjoy, maybe because I am lazy about it, or maybe because I grew up with a jar of the chopped kind in our fridge. My mince is more like a chop anyway - big and inconsistent. For work, I will sometimes toss a whole heads worth of peeled cloves in a small food processor. But at home I won't use it up fast enough.

So the tip - right - and less of the type that is keeping you from the tip. Was the picture not obvious enough? Use your micro-grater when a recipe calls for minced garlic. Takes approximately 1/8th of the time.

Sunday Supper: "Jambalaya" Risotto

Anytime I see quotations around any part of a recipe title I roll my eyes. I don't want to be misguided and quotations are a pretty good sign that the title is very subjective. That's one of the great things about food - we eaters view the same things differently. I say jambalaya and you might think shrimp or chicken or andouille. Maybe you think of the holy trinity or creole spice or Zataran(!). So let me be clear - when I hear jambalaya I think - rice, smokey, tomato, trinity. I also think of a dish with a nice contrast of texture. The rice should be sort of soft, but not mushy, the vegetables should still have some life left in them.  Notice I listed rice first. It's the part I always screw up - too crunchy, too mushy, or worse when it is both mushy and crunchy. But risotto, I can and will do well. And that's how we ended up here, with a quotation in our recipe title.

Chocolate and Beer Cupcakes

I am a fan of Fridays (hello, weekend!), of chocolate, of beer, of rom-coms and snuggling. I also love puppies, especially squishy ones eating ice cream, but who doesn't?! But what I really like is a recipe that feels fussed up, but actually requires a very minimal effort on my part.

Thirsty Thursday: Toasted Almond

I don't know about you, but I generally don't keep amaretto stocked in the bar. Among my bar regulars are bourbon, vodka, gin, and rum. Sure, we have a bottle of Kahlua and now some Rootbeer liquor. I mentioned picking up the amaretto for a very special cake I made recently. Now that I have a bottle of amaretto in the bar I feel obligated to give it a go in a few classic cocktails.

Something Southern Sunday: Biscuit Blues

I was prepared to present you with the biscuits at the top left hand side, there. I wasn't really proud of them.  They were the most tender biscuits I had tested so far, but they didn't have the flavor I've been searching for.

Whole Wheat Oatmeal and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I do not like raisins. Ok, I kind of like them if they are covered in chocolate or sometimes if they are golden. My sister despises them so much that she tells people she is allergic, which I guess is true of anything you dislike so much it makes you sick.

Maybe this is why my favorite cookie became oatmeal chocolate chip. My mom made them often from the recipe on the Quaker box. She used a lot more cinnamon and would keep a supply in the freezer.

A Vanilla Bean Paste Haiku

I had to look up the rules for a haiku. Was 7th grade that long ago? Wait was it even 7th grade where we learned that?

Regardless - I wanted to profess my unabashed love of vanilla bean paste. You can use it in place of vanilla extract and it since it contains bits of the seeds it feels super fancy, but since you can also use it in place of real vanilla bean, it feels super frugal too. Without further ado - my vanilla bean paste haiku:

Fragrant but sticky

cheapness never so fancy

Seedy and smooth

Apologies if I got it all wrong - wikipedia is suppose to be a reliable source right?

Vanilla Bean Paste via the web: here, here, and here.

Ps. If you are in the greater Metro Atlanta area, Your Dekalb Farmers Market has got the best price around.