Picnic Day Brunch

On April 17th I pulled off my biggest meal to date. Sadly, I have no pictures to show for it! While the food tasted great, I didn't have the time or funds to dedicate towards finding enough serving dishes for all of the food I made, so I ended up leaving them in big, aluminum pans which wasn't exactly picture-worthy. However, there are upwards of 30 people that will attest to the fact that this Picnic Day brunch was probably the best one being hosted in all of the city.
Picnic Day at UC Davis is currently a 96-year long tradition that is the most looked-forward-to event in any UCD student's year. While some take their celebrating a little far (I assure you, I knew none of these people), most drink heartily and run around campus with their friends, celebrating all of the cute and cuddly animals brought out for various events and soaking up the sun. Because my birthday landed on a Tuesday this year, I decided to wait the extra 4 days to celebrate it on Picnic Day by inviting all of the alumni and friends I haven't seen in ages to my down-town apartment for a mimosa brunch. This is the menu those lucky friends got to start their day off with:
Home fries with bell pepper, sweet onion, and paprika
Crab and chive quiche
Leek, mushroom, and asparagus fittata
Caramel apple French toast
Homemade Strawberry Pop-Tarts
Mimosas
Screw-drivers
Bloody Mary's

You may be wondering, "How exactly does one MAKE a Pop-Tart?" I would say it was simple, but it ended up being a long, labor-intensive process that I almost gave up on. But the results were awesome! I got the recipe from Bon Appetite and decided to double the recipe and give it a try. Basically, its a shortbread crust that is filled with strawberry preserves, frozen over night, and then baked on a cookie sheet. The dough has to be made, rolled into disks, frozen for several hours, rolled out, and cut into 16 3x5 squares that are sandwiched together around the preserves, frozen over night, and then baked. Even then, they are almost guaranteed to burst and ooze strawberry preserves all over your baking pan (it even stained my non-stick baking sheet liners) and generally make you frustrated and violent. Why should I even consider making these again? Because everyone LOVED them! I even loved them, after the cursing and blinding anger subsided.
Moral of this story: unless you're really willing to taste a better Pop-Tart, leave the work in Kellog's hands.

A small deviation...

So I know this has nothing to do with food, but I had to show this wreath off. I love to craft, especially things that spruce up my little 1950's apartment. I don't have a wreath for this time of year and because my boyfriend is Jewish, it's a little hard to find a holiday oriented wreath that both of us can agree upon (he didn't really go for the idea of an Easter-egg wreath, although I'll agree with him in that they were pretty ugly). So when I saw some really adorable sea-shell wreaths at Target I was inspired to bring a little of the beach to my land-locked home. A quick trip to Michael's for the seashells, ribbon, and the wreath base plus some hot glue and glitter I found in our sorority house and I had a season-appropriate wreath! I think it cost me around $10 to make, while the original wreaths I found cost at least $20 a piece. I win!

Chicken, Artichoke and Caramelized Onion Pizza

YUM! Slices of mozzarella, fresh basil, caramelized onion, artichoke hearts, chicken (for Leo), and home-made pizza sauce combined together to make this masterful pizza. And despite it being shrink wrapped, the Bobili pizza crust wasn't that bad! Next time you want a pizza with some ridiculous toppings, go to the grocery store and pick one of those bad boys up. I don't think I had ever used one and was always wary of them. I always imagined they'd be dry, taste of lard, and become rock hard once put in the oven. However, this pre-made pizza crust made a decent base for our amazing toppings. Again, YUM! So much better than delivery!

Flourless Chocolate Cake

This flourless cake looks great, but flour wasn't the only thing omitted from this recipe. Half way through baking this treat I realized- I had forgotten the sugar! Luckily, 8 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate and a dusting of powdered sugar helped cut any bitterness that may have totally ruined it. Before serving, I decided some warm strawberry jam might be a nice addition. Not bad, but still not what I wanted!

I must make a suggestion for anyone who might be reading. After taking a intro to beer class (and getting an A in it!), I've really begun to taste the quality differences in the beer I buy. After swearing off any Anheuser-Busch product (which is a huge percentage of any beer aisle in the country), I finally bit the bullet and purchased some of what I consider to be the best beer in the country. Dogfish Head breweries are located on the east coast and put out several year-round brews as well as a few sensational seasonals. Because the brewery is still quite small, they don't distribute to many stores and if you can find them on tap, tell me where! If you can manage to find it, you won't always be able to afford it. Four bottles of their 90-minute IPA costs around $12! However, their IPA is considered to be the best in the country and it packs a big whollup at 9% ABV. So next time you're at the store, really scan those racks of beer bottles. If you're lucky enough to find it, I suggest you snatch up a bottle and give it a try. It will soon become a guilty pleasure!

PB and J chippers

For a while now I've been wanting to make some kind of peanut butter and jelly cookie. I'm almost 23 years old and I still eat PB+J sandwiches (specifically Uncrustables- despite what I'd classify as a semi-refined palate, I consume frozen, plastic wrapped sandwiches with delight) on a very regular basis. So when I was going through another one of my favorite cookbooks and realized that I had everything to concoct their peanut butter cookies, I decided to test the idea out.
I used our very own ASUCD's COHO cookbook for the peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie recipe. It was simple and made a delicious batch of treats. On about half of the cookies I decided to take them out about three minutes early, spoon a small amount of strawberry jam in the center, and put them back in for the remaining time. This helped create a well of jam in the middle that I couldn't have done while they were still raw (the dough was too sticky to shape, so I had to wait until they were almost done to add the jam) and also didn't cook the jam to the point that it was chewy and sticky. The result: a delicious combo of flavors that even my boyfriend couldn't get enough of! Really, I've never seen him eat so many cookies in one day before!
On a side note, I bet you've figured out by now that I'm a little in love with owls. This is a common theme that you will see throughout the blog. I have more owl fabric and trinkets than you could imagine, so they'll surely be popping up in a lot of pictures! Oh, and something else that will be popping up is my curious, intrusive kitten. Lilah loves attention, so when I'm giving it to anything but her, she HAS to get involved.



Next time: my flourless chocolate cake. And no, I still didn't get it right!

Fresh Fruit Tart with Pastry Cream

What a delicious treat! I made this tart for my boyfriend's birthday. He really doesn't go for sweets, so I made a list of his favorite fruits and loaded them up in this sweet pastry shell. My favorite part about making this dessert was making the pastry cream. I once again used my America's Test Kitchen tested cookbook (The New Best Recipe) for the recipe, which calls for half-and-half, sugar, egg yolks, cornstarch, butter, and vanilla. Nothing very extraordinary. After simmering the half-and-half with the sugar for a little while, a mixture of the egg yolks, some sugar, and the cornstarch is added and heated. Suddenly, what once was two runny liquids transforms into a thick, pale yellow custard. And it only gets better! Mix in some vanilla and a little butter and you get a rich, thick, slightly sweet bed that only compliments fresh fruit. Needless to say, this recipe pleased even my sweets-impaired boyfriend.

From-scratch calzones

These babies were GOOD. Inspired by my favorite Italian food place in Pasadena, I opened up my America's Test Kitchen cookbook and made not only the sauce, but the DOUGH from scratch. They may have not been the prettiest things in the world, but these calzones really hit the spot. They were filled with mozzarella, ricotta, parmesan, and Italian parsley and topped with a fresh tomato and basil sauce. The dough was sweet, chewy, and a little crispy on the outside. While the dough took a few hours (it contains yeast, so it must rise for a few hours in a warm place), most of the ingredients were pretty easy to manage. And the recipe made six hefty calzones, so it look my boyfriend and I a few days to polish them off.

Tonight I'm going to embark upon my second attempt at flourless chocolate cake. Last weekend I tried my hand at it and failed miserably. I blindly followed the recipe, despite my better judgment. It asked me to add strong coffee to melting chocolate and I obliged, even though a faint memory of my mother warning me to never add water to chocolate. It ended up lumpy, almost like curds. Not good. After that, I placed the foil wrapped spring-form pan in a hot water bath in the oven. I guess I didn't do a good enough job wrapping, because water seeped in during baking. To top it off, I bought UNSWEETENED chocolate! Even if I had successfully baked this cake, it tasted awful! I was super embarrassed. So... take two!

Fish tacos and "Baja" shrimp cocktail

So I mentioned that I got this blog idea from a friend and would post her blog's address. As promised, here is Elysa's blog
This meal fell together one evening as I strolled through Safeway. Tired of salmon, I went for tilapia so I would be forced to get creative. And then, shrimp! On sale! But with a looming expiration date, it had to be eaten quickly. Feeling festive and with many of the ingredients needed around (my boyfriend loves cabbage), I created these beer-battered tilapia fish tacos with a tangy white sauce. As for the shrimp, I just sliced up some avocado, red onion, and cilantro, and added lime juice and salsa. While it isn't the prettiest meal, it tasted amazing!

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

These beauties are also available at Ciocolat. Delicious, ripe strawberries dipped in milk and white chocolate. Mmm! I loved the technique used to dip the berries to get those perfect stripes. I first melted a large bowl of white chocolate over a pot of boiling water. In a smaller bowl, I melted the milk chocolate. Using a spoon, I created a five-pointed star (imagine an asterisk) out of milk chocolate in the middle of the bowl of white chocolate. Dip the strawberry in the middle of the star and viola! Striped strawberries! Genius.

Chocolate Decadence

Hello! If you have stumbled upon this, you are either an awesome friend or it's 3am and you're very hungry.
I've realized recently how much I love cooking (specifically baking!). I worked at a local cafe over the summer and ended up in the kitchen, decorating cakes, cooking lunch and breakfast, and making some of the baked goodies. The job reinvigorated a passion in me that I had ignored since I left my mother's very well-equipped kitchen and moved off to college. While I had to leave the job due to, um, conflicts (read: clingy manager), I haven't stopped experimenting in the kitchen.
Which leads me to this first entry. I looked on my hard drive and realized that I've kept a semi-decent record of recent culinary projects. After seeing a sorority sister's blog displaying her beautiful decorated cupcakes (I will post a link later), I got inspired! This will be my virtual food portfolio.
Here we have one of my "professional" cake designs. This is a chocolate decadence cake from Ciocolat in Davis, CA. The cake is a layer of thick, fudgy chocolate with a hint of espresso on top of a chocolate sponge cake. It is topped off with cocoa powder and chocolate espresso beans. It is a staple at the cafe and is truly delicious! I definitely suggest it if you ever find yourself staring into their dessert case.