Ombre red velvet, aka dinner.

Someone always has to get the last word.

Habañero tequila

A few years ago, at a dearly departed restaurant in Pasadena, I fell in love with a drink.  They called it a Lavender Screwdriver- freshly squeezed lemon juice, vodka, and lavender simple syrup served in a low ball with one cylindrical ice cube large enough to take sole responsibility for cooling the cocktail.  I've tried replicating it with little success and now I fear I will never taste the winning combination again.

Why the sad story?  Because it led me to try infusing!  Infusing alcohol (or simple syrups, as they did for the Screwdriver) is incredibly easy and seems just as impressive to your guests.  It takes little effort and you don't even need a recipe.  Mango rum, cherry vodka, fig flavored bourbon...all are possible and actually taste like the real thing, unlike those flavored monstrosities you can find in the grocery store.  I decided to be a little bold on my first adventure and use an ingredient I've never dared before- habañeros.

Really, the only two ingredients for this recipe are a bottle of tequila and a pepper or two

Wearing gloves while cutting these tiny peppers is mandatory

After cutting your peppers, wrap in cheese cloth and crush them in your jar

Cover with tequila...

And wait!

I let the peppers sit in the tequila in the fridge for about three days before taking them out.  Since I left the seeds intact, there was no need to infuse for any longer to get the right amount of heat.  And boy, did three days do the trick!  For any of the fruit flavored alcohols, the infusing time goes up to about a month and you'll need much more flavoring to get results (that jar should be packed with your selected fruit, with all seeds and rind removed).

The next step was to make a cocktail that you could drink without sweating.  So I came up with the following:

Habañero Grapefruit Margarita

Two parts fresh grapefruit juice
One part Habañero tequila
One or two wedges of lime
Sprinkle of sugar
Rock salt (for the rim)

In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, add the juice, tequila, sugar, and lime juice (I like to throw the whole wedge in there).  Shake until well mixed.  Pour into a glass rimmed with salt and add a lime wedge.

Now, I loved this drink but some of my friends couldn't appreciate the added kick.  In fact, at a party I remember hearing a loud yell followed by groaning across the room after someone was tricked into taking a swig of my concoction.  What a pansy.

We can pickle that!

While hilarious, Portlandia was not my inspiration for my recent adventure.  What inspired me to pickle?  Two restaurants on the Westside.

Cafe Surfas home-made pickles (via Yelp)

Mendocino Farms home-made pickles, which make their tuna sammy KILLER (via TheMinty)

A few weeks ago after spending the day at the Kubrik exhibit at the LACMA with my boyfriend and I found ourselves at one of our favorite spots: Mendocino Farms.  I decided to stray from my favorite combo, the Drunken Goat on a Highway, and try their tuna.  What really struck me: the pickles!  Weeks later, after discovering Cafe Surfas in Culver City another moment of pickled clarity- their standard side salad comes with an amazing balsamic, pretty edible orange "confetti" flowers, and...home-made pickles!  Needless to say, I had to get in on this.

Hanging out with my buddy, Hal, at LACMA

A quick trip to Trader Joe's for the cucumbers (I bought 9 of the Persian variety) and a failed trip to Ralph's for some pickling spice (again, they fail me), and I was ready to tap dance my way around this project.  I ended up adjusting a pickling spice recipe I found on the great wide web, keeping some of the most important ingredients present: allspice berries, cumin seeds, peppercorns, and a crushed cinnamon stick.  The next important ingredient?  Fresh dill, of course!  Also making appearances are fresh garlic, kosher salt, and apple cider vinegar.

What really struck me was the smell of the apple cider vinegar when I was making the brine.  The smell instantly reminded me of the pickles that inspired me in the first place, so I was really encouraged to wait the three whole days to reap the rewards.  

I know you're all dying to know: how did they turn out?  I cracked open the lid and if it didn't smell like fresh pickles!  But you know...they're missing something.  Was it the mustard seed?  Is the brine not flavorful enough?  Or maybe they haven't sat long enough.  I suppose I'll just have to test the competition once or twice more in order to find out that missing ingredient.

Does anyone out there have a pickling recipe they swear by?  Share!

A year in cupcakes

The last year or so has brought a lot of change, but one thing remains the same: I bake. I bake to forget when times are hard and I bake to celebrate when life is good. I love to document my experiments but haven't had the equipment or dedication to share them as of late. But recently I found some motivation (and a new computer) to start investing more time into this blog- my coworker asked me to make cupcakes for her wedding this summer! I've been doing more baking for special events, like the three pumpkin bourbon cheesecakes I made for Thanksgiving (which nearly killed me), and this would be my most important and "high-profile," if you will. So in the coming months I will be documenting all of the recipes and decorations I test out for the big day. But to start things off, I want to share a collection of cupcakes I've made the past year. My favorite recipe involves my most unhealthy addiction: Oreos.

Chocolate raspberry ganache cupcakes.

Cookies and cream cupcakes with chocolate buttercream icing.

Pumpkin spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

Deja vu: cookies and cream with CoHo chocolate buttercream frosting.

I love the different colored Oreo fillings they come out with throughout the year.  Springtime cupcakes.

Cookies and cream cupcakes with vanilla buttercream for my coworker's wedding-day lunch.

Now, you must be curious about this cupcake recipe. I found it on food.com, formerly known as Receipe Zaar. You can find it here. As for the icing, it comes from one of my favorite cookbooks, The UC Davis Coffee House cookbook. Here it is, in all it's simplicity:

CoHo buttercream frosting

*1/2 cup butter, softened

*2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

*1 egg yolk

*2-3 tablespoons milk or light cream

*1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Cream butter. Add 1/3 of powdered sugar and beat until creamy. Repeat with another 1/3 of sugar.

2. Add egg yolk, milk, and vanilla. Beat in remaining sugar.

3. Add more milk or powdered sugar to obtain desired consistency.

I have a huge amount of pictures I haven't shared, so my next post is going to be a trip down memory lane. Next up: from-scratch peach pie.

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.