Posts Tagged cooking
Ten on Tuesday (vol. 8)
Welcome 2010!
I’ve been remiss at updating…sorry. I have about seven billion photos to go through and post from my family’s visit up through New Year’s, and I haven’t gotten around to it, which has led to me neglecting our blog. However, when I saw Chelsea’s Ten on Tuesday questions for today, I had to come post my answers (especially after I spent the morning looking at photos of baked goods made by a friend who’s in culinary school).
1. Are there any movies that inspire you to bake/cook?
Of course Julie & Julia inspired me to get a little more complicated with my meals, but other than that, I can’t think of any movies that inspire me to bake or cook. Typically the Food Network and recipe books do enough of that for me.
2. What’s your favorite food blog and why?
I don’t have a favorite. I like the ones I read for different reasons. Every now and then, I’ll check Pioneer Woman, but I have honestly made more of Sweet Pea’s recipes (her blog is The Newlyweds). Jamie and Shaunna post fun recipes every now and then, too.
3. Who’s your favorite celebrity chef?
Tyler Florence from Tyler’s Ultimate. Not only do I love his kitcheh, but his recipes always look super delicious.
4. What’s your favorite kitchen tool?
I don’t have a particular tool that makes me go “oh yay! I get to use the ___.” That being said, I love looking at and using all the wonderful kitchen items we got for our wedding. I am particularly grateful for our stand mixer, hand mixer, our array of spatulas, and our All Clad pots and pans. We use all of these things constantly.
5. When it comes to cooking/baking, what’s your specialty?
Baking, hands down. I’m not a huge fan of cooking, mainly because handing raw meat disgusts me. But give me some flour, eggs, butter and sugar and I’m a happy woman.
6. When in the kitchen, do you wear an apron, if so, any cute ones you’d like to share?
Yes! I currently have two great aprons. One is from my mom and has my name monogrammed on it and the other is from my mother-in-law (who got it at Anthropologie). And yes, I have photos:
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7. Is there anything that intimidates you when it comes to baking/cooking? (ex. Pie crust, yeast breads, sauces, etc…)
I suppose I could say that puff pastries intimidate me, but that’s only because I haven’t tried to make them.
8. What’s the weirdest gadget in your kitchen?
Weirdest? Perhaps the clicker for dog training? I don’t know. I don’t think I have any “weird” gadgets. Someone please tell me what might be labels as a weird kitchen gadget.
9. What’s your go-to music for cooking/baking?
Hmm well none? We played Christmas music some while I was baking last month, but generally speaking, we don’t turn up the stereo too often since we live in such close quarters with so many other families. (Is stereo an outdated word? I don’t know.)
10. After several failures, what do you do to motivate yourself to get back in the kitchen to try again?
I guess I’m just lucky. I haven’t ever had to motivate myself to get back into the kitchen. Perhaps it stems from the fact that I basically grew up in the kitchen. My mom baked all the time and I was usually her “little helper.” Here’s a picture of me when I was about 2 “helping” my mom knead a loaf of bread dough:
And later, when I was older, I’d help roll out pies and cookies:
8 comments January 5, 2010
Salad Ruining 101
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and long weekend. I ended up taking Thursday off (not a company holiday) so I could sleep in a little, finish up a scarf I was knitting for my mom’s stocking and cook Christmas Eve dinner. Besides, I was feeling pretty under the weather.
All went according to plan except for when I got to the salad. Typically, we enjoy a delicious applesauce and strawberry Jello salad during the holidays. The night before our dinner, I mix everything together so it has ample time to set – this includes a cup of applesauce. When we had done our grocery shopping for the meal, I decided we didn’t need applesauce, because we had half a jar leftover from Thanksgiving. Rookie mistake. Did you know applesauce goes bad approximately 10 days after opening the jar? I didn’t. I saw that on the label when I went to make the salad, but it was already 9 PM or so and the stores were closed. I had to make the salad so it would set overnight and be ready for Christmas Eve. Despite the smell of feet, I told myself everything would be ok. The next day, when I pulled the salad out to finish it up, I realized my hopes had been smashed. The salad didn’t miraculously go “un-bad.” It was still nasty.
I ruined Christmas Eve salad.
I was a little annoyed, but I could deal with one ruined dish. Who needs the Jello salad anyway? Well I decided to move on to the pecan pie. I was making it completely from scratch. I have made many pies from scratch before, but I had never made pecan pie. I have this great little pie tin with holes in it to allow the dough to breathe. I also like to poke little holes in the dough with a fork to allow extra opportunities for air to escape so the dough doesn’t bubble up. Apparently I lost my common sense, because I poked holes in the dough in the pan with the holes when I was making a pie that had a very runny filling. Thirty minutes into baking, John went to check on the pie and discovered we had a pie full of slightly candied pecans and an oven bottom full of pecan pie sugar goo.
I ruined Christmas Eve pie.
It was 3:15 PM. Fortunately, the commissary was open until 4. All the German grocery stores were closed. We got there as fast as we could and bought a frozen Sara Lee pecan pie and some more ingredients to make the Jello salad for Christmas day instead. I made myself feel better about my mistakes by noting how many other people were at the store and pretending that all of them had ruined parts of their meals too.
For whatever reason, I decided to share this wisdom with the checker. It came out something along the lines of “wow, there are lots of people here with ruined meals.” As if that makes any sense without the back story! Then, I smiled. Apparently I had a huge speck of pepper in my tooth.
I am refined, ladylike and a very competent cook.
6 comments December 29, 2009
Seven Quick Takes (vol. 3)
It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another (my second!) round of Seven Quick Takes. Admittedly, I forgot all about it last week, but I’m back on board now. Visit Conversion Diary to see everyone else’s Seven Quick Takes this week.
1. I wore orange and white today as a nod to Halloween, which is not nearly as cute as the elementary school Halloween costume parade I witnessed this afternoon. The kids from the DODDS school on post had a short 2-3 block parade around the school with an MP car escort. Parents were standing on the sidewalks waving and taking pictures. Freaking adorable.
2. Béni keeps wiping his doggie snot on my shirt right before I go to work. Is this what it’s like to have kids? My mom said she once spent the day at work with baby spit up on the back of her skirt and didn’t know it. It was probably my fault. Oops.
3. The trees have exploded this week. Some trees around our building are almost bare now. Winter, here we come. On that note, Kenneth Cole jacket, where are you? (I ordered one about a month ago and had it shipped to my parents. They mailed it to me almost two weeks ago. I’m going to need it soon!)
4. It’s only 55 days until Christmas. Living overseas, that’s more like only 30 days since I have to allocate time for shipping. I still have two major Christmas projects to do and 4 people’s gifts to buy. Yikes!
5. As a result of daylight savings time last week (Europe does it one week earlier than the US in the fall), it gets dark so early now. This is my 3rd year to experience it, but it still surprises and annoys me. Today the sun sets at 5:09 PM. Imagine going to work just after it gets light and getting off work when it’s dark. No fun, right? Oh well, at least the Christmas markets are just around the corner!
6. We made Pumpkin Yumkins and Mar-A-Lago Turkey Burgers this past week. The pumpkin muffins were great, but I recommend no icing at all. I wasn’t a big fan of the yogurt icing and thought they tasted great without any topping. I’d also be willing to try cream cheese on top or even a buttercream or powdered sugar-based icing. The turkey burgers were also tasty. However, if you make them, just be careful with the patty size. We halved the recipe and had 5 LARGE patties. I would say halving the recipe yields 6 patties. Also, if you make them, be sure to get ground turkey breast. If you just get ground turkey, it includes the dark meat too, and this yields nearly the same nutritional value as ground beef.
7. Tonight is our friend’s birthday party. She and her husband aren’t affiliated with the military, so there are a number of American goodies they can’t get on the German economy, so we’ll be bringing some fun treats to the party (root beer, Oreos, Sun Chips, chips & dip, etc.). I’m sure we’ll look like some enthusiastic health nuts when we go to the check out at the grocery store. Hah!
Happy Friday & Happy (early) Halloween!
6 comments October 30, 2009
The Whole Story (or Lack Thereof)
I apologize for giving out “bad” information yesterday when I said the Texan was no longer printing paper copies. Based off the Twitter messages I read, that was what was going on. However, later in the day, they posted a message that they were NOT ceasing to print paper copies, they were only switching printers. How confusing! When they posted the messages
“Thank you to the Texan printing press crew for all the years of service. We appreciate everything you have done for us.”
and
“We’re working on the last issue to be printed on our printing press…”
you can see how people got the wrong idea. If only the person tweeting those messages had said “We’re working on the last issue to be printed on our printing press before switching to the Statesman’s press” the misunderstanding wouldn’t have happened!
Oh well.
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We tried another new recipe recently: Grilled Asparagus with Orange Dipping Sauce.
The recipe is (again) from Real Simple.
Image taken from www.realsimple.com
Since we don’t have access to a grill, we did the broiler method. Also, green asparagus is hard to come by here, and we could only find the mini green asparagus, so we used that (Chelsea, I’m sure you would have approved).
The sauce is really interesting and is a perfect partner for the asparagus. With a mixture of mayo, orange, tarragon, anise and cayenne pepper, it’s definitely a flavorful addition to the veggie.
Note: I didn’t use fresh tarragon, because I couldn’t find it. I also didn’t crush the anise seed…because I forgot (oops). Regardless, it still turned out great.
I really suggest you try this sometime soon! Yum!
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Also, today is Thursday, which means it’s “Hi/Lo Thursday,” a blog carnival from the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to read everyone else’s highs and lows for the week.
Our Lows:
- Having to wake up at 5 AM on Tuesday to get John to work by 5:50 AM.
- Poor John having to get up at 4 AM this morning to be to work just before 5 AM.
- Getting stressed out over our to do list.
- Not being able to find my passport…I have to find it before tomorrow since we’re going out of town for the weekend.
- Having extreme internet problems. Can’t watch our Slingbox.
- Discovering I’m caving to the iPhone craze. Now I kind of want one…
Our Highs:
- Finally getting our repaired coffeemaker in the mail. They actually gave us a new machine altogether. We have enjoyed sitting at the kitchen table in the morning with a cup of coffee and homemade yogurt.
- I am LOVING my morning yogurt with some honey and blueberries. Holy cow. Tastiest breakfast ever.
- Experiencing a couple mini-thunderstorms this week. You know how I love them and they make me happy.
- Being extremely productive all week.
- Our excitement as we look forward to going to see Jacoline in the Netherlands this weekend! Note to self: learn a few basic Dutch phrases while there.
6 comments May 14, 2009
The Mad Scientist
This past week, John and I have tried several new recipes, which were all delicious and worth sharing with y’all.
(Side-note: I am trying to use y’all more often. I mentioned yesterday that I had stopped using it so much, and I miss it!)
Our culinary endeavors began with Artichoke Pizzas last week. I loved every bit of those crispy, vegetable-packed pizzas. I also discovered how great pita bread is for a quick pizza crust. On Friday, we used our left over pitas (cut in half horizontally) to make quick personal-sized pepperoni pizzas. We just covered the crust in a tablespoon of olive oil and threw it under the broiler for 2-3 minutes until it was crisp. Then I put some tomato sauce, oregano, basil (I think), mozzarella cheese and pepperoni on top, put it back under the broiler until the cheese was melted (which was less than a minute). Viola! Easy-peasy pepperoni pizzas.
Over the weekend, John was inspired to try concocting some more interesting treats by a blog he reads, Life Hacker. The blog author wrote about groceries that were cheaper to make at home. Although for us, neither of the ones we attempted were cheaper – yogurt and granola – the results were fantastic. (A half-gallon of milk costs us $4.09.)
I have to give all the credit to John for the yogurt. He made it while I was at the movies with a group of girls (seeing Confessions of a Shopaholic), and he said the process made him feel like a mad scientist. Did you know that to make plain yogurt it only takes a small bit of yogurt plus milk?? The recipe he used can be found here.
The yogurt takes a long time to make (about 6 hours in the oven and setting in the fridge overnight), and in the morning, you get creamy, slightly tart, mouth-watering yogurt. I have tried 3 brands of yogurt since we made this, and none of them compare. So you can understand the consistency, I made a short video:
I put about a spoonful of honey in and mix it around with the yogurt and fruit. John has become a big fan of mixing the yogurt with our granola, which we made together on Sunday (click here for the recipe). Oh my goodness. It was so easy, it made our apartment smell amazing, and it tastes delicious. Why wouldn’t you make this?! Also, it doesn’t clump up like other granola, which I was thrilled about. Typically, I think granola can be a pain to eat because my jaw gets tired from chomping down on all the hard clusters. Give this one a shot. You won’t be sorry!! Here’s a photo of the granola with the yogurt in the background:
see? no clumps!
The rest of this week has been a pretty boring one for our kitchen. However, I pulled a few new recipes that I plan on trying next week. If they’re any good, I’ll share the recipes again. Enjoy!
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I almost forgot, today is Thursday, which means it’s “Hi/Lo Thursday,” which is a blog carnival from the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to read everyone else’s highs and lows for the week. Like last week, I’m going to end with our highs, because I want to end on a happy note 
Our Lows:
- Driving back and forth like a taxi driver to John’s work 3 times a day every day this week.
- Not having enough time in the day to get everything done and dealing with the frustration that comes along with that.
Our Highs:
- Beautiful weather today!
- Taking Béni to the park and having another yellow lab there for him to play with. (He really tired himself out!)
- Enjoying wonderful food all week.
- Overcoming my fear of driving in areas I don’t know around here, and making it back safe and sound
- Sarah
4 comments May 7, 2009
Artichokes – A Quick Dinner
John and I have been wanting to have something with artichokes for dinner, but since I have never used them in cooking, I had put it off for quite awhile. I had no idea what to make! Earlier this week, I went to Real Simple’s website and searched their recipes for something with artichokes. I found this recipe for Artichoke Pizza with Lemony Green Bean Salad.
Photo from RealSimple.com
I decided to try it since it looked pretty simple, and wow! it was delicious! It was also extremely fast to fix. Once you have the almonds chopped, it takes less than 10 minutes to make. In my opinion, the red peppers act as a kind of tomato sauce, so I was liberal with those. Oh, and one tip: be careful not to overdo it on the lemon juice on your green bean salad. I made that mistake the first night, and they were a bit too tangy for our taste.
Bonus: there’s only 457 calories per serving, so I did not feel guilty whatsoever about having double chocolate fudge brownie ice cream for dessert.
If you try this recipe, let me know what you think of it. I’m definitely adding it to my regular recipe repertoire (oooh alliteration!).
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Today is also “Hi/Lo Thursday,” which is a blog carnival from the Riggs Family Blog. Don’t skip this week’s – I have some pretty big announcements listed below!! Check out their blog to read everyone else’s highs and lows for the week. I’m going to end with our highs this week, because I want to end on a happy note
Our Lows:
- Yesterday, I was so overwhelemed by driving back and forth to John’s work 4 times (yes, 4 and it’s 30-40 minutes round trip), plus taking care of Béni who has seemed to hit a “terrible 2’s” sort of stage, and dealing with “post clean up” that I started crying around 6 PM when John called me to come pick him up from work. I was just so frustrated that I had been trying to make the bed, do the dishes, and get some homework done all day but everything else had to come first.
- My left arm has been hurting a lot for the past few weeks. I think it’s from carrying Béni up and down 2.5 flights of stairs several times a day. (He now weighs about 26 lbs.) Yesterday, my arm gave out twice while carrying him and I dropped him, which upset me even more. John thinks it’s tendonitis.
- This one is kind of a mixed high and low: several of my friends have recently gotten engaged (yay, high!), but I am really bummed that I cannot be there for them during the planning process. I’m also sad that we have already had to miss so many weddings of our good friends.
Our Highs:
- We have made plans for our one year anniversary!! We are going to Paris for a 4-day weekend the week before our anniversary. I’m really excited to be able to see Paris in the spring since last time we were there it was December/January (2007-2008). We have already made reservations to have dessert late one night on the patio of a restaurant near the Eiffel Tower with a great view as well as dinner reservations at a restaurant we LOVED last time we were there.
- We put in a request for an exception to policy so we could move to the other housing area, which is actually in town. It got approved!!! (We weren’t optimistic about it going through.) The move will allow John walk to work and I can have the car to run errands and also drive myself to work should I ever get a job offer (that’s a whole other deal…). Additionally, that housing area is right near the metro system (the Straßenbahn), so we’ll be able to utilize public transportation to get downtown now instead of navigating the narrow streets and parking garages in our big Xterra. We don’t know when we will get to move because we’re at the bottom of the list, but it will happen eventually. Yay!
- Béni is dreaming and just started barking in his sleep. It’s the cutest little “woof” ever. I love him.
- In light of my frustrations yesterday, I had John take the car so I didn’t have to drive back and forth this morning and to bring him lunch. So far today I have done the following (and it’s only 12:22 PM):
- showered, blow dried and straightened my hair and put on make up
- made the bed
- taken my graduation gown and hood out of the bag and put them on a hanger (yay for getting these!!)
- put away some dirty clothes
- dusted the bookshelves, tv, entertainment area, coffee table and one side table
- walked Béni
- gone to the store and gotten lunch and dinner
- started baking chocolate chip cookies for John’s office
- got the air conditioner working again
- read a couple blogs
- updated this blog
and I still want to:
- schoolwork for tomorrow
- work on a friend’s website
- reply to emails
- clean the bathtub
- address my graduation announcements
- prepare Mother’s Day cards for mailing
- get my mom’s Mother’s Day gift ready to go
- get oil changed
So…that’s it for me. I know it’s quite a list. Hopefully, I’ll get it done! What are your highs and lows for the week?
- Sarah
12 comments April 30, 2009
God Påske
God Påske! Frohe Ostern! Happy Easter!
This morning, I woke up thinking of the hymn we would sing almost every Easter morning when I was growing up in the Episcopal Church. It’s called He is Risen, He is Risen, and I think the lyrics are really great:
He is risen, he is risen!
Tell it out with joyful voice:
he has burst his three days’ prison;
let the whole wide earth rejoice:
death is conquered, man is free,
Christ has won the victory.
Come, ye sad and fearful-hearted,
with glad smile and radiant brow!
Lent’s long shadows have departed;
Jesus’ woes are over now,
and the passion that he bore–
sin and pain can vex no more.
Come, with high and holy hymning,
hail our Lord’s triumphant day;
not one darksome cloud is dimming
yonder glorious morning ray,
breaking o’er the purple east,
symbol of our Easter feast.
He is risen, he is risen!
He hath opened heaven’s gate:
we are free from sin’s dark prison,
risen to a holier state;
and a brighter Easter beam
on our longing eyes shall stream.
I hope you all have a joyous Easter! John and I celebrated by listening to last year’s Easter sermon from the Austin Stone since we don’t have a church here. We also went to the Easter brunch on post. It was so-so. The coffee was the best part.
Tonight we’re having a roast, which Chelsea posted in her recipe blog. It has been cooking for nearly 6 hours already, and it smells delicious!
I commented this morning that I thought it was funny that we were cooking with water and wine on Easter. Yes, I’m goofy.
Also, it’s tradition in my family to always take a family picture on Easter, so here’s our family photo this Easter:
Sorry Béni wasn't included. We were on our way to brunch, and he was kenneled inside.
- Sarah
1 comment April 12, 2009
Gmail is Down
I was looking for a blog topic today, and then bam! Gmail went down.
I’m not very computer-savvy, but it seemed like a big deal, so I checked Twitter. If you’re interested, visit Twitterfall for an endless stream of tweets on the outage. It’s actually pretty incredible. When I first loaded the page, I had about 20 queued tweets, and after about 5 minutes, I had nearly 1000!
Some quick searches produced two bulletins about the outage, one from Google, which says it could be up to 3.5 more hours until they announce when they “expect to resolve the problem.” I hope it sooner than 3.5 hours from now! The other bulletin I happened upon was from a UK site, Pocket-lint, which promises to update readers when there’s more information.
*Update 12:15 PM CET* That didn’t take long. Thanks, Google! Gmail is up and running again.
*Update 12:25 PM CET* Well, perhaps I spoke too soon. It loaded, and I was able to send an email, but now it’s acting buggy. I guess it will be patchy for awhile until the problem gets resolved.
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John has become very aware of how accident prone I am, especially in the kitchen. If something is hot, chances are I’m going to burn myself on it. I took it to a new level last night while making goulash.
I was boiling the noodles, but I was also feeling a bit under the weather, so I didn’t stir them as much as I should have. When I came back to the pot, some noodles were stuck to the bottom. As I attempted to get them unstuck, I used a bit too much force and ended up splashing boiling water on a good portion of my left hand.
I didn’t think it was too bad, but it hurt for a couple hours and is still pink today. Oh, bother.
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I actually have a relevant video for today’s totally irrelevant video series, but that would defeat the purpose of the series, wouldn’t it? Besides, I have to get “permission” to use it since I didn’t make it (John did). So for now enjoy sitting on the steps in front of Sacre Coeur in Paris and listening to a musician entertain the crowd (taken January 2008).
- Sarah
1 comment February 24, 2009
jfowens
osarah
obeni