One day we got to laughing about huge sandwiches that you can barely get your mouth around (I know, we’re weird, but hey), and this design was born: “If you want me I’ll be behind this sandwich” – a sandwich so big it covers up your entire face. Never try to have a conversation with a person who’s eating a humungous sandwich – it’s just common sense. *grin*
Author: Kristen
Happy Cafe
John and I came out of the grocery store the other day to find a flyer/menu under the windshield of the car for the “Happy Cafe”, a new Chinese restaurant in town. A few days later we stopped in to take advantage of their lunch specials – $5.15 a platter, which included rice, soup of the day, hot tea, as well as a few interesting bite-sized appetizers, and the option to have it all without MSG, which we requested. The food was excellent – fresh and tasty; the restaurant itself was tiny (I think it only had 8-9 tables) but had a very peaceful atmosphere, and was very new and clean.
If I’m going to a new Chinese restaurant, I usually order something like Sweet & Sour Chicken, since it’s pretty standard and I can get a feel for their cooking style – so that’s what I had. The veggies were excellent (at some restaurants they are really dry despite being covered in sauce), and the pineapple was juicy, chicken was crispy and not greasy. John had Szechuan Triple Delight, having meant to order the REGULAR Triple Delight, but it was a tasty mistake and he enjoyed the spiciness without his tongue melting or anything – LOL.
So, we give the Happy Cafe two thumbs up, and will definitely going back again for lunch. It was also just nice to have a NEW place to eat lunch in town that was also so surprisingly affordable.
Raspberry Swirl Cake
We got some rasberries at our local Farmer’s Market last week, and thought it would be fun to bake them into a cake.
I know I promised to do more cakes from scratch, but it was late so I opted out for the yellow cake mix on the shelf. I pureed the rasberries and added a little sugar and a dash of cinammon. I didn’t measure anything, I just kept adding sugar until I thought they were sweet enough.
I made the cake batter and added 3/4ths of it to the pan. Then we added the rasberry goo (Kristen helped) and with the remaining batter.
The cake came out great, one slight problem was that some of the pureed rasberry sank because it was heavier than the batter. If I do this again I would cut back a little bit on the water in the batter so that it will suspend the rasberry better.
Calzones
Kristen made Calzones the other night, not the sad combinations of salted meats and cheap cheeses that they call calzones here in California, but real New York food, stuffed to the breaking point with whole milk Ricotta and Mozzarella cheeses. They’re rich, creamy and insanely delicious, especiall with a sprinkle of Oregano in the filling to give it just a little spice.
And the recipe…
Calzones
The dough will make two large calzones.
1 package yeast
1 TBSP sugar
1 TBSP oil
1 tsp salt
2 3/4 cups flour
1 tub (small) whole milk ricotta cheese
12 or 16 oz. chunk of whole milk motzarella cheese
Dough:
1) Dissolve 1 pk yeast in 1 cup warm water.
2) Mix 1 TBSP sugar, 2 TBSP oil, 1 tsp salt, 2 3/4 c flour to yeast and water.
3) Mix together till smooth. Knead and cover with towel for 30 minutes.
Roll out dough approx. 10″ circle if you’re making them by hand. (Or large enough to cover the open surface of a calzone maker/mold.) Put appoximately 1 to 1 1/2 cups whole milk ricotta cheese in the center of the dough. Place 1/2 to 1 cup of grated whole milk mozzarella cheese on top of the ricotta cheese. Fold over and crimp shut.
Place on greased cookie sheet. Brush with melted butter (after 15 minutes of cooking). Cook for a total of 25 minutes at 375 degrees or until golden brown.
You can add many kinds of ingredients if you want to go beyond the basic, but delicious, cheese calzone. Pepperoni or cooked italian or pan sausage make a nice addition, for instance, as well as sauteed onions and peppers – if you add ingredients, reduce the amount of cheese in proportion so the calzones don’t get overstuffed and pop open during baking.
You can also use the dough recipe here to make an excellent pizza crust.
Mmmmm Cake
I decided to bake my first cake from scratch last night. I did a search online for a recipe that matched my ingredients on hand and came up with Elizabeth’s Extreme Choclate Lover’s Cake
I had always heard that making cakes from scratch was difficult, but I found this reamarkably easy, except for being a little dish intensive. It took three bowls to make the mixture, one for the melted chocolate (I used the microwave), one for the brown sugar and liquid ingredients, and one for the flour, baking soda and salt.
I didn’t have any sour cream, so I substituted milk, and since milk isn’t as dense I cut back on some of the water. I thought the batter tasted a little dusky, so I added a little confectioner’s sugar and a little cocoa powder as well. My final result was a slightly thicker batter than the recipe described, but it baked nicely and rose like crazy.
We didn’t have any Baker’s chocolate to make the frosting, so Kristen made a light buttercream frosting with the remains of the cocoa powder.
The resulting cake was delicious. It has a lot more body and flavor than any of the cake mix cakes, and was far more rich than any of the supermarket/bakery cakes we get around here.
So now I will be delving deeply into the world of hommade cakes. I’ve always been a cake lover so I suppose this was inevitable. Soon I will be filling the recipe list with Bundts, Pounds, Marbles and Crumbs. Remember, you’ve been warned. 🙂
Garlic!
I decided to make some pasta sauce today, only to discover that our onions had turned into some sort of alien creature. After chasing the beast out of the house with a broom, I decided that I would make the sauce anyway using some extra garlic to fill the void.
I went a little overboard though, possibly because we picked up a jar of pre-chopped garlic last week, so I didn’t have to go through the work of chopping it myself. All I know was, this was one powerfully garlicky sauce. It cleared both mine and Kristen’s sinuses while eating it.
It was a good sauce though, and I think it will make an excellent pizza sauce. As soon as we go to town again (25 miles away) I’m going to get some mozzarella cheese so I can find out. In the meantime, all the vampire bats have fled the area, and the dogs keep turning away from me when I talk to them.
Busy Busy Busy
(I used the wisk image to the left because it made me think of being busy – LOL.) We’ve actually been doing some good cooking and eating lately, but we’ve been missing the step where we take a moment to sit down and write about it for some reason. For instance, I made another lasagna the other day, with homemade noodles, and it came out terrific. In fact, we’re still eating the leftovers, which are just as good as the original, of course. And we’ve been baking bread, and learning what effect ‘tired’ yeast has on it. And John made a delicious chicken concoction, which he keeps meaning to write up. See?
Also, we learned that our turtles (that we recently acquired from John’s brother who couldn’t keep them anymore) LOVE meat, despite the fact that a lot of turtle experts say that they become more vegetable oriented as they get older. (Maybe nine isn’t ‘old’ to them?) Even cuter… they will take the food from our hands, in a gentle but still ‘turtle darting their neck out’ sort of way. We’ve given them chicken, tuna (which made a mess in their water – maybe we’ll try a more chunk and less shredded kind next time), and hamburger.
Also, our black lab seems to like the raw pasta dough. She always lays under the table when I make it and then looks all hopeful if it appears I’ve got a bit left over – go figure.
Anyway, we’ll get back to posting more fully again soon, I’m sure. Thanks for checking in!
COOKIES!
Have I ever mentioned that Kristen makes the best Chocolate Chip Cookies in the world?
Recently she made a batch of Chocolate Chocolate Chip (mmm chocolate). What I love about this recipe is that the cookies remain soft, unlike other recipes I’ve tried which turn to rocks after a few hours. The secret ingredient is a box of pudding mix, which keeps the cookies soft and so rich. Just thinking of them brings out my inner Cookie Monster.
Wine and Fish Crackers
John was making a homemade tomato sauce a few days ago and decided to open a bottle of zinfandel to add a bit of wine to the sauce. The sauce came out excellent, and tonight we decided to actually try the wine directly, with a few ‘sea creature’ cheesy crackers. Tres classy, no? The wine: Ravenswood Vintners Blend, 2002 California Zinfandel. It certainly lives up to the saying on the label, “No wimpy wines” – no kidding! It’s really potent and ‘throaty’ if you can glean our meaning. The kind of wine that warms your fingers and toes before you finish half of the first glass. The taste itself is pleasant and tangy, but disappears quickly, leaving you with more of a powerful aftereffect than with a taste on your tongue. (And the tri-raven Celtic logo on the front is a plus too.)
Egg Braid Bread
I found a recipe for Egg Braid Bread on the side of a bag of Safeway brand flour. It looked interesting, so I thought I’d give it a try. The recipe called for water, milk and eggs to be mixed with the yeast, and then adding the flour.
It came together well, and I kneaded it the full ten minutes as reccomended. The most difficult part was getting braiding lessons from Kristen, even after she demonstrated by braiding her hair, I still needed her guidance with the bread.
When the bread was warm it was good, but not great, which is why I’m not yet sharing the recipe. I liked the taste and consistency, it had a nice spring to it which I really enjoyed.
The next day the bread seemed rather dry as if the moisture had escaped during the night. Our friend Tom who gave us that delicious loaf of bread from a few weeks ago, sprays his dough with water before putting it in the oven. I’m going to try this method next time since all our breads always seem a little floury on the outside.