Hits and Misses

This Monday night I wanted to make a fresh summer dinner for us to go with the stellar weather we've been having here. After trolling through Pinterest and the Barefoot Contessa's Foolproof cookbook, I settled on a menu of gazpacho, steak, and a basil parmesan mayo. I hardly ever make steak because quite frankly getting it right terrifies me, especially since my man likes it as close to rare as you can get it. But I decided to try it anyway.

Gazpacho is a light, cool, refreshing soup to serve and goes well with proteins like beef, chicken, and fish. To make it you will need:

2 cloves of garlic
1/2 of a red onion
5 Roma tomatoes
2 stalks of celery
1 large cucumber
1 zucchini
1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons of sugar
Several dashes of hot sauce
Dash of salt, dash of black pepper
4 cups of good-quality tomato juice

To make, mince the garlic, cut the onion into slices, and dice the celery, cucumbers, zucchini, and tomatoes. Then toss the garlic, the onion, and half of the other vegetables into a food processor.

Add the vinegar, sugar, hot sauce, salt and pepper, then pour in 2 cups of tomato juice and blend well.

Pour mixture into a large bowl and mix in the remaining vegetables. Stir and then add in the other 2 cups of tomato juice. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed, then refrigerate for at least an hour before serving, Garnish with a dollop of sour cream.

When I made this, I had no clue that Justin wasn't really that fond of cold soups, but fortunately he said it was pretty good and cleaned out his bowl. I really liked it, especially with the sour cream mixed in. It's very flavorful and like eating salsa, which I love!

Oooh I'm so embarrassed about the steak I almost don't want to talk about it. But every good cook shares both their successes and failures. Basically I cooked it wayyyyy too long and it was extremely overdone. All of the juice had drained out of it and it was very dry, borderline inedible. We both ate it, the saving grace being the basil parmesan mayo that I served with it.

Here's my butchered steak:

Even the basil parmesan mayo gave me a run for my money. I ended up having to make it twice because it was beyond salty even though I only put in what the recipe called for. To make it you will need:

2 extra large egg yolks at room temperature
3 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard
1/2 cup of chopped fresh basil leaves, lightly packed
1/2 teaspoon of minced garlic
Kosher salt and black pepper
1 cup of vegetable oil at room temperature
1/2 cup of good olive oil

Place all ingredients except for the oils into a food processor (add as much salt and pepper as you deem appropriate. The full tablespoon that the recipe called for was ridiculous). Process for 20 seconds until smooth.

Combine the oils in a measuring cup and stir. While the processor is running, pour the oils in through the top slowly to make a thick emulsion. Taste to make sure it's seasoned well and then refrigerate. This mayo will keep for a week and you can use it on all kinds of things. Once I got it right it was truly delicious and I put it on grilled turkey sandwiches yesterday for lunch. Hopefully we'll use it on some more dishes this week!

Catching up on Cupcakes

I have fallen way behind on my cupcake reviews. You all didn't really think I hadn't eaten any since the last time I posted did you? Oh no, cupcakes are a staple in my world. Recently I have been back to a few of my favorite bakeries, one for a special summer series and the other just to try new flavors. 

 

Flavor Cupcakery is quickly becoming one of my favorite cupcake hotspots. Seriously, these are some of, if not truly the best, cupcakes I have ever eaten. In July Flavor created a series called "Summer Sippin" featuring flavors based off of classic summer drinks. When they first featured this series I was out of town and super sad that I was going to miss it! However, due to it's popularity, Flavor decided to bring some of the bestselling flavors back a week or so ago. I can't tell you how excited I was that I was going to be able to get my hands on some! I chose the Root Beer Float and the Shirley Temple.

 

The Root Beer Float was truly like you were eating that dessert. I believe the cake was soaked in root beer and the vanilla bean frosting on the top with a root beer drizzle was the perfect complement. I also really enjoyed the Shirley Temple with flavors of lime and cherry and topped with a maraschino cherry. I wish they carried these cupcakes year round! In the picture below, the Root Beer Float and Shirley Temple are the top two, I also purchased a Boston Cream and Tres Leches. 

 

On Friday my fiance and I went to Frederick, MD, for the day and I couldn't resist stopping into a bakery that I had visited once before not too long after they had opened. Cakes to Die For is located in an old bank on Market Street and gothic in theme (the last cupcake I had there was a red velvet with fake blood splatter on the top). This day they were offering three new flavors, a chocolate raspberry, blueberry, and cookies and cream. We picked the blueberry and cookies and cream to split. These were so tasty!

 

The blueberry cupcake was a cornmeal cake, which is absolutely amazing. I love corn muffins and cornbread to begin with but to have it in cupcake form was a new and excellent experience. It paired so well with the blueberry and wasn't too dry. Inside of the cupcake was a blueberry filling with small, whole blueberries, and it was topped with blueberry frosting. This is a cupcake that I would like to eat again!

 

The cookies and cream was just as delicious. The cake was yellow dotted with Oreo cookie pieces, and the frosting tasted EXACTLY like Oreo cookie filling. This too was a great cupcake.

 

As a random side adventure, last weekend when I went to VA to visit my friend Laura for her birthday at a winery, I ended up looking for a place to get cupcakes. On my way home my GPS decided to take me on a route that was not at all logical (I should've just gone back the way I came) and I ended up in Fairfax. I was irritated with the GPS but had finally ended up near a highway that I was familiar with, so I decided to take a brief break from the car and look for cupcakes. Instantly I found a place only a few miles away called Cupcakes Actually.

 

The shop is located in a huge shopping center full of restaurants, shops, and a movie theater. I easily found it and chose the Vanilla Bean and Dipped Cherry. I opted to take them home with me to enjoy after my 2 hour drive. Unfortunately when I got home my Vanilla Bean had lost some of its frosting! The Dipped Cherry faired much better.

 

The Vanilla Bean was a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. I found the frosting to be very tasty but the cake slightly dry. The Dipped Cherry was a chocolate cake with pink cherry buttercream, dipped in dark chocolate ganache and drizzled with red chocolate. I thought this cupcake was just okay. There wasn't anything inherently wrong with it, just that it wasn't my favorite. The chocolate cake was nice but the dark chocolate could've been a lot more solid and crunchier. Granted I didn't eat it right away so I'm sure that had something to do with it. The cherry flavor was fine but not spectacular.

Honey Mustard Pretzel Chicken & Zucchini Fritters

My first day off after night shift I usually don't feel like doing a whole lot since I get about four hours of sleep and then force myself to get up to be able to sleep later that night. However most of the time I wake up starving and in the mood to whip something easy up! I had two recipes saved, Honey Mustard Pretzel Chicken and Zucchini Fritters, and thought that these would be a good combo this past Thursday night. 

I'm always looking for a recipe to make chicken a little less boring and my mother-in-law had brought us some beautiful, huge zucchini from her garden so these were perfect. 

For the chicken, you will need:

4 cups of hard pretzels, coarsely crushed (I just used the thick pretzel rods and pulsed them in the food processor)

2 cups of Panko breadcrumbs 

1/2 cup of flour 

1/2 cup of neutral tasting olive oil

1/2 cup of Dijon mustard

1/3 cup of honey

1/4 cup of water

3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar

Coarse salt and fresh ground black pepper

1 1/2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breasts

First, preheat your oven to 400F and grease a large baking dish or line one with foil. You also need to heat a medium sized saute pan on the stove over medium heat. While these are heating, pulse your pretzels in the food processor until you get small crumbs with some large pretzel pieces. 

Once you pulse your pretzels, add them to a large bowl and wipe out your food processor. Add the Panko to the pan on the stove and toast the breadcrumbs until golden, being sure not to burn them. Once toasted add them to the bowl with the pretzels. 

Now you want to add the oil, mustard, honey, water, and vinegar to the food processor and pulse until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. 

Save half of your dressing in the food processor and pour the rest into another bowl. Add the flour to a small bowl as well. Dunk your chicken in the flour, then dressing, then crumbs, then set into the baking dish. A really useful tip I learned from this recipe is to use tongs when dunking!! I always used to use my fingers and get goop everywhere and I also felt like having all of that on my hands took some of the coating off of whatever I was making. I know the thought of using tongs is really not rocket science but I really had no clue! Amazing!

Once you've dunked all your chicken, bake 16-25 minutes based on your oven. While your chicken is cooking prepare your fritters.

You will need:

1 large grated zucchini (just grate it with a cheese grater)

1 large egg

1 cup of breadcrumbs

1 tablespoon of chili powder

1/2 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese

2 tablespoons of olive oil

To start, once you have grated your zucchini, press a towel over top of it to remove all the excess water. This is very important because they won't cook as well and become soggy if you skip this step. 

Next, in a large bowl add in all of the other ingredients except the oil and stir to combine. 

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Once hot, shape your mixture into 2cm balls and place into the pan, pressing down with a spatula to flatten them a bit. Brown on each side for two minutes, then remove to a plate. 

For serving, pour your reserved honey mustard dressing over your chicken and top with diced chives. Drizzle ranch dressing over the zucchini fritters. Here is my finished product:

So delicious! Yet another thing to add to the roster of things to make regularly! I really liked the chicken recipe because the coating stuck really well to the chicken. Nothing frustrates me more when you spend an hour dunking something only to have all of the coating fall off. I believe it's the honey, so don't skip it! 

As a side note, I am seriously the messiest chef ever. But at least I have fun! Here's what my kitchen typically looks like when I'm making something:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Pancakes

This past Monday was your typical Monday. I had taken my car to Jiffy Lube the day before just for your run-of-the-mill oil change and almost immediately afterward my AC stopped working. Noooooooo! Unsure of what happened, I took it back to Jiffy Lube first thing Monday morning and fortunately they took a look at it free of charge and fixed it! Turns out my car is just a diva and super sensitive to any offset no matter how small. 

Now that I was awake before I wanted to be, I decided that rather than just eating a boring Clif bar for breakfast I would make my man and myself something substantial. Enter Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Pancakes. I had wanted to make these for a while but really just never got around to it. My man loves anything with protein in it, gym rat that he is, so this was perfect! 

You will need:

1 banana

1/2 cup of oats

1/2 cup of plain Greek yogurt

1/2 of unsweetened almond milk or cow's milk

2 egg whites

2 tablespoons of natural peanut butter (We use Jif)

2 tablespoons of cocoa powder

2 tablespoons of flax seed meal

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 scoop of chocolate protein powder

Fresh berries and maple syrup for garnish

To start, get your griddle heating over medium high heat and assemble ingredients. 

Grab your food processor and toss everything in except for the berries and syrup.

Puree until smooth.

Spray your griddle with cooking spray and pour on the batter 1/4 cup at a time. 

Repeat process until all the batter is gone, then top with berries and syrup and serve! These are gluten free and also freeze really well so you can continue to eat them for a while! 

Wine Weekend Part Deux

This weekend's wine adventure continued on Sunday night with a dinner with girlfriends at a wine bar in old Ellicott City, MD, called Pure Wine Cafe. I had initially wanted to try one of two wine bars at home in Westminster, but both were closed on Sundays so on to Plan B. What a great Plan B it was.

Pure Wine Cafe is located in a historic house on Ellicott City's Main Street and has 2 small dining rooms, a bar, and an outdoor patio. On a Sunday night it wasn't too terribly busy but still pretty popular, so if you go on a Friday or Saturday I would recommend making a reservation. They only accept reservations for the dining room, the outdoor patio is first come first serve. We chose to sit in the dining room.

Their menu is largely tapas with three entree options and three taco selections. I opted for tapas because I wanted to try a little bit of everything and usually the portions are big enough that if you get two or three you're satisfied as if you ordered an entree.

I chose the Meatball Sliders, made with beef, roasted red peppers, a smoked paprika aioli, and fontina cheese. There was an option to add prosciutto bacon which of course I did. You get two, which is more than enough. These were well-seasoned and moist and the bacon was nice and crispy. I also loved the aioli.

My second choice were the Truffle Fries, served with a truffled black pepper aioli. You can never go wrong with truffle fries, they're always crispy and usually seasoned to perfection and these were no different. Caroline and Monica both ordered the truffle fries, and Monica also had the meatball sliders. Caroline chose the Pulled Pork tacos and Lauren a squash pasta entree in which the noodles were made of the squash. Both had good things to say about their choices.

I hardly ever order dessert at restaurants but this place had a signature popsicle on the menu, with the option to have it served with sparkling red or white wine. I was intrigued and opted to have mine served with sparkling white wine. This was so good! The popsicle had a fruity taste and paired well with the wine. It was the perfect refreshing summer dessert!

Caroline and Monica both chose the cheesecake parfait, pictured above, which I was told was amazing. Another hit to add to the restaurant circuit!

Wine Weekend

Every weekend is a wine weekend to me unless I'm working, but this one in particular has been filled with the delicious libation. From wine bars to vineyards to boutiques, every day has been all about the wine!

I didn't used to be such a wine-o. My mom always has moscato or some other sweet wine in the house and I would have a glass with her, but I credit my two good friends Laura and Rachelle with my obsession. Both are avid wine drinkers and I've learned a lot from each!

My first visit to a winery was outside of Charlottesville, VA, at Barboursville Vineyards on a girls' weekend to the area. Wine tastings are a great way to learn what you like and aren't expensive. Most are also grouped near several others so it's easy to make a day of it if you'd like. It's just good, relaxing fun.

This weekend I met up with my friend Jenn where she lives in Emmitsburg, MD, and we went to downtown Frederick, MD, to do a little shopping for her new house! Of course, lunch was a must and there is a wine bar called Vini Culture that had been on my radar. It didn't take much arm pulling to convince Jenn to go there for lunch, and we were very glad we did.

Vini Culture introduced me to the concept of an automated wine dispenser. You purchase a reloadable card when you walk in and then insert it into the dispenser and choose between a taste, a half glass, or a full glass. This place had both a red/rose and white dispenser and there's no limit to what you can choose as long as you have money on your card. Most of the wines you can choose from are not cheap, so it's a good way to try some fancier wine. I chose a crisp Riesling and Jenn went with a Cabernet.

We opted to sit at the bar since the place was fairly empty, but there's all kinds of different seating, like lounge chairs and high tables. The menu isn't very large but it doesn't need to be. I also liked that it was lighter fare. I chose a flatbread with caramelized onions and a balsamic glaze. Jenn had a turkey sandwich with Brie and cranberries. Both dishes were served with greens dressed in a lemon vinaigrette. Neither of us had anything bad to say about the food, it was all wonderful. I can't wait to go back!

After lunch we wandered around all the cute shops that Frederick has to offer. In one store I found this hilarious wine glass, pictured below. Eventually I'd like to collect the others, a bee that says buzzed, fruit that says juiced, and a lightbulb that says lit. Also pictured is the card for the wine dispenser.

On Saturday I traveled to Clifton, VA, for an afternoon at Paradise Springs Winery to celebrate Laura's 25th birthday. What I didn't realize was that this place is the first winery outside of DC, so naturally it was very busy with a large 20something crowd. The tasting room is housed in a barn, and there's also a historic cabin on the property. The surrounding grounds are large and dog-friendly; Laura brought their large Presa Canario mastiff Max with us.

We didn't do a full tasting because we had the dog with us and couldn't bring him inside but we did purchase already opened bottles of Viognier and Chardonnay and some cheddar cheese and prosciutto to snack on. All of it was heavenly and it was a beautiful day!

Tonight I'm venturing to another wine bar with some girlfriends called Pure Wine Cafe in old Ellicott City, MD. Stay tuned for a review!

Heritage in a Cupcake...

Recently I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed when I happened upon a post from The Broken Cookie Bakery and Coffee House in Hanover, PA. For those of you not in the know, the Utz potato chip factory is also located in this town, and Utz products are huge in Baltimore and the surrounding area. Currently, The Broken Cookie and the Utz Factory Outlet Store have partnered in cupcake and potato chip goodness, melding two heavenly staples. The results? Mixed. 

 

Two types of cupcakes are offered, the Grandma Utz and Salted Chip Caramel. The former has chips mixed in the batter while the latter has them mixed in the frosting. The first one I tried was the Grandma Utz, a vanilla cake with classic plain potato chips and a chocolate frosting dotted with small chunks of salt. The cake was very moist and the frosting very chocolatey, but I found the potato chips to be a little bit lacking. There were plenty of them but it's very hard to keep a potato chip crunchy after being mixed in a batter and baked, and these seemed a little soggy. If you weren't aware of what they were I think it would be hard to tell they were chips. I did enjoy the salt on the top; it created the perfect salty sweet balance. This was a decent cupcake but not anything to write home about.  

 

I have to say I was rather disappointed with the Salted Chip Caramel. The cake was chocolate and again very moist, but you could've fooled me that there were chips in the icing. I couldn't taste them at all. I also felt that the frosting was more vanilla than caramel and not very flavorful. I forgot to take a picture of this one before I ate it but here's the box! 

 

The Broken Cookie did redeem themselves with a visit to their bakery, located just a block or two down the street from the factory outlet store. I had been here before several months ago before I started writing my blog. This time I chose Chocolate Peanut Butter and White Chocolate Macadamia Nut.

 

I had had their chocolate peanut butter before and remember it being one of my favorite peanut butter cupcakes. The chocolate cake was moist and they give you a generous heap of almost fudge-like peanut butter buttercream frosting. It's a simple cupcake that doesn't need much to be delicious. The white chocolate macadamia nut was new to me. It's a yellow cake mixed with white chocolate and macadamia nut pieces, topped with buttercream and more of those same pieces. Not to be repetitive but this cake was also moist and the nuts and buttercream were tasty, but I would've liked a little more white chocolate flavor.

 

Overall, I didn't feel that the Utz cupcakes were worth the drive to get them, but it is worth trying some of the bakery's other flavors.

Feasting on Falafel

I honestly can't tell you why I decided to make falafel. I've only ever had it once in my life at a Lebanese Taverna in Silver Spring, MD. This time I was simply scrolling through my Pinterest when I came across a recipe I had pinned a while ago. Now that I had the food processor I could make it. So I did, and the more I thought about the end result the more I craved it.

To start, you will need:

For the falafel:

2 cups roughly chopped white onion6 garlic cloves2 cups cooked chickpeas, drained1 cup lightly packed parsley leaves1 cup lightly packed cilantro leaves1 teaspoon salt¼ teaspoon chili powder2 teaspoons cumin2 teaspoons baking powder½ cup all-purpose flourCanola oil, for sauteing Pita bread, for serving
1¼ cups plain yogurt (full fat or non-fat)
¼ cup tahini (sesame paste)
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice

For the tahini sauce:

1¼ cups plain yogurt (full fat or non-fat)
¼ cup tahini (sesame paste)
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice

First, prep your onions and your garlic, like so:

Next, add your onions and garlic to the food processor and pulse until minced, then remove and set aside.

Now add your chickpeas, falafel, cilantro, salt, chili powder, and cumin to the processor and pulse until blended but not pureed. I cheated a little with the chickpeas. I couldn't find uncooked ones at Safeway, so I grabbed mine out of the salad bar. Shhh don't tell! 

Now add the onion mixture back in along with the baking powder and the flour. Add the flour in a 1/4 cup at a time. Pulse until the mixture starts to form a sticky ball. You can add in more flour if your mixture is too wet. 

Once this is done remove the mixture and place in a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour. 

While your mixture is chilling, make the tahini sauce. Simply combine the sauce ingredients in a bowl and chill until it's time to serve. If you have a condiments squeeze bottle, I highly recommend placing the sauce in there. It makes it really easy to drizzle over your falafel once it's done and makes for pretty presentation. 

Once your falafel has chilled for an hour, heat a liberal amount of canola oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add at least an inch of oil. You need to be able to almost submerge your falafel. While the oil is heating, line a wire cooling rack with paper towels. Beware of hot oil, it likes to pop like a volcano at times so watch yourself! 

After the oil has heated through, using a cookie scoop form the falafel mixture into balls and drop into the oil. Fry for 3 minutes on each side then remove to the cooling rack and immediately season with salt. 

Once you have fried all of your falafel, take your whole wheat pita pockets and stuff at least 3 inside and drizzle with the tahini sauce. 

Doesn't it look incredible?!

These were really, really good. They turned out way better than I expected them to and will probably make an appearance at some point in the future. Beware though, they get rather soggy in the fridge overnight. You can still eat them as leftovers but I would recommend eating them immediately if you make them so you get the nice crunch from frying. Enjoy!