Pancake cat

butter makes everything better

2011-10-03T22:33:00.000-04:00

I made a half batch of The Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls yesterday.
Warning: Extremely butterific and sugar stuffed.

Fridged the dough overnight and it was pretty easy to both roll out and roll up.

That's sugar and the start of the cinnamon on top of a layer of butter- softened instead of melted, so I didn't end up with melted butter all over the floor, just flour all over the floor. Totally worth it.

Loosey goosey ends

Type A rolls

Almost a pound of powdered sugar:

The maple/coffee frosting is obviously SUPER DUPER FREAKING sweet, next time I'd consider serving with milk instead of cider. Or maybe vanilla ice cream.

I believe that I am successfully doing my part to help my pregnant friend's goal of gaining 35 lb- I hope the rest of you are doing some cardio so you don't die from my treats.

Cochon nom nom

2011-05-14T10:19:00.000-04:00

Brunch at Cochon

Eggs Cochon- pulled pork, bacon-gruyère biscuit, poached eggs, Mornay sauce, home fries
The poached egg looks pretty spiffy and swirly there.

Berkshire pork belly special- on top of hash browns and brussel sprouts, with a mystery possibly homemade mayo based sauce, or maybe it was a crème fraîche
Ratio of meat to fat 1:4. It's actually fat marbled with meat. The pork belly comes with a fried egg that I asked them to leave out. Although visually it doesn't look like much food, the amount of calories in the pork and the sauce made me full. The potatoes were fantastic and I wish there had been more of them. Also, I generally don't like brussel sprouts, but brussel sprouts doused in pork fat? Delicious.

roasted fresh sardines w/ dill and lemon

2011-05-10T19:54:00.004-04:00

Apparently fresh sardines are a ticking time bomb for spoiling rapidly, we were a bit stressed by the whole MUST COOK THESE NOW factor. Mainly they tasted like the dill stuffed in them.

porkalicious v5

2011-05-07T19:09:00.001-04:00

Superlazy pork belly
-oven to 425F
- kosher salt and pepper on belly
- score skin with a razor blade
- dribble a little olive oil in roasting pan to coat bottom
- cut a few onions into quarters (smaller if large onions) and put in roasting pan
- (optional- throw on some herbs like rosemary, thyme, sage on there)
- put pork belly in roasting pan on top of the onions
- roast 20 min, 275 deg for another while

korean tacos

2011-05-02T18:56:00.005-04:00

I am not a fan of soft tacos when they are the generic perfectly circular kind with that slight granular texture. But you could probably fill cardboard with spicy pork and bulgogi and it would be pretty good. These ones are from Bossam Bar on Jewelry Row.

brown butter cookies

2011-04-30T11:41:00.000-04:00

I am too lazy and perfectionistic to make beauuuutiful symmetric oval cookies from a spoon, but even lumpy rounds are delicious when they are brown butter cookies. The blurb talks about the texture changing over time-- they go from sandy shortbread to a borderline creamy melt in your mouth kind of thing over a period of two days. Also- my new plan is to not use my oven when it is >80F b/c it heats up my apartment too much.

mac *cheese

2011-03-05T10:10:00.000-05:00

Actually it's rotelle spiral pasta guys and cheese. I like the recipe out of Bittman's How to Cook Everything- the dry mustard adds the right flavour note for me.

And it turns out that the secret to panko? What makes panko those Japanese shardlike crumbs so fantastically crisp and light and amazing and why the crunchy top is like the best part of mac and cheese? PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED FATS, that's what.

Which is why I bought the Shirakiku brand Honey Panko, JAPANESE BREAD CRUMBS; soft finished flakes with honey. It's also "A GOOD BARGAIN." Says so on the package. The plan is to make some crispy crumbed chicken with these someday soon.

welcome back post hibernation

2011-03-02T07:58:00.001-05:00

Non happy meat short ribs have gone up to ~$5/lb from $4 last year. There were a bunch of pork shoulder braises. And things like this mushroom risotto. It turns out that risotto is freaking easy to make delicious, especially with large amounts of parmesan reggiano at the end. Also you can be totally lazy and not make your own broth etc.

truth in labeling at the Vietnamese grocery store

2010-11-16T07:16:00.003-05:00

Various kinds of cans

more braising

2010-11-14T21:18:00.019-05:00

This time with happy meat from Rineer family farms from the Rittenhouse Square weekly Saturday farmer's market.

chuck roast, $6/lb (normally $7/lb)

with some yellow and red tomatoes

ok so the citrus didn't really add anything

Zento

2010-11-11T07:08:00.000-05:00

Attractive but unremarkable sushi at Zento in Old City.

margarita

2010-11-09T07:50:00.000-05:00

Somewhere in the Bay area.

soup dumplings at Sakura Mandarin

2010-11-06T07:17:00.001-04:00

Sakura Mandarin
1038 Race St
Philadelphia, PA 19107-2306
(215) 873-8338

Scallion pancakes on the left and mango shrimp

(deliciously deep fried, in terrible goopy sweet sauce)

Soup dumplings nomnomnom

shu mai dumplings that are filled with glutinous rice

banana cake

2010-11-04T08:46:00.000-04:00

From Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Cake Bible.
I managed to remember both the sour cream and the lemon zest this time.

potato pancakes

2010-11-02T07:04:00.000-04:00

Peel raw potatoes, shred on the big side of a box grater, add salt + pepper. Squish out liquid, shallow fry in vegetable oil (add butter/bacon/onions for fun).

nyc: Kee's chocolates

2010-10-30T08:35:00.000-04:00

nyc: Dogmatic

2010-10-28T08:30:00.000-04:00

The fancypants hot dogs are reasonably delicious with the potential for messy, but I go to the Dogmatic by Union Square specifically for the ginger soda which is a little spicy tingly and not too sweet. The black specks at the top of the soda? VANILLA.

nyc: Kyochon

2010-10-26T08:00:00.000-04:00

Korean fried chicken which is honestly expensive for $1 per wing or drumette, but yummy crispy.

everyone else got salads

mmm deep fried

It turns out that 6 wing bits are enough for me.

NYC: two little red hens bakery

2010-10-24T07:53:00.000-04:00

Midday on a weekday you can actually sit down at one of the three sunny tables at Two Little Red Hens on the Upper East Side.

Berry crumb pie on special for $2

vanilla/vanilla cupcake

chocolate/chocolate cupcake

rosemary lemon shortbread

2010-10-21T07:39:00.000-04:00

There are a zillion recipes for this on the web. I would recommend chopping fresh rosemary as small as possible. Also my recipe involved powdered sugar creamed into the butter-- I suspect that I didn't cream the sugar in as much as I should have because there was a little bit of chewiness that I think resulted from high concentrations of the powdered sugar glomming onto itself.

pulled pork sandwich at Devil's Alley.

2010-10-19T07:44:00.000-04:00

Not my kind of atmosphere (too dim, too loud) but the pulled pork is good and the fries are ok.

breakfast tacos from Honest Tom's foodtruck (Clark Park)

2010-10-17T10:37:00.000-04:00

Scrambled eggs, potatoes, tomatoes, onion, guac on a taco. Basic and good.

They are on facebook and Twitter updating their location.

peach crumble

2010-10-15T00:06:00.001-04:00

I made the Smitten Kitchen peach shortbread and I am not all about the light delicateness of lovely flat squares. I think next time I'd pack it all into an 8" by 8" and get more hefty squares of peachy goodness. Maybe apples next time, seeing as how peaches are finished and it is now 100kinds of apples season now.

Argan: current favourite sandwich place

2010-10-12T08:57:00.001-04:00

Argan is a Moroccan restaurant located in one of those cursed restaurant locations where nothing has historically survived because it is down a set of stairs off street level. It is also my current favourite go to place for a not too gigantic sandwich with puffy warm fresh notexactlybread notexactlypita filled with lamb and potatoes. NOM NOM NOM. The only downside is that they don't have any fried potato products.

some bananas

2010-10-10T19:36:00.000-04:00

Ok, lots of bananas. At the Philly half marathon.

Don Memo's tacos al pastor

2010-10-01T18:08:00.005-04:00

Tacos from the Don Memo's food truck on 38th Street between Walnut and Sansom Streets. This food truck is perhaps one of the slowest trucks ever-- you can get there at any time and it will still take at least twenty minutes. I don't like the carnitas (too fatty, not crispy), but the al pastor is nice. Also the "spicy" is a tangy tingly but not super hot spicy.

Twenty minutes +$2/taco.

nyc: outside in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

2010-09-29T08:08:00.000-04:00

Brooklyn seems slow to get up on the weekend- Philly brunch at say Sabrina's Cafe is mobbed by 10:30 and has an hour long wait by 11. In contrast, the places in Brooklyn were barely opening by 11 and practically no one was out on the streets by then.

Brunch on the patio next to the garden at Lamb and Jaffy. The garden contains some waist high greenery and a bubbly brook type fountain in the corner and is about the same size as the outdoor dining area. We were seated next to a container pot of basil.

My omelette was good, but the baskets of shoestring fries on everyone else's table looked fantastic- the homefries were also deep fried.

Omelette w/ goat cheese, basil, kielbasa (I didn't ask for tomato but there it was)

nyc: Cheryl's in Brooklyn, near the library

2010-09-27T07:12:00.000-04:00

Outdoors on the multi level back patio of Cheryl's Global Soul. Although the prix fixe menu isn't really a prix fixe, you can get bloody mary's and mimosas with your brunchy goodness. Food was satisfying and the shady quiet was really nice. Bloody mary was on the too peppery side for me.

More quiche

potatoes

pancakes with whipped cream and berries

Fish sandwich. Next time I will try not to just shoot a bun.

macarons

2010-09-23T23:53:00.000-04:00

from the Sugar Philly dessert food truck, which feels like a total knockoff of NYC's Dessert Truck with dessert truck's prices. The guys who work the truck are very nice though.

Dessert Truck, btw, has both opened a brick&mortar http://www.dt-works.net/ on the Lower East Side and the truck itself is back in action. Hurrah!

Sugarphilly's macaroons: $1/macaron

brunch at Parc

2010-09-21T07:44:00.000-04:00

from a giant group brunch at Stephen Starr's Parc Restaurant Bistro & Cafe on Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. Feels spendy but generally worth it. A lot of people loved the bread basket (baguette, sourdough wheat, something with cranberries).

great Quiche Lorraine with some lightly drizzled greens

Scrambled eggs

lamb sandwich

Maru Global

2010-09-19T21:48:00.000-04:00

I think I like the idea of takoyaki, or Japanese octopus dumplings, but I'm not totally on board with the bonito flakes which make it a little too fishy for me. The interior texture is almost custardy- I think I would want to try some different flavour combinations other than the octopus. If someone made a mashed potato and cheese version, sort of like a croquette, I think I would really like that.

Szechuan

2010-09-16T21:38:00.000-04:00

at Han Dynasty in Old City. It turns out that I don't really like the jangling nerves spiciness of Szechuan peppercorns. I only really got this effect from either the wontons or the dan dan noodles that we ordered as appetizers before the latecomers got there. We went with not too spicy for everything else, which worked out well. The owner gave us a shot of pepper oil (that several of us took TEENY trial sips of), which goes down smooth and then has a delayed jangly nerve burning action.

Grilled Taiwanese sausage

Cumin lamb in the foreground and beef something that was not spicy

Three cup chicken (pleasant)

basil lemonade

2010-09-14T21:34:00.001-04:00

at Misconduct Tavern, which is not a bar I would recommend to my friends. But I did enjoy the basil lemonade, which was on special during Philly games. Hurrah.

NJ diner

2010-09-12T21:28:00.002-04:00

For some reason I ordered a corn muffin and french fries. I should have ordered dessert instead. Someone got creamed chipped beef, but it just isn't photogenic.

Corn muffin

MONSTER onion rings

Reuben

rectangular crepe from Drexel campus food truck

2010-09-09T21:13:00.000-04:00

Most of the crepes I've encountered (Houston Hall's Pari Cafe Creperie, Reading Terminal Market's crepe place- Profi's creperie ) wind up as wedge shaped pockets. In contrast, the guy at the crepe truck at 33rd and Market St in front of the Drexel library makes almost burrito like crepes with as much filling as the Pari Cafe place. He takes his time and takes care to garnish each crepe with a drizzle and a sprig of something. This particular crepe contains coconut chicken, rice and veggies- carbs stuffed in carbs.

Snackbar

2010-09-06T20:59:00.000-04:00

Late night at http://snackbarltd.com/ (their website doesn't work in Chrome). I mostly avoid this place bc it seems like a scene, but the food was actually quite good and I would go back at another off peak hour. Also the bartender/waiter was really lovely. Macaroni and cheese was ok but not compelling, same for a dish of pasta with spring vegetables.

highly recommended: Calamari (really really good deep frying)

Also very good: Scallops on a bed of corn and some kind of grain

tarte tatin

2010-09-04T20:52:00.000-04:00

Trader Joe's tarte tatin. I like how the pastry crust turns out (a nice short pastry) although the apples were a little mushy.

dinner at a friend's

2010-09-01T19:09:00.000-04:00

Pesto pasta salad with more goat cheese and some baby spinach

mmmmmmm cake

summer salad

2010-08-30T19:06:00.000-04:00

strawberries
goat cheese
avocado
arugula

get together in the burbs

2010-08-28T19:02:00.000-04:00

Barbecue out in the Philly burbs.

Whole Foods dips

cheese please

2010-08-24T18:55:00.004-04:00

Somewhat pedestrian yet still tasty cheese (goat, smoked gouda, double cream brie, Mimolette, something Chilean) and fruit board. I think one of my favorite things were the rosemary nuts+cranberries from Trader Joe's.

Buttercream Philly foodtruck

2010-08-20T18:47:00.001-04:00

Philadelphia is having a veritable renaissance of dessert/cupcake oriented foodtrucks including http://www.buttercreamphiladelphia.com/ . This truck annoys me slightly due to its inanely enthusiastic twittering and the fact that it is varying its scheduled stops every week right now, forcing me to actually DO SOMETHING to find out where it is. Also $2 for a small cupcake is a mild ripoff. $2 for a variably sized cupcake is also annoying.

The three in front are banana cupcakes frosted w/ Nutella buttercream. They are about 25% smaller than the ones in the back. The bigger cupcakes are chocolate cake w/ peanut butter buttercream and vanilla/vanilla.

New Deck Tavern: awesome cheese fries

2010-08-17T20:42:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I just eat the cheese fries for dinner, preferably with some honey mustard sauce.

I think this is the New Deck Burger before assembly.

Palisades Park, NJ: Korean bbq

2010-08-13T08:27:00.000-04:00

In contrast to my previous experiences in PA, the Korean barbecue places in NJ and NYC are full service, with wait staff handling all the cooking duties on the grill in front of you.

Deep fried fish, part of the banchan

hello charcoal

pork belly on the grill

Trader Joe's frozen apps

2010-08-10T07:43:00.000-04:00

Pesto flatbread and the coconut curry chicken rolls.

nyc: Brooklyn polish

2010-08-04T07:30:00.008-04:00

From Greenpoint somewhere where we overordered potato pancakes, pierogi and kielbasa.

Pierogi, kielbasa, golabki, some potatoes, borscht in the background

nyc: 9th Ave International festival

2010-08-02T07:13:00.001-04:00

Street festival. I didn't see fresh churros though.

Slider with fresh mozzarella and peppers

Arancino (deep fried rice ball stuffed w/ broccoli and béchamel, pl. arancini)

I did not try the bbq but I really liked their logo (although maybe don't think too closely about the fact that it's a cute pig calling you to come eat some bbq'd pig):

Brooklyn Blackout cupcake

2010-07-27T07:26:00.007-04:00

from Two Little Red Hens on the Upper East Side in Yorkville.
Filled with a chocolate pudding centre. Excellent, although I didn't need the pudding.

porkalicious v4

2010-07-24T07:03:00.012-04:00

Tried the David Chang Momofuku overnight coarse salt and sugar rub and I'm not sure that it made much difference. People complained that the original recipe was too salty, but I wonder if they put the leftover salt slurry in with their pork, in which case that would have been a bad idea.

Distrito prix fixe lunch

2010-07-21T23:13:00.000-04:00

$15 Distrito prix fixe lunch

Camarones shrimp ceviche with avocado, plantain chips

Flatbread with the corn fungus, mushrooms, queso mixto, black truffle, corn shoots (the light yellow bits)

Hamachi tacos

carrot cake

2010-07-17T21:15:00.000-04:00

Fancypants carrot cake from the steakhouse Butcher and Singer, one of the Stephen Starr group restaurants.

celebrating a Cornell wedding to be

2010-07-13T21:09:00.000-04:00

Dinner at Mixto was loud but it had a fun, lively atmosphere, helped along by some pitchers of mango and hawaiian mojitos. Also a test run of the Canon S90 camera-- thumbs up.

guacamole

mango avocado salad with tuna

salmon

apple spinach salad with chicken

nyc, Peruvian roast chicken on the UES

2010-07-10T20:46:00.000-04:00

Pio Pio is a chain of Peruvian roast chicken places. The chicken was fantastic, but I was not a big fan of the avocado salad, nor the yucca fries. Even though I've rarely met a fried potato that I didn't like, the yucca (yuca?) just isn't the same- a little too fibrous in texture.

breakfast

2010-07-06T20:38:00.000-04:00

Chocolate morseled waffle from Bonté Waffle Cafe. I am not the biggest fan of these waffles as they tend to be too doughy/pasty/uncooked textured in the center. I do like the white flecks of pearlized sugar although I think they also give me a big sugar rush then crash, and I usually need a nap an hour or two after eating one.

I also would like to be able to eat these by just picking them up, but they are a little tacky and stick to paper napkins.

porkalicious v3 carnitas revisited

2010-07-02T09:23:00.001-04:00

With a 5lb pork butt from Martin's Quality Meats and Sausage located in Reading Terminal Market, one of my favourite purveyors of meaty products possibly bc they have one of the oldest guys still working behind the counter. I didn't like this one as much as the first time around, not sure if it was because I added even more hot peppers or if it was the unhappy meat.

Happy Canada Day!!

2010-07-01T12:30:00.000-04:00

In honour of Canada Day, I made butter tarts for the first time. I used the double pie crust recipe out of Bittman's How to Cook Everything, fit rounds into muffin tins, and filled with:
1/2c softened butter
1/2c packed brown sugar
1/2 c light corn syrup
pinch of salt
2 eggs
sploosh of vanilla
400 degrees for 18 min, resulted in a soft center but not too runny. Also, no raisins because I don't believe in raisins. Overfilling the shells results in filling leakage which caramelizes (technically a booboo, but +/- depending on how you feel about the addition of chewy caramel to your tart).

The Canadian expats and the American butter tart virgins at work have expressed approval. Hug your local Canadians today.

In other news, I am getting a new stove! My old one won't hold temperature so hopefully a new one will be installed by tomorrow. Hurrahs.

Trader Joe's

2010-06-29T07:16:00.009-04:00

Cheesecake hodgepodge from the frozen section.

Things that I miss that have been discontinued from Trader Joe's:
Toasted sesame potato chips- these were the best of the weird fancy flavours (eg goat cheese+roasted peppers)
White cheddar hawaiian style potato chips in the lime green bag
Any kind of sour cream and onion flavoured potato chip- oh wait, you never stocked any of these
Artichoke tortellini (frozen section)
Wasabi tempura seaweed snacks- so crunchy and nasal clearing

portion control

2010-06-25T19:07:00.012-04:00

From the 4th Street Delicatessen outpost on 19th Street.

Warm brisket sandwich

hot dog knish (warm)

slab of chocolate marble cake

strawberry shortcake (fresh whipped cream)

not really a fortune

2010-06-22T07:05:00.007-04:00

"You have friends and you know it."

Matyson

2010-06-18T18:51:00.002-04:00

Matyson is a byob in Center City West. I like the food but it can get loud because sound just bounces around in there.

Duck inside sausage on top of polenta.

Short rib with fingerlings.

Poached pear on puff pastry with hazelnut ice cream subbed for some other flavour.

Coconut cream pie, chocolate ganache, macadamia nut crust.

Warm chocolate cake, caramelized bananas, hazelnut ice cream.

pumpkin

2010-06-15T22:44:00.014-04:00

One of my friends loves this pumpkin dish (tomato sauced, yogurt drizzled) at Sansom Kabob House.

I like the warm fresh bread especially (and the meat on a stick), but I find nothing compelling about the pumpkin. It's good, but it's no bacon.

nyc: from La Bagel Delight, Brooklyn

2010-06-12T21:41:00.002-04:00

http://www.labageldelight.com/locations.html

Competition breakfast of champions:

nyc, UES

2010-06-09T22:23:00.000-04:00

Upper East Side (bc several of my friends live(d) there) at dinnertime:
Café D'Alsace

The bone marrow, La Moelle, and the sausage trio appetizer (avec trois moutards!)... and the two of us still had mains coming up. Because we are Good Eaters. Or gluttons. Take your pick.

Although the marrow bones were fine, I was a little annoyed that the toast was burnt. Obviously they put it on a grill thing but still, bitter charred = not tasty.

I have since realized that it is simple to actually roast marrow bones at home, as long as you have good ventilation or you don't mind your home being beefy scented.

cupcake truck

2010-06-08T21:15:00.000-04:00

Some cupcakes from Buttercream, a cupcake food truck in Philly. The cupcakes were reasonably good and not dry/crumbly, but I don't think I need to seek them out.

Porkalicious v2

2010-06-07T19:16:00.001-04:00

Splurged on a Berkshire pork butt from Meadow Run Farm via Reading Terminal Market's Fair Food Farmstand that took 2+ days to defrost in my fridge.

Salt & pepper on the pork for a few hours, then browned on all sides. Sauteed some onions, 2 carrots, then added 1 c. chicken broth, 2 green serrano peppers, some peppercorns, crushed allspice, lightly toasted cumin, cloves in a teaball, juice+zest from 1 giant orange, dropped the orange in for fun, braised for 300 degrees for 3hrs uncovered and another 2 hrs uncovered, chopped up the roast into some giant cubes to break it up. Once a lot of the braising liquid evaporates, the pork starts to fry in its own fat. SIZZLE.

Served with an excess of guacamole (five avocados is apparently too much for 4 ppl), salsas from Prin, sour cream, tortillas and unfortunately no air conditioning (now installed!). Also a pineapple that I made Katherine cut up. Starter of cheese crisps (browned cheese).

sushilicious

2010-05-25T21:06:00.000-04:00

The original owners of Vic Sushi in Center City sold the CC location and opened up another Vic Sushi closer to where they live in the burbs. The CC place maintains the same menu and is still doing monster business.

Tuna dumplings (flattened tuna filled with avocado, spicy sauce, that fake crab stick crap, maybe more tuna)

thali

2010-05-22T17:55:00.000-04:00

I find that the Indian restaurants in Philly, like the Thai restaurants are underwhelming. But I still like Indian and Thai food, so I persist in trying different places. A lunch at Palace at the Ben, kind of fun because of the novelty of the different little bowls.

healthy/unhealthy

2010-05-19T23:22:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I eat healthy/unhealthy sort of like good cop/bad cop. I like Good Dog because the kitchen is open until 1am, the fries are a mix of regular and sweet potato, and they usually have some random seasonal beer on tap. Actually, they have dog photos on the walls- this is probably the real reason I like this bar. Woofwoof.

porkalicious sunday

2010-05-15T18:57:00.000-04:00

My brother and sister-in-law visited a little while ago and we hit a bunch of restaurants including Jose Garces' Amada tapas restaurant for the:

COCHINILLO ASADO FOR 4 OR MORE
Whole Roasted Suckling Pig, Grilled
Green Onions, Herb-Roasted Fingerlings,
Garbanzos con Espinacas &
Rosemary White Beans
38 per person
*must order in advance

I thought the sides were the lowlight. If I were to do it again, I would probably ask to hold the green onions, garbanzos and white beans and just get more fingerling potatoes instead (I don't know if they would do this. And this is probably not what you should do if you are interested in eating a healthy balanced diet). In contrast to the lackluster sides, the suckling pig was FANTASTIC. I have eaten a lot of roast pork in my lifetime, and this was really well executed roast pork (juicy and porky flavoured meat, melty fat layers, crispy crispy skin). Carved at the table, we wish we had gotten nibbles while impatiently waiting for chef to finish. Worth trying once.

Platter with lots of crispy skin, some skinny rib bones.

NAPOLEÓN DE MELOCOTÓN
Poached Peaches, Sheep Cheese
Mousseline, Caramelized Puff Pastry,
Peach Verbena Consommé

PASTEL CON ESCABECHE
Warm Brown Butter Cake,
Seasonal Fruit Escabeche,
subbed in Hazelnut Ice Cream

Calzone

2010-05-12T20:22:00.001-04:00

Gusto Pizzeria's calzone. I like the primavera (all veggies) and the spinach/ricottta ones. The meatier ones tend to be a little too much for me.

Tria

2010-05-09T16:03:00.002-04:00

Tria mainly does little bites, which I think is why I never go there (at least the branch closest to me) because it is essentially next door to DiBruno Brothers (basically a fancy kingdom of cheese) and I know that I could be spending the same amount of money for triple or quadruple the amount of cheesiness. It feels like poor value for my money, regardless of how tasty those bites are. Also it feels like a scene to be seen in, which is not my kind of atmosphere. But then again, sometimes other ppl want to go and I can be lazy. I forget which cheeses below but the melty one was not an Epoisse.

Brie de Nangis with Allagash Cherries

Roasted beets w/ ricotta

biscotti, or, I don't even drink coffee unless I have class

2010-05-07T14:03:00.000-04:00

No seriously, caffeine keeps me up at night and I don't want to get addicted like you.
Biscotti are pretty easy to make-- you can scale this recipe to half etc. Jana and Margaret's idea + execution.
Anise Almond Biscotti from Bon Appetit 1999

large cheese fries @Reading Terminal

2010-04-29T17:08:00.001-04:00

From Barb & Suzy's, the Amish place that does the fried veggies and has the hot dogs. If you go, the Amish are only at RTM Wed through Sat.
The fries weren't as crispy as I would have liked; the bacon was delicious.

pierogie from the Pierogie Kitchen in Roxborough

2010-04-26T07:36:00.000-04:00

These pierogie are fully cooked then frozen, so I defrost and then throw them in a pan with butter and caramelized onions. Menupages link including the lunch menu and frozen costs/dozen. I would like to try some of the dessert ones, but haven't gotten around to those or the golabki (stuffed cabbage rolls) yet.

Despite my love of bacon, I don't like their pierogie with bacon inside; the texture of the bacon bits is disruptive in combination with the potato/pasta.

morimoto

2010-04-19T09:11:00.000-04:00

Morimoto
We ordered the chef's choice of sashimi+sushi for ~$150.

chocolate pot de crème: chocolate custard, caramelized banana, whipped cream, chocolate ice cream

black sesame mousse cake: flourless chocolate cake, dark chocolate ganache

banana cake

2010-04-13T08:37:00.001-04:00

Cordon Rose Banana Cake from Rose Levy Berenbaum's The Cake Bible. In the iterations that I've done, I have occasionally left out the sour cream and the lemon zest if I didn't happen to have it around. Also if you don't need the cake to be flat for layering or frosting, I wouldn't bother with the cake strip to keep it flat because I think the texture is better when it's a little domy.

candied bacon

2010-04-10T08:05:00.003-04:00

Brown sugar, pinch of cayenne, oven at 400. I did the brown sugar mixture on both sides of the bacon, and a lot of the melted sugar dripped off the bottom (damn gravity), it would have been less messy if I had just put it on the topside of the bacon.

chocolate cake w/ whipped cream ganache

2010-04-07T08:07:00.002-04:00

Cake recipe = master chocolate cake from the four in Cook's Illustrated's Best Recipe. Ganache from the same book. I think I have to stop with the ganaches bc they get a little too pasty to really frost with plus I am killing my coworkers slowly w/ the cholesterol content.

lemon cherry scones

2010-04-04T08:07:00.001-04:00

Everyone was hoping the cherries were chocolate.

short rib braise (after)

2010-03-26T19:38:00.002-04:00

I used to do the Molly Stevens overnight red wine marinated short rib recipe out of Braising with Molly. But then I tried it without the overnight marinating and it wasn't noticeably different so I don't even bother without the marinating these days.
(5lb of flanken cut short ribs on their sides mostly fits in a layer in my 6 qt Ikea enamel glazed pot). Kosher/giant flake salt & pepper the short ribs. Lazily chop up some vegetables (eg garlic, onion, carrot, celery, parsnip, mushrooms, whatever) in ~2" pieces. Brown the short ribs & remove from pot. Preheat the oven to 300F. Brown the veggies and open the wine. Try the wine. Add the rest of the wine + 1 can (doesn't really matter what size) of crushed tomatoes. (Also optional: rosemary, thyme, more garlic, some cheesecloth tied around allspice, cloves, peppercorns) Bring to a boil, put the short ribs back in the pot & try to get them all partly submerged but don't stress about it. Put the lid on for a secure seal, transfer to oven. Check in 20min to see if things are simmering gently or boiling hard. You want the first so adjust oven temp appropriately.
In theory you might want to turn stuff over after an hour or two. I've actually been lazy and not turned anything, and it didn't make much difference.

snack

2010-03-23T17:15:00.002-04:00

sometimes for lunch

a sunday supper at Bibou, a BYOB

2010-03-15T18:26:00.000-04:00

Dimanche prix fixe, $45/

la soupe- your spoon sits neatly in the pointy corner

little balsawood canoe of bread, clove studded decorative orange (which looks like it's hovering in this photo)

seared foie gras, candied kumquats, fried bread cubes

greenery (baby arugula?), bone marrow mixed w/ breadcrumbs, perfect roasted potatoes

branzino special

Bûche de Noël, light and delicate and creamy

house sorbets, not as good as Capogiro gelato

vanilla for baking

2010-03-14T10:10:00.002-04:00

1. Buy vanilla beans off ebay.
2. Buy cheap vodka.
3. Split a pile of beans lengthwise, scrape the insides.
4. Get rid of some of the vodka to make room for the vanilla beans.
5. Put the beans in the vodka.
6. Shake.
7. Wait for weeks to months for the extract to mature- when it doesn't smell like vodka anymore.

apple cider pork braise

2010-03-12T18:17:00.000-05:00

5 ingredients not including salt/pepper. Easy.
Cider braised pork shoulder, Gourmet 2001

truffles

2010-02-23T06:18:00.001-05:00

12oz (72% dark chocolate + semi sweet chocolate) + 1c heavy cream warmed

After some experimentation, to shape them it was easiest to use 2 spoons to get a hunk of ganache, drop & roll the funny shape in the cocoa powder to cover before rolling by hand into balls.

buttermilk gingerbread w/ chocolate chips

2010-02-14T10:11:00.000-05:00

technically, Molasses-and-buttermilk Gingerbread Squares from Epicurious from Bon Appetit November 2000. I used a cake strip around the outside of the cake pan and it came out nice and flat--- but it isn't really necessary for this kind of cake.

Wine braised short ribs for snowy days

2010-02-10T17:27:00.003-05:00

5lb of raw short ribs ($18.95 for 5lb at Giunta's in Reading Terminal Market) includes not quite 1lb of bones and not quite 1/4lb of fat

Happy Groundhog's Day

2010-02-02T13:34:00.006-05:00

It is Groundhog's Day in North America, a day of weather prognostication and cranky sleepy rodents.

Apparently everyone saw their shadow.

It is also the day of the anniversary of the birth of my brother, 4 of my other friends (seriously), and my über boss.

So I made some celebratory cupcakes. (Cupcakes = 1 batch of Cook's Illustrated Best Recipe chocolate cake (first version in the book), 1 batch of Smitten Kitchen's Double Chocolate Layer Cake adapted from Gourmet March 1999 frosted w/ chocolate ganache.)