Cold weather = fire = s'mores

In Kansas City once a year they have a WaterFire festival.  (This years festival is TODAY, in the plaza at sundown).  They float 55 bonfires in brush creak and play live music while floating down the creak.  It's actually rather moving to see hundreds of people flock around the fires peacefully watching the flames/occasional performance.

Last year while my friend group was sitting at the WaterFire festival my boyfriend and a few others decided we should have marshmallows. My boyfriend, who can solve any problem in the most efficient yet humorous way, decided we should get a remote control boat, attach a marshmallow roasting stick, and presto....drive the boat to the fire, drive it back when it looks to be cooked.  He actually found a boat on clearance this summer, and was quite delighted with his plan.  Personally I'm terrified the police may misread the situation as a bomb threat, so I think I've talked him out of his shenanigans. *cue the booing crowd*

But, with all the talk about WaterFire and illegal s'more making, one of my friends decided to have a small bonfire at her place after the festival.  So now I'm contemplating what kind of s'mores I should bring to the party - classic or something fancier.  I've done s'mores with cinnamon graham crackers, a smear of nutella and a marshmallow.  I've also done the classic using andes mints instead of hershey's chocolate...I've seen the suggestion to add a smear of peanut butter to the classic s'more (which sounds delicious!)...not sure yet, still looking for my magic recipe.

All I can say is I know I'm not bringing jumbo marshmallows.  While they look awesome, we learned last year that they are just too big.  They don't have the right ratio of gooey warm marshmallow wrapped in a thin crispy golden shell. (They are so big that in the end the center is always still mildly cold/uncooked).

Anyway, I hope everyone is enjoying the fall weather.  Get some pumpkin ale (or pumpkin ice cream), have a bonfire with marshmallows, caramel apples...and if you live in the Kansas City area, by all means go to the WaterFire fest. http://www.waterfirekc.com/index.html

Booze Cakes

I hate to sound like a lush, but the BEST cookbook I own is a little book called Booze Cakes.  I've made about a dozen recipes out of this book, and not one of them has been a flop.

In general, I prefer to find my recipes online, because of the beautiful system where people can rate the recipe and add their comments...If the recipe has 1000+ five star ratings I know it will be a winner, and I always scan the comments to see if everyone is saying to cut the baking soda in half, add a splash of pineapple juice, etc.

But this little book Booze Cakes has the best pictures, very clear instructions, suggestions at the bottom of the page for 'tweaking/altering the recipe,' and as I said, I've yet to make a bad cake from this book. It's great!

I will say, some of the recipes end up being quite pricey.  Basically if I have to buy a few different types of alcohol that adds up quickly, but I'm ok with splurging when I know it will be a stellar cake!  And when you take cupcakes, a jelly roll, or a fancy cake to a party that is reeking of alcohol you know your the cool kid. Everyone wins.

In other words - BUY THE BOOK!  YOU'LL THANK ME!
http://www.amazon.com/Booze-Cakes-Confections-Spiked-Spirits/dp/1594744238/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347180460&sr=8-1&keywords=booze+cakes


If your into cakes, here's another interesting site
http://0bcb6edb2leo0w5wdvrsuzaodg.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=YUMMYARTS

Baked Kale Chips?

So I've heard a lot of rumors lately of how awesome baked kale chips are. They are easy to make, healthy, and a great substitute for potato chips.

I'm not really a potato chip fan, but my boyfriend is a serious snacker and veggie hater, so I instantly fell in love with the idea of a 'green chip.'  How great would that be to replace the worst food on the planet with the best food on the planet?!?!?

All you have to do is pick up some fresh kale from the grocery store, wash it, dry it, tear it into bite size pieces, drizzle a little olive oil and salt...then bake 10-15 minutes, and presto...magic green chips!

However, these magic green chips are super fragile, and if you chew them long enough, I swear the kale will rehydrate itself and BAM bitter veggie taste. Not so yummy.

Needless to say my boyfriend did not swoon at the new food option.  He did eat them and I think he'd eat them again, maybe, but they are no potato chip...and I waited a few days to see if maybe they are something that gets better with time, but they don't get better...they get stale and chewy really quick, they almost taste like kale flavored gum, and I swear the kale smell gets worse over time.

Sounds like a great snack right?  Do not be fooled!  This is not a green potato chip!  I mean it's 'fun,' it's different....maybe if I had an afternoon tea group I would serve a bowl of dried kale along with some other munchies like pitta and hummus...but I would never bring baked kale to a potluck meal for fear I would be dubbed the insane woman who brought health food (gasp).

Is there such a thing as too many kitchen timers?

We have three timers in our kitchen.  This happened by fluke, but I love having all three timers.

We have two cheep timers that stick to the fridge, which is awesome because I'm always carrying one of them into another room, and it's a 50/50 chance if the timer will be returned to it's proper place when I'm done cooking, but inevitably one of the two timers is always where it needs to be, so two little timers seems to be plenty...but those are cheep timers that only go up to one hour...and while I have the best intentions, if I'm cooking something that takes several hours, I need a buzzer to remind me to check on it.  So we have a fancier larger one that sits on top of the stove.  The fancier timer will even count up to 24 hours (which is nice when I'm making yogurt), AND after the timer goes off, it starts counting how long it's been since the timer went off...so if you miss the buzzing noise and wonder how long did you overshoot it this timer will tell you....(which I can see the need for, but I've never actually needed this function since all three timers are portable, you just take them with you wherever you go!) To me this backwards counting seems to act like a nag saying "It's been 16 hours since you last cooked."

It seems to me that many people when getting married request a kitchen timer in their registry, but I firmly believe they should not get just one kitchen timer, they should get two...or three....but then I would be the weird friend, insisting they need two of everything...so maybe I should buy them one, and not mark it off on their list with hope that someone else will buy them one too "by mistake."

New Fruit!

It seems like whenever I'm in the mood to try something new all I have to do is hang out in the produce section at the grocery store.  Have you noticed that they keep bringing in new strange fruits and veggies?

Last year my biggest finds were pluots (a hybrid of a plum and apricot) and rambutan (a crazy fruit that looks like a sugar gum seed - a round ball covered in prickly spines) you split the spiny shell in half and there is a watery grape in the middle that tastes kind of like a pear.

This year my biggest discovery to date were champagne grapes......it never even occurred to me that one could buy champagne grapes, but there they were in $5 plastic boxes at Whole Foods.

They are about the size of small blueberries, and they taste like an extra sweet/extra flavorful grape.  We bought them to share with friends, but honestly they are so tiny that its a little difficult to pluck them off the stem, so they didn't share well...I bet if we would have cut them into small bundles so everyone could just take a bundle they would have like them better.

Have you been to a frozen yogurt shop where they have tiny little boba balls?  These grapes tasted just like that!  When you squish them they just burst with flavorful liquid.  Which now that I'm thinking of it, they would be great as an ice cream topping!

If you happen to see them in the store you should get them!  They're totally worth the mini splurge.

Seeking to Create an Heirloom

For years I have written in cookbooks, saved the links to all my favorite recipes online, and shoved random torn out pages from magazines into my desk....I've been lucky, I've lost very few recipes along the way.

One was an amazing five layer mint brownie I found online...it was famous in my friend circle, absolutely everyone loved it, but one day I discovered the website was taken down. From time to time I still click on the link hoping it will be there again, but alas it never is, and lets be honest, it never will be again.

Another recipe was one I cooked for a boyfriend ten years ago (good memory right?)...the right occasion came up, I remembered this recipe was a smashing success the last time I made it...but one problem, the recipe was in a magazine ten years ago. I searched online with no luck, dug through all my random stacks of paper, looked in all my folders...then luck hit, I actually found a shopping list for that recipe from ten years ago...searched the internet and was able to figure out which magazine printed it...and bam! still had the freaking magazine on my bookshelf.  (I promise I don't keep everything, but I was very grateful I kept this one)...however, fast forward another year or two...I don't have the slightest clue where that recipe went!

So I've decided, I want to get a three ring binder and print ALL of my most loved recipes on acid free paper and put them in one place.  So when I get tired of my most recent collection of recipes, I can flip through the book and be guaranteed to love any recipe out of that book.

I want this book to become an heirloom, so I want it to be a cool book.  I'd even be willing to pay for a leather bound three ring binder, if I could find one that looked right....but unfortunately I couldn't find ANYTHING....until I stumbled upon www.zazzle.com

Way back in the day I remember seeing this site. You or anyone else can create their own online store on Zazzle.  Your or they design tee-shirts, coffee mugs, THREE RING BINDERS....and if someone else finds it and likes it, they can buy it. Zazzle will custom make it and ship it to the buyer, and the "artist" gets a cut of the profits.

There are thousands of three ring binders. I'm overwhelmed by all the choices.  Do I stick with a classic?  Monogrammed?  Something wacky, and so ugly it's charming?   I've been looking for a couple days now and I've narrowed it down to eight choices, but I love them all, I'm not sure which would be my perfect heirloom book.

Here's what I've got so far:

I'm kind of leaning towards the middle row. Blair's favorite is the top right, which I love too, but I just don't know. Anyone out there got an opinion?

Could You Be a Vegetarian?

The older I get the harder it is to keep the pounds at bay.  I feel like I'm constantly exercising but it just isn't enough any more.  About a year or two ago I finally surrendered to the fact that food choices also have to play a role in fitness, so slowly but constantly I strive to eat better/healthier.

This year, I was pondering the vegetarian life style and I realized I don't even know enough vegetarian recipes to last a week.  What would you eat for seven days?  You shouldn't just lean on breads, but as much as I love fruits that can't be all one eats......so as an experiment I signed up for the vegetarian meal plan at www.fresh20.com

At the start of each week Fresh20 emails me a grocery list of 20 fresh ingredients (they use very few canned or processed foods) for five vegetarian meals.  I spend about $20-$30 on the ingredients, but the recipes are for a family of four, so really one weeks groceries last me about two weeks. I've been using their system for a few months now (not every week, but some) and it is so much fun, I'm discovering new foods, cooking with ingredients I've always loved but never cooked with before, and I feel like I'm eatting a much more well rounded diet than I ever had before!

I've made homemade pesto sauce, stuffed mushrooms, polenta (I didn't even know what a polenta was before the fresh20)...one week I made my own black bean veggie burgers...as I said, it's so much fun!

The only down side is that these meal plans are getting created each week by the fresh20 team, so while you have variety and excitement, you also have typo's and confusing instructions from time to time....It helps that I already know how to cook, so I can say "no way, that can't be right..."  We're all human, I can forgive the typos, it just makes me sad when I make a wrong meal, because normally I would write notes in my cookbook and make the meal right the next time, but with their system I don't know if I'd remember if I see the same recipe a second time...

Another issue I had to overcome: it seems like each week one out of the five meals is a little too adventurous for me. This week it was Ginger Bok Choy and Tofu.  I'll admit I don't even know what ginger bok choy and tofu would taste like, but it just doesn't sound good. In the past, I would buy the ingredients for the meal with the intention of 'expanding my horizons', but then come up with every excuse possible to not make that meal, leaving all those precious ingredients to spoil in my fridge...I've learned it is better to stick with my first impressions, if the meal doesn't sound good, don't buy the ingredients, and don't plan on making it.

I think the Fresh 20 system was worth every penny.  It would be an awesome gift for foodie, someone going vegetarian, or someone striving to cook at home every night.