In the Beginning...

...this is what my stash of holiday baking wares looked like.  And I didn't have room to put it all in the pile.  Right now, it may look a mess, but it will turn into deliciousness!  Pictures of what I made for the holidays this year are coming soon...

Also, Aisling wanted to get in on the baking action...mainly just to eat the chocolate.  Hey, Mama didn't raise no fool.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Time for the first batch of Chex Mix!  Let the angels rejoice!  I made this pan full of salty, crunchy goodness to take home for Thanksgiving...it's been way too long since I've had this addicting stuff!  But now that it's Christmastime again, I will probably make at least 4 more batches over the next few weeks.  Waistline be damned, Mama needs her Mix!

Not Even Remotely Food Related

But I just had to gush over our first-ever appliance purchase!  (Do we qualify as grownups now??  Scary thought!)  Behold...Whirlpool Duet Washer and Dryer...high efficiency, large capacity, front-loading wonders of modern engineering.  All wrapped up in a lovely cranberry gloss finish.  Beautiful!!  I love to just look at them...wonder if I will love doing laundry now, or if it will be one more tedious task (albeit beautifully packaged) keeping me from practicing my baking skills?  Only time will tell, but for now, I will bask in the warm ruby glow of the first new appliances we've ever owned.  (I feel like they should be cinnamon-scented or something...maybe I'll write to Whirlpool to suggest it.)

Locked & Loaded

Hello again, dear reader.  (That is, assuming I still have a reader out there somewhere...)  After a long, arduous, painful inter-state move and three weeks at a new job, I have finally returned to my blog in true Riss style, by breaking the oven in our new home.  My first attempt at baking some cookies in KC resulted in disaster, probably deservedly, for I blasphemed the world of Cookiedom by using some store-bought Pillsbury cookie dough rather than making my own from scratch.  Granted, this piece-of-shit oven is likely older than I am, and therefore could really break down at any time, but I of course decided to hasten its demise by putting the door lock on in a misguided attempt to keep small children safe from air and metal heated to a roasty 350 degrees.  I did this during the last minute of the cookies' bake time, and then....locky no worky, and the door was permanently closed.  With the tray of cookies inside.  Our lovely (frugal to a fault) landlady decided a repairman was in order (rather than replacing the ancient stove), and a week later, voila!  One locking mechanism was removed, one oven door was opened, and a tray of overdone, yet remarkably well-preserved cookies was rescued.  (My husband was tempted to eat them despite being a week old...I advised him not to attempt it.)

So...now that our oven is again in (somewhat) working order, I promise to resurrect this blog, phoenix-like (literally...ashes may be involved if I break the damn stove again), and actually start cooking again.  Ooh, I wonder if the onslaught of simultaneous hits will crash the blogger.com servers...ah, the sweet taste of victory.  Which, apparently, tastes like cookie dough, since with the oven locked and unusable for a week, I was forced to eat the remaining cookie dough straight from the package with a spoon.  I was willing to make that sacrifice for your reading pleasure.  Maybe I should subtitle my blog..."Sweet Potatoes:  Welcome to Flavor Country."

Good Little Soldiers

...is what Anthony called these when he saw them all so neatly arranged on the cooling rack.  This batch of Peanut Butter Blossoms (one of my all-time favorite cookies) is the last thing I ever baked in our Chicago apartment.  Sad to leave, but excited for our move to KC.  Bring on the new kitchen!!

Frankenlasagna

Well, in a last-ditch attempt to use up what's left in my fridge and pantry before we move, I thought lasagna would be a good way to use up a lot of supplies.  The problem:  I had no lasagna noodles and none of the usually-approved meats for a lasagna.  Soo...what I did have was a big ol' bag full of bowtie pasta, and a package of pepperoni in the fridge just begging to be used up.  Add in half a container of cottage cheese and a half a bag of frozen spinach that also needed used or else would end up in the trash when we move, along with some other random veggies, tomato sauce, spices, and cheese...voila!  A mishmash of lasagna-like ingredients will surely result in an edible, almost-lasagna dish, right? 

Actually it was not only edible, but pretty tasty.  I forgot how salty pepperoni is which makes this Frankenlasagna not my favorite thing ever (though the asiago bread Anthony brought home was yummy with it), but my husband and daughter both scarfed it down.  Yesss....I love using up a bunch of stuff that is on the verge of being wasted.  Speaking of being on the verge of being wasted, the 1/2-bottle of pinot grigio I drank with the meal definitely made it better :)

Sweet Gift...literally.

Yesterday was our fourth wedding anniversary.  We're mere days away from a move to KC, so our budget is tight, however, my loving husband managed to come up with an inexpensive, yet completely perfect gift for me.  (Aren't those the best kind?)

Inspired by my cookbook post a while back, he found a dessert cookbook that's right up my alley, titled "Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey".  Also known as yes, yes, yes, and yes, as far as desserts are concerned.  I can't wait to try a bunch of recipes in here, especially the one on the cover (Chocolate Mascarpone Cheesecake Pots with Shortbread Spoons...holy moly, have I died and gone to heaven?  By the way, I presume that heaven is mostly likely made entirely of chocolate.) as well as the one for homemade marshmallows.  Yum.  Swoon.  I shall commence with the testing of recipes as soon as we've finished our move and I have a fully set up, functioning kitchen again.  Anthony suggested I make every dessert in order from cover to cover, a la "Julie and Julia", however, I politely declined that approach (while it would be fun and delicious, the resulting weight gain in my ass would not be).  Slow and steady wins the race, young paduan.  I shall report back with pictures and results of the first recipe I test, from our new place in KC!

My Little Cook

So I'm pretty sure Santa is on the right track for Aisling's Christmas gift (I have inside information that a play kitchen set may appear under our tree on Christmas morning)...behold, my shadow, mixing and stirring and cooking with all her might while I made dinner last night (and loving every minute of it!):

Fall-Weather Dinner, Part I

On tonight's menu:  Chicken Paprika (recipe of my own creation), mashed Yukon Gold potatoes, homemade biscuits, sliced beets (have I mentioned how much I love beets?!?  They are so delicious.  Anthony suggested "Hot Beets" as a title for this post, hehehe.)

Dessert:  Oatmeal Scotchies. 
Mmm, fall food...lots of flavors, comforting ingredients, and oh yes, calories.  Are we preparing for winter hibernation or what?

Midwestern Kids' Heaven

So here is a perfect dessert:  the delicious combination of peanut butter, chocolate, and oatmeal, all in one unconventionally free-form package.  Yes, I'm describing the unfortunately-named, yet wonderfully yummy Cocoa Log.  Also known as the No-Bake Cookie, if you prefer to not set 12-year-old boys snickering (or Anthony & I, since our senses of humor clearly tend toward the juvenile).

As we all know, chocolate and peanut butter together are awesome...so here's to you, Mrs. 1950s Housewife Lady, whose kids and/or husband were minutes away from arriving home and thus demanding cookies, and who discovered that either: a) she was out of eggs, b) it was too damn hot to turn the oven on (tuna salad on toast points for dinner, family!), and/or c) having a couple of cocktails in the afternoon makes cooking TOO HARD.  Voila!  Peanut butter, oats, and a few baking staples were fated to come together to create a downright tasty way to feed kids and grownups alike.  Cheers!

When Snacks Go Wrong

Watch out, food, Aisling is on the attack!

Here she was munching her Puffs quietly, holding the container herself like a big girl, sticking her hand in and taking out a few every so often.  Then, in the blink of an eye...a shower of Puffs and one excited little girl.  Now she can choose which one she wants from a pile!  (Yes, she pulled all the laundry out too...not one for cleaning up yet, clearly).

Then today, she managed to pull the Hershey's syrup (yes, I keep a ginormous-size bottle on hand at all times) out of the door of the fridge when I was getting out lunch.  Oh, she was excited about that bottle!  I don't think she actually got any chocolate, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before she figures out flip-top caps.  She looks so excited about it...clearly she takes after me when it comes to chocolate!

Bananarama

Is there anything better than the aroma of freshly-baked banana bread?  I don't think so.  This morning I made mini loaves four ways:  plain, with nuts on top, with chocolate chips on top, and with mixed nuts and chocolate chips on top.  Mmmm.  I love that something I find repulsive (over-ripe bananas) can turn into something delicious, and that I don't have to waste food and money by throwing out my brown (black?) bananas.  Recipe is from New BH&G.

On Top of Old Smokey...

I think of that childhood song every time I make meatballs.  And they really are "all covered with cheese"...last night's dinner:  Mozzarella Meatballs & Pasta.  Anthony loves meatballs, as he said so eloquently last night, "Their name is as beautiful as they are in form and function."  haha.

The Best Thing(s) I Ever Ate

In a shameless ripoff of the Food Network show, I hereby present to you the best meals I've ever had. One is pretty self-explanatory, and the other two are, shall I say, rather non-traditional.

1. Where: Emeril's Restaurant in New Orleans, Louisiana, January 2003. Anthony and I took our first vacation together to New Orleans (we consider ourselves so lucky that we got to experience it pre-Hurricane Katrina, and we would love to go back someday.)
What: Filet mignon, mashed potatoes, buffalo-sauced calamari, flourless chocolate cake, and wine. Hands down, the best meal I've had to date. My first experience with very rare meat--I ordered steak medium-well back then, and when I tried to do so, our awesome waiter gently informed me that the flavor and quality of the meat would be severely compromised if cooked that long, and that they recommended it rare. So that's what I got...it came out red and bloody and probably one step removed from mooing...and it was freakin' delicious, melt-in-your-mouth-like-butter good. Everything we had was fantastic, but the steak is the memory that really stayed with me.  It's the meal to which I compare all other fine dining experiences.

2. Where: McDonald's in the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, October 2005. I know, you're saying "What the hell?" Let me explain...on our ill-fated honeymoon in Cancun, my husband and I ended up being stuck in the middle (literally) of the strongest hurricane in recorded history (Wilma). We were evacuated from our beautiful resort on the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula to a cinder-block high school compound in downtown Cancun, where each classroom held 30 beach chairs as beds, the windows were boarded up, and the cuisine ranged from rice with hotdog chunks and shrimp in it to a sort of tuna salad gravy on bread. mmm. (Not that I am complaining, the staff took great care of everyone in a crazy scary situation, but I'm just trying to set the scene here.) We were there for 4 days while weathering the storm and then, until we were able to get an emergency flight out of the (closed) Cancun airport, a resort in Riviera Maya for a few more days (with roommates, since it was full of evacuees...how romantic) where the food was actually really good (for example, I ate croissants slathered with Nutella for breakfast every day), but we just wanted to go home and know it was over and we were safe, and we couldn't. When we finally did get out, we flew from Cancun to Dallas, and while waiting for our flight to KC, we went to the food court.
What: A quarter-pounder with cheese, fries & ketchup, and a huge Diet Coke. Disgusting at any other time, as I generally dislike fast food intensely, however, at this moment, it was so familiar, so American, so safe...it tasted SO GOOD.  I ate every last bite, and it was amazing.

3. Where: Labor & Delivery Unit of Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois, September 2008. I know, another "What the hell?" I had just delivered our baby at 2 o'clock in the morning, and my last meal had been at noon. Fourteen hours of labor, with nothing but ice chips and water for sustenance, made for one exhausted and ravenous new mom. My nurse, bless her heart, brought me a snack box prepared by the hospital cafeteria once all the hubbub had quieted down.
What: Sandwich made with processed turkey and American cheese on white bread, a single serving package of Fig Newtons, a carton of milk which smelled just like the ones in elementary school (i.e., vaguely sour and paper-y), and a mini box of Sun-Maid raisins (which I did not eat, as I despise raisins with the passion of a thousand suns. I was starving, but not crazy). I hate white bread and processed cheese/meats, but much like the McDonald's hurricane experience, the stress and excitement made it seem absolutely delicious! I devoured both the sandwich and the Fig Newtons, which were heavenly, in record time, and then happily spent the rest of the night in post-delivery insomnia watching U.S. Open tennis matches and writing in Aisling's baby book.

Emeril's Photo Credit.
McDonald's Photo Credit.

Steak: It's the Manly Meat

 Last night, my wonderful husband decided to give me a night off of cooking and made me a Saturday night special: filet mignon and potatoes au gratin with salad, bread, and pumpkin ale. Yessssss! A perfect fall meal, and I didn't have to lift a finger (except to set the table...a meal of steak and specialty beer requires the good china and crystal, of course!)

Delicious. I am a lucky woman :)

Apple(s) of My Eye

In honor of the impending fall season, this post is dedicated to my deep and abiding love for apples. The love affair started when I was a kid, thanks to the local apple orchard and the family that owned it. I remember our family going to the orchard every fall to pick boxes and boxes of apples in the warm sunshine of September, and the sweet deliciousness of eating a few straight from the tree, their skins warm and smooth. We stored them on the back porch or in the garage in the coolness of autumn, and they lasted for months. Is there anything more delicious than a crisp juicy apple? I think not. It's a treat for all senses...aromatic, sweet, crunchy, heavenly.

Our latest favorite apple: Ginger Gold, an early-season apple. With the sweetness of Golden Delicious and a hint of tartness like Granny Smith, it's a little piece of crunchy delight. And at $6 for 5-1/2 pounds (thanks Costco!), the price can't be beat. Yum!

Cookbooks

So I finally saw "Julie and Julia" on Tuesday (thanks Jenny, it was fun!)...I thought it was a very cute movie and I liked learning about Julia's cookbook. In the spirit of cookbook love, I thought I would share my 2 go-to cookbooks and my full collection (ever-growing!). My mom gave me both the "Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook" and the "Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook". They are both antiques (BH&G is a 1968 edition, BC is 1950!), tried and true, and are my trusted guides whenever I have questions or want to find a base recipe to start from when making adjustments to a dish. Love.

Side note: My mom wrote a note in the BH&G when she came to stay for a week last year after Aisling was born and I just found it a couple months ago. It is next to the recipe for "Everyday Waffles" (a family favorite!) and says "I love you, Riss. -Mom" Simple, but profound. I was immediately transported back to those crazy, surreal newborn days and bawled like a baby thinking of how much she helped us and how loving she is, not to mention all the fantastic food she made for us. Dammit, I'm getting all misty again just writing about it. She is amazing. :)

Last Night's Dinner

I made Cavatini (Mom's recipe) with Italian sausage and bowtie noodles. Added some veggies for extra nutrition: red peppers, carrots, celery, and onion. Of course I overcooked it in this damned too-fast oven...still pretty yummy though. Served with salad, garlic bread, and a crappy Chianti. Voila!

Dessert was a recipe for lemon bars off the label on a can of store-brand condensed milk. I substituted fresh lime juice for lemon since I had a bunch of limes turning brown in the fridge. They were good, but a little custard-y for my taste (I was hoping for lemon-bar consistency, but the condensed milk made them a lot creamier/richer than that). Not too bad though, just don't eat three in one sitting, haha.

Fall Themed Carrot Cake

Can't wait to taste it...carrot cake made 100% from scratch to bring to the Greenblatts' football season kickoff party.

Recipe: Ruth Glass' Carrot Cake (Rane gave me this recipe a few years ago, Ruth Glass is the wife of owner of the Royals), with homemade cream cheese frosting and decorated with mellowcreme pumpkins. (Not decorated very well, granted, but decorated nonetheless).

I tweaked the recipe a bit:

• reduced oil from 1-1/2 c. to just under 1 c. (1-1/2 c. of oil is A LOT, and it made it kind of greasy the first time I made this recipe)
• added 1 t. nutmeg
• reduced nuts from 1 c. to 3/4 c. (because not everybody likes a lot of nuts. And yes, I'm giggling at that line.)
  
• used 1 t. each of baking powder and soda instead of 2 t. soda.

What I learned: the longer you screw around with frosting, the worse it starts to look. LOL.

German Food is Awesome

We enjoyed some delicious brats, pretzels, and beer at Germanfest yesterday...soooo good! We can't wait to go to Germany someday and enjoy the real thing!

Adventures in Pork

Disclaimer: Yes, I know that this picture looks disgusting. I forgot to take one before dinner. It didn't look this bad in person, I swear. Also, my husband chuckles every time he sees the title "Adventures in Pork." And I have to admit, I do too...what can I say, our minds are in the gutter.

Anyway...tried a new recipe tonight: "One-Pan Roasted Pork Supper" from KF&F (Winter 2008); it was decent but I wasn't overly impressed. I was excited since 1)it was an easy casserole type meal that has sweet potatoes (!) in it and 2) I could just pop it in the oven and forget about it. I used 3 pork chops (they were pretty thick so I cut them into 2 cutlets each). Since the pork chops were cut thinner and I cut the sweet potatoes fairly small, I baked it about 40 minutes instead of the 45-60 called for in the recipe. The sweet potatoes/onions were tossed in Catalina dressing, which was a bit sweet for me, next time I might try a vinaigrette or maybe just BBQ sauce or something. I had a box of cornbread stuffing mix which was ok, but extremely salty, so I will make my own stuffing mixture next time. A BBQ sauce/cornbread stuffing/chicken breast version of this recipe sounds tasty.

Aisling's Birthday Weekend

We trekked to KC for Labor Day weekend to see the family and celebrate Aisling's birthday with a bumblebee-themed party...a lot of work, but a lot of fun! My cake turned out ok after a long, torturous battle with frosting that melted, wouldn't turn the right color, and came out of a battery-powered cookie press looking like ass. Thankfully Rane saved the day and fixed my screw-ups, and everyone had a good time and some yummy cupcakes and hot dogs!

Happy Birthday, Aisling!

We celebrated with breakfast cupcakes, yum! Can't believe my baby is one year old already, it doesn't seem possible!

Making Aisling's Cupcakes

Chose a different (read: easier!) recipe than the TOHM one, since I knew I'd be baking/frosting after she went to bed tonight and needed something less time-intensive. They didn't get the nice round tops that I like, think I may have overstirred the batter a bit. But they smell delicious and I can't wait to taste them with the first lemon cream cheese frosting I've ever made. Now, do I wait till tomorrow for her birthday breakfast to break them out, or eat one (or maybe two) tonight?

Power of the Mind...

So I had one of those weird early-morning, between-conscious-and-unconscious dreams 2 days ago at about 4 a.m. The subject: Twinkies. I have not eaten a Twinkie in probably 5 or 10 years, but since that weird dream (which I will chalk up to the sleep-deprived, zombie-like state in which I have found myself for the last week...or year, to be more accurate), Twinkies are on my mind constantly! I finally caved today and bought a box...while it was not exactly the world's greatest dessert, and I am kind of wondering why I thought these were so good as a kid, I am not going to lie. I'm probably going to have another one in a minute. haha.

Cupcakes for the Birthday Girl

I have decided to try a new cupcake recipe for Aisling's birthday on Thursday, since we're having her party on the weekend and will have the bee cake then, we need some kind of cake for her actual birthday! I'm thinking lemon...must search for recipes that only make 12 cupcakes or so, since we won't be able to eat a huge batch before we leave on Saturday (welll...I could eat a huge batch of cake but I shouldn't, haha). More to come...

Found a recipe: Lemon Curd Cupcakes, from TOHM Apr/May '07.

Not Food Related

My little Baby Hulk cracks me up. In the midst of a fussy, cranky morning thanks to my attempts at sleep training (aka, an hour of screaming trying to get her to fall asleep for a nap on her own), I discovered that Aisling has bitten through the nipple of a pacifier. She's a beast!! hahaha. At least we know her teeth are coming along nicely.

Toddler Eats

We are taking care of our friends' little boy tonight while they go out, and it was so cute to see him and Aisling sitting across the table from one another. Just one of many dinners together they will enjoy, as they are destined to marry each other down the road, haha.

Watching a nearly 1-year old and a 1-1/2 year old chow down on hot dog chunks, Easy Mac, and Yogurt Melts really struck me...how do they know to like junk food? Are humans hardwired after eons of evolution to seek out and enjoy food that is basically poison to their bodies? I love hot dogs, and have been known to get down on some mac n' cheese now and again. But these kids are new here, and don't know that this crap is what people crave and eat so much of that two thirds of their fellow Americans are obese. Yet, there they were, loving every greasy, non-nutritious, artificially colored bite. Strange. At least they liked the carrots and Cheerios too :)

Shorthand/Abbreviations Key

Cookbooks
BC: Betty Crocker
BH&G: Better Homes & Gardens
GCC: Guide to Country Cooking
TOHC: Taste of Home Cookbook
TOHH: Taste of Home Holiday
WM: Wal-Mart Cookbook

Magazines
BH&GM: Better Homes & Gardens
KF&F: Kraft Food & Family
RS: Real Simple
TOHM: Taste of Home

First Pizza

Well, my dreams of soft, chewy, fluffy homemade pizza crust went up in hard crunchy thin-crust smoke, as my dough barely rose at all. Probably b/c the yeast I used was expired by about 6 months but I thought it would still work...fail. It was still pretty tasty, but unfortunately not all I had hoped for by any means! Baby enjoyed her first taste of pizza though, so that was fun.

Crust recipe: New BH&G. Used about 3/4 c. of whole wheat flour out of 3-1/4 total.
Toppings: Pepperoni, Italian sausage, onions, diced tomatoes, mozzarella & cheddar cheeses.

Topics for Future Posts

Just so I don't forget:

The best thing(s) I ever ate
Bee cake
Beer/wine love
Cooking w/ an almost-1-year-old at your feet
Holiday cooking
Cooking goals/things to try to make
Cooking & freezing in preparation for arrival of a baby

In the beginning...

...there was the first post. And it was lame. I've finally caved and started this food blog I've been talking about/thinking about doing for a couple months now, mostly to get my recipe and cooking successes/failures/thoughts/notes down somewhere, with pictures in their full Technicolor glory so I can remember/adjust/keep track of my cooking life. And yes, in the interest of full disclosure, I fully admit that the fact that the movie "Julie and Julia" came out recently gave me that final push to get started (though I have not even seen the movie...sigh. I miss going to movies). Not that I have any illusions that anyone will read this blog except for me and maybe my husband and a few random family members. But...probably just me. Anyway...I shall dive in headfirst and make my first cooking entry tonight...pizza!