French Onion Soup

Dinner tonight was french onion soup from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking".

It takes a while but is pretty easy.  Bon Appetit!

Julie & Julia

So, I watched Julie & Julia last night. I had read the book years ago and enjoyed it but am not much of a movie watcher.  I am glad I did.  It was one of those very rare movies that actually kept me sitting on the couch for its entirety. I mean, I did feel a fleeting urge to get up and start cleaning, but I persevered and stayed seated and the urge past.




If you love food, which I do, the movie made you want to cook. It actually made you want to cook French food with all its buttery goodness. It also made me want to blog more, which I don’t do often enough, probably because my computer is junk and I am too lazy to download my photos.



I hate my job. It’s a scary thing to write that out in the world where anyone, including my bosses, could read it. But I do hate it. No one reason stands out, just a lot of little reasons that basically add up to it just not being the best place for me to work. “Not the right fit” is the phrase that comes to mind. I mention this now because the movie made me realize that I am not alone in feeling like I am lost in the day to day routine existence. And like Julie, I think I could benefit from undertaking some sort of project or goal.



But what would I do? How would I find a way to do something similar but unique…



I guess I need to think about that for a bit.



Any ideas?



Well, regardless- if you haven’t already you should watch the movie.

Hamersley's Desserts... Not so sweet

After an amazing dinner at Hamersley's Bistro you may still want a little something sweet.

The high point on the dessert menu is the warm sticky toffee pudding. The warm and almost-but-not-quite-too-sweet pudding is complimented perfectly by divine coffee ice cream. It was the cleanest plate on the table at the end of the course with everyone clamoring for the last bite.

The apple tart had a delicious oat flavor, but the crumb topping seemed dry. The crust resembled a filo dough shell, which might work with a more complex filling but this apple filling seemed lacking in everything- including apple. It felt more like a healthy or low fat dessert- which is fine if that is what it is supposed to be but disapointing if you are looking to induldge.

The pumpkin bread pudding with perfect ginger ice cream was well executed but still lacking in a wow factor. It was enjoyable but not memorable.

In the search for a fourth and final dessert to try, even the waiter struggled to give a believable recommendation between either the creme brulee, lemon custard cake or upside down pear cake. After settling on the pear upside down cake, it was found to be rather dry and uninteresting in texture and deeply lacking in the advertised spice. The cranberry sorbet was the high point on the plate. Just tart and just sweet enough, it was easy to enjoy. Although it is possible that the cake would have benefited more from a richer or fattier accompaniment.

Hamersley's is well worth a visit for dinner, but if you are looking for some dessert after your meal it might be worth walking to one of the other restaurants in the area.

Bear Naked Grain-ola Bar

I got a free sample in the mail yesterday of Bear Naked Grain-ola bar.  I tend not to be much of a granola bar/power bar/energy bar kind of girl.  I may eat dessert after every meal including breakfast, but I think health food should be as un-processed as possible.  Why eat a granola bar loaded with sugar and fillers when you could eat some nuts and some dried fruit- also shelf stable, also capable of curbing your afternoon sugar craving.  That's not to say I don't eat them from time to time, but it's usually when I have done a poor job of planning out my food intake for that day.  I was impressed, as always, by bear naked's packaging.  It has a simple and clean look that is always so appealing to me. 

The ingredients were fairly impressive.  It uses maple syrup as a sweetener- that and honey are always my first choice, especially for convenience foods but also contains tapioca syrup, an ingredient I have only recently begun to find in foods and am a bit unsure of.  The bar does have a clean and healthy flavor.  You can really taste the individual ingredients.  The texture is a little too chewy for my taste- I tend to lean towards crunchy granola bars and this is a clearly chewy granola bar. 

Over all it is a product that I would buy if I was in the market for some granola bars.  With 4 grams of fiber and a reasonable 14 grams of sugar it might be the best and most filling bar I have come across. 

If you are interested in learning more about the product check out their website.  BearNaked.com

Whatever you do don't mistakenly go to BareNaked. com like I did.

The Bake Off

While in NY for our BBQ competition, I entered Sayville's 1st Annual Bake Off.  There were four categories: 
1.  Cookies and Bars
2.  Muffins and Breads
3.  Pies, Tarts and Pastries
4.  Cakes

I am proud to say that I won 3rd place for my individual pumpkin layer cakes with vanilla bean tuile.

And 2nd place for my triple chocolate tartlettes.

Award winning brisket!!!

I love all things edible. I work as a Pastry Chef which is fantiastically fun, but also means I can get pretty sick of eating and making sweet things. To sort of counter balance all of this sugar, I am on a competitive barbecue and grilling team.  What started as a fun idea to hang out with friends (and get free beer) has turned into a borderline obsession for my boyfriend!  Which is why we drove 5 hours each way for a one day Kansas City Barbecue Society competition.

It was our second competition as a team (although we helped another team, Meat at Slim's, out at the Maine State competition in August).  We've learned so much since we started our BBQ team.  At our first competition, Scott and I were in charge of the brisket.  Perhaps because of that, it has a special spot in our heart. 

This was a tough competition.  The weather forecast had been looming over us all week.  And it delivered.  The rain and wind over night were insane.  And the thing about BBQ is that although the competition is Sunday, the preparations and cooking start Saturday night.  I have very little to do with the cooking.  My job tends to be more on the sauce and rub making and the presentation of our final product.  Scott was up every hour in the rain to check our meats progress.  I am still not sure how he did it. 

It was a long night.  We were both soaked for most of it.  But Sunday was a sunny day, and it was a great day.  We got all our competition boxes in on time and felt confident this was our best showing.  (Not hard- our first competition we were average at best)

Prior to the KCBS results being announced there was a small "celebrity judging" of ribs and chicken.  We were thrilled to win 1st place in chicken.  As a team we had never won anything!  It was a thrill.  We won $100 off next years entry fee.  We will be back! 

KCBS always announces the top ten teams in each of the categories- chicken, ribs, pulled pork and brisket.  With our celebrity judge win, I felt pretty confident we would at least make the top ten of KCBS in Chicken.  We didn't.  In fact our chicken was judged by the official judges to be 37th out of 45 teams.  Just goes to show that "regular people" and KCBS aren't looking for the same thing in the world of chicken...

We managed to pull a solid 20th in ribs, a lowly 34 in pulled pork (often considered the toughest category), and- drum roll please- a thrilling 4th place in Brisket.  We won $74 and a medal.  We officially have award winning brisket!

Pizza. It's what's for dinner...

I had every intention of stopping by Parziale's Bakery on my way to work yesterday to pick up some pizza dough. If you have never tried their pizza dough- you should. It is quite possibly the yummiest and most affordable pizza dough in the Boston Area. It bakes up chewy and thick and perfect. Be warned, however... if you are a thin crust lover this is NOT the dough for you.

I realized on my drive towards the bakery that I had forgotton my wallet. Since there are very few store bought doughs I find are worth the money, I realized pretty quickly that I would be making some pizza dough tonight.

It's remarkably easy and inexpensive to make pizza dough at home.

Jane's Pizza Dough
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
3 1/3 cups bread flour
extra flour to knead

Mix yeast and water.  Let sit for 5 minutes.

Add remaining ingredients.  Stir with spoon until it starts to come together. Then knead on the counter with a little extra flour until the dough starts to smooth out.  Place in a greased bowl to rise for 90 minutes.  Then enjoy!

The cookbook I am loving right now...

You will probably realize quickly that I love pretty much everything that comes out of America's Test Kitchen. If you aren't familiar with how they work, they basically decide on a recipe they want to develop and then have a team of very talented people perfect this recipe. It pretty much guarantees that the recipe they publish will be the best (albeit not always the easiest) version of whatever you are looking up. Equally as great is that they tell you WHY they do or do not do certain things.

So you can not only make a great recipe, but you can learn something in the process!

My favorite recipes in this book- Blondies and Banana Bread. Yum!