God Bless U.S. America

I'll be, like, posting something about like, food or something soon. I've started my classes this week where I'm, like learning about places like The Iraq and South Africa.

In the meantime, such as, here's something for you to, like, look at. Which is funny. Such as.

Look at this: Mapsforus.org.

Panic Nowhere Near the Disco, or Gee, your loins are tender!

The following dish is what happens when you're cooking for your boyfriend for the first time, planning on grilling some pork tenderloin, and you turn on your gas grill, and it sputters for a moment and then you realize you're out of propane. Brilliant. So you get a little panicky, pop it in the oven, and pray pray pray that it won't explode or turn out dry and crumbly like an Easy Bake Oven cake.

But then you remember that you have this magnificent sauce (from the great state of Texas) that would make even an Easy Bake Oven experiment taste like something from Alain Ducasse's kitchen: Fischer & Wieser's Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce. It's smokey, savory, and and sweet all at once, and can be used as an accompaniment to pretty much any meatstuff, to make salad dressings, even as a topping for vanilla ice cream. It can also be used to power cars and may be the cure for some communicable diseases, but test results are pending.

Oven-Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Raspberry Chipotle Sauce

Recipe adapted from here
Serves 4

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tsp. dried rosemary

1 tsp. dried thyme

1 clove of garlic, minced

1/2 tsp. sea salt

1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

2 (1-pound each) pork tenderloins

1 botttle Fischer & Wieser's Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees, and trim tenderloins of excess fat.

2. In a bowl, whisk together olive oil, rosemary, thyme, garlic, salt and pepper.

3. Give both tenderloins a sensual MAH-ssage with olive oil mixture, and place in a shallow baking dish.

4. Roast in the oven for 30-35 minutes or until juices run clear, turning once halfway through.

5. Five minutes before meat is done, heat sauce in a shallow saucepan. Hide the bottle if you want people to think you made it yourself.

6. Slice meat into medallions, and serve with heated sauce.

Optional side dish: 10 minutes before the meat is done roasting, place about 25 asparagus spears tossed in olive oil, salt, and pepper on a cookie sheet in the oven, too. Let them cook for 10 minutes and remove with the meat. Top with a bit of shaved parmigiano-reggiano cheese.

Notes:

1. This tenderloin turned out perfectly! Juicy, tender, delicious. Who needs a grill, anyway?

2. If you live in the DC area, I've found Fischer & Wieser sauces at the Spring Valley SuperFresh, and at World Market in Chevy Chase. Go get some!

3. There is no picture because in my state of culinary-induced euphoria, I lost all inclinations toward photography. Plus I didn't want Boyfriend to see me maniacally arranging food on a plate in the manner of a stage mother shellacking her five-year-old's foot-high beauty pageant hair do ("Hold STILL, Amber!"). Maybe not so much of a turn-on.

Happy eating!

Hey kid! Check this out...

I’m an avid reader of the blog Chocolate & Zucchini (it’s about food! and France!), so I’ve been dying to get my hands on Clotilde Dusoulier’s cookbook of the same name. I finally picked it up, and it is absolutely adorable! (An odd description of a cookbook, I know, but it’s so petite and the photography is beautiful and each recipe comes with a little back-story, which I love…gaaah, if I ever reproduce I hope my kid is as cute as this cookbook.)

The book is a nice mix of simple and more complex dishes and desserts. Some may seem a bit exotic, and many seem to feature sardines (ew), but I’m looking forward to trying them out when I’m feeling adventurous. My only complaint is that the book doesn’t really seem to have any clear organizational pattern – no clear-cut appetizer/main-dish/dessert sections – but I suppose that’s part of its charm.

However, I’ve made three recipes so far – the gougères (cheese puffs), the gateau au yaourt (yogurt cake – so moist and delicious and EASY!), and the sablés au citron (lemon butter cookies), and each one has turned out fantastically.

In short, Clotilde’s enthusiasm for delicious food is absolutely infectious, and her recipes are spot-on and incredibly appetizing. I highly recommend it!

My cookies is so purty.

And then I gouged out her eyes with a rusty spoon.

This has nothing to do with anything, but I met someone really rude last night and it totally caught me off guard. Someone, who, when she walked in the room and I stood up to shake her hand and introduce myself, merely stared at me like I had an extra appendage growing out of my head. Someone who made no effort at pleasant conversation, but every effort to belittle me with questions that I knew she already knew the answers to. And it's not like the questions were that insulting - it was just insulting that she would try and play a snarky little game with me, when I'm someone she should be nice to, for reasons upon which I won't elaborate. (You never know who reads these things, right?)

Is it naïve of me to expect a certain level of friendliness from people I encounter? She could have at least been an adult about it and waited until I had left to put on her bitchy hat...

I comfort myself with the conviction that her bad manners are a poor reflection on her, not on me.

With that and copious amounts of red wine. And a cookie or two.



Photo Credit: Sydney Morning Herald (smh.com)

I know! I'll call my cooking show, "Everyday Mediocrity!"

In a few seconds, I will share with you a recipe for a medium-good stir fry. With pictures! Get excited.

But first, I will share with you something decidedly un-mediocre. And by share, I mean reccommend to you. This isn't Oprah, where everyone in the audience gets one of whatever I think is cool. And if it were, I would never give out PT Cruisers. Just so you know.

It is my latest musical obsession - Sara Bareilles' "Little Voice." This CD rocks. It's great music to commute to, to cook to, to knit fuzzy steering wheel covers to. I'm not sure how to describe it other than to say if Michelle Branch, John Mayer, and Fiona Apple had a musical threesome, Sara B. might be the result. It's pop-y and blues-y and soulful and catchy. To some, this may sound repulsive. To me, it's awesome in melodic form. Listen and love.

And now, for the goods.

Hairnet Optional: Ginger-Lime Beef Stir Fry
Serves 2
Adapted from Everyday Food Magazine (I forget which issue)

The mise en place, French for "shit you need to cook this dish"

2 cups cooked white rice (I like the Uncle Ben's Boil-in-a-Bag kind, because I'm classy like that)
1/2 pound sirloin steak, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp. flour
1 tsp. vegetable oil
6 oz. snow peas
4 scallions, chopped, with white and green parts separated
1 Tbsp. grated peeled ginger
pinch of red pepper flakes
juice of 1 lime
salt and pepper

1. Place sliced steak in a medium bowl. Sprinkle with flour and season with salt and pepper. Toss to coat.

2. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the steak for 1-2 minutes until browned on one side (not cooked all the way through.)

3. Add peas, white part of scallions, ginger, red pepper flakes, and 1/2 cup of water to skillet. Add more salt and pepper if desired. Cook 3-4 more minutes ('til steak is cooked through), turn off stove, and stir in lime juice and green part of scallions.

4. Serve over cooked rice.

Addendum: So, the more I look at the picture above, the more it disgusts me. I know everyone loves a visual aid, but honestly, doesn't the steak look foul there? All gray and Mystery Meat-y, like it should be served up by an obese woman named Sal in a hairnet. Ugh. I promise it doesn't taste as awful as it looks. But, if you never attempt this stir fry, I wouldn't blame you.

Missouri loves company, plus orgasmic pizza

Yeah, yeah, I've been slacking off. I've been in St. Louis this past week visiting The Family. For some reason as soon as the plane hits the Lambert tarmac, I lose all motivation to be a productive human being and nothing seems quite so enticing as sitting and watching television with The Dog on my parents' big comfy couch.

I did manage to cook up a four-course meal for my hard-working parental units last Monday that turned out quite superb. (I even did a cheese course! A CHEESE COURSE! God, I'm fancy.) I had every intention of taking pictures and posting recipes, but then I decided that my fan base of 2.5 people would just have to suck it up and look elsewhere for culinary inspiration.

I was so lazy this week that I didn't even make it to two food destinations that I was very much looking forward to - Ted Drewe's and Jilly's Cupcake Bar. Ted Drewe's is pretty much a summer staple in St. Louis - people wait in line for ridiculous amounts of time for their concretes - frozen custard in the vein of a Dairy Queen blizzard, but way better. Dairy Queen on crack, basically.

Jilly's is a new place in town that is pretty self-explanatory. Cupcakes. Lots of 'em. I've never been, but I've heard good things. I really wanted to go stuff my face with a Bee Sting or Chocolate Thunder (which, I'm pretty sure is the name of a sex toy) cupcake, even more so when there was a big article on the bakery in the Post-Dispatch. But, 'twas not meant to be.

I didn't make it to either of these places. But I did get a haircut and my teeth cleaned. Woohoo.

All this was made up for last night, though, when I bit into honest-to-Mabel the best pizza I have ever tasted. That is saying a lot. A lot a lot. It was at the Liberty Tavern in Clarendon (yes, folks, I'm back in town, let the party begin.) Here's a run down, in haiku form, because this pizza deserves a haiku:

The Summer Pizza

Sweet figs, salty ham

sit atop an air-light crust

cheesy seduction

Sooo...I'm not quitting my day job. But there you have it. I'm not sure that haiku actually captures the glory that is this pizza, but I just know that I've never wanted to write a haiku after leaving 2 Amy's, so the fact that I just did for this one should be an indication of its fabulousity. It's the stuff food dreams are made of. If soulmates came in pizza form, then I met mine last night. I think you get the picture. Hurry if you want some because the menu changes, and if you see an awkward girl full-on licking a pizza plate in the corner, that could be me, so say hi.

Oh no, that’s not a pot of gold. That’s CHEESE, baby.

Restaurant Week in a nutshell: Great for the wallet, shit for the waistline.

Case in point: dinner at The Melting Pot in Dupont last night. So much food! For $30.07, we got a four (4!) course meal that was immensely satisfying, and by satisfying I mean I felt like throwing up due to the sheer amount of food consumed, always a sign of a successful restaurant outing. I also felt quite smug at only paying 30 bucks for a meal that would probably cost upwards of 60, until I realized that on the second Tuesday of every month, they do a “Girl’s Night Out” thing and offer the same menu for…30 bucks. Exit smugness.

The first course was melted cheese with bread, apples, and (bizarrely) carrots and celery. What kind of fatass dips his carrots and celery in melted cheese? Like, hey! I’ve got some carrots…damn, I wish I had some nacho cheese. That would really make these veggies fantastic. In any case, all was well because fatass-ness is highly encouraged at The Melting Pot.

There’s a bunch of different cheeses to choose from, and since there were ten of us, we got three different kinds: the Wisconsin Trio (because everyone enjoys a threesome), cheddar, and fiesta! (Exclamation point is required for the fiesta! cheese.) The Wisconsin was definitely the best – creamy and sharp, with a sherry and white wine base, so you know it’s classy. Plus, from what I’ve heard, Wisconsin is just awesome. (Advice: don’t order the fiesta! – just go home and zap some Velveeta and salsa in the microwave.)

Next, the salad course. I had the California salad, which was greens, walnuts, and Gorgonzola (mmm…I love the taste of feet) and a walnut-raspberry vinaigrette. I ordered it because I was feeling masochistic and wanted to punish myself with smelly cheese.

I knew the meat course would be good. Who doesn’t love frying assorted pieces of animal in a vat of hot oil? They gave us two types of chicken, two tiny shrimp, some balsamic-marinated steak (yum), and a bizarre noodle-thing that tasted like it had cheesy mashed potatoes in the middle. After a 30-minute tutorial on proper fondue/frying techniques (terms like, “cross contamination” and “search-and-rescue spoon” were thrown around with complete seriousness), our waitress let us have at it. The oil was a-bubblin’, tempura batter was a-flyin’, good times were had by all. Oh! They also give you squash, mushrooms, broccoli, and potatoes. Potatoes take fucking forever to fry. Dot, my inner fat girl, was really irate.

Finally, the dessert arrived. We got three different types of chocolate – Cookies and Cream (white and dark chocolate and cookie crumbs), dark chocolate with peppermint Schnapps, and the Flaming Turtle (chocolate, caramel, and nuts that is LIT ON FIRE.) Honest to god, if I ever own a business I’m naming it the Flaming Turtle (e.g. Flaming Turtle Pub and Restaurant, Flaming Turtle Lawn Maintenance, Flaming Turtle Attorneys at Law.) These pots of chocolatey goodness were served with biscotti, bananas, strawberries, a tiny brownie, a single cube of pound cake (stingy, much?), some marshmallows, and a hunk of CHEESECAKE. Joygasm.

So, needless to say, I left the Melting Pot fat, sassy, and satiated, with the delightful smell of cooking oil lingering in my hair.

It was a great night.

Of Meat and Men

I love this article, although, honestly, I don't really need anyone to validate my decision to order a steak on a date. Also, I think it would be wise to point out that steak-ordering doesn't always have an ulterior motive - sometimes I just want a big hunk of animal flesh, 'kay?

I present to you...the Bastard Love Child of Daisy and Dannon

Here’s some things to know about me:

1. I lost 7 pounds this summer.
2. I am a magazine whore.

Here’s how these factoids apply:

1. I have since gained the weight I lost back. Something to do with mass consumption of baked goods coupled with eating out a lot…
2. I read an article in this month’s Allure about healthy foods that inspired me to get back on the healthy-eating bandwagon. At least for a day or two.

The article was called “Diet Saviors” and was about cult-favorite low-calorie foods. “Eureka!” I thought to myself. “I can test out these diet foods and still have plenty of fodder for my blog! Yessss.” Then I remembered that most low-cal foods taste like crap, and my enthusiasm waned a bit.
It didn’t stop me, though, from heading to my local SuperFresh and picking up one of the listed foods, Fage Total Yogurt (pronounced fa-yeh toe-tull yo-gurt.) According to the article, it is the number one selling yogurt in Greece (a huge accomplishment, apparently), jet-setters smuggle it when they travel to exotic locales, and health nuts judo chop store managers when they only carry the full-fat version. Plus this chick really likes it, and she's a nutritionist, so she must know what she's talking about. Sounds like a winner to me.
So, I tried it. And. It tasted like thick plain yogurt. Shocker. Granted, the 2% version does have 17 grams of protein and only 130 calories, plus lots of calcium to help avoid a future of hip and knee replacements, so that’s cool. I put some honey in it because it definitely needs a bit of sweet, and it made a decent and filling breakfast.
Um, so I guess if yogurt doesn't give you the willies, and you like to sweeten things yourself, you could maybe go buy this. Or you could eat some cereal with milk and call it a day.

Good talk, see you out there.

Tonight: The Melting Pot, for a hit of fondue goodness in celebration of Restaurant Week.

This weekend: Jet-setting to a not-so-exotic locale - St. Louis, Missouri. I will not be smuggling yogurt, in case you were wondering.

Photo credit: fageusa.com.

I self-medicate with baked goods.

Just plain fat and sassy.

Yesterday could best be described as angsty. My emotions were stuck somewhere back in 1999 (the fourteenth year of my existence, when I constantly just wanted to be left alone.) Absolutely nothing and everything was wrong – and I knew it from the start of the day when I found myself STANDING ON THE LEFT SIDE of the Metro escalator, completely oblivious until I heard the very audible sighs of fellow passengers behind me. The shame! I know better – I’m usually the one audibly sighing at the escalefters. (If any non-DC residents are reading this, standing on the left is as morally reprehensible as admitting you like shaking babies or mowing down elderly pedestrians on your Vespa.)

After a crummy start, the day just didn’t get better. Nothing bad happened, there is nothing emotionally scarring going on in my life (newly-minted boyfriend is fun and British, and life at my house is as drama-free as possible when you live with five other girls), but I couldn’t shake this general malaise that made me want to run home, slam my door, scream at a mother (any mother would do, really) about how she just doesn’t GET IT, and then play Sad People Music and wallow.

Instead, I baked. Cupcakes. And then everything was slightly better.

Banana-Hazelnut Cupcakes with Nutella Buttercream Frosting

Banana-Hazelnut Cupcakes
(Cupcake recipe adapted from Cupcake Bakeshop)
Makes about 22 cupcakes

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
3 medium bananas
½ cup buttermilk
3 large eggs
¾ cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ cup chopped hazelnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a largeish bowl, mix flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder together.
3. Blend bananas and buttermilk in a blender or food processor until smooth.
4. In another bowl, combine banana gloop from blender, eggs, veggie oil, and vanilla.
5. Fold flour mixture into wet mixture then stir in hazelnuts.
6. Spoon into cupcake papers until about ¾ full.
7. Bake for 20-22 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
8. Let cupcakes cool completely, then pipe on frosting and top with a caramelized banana disk or any extra hazelnuts.

Nutella Buttercream Frosting
(Recipe adapted from here.)

¼ cup butter, softened
½ cup Nutella, foodstuff of the gods
3 cups powdered sugar
3 Tbsp. milk
pinch of salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Dump all ingredients in a bowl and beat on high until fluffy and frosting-like. Add more milk if needed.

Caramelized Banana Disks
(from Cupcake Bakeshop)

1 Tbsp. butter
a pinch or two of sugar
1 banana

Slice banana into thin disks. Melt some butter in a small skillet, then gently drop banana slices in and sprinkle with sugar. (It’s probably best to do this in batches.) Sauté bananas for a minute or two until they turn brownish and slightly crisp. Remove and blot on paper towels or old term papers.

Troubleshooting. Smugly, like Trent the IT guy:

1. The cupcakes turned out to be muffins masquerading as cupcakes. Phantom of the Opera comes to mind (“MASQUERAAAAADE, cupcake faces on paraaaaade.”) Wow, moving on. To be fair, the website I got the recipe from said that the recipe was too dense and needed more work, but, I, like the rebel I am, skipped over reading the notes to very dense muffin-like results. Blast. I’m not sure what would rectify this. Suggestions? Okay, so I’m not as good as Trent at troubleshooting.

2. The frosting was incredible. Just sayin’. But, with a tendency to melt. You might want to pop the cupcakes in the fridge for a bit to let the frosting harden after, well, you frost.

3. IMPORTANT: I ran out of frosting by cupcake number 18, so I just used plain Nutella to frost the rest. Sheer laziness on my part, but I suggest doubling the frosting recipe.

4. The banana disk things were very greasy. I suggest if you use them as garnish, you blot them very well beforehand; otherwise they will slide right off the frosted cupcake in a buttery mess.

Notes on Top Chef: The result of 1 NesCafé, a large iced coffee, and 4 Diet Cokes, all before noon

As I was rotting my brain in front of the television yesterday (having left work early to admit the plumber to my drainage-challenged house), I had the following thoughts about the cultural phenomenon that's changing the way we live, Top Chef Miami:

1. Bravo is a great television station, for having Top Chef marathons every other day. (The same goes for VH1 and Top Model marathons. Really, stations, are you purposely trying to render me a completely unproductive member of society?)

2. It's pretty sad that I watch marathons of anything, and that watching said marathons is the closet I'll ever get to actually participating in one of any kind.

3. I don't care what my friends say, I do not have a Daddy complex just because I find Chef Tom hot. (Something about his shiny bald head, the way his last name rolls of the tongue - COLICCHIO, Coliiiiiichio - and his ability to cut through contestants' bullshit -"Taking pannacotta and freezing it does not make a semifreddo!"- ugh, gets me every time.)

4. Several things bother me about Padma:
- the scar (I know she got it in some horrible accident and I should be empathetic, but it's just so shiny)
- the fact that she's married to Salman Rushdie (WHAT? he may be a genius, but how the F did that happen?)
- that she is a supermodel-actress-writer-FOOD EXPERT? huh? Plus, her voice just irritates me.

5. I would never eat at a restaurant where Howie worked, as sweat is not an ingredient I enjoy in a meal. The man perspires a bathtub's worth every episode. Why has no one addressed this? They literally show him DRIPPING IN THE FOOD. And his mood swings are those of a 13-year-old girl. ("I hate Joey. I love Joey.") Kick him OFF, already.

6. I have a huge girl crush on Casey. ("No, seriously. Can I be you?")

7. Rocco diSpirito: Major hottie. (Did I just say "hottie?") Major asshole. If Top Chef were high school, he'd be the guy that everyone follows around and wants to be (or bang), but no one actually likes.

I have way too much time on my hands.

The French Paradox and the Easiest Dessert Ever

Alors, I eat and eat and yet I gain nozing...

Perhaps one of my favorite things about living in Paris was eating everything in sight and not gaining a pound. I’m not sure if it was all the walking I did or if there was actually something in the water, but I ended up losing weight in France despite eating dessert every day. And we’re not talking fruit, we’re talking gooey, fatty, buttery pastries, or my favorite, crepes. (Were I to live this lifestyle in the States, I would blow up like a pregnant Tori Spelling before you could say "croissant.") My favorite crepe stand was what my friends and I affectionately referred to as “the blue awning place” off Rue de la Huchette (its real name is Boulangerie de Papa) next to the St. Michel Metro. I highly recommend it if you make it to Paris.
Unfortunately, creperies are slightly less ubiquitous here in the states, but luckily these delightful treats are super easy to make at home.

Dessert Crepes
Recipe adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook.
Makes 4 medium-sized crepes.

2 eggs
6 Tbsp. all purpose flour
½ cup milk
A couple pinches of sugar

1. Mix together eggs and flour until blended.
2. Add milk and stir until batter is runny. Add sugar. It will pretty much look like creamy snot at this point.
3. In a crepe pan or medium-large frying pan* pour out ¼ of the batter and swirl the pan around so the batter coats the pan in a thin layer.
4. Cook over high heat for a minute or two, then flip. Once you’ve flipped, you can drizzle on a topping (examples: sugar and lemon juice, Nutella and bananas, whipped cream, paper clips and thumb tacks for enemies, etc.)
5. Fold in half, dust with powdered sugar if desired, serve.

(Note: The Gourmet recipe calls for Grand Marnier. I’m in college and can barely afford the vodka that comes in the plastic bottle, thus, I did not include it. Toss a teaspoon or so in the batter if you like.)

*Is there really a difference as far as the outcome? Methinks no. I'm going to call Brian Williams and suggest crepe pans as an episode topic for "The Fleecing of America."

Boulangerie Photo Credit: B. Rinne