Braisin' Hussy

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 20:30:00 +0000

Here's something dumb.

Last week I made a box of mac&cheese. I had an extra little container of pico de gallo from Taqueria Los Charros (my favorite burrito place) and threw it in. Oh my god, it was delicious. I know I'm probably the last person to come around to this (I've read people singing the praises of Ro-tel many times before), but gosh, it was really good. I was really surprised.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 00:50:00 +0000

I started a new sewing project yesterday. So obviously I needed to take a break and bake today. It's funny what I'll do when I'm avoiding something.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 00:41:00 +0000

Cinnamon Quick Bread

4 Tbsp butter
1 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup vinegar+milk substitution)
2 cups flour

2 Tbsp butter
1 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp brown sugar

Heat oven to 350. Spray a 9x5 loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray. (Optional: put some extra sugar and cinnamon in the bottom and up the sides of the loaf pan.)

Cream butter and sugar together in a stand mixer. Add baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt and mix together. Add vanilla and eggs and mix. Pour the buttermilk in slowly while mixer is running. Add flour 1 cup at a time and mix until you have a smooth batter. Pour into loaf pan.

In empty mixer, combine butter, sugar, and cinnamon into a paste. Dot the loaf with bits of the paste and push them down into the pan.

Bake on a sheet pan (just in case there's any overflow) in the middle of the oven. Start checking on it after 45 minutes, but it will probably take closer to an hour.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:54:00 +0000

The following recipe is my attempt to turn this cake into a quick bread. I think I did a decent job. I was sort of winging it, because that's ALWAYS a good idea when baking. I did not feel like whipping egg whites, so I chucked in a whole egg and omitted the oil. I was worried that it'd spill over in the oven, so I put a baking sheet under the loaf pan, but it turned out I needn't have worried. It rose above the loaf pan and cracked across the top, but all the batter stayed in place. The loaf I made tastes spiced (duh) which is then followed by a very strong wheat flavor from the whole wheat flour. It's not bad, but I think it'd be more pleasant with AP flour. It's better after a night of rest, the flavors are melding together better. It's (not surprisingly) good with tea.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:37:00 +0000

Chai Quick Bread

1/2 cup REALLY STRONG chai tea (black), cooled

2.5 cups flour (I used whole wheat, AP'd be better)

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

1 Tbsp crystallized ginger, chopped, optional

2 Tbsp cream cheese

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 cup buttermilk (or equivalent vinegar-milk substitution)

1 egg

cooking spray

Heat oven to 350. Prepare a loaf pan with cooking spray. Cream together butter, cream cheese, and sugars in a large bowl or stand mixer. Add salt, baking soda, cardamom, cinnamon, and ginger (if using) and mix together. Scrape down the sides of the bowl/mixer, and add the egg, tea, and buttermilk. Mix together (yes, it'll be quite soupy looking). Add the flour in three batches, mixing thoroughly until combined. Pour batter into pan. The batter should fill to about half or 3/4 of an inch to the top. Bake for 1 hour (well, start checking on it after 45 minutes—I think mine took closer to 75, but I was using denser flour and stuff).

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:30:00 +0000

I had the best sidecar ever last year at Serpentine. They make theirs with Qi White (which is SO MUCH BETTER than Qi Black, that monstrosity made with Lapsang Souchong). Back at FallFest... 2007, maybe?... I tried a bunch of wines from Quady Winery. They make great stuff. I bought a bottle of Essensia the other day to share with my friend Sylvie, and decided to use the leftovers to make a Sidecar that would hopefully rival the wonderful one I had at Serpentine. I think it worked!

Oh yeah, I'm 30 now. And this blog is six years old. Woo!

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:16:00 +0000

Essensia Sidecar

1.5 oz. Essensia orange muscat wine
1 oz. freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 oz. brandy

Combine in a shaker with ice and shake well. Strain into a chilled glass.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:57:00 +0000

Gingery Maple Cookies
badly cribbed from Cook's Country

1 1/2 cup AP flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp table salt
1 tsp ground ginger
1 stick butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 tsp maple extract
3 Tbsp minced crystallized ginger
1/4 cup white sugar

Heat oven to 350.

Cream the butter and brown sugar. Mix in the egg, maple syrup, and maple extract. Add the flour, baking soda, salt, ground ginger, and crystallized ginger and mix to combine. Place the white sugar in a bowl. Roll the dough in 1-inch balls, then toss with the sugar to coat. Place on baking sheet, then flatten with a drinking glass (I apparently forgot to copy down this step- mine turned out puffy instead of flat). Bake for 10-12 minutes.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:54:00 +0000

New & Improved Spiced Nuts

1 lb nuts (I used almonds, pecans, cashews, and walnuts)
1 egg white
1 Tbsp apple cider (I used Trader Joe's spiced cider)
1 tsp table salt

1/2 cup white sugar
1.5 Tbsp black pepper
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp nutmeg

butter or cooking spray, to prepare the pan

Heat oven to 300. Prepare a sheet pan with a bit of butter or cooking spray. (I used a smallish nonstick roasting pan.)

Whisk together the egg white, apple cider, and salt. Mix in the nuts and stir to coat thoroughly. Drain in a colander for 5 minutes. Combine the sugar and spices and mix with the drained nuts. Spread in pan. Roast for 45 minutes, stirring every 10-15 minutes. Let cool and break apart any clumped together nuts.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:40:00 +0000

I made four pounds of spiced nuts last night during D&D for our company holiday potluck. It turned out that four pounds is more than I thought. I had them in a large Pyrex bowl, but it was overflowing. So I grabbed my big ol' cast iron French oven (not a Dutch oven, heavens no, Le Creuset wouldn't want to sully their name so) and mixed them up in there. I used a pound each of pecans, almonds, cashews, and walnuts. It's basically the Peppered Pecans recipe made without the butter, and using the "coat in egg white and liquid then drain for five minutes before baking" method I got from the Orange-Cardamom Spiced Nuts. So they're very crunchy, which was the only problem I had with the Pecans recipe.

The party is tomorrow. My coworkers better like them!

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 06:36:00 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a killer meal. Dad made a kosher turkey for the first time. We've brined birds before, but my folks aren't keen on the texture (I think they're nuts, but whatever). My dad was annoyed at the amount of feathers he had to pull out, but after butterflying it and stuffing a bunch of heavily herbed butter under the skin, we all agreed that it was the most delicious turkey we had eaten. I think we may continue with kosher birds in the future.

I made the chipotle-maple sweet potatoes. I need to revise this recipe. I made it with less cream this time, and I think it turned out for the better. Mom made Death By Broccoli; she cubed the cheese instead of shredding it-easier! She also made crazy delicious creamed onions, mashed potatoes, and Brussels sprouts. I should post the recipe for those onions. They're from Julia and Jacques: Cooking at Home, except Mom roasted the onions first, instead of parboiling them. The roasting added a incredible layer of flavor. Delicious Maillard reaction!

Jon brought green bean casserole (using a Cook's Illustrated recipe), and Ryan brought cranberry sauce and both pumpkin and apple-cranberry pies. I had half a slice of the apple-cranberry. I wanted to eat more but I was too stuffed!

Mom also made rutabagas and butternut squash, but I didn't partake. Same goes for Dad's gravy. I'm just not super-big on gravy; the turkey was juicy enough without it (plus I was using the cream from the onions on everything, it was so good).

How was your Turkey Day?

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:42:00 +0000

I made these for Lydia's birthday, because girl loves cardamom. Unfortunately, they're not super-cardamom-y. The orange flavor kind of overwhelms them.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:33:00 +0000

Orange-Cardamom Spiced Nuts

Cribbed badly from Cook's Country

1 egg white

1 Tbsp orange juice

1 Tbsp orange zest

1/4 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cardamom

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup sugar

1 lb nuts (almonds or pistachios work best)

Heat your oven to 300. Coat a large baking sheet with nonstick spray. Whisk together the egg white, juice, zest, vanilla, and salt. Coat the nuts in the mixture, then drain in a colander for 5 minutes. Combine the sugar, cardamom, and pepper. Toss with the nuts, then spread on the baking sheet. Bake 45 minutes, stirring every 10-15 minutes. Cool, continuing to stir every 15-3o minutes. They'll probably be sticking together and need to be broken apart once cool.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:44:00 +0000

My roommate Mark was making chili for a potluck, and bought masses of blue cheese. He only ended up using half of what he bought, so I was trying to find ways to use the rest of it. (There are still three 8-ounce containers in our fridge.) I sort of made this up on the fly, I guess? It's pretty tasty, but SUPER-RICH.

Any ideas on what I can do with the rest?

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:25:00 +0000

Pasta with Chipotle-Blue Cheese Sauce

1/4 onion, chopped fine
1 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp oil
1 Tbsp AP flour
1 cup milk
salt
pinch ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground chipotle pepper (more if you like)
6 oz. blue cheese
6 oz. some kind of shapey pasta (two servings-ish)

Cook pasta. While water is coming to a boil and pasta is cooking, make the sauce.

Melt the butter and oil together over medium-high heat. Add the onion and some salt. Cook, stirring fairly constantly, until the onion browns a bit. Add the flour and stir constantly until the flour melts and the whole thing turns a medium brownish. Slowly add the milk, stirring constantly (at this point, if you're me, you also nearly steam-burn yourself). Lower the heat to medium and bring back up to a boil, still stirring constantly. Add the chipotle and nutmeg. As the sauce thickens, add the blue cheese and stir until integrated. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Keep over extremely low heat while the pasta finishes cooking. Drain pasta and stir into sauce. Serve immediately (heated bowls would be best to keep the sauce at its best).

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:11:00 +0000

Last month, I went to my friend Cristina's birthday party at the Crown & Crumpet tea room in San Francisco. Had a great time, even if I misread the invitation, arrived two hours early, and was subsequently killed by the cost of parking. It's a really cute establishment, and the tea service was lovely.

Read Cristina's review here!

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:34:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, I gave this cookie recipe a shot. It did not work. At all.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:11:00 +0000

I threw a handful of baby spinach into my Rather Boring Pantry Pasta at the very end and wilted it. It was highly tasty.

I have added it to the recipe variations.

There is a very good, very easy recipe in this blog post, if you are as fond of garbanzo beans as I am.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:47:00 +0000

Caprese Salad with Garbanzos

last night's dinner

1 15-oz. can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed

Juice of 1 lemon

1 Tbsp olive oil

6 small tomatoes, quartered (a handful of halved cherry tomatoes would work well)

1 mozzarella bocconcini, chopped (probably 2 oz.)

Basil chiffonade

Salt and pepper, to taste

Mix together and nom. I didn't have any bread, unfortunately. That would have been good.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:53:00 +0000

Better Artichoke Dip

better than this one, I mean

2 15-oz. cans of artichoke hearts (not marinated!), drained and rinsed

8 oz. sour cream

1/3 cup mayonnaise (light is fine for the mayo and sour cream)

1/3 cup shredded parmesan, plus extra for topping

1/3 cup bread crumbs

1 clove garlic, minced

Zest of 1 lemon

Pinch of cayenne pepper (heavy pinch if you're me)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Heat oven to 350. Put all ingredients in a food processor and pulse to combine (about ten times). Empty into an ovenproof 8x8 casserole. Top with parmesan cheese. Bake uncovered for about half an hour, or until top is brown. (I got impatient and turned on the broiler after about twenty minutes.)

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:13:00 +0000

Well, since my last post, I started a job, hated a job, and ended a job. June was a busy month. I haven't really been cooking much, apart from the occasional Rather Boring Pantry Pasta. I made a scrambled egg on toast this morning. That was delicious. I don't eat enough breakfast. Looking at the front page of the blog, I kind of want to make the Smoked Ham Hocks and Cranberry Beans again. It's not really a summer dish, though.

I biked 15 miles yesterday. I feel good about that.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:18:00 +0000

I had an interview in Menlo Park this morning (it went okay), and afterward I took the opportunity (since I'm not often in Menlo these days) to check out the new Penzey's Spices store that opened last year. It was pretty sweet! I had a coupon for a free jar of ground black pepper, which I used mostly to get a free spice jar. I figure I'll use what I can over the next month or two, pitch the rest, and then fill it up with something else. I have many spices sitting in plastic bags.

Ryan and Jon bought me a jar of Mexican vanilla extract from Penzey's a few years ago. It was, bar none, the best vanilla I've ever tasted/smelled/used. They stopped carrying it a while back, I guess because the crop had shrunk or something. So I was all a-woe and went back to Madagascar/Tahitian vanilla. BUT! Apparently, although they don't say they carry it in their catalogs or on their website, they DO have it in their physical stores! I was so incredibly excited to see it (almost as much as that time I was at Baja Fresh and they had switched from Pepsi to Coke products). So I ended up buying the Mexican vanilla, some chili powder, the Pasta Sprinkle I like, and the free pepper.

The store's really cute, too. Go visit!

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:47:00 +0000

I was making some tomato sauce a few weeks ago, and I needed some red wine. Looking through our wine... document box, I discovered that ALL our wine is incredibly old (for a household of people who don't really care about that sort of thing). I used the newest bottle, which was a 2003 Ridge California Zinfandel York Creek. I only needed about a half cup for the sauce. The rest of the bottle was quite delicious.

My folks were over on Tuesday, and I told them about our old wines. I pulled out the oldest one, which was a 1997 Robert Mondavi Chardonnay. My mom boggled and told me I shouldn't keep white wines that long, and that it'd be a miracle if it hadn't turned to vinegar by this point. (A miracle it would be indeed, because we have never kept our wines properly [as evidenced by the document box storage]. Hell, we kept them out in the garage back in the old house, where they were subjected to a rather large swing of temperature.) But it wasn't vinegar! It was still pretty tasty! And I'm not really a fan of white wines.

So I thought I'd make a list of the wines we have. I don't know if any of these are good- I'm pretty sure most of them are gifts that we just never opened. A rather surprising amount of dessert wines.

1997 Monastero di Coriano Vin Santo - this was a gift from my parents
1999 Benziger McNab Ranch Merlot - this was probably a gift from my parents, since they know I like merlot
2000 Robert Mondavi Moscato d'Oro - pretty sure both the Mondavi bottles we had were inherited from Jeremy, who gave us all his wine&booze once he was tired of moving all the bottles around
2000 Beringer Gamay Beaujolais
2001 Beaulieu Vineyard BV Coastal Signature Series Merlot - once again, pretty sure this was a gift to me
2001 Victor Hugo Petite Sirah
2001 Byington Alliage Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon
2003 Schmitt Sohne Riesling
2005 Bonny Doon Moscato d'Asti
2006 Imagery Petite Syrah Port - birthday present this year from my parents, it's delicious with really dark chocolate

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Fri, 01 May 2009 06:10:00 +0000

Parsley Salad

Zest of 1 large lemon
Juice of 1 large lemon
1 small shallot, minced
1 tsp honey
1 tsp dijon mustard
2 Tbsp sesame oil
6 Tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
3 bunches Italian parsley, leaves only
3 Tbsp sesame seeds, toasted

Whisk first 8 ingredients together in a large bowl. Add parsley and toss to combine. Sprinkle sesame seeds over top. Chill for 1-4 hours.

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah the Hussy) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:07:00 +0000

Rather Boring Pantry Pasta

This is a photo of the variation using the vinaigrette.

I fail at my resolution to post once a month. March was a bad month all around, really. Lost my job. My credit card number was stolen. Exploded my computer. Good damn times.

D:<