Boys for Dinner

Because I've been known to use their laundry machines, and cooking for people is kind of my new favorite thing, I invited Evan's roommates over for dinner. I had a leftover pork loin in the freezer from the last time I made Brown Sugar Spiced Pork Loin, and it was so good the first time I just made that one again. I bought the groceries ahead of time (even took a trip to Trader Joe's during work today) so I would have plenty of time for prep when I got home. Since timing is the hardest part of cooking, especially with guests coming over, I find it helpful to plan out the meal on a mini timeline so everything finishes at the same time and nothing is forgotten. 

~Menu~

Garlic Mashed Potatoes

(Leftover) Sweet Potato Chowder

Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Brown Sugar Spiced Pork Loin

Pound Cake with Blueberry Sauce and Whipped Cream

I also find it helpful to prep as much as possible before actually cooking anything. I got the grating cheese, dicing, sauce making, cream whipping and spice rub mixing all done before I even turned on the oven. 

I really liked these Brussel sprouts, a recipe of Ina Garten's, which were super simple with very few ingredients. 

All you need is:

1.5 lbs Brussel sprouts

3 tbsp olive oil

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

3 tbsp grated Parmesan Reggiano (I added this per my mom's suggestion, so good)

Preheat oven to 400, slice Brussel sprouts in half and coat with olive oil, salt and pepper. Spread on a pan and roast for 35-40 minutes, shaking the pan a few times to brown the sprouts evenly. 

Just like the first time I made the pork, I coated it in the spice rub, browned it in a pan with olive oil, coated with brown sugar mixture and roasted for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

Sometimes it pays to cut corners, as I did with the mashed potatoes. Buying the frozen ready-to-mash potatoes saves so much time and effort AND you can still doctor them up as you like. I sautéed a clove of minced garlic in a tablespoon of butter in a pan for a couple minutes, and added it to the finished mashed potatoes. 

Boy dinner parties are fun too, just with very different topics of conversation. 

Dessert was my favorite part (thank you to Evan's mother for sending us back with leftover pound cake!). I put a carton and a half of blueberries into a pot with the juice from half a lemon and 1-2 tbsp of sugar over medium heat for almost 10 minutes, until the mixture was syrupy and dark purple. Also, I whipped some whipping cream with a drop of vanilla and 2 tsp of sugar to put on top. I think everyone was really happy with the results. 
And I was happy when they did the dishes :)

Sweet Potato, Corn & Jalapeno Chowder

You'd think I'd have had enough sweet potatoes for a while. Apparently not. My mom sent me this recipe a few months ago. It's pretty easy if you have the right equipment, which I just barely did. Somehow, I still do not own a large pot. The largest one I have is maybe 3 quarts, which was not going to do. So I managed to make this chowder in a large saucepan, and it worked just fine.

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp peanut oil

1/2 cup chopped onions

2 tsp minced garlic

3 medium sweet potatoes (2 1/2 lbs total) peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes

4 cups vegetable or chix stock

1 medium jalapeno finely chopped (leave some seeds in for heat)

1 cup fresh or fzn corn kernels

1 tbsp brown sugar or molasses (I actually forgot to add this and it turned out fine)

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cayenne

1/4 black pepper

scant pinch cinnamon

chopped scallions for top

 In large saucepan or soup pot heat oil over medium heat. Add onions and garlic—saute till soft. Add sweet potatoes and stock and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are soft (about 10 minutes) remove from heat—in blender or food processor puree contents of pot—until smooth. Put puree back into pot over low flame, stirring in jalapeno, corn, sugar, salt, cayenne, black pepper, salt and cinnamon. Top with scallions and serve.

Evan brought home pita chips, which were crucial with this chowder - I highly recommend!

Thanksgiving and My New Camera

Happy belated Thanksgiving :) I had a lovely holiday down in Raleigh, NC and everything was delicious - especially the chocolate chess pie! I combined a few recipes to come up with a sweet potato dish that I thought was pretty good. 

Sweet Potatoes (top left), Broccoli Casserole, Dried Cherry Bourbon Stuffing

Ingredients:
4 sweet potatoes
2 eggs
1/8 cup honey
1/8 cup sugar
4 tbsp. softened butter
1/3 cup milk
2 tbsp. fresh orange juice
1 tsp orange zest
1/4 tsp cinnamon
dash of nutmeg 
... I think that's it.


Bake, boil or microwave the sweet potatoes until soft. Mash in a bowl, add eggs, milk & butter, combine with potatoes. Add the remaining ingredients, tasting until you think it's perfect. Spread into 9x13 inch pan.


For the crumble:
3/4 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 stick cold unsalted butter, diced
1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup chopped pecans
A dash of cinnamon


Mix all together with beaters until combined. Sprinkle over top of sweet potato mixture. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes.

Cranberry Relishes, Turkey, Brussel Sprouts, Corn Pudding

I apologize for camera phone pictures. During this time period I lost the ability to upload pictures with my old camera BUT Christmas came early for me as Evan and I went to pick out my new one at Best Buy a couple days after Thanksgiving :) I'm so excited about my Canon PowerShort SX130 and hopefully my food pictures will improve. 

Before we headed home, I was able to stop by Greensboro and visit with friends.

And help decorate the Christmas tree - isn't he precious?

No surprise to anyone, we got stuck in killer traffic starting about 100 miles out from DC, and it took an extra hour and a half to get home. 

Back to reality!

Dinner Party

Our dinner party of five was fun and delicious and I would love to be able to show you every moment of it...except my camera mysteriously died RIGHT before I started cooking. Tragedy. It may have been the 4/$1 batteries I bought at Target, or the fact my camera is super cheap...maybe I should start spending more money on things.

~Menu~

Cranberry Relish over Cream Cheese 

with Wheat Thins

Cream Cheese & Hot Pepper Jelly 

Fried Won Tons

Goat Cheese, Spinach & Roasted Red Pepper Pizza

Blueberry & Raspberry Custard Pie

It's a good thing this group liked cheese! Having both appetizers with cream cheese was not planned but they were so different it didn't matter.
I had the pizzas assembled ahead of time so I spent about 3 seconds in the kitchen while everyone was at our house.


Goat cheese, Spinach & Roasted Red Pepper Pizza
Ingredients: (measurements are up to you!)
4 flatbreads (or 2 thin crust pizza doughs) 
Spinach leaves
Mushrooms
Red onion
3 cloves garlic, minced and mixed into 4 tbsp. olive oil
Roasted Red Peppers, sliced
Goat cheese, crumbled
Basil, chopped

*Spread 1/2 olive oil & garlic mixture on the pizza crusts, then layer spinach leaves on top to cover. Spread mushrooms, onions, peppers, goat cheese and 1/2 the basil on top of the spinach. Drizzle with remaining olive oil. Bake at 400 for 12-15 minutes. Sprinkle remaining basil.

One of the girls, Lauren, brought a delicious pie that she had submitted in a pie competition at work the day before, but had lost. Those judges were crazy because this pie was amazing. I should know, I had two pieces last night and one when I got home from work today :)
Can't wait for the next dp!

Cranberry Relish and Success in Honeycomb Brittle

As I said, my roommate and I are having a little dinner party tomorrow night. Everyone is planning to bring something, and then there's me who is bringing about 5 things. I recently found a cranberry relish recipe in a blog I was dying to try so I added it to the menu. Since you can make that in advance, I got that out of the way today. 

I put the sugar and pomegranate juice in a pot to simmer and reduce. Meanwhile, I chopped the apples and mint, excavated the seeds from the pomegranate, zested the orange, added the salt and the juice had still not reduced. 40 minutes later it finally reached a "syrupy" consistency, and I poured it over the whole mixture. It's definitely more tart than your average cranberry sauce/relish but the difference is that these cranberries were never cooked, meaning they still have all of their antioxidants!

Then lunch. Goat cheese and basil scramble with a side of peanut butter & banana toast.

I knew I had to attempt the honeycomb brittle at least one more time. So, with trepidation and a new recipe, I made another batch. Hallelujah! Third time's the charm. It took precisely 10 minutes, as the recipe said, to boil the sugar mixture before adding the baking soda and it came out a golden, fluffy cloud. 

This recipe used: 
1-1/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup corn syrup
4 tsp. honey
3 tbsp. water
1 tbsp. baking soda
The directions were much more specific than Martha's, which clearly helped. 

I dipped them in melted semi-sweet chocolate chips that I melted in a bowl over a pot of boiling water, and drizzled with melted white chocolate chips.

After they chilled in the fridge for a few minutes, I wrapped them up in a Martha Stewart inspired fashion. The perfect little party favor.

Trial and Error with Honeycomb Brittle

Saturday started off as a beautiful day with fun errands planned like a trip to the craft store, making brittle and decorating the house. Then I saw the FedEx "We Missed You" slip I had ignored for a few days and realized that the package was my replacement phone! The major hurdle with this was that the pick-up center was located in Northeast DC. If I did not go today, I know it would be another two weeks before I would retrieve it...so I ventured out sans a GPS (!) to the notorious NE. 

There is a striking change in scenery starting around 2nd street as you make your way into this quadrant. I felt like I was in a rap video, or an Eminem movie. 

With only two wrong turns I made it safely to the FedEx pick up building to pick up my package. Then I opened the package to find my new phone was PURPLE. 

Somewhere along the line I came down with a serious case of Christmas Fever. I completely bypassed Thanksgiving and have decked the halls, so to speak. The excuse for this is the dinner party we are hosting on Monday night for some old and new friends, so naturally I went a little overboard. 
First came the homemade wreath.

Followed by the tablescape.

Then went crazy with Christmas lights.

Lastly, I made honeycomb brittle. Or tried, at least. For only having four ingredients, one of which is water, it is remarkably fragile. I found this recipe in my Martha Stewart Living magazine and was so excited because I've loved this stuff forever but have not found a recipe. 

Ingredients: 
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp baking soda

I put the sugar, honey and water in a pot to bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Then lower heat to medium, stop stirring until mixture reaches 300 degrees on candy thermometer. -- It was this step that tripped me up. My candy thermometer must be a little off because it took too long the first time for it to reach hard crack temperature, so it burned. Once you take the sugar off the heat, you mix in the baking soda and gently pour into a pan that is coated with cooking spray. This batch did not smell great, nor did it taste good. Into the trash it went.

Second attempt:

I took into consideration that my thermometer was slow and just watched for the sugar to turn a caramel color. My error was prematurely taking the sugar off the heat and mixed in the baking soda. Since it hadn't reached the hard crack stage, it never formed the crunchy, airy consistency of honeycomb brittle.

 Another batch straight into the trash. UGH! 

I'm now out of honey, so I will try this again when I buy some more. I will NOT give up. Maybe I'll opt for a nice peppermint or peanut butter swirl bark until then.

Biz Trip to NY

I've only been to NY three times now and my preconceived notions have already changed. I was anti-NY for a long time, in part because when I went as a child it was in the middle of a snow storm and I was miserable the entire time. But as everyone knows, it is the Food Mecca of the East Coast. (Case in point, the Food Network Building)

Anyway, I went there this Wednesday and Thursday for a work trip to have some marketing meetings (a two-day straight meeting, rather) with people in the New York office. We took the Ascella train-- which is awesome. I had no idea trains were the best way to travel: No security, no lines, no assigned seats, food car, super fast. I came prepared with my Food & Wine and Martha Stewart Living :) 

My travel partner, Stephanie, and I happily discussed food related topics for the entire 2.5 hour trip - as she shares an affinity to the gastronomic arts. 
Our lovely Marketing Director gave us each a present of unique mugs from Anthropologie when we arrived, which I love. 

That night I met Tonya (my New Yorker best friend) at a bar across from my hotel called Dusk for a Cosmopolitan, naturally.

Photo by Yun Cee Ng

Photo by Yun Cee Ng

Photo by Yun Cee Ng

After the second day of meetings, we hopped (or ran frantically for fear of missing it, in my case) on the train home. Unfortunately, each time I've gone to NYC, we never search out those "unique and amazing" New York restaurants I'm constantly hearing about. That's a MUST for the next trip.

White Bean, Tuna and Roasted Red Pepper Flatbread

Yesterday was a just-get-through-it type of day. It all revolved around waking up to a dead Blackberry...not just the battery, like the phone was dunzo. Dinner reflected my day, as it was a simple plate of pasta with marinara. 

Today was a better day. My old, little blackberry was brought back from the dead as a replacement and things fell back into place. In the five seconds I had free at work, I brainstormed to come up with a completely original dinner. For some reason, pizza and tuna came to me. I googled and found ideas to bring it to life. 

Most of the stuff I had around the house, so I just had to grab a couple things at Whole Paycheck Foods after work. The result was seriously good.

Ingredients:
1 can white tuna
1 flatbread
1 cup white beans
1/4 tsp. dried basil (or fresh)
1/4 tsp. dried oregano
2 squeezes of lemon
S&P
Splash of red wine vinegar
Capers
Red pepper flakes
Roasted red peppers, cut into strips
Grated Parmesan


Mash white beans, mix in basil, oregano, one squeeze lemon juice and salt and pepper. In a separate bowl mix tuna, 1 squeeze of lemon, red wine vinegar and capers. Spread white bean mixture on top of flatbread, followed by tuna mixture, sliced roasted red pepper, red pepper flakes and Parmesan cheese. 

Back to UNC for 20 quick hours

Waking up at 6:45 to make it to Chapel Hill by 1, only to leave the next day at 9 am is a lot of work. Even though we lost, it was definitely worth the hours in the car. I actually attended the game this time, and stood in the student section with friends just like old times :)

The beginning of the game seemed so promising, we were even winning for a while.Then things went downhill, and Evan's smile quickly faded. 

The mood was lightened after the game when Evans family + girlfriends went to dinner at One, a new restaurant in Meadowmont. Very good food, wine and company, especially the rosemary Focaccia. 

On the way home today, we were fortunate enough to find a Wawa gas station, which has the most variety of any gas station I've ever been to. Next to the make-your-own-milkshake station, they have a stand of fruits and veggies :) Health food is definitely the ticket after a football Saturday. 

She's the Best

My mom is the best. When I got home from work yesterday, this was sitting in my mailbox. After telling her about my rough day on Tuesday, she sent me a card :) Besides the Starbucks gift card (score!), the note read about my upcoming trip to Portland this Christmas, and all the things we'll do. This makes being so far from home that much harder. But at least I have her. If I didn't, I would be far less sane.

Now I'm preparing to leave for Chapel Hill for the night! Go Heels!