Not About Food

It has been two months and seven days since I first saw your face. But for some reason it was only this morning that I woke up and realized that I am your mama and what a privilege that is. You kicked your feet against the side of my leg and grinned as hard as your little face knows how. 

It was then that I realized- not because you're a good sleeper (currently at least, thanks baby girl!) or hardly ever fuss or grump or because you have awesome hair (though daddy might try to convince you that's why) or because you put yourself down for naps or because you're just so gosh darned cute- I realized that even if you were a terrible sleeper who fussed and grumped and had no hair and fought me to take naps and were not cute at all I would still love you with all of my being because you are Margaret, my baby, my daughter and nothing you do or don't do, are or aren't could ever change that. 

Twice Baked Goodness

It has been a sad, sad amount of time since I last posted a recipe on here. And, depending on when Baby Girl arrives, it will probably be a long, long time until I post again. Sadness. I guess we will just have to make the most of the time we have together. Which is why I am posting last night's dinner. It was so del-onk-sious that I don't even know. I mean seriously. Incredible. Jeff thanked me about five times for making it. It is this:

Loaded Twice Baked Potatoes

• 5 medium russet potatoes
• 1/2 lb bacon
• 1 stick butter
• 2 small or 1 large onion
• 1 broccoli crown
• 1 pint mushrooms
• 1 tsp salt 
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
• 1/4 tsp mustard powder
• 1/3 cup sour cream (the real stuff, people. none of this low-fat/non-fat business.)
• 4 oz cheese (I used colby jack)

Preheat the oven to 350. Gently rinse your potatoes and stab each one about 6-8 times with a fork. It seems mean but really, nobody wants 'sploding potatoes. At least I don't. Who's gonna clean that oven? Next place the 1/2 lb of bacon (okay, let's be honest. I cooked a whole pound... half for now, half for later ;)) on a parchment lined sheet tray. As soon as the oven is pre-heated pop the potatoes in- right on the rack- and the bacon in on the second rack. Set one timer for 20 minutes, for the bacon and one timer for 60 minutes, for the potatoes. Or, you can be really fancy and do some "mafs" along the way and figure out how much time the potatoes will need after the bacon is done. Now why don't we say get our mise "en place" as they say?

Vegetables. Mince the onion, do a small dice for the mushrooms and shave the broccoli a la this:

Mmm. Broccoli, there is never enough broccoli. Did your timer go off yet? If it did, check your bacon. It probably isn't done so turn it around and set another 5-10 minute timer until it looks heavenly and perfectly rendered, a-like so.

When your bacon is done, set it aside to cool to non-finger burning temperature. Meanwhile melt that stick of butter...

When it's all melted, add the onions, broccoli and mushrooms. Saute them until the broccoli is tenda-crisp. Set aside. Now grab that bacon and make it into a small/medium chop depending on your preference. By this time your potatoes should be done. Pull them out! Preferably with an oven mitt as we would like to avoid the aforementioned finger burning temperatures. Lay them on the counter or other surface to cool.

While that goes on, add your veggies, spices, bacon and the sour cream to a large-ish mixing bowl and grate your cheese!

Gorge-liscious. Now, you can decide whether or not to add this to the mixture, I put it on the top for the last two minutes of baking. Mostly because my pregnant brain forgot to add it to the mixture. But it did end up looking pretty. :)

The potatoes should be cool now so cut them in half lengthwise and gently scoop out the insides, adding them to the bowl of veggies, spices etc. Lay the empty shells on a baking sheet. Now mash everything together!!

When that's done, load the shells back up with the mixture. They will be very full. Do not fear, this is part of what makes these awesome. 

Each shell should look like this. Pop these back in the oven for about 15 minutes or until they are getting a little golden on top. If you, like me, forgot to add the cheese to the mixture pull them out and add the cheese during the last 2-3 minutes of baking. 

Now the absolute best part about this is that it is your protein, vegetable and starch all in one neat little package. Buon appetito, cara mia! 

Much love,

Tirienne

P.S. Sorry for the blurry pictures! I'm still getting used to the lighting in our new kitchen.

Easter Creme Brulee

The thing I find interesting about this whole gluten-free trend is that increasingly I see recipes calling for things like xanthan gum, guar gum, locust bean flour and other oddities. To me this is kind of weird. Especially considering all of the desserts that are already gluten-free by nature like such as Jeff's favorite dessert, creme brulee! It was our first married Easter and it was rather quiet- just us and Jeff's parents. I missed the running and yelling of the small children who usually surround us at Easter but it was nice just to have a quiet afternoon to rest and reflect. Now, even though this recipe only has four ingredients I will admit you do need something special.

Now don't get freaked out! I will tell you step-by-step how to use the torch.

But first... 

Easter Creme Brulee*

1 quart heavy cream

1 vanilla bean**

6 egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar

sugar for brulee

Special Equipment- six brulee dishes (aka quiche dishes) and a propane torch.

Now what I want you to do is cut your vanilla bean in half scrape out the seeds and put it all in a medium saucepan along with the heavy cream. Over medium-high heat barely boil the cream then pull it off the burner. It should look like this.

You're going to let that cool off the burner for about 10 minutes. During that time, pre-heat your oven to 225 degrees and prepare your brulee dishes on a half sheet pan.

Except for maybe be more safe than me and put the whole thing on the table... 

Before you start the next stage, pull the bean out of your cream. You don't need it anymore!  The next step is to separate  your eggs. Once you have just your egg yolks, throw them in a mixer or a bowl large enough to accommodate all of the ingredients. Aww!! Aren't they cute!? Little egg yolkies. :)

 

Beat together the egg yolks and half cup of sugar on a high speed until it is thick and pale yellow. Now turn the mixer down to the slowest speed and gently pour the cream in a slow steady stream about the size of a pencil. If at any point the egg mixture is looking overwhelmed by the cream (cream is after all pretty overwhelming...all that fatty goodness) stop pouring for a minute until it is all incorporated.

I'm going to give you a good tip now. Actually I'm going to give you about five so listen up! 1. Pour the creme mixture into a large pitcher pourer  spouted thingy?? Depending on the size of yours- mine is only 4 cups and not big enough- you might have to do this in two stages but if you're lucky enough to have a six or an eight cup one it can easily be done. 2. Open your oven and make sure the rack is in the dead middle. 3. Pull out the rack and place the panned up brulee dishes on it. 4. Gently and carefully because, you know, ovens are hot or something, pour the creme mixture into each dish until it is just below the rim. A la this.

5. Now that your creme is all poured quickly rinse and fill with hot water that spouted pourer pitcher thingy and oh-so-carefully fill your pan about half way up. So, so carefully, not spilling any water or precious goodness slide your rack into place and close up the oven. Whew. Okay that was intense but we got through it. *wipes away forehead sweat* Set a timer for 30 minutes and clean up ze kitchen! Cause we made a mess, didn't we. Once the timer goes off gently wiggle the edge of the pan (with a hot mitt! please don't burn yourself!) and see how wiggly they are. Good! If they need more water add more water. Now turn up the oven to 300 degrees and set another timer for 10 minutes. At the end of ten minutes they should be good, mostly still jiggly looking but set around the edges. Pull the pan out of the oven with utmost care and let them fully cool. 

These can be stored wrapped in the fridge for days and they will be fine but they should chill at least 3-4 hours before you brulee them. Magically, that time has already passed for me! Let the fun commence!! 

See the beautiful creme? In all its bean-flecked glory!?! 

Mm. Perfection. I want you to sugar it all the way to the edges, not missing any spot. This should be a tablespoon or more of sugar.

Repeat on as many are you are going to consume imminently. (Please know it is NOT a good idea to do the brulee ahead of time. Sugar is hydroscopic which is Latin for "melts away and leaves a sad, sugary goo instead of a beautiful caramelized crust." I'm pretty sure anyway. My Latin's not that great.) 

Okay, breathe in and out. It is time to use ze propane. Firmly attach the torch nozzle to the bottle, making sure that the knob is fully closed. Now open the knob slightly (you should hear a hissing) and light it. Once it is lit, open the knob further until you have a nice, blue flame like this.

Oh! See my oven mitt? You're going to need one, too. Keeping the torch directed away from yourself and anything flammable apply the first third of the flame to the sugar moving in circular motions. It should start to make little sugar beads.

Work your way from the edges in toward the center. Make sure you don't get too close because burnt sugar is well... burnt and doesn't taste yummy at all. 

Husband got confused and thought the picture was supposed to be of me instead of the food. Hah. :) Keep going! The sugar should start to caramelize at this point.

This is about done in my opinion. A purist would say this isn't caramelized enough but I'm not a purist and mostly just like crunchy sugar. Anyway. MOST IMPORTANT. Do NOT attempt to touch any part of this with your bare hands for several minutes. Use a mitt to move it out of the way and ESPECIALLY do not try to touch the sugar on top or else you're going to end up in the ER with sugar burns. Not fun. Move on to the next one if you're doing more than one. After about five minutes, garnish with berries or other fruits or nothing and enjoy. 

Much love, 

Tirienne

* These proportions are shamelessly stolen from Alton Brown's creme brulee recipe. However, I did not use his baking method because it failed me the first time I tried because the eggs coagulated. So I lowered the oven temp and tried again. It came out as close to perfect as I could manage. :)

**For the vanilla bean, I used beans that had been soaking to make vanilla extract. I doubled the amount, using about two beans and really liked the flavor. 

Smoked Chorizo Jumble with Skillet Homefries

I admit it, I love breakfast for dinner. Especially savory breakfast. There's just something comforting about it, something that reminds me of childhood... ahh nostalgia. However, I honestly can't ever remember having a dish like this growing up. In fact I'm pretty sure I just made this up. Whatever. It was scrumptious!

Skillet Homefries

• 5 medium or 4 large russet potatoes
• 1/4 cup bacon grease (or butter)
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• salt and pepper to taste

Smoked Chorizo Jumble

• 1 small onion
• 3-4 crimini mushrooms
• 4-5 mini sweet peppers
• 14-16 oz smoked chorizo links
• 3 eggs
• 2 tbsp milk
• salt and pepper to taste

First things first, let's cut up the potatoes! Potatoes are on my list of five super foods (bacon, butter, onions, potatoes, eggs!) Cut them up into a medium dice. I would like to point out that I eat organic. I don't wash the dirt off my potatoes before using them.

Well, unless they're really dirty. Then I say forget that organic business I'm washin' these puppies.

Next take a large skillet and heat up the bacon grease between medium and medium-high until it smells fragrant and feels hot when you hold your hand over (not in, over) the pan. Now is the time to throw those potay-tays in. 

The last of my bacon grease. I guess we'll be cooking more bacon tomorrow.

So now comes the fun chopping part!! I lovelovelove chopping things. I also love folding laundry. I find something satisfying about putting things in order, does that make me weird? Aaanyway. Get out all of the ingredients you need to chop, like so.

Now you're going to have some residue from the potatoes on your knife and board so I'll tell you a trick. Rinse your knife and just flip your board over! Saves time, energy and water cause you're going to wipe down your counter after this anyway, right? 

QUICK! Stir those potatoes up a bit. At this point add your garlic powder, salt and pepper. If it looks like they aren't cooking or are cooking too fast, adjust the heat as needed. Remember to keep stirring them occasionally. Preheat your oven to 250 degrees so you can keep them hot while you make the jumble.

Back to the jumble. Chop in order, onions small dice, mushrooms medium dice and sweet peppers lazy-woman's julienne.

Oh so pretty! Now I want you to quarter the links of chorizo lengthwise and cut them into half inch pieces. The finished product. And by the way, I have no qualms about this meat-to-vegetable ratio.

Your potatoes should be getting along nicely at this point. Throw them on to a half or quarter sheet pan to keep them warm in the oven. Don't cover them because that will cause condensation to form and it'll just be kinda gross.

Using the same skillet used for the potatoes (yes! the unwashed pan!) saute on medium heat the chorizo and onion- notice how I kept it separate in the photo? Yep. This is the reason. While that is all sauteing up nicely, whisk together the three eggs and milk.

If your onions are translucent at this point and the sausage is sizzling nicely, add the mushrooms and peppers. Cook for 4-6 minutes or until the peppers are soft. Gently pour in the egg mixture, stir and let it cook until the eggs are all firm. Salt and pepper to taste and serve with hot sauce(s!?) ketchup, mayo, whatever.

Aaaand a close up!

Enjoy. :)

Much love,

Tirienne

A Quick Tutorial- Onion Dicing

I realized yesterday while making dinner that I take for granted my ability to perfectly dice an onion in less than a minute. This is not a post where I'm saying I'm more awesome than you. This is a post where I hope to pass along some knowledge that I didn't always have in hopes that when you are running late with dinner you, too can ninja-chop an onion.

Let's look at an onion. We shall call the fluffy stringy part of the onion the "north pole" and the papery layered end of the onion the "south pole" (even though the north pole is the one that grows down into the ground... meta.) Cut off the south pole completely like so.

Also, please note that I am left-handed so yours will probably be backwards. Place the flat side of the onion down on the board and cut right through the middle of the north pole so you have two even halves. Peel back and tear off the skin. At this point the onion should look like this.

This is the fun part! Cut even lines running perpendicular to the north pole that don't quite reach the top of the onion, repeat on the second half. Okay, here's the hard part, now cut the onion halves in half like this.

I'm glad I took a picture because I can't even think how to describe that. Anyway. Make sure you do this part gently or else you're going to shear the top half off and ruin it. At this point, starting where you cut off the south pole, cut the onion straight down trying to match the width of the perpendicular lines. The end result is a perfectly diced onion!

Chicken Salad!!

This time I actually did forget about dinner. My sister, Miriel has been visiting for the past two weeks and today was her last day in town so I was at our other sister's hanging with her and Baby G. (Baby G is very cute as you will realize when you see his giggling mug. :) ) So anyway, I was on my way home a bit after four and suddenly it dawned on me. DINNER. I forgot about dinner. UuuuuUUUGHHhHH. Usually, I try to pull out frozen meat the day before but today I'm pulling the super classy hot water quick-thaw method on some chicken. Jeff's gonna be home in less than an hour and we have a very busy evening in front of us. I'd better get crackin'

The FAST Chicken Salad!*

• 3 chicken tenderloins
• salt and pepper to taste
• bacon grease/butter/oil for the pan
• 1 medium onion
• finest of week old lettuces, enough for 3 portions
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese (I used white habanero)
• oil and vinegar, salt and pepper to taste

Okay, just pulled my chicken out of its hot water bath. Now I shall salt and pepper it to taste and slam it into a greased saute pan that has been heated to medium-high. BOOM! While that is cooking (6-10 minutes, flipped once) I shall quickly dice my onion into medium/large dice. When the chicken is done, add more grease and throw in the onions. Saute them until they are brownish and translucent, about 5-7 minutes. Turn off your pan! Now quickly, cut up the lettuce however you prefer (I was lazy. People can cut up their own lettuce)

This is how you cut a head of lettuce in thirds.

Layer the chicken, onions and cheese on to make it look like you actually remembered about dinner and drizzle with the oil and vinegar or your favorite high-fat dressing! Voila! Dinner. 

Much love,

Tirienne

*For those of you in the know, this is a reference to my nephew, Blaise. Aka, "The Fast Blaise." :)

Bacon Grease Browned Butter Brownies

So  I guess I'm digging the bacon grease thing right now because I made some brownies with them. Yup. Not only that, I made brownies with browned butter. Even crazier, IT WAS THE SAME RECIPE!!! I mean this even blew my mind (in a good way!) I gave them to a friend for her birthday and she seemed to enjoy them so I hope you will, too.


Bacon Grease Browned Butter Brownies*

• 1 stick butter
• 2 tbsp bacon grease
• 3/4 cup cocoa
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour (wheat or your favorite gluten-free blend)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup chocolate chips**

So first, you're going to need to turn your oven on to 325 degrees. Next, prepare an 8x8 pan with parchment paper. I don't recommend greasing your pan for this because there is so much fat in the mixture to being with that it just ends up sticking to itself. If you don't have parchment try aluminum foil, tightly folded. Now in a medium pan on medium heat, melt and brown your butter. I like this illustration of browned butter.

You will know it's starting to brown when the butter foams up. At that point watch it closely so you don't get the burnt version. Once it is satisfactorily browned, take it off and quickly dump in the two tablespoons of bacon grease. Stir that in until it is melted. The next thing is to add the cocoa powder. Essentially what you're doing is reconstituting the chocolate with a different fat than the cocoa butter. (Considering how yummy butter and bacon grease are, I think this is okay.) Once that is fully stirred in, add the sugar and then the eggs. Now comes the hard part. Vigorously stir the whole mixture until it is thick and shiny and sticking together nicely. Once you think it seems right add the flour and salt and stir until fully incorporated. The batter should be thick, sticking to itself and easy to pour (more like plop) into the pan. You can decide if you want to add the chocolate chips to the batter or on top, it doesn't matter. Spread the batter evenly in the pan and shove those suckers in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean (or with a couple crumbs if you like more fudgy brownies.)

Pull out the finished brownies and run a knife along any part that is touching the pan. Let them cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before moving to a different surface to cool. Once they're fully cool, cut into small, tiny pieces and eat slowly, savoring the smoky bacon flavor amidst the sweet, rich chocolate and die a little bit inside. Enjoy!

Much love,
Tirienne

*Recipe adapted from Bon Appetit's "Cocoa Brownies with Browned Butter"
** Be warned to read your bag label!! Make sure that the chocolate chips you're adding are made with real cocoa butter and not with hydrogenated palm or soy oils, otherwise it's going to ruin the texture and flavor of your brownies!

The Musical Fruit... I Mean Legume

Okay. Confession. I remembered about dinner this time. In fact I remembered the day before. That is why I started soaking my pinto beans. This was so mouth-wateringly delicious I have to share it with you.

Frijoles Pintos de Tirienne

• 1 lb dry pinto beans
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• water

• 32 oz beef stock
• 16 oz water
• 2 large cloves garlic, whole
• 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp chili powder
• salt to taste
• hot sauce (Louisiana style is delicious on this)

Okay, so sorry people if you were looking for a fast recipe, keep looking. This one is going to take all night (literally.) In a large container or bowl dump your pinto beans and cover them with the lemon juice and at least three inches of water. Soak overnight. I didn't tell you to sort through your beans and pick out the bad ones because 1. I'm lazy and never do that myself and 2. I've never actually found a bad bean/stone/beetle/dry booger in a bag of beans. 

About 8-9 hours before you want to serve your beans, meaning around 9:00am drain your beans and add them, the stock and water to your slow cooker.

What I'd like you to do next is add all of your espicy things! EXCEPT FOR! This is very important, EXCEPT FOR THE SALT. Otherwise you will compromise the beans' integrity and besides that being morally awkward ('cause I like to think of y'all as the morally upright kind who wouldn't want to compromise anyone's integrity) it's just going to be unpleasant in your mouth.

Now that you've added all the nice things to spice it up, give it a good stir, cover it up, set it on low for 8-9 hours and go about your business. Ahh... time to pour a nice beverage.

PEOPLE. Seriously. That is grape juice and sparkling water. It's 9:00am for goodness sake. And I will never be enough of a lush to drink that much wine at once. Yikes. 

While we are waiting for the beans I want to tell you a little story. Which is that in our current (but not for much longer) apartment we have a really cool pantry cupboard. It has about a zillion slots and when we moved in our landlord said he had never seen anyone fill it. To me this meant only one thing. CHALLENGE!! So while I was waiting for my beans, I went shopping and then took photographic evidence to show that I'm doing a pretty darn good job filling this sucker up. Check it out. 

Yes, we really do own that many chips. But it's pretty good, right? I mean come on. Notice in the last photo my secret gluten stash in the bottom right corner of the last photo... shhh...

Anyway! It is about thirty minutes before you want to serve up your beans they should look like this.

Now is the time to salt liberally. Grab that container of salt and sprinkle away! If you want to now is the time to throw some other food on to cook, maybe like these bad boys.

Bratwurst burgeoning with cheddar cheese and jalapenos... mmm so good. We also had a simple green salad to go with this. Your beans should be about done by now, creamy on the inside slightly firm on the outside. You by no means have to do this but when our bratwurst were done I turned the pan up high and added a few spoonfuls of beans to get them really hot. It was delicious... Enjoy responsibly.

Much love,
Tirienne