February 2011
18 posts
3 tags
pasta with garlic, olive oil, and lemon
This is one of those recipes I’d been meaning to try for a while, but just never got around to. Strangely, it’s also one of the simplest recipes I’ve made, so you’d think it wouldn’t take much to get around to it. But the thing is, it’s too simple, and I didn’t want to squander a turn in the kitchen on anything that, you know, doesn’t take my entire...
2 tags
french-style stuffed chicken breasts
Or, all my favorite things in one chicken. I’d been wanting to try this for a while before Chris and I finally made it a few weeks back (and by “a while,” I mean probably a week or two, because I’m patient like that), but I had to wait until we had access to a food processor (i.e. not when skiing) to make the chicken-baby food that goes into ‘em.
Apparently, I felt...
2 tags
gingerbread cake
A week or two back, my section had a potluck. Back-story: because of my commute, I haven’t been to a single after-hours section event since probably the first week of classes/orientation. Bad section member! However, it was hard for me to ignore the call of homemade foodstuff for this one. Also, I’d already made plans to crash with one of my lovely group-mates that night, so I decided...
January 2011
16 posts
3 tags
whole wheat pumpkin pancakes
At Chris’s school, which had an awesome dining hall, they made the most wonderful of wonderful dinners: cinna-chip pumpkin pancakes. They were my favorite thing ever, and I know I wasn’t the only one who thought so.
The problem is, his dining hall was so great that they had way too much variety in their meals, such that I only really got to have this amazing dinner about...
2 tags
buttermilk bread
Chris has a thing for buttermilk bread. One recent weekend, he came over to my house when my mom had a batch going in the bread machine, and he said, “That smells like yummy bread!”
Sidenote: I had made bread at least five times before in his presence and he’d never said that.
But I wiped my tears and/or stopped berating him [he’s reading this over my shoulder at the...
2 tags
butter-roasted potatoes
Umm did I mention that we had a third form of carb in that pecan-chicken meal, in addition to the muffins and the bread? And that the third form was cooked in butter? Food pyramid, I will crush you!!! Sidenote: this was also the second time that night that we browned butter. The practice didn’t do much for Chris’s later efforts to adapt browning to the microwave. Not a good idea,...
2 tags
broccoli corn muffins
When Chris and I were trying to decide what to make on our skiing weekend, there was one thing I demanded: these muffins. They showed up on Ezra Pound Cake advertised as including “everything but the kitchen sink,” but all that mattered to me was corn muffin + cheese + broccoli. That, and muffins for dinner.
After I whisked up the batter, we were seriously skeptical. It was basically...
1 tag
pecan-crusted chicken cutlets with bacon
This, my friends, was some tasty chicken.
Chris and I have tried to make walnut/pecan-crusted chicken before, but it’s always been a bit tricky. It’s hard to get the nuts ground finely enough and then get them to stick to the chicken enough for it to really be worth it. So when I saw Cook’s Illustrated’s version, I instantly filed it away for posterity.
And...
3 tags
fudge brownies
So, yes, I have a brownie problem. Which means that as soon as I saw this recipe the night before the massive snowstorm hit New England, I knew I had to make them. Despite the fact that I still had a half-batch of peanut butter cheesecake brownies in the kitchen. Details.
I mean, seriously, how can you resist that picture on Craving Chronicles? I made them that very night. And ohhh it was worth...
3 tags
peanut butter cheesecake swirl brownies
So my school has all its first-years take a three-week class in negotiating and dealing with clients and decision-making—you know, all that stuff that we might someday need to know in order to function. They break us up into small groups and each day, we have to write a two-page memo on something or another.
It has the potential to be either super-awesome and chill or not so fun, depending...
4 tags
chocolate chip sour cream cake
As most of you probably know, Chris is awesome. I wanted to make something truly wonderful to break in the awesomeness he got me for Christmas, and I knew this cake, as something I’ve made every winter for the past couple of years, would fit the bill.
There’s a reason I make this every year. It is soooo freakin’ good. The cake itself is cushy and soft and not overly-sweet,...
2 tags
pumpkin waffles
I hope all my peeps in southern New England enjoyed their snow day yesterday! I took advantage of the day of canceled classes to make my second batch of brownies in a week…but more on that later.
First, these waffles. Of all breakfast goods except bacon, waffles are my favorite. I get tired of pancakes and french toast really easily, but waffles get me in my weak spot: my type-A...
1 tag
chocolate peppermint crinkle cookies
These were a last-minute addition to my Christmas roster. I was looking for something chocolatey to bring to Chris’s family party, since his mom is even more of a chocolate-head than I am. And then, on the last day of classes, these beauties showed up on Pioneer Woman’s blog and it was like Christmas had come early. I mean, how can you look at these things and not think of snowy...
1 tag
homemade mallomars
I never really ate Mallomars growing up—I was more of a Chips Ahoy person than anything else. My aversion may or may not have been due to the stories my mom used to tell about her elementary school lunches, when she pulled apart the different components of her Mallomars and squished the marshmallow part between her fingers before eating them. I mean, not that I really had/have any table...
2 tags
flour's double-chocolate cookies
My grandma is obsessed with chocolate. She’s also almost impossible to shop for (which, coincidentally, she also passed down to her daughter/my mom). So this Christmas, I decided to just make her a bunch of chocolate treats, package them semi-prettily, and call it a day.
I’m also determined not to forget about my Flour cookbook in favor of the recipes on my computer, which...
1 tag
seven-layer christmas cookies
Hey, look! It’s another unnecessarily-complicated cookie recipe! And it’s festive! And I can add it to my 20-cookie-long Christmas cookie list!
That’s about what went through my head when I first saw this recipe. That, plus the use of almond paste, basically had me right then and there when Chris sent me a Metafilter list of the best cookie recipes people had ever used. I read...
1 tag
iced oatmeal cookies
So this is the recipe that killed my camera. (Indirectly, but I prefer to blame it on the recipe than on my clumsiness.) I picked it up off the counter to take a picture of the sifting prettiness, and the strap caught on the oven door, which yanked the camera out of my hands and, um, there was a big crash. Luckily, I had a telephoto back-up lens that my parents had given me with the camera as my...
1 tag
spiced apple cream cheese danish braid
I’m not a huge breakfast-pastry person. I’d much sooner eat a chocolate donut than a bearclaw or anything like that (surprise!).
But when Annie posted this recipe on her blog, Annie’s Eats, I knew I’d have to try it. I mean, not only did it have an excessive number of steps, and not only was it originally from a cookbook published by America’s Test Kitchen, but it...
2 tags
chocolate-peppermint sandwiches
Annnd there goes another unintended break in posts…my bad! First, there was the holidays. Then, there was the storm. Then, we lost our Internet. And then, this happened:
Yep, I decided to embrace my inner retiree and ask for a quilt-making kit. It’s pretty much taken over my life, and I’m really hoping it doesn’t turn out too ugly.
Anyway, back to Christmas recipes. I...
December 2010
17 posts
happy holidays!
Oh man, guys, LOOK AT WHAT CHRIS GOT ME because he is the coolest thing ever.
Uhhh, yeah, that’s me in the reflection on the bowl. Awkward. Woooooo! Now I don’t have to worry about breaking my mom’s, which my dad gave to her as a Christmas present like 25 years ago and over which I would be in big trouble if one of my bread doughs were to wreck the motor…Yeahhhh now I...
