A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Mmmm....my own birthday cake

Okay, so it's not cake. Hey, it's my birthday so I got to pick my my favorite treat which happens to be almond croissants.  This may be ego talking but I'll say it out loud anyway.  I like my croissants better than any I've found at a bakery.  So they're my birthday "cake" and worth every calorie and fat gram.  They take two days (I'm exaggerating, but only sort of) so I don't make them often. That makes them definitely a treat by that definition.  And there is a reason I don't eat/make cake for my birthday but I'll give the link to a previous post or see "Cake Story" (Feb 1) on my personal blog:  www.xanga.com/Marie9949  rather than reprinting the whole story here.  Let's just say as kids, my brothers and sister and I used to hurt our cake decorating mom's feelings.  A lot. And now it's kind of a sick family joke so the tradition of a no cake birthday lives on.

My birthday today was lots of fun, although I kept forgetting to take a camera anywhere I went so that caused a little cursing on my part.  Any excuse to curse, that's my motto. 

I slept in, made the croissants, then went to a leisurely lunch with Aunt Miranda and cousin Ann.  After they left the restaurant, I retired to the bar for my first Hemingway Writing Tour in ages.  It's simple.You've all heard the stories about Papa sitting in cafes drinking wine all day while writing by hand in notebooks?  It works.  There's something about sitting at a table where there's music and people to bring you beverages that manages to keep your butt planted in the seat for the afternoon while you eavesdrop on the conversations around you and scribble to your heart's content.  I managed about 1,500 words or a little more on my novel this afternoon.  Considering it's the lack of writing that's the one thing that always bums me out about my birthday, getting the afternoon to do it perked me up today.  After that I came home to take an indulgent nap and then Geno took me out to dinner, Mr. Yen's where we split crispy duck and yu-shiang scallops. When we got home he drew me a long hot bath and sprung my birthday gift on me: two sacks full of assorted Bath Junkie products. Oh.  My. Gawd.  My favorite and he knows it.  He let the clerk pick out the colors and fragrances so they were dead on blissful and girlie, every one of them. Tonight was yellow bath crystals in "hibiscus passion."  Speaking of passion...I need to get off the net.  I think Gene has more birthday planned for me...

Happy Birthday to Me

That's right. Today is my 42nd birthday.  I'm wondering what kind of day it will be.  Two years ago I spent my 40th birthday in the microbiology lab until 10pm.  Last year I was in the Respiratory lab all afternoon. Can't even remember what I did that evening.  No labs this year. No work.  Just a play day.  I'll be reporting in as the day unfolds just because it's a mystery to me too. The only plans I have right now are lunch with Aunt Miranda and Cousin Ann. 

I'm interested in seeing what life brings today because normally my birthday depresses the hell out of me and I hate celebrating. I'm usually in a bad mood until the sun goes down and then I perk up a bit.  It's not an age thing, it's a what have I accomplished with my life thing. I know I've done fine in my careers as far as hotels, cakes & catering, and now the hospital.  It's the one big one, the elusive one that gets me down. Each year, I think "But I haven't published a novel yet."  True again this year. I still don't have the first draft finished even, but it's halfway there and I can see the good in it.  I've published a recipe of my own in a national magazine this year. That's a step in the right direction.  I've published one of my best poems in an incredible medical literary journal.  I'm proud of that.  I didn't win but I got decent reviews for my best script so far in a well-respected screenwriting contest.  I published scientific research in national respiratory care journal, that's a major accomplishment and honor.  (Thanks to Aaron and Doug, the world's greatest program/clinical directors!)  All of that helps dull the edges this year.  It tells me that I can do this but I have to work incredibly hard this year to get that novel finished and marketed, to start writing new screenplays using all the skills I've learned from the first ones, and to keep plugging away at the small projects: articles, essays, and poems.  I have to keep sending projects out no matter how many rejection slips I collect because I have taste now for when they say "Yes."  I know I can do it.  I just have to keep plugging away every day.

So this year isn't as bad as the birthdays in the past.  I was even "up" enough last night that I made my own birthday dinner: Strip steaks with goat cheese and mushroom merlot sauce, spiced roasted fingerling potatoes with spiced yogurt dipping sauce, fresh steamed broccoli, and homemade bread.  I'm even making my own birthday cake, which I'll be posting later.  I'll be blogging about them all as I have time this week.  Today we'll start with the steaks...

Strip steaks with a dollop of goat cheese, and a thyme, mushroom, merlot sauce.

 

The steaks with its sauce using bay leaf and fresh thyme is my entry this week in Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen's Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Ulrike of Kuchenlatein. Swing by after Sunday to see the great round-up of herby deliciousness.

Piece of Cake: "KEY TO MY HEART"

"The Key to My Heart" by Glenna Muse; Pear & Walnut Spice cake w/Cardamom Buttercream

Garrett of Vanilla-Garlic and Cheryl of Cupcake Bakeshop issued a cupcake blogging event this month and I thought it was a great chance to stretch a little in the cake & decorating area.  You know I'm a respiratory therapist by day now, freelance writer by night, but I was also a hotel convention and banquet planner for ten years and had my own cake decorating/catering company called A Piece of Cake for five years.  I had to give up making cakes six years ago because of my hands.  Carpal tunnel and pastry bag holding for hours just do not play well together.

This event gave me a little push to wrap my head around designing again and since Valentine's Day is coming up soon, it seemed like the most natural of themes.  Kind of hard to write "Happy Valentine's Day, Gene" on the top of a cupcake, though.  Maybe those guys who write the whole New Testament on a grain of rice could accomplish it.  But hey, I'm not one of them so I had to be a little more creative than that.

I do have to share a cute husband story. I get to do cute husband stories since we don't have kids or pets, you know.  I overheard Gene on the phone with one of his friends this afternoon talking about the cupcakes and bragging about the design (very sweet!) and then I heard him say "Uhhh...well she has a food blog...and a personal blog...and I think someone's having a contest or something like that....and...I don't know...uhhh.... I don't know....all I know is I get cupcakes.  When she's done taking pictures in there, the cupcakes are mine, mine, ALL MINE!" 

Don't be scared. I only made a half batch and they're jumbos so the count is only six.  He'll make them last a few days, saving them up to eat for breakfast mostly.  The "all" was figurative but the "mine" was literal, like a toddler. He's claimed his property already.  When I ate one this afternoon in front of him, I thought for a second he was going to either burst into tears or try to steal all my toys.

He may be territorial when it comes to his treats but he was also very helpful with the camera, making suggestions about lighting and backgrounds. It's harder than you would think to get the details of the dark chocolate captured without totally overexposing the white frosting.

Here's the one shot I allowed him to take of me decorating:

Click below for the cake and frosting recipes and step by step directions including photos of how my cupcake came to be.   The round-up of cupcakes will be posted on both Garrett's and Cheryl's blogs on or after January 29th--be sure to go see all the mini works of art that sugar, flour, and butter built.

Not Your Momma's Glazed Carrots

I cannot express what a fan of Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen I am.  They appeal to both halves of my brain, I think. I absolutely love the way they intellectually pick apart each recipe logically and then reconstruct it with the passion of true food artists.  I cannot recommend highly enough "The New Best Recipe" Cookbook as a general cookbook either. I replaced my old Better Homes & Gardens general cookbook (wedding gift) that was literally falling apart with the NBR from Cook's Illustrated and now I keep wondering why I didn't break open my wallet years ago. I enjoy reading it just for the sake of reading all the comparisons and background on their recipe testing and there hasn't been a recipe I've used so far that I haven't said "Wow, that really IS the best."

I had a wild craving for glazed carrots the other day which surprised me because as a child I loved my mother's glazed carrots but when I made them years later as an adult they seemed like squishy orange yuck drowned in maple syrup. Don't get me wrong. My mom was a fantastic cook. It's just that everyone used to make glazed carrots basically the same way: cook the carrots and add butter and brown sugar.  Fini.   

Not good enough.

Along came Cook's Illustrated to the rescue.  Their search for the perfect recipe included:

"Chicken broth as a cooking liquid lent the carrots savory backbone and a full, round flavor, whearas water left them hollow and wine turned them sour and astringent. We tried swapping the sugar for more compelling sweeteners but found brown sugar too muddy-flavored, maple syrup too assertive, and honey too floral...  We moved on to finessing the glaze..."

Yes, they did.  The cookbook contains the original, straightforward "Glazed Carrots" recipe but I went a leap forward to one of their two variations on that theme and made the "Glazed carrots with Bacon and Pecans"  (which does have brown sugar in it, by the way,  they found it to work best with the bacon and nuts) substituting walnuts for pecans just because I felt like it.

They are absolutely right. This recipe has lots of savory backbone, full round flavor, and just enough sweet to make your mouth water and keep your fork digging in for more.  This recipe will definitely be on my hit list parade of veggies. 

Also seasoned with thyme, this recipe is my addition to Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen's wonderful Weekend Herb Blogging event, this week hosted by Ed of Tomato. Check out his blog and his round up later in the week.

A Piece of Cake: Noah's Ark

Another of my favorite cakes. This was a baby shower cake for a little guy to be named Noah so how perfect that the shower theme was Noah's Ark.  The cake was made by stacking a house cake on top of a 1/4 sheet cake pan that had been trimmed and then using the trim piece to be the front fo the ark.  The animals are piped in royal icing.  It's a pretty simple cake to make, actually, aside from stabilizing the 3-D structure. The most complicated decorating technique is piping the animals and they're simply fun. You can't help but smile when you pipe animals. They bring out the kid in you.

Oven Baked Fried Chicken...that's the ticket

Gene and I are still up to our sinuses in the respiratory infection so we're still big babies about food.  We're not eating much during the day because we can't smell which equals not being able to taste which equals not being really hungry until our stomachs rumble loudly at dinner time. And then what do we want? Comfort food, of course.  Last night was oven baked fried chicken and mashed potatoes. 

There is no real recipe for this but I do make it a little differently, I think, than most people. It is a lighter version of fried chicken than being completely immersed, deep fried, but the object in mine isn't really so much to strip all the calories as it is to make it as tender and juicy and easy on me as possible. 

Last night, I used thighs and I didn't skin them.  They're dipped in salted flour and then milk and then a half flour/half bread crumb mix that's seasoned with salt, pepper, and cayenne.  Then they're browned in just a couple of tablespoons of expeller pressed canola oil on the stove top before being baked in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.  The outside retains the crispy while the inside is tender and juicy.  This is Gene's favorite meal in the whole world.

Just in case you were wondering. Yes, I made him cream gravy with the skillet drippings to go with the mashed potatoes. Not brown gravy as we laughingly fight over with our friend from Boston. Brown gravy is for roast beef.  Cream gravy is for fried chicken and mashed potatoes. She'd never heard of making gravy with cream (or milk) until she moved to St. Louis.  In truth I used fat free half and half, not real cream but you know what I mean. It works and tastes the same.

A Piece of Cake: Poinsettias on Chocolate

Back when I had the cake business, I used to try new designs out on the family sometimes. This was one of them. I actually sort of stole the poinsettia look from Collette Peters so let's not pretend it was MY design but close enough. It was new to me.  She used fondant. My family and most of my customers thought I was trying to make them eat play dough when I used fondant so this is was frosted with very smoothed down chocolate buttercream (hint: flat bladed knife and a glass of extremely hot water) and colored decorating gel.  The cake was a big hit at our family Christmas party that year, even for a bunch of not really big chocolate eaters.  I know, it's very un-American of us to admit that but it's true. It's not that we hate chocolate, it's just that we'd rather have creme brulee any day over chocolate cake. It must be a genetic thing.