White Chocolate Bread Pudding Will Cause World Peace

Try it!

Recipe from the Palace Cafe: Claims to serve 8, but halving the recipe has served about 8 of my Oregon Besties, so those must be ginormous servings!

For the bread pudding:

• 3 cups heavy whipping cream
• 10 ounces white chocolate
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 8 egg yolks
• 1 loaf French bread, cut into one inch cubes or into 1/4 inch slices
  

Heat the cream in a double boiler and add the white chocolate; when the chocolate is melted, remove from heat.

In a double boiler, heat the milk, sugar, eggs and egg yolks until warm. Blend the egg mixture into the cream and chocolate mixture.

Place the bread in an oven-safe dish. Pour 1/2 of the mixture over the bread and let settle for a while, making sure the bread soaks up all the mixture. Top with the rest of the mixture. Cover and bake at 275 degrees for 1 hour. Remove the cover and bake for an additional 15 minutes until the top is golden brown.

For the white chocolate sauce:

• 8 ounces white chocolate
• 3 ounces heavy cream

Gently melt the white chocolate in a double boiler. Remove from heat and mix in heavy cream. Spoon over bread pudding.

You could use any kind of chocolate for the chocolate sauce. Or use some Irish Cream or White Chocolate Irish Cream with the cream to spike it a bit.

My new favorite food: Carnitas!

A friend was talking about carnitas awhile back, and they sounded amazing. I convinced Jeff that we should try them. They are oh so wonderful! I combined two recipes to come up with the one we love from Hot Sauce Blog and the Homesick Texan's blog. Jeff and I half this recipe, and we can get about 4 meals out of it. You'll need:

• One pork butt, about 7 pounds, cut into large chunks
• 1 onion, quartered
• 6 cloves of garlic, crushed
• Peel of 1 orange & the juice
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon coriander (we usually use whole so I can pick it out; I'm one of those freaks who thinks cilantro, and thus it's evil little seeds tastes like soap)
  
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 2 bay leaves
• enough chicken broth to mostly cover the pork

Chuck everything in a large stock pot.

Here's a picture of everything chucked into the pot.

Bring to a boil, then decrease to a simmer. Simmer for 2 to 4 hours, uncovered. Add more chicken broth if needed, and occasionally move the meat around so it all gets exposed to the brothy goodness.

Here's how ours looked after simmering for a few hours, right before we cranked up the heat. And also Summit. Apparently the stove was nice and warm and a great place to nap. Did you know she can open the dishwasher now? That'll be a new post, soon.

About an hour before serving, crank the heat up to medium high. Allow the liquid to boil off. Stir the carnitas occasionally in the beginning. When the liquid is almost evaporated, start stirring the carnitas more often, scraping the bottom of the pan. This will keep the carnitas from sticking and will let more of the meat get wonderful and crispy as it fries in the fat that was rendered out of the pork. Near the end of cooking, I usually let it sit for a few minutes without scraping, then scrape like crazy, stir, and let it sit for a few minutes. The stirring and scraping should cause the pork to fall apart; if it's not, shred it.

Here are the carnitas after being crispified. See those lovely darker brown pieces? Those are the ones Jeff and I fight over.

Serve as burritos, tacos, quesadillas or whatever your preferred method of eating the deliciousness is!

*drool*

First of all, happy birthday to my super fantastic amazing wonderful incredible husband!

This evening Jeff, Cousin B and I were in the kitchen cooking up our version of a very messy (but delicious!) storm of Charlie Gitto's Toasted Ravioli.

I heard some tweeting and went to check things out. As it turns out, there were two super cute birds eating at the bird feeder. The downside is that Sum was in bathroom quarantine because she's not allowed out when we cook. Mitzie is scared of Cousin B because she's a 'fraidy cat and wouldn't come out to check out the birds.

My solution was to put a treat on the window sill.

Mitz ran over to the window sill and picked up the treat just as she saw the birds. She kept the treat in her mouth while she just stared at the birds.

And then started to drool. A little puddle on the windowsill.

After about 30 seconds of us laughing and her drooling, she remembered her treat and gobbled it up. And then the birds flew away.

Want to see Summit's pretty new collar?


Lovely, right? She spent the first 5 minutes of wearing her new life preserver walking backwards around the apartment trying to back herself out of the collar. Eventually, she gave up and decided to nap in the window sill. Until Jeff came home a few minutes later, walked by the window, saw her with her new spiffy pillow collar and cracked up. She's tolerated it pretty well, but was having some minor issues jumping from place to place.

(we didn't buy it as an intentional torture device; she's having an eye herpes flare up and was rubbing her eyes sooooo much we didn't want her hurting herself; you can see how red her eyes are in the picture)

Strawberry-Orange Muffins

They make me happy.

I found the recipe on this blog. Man are there some delicious looking recipes there!

Strawberry Orange Muffins

adapted from Williams-Sonoma, Baking

2 1/4 c all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 c sugar
1/2 c water
1/2 c sour cream
1/3 c vegetable oil
1 egg
1 Tbs fresh orange zest
1 c thinly sliced fresh strawberries
1/3 c strawberry jam

Place sliced strawberries in a thin layer on a few sheets of paper towels to absorb juice. Pat the tops with another paper towel.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a muffin pan with non-stick spray.

Stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. Whisk sugar, water, sour cream, oil, egg, and orange zest in another bowl. Stir in the strawberries. Add this to the dry ingredients and stir until just blended. Do not overmix.

Place a spoonful of batter into each muffin cup. Add a tsp of jam in each cup, then cover with remaining batter. Bake for about 15 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes, then remove muffins and cool on a rack.

They were easy to make and easy to half (Jeff doesn't like muffins. Isn't that crazy?!? I'm not sure I know the man I married. *shakes head*).

And they make me happy because they're like the surprise muffins Mom made when we were little with the little dollop of jam in them.

My Favorite Soup

Well, maybe not most favorite ever. Favorite holiday soup, maybe?

One of Emeril's good recipes. ;)

It's easy to half, and easy to freeze. You can shorten it up so many ways. Cook the rice ahead of time. Frozen corn. Sometimes we just roast the squash without peeling and cutting it into chunks. Othertimes it just gets microwaved. Mom has used frozen before, and I think she's tried it with pumpkin with good results. It's good.

Smoked Sausage, Butternut Squash and Wild Rice Soup

2 medium butternut squash, about 3 to 4 pounds, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch chunks
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
12 cups chicken stock
2 1/2 cups chopped onions
1 cup wild rice
3/4 pound smoked sausage, such as kielbasa, cut into 1/4-inch
2 cups fresh corn kernels
1 1/2 cups half-and-half
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley leaves

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Season the squash with 1 tablespoon of the oil, salt and pepper. Place on a baking sheet and roast for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until tender. Remove from the oven and cool completely. In a blender or food processor, puree the squash with 2 cups of the chicken stock. Puree until smooth and set aside.

In a saucepan, over medium heat, bring 4 cups of the stock and 1/2 cup of the chopped onions to a simmer. Stir in the rice and cook until the rice is tender and the liquid is absorbed, about 1 hour, stirring occasionally with a fork. Remove the rice from the pan and cool.

In a large saucepan, over medium heat, add the remaining tablespoon of oil. When the oil is hot, add the sausage and brown for 3 minutes. Add the remaining 2 cups of onions and corn. Season with salt and pepper. Saute for 3 minutes. Add the remaining 6 cups of stock and squash puree.

Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Skim off any fat that rises to the surface.

Stir in the rice and continue to cook for 10 minutes.

Remove from the heat, stir in the half-and-half and reason with salt and pepper. Stir in the parsley and serve.

Pasta with Pancetta & Tomato Sauce

One of the Amazing Ladies posted this recipe of Giada De Laurentiis' awhile back. It's super easy to make and really yummy. Especially if you have some fresh basil fresh out of your new Aerogarden to use! OK, so we had like two little leaves to use. But I'm sure it made a huge difference!

Ingredients:

• 6 ounces pancetta, diced
• 2 T olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
• Pinch dried crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 (28-ounce) can tomato puree
• 1 pound pasta (linquine or spaghetti work well)
  
• 1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano

Instructions:

Saute pancetta in olive oil until golden brown (about 8 minutes). Add onion and saute until tender (about 5 minutes). Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and saute for about 30 seconds. Stir in the tomato puree and simmer uncovered over medium-low heat for about 15 minutes. Season the sauce with salt, to taste.

Cook the pasta while the sauce is simmering. Toss the pasta with the sauce and cheese. Serve!

Obviously you can play around with this recipe quite a bit. We've used tomato sauce instead of puree because that's what we had. You could use bacon or prosciutto. We threw in some fresh basil; you could also throw in some Italian seasonings. We've also considered adding roasted garlic which would probably be amazing.

Want to see pictures of my Aerogarden? :)

They're growing like crazy!

And also, because Mom has asked here's a picture of our new baker's wine rack.

I love the little baskets at the top. They're perfect for my K-cups for my new Keurig (more on my love for that little guy another day). The teas are on the left and the coffee is on the right. I love it.

And because I remembered to take a picture of it, here's a piece of the plant I stole from my Uncle J over Thanksgiving. It used to be about half an inch tall. I just plopped it in dirt and it's growing like crazy (unlike the big piece I stole from him that decided it was going to die this week :( ).


We think it's some sort of corn plant. We don't know much more than that, except that corn plants are potentially toxic to cats. They don't bother this little guy yet. Maybe that's because they were enthralled by the big one that's dying? Anyway, we keep shut the plants up when we're not home and they're not allowed unsupervised visitation with the plants so it's cool for now.

So about that cheesecake . . .

The one I said we had at Thanksgiving?

I made it.

It was amazing.

It was a brownie mosaic cheesecake.

Here is the recipe.

You should try it.

It looks hard and time consuming, but it's not. And it goes even faster if you use a brownie mix. We used a Whole Foods brand one that was completely amazing. It had chocolate chips in it. And little crunchy yummy bits. I highly recommend it. Plus I'm pretty sure it called for butter instead of eggs and oil. How do you go wrong with butter?

I'm copy and pasting the recipe in so I'll never lose it. But it came from this blog that one of the Amazing Ladies found.

Brownie Mosaic Cheesecake
Adapted wildly from A Piece of Cake, by Susan G. Purdy via Eat

Part One: One Bowl Brownies
Adapted from Baker’s One Bowl Brownies

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate (Baker’s chocolate, optional of course)
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter
1 3/4cups sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 13×9-inch baking pan with foil, with ends of foil extending over sides of pan. Grease foil.

Microwave chocolate and butter in large microwaveable bowl on HIGH 2 min. or until butter is melted. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in sugar. Blend in eggs and vanilla. Add flour and salt; mix well. Spread into prepared pan.

Bake 30 to 35 minute or until toothpick inserted in center comes out with fudgy crumbs. (Do not overbake.) Cool in pan on wire rack. Remove brownies from pan, using foil handles.

Cool brownies, then cut* them into 3/4- to 1-inch squares for use in the cheesecake. You will have more than the two cups of cubes, loosely measured, than you will need, and I’m sorry, you’re just going to have to decide for yourself what to do with the extra. Add cubes to cake batter as directed below.

* I find that brownies are fantastically easy to cut once they’ve been refrigerated–you end up with nice clean lines, and in this case, a sharp pizza wheel was especially helpful. Also, brownies taste better cold. I’m just saying.

Part Two: Crumb Crust
Recipe adapted from Gourmet, 1999

I like a doubled crumb crust. I can’t get enough cookie. Below are proportions for one crust with the amounts to double the recipe in parentheses. You know you wanna.

1 1/2 cups or 5 ounces (3 cups or 10 ounces to double) finely ground cookies such as chocolate wafers. Or Chocolate Teddy Grahams.
5 tablespoons (10 tablespoons to double) unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup (2/3 cup to double) sugar
1/8 (1/4 teaspoon to double) teaspoon salt

Stir together crust ingredients and press onto bottom and 1 inch up side of a buttered 24-centimeter springform pan. Fill right away or chill up to 2 hours.

Part Three: Cheesecake
Three Cities of Spain Coffeehouse

3 (8-oz) packages cream cheese, softened
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar

Make crumb crust as directed above for 24-centimeter cheesecake. Preheat oven to 350°F.

Make filling and bake cake: Beat cream cheese with an electric mixer until fluffy and add eggs, 1 at a time, then vanilla and sugar, beating on low speed until each ingredient is incorporated and scraping down bowl between additions.

Fold brownie cubes in very gently and pour mixture into prepared pan. Put springform pan with crust in a shallow baking pan. Pour filling into crust and bake in baking pan (to catch drips) in middle of oven 45 minutes, or until cake is set 3 inches from edge but center is still slightly wobbly when pan is gently shaken.

When completely cool, top with following glaze.

Part Four: Ganache Glaze
From Purdy’s original recipe

3 oz. bittersweet chocolate, broken up, or 1/2 cup chocolate morsels
2 oz. butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon confectioners sugar

Grind the chocolate into powder in the food processor, scald the butter and cream in a saucepan (or in a Pyrex cup in the microwave). With the machine running, pour the hot cream/butter mixture slowly through the feed tube onto the chocolate. Blend until completely smooth, stopping machine to scrape down sides once or twice. Add the extract and sugar and process until smooth. Spread over cheesecake while ganache is still warm. Chill until ready to serve.

And in case you're interested, this is what the cheesecake looked like after cooking but before ganache-ing.

I lowered the temperature of the oven to 325, if I remember right since ours is sort of a convection oven and things need to cook lower and shorter in it. And I also put it in a water bath. I'm not sure I'll do that again. Some of the butter melted up around the edges of the cheesecake and I freaked out the whole time thinking it was water. It's terrifying thinking your foil-proof lined pan (haha, get it? pan? lined in foil? foil proof? It's OK, in the words of one of my favorite customers at CVS Mary B. "I don't think I'm that funny sometimes, either.") leaked and ruined your cheesecake.

This is what it looked like post ganach-ing.

There aren't any more pictures. For obvious reasons (eating is more important than pictures).

I love my Mom! And my farmer's market.

When we were driving cross country on our move and spent the night back home, Mom made this awesome, yummy, creamy fruit salad.

I've kind of been craving it and decided I should make it. You can pretty much put in whatever kind of fruit you want, which works great for me since I'm allergic to some fruit and not to others. Plus, today was the Farmer's Market and they have some amazing fruit.

This morning I got up and went shopping for fruit (and veggies, but I hit pay dirt with the fruit). I found fresh blueberries and raspberries and apples and grapes and strawberries oh my! The strawberries in particular are to die for.

I came home and made my little fruit salad and it is fantastic. Here's the recipe! Obviously, I changed some things around. And I also didn't measure out anything. Fruit, liquid. I just threw it all together and it worked. :)

Awesome, Yummy, Creamy Fruit Salad (my version)

• 1 box of instant vanilla pudding
• 1 apple, chopped up
  
• a small bunch of seedless grapes, rinsed
  
• a can of mandarin oranges in their own juice - keep the juice!
  
• a can of pineapple bits in their own juice - keep the juice! (or you can be like me and get rings on accident and just cut them up on your own)
• a big carton thingy of strawberries, sliced, halved, quartered into whatever size bites you want (a full pint)
• a small carton thingy of raspberries (a half pint, I think)
• a small carton thingy of blueberries, rinsed (also a half pint)
  

1. Spoon out a little bit of the mandarin orange juice and toss it with the apple in a large bowl (you can use the really pretty new bowl you got at your local pottery store if you want - it will look gorgeous!). so the apple won't brown.
   
2. Drain the rest of the liquid from the pineapple and mandarin oranges into a small bowl.
   
3. Put the pineapple and oranges into the large, pretty bowl.
   
4. Add the apples, strawberries and grapes to the large, gorgeous bowl.
5. Add the package of instant vanilla pudding to the bowl of reserved pineapple and mandarin orange juice and whisk until thickened.
   
6. Pour pudding mixture over the fruit in the wonderful bowl and toss gently to coat.
7. Add the blueberries and raspberries and very gently toss (they go in last so they don't get smushed).
8. Refrigerate. Or just eat the whole darn thing (not the bowl) because it's amazing. Fantastic. Unbelievable. Wonderful. Yummy.

P.S. If you're bad at cutting apples (like me) be careful so you don't accidentally cut your finger (like me). Because if you just moved to a new place (like me) chances are you don't have or don't know where any band-aids are (like me). Unless, happily (like me), when your Mom and Grandma helped you move (like me) one of them was kind enough to leave two circle, circle, dot, dot band-aids on your bathroom counter that you stashed underneath your gargoyle because you were too lazy (like me) to find a real place for them (like me). And also be very careful when you cut up your pineapple that you messed up and bought in rings instead of tidbits (like me) because if you get pineapple juice in your cut (like me) it will really, really, really hurt. Trust me.

Cat's Phee on Spaghetti Alla Carbonara

My title sounds a little yucky, doesn't it? Oh well!

I opened up the fridge and noticed bacon sitting there and it reminded me of the Spaghetti Alla Carbonara we made this weekend. It's an easy recipe we got from the America's Test Kitchen Cookbook my fantastic mother in law gave us. As an aside note, who knew how many cookbooks those people have put out?! I gave up looking after 5 minutes on their website and went and found our cookbook so I could stop guessing and pick the correct one. Anyway, their recipe is amazing!

The best part is that it includes wine. I don't get to drink much wine, because Jeff gets migraines from it. And while I do like my wine, I don't feel comfortable drinking an entire bottle by myself when all I want is one glass. Even with those wine savers who really wants 2 week old wine? Not me. Blech.

However, I do make an exception for a particular companies wine. Cooper's Creek from New Zealand has a line of cat wines with fun labels. Being the animal lover I am, my wine bottles usually get picked based on the animal on the label. My favorite of theirs is the Boss Cat (Fat Cat in NZ) Chardonnay.



But we couldn't find it this time and haven't seen it in awhile. However, I was very excited to see that they were carrying a cat wine: Cat's Phee on a Gooseberry Bush Sauvignon Blanc. It wasn't my favorite ever, but the label was great. Apparently, American's freaked out and wouldn't allow it to be called "Cat's Pee" so they switched it to "Cat's Phee" instead.


They also have a Tom Cat Merlot that I'm on the lookout for, as well as Glamour Puss Pinor Noir. Also with excellent labels.

So, about that recipe.

America's Test Kitchen - Spaghetti Alla Carbonara

Add regular table salt to the pasta cooking water, but use sea salt flakes, if you can find them, to season the dish. We like the full flavor they bring to the carbonara. Note that while either table salt or sea salt can be used when seasoning in step 3, they are not used in equal amounts.

Serves 4 to 6

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 pound bacon (6 to 8 slices), slices halved length-wise, then cut crosswise into 1/4-inch pieces
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 large eggs
3/4 cup Parmesan cheese , finely grated (about 2 ounces)
1/4 cup Pecorino Romano cheese , finely grated (about 3/4 ounce)

3 small cloves of garlic , pressed through garlic press or minced to paste

1 pound spaghetti
table salt
ground black pepper

Note: Pouring the cheese and eggs over the hot pasta, tossing, and then adding the bacon ensures that none of the sauce gets left in the bowl.

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position, set large heatproof serving bowl on rack, and heat oven to 200 degrees. Bring 4 quarts water to rolling boil in large Dutch oven or stockpot.

2. While water is heating, heat oil in large skillet over medium heat until shimmering, but not smoking. Add bacon and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned and crisp, about 8 minutes. Add wine and simmer until alcohol aroma has cooked off and wine is slightly reduced, 6 to 8 minutes. Remove from heat and cover to keep warm. Beat eggs, cheeses, and garlic together with fork in small bowl; set aside.

3. When water comes to boil, add pasta and 1 tablespoon table salt; stir to separate pasta. Cook until al dente; reserve 1/3 cup pasta cooking water and drain pasta for about 5 seconds, leaving pasta slightly wet. Transfer drained pasta to warm serving bowl; if pasta is dry, add some reserved cooking water and toss to moisten. Immediately pour egg mixture over hot pasta, sprinkle with 1 teaspoon sea salt flakes or 3/4 teaspoon table salt; toss well to combine. Pour bacon mixture over pasta, season generously with black pepper, and toss well to combine. Serve immediately.

**We drain our bacon pretty well because my stomach doesn't like greasy, fatty foods. We leave a tablespoon or so to add flavor. You could probably also throw the garlic in with the wine so it won't be raw garlic flavor, but we like garlic so we don't mind it raw.**

Well, here I am

I seem to be on a Firefly kick today. My blog's title is a Firefly quote, as is the title of my very first post (well, second but it's a story) which seems to fit well as a good first post title. I whole heartedly blame it on finally watching the last act of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog this afternoon.

So what will my blog be about? Everything, I suppose! Those who know me understand how my mind wanders and jumps sporadically from topic to topic. I assume that it will include stuff about me and my life, Jeff, our pets, food and whatever other random things come to mind.

What's on my mind right now?

Mexican Pulled Pork.

We made this recipe for the first time last night for supper. I'm hungry now, and we're going to eat the leftovers tonight. We have so many leftovers. It says 4 to 6 servings, and we thought it would be bad if we halved it. It's only 4 to 6 servings if you're a giant, which we are not, thank you very much! We could have halved it and had 2 meals worth and still had enough to freeze for 2 more meals.

Also, I want ice cream. I was running errands the other day, and while I was in Davis Square to get a prescription filled at CVS (horray for seeing old co-workers - I miss you!) I decided to take the train home. Normally, that wouldn't be a big deal. But since I always get stuck on the stupid trains that break down in really dark areas, I now have panic attacks and tend to avoid the train whenever possible. Especially by myself. As a reward for being brave and grown-up, I decided to pick up some J.P. Licks. Their Oreo Cake Batter is fabulous. So fabu, in fact, that Jeff keeps eating it. Instead of the Sweet Cream that I got him because it's his favorite. But it's cool. I'll share. A little.