Recommendations

Delicious Things Which I Have Made Lately:

-Pumpkin pie with a shot of Hennessy. The cognac isn't distinguishable on it's own but adds an extra something to the normal pumpkin pie spice blend.
-Andy's favorite lamb burgers (spiced with mint and paprika, served with a sliced of feta), but with my new favorite side dish--chickpea fries! Use about half chickpea flour (I just ground dried chick peas) and water, plus some salt and pepper. Mix and spread into a cookie sheet, chill, slice, and shallow-fry in some olive oil.
-Pumpkin oatmeal. My usual apple oatmeal, but about 3 minutes in I put in a quarter cup of pumpkin puree. I let it boil an additional 3 minutes and then add brown sugar and cinnamon. It's like when I eat pumpkin pie for breakfast but better for me :D

breakfast every day

I firmly believe that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. On weekends, I like to get creative and spend a little more time creating something new and interesting, but during the week when I'm more crunched for time, I have one standard--Apple cinnamon oatmeal.

Really. Put down that quaker oats packet! That is not oatmeal! It's glue-y and oversweet and I'm pretty sure those things don't have any real oatmeal in them anyway.

The cast of characters:




Regular oatmeal (not the instant kind), an apple, and boiling water. (Brown sugar and cinnamon join the party later)

Peel and dice your apple and place it in the boiling water (1 cup water for a single serving). Add 1/2 cup oatmeal and wait 5 minutes. I promise, once you eat it this way, getting up 5 minutes earlier for real oatmeal won't seem like an issue at all.



Top with brown sugar and cinnamon! It'll be hard to wait until it's cool enough to eat.





This keeps you feeling full til lunch like fake packet oatmeal never could. While the brown sugar does provide a bit of energy right away, all the fiber in the oatmeal and apple cause the glucose to be released more slowly into your body so you don't crash and stay satisfied!

Silly

I made these AMAZING mint-lamb feta burgers for dinner the other day. Seriously, so good. Andy picked up sweet potato fries for us to have as a side because I was a bit rushed, and they paired nicely with a 2005 Chianti.

Anyway, I needed paprika for them. I asked my roommate Neha if she had any, and she thought she did, but she was rushing out the door and only knows the Indian names for her spices. I looked through her spices which were largely unlabeled, but after looking up on wikipedia what paprika is supposed to look like, I decided that I'd found it. But to make sure, for some reason that escapes me now, I decided to take a big ol' spoonful and eat it.

Such a bad idea. I tasted paprika the rest of the day. Moral of the story: don't eat mystery spices. Next time, I'm going to try the sniff test.

A little taste of fall

For the record: I just ate so much I had to change out of my jeans into sweatpants.

I've been baking lots (as usual) but with the cooler weather we've had this past week, turning the oven on seems like a necessity. And I crave pumpkin like no other. I love the flavors of fall--my breakfast lately has been old-fashioned oatmeal, cooked along with a crisp Michigan apple, with Michigan maple syrup, and fresh apple cider. The Dexter Cider Mill is Michigan's longest running cider mill, and their amazing fresh donuts and cider alongside the banks of the Huron is one of the best parts of fall.

Thinking about fall, I decided to bake a pumpkin pie.



mmmm.

But I thought, since I'm already making a pie crust, why not just triple the pie dough and use up those frozen blueberries?



That was how I somehow ended up with 2 pies. And the blueberry pie! Oh, it was beautiful!




It doesn't even look real!



Click on it. Gaze into the close-up. And note Mr. Bittman's bible in the backround!

So. Good. I made this Friday and promised to bring it to my mom's house for dinner on Saturday--somehow I "forgot" it. Oops.

My roommate Anita actually thought it was store-bought; clearly she doubts the magic of the all-butter crust. (news-flash! shortening and margarine are really bad for you! full of trans fats, aka the heart attack causing kind. and they are gross. switch to butter!)

Anyway, I had another problem. The pumpkin and the blueberry pies were not baked at the same temperature! I had the pumpkin pie in first, so afterwards I was going to have to have the oven on for another whole hour at 350. So I say to myself, self, it's a waste to have the oven on this long! And I had an open contained of pumpkin. I hurried along a bit an managed to get a batch of cheesecake pumpkin brownies in with the blueberry pie.



There are no good pictures of this, as it was gone very shortly after it came out of the oven. It was DELICIOUS. So creamy and moist and pumpkin-y... I kind of want to make another one right now! After all, I already have the oven on... ;)

My pies were standard Mark Bittman (How to Cook Everything), and the pumpkin cheesecake brownie delicious-ness can be found here.

lately

mostly I've been taking care of these dudes. One of my professors is on her way over to meet them, but as of right now they all need homes!

I made a key lime pie. Let's clear something up, shall we? Key lime pies are not supposed to be bright green. They may be a bit green, but mostly they are yellow. Green key lime pies are full of probably carcinogenic dyes and are, as a rule, less delicious.





Key lime pie is easy. Pretty much all recipes are the same, and they all rely on the magic of chemistry! After hand squeezing a bunch of key limes (aiming for about 1/2 cup juice), mix that with 4 egg yolks and a 12 oz can of sweetened condensed milk. The milk and the highly acidic juices react and start to thicken immediately.

An aside: I make my own graham cracker crust. It is so easy and so much better. Like pancake mixes, the success of commercially prepared graham cracker crusts shall always remain a mystery. Just smash some graham crackers, mix with a little melted butter and press in a pan.

I think people are needlessly afraid of eating raw eggs. In this case, however, baking the filling for 10 minutes at 350 helps it to set a little further. Beat the remaining egg white with some sugar until stiff peaks form, ice the pie and bake about 10 more minutes.

My camera ran out of batteries (?? I think, I took these a few weeks ago) so the final picture I have was with my cell phone.



I also made my brother an apple pie that evening. If I make a pie specifically for someone, I think it's important to put their initial on it. I also think that it is non-negotiable to make pie crust without butter.



sorry for the flash. it was pretty late at this point.

now, back to the kittens!