I Love You Peaches: Peach Cupcakes & Brown Sugar Icing. Yes, Please.

KELLY * August 12 * Dessert

Well, I'm on the fly. I'm heading out into the wilds of the Ozarks (okay, it's not so wild. It's really a little more like a redneck version of the resort in Dirty Dancing). Well, there will be about 30 members of my family and I'm doing what I do best: bringing baked goods. Last weekend Liz was lured by some beautiful peaches at the Glenwood Sunday Market. That set off my search. What to make with a peach that is both transportable and won't wither in the summer heat of Missouri? I found this recipe for peach cupcakes. Initial response is that they're lovely. As I've worked more with cupcakes, I've been trying (against my nature) to not panic when they don't look perfect. I just keep repeating "all things don't rise the same way. All things don't rise the same way." Well, these weren't the prettiest coming out of the oven, but I'm just assuming that's the norm (as the 2nd batch was left in longer because I lost track of them while watching Notting Hill and although they rose more uniformly, they then fell to look like the others). This recipe called for brown sugar icing. The answer is, yes, it's delicious. It also gives you a nice tan colored icing (which totally has its aesthetic purposes).

Anyway, they look great. I'm hoping that a slew of Kesslers, Briggses, and Littles enjoy them. For someone who has spent her entire life being Kelly who falls down and does "crazy" things, it's tough to convince folks I can do things well. I figure it's easier to convince my family I can bake than insightfully analyze the media.

Redneck Jamaica, here we come!

Don't Know What To Do With That Eggplant? Stuff it in a Tomato!

KELLY * August 10 * Dinner

So, at it turns out, I'm not actually very bright during the summer. I was actually somewhat productive today, but apparently my attempt to be so led to me becoming wholly oblivious of my own surroundings. Liz was pretty sure that the apartment (that I had been sitting in all day with no A/C or open windows) felt like a sauna. She said I was bright red and needed to hydrate. Well, this is not unusual for me. That said, despite my overall obliviousness, I did do some online research to figure out something to have for dinner. What to do with tomatoes and eggplants? Hmm. Well, I found this recipe for stuffed eggplant. Liz had to switch things up a bit (as our eggplants lacked a bit of bodily integrity/size and could not serve as a boat for stuffing). Anyway, I stand by tonight's dinner. I loves me a tomato, so if you want to stuff things into a tomato and give them to me, I will take them! (Have I mentioned that Liz is useful?) We differed on our opinions regarding the dish. She felt that the stuffing was not as good as the veg that she cooked outside of the tomato and I thought the stuffing was naught but tasty tomato-y goodness. I think she was just cranky because the apartment is BLAZING!!!

ELIZABETH * August 10 * Dinner

It's not so hot now that I opened all the windows and turned on a fan or two. The absent-minded professor really doesn't notice a thing when she is working. It was dang hot in the kitchen though, with the oven on and water boiling! Again, like last night, discoveries were made, with room for improvements next time. We served the stuffed tomatoes with spinach-ricotta tortellini from Galucci's Cleveland, with a light Aglio e Olio sauce of lemon infused olive oil, crushed chilis, chopped garlic, salt and pepper, and grated pecorino romano. As always, there was NOTHING wrong with this classic. The tomatoes themselves were made as follows:

Two sizeable tomatoes (Angelic CSA) - core and drain in a colander while you make:

Chopped garlic scapes (probably the last of the season) and a sliced leek, both from Angelic CSA, sauteed in olive oil with crushed chilis, salt and pepper.

Diced zucchini and 2 baby eggplants (Angelic CSA), the guts of the above tomatoes sans seeds, added to above.

When veg is tender add 1 tbsp each fresh thyme and fresh parsley, chopped, and some grated pecorino romano cheese.

Stuff tomatoes with mixture, place in baking dish. Surround with remaining veg, and sprinkle the whole with breadcrumbs. Bake 30 min at 350 and serve with more grated cheese, salt and pepper, with tortellini on the side.

I will agree with the good Doctor K that this was pretty good, but in fact the veg in the baking dish surrounding the tomatoes were better than the stuffing inside, even though they were the same stuff. I think the reasons for this were twofold - I enumerate the folds here:

1 - Because the veg in the pan were exposed to more heat and not stuffed in a tomato, they cooked more, became more succulent and tender, and tastier.

2 - Because the veg in the tomato were in the tomato, they not only cooked less, but they got a little wet due to tomato water. K thought they tasted tomato-ey. I just thought they were wet.

I think both folds could be addressed a) by not stuffing this veg in tomatoes at all but just roasting it and eating it yum or b) roasting the tomatoes longer and/or at a hotter temp. I think this would help evaporate some more tomato water and cook the veg more.

Also, although garlic scapes and leeks are lovely and delicate, in this dish I missed the punch of real live garlic (lots of it) and full-force onions. I took some of the Aglio e Olio and drizzled it on the tomato stuffing and it was seriously improved. I'm sure the addition of the extra oil didn't hurt, but the garlic really enhanced the tomato flavor. In short, we ate it and it was good and good for us, and we used up alot of veg, which was truly necessary. I would make again with some adjustments. It WAS very pretty though! A nice summer meal, especially if you have AC!

Chinatown Be Damned! We'll Make Our Own Cucumber & Chicken

KELLY * August 9 * Dinner

So, the evening was a little up in the air. Plans were unclear. I was lazy. Liz had a meeting. I'm incredibly impressed that we (okay, Liz) went ahead and made dinner. (I fully admit that I have made promises of laundry tomorrow so I did not have to help and so I could consequently watch Mad Men. I make no claims of being remotely helpful except once upon a time saying, "Do you think you could make that cucumber and chicken that we had at Joe's Shanghai?") Anyway, we still have a mess of cucumbers. They seem to come non-stop. That said, I could care less about a cucumber. I have no specific reason for not liking cucumbers. I just don't. The chicken and cucumber from Joe's Shanghai, however, has been a personal fave for years. So, Liz whipped up a bit of tasty loveliness. It was light. It was tasty. I braved the chopsticks while Liz totally copped out with a fork. (It's like I don't even know her anymore, honestly.) Anyway, it was a perfect light dinner for a warm summer night.

ELIZABETH * August 9 * Dinner

The thing that's so awesome about that Joe's Shanghai dish is that you can't really tell why it tastes so good, it just does. I did not make something as good as that, but I feel like it was an important step in the right direction! Discoveries:

This recipe is close. I made a few adjustments:

* I cut things in little cubes like at Joe's instead of the strips in the recipe. (Hence the fork. Those little cubes are impossible with stix - although Kelly still somehow managed to finish way ahead of me despite my fork. But then again, I chew.)

* I replaced the rice wine with cider vinegar, mostly because I read the recipe wrong and we were out of rice wine vinegar. Oops, but I don't regret it. I actually think the vinegar was the right choice, but I would use rice wine vinegar instead.

* I left out the soy sauce. The Joe's dish is totally white.

* I added 1 tsp hot chili oil in with the sauce at the end.

I would make a few more:

* There was a shortage of sauce. I added a little water, but I think next time I would add even more chicken broth as liquid. The sauce also could have used the richness of broth.

* Joe's might be so good due to MSG. I salted several times, and black peppered. Chicken broth might also help this issue.

* I put in garlic instead of ginger. Next time I'd do both.

This one is certainly a work in process, but I would for sure try it again, and it was all the way gone, so I guess it was good enough! Actually very tasty, and with a pleasant heat. Cooking cucumbers sounds wierd but it's actually not. As Julia says, "Don't crowd the pan" and use a good high heat, and they sear instead of getting squishy. Yum cucumbers!

oh ps - At the Glenwood Sunday Market, I bought a lemon cucumber. It looks like a lemon that's been zested. I said to the guy, "So this is a cucumber?" and he said "Totally". It was the totally that sold me. Well, I ate it for lunch today like an apple and it was awesome. More lemon cukes for me next week!!!

Fajita-rama and Sunday Gluttony!

KELLY (WITH HORNING IN BY LIZ) * August 8 * LUNCH

Ooh, the tasty deliciousness of an impromptu Mexican feast almost transcends words. Yesterday we received some beautiful green peppers and tomatoes from the CSA. Today we headed to the Glenwood Sunday Market in our hood and I suggested that perhaps we could knock out the peppers, some tomatoes (as we already had some okay tomatoes from Morse Market and Whole Foods prior to the CSA haul), some CSA sweet onions, and the like if we went hog wild in a Mexican sense. So, while at the Glenwood Market we picked up a couple tasty looking (and ultimately blazing) jalapeños. (Just a note, while we were there, we also had some amazing apple cider infused Zeppoli - fried dough balls with cinnamon and sugar. They were stupid good.) Anyway, we made it back from the market and Liz headed off to yoga and I, well, took a nap. When she came home, we headed into the lunch. On her stop to get cilantro and limes for the pico, she accidentally picked up an avocado. So, I cut up 2 peppers (CSA), one sweet onion (CSA) and one yellow onion (Trader Joe's), and Liz did her magic with the chicken (Lime Pepper from Central Market Austin). I followed Emeril's pico recipe, but as usual was heavy handed with the garlic and jalapeño. (NOTE: I find Emeril totally irritating. His presence generally leads to pleas of turning the channel. His mere utterance of "bam" drives me into a fit of ranting. However, the first blazing taste of pico could lead to nothing other than a shout of "BAM!!". The pepper was fresh and I went a little overboard. That said, it was amazing). Liz threw together a little guac (as she is wont to do, and I usually like it more than the overpriced $12 guac at many restaurants). Anyway, once all was finished, we had a lovely Summer afternoon lunch of fresh pico, fresh guac, tortilla chips (Edgewater Produce), Goya pink beans cooked with yellow onion (can't express how much better a can of pink or black beans is if you just put it in a pot with chopped onions when you warm them), and these AMAZING La Tortilla Factory hand made style corn tortillas. (After being spoiled by a never-ending stream of fresh Texas tortillas, these were an excellent surprise. They are really the best of both worlds--corn and flour--they have the chewiness of flour and the heartiness of corn. They're a little bit of a miracle.) Anyway, we eventually just had to stop eating, as we could have just kept digging through the food. Don't worry. It's safe and sound put away for lunches. But dude, it was fab.

TOO MUCH CORN!!! - Make a Chowder

KELLY * August 7 * DINNER

So, we've decided that perhaps we should maximize the number of vegetables that we put in a food. Despite the fact that we ate an insane amount of dim sum this morning (followed by a very long nap), we powered through to conquer the mound of produce that was forming. Today's box only added to the idiotic amount of corn we already had. Flauto decided "CORN CHOWDER." I'm honestly not so focused on the blog today. As we were eating what was an incredibly delicious dinner of corn chowder and quesadillas(yes, I married well), we received a phone call from our friend Sean (see bottom photo). It was Saturday. He needed company. He'd never heard of chowder but had a sneaking suspicious that it sounded, so we headed over to his hipster neighborhood with chowder, quesadilla fixings, and dough to make more carrot cookies.

So, in short, it's tasty. It was a lovely, creamy, delicious bowl of fabulousness. It was not savored, however, as here we are watching E! and preparing to play scene it. I will dream about leftovers.

Liz to add the tasty and delicious recipe soon...

How to Eat Weight Watchers' Worst Nightmare (Carrot Cake) in Good Conscience.

KELLY * August 5 * Dessert

So, we're s little slow on the blogging at the moment. Have been busy. Project Runway to catch up on (and what's up with the guy in the bowler hat). Anyway, I had a mess of carrots to do something with. Seeing as how I don't actually care for carrots (although as long as they don't crunch I find them largely inoffensive), I thought maybe I would think outside of the box. Okay, okay, I still go straight to epicurious.com (because it's genius), but it was outside of the dinner/savory box. So, I found this recipe for inside-out carrot cake cookies, and I must announce in full voice "THIS WAS FREAKING AMAZING." All I did was follow the recipe (sans nuts because I had none [no giggling, we are not 12]. Not much to say except:

- it is possible to make baked goods without bacon
- peeling teeny tiny carrots is really annoying
- cream cheese mixed with honey is AMAZING
- use waxed paper on your cookie sheet or these cake-y cookies will get trashed
- Liz loves me more because I bake for her

GO COOKIES!!

Move Over BLT! I've Got Goat Cheese AND Roasted Garlic!

KELLY * August 3 * DINNER

So, this is likely going to short, but sweet. All I have to say is THANK YOU AMANDA LOTZ! Apparently a perk of this blog is that it makes people tell us about recipes. I would like to give a huge thanks to Wes for showing Amanda the blog which resulted in the email that then provoked tonight's dinner. So, if you recall, I gushed over the BLAGT last week. Yes, our tomatoes were substandard this week (Romas from Florida via Whole Foods not gorgeous and luscious beefsteaks from Fournie Farms), BUT as Dr. Lotz suggested the resultant sandwich was NOT. (You can tell by all of capital letters that I mean business.) Anyway, this was one fabulous goat cheese, tomato, and roasted garlic sandwich. Our particular sandwich was built the following way:

* 2 pieces of sourdough bread lightly toasted (Whole Foods)
* 2/3 of a GIANT clove of elephant garlic - roasted at 425 for about 30 minutes or so (CSA)
* 1T or so goat cheese (Trader Joe's)
* 3 slices of Roma tomato (Whole Foods)

Spread the garlic on one piece of bread and the goat cheese on the other and place the tomato on top of the garlic.

On top of tomato drizzle a mixture of balsamic and olive oil and then dress with salt and pepper.

Dr. Lotz's specific advice was to "then make a dressing of 1T balsamic, 2t EVOO, 1/4t kosher salt, and 1/4t pepper, and drizzle evenly over 1/2 inch beefstake slices (enough dressing for 6 sands), get really fancy and add basil leaves."

We winged it a bit, but DUDE!!

All I know (realizing I said that already) is that Liz took her first bite and started giggling like the cat who ate the canary. I think that meant that she liked it and not that she ate a canary. Anyway, thoroughly enjoying all varieties of the BLT! GO SUMMER!

Oh, and Liz had a small golden beet salad (just boiled beets from the CSA with the same dressing drizzed over them). I, however, have still not come over to the side of the beets. I'll just sit here and relish the thought of the Lotz (which is what I shall call the sandwich from this point on).