Comfort Foods: the Best Mac and Cheese

I have a hard time dealing with winter. I'm one of those people who is usually still wrapped up in a blanket if it's 70 degrees and sunny outside, so come weeks like this when it snows more days than it doesn't and I know it's only a matter of time before the temperature get stuck in the negatives, I start to lose a lot of my willpower. On the negative side, that usually means that my house is a lot less clean and I'm a little concerned about what it will mean for the homework I'm going to be getting next week. But on the positive side, it can end up with some spectacularly tasty (if not very healthy) comfort food that makes me feel warm enough that I can stand the ice crystals on the windows.

This last week, Henry and I went to a Comfort Foods class at the Cooks of Crocus Hill. Their classes are always spectacular, and we've always especially enjoyed ones such as the one we took this week, which pairs food with both wine and beer. These are always great for quite a few reasons--they're a fun night out with a great 5 or 6 course meal, allow us to taste new food and learn how to make it, and expose us to new wines and beers that we otherwise probably wouldn't find to try. This course was taught by Chef Mike Shannon, sommelier Leslee Miller and cicerone Michael Agnew. All three of them regularly impress me with their skills, excitement and their passion to share their knowledge, and knowing that they will be teaching the class can frequently be enough to swing my decision to take it. This time was no disappointment; the food and wine was spectacular, and I even found some beer that I didn't mind drinking, which is a big step for me!

While there is a lot of knowledge I could share after my experience in this class, I'm choosing to share my favorite experience from the class, which was the macaroni and cheese. I know it sounds like a simple dish, but I have to say that this was far and above the best mac and cheese I have ever tasted. It is by no means healthy, and so January may not be the best time to be sharing this, but YUM. It's worth it. If you're trying to lose weight, it's worth the extra few hours in the gym to work it off. It's also worth throwing your diet into the wind for a week or so. Not that I mean to be a bad influence--but sometimes I just can't help it!

Mike Shannon's Four Cheese Mac and Cheese
This makes a 9x13 pan of incredibly solid mac and cheese. When I say solid, I mean he turned the pan on end and it didn't even move.

Ingredients

• 8 oz. macaroni, penne or ziti
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt, plus more for cooking pasta
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup finely chopped shallots
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cups dry white wine
• 1 cup milk
• 2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
• 8 ounces Gruyere, grated
• 4 ounces white cheddar, grated
• 2 tablespoons gorgonzola, crumbled
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh chives
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne
• 2 eggs, whipped
• 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup parmesan, grated

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cook the noodles in a large pot of boiling, well-salted water until just cooked, ardoun 7-12 minutes. Drain, and set aside.
3. In a large saute pan over medium-high heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter. Add the shallots and cook until just browned, about 3 minutes.
4. Sprinkle the warmed butter with your flour and then cook, stirring continuously, for one minute. Add the wine, milk and cream and stir well.
5. Pour in the Gruyere, cheddar and gorgonzola cheese, and stir until melted. Add 2 tablespoons chives, mustard, 1/4 teaspoon salt and cayenne. Stir cooked pasta into cheese mixture, then add eggs, mix well and pour all into a shallow baking dish.
6. Melt remaining butter and combine with panko. Salt to taste.
7. Sprinkle bread crumb mixture over pasta and cheese and bake in 9x13 pan until top is browned and cheese is bubbling, 15-20 minutes.
8. Eat way, way too much. Don't feel guilty.

White Hot Chocolate: Mugg and Bean style

One of my longtime bucket list goals has been to learn how to make white hot chocolate well. It's a treat that I first ran across when I was studying abroad, and fell head over heels in love with. I spent 6 weeks in South Africa the summer after my sophomore year in college, and now, I still miss the food from my favorite restaurant there--the Mugg and Bean. It was a little chain of coffee shops that made the best pancakes and muffins, dessert (of which a serving was equivalent to 3 desserts in a US restaurant), and especially white hot chocolate. I blame the Mugg and Bean for a large portion of the 10 pounds I gained overseas, but ever since I've been hoping I could figure out how to duplicate some of the recipes that I've been missing. While I have yet to make the chocolate chip muffins the size of a softball or the amazing whole grain pancakes, this week I finally attempted a recipe for white hot chocolate that made me feel like I was back in Durban, skipping my morning homework in favor of breakfast at Musgrave Centre.

A fair warning--if you don't really like white chocolate or if you're completely dedicated to normal hot chocolate, this is not for you. If you like white chocolate, are willing to risk needing an extra hour or so at the gym and are ok with adventuring a little with your hot drinks, this is absolutely worth a try. It's decadent, warming enough to forget the snow for awhile and a pretty darn fun change from Swiss Miss.

White Hot Chocolate
Yum. I made this with 2% milk and heavy whipping cream, but I think I could have easily omitted most if not all of the whipping cream without being upset. There's just so much chocolate in this that it's still plenty decadent!

Ingredients

• 12 ounces good quality white chocolate, coarsely chopped. (I learned that you can tell good white chocolate if the main ingredient has something to do with cocoa or cocoa butter.)
• 6 cups whole milk (I reduced this down to 2% and it was plenty rich and creamy for me).
• 2 cups heavy cream (I used this, but next time I'll try reducing or omitting it).
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract. (I forgot this at first, but when I tasted it went back and added some. It's absolutely a necessary ingredient in my opinion.)
• Whipped cream, peppermint sticks or shaved chocolate for garnish (I skipped all these and was completely fine).

Directions

1. Place white chocolate in a medium miuxing bowl and set aside. This is what you'll be mixing the full batch of hot chocolate in, so make sure it's big enough.
2. Place milk and cream in a medium sauce pan and heat over medium heat, stirring frequently to prevent scalding, until warm and the sides are becoming bubbly. My recipe said this was about 4 minutes, but for me it took a little longer.
3. Immediately pour over chocolate in bowl. Stir until chocolate melts and combines with milk. Add the vanilla and stir until frothy. This takes a minute or two and is a good arm workout to make you feel a little better about the massive amount of really tasty chocolate and cream you're about to ingest!
4. Garnish as needed and stir immediately. This one is good to drink pretty quickly before it cools, as a bit of a skin develops after it sits for awhile. Some people may not mind that, but the boys declared it too weird to drink!

I was thrilled to learn how to make white hot chocolate well--that's half of a goal to cross of my bucket list. Now, if anyone has any advice on duplicating malva pudding or Mugg and Bean's kahlua freezers or chocolate chip muffins, I will be set (and about 50 pounds heavier)!

Mmm...Thai food

I ate good Thai food for the first time this summer, and it was DELICIOUS. I've been hoping to go back to the restaurant since then but haven't had the time or people willing to go. So, I decided to try making my own last week, and it went pretty well! I can't say it was as good as what I had at the restaurant, but it was very good. (In fact, it was good enough that Henry helped me eat leftovers all week, when he normall throws a fit after one day!) This was definitely one of my more successful recipe experiments, which I'll be making again sometime when I'm ready for all the calories--it makes a lot of food that is by no means good for you, but definitely good! I found this recipe on the Internet one day, but I couldn't tell you where beyond the note that says that it was originally from Martha Stewart.

Thai Spicy Chicken Casserole
Yum. But this makes enough to feed a LOT of people or two people for a very long time.

Ingredients
1 T olive oil
2.5 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs (this was cut down from the original recipe and I would cut it down further next time and replace it with more veggies)
Pepper
Salt
1 can reduced fat coconut milk (I couldn't find this, so I used about 3/4 cup regular coconut milk)
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups chicken broth (I used a full can of this to make up for the less coconut milk)
3-4 T Thai red curry paste (It called for a lot less, but this amount was spicy and good!)
1 T cayenne pepper (I added this--you could easily reduce it)
1 cup white long grain rice (not instant!)
2 bell peppers, chopped (I used one green and one red, but you could easily add another pepper)
8 oz. green beans, cut into 1-inch lengths (could easily add more to replace some of the chicken)

Directions

1. Salt and pepper the chicken. In a 5-quart stock pot, heat the oil and brown the chicken. You may need to do this in two batches. Remove the chicken to a plate (It will cook more later, so don't worry if it's not done as long as it's browned).
2. Add the coconut milk, broth, curry paste and water to the stock pot. Bring to a boil. Add the rice. Add the chicken on top in a layer, including any juices that leaked out to the plate. Cover and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook without stirring for 15 minutes until rice is almost tender. (If you're using a different type of rice, you may need to cook it longer, but I'm not sure if the rice will turn out as fluffy.)
3. Add the veggies on top of the chicken, cover again and cook until tender-crisp, about 10 more minutes.

Food Experiments: Made-up Zucchini Casserole

When I finally decided I wanted to learn how to cook, my experience came mostly in 2 waves. My mom taught me how to read recipes so they made sense, how to make the best rice krispie bars in the world, and basically got me started. My dad then took over and started to teach me how to make stuff up.

That's a skill I'm still learning, but it's coming easier as I cook more and get a better idea of what things go together and what I like. One of my biggest challenges is branching out--I have a few made-up recipes, but since I like so many of the same spices and ingredients so much, a lot of my new attempts end up tasting just the same. Last week, based on the produce from my garden and the farmers market, I successfully made up a casserole (that's a new attempt for me!) that was not only good, but different from my past experiments. And on top of that--not only was it relatively healthy (at least, most of the ingredients are good for you, although I have no idea on calorie count) but Henry even liked it. For healthy food, that's quite a compliment! Unfortunately, I cooked this in my father's style, which means I have only a very general idea at best as to how much of things I put into it. When you make it, just put in lots of the spices you like and not so much of the ones you don't. It works for me!

Made-Up Zucchini Casserole
I used a 9x9 ceramic casserole dish with a lid, and I think it was probably 3-4 inches tall. You could probably make it in a wider, shorter dish, but I liked the layers I added in this. They make it seem more casserole-y to me.

Ingredients

• Mixed brown and wild rice to cover the bottom of the pan (around 3/4 or 1 cup?)
• 1 large-ish zucchini, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
• 1/2 large green pepper, diced
• 2 jalpenos, diced
• 1-2 tomatoes, diced
• 1 small onion, diced
• minced garlic (I used a lot. probably 2-4 tablespoons?)
• pepper
• cayenne pepper
• rosemary
• oregano
• 1 large chicken breast, cut into 1/2" cubes
• spaghetti sauce (about 3/4 of a normal sized jar)
• Cheddar cheese, enough to cover the top of the casserole and extra to sprinkle on before serving (1 cup?)
• Bread crumbs, enough to cover the top of the casserole (1/2 cup?)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Cover the bottom of the casserole dish with the mixed rice.
3. On top of the rice, layer the zucchini rounds, green pepper and jalapenos, tomatoes, and onion. Lightly cover with the spices (garlic through oregano).
4. Top the spices and veggies with the dicecd chicken breast and pour the spaghetti sauce over the top, making sure it covers as much of the casserole as possible. (I also added a little bit of extra water here for the rice, but I'm pretty sure I didn't need to. The finished product was plenty liquid-y.)
5. Cover with cheddar cheese and bread crumbs.
6. Bake covered for 1 hour. Remove the cover and bake for another 30 minutes. Top with more cheese for serving.

Some food experiments: Grilling and sweet potato burritos

Since I found the list of 101 ideas for the grill, I've been experimenting with different grilled foods. My results: grilled asparagus, great, but don't overcook it. Grilled watermelon, not great. But my parents' dog Amos really, really liked that one--probably something about the bratwurst flavor that was infused in the watermelon after grilling. In fact, Amos liked it so much that he scarfed down all his food for the first time since I got here, with minimal coaxing! Grilled avacado is ok, but it didn't add a lot to the normal avacado flavor. Grilled peppers, very good. All in all, my favorite grill experiment so far is definitely the asparagus. I just tossed it in olive oil with sea salt (since my parents don't have kosher salt and I was house-sitting during this particular experiment) and a little bit of pepper, and grilled it for probably less than 5 minutes. The coals were super hot from the chimney starter (I'm not ready for gas or the green egg grill yet...they seem much more likely to blow up in my face when I don't know which buttons to hit) so the stalks directly over the coals were already burnt by that point.

My other experiment for the week was sweet potato burritos. I was very skeptical about these, even though they are labeled "addictive." I'm very picky about how I like sweet potatoes, and I wasn't entirely sure about the idea of a burrito essentially completely filled with smooshy food. I decided to take my chances since all the reviews were so positive, and I'm glad I did. I made all the fillings from scratch (no canned sweet potatoes or refried beans) since I heard that made a difference, and they were delicious. My cautions--they are best when you make sure the beans and the sweet potatoes are mixed well inside the tortilla, to make sure you're not getting a full bite of sweet potatoes and another full bite of beans. Make sure you have enough cheese, as the sharpness balances out the rest of the flavors. And, if you're using the smaller tortillas, make a few of these! They're good enough to eat several of and not as filling as they look. These are vegetarian, but I think you could easily add shredded pork or chicken to them if you wanted.

Rent, jazz, baseball and food experiments

It's 11:15 and I think this is the earliest I've really had the opportunity to sit down for a few minutes all week. It's been an incredibly busy week--fun, but very busy.

This last weekend I went to Eau Claire to visit my old college roommate, who I haven't seen in probably two years. It was great to see her but strange to be back in Eau Claire. I suddenly didn't fit in at a lot of the places I used to love to go, and I was surprised at how much worse my old apartment in the "student ghetto" looked after a few years of perspective. It was also good to be back; Eau Claire has a great arts scene that I've missed. The Twin Cities definitely has a lot of arts opportunities, but most of them are farther away, a LOT more expensive, and generally both. We took advantage of the weekend to see a jazz concert and the musical Rent (as put on by the Eau Clare Children's Theater...odd). I was honestly surprised at how much I liked Rent--from the things I'd been told, I expected to spend a large part of the time frustrated with starving artists. Instead, I found the play to be a lot more about trying to live with impending death. Depressing, but much less frustrating as a member of the audience. The music was good and the play was not watered down or performed by children, although I was a little nervous when I realized that the play was being put on by a children's theater. It was a great busy weekend.

Tuesday I got my first experience at Target Field, which was pretty darn awesome. My brother, sister and I took my oldest nephew to the game, and I'm pretty sure nobody in the ballpark was having a better time for a lot of that game than my nephew.

 It was nice to have somebody to cheer with me, even if he was only five! The Twins didn't play great--their pitcher was fantastic, but I wasn't impressed with the offense. If you're facing a pitcher who is walking in runs and giving up more runs with wild pitches, I feel like you should be able to get your offense going to build on their runs--not so last night. In spite of that, it was a good experience. The ballpark is beautiful and, thanks to my very generous brother, I got to sit in some fantastic seats. It was a perfect night for baseball weather-wise, AND it was just wonderful to get back to baseball. And the ballpark has tacos and gelato. I'm not really sure what more you can ask for.

Finally...I've been seriously falling behind on my food experiments. This is partly because I've been crazy busy this month, and partly because my last several experiments have flopped miserably. My spicy Asian peanut butter cookies from last week were not much of an exception...I liked them and a few other people did, but in general they did not go over well. They aren't a normal cookie, and with so many strong flavors a lot of people found different flavors they didn't like. I adapted it from this recipe according to what I had on hand. Feel free to make these if you are adventurous, and try them with some good vanilla ice cream. Like I said, I really enjoyed them--but don't expect a normal peanut butter cookie!

Spicy Asian-Inspired Peanut Butter Cookies 
My version, as adapted from the one I link to above. This made me between 2-3 dozen cookies. Also, I think I could have left out the cayenne pepper without compromising the taste at all. I never tasted the pepper, but after a few bites a slow burn started that you could feel rather than taste. Weird for a cookie, too hot for a lot of people and since it didn't add any noticeable flavor, not particularly important to me.

Ingredients

• 1 stick butter (room temperature)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (scant)
• zest of one lemon (make sure the zest is very small!)
• 1.25 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 cup chunky peanut butter
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

1. Sift together the flour, spices, baking powder and baking soda.
2. In another bowl, beat the butter, sugars and lemon zest until light and smooth but not fluffy. Add the peanut butter and vanilla, and blend until smooth. Add the egg and combine.
3. Add the flour mix to the peanut butter mix, mixing just until combined and no flour streaks appear.
4. Chill the dough until firm.
5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
6. Grease cookie sheets and create balls about 1.25 inches across for cookies. On the cookie sheet, flatten each ball slightly with a fork.
7. Bake for about 10-12 minutes; let cool slightly before removing from the pan.

Minnesota Melting Pot Class

Monday was my ethnic Minnesota foods class with Kevin Ryan, and it was once again a great class. We learned to make a Hmong stew, a Somalian chicken stew, juicy lucys, Swedish meatballs and a Norwegian apple cake. The class was a lot of fun, the food was incredible, and I felt like I learned a lot so--yesterday I tried to make the jucy lucys. They seemed to be the easiest recipe in the class and whenever I wait for a long time to make the recipes I've learned in a class, I always seem to forget some key steps.

At least, so I thought. After the jucy lucys, I think it might just be that I lack some important skills! I made them inside (which may have been my first mistake) because it was a little too windy for the grill. And they ended up charred on the outside (rather than seared a nice brown) and missing a lot of pieces of hamburger which are still stuck fast to the bottom of my pan. What I learned from this is that it probably is important to use the high-fat hamburger that he asked for, rather than the much leaner ground buffalo that I had in the freezer! So, in another week or so I'll try it again and see if I can improve with the correct hamburger and either a grill or a much cooler pan.

Juicy Lucys
Ideally, this is supposed to be over a grill. Inside, he said to use a very hot pan to sear the meat on the outside. He also said the hot pan is more likely to cook the meat pretty quickly so the cheese doesn't bleed out.

Ingredients
4 slices good quality white sandwich bread
1/2 cup whole milk
1.5 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
3 pounds 85% ground beef
About 12 1" squares cheese, 1/4-1/2 inch thick
8 hamburger buns

Directions

1. Rip the sandwich bread into small pieces and mash with milk and spices in a small bowl until it makes a paste.
2. Mix in hamburger until well mixed. Try not to mash the hamburger too much, or it may become stiff.
3. Form hamburger patties around about 3 squares of cheese, making sure that the patty is evenly distributed on around the cheese and an even thickness.
4. Cook over the grill or in a hot pan with no oil until done. Try not to burn to a crisp like I did!

Red Pepper Bagel Sandwiches...finally!

After a week of alternately being busy and fighting with an unpleasant case of food poisoning, I'm finally ready to write about my last vegetarian experiment. And since I made it on Monday, it's about time! I'm really torn between French and Mexican food for this month's experiment. I had every intention of working with French food, so I can really use the cookbook I got from my sister for Chistmas and do some good experimenting. I've heard that this guy wrote some of the best cookbooks for learning French food, which definitely interests me. Also, I've never really eaten much French food, and I'd like to have a general idea of what's going on when I head over to France this fall. But, a lot of the food that really appeals to me in the book is a little beyond my level of need at the moment...as much as I would like to cook a 3 pound chicken every week, I really don't need that much food! And I LOVE Mexican food an unnatural amount. So, I'll do some pondering and hopefully come up with an idea before I go grocery shopping!

I made roasted red pepper bagel sandwiches for my experiment this week, and they were surprisingly both a lot better and a lot more filling than I expected. I made them from a recipe from Cooking Light magazine and followed it pretty close, but did make a few changes. First, I served it on a normal sized bagel--I was looking for dinner, not appetizers! The first time I made them, I did include the garlic cloves. When I made them again for lunches at work, I left that part out so I wouldn't kill everyone around me with the garlic smell! My only objection to these is using the canned roasted red peppers--they're convenient, which is wonderful, but I had a hard time getting over how slimy they looked and felt pulling them out of the jar. They tasted great, but each time I took I bite I was expecting a mouth full of slime.

Roasted Red Pepper Bagel Sandwiches
My version. These are great, quick and surprisingly filling.

Ingredients

• Plain bagels
• Fat free cream cheese
• 1 jar roasted red peppers (or roast your own to get around the slimy look!)
• 1 clove garlic, minced (optional--when I did this, I used a whole clove on one sandwich and it was good and spicy!)
• Black pepper

Directions

1. Toast the bagel.
2. Meanwhile, combine enough cream cheese for 1 bagel (about 2 big spoonfulls), minced garlic and black pepper and whip them together until well mixed.
3. Coat both sides of the bagel with the cream cheese mix.
4. Add the red pepper.

It's really that fast and simple, and tastes a lot better than I expected with the simple ingredients. Yum.

Happy Easter to everyone tomorrow! Enjoy your jellybeans and deviled eggs :)

Food Experiments: Tomato Pesto Pasta

I always think that I like pesto until I actually eat it. It sounds and looks good, but when I finally eat it, it's just too oily for something so green and healthy looking! Today, I decided to try it again with a new recipe, hoping that the tomatoes would make it a little better. It worked to a point--I liked the taste of the pesto better, but I would still prefer to make it next time with less oil. I got the recipe from Cooking Light and adapted it to what I had in my kitchen.

Tomato Pesto Pasta with Feta Cheese

Ingredients

• 1/4 box fettucine
• 3/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained (next time, I would try using the dried sun-dried tomatoes with a tablespoon or so  of olive oil)
• 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
• small handful chopped walnuts
• 3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese, divided
• 3 cloves fresh garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

1. Cook pasta according to package directions.
2. While pasta is cooking, combine tomatoes, basil, walnuts, 1/4 cup feta, garlic, salt and black pepper in a food processor. Process until finely chopped.
3. When pasta is finished cooking, drain and reserve 1 cup of water. Mix reserved water with the tomato mixture and whisk together. Add pasta and mix until coated.
4. Top with remaining 1/2 cup of feta.

Food Experiments: Slow Cooker Risotto

I don't think I've ever had risotto before, so I can't really judge if the recipe I made just turned out badly or if I just don't like risotto. Either way, I now have a big container of weird cheesy rice mush in my fridge that I've been trying to convince myself I should eat for about three days now. I hate wasting perfectly good food, and this really isn't that bad, but...it just reminds me of overcooked cheesy oatmeal. And when I have other, perfectly appetizing food around (even if it is Kraft mac and cheese or something that will take me another hour to cook), that somehow always wins over cheesy oatmeal.

I can't really pass judgement on the recipe itself for several reasons. One, I'm really not sure if I like risotto. There's a good chance that this tastes like it's supposed to and I just made an experiment that wasn't good for me. Two, I started this in a hurry after oversleeping one morning and didn't see that it was only supposed to cook for 2 hours, not 4, so it really WAS overcooked. Outside of my carelessness, though, this was a really easy recipe that was very quick to throw together in the morning. If I were to try it again, I'd make sure I was home so it didn't sit on the warm setting all day and possibly try a different type of cheese (I think mozzerella or gruyere or any other white cheese would probably work equally well and I might like the taste better). And I probably wouldn't make it for the night after a work party that was largely based around a food competition, because this just can't stack up to potato skins, homemade bread and honey butter, or mint brownies.

After this week, I'm starting to realize a little more that being a vegetarian must be hard. I'm having a really hard time finding recipes that aren't either really difficult, full of expensive ingredients, or full of eggplant and/or cabbage (yech). Hopefully next week will be a little easier!

Strawberry Margaritas and some more tequila

My friends and I are some of the few people I know who still love tequila. And since I bought a bottle of delicious almond tequila in Mexico and had yet to crack it open, this weekend was a girls weekend focused around tequila. I won't say too much except to say that we each tried several new flavors of tequila and started the evening with six bottles of tequila for six girls. I'm not sure whether this qualifies as an adventure or a misadventure...two days later, I'm still very aware of my experiments!

The opening act was strawberry margaritas from scratch. For our first attempt, I have to say that they were pretty darn good...perhaps a little bit too good!

We adapted our recipe from Rachel Ray's Strawberry Marg-alrightas. Originally we intended to make all of our margaritas from scratch, before we looked at the serving size and the amount of fruit and decided to use a mix. Unfortunately in Minnesota, strawberries and limes are still expensive enough that it seemed cost-prohibitive to make enough margaritas for all six of us from scratch. I do have to say, though, that the numbers on the original recipe are extremely deceiving. If the recipe makes four drinks, it must be four fishbowls, because we got about 8 or 9 normal sized margaritas out of less than half of the recipe. Also, I'm not sure what size blender she used to contain all that fruit, but it certainly wasn't a standard kitchen sized one! The original recipe linked to before could probably easily give you 12-15 margaritas, which makes it much more affordable and absolutely worth the great taste.

What we ended up creating was good, although I would say it could have very much benefited from another quarter box or so of strawberries. Steamboat Willie proved to be very talented at coating the rims with sugar (I was impressed!), and the only thing that was really lacking was the ingredients to make more!

Strawberry Margaritas

Yum.

Ingredients

• 1 pint strawberries.
• Juice of 3 large limes
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 8 tablespoons sugar
• 5 standard shot glasses of tequila (we used Jose Cuervo, but I'm sure it would be delightful with Patron or another brand!)
• Around 2 cups ice (or whatever fits at the top of the blender after everything else has been added!)
• 1 lime wedge and sugar for coating the glasses

Directions

1. Cut up strawberries slightly for easier blending.
2. Add all ingredients except lime and sugar for coating to the blender; blend until smooth.
3. Use the lime wedge to carefully coat the top edge of the glass in lime juice. Pour the sugar into a small plate and press the rim of the glass into the sugar to coat.
4. Enjoy...probably a little bit too much. Make sure to drink plenty of water before you go to bed!

Food Experiments: Moroccan Lentil Stew and Kickboxing

When I first joined the gym by my house, I had been out of college (and my college-era martial arts training) for about a year. One of my goals was to get back into something close to the great shape I had been in for martial arts, and I decided that I wanted to go to a few kickboxing classes. I miss martial arts still, but I will probably never be willing to sell my soul to them to become a black belt. To remedy this, within my first month, I went to my first kickboxing class.

It was pretty darn horrible. I thought I was going to throw up for most of the class, and I was surrounded by skinny little high school students who were doing everything I couldn't, six inches higher, and laughing and cheering the whole time. That was about two years ago, and today (at Steamboat Willie's instigation) was the first time since that I have decided to go to a kickboxing class. This was the class I originally had wanted to go to, because it adds weighted gloves and a heavy bar to the exercises to add some resistance.

I was absolutely terrified.


But, I am pleased to announce that the last two years of working out must have paid off, because...I made it all the way to the burpies at the end of the class before I thought I was going to pass out! And it was fun, in a horribly painful sort of way. But then again, I suppose that is kind of the point of anything based on martial arts. At the very least, it gave me a taste of what I had been missing, and it could definitely have the potential to get me back into good shape!

After about a half an hour of walking and stretching until I no longer looked like a cherry tomato, I was happy to come home to my next vegetarian experiment...mostly because it was in my slow cooker and ready to eat. This Moroccan Lentil Stew is my first experience with the lentil, and I can't say it's a bad one. The stew itself is delicious, and the lentils don't seem to have a lot of taste to me. AND for my vegetarian or mostly-vegetarian friends who have a hard time getting in enough protein--the beans and apparently the lentils add quite a lot of protein to this stew. As does the cheese that I smothered it in when serving it!

Just in case, I'll copy the recipe for this below, but I would strongly recommend visiting Stephanie's blog or buying her book if you have any interest in cooking--both are fantastic!



Moroccan Lentil Stew
I made this in a 5.5 qt crockpot...the programmable kind that I love because I can be gone all day and it never burns! It took me aboput 20 minutes to chop everything up and add it in the morning. And you can find dried lentils right by the dried beans in the grocery store, for those of you who have never used them before! Also, keep in mind that this makes a LOT of stew, but she says that it freezes well.

Ingredients

• 1 cup dried lentils
• 1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• 1/2 cup chopped carrots
• 28 oz can of diced tomatoes (and juice)
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 1 1/2 tsp garam masala
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1 inch ginger, peeled and grated

Directions

1. Chop the veggies and add them to the bottom of the crockpot.
2. Drain and rinse the beans, and add them with the lentils.
3. Grate the ginger and add it with the dried spices.
4. Stir in the vegetable broth and tomatoes.
5. Cover and cook on low for 10 hours.

Vegetarian Experiments month

After a month of dessert, I decided it was time for something a little healthier. As much fun as it was for me to have two or three desserts in the fridge at all times, I can't say it helped my pants fit any better!

So I'm declaring this month a vegetarian challenge month. I have a few inspirations for this--first of all, it would be nice to have some recipes I could make when my sister comes home that I know are good. Second, I continually hear that cooking vegetarian once or twice a week is a great way to save money. And finally, I recently found this website with a ton of recipes that sound really, really good!

This week, I made a broccoli brown rice bake (I'll also copy the recipe below, although I'd recommend visiting the website to get some more ideas!). It was good, especially considering how healthy it was, but I think next time I'm going to try adding in a cream of mushroom soup (or something else to add some liquid) and some more smaller vegetables. The casserole was great the first day, but dried out pretty badly on reheating. Also, since the broccoli usually comes in larger chunks, it didn't mix in very evenly with the rice. I think it might be better if I added in some green peas, chopped okra or carrots, or something of a similar smaller size. It is still definitely worth trying, though--for such a simple dish, it was surprisingly good.

Broccoli Brown Rice Bake
I made this in a 9x13 pan, and about a sixth of the pan is a serving.

Ingredients

• 2 cups long-grain brown rice
• 5 cups water
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 cup celery, finely chopped
• 1 cup onions, finely chopped
• 4 cups broccoli, florets and peeled stems
• 4 ounces (half a brick) low fat cream cheese (I added about 2 extra ounces for more moisture)
• freshly ground pepper and salt, to taste
• 1 teaspoon dried basil

Directions

1. Cook the rice according to package directions (in a pot or rice cooker) until tender. Transfer to a large bowl and set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 and lightly grease a large, shallow casserole dish.
3. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat the olive oil. Add the celery and onion and sauté for about 7 minutes, or until onions are translucent.
4. Add the broccoli, stir to combine and sauté for another 3 minutes or until broccoli is not quite tender.
5. Add the cheese to the skillet, breaking it up and stirring it to make a slightly thick, creamy gravy that coats the vegetables. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
6. Scrape the vegetable cheese mixture into the bowl with the rice and toss to mix well. Season the casserole with the basil. 
7. Transfer the mixture to an oiled casserole dish, cover with foil and bake for 30-35 minutes or until heated through. Serve hot.

Food experiments: Better than Sex Cake

I've been slacking lately on writing, and so I have a lot to catch up on...like this. I've heard about better than sex cake for years, but until a few weeks ago I'd never tasted it. A coworker asked for this for his birthday cake from Steamboat Willie, which she made on the day before Valentine's Day.

Yum. I had one piece at work, and promptly changed my plans for Valentine's Day dinner to include it. I hear there's a lot of different recipes for this out there, but this is the one that I definitely enjoyed!I would make this cake at least 6 hours or so before you need it, and the night before would be even better. The longer it sits for the toppings to soak in, the better it gets. Really--I had this cake leftover for over a week, and it was far better on the last day.

Better than Sex Cake
This reminds me of one of my favorite cakes that my mom used to make, but easier.

Ingredients
1 package devils food cake mix
Eggs and oil as required by your mix (usually 1/3 cup oil and 3 eggs)
1 can condensed milk
1 cup butterscotch topping
1 cup hot fudge topping
1 container Cool Whip
a few handfuls of toffee, chopped or crumbled (Heath bars work, but I used leftover toffee from my Mom's Christmas candy)

Directions

1. Bake the cake according to the package instructions.
2. Let cool for about 10-15 minutes.
3. Use a fork to poke holes all over the top of the cake--not big or deep, but just to perforate it enough for liquids to soak in.
4. Dump the can of condensed milk over the cake, spreading it as evenly as you can. Let it soak in for around half an hour or until it's mostly absorbed. It may not absorb well right away, but you can still put the other toppings on.
5. Dump on the cup of butterscotch, again spreading it as evenly as possible and letting it sit for awhile. Repeat the process with the hot fudge.
6. Let the cake sit until you are ready to serve. If the cake will be sitting out overnight, refrigerate it.
7. Just before serving, top with the Cool Whip and the toffee crumbles.

Food experiments: Mad Men (cont.), green beans and mashed potatoes

While green beans and mashed potatoes certainly don't fit with my dessert experiments theme for the month, I learned some great information in my Mad Men class that I'd like to share. In particular, some tips for great mashed potatoes and an incredibly easy recipe for the best green beans I've ever eaten (and thankfully, it has nothing to do with green bean casserole!). I really do want to give credit where it's due, and thank Kevin Ryan for a great class and a lot of knowledge.

I always thought that mashed potatoes were a pretty simple, self explanatory food. Cook potatoes, smash them up and add various unhealthy things for flavor. When you add science (as I suppose you can't help doing if you have a Ph.D. in food science), it becomes a lot more complicated and a lot tastier. The tips I learned:

• Potatoes are usually overcooked (at least mine are!); they are done if you can stick a knife in the potato, lift it up and it slowly slides off. If you can't lift it up well, it's definitely overcooked.
• When the potatoes are done boiling, put them back in the dry pan over heat for a short time to dry out the water. This will give you a richer flavor, since it won't be watered down by the residual moisture.
• Never mash potatoes in a food processor--it breaks down the starches and turns them into the texture of wallpaper paste. (I've never done this, but I'm sure at some point in my life I would have been tempted. Disaster averted.)
• Add all your liquids and most of your seasonings to the potatoes BEFORE you add the butter. The butter coats the potatoes so thoroughly that they won't be able to absorb the rest of the ingredients. You can still add ingredients after the butter if you don't want them absorbed by the potatoes--sort of the equivalent of salting food that's already finished as opposed to salting food and then cooking it. Adding the seasonings after the butter is going to add it on top of a finished product.

The green beans recipe is remarkably simple--I don't know why I haven't tried this or how it turned out so good, but it did. This can also be used on most other vegetables.

Roasted Green Beans
These are seriously amazing. This recipe serves about 8.

Ingredients
2 lbs green beans, ends trimmed off
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar (optional)--this speeds up the roasting process, but you won't taste it. It's optional here, but he highly recommended using it if you make broccoli in this way.

Directions

1. Adjust the oven rack to the middle position and preheat the oven to 450.
2. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil (for easy cleanup) and spread the beans on the baking sheet.
3. Drizzle with oil, and toss them to coat. Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and sugar if used, and toss to coat.
4. Spread the beans evenly on the baking sheet. Give them some room and don't let them touch, or the beans will steam rather than roast.
5. Put in the oven and roast 10 minutes.
6. Pull the baking sheet from the oven and use tongs to redistribute the beans. Put them back in the oven and continue roasting until the beans are browning in spots and have started to shrivel, 10 to 12 minutes longer.
7. Add any additional salt and pepper as desired, and serve.

Food Experiments: Mad Men and Grasshopper Pie

I've been slacking on posting my experiments and adventures lately...I wish I could say it was because I've had so many, but really I've just been lazy. Now it's time to catch up!

Henry and I took a cooking class on Wednesday that my parents gave us for Christmas. It was themed around 1960s food and the show Mad Men, and took place at the Cooks of Crocus Hill. I love their cooking classes--they usually have fantastic food, very knowledgeable and personable chefs and more information than I know what to do with. In this class, I learned more than I ever thought I'd learn about mashed potatoes (which I'll share later--first I need to write about the dessert experiment!) and also about food anthropology. (Yes, there is such a thing--the chef went to school for it!)

The chef leading the course was named Kevin Ryan, and he was pretty much fantastic. I should have expected it--my mom and roommate went to one of his classes last fall, and this Christmas my mom was still singing his praises for helping her figure out one of her biggest candy-making challenges. He could not only explain how to make every dish we tried, but also exactly what was happening chemically otherwise to make the food the way it was AND the history how this food had been eaten. I was impressed. And, by the time I left, absolutely stuffed. (And today I learned that he has a book, which I'm going to have to check out soon...)

Kevin Ryan also taught me why my grandma, as well as most people's grandparents, so dearly love bringing some sort of jello to every family occasion. He pointed out that powdered gelatin is really a surprisingly new phenomenon, so in my grandma's day, bringing a jello dish somewhere meant you cared enough to spend a couple of days boiling down cow hooves to make it. Unfortunately, that feeling of jello being a luxury hasn't translated into our generation...until this class, I never really understood that the strawberry jello filled with shredded carrots meant "I love you enough to slave all week in my kitchen over cow hooves."

Anyway, for today I would like to post his recipe for grasshopper pie. To those who have been making this for a long time, maybe this isn't revolutionary BUT--in my experience, making grasshopper pie pretty much meant mixing some booze with ice cream and crunching up some Oreos. Without the ice cream, this was much, much better.


Kevin Ryan's Grasshopper Pie
Delicious, light and creamy. Makes 1 pie. This recipe should be made the night before you iintend to eat it to make sure it has plenty of time to chill and set.

Ingredients

Crust
16 Oreo Mint n' Creme cookies, broken into rough pieces (this still leaves half a box for snacking, as he pointed out--hurray!)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Filling
3 large egg yolks (the whites can be frozen and used later--they fit nicely in ice cube trays!)
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
pinch table salt
1/4 cup green creme de menthe
1/4 cup white creme de cacao

6 oz. bar semi-sweet chocolate, shaved

Instructions

Crust

1. Make sure your oven rack is in the middle position and preheat the oven to 350.
2. Grind the cookies in a food processor to make them fine crumbs. Transfer them to a bowl, drizzle with the butter and toss well.
3. Press crumbs evenly into the bottom and sides of a 9-inch pie place (using a ramekin can help, apparently!) abd refrigerate crust until firm, about 20 minutes.
4. Bake until set, 8 to 10 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Filling

1. Beat the egg yolks in a medium bowl. Combine the gelatin, sugar, 1/2 cup of the cream and salt in a medium saucepan and let sit until the gelatin softens, about 5 minutes. Then cook it over medium heat until the gelatin dissolves andthe mixture is very hot but NOT boiling, about 2 minutes. (The gelatin will break down if it's boiled.)
2. Whisking vigorously, slowly add the gelatin mix to the egg yolks. (Go very slow so you don't heat up the eggs too fast and scramble them. I've also tempered the eggs before by slowly pouring half the hot mix into the eggs, then pouring the eggs back into the hot mix.)
3. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook, stirring vigorously, until it's slightly thickened, abouot 2 minutes.
4. Remove from the heat and add the creme de menthe and creme de cacao.
5. Pour into a clean bowl and refrigerate, stirring occasionally, until wobbly but not set, about 20 minutes. It should be about the consistency of mayonaise.
6. Beat the remaining 1 1/2 cups cream with an electric mixer to stiff peaks. Whisk 1 cup of the whipped cream into the gelatin mixture until it is completely incorporated. Using a rubber spatula, fold the gelatin mixture into the remaining whipped cream until no streaks of white remain.
7. Scrape the mixture into the cooled pie shell, smooth the top and refrigerate until firm. This will be at least 6 hours but would be better overnight.
8. Serve, topping with chocolate curls if desired.

Food experiments: Flan!

I love flan. I suppose that’s no surprise…I love custards, creme brulee, or even custard-filled donuts. They’re delicious. But flan has always seemed to me to be one of those things like cheesecake—really delicious, but something you normally eat at a restaurant because it’s too hard to make.

So, in the spirit of experimenting and adventure, I decided to try making flan this week. And, while it was definitely fussy and took a long time, it turned out on my first try! So that’s one more difficult recipe that I can honestly say has been much easier for me to pull off than a batch of brownies.

Because I was intimidated, I used Alton Brown’s recipe. I’ve generally found that his recipes are good for scared people, because he adds a lot of tips to the sides of them and because they’re written down to help you learn to cook. That and I have 3 of his cookbooks, so I usually figure I should use them! This recipe is also available on the Food Network website, with a few more of his details and recommendations.

Alton Brown’s “Flandango”

In his ingredients, he calls for the sauce to be made from caramel sauce, preserves or any other sauce you’d like to try. I experimented with caramel and apricot preserves, and I can heartily vouch for the caramel. The apricot I found to be way to overpowering for the flan itself, so I’d recommend sticking with milder flavors for the sauce. I also used caramel ice cream topping to save time. This tasted fine, but next time I want to try homemade caramel sauce to experiment with textures. The ice cream topping was pretty runny and didn’t really meld well with the flan.

You also need 8 4 oz ramekins (or the equivalent), a big roasting pan, a fine strainer, some pots, a whisk, and your life will be a lot easier if you can get ahold of a pitcher with a spout.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 1 cup half-and- half
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup sugar
• An assortment of jams and sauces for toppings (e.g., Butterscotch ice cream topping, hot fudge ice cream topping )
• 6 eggs

Directions

1. Ensure that your highest oven rack is in the middle position. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. I would do this right away and leave it to bake so that the temperature will even out—you’re going to need all the heat you can get, because when you leave the oven open long enough to pour in the water bath later, a lot of heat is going to escape.
2. Place a kettle of water on to boil—the larger your roasting pan, the bigger your kettle. This will become your water bath. (I had to fill my pan up twice—luckily the hot water heater was turned up a little higher than it probably should be, so I had quick access to very hot water!)
3. In a saucepan, combine the milk, half and half, vanilla extract and sugar. Bring to a bare simmer over medium-high heat. As soon as this is achieved, remove from the heat and set aside. This takes a long time. I was able to prepare all the other ingredients and still read a few pages of my book.
   
4. Place 1 to 2 tablespoons of the toppings in the bottom of each ramekin—it shouldn’t be very deep. Probably less deep than mine was!
   
5. Separate 3 eggs, reserving the whites and keeping the yolks for use in the flan.
6. In a mixing bowl, combine the 3 remaining whole eggs with the yolks. Whip with a whisk until the eggs are thickened and slightly lighter in color.
7. Continue whisking the eggs while you mix in about 1/4 of the milk mixture. Then whisk the egg mixture into the saucepan with the rest of the milk mix. (This keeps the eggs from cooking with the heat of the milk.)
   
8. Put the mesh strainer over a pitcher with a spout. Pour the egg mixture through the strainer to get rid of any cooked eggs or particles.
   
9. Set the custard cups in the roasting pan. Evenly distribute the egg mixture in the custard cups.
   
10. Place the roasting pan on the middle rack of your oven. Pour the water from your kettle into the roasting pan to create the water bath—it should stop just below the level of the custard (NOT the ramekins).
    
11. Cook for about 40 minutes, or until the flan wiggles slightly when the pan is shaken.
12. Take the ramekins out individually, either with tongs or (if you are more skilled with oven mitts than with tongs, as I was), with oven mitts. Leave the pan with water in the oven to cool before you throw the water out. (I don’t know why, but I figure I don’t need to find out why by wrecking something, so for once I’ll listen!)
    
13. Now this is the hardest part for me—first, leave the flan to cool to room temperature. Then, put them in the fridge to cool before eating them. (Ok, the ramekins are small enough that this only took about 2 1/2 hours, but on top of the two hours it took to make these, it was hard!)
14. Try to share. It’s hard. They’re good.

Food Experiments: Chocolate Fondue

Since there are still pumpkin bars sitting in the kitchen from last week's experiment, I decided to try to make something I thought would be a little smaller this week: chocolate fondue. I've been wanting to try it since I found an incredibly easy recipe on the A Year of Slow Cooking blog, and decided that it was time.

Maybe if I had thought things through a little more, I would have realized that a cup and a half of chocolate chips, mixed with various tasty things and used just as a dipping sauce is not actually a small amount of food. I'm very full, and it was very, very good! This recipe is still available in the archives of the Year of Slow Cooking blog (which I highly recommend if you like easy, good food) but I will re-post it here to keep my recipe experiment collection complete.

She notes that a small crockpot is best for this recipe, but you can also put the ingredients into an oven-safe container inside a large slow cooker to heat the ingredients in the same way as a small one.

Chocolate Fondue
I made this in a 1.5 qt. crockpot, the kind that only has an On and Off option, no temperature settings, and made it with semi-sweet chocolate and a splash of Captain Morgan. We tried it with pound cake, banana slices and marshmallows. Strawberries would also probably be quite nice. Really, I'm pretty sure anything short of beets or asparagus would be good with this--what doesn't benefit from being dipped in molten chocolate?

Ingredients
1.5 cups chocolate chips (semi-sweet, milk chocolate or white chocolate)
1/2 cup cream
1 tsp vanilla

(optional)
1 T Grand Marnier
1 T rum
1 T peppermint schnapps
1 T Irish cream
1 tsp. peppermint, orange, etc. extract

Directions

1. Put chocolate chips into a small crockpot.
2. Add cream, vanilla and any optional flavors.
3. Turn slow cooker to On or Low for about 1 hour.

This has been a slow month for adventures and experiments...I blame the influence of February. It's a bad month up here, and it's usually around now when I feel like winter has been here forever and I start to have a hard time remembering what the world looked like when it was green. But, I'm trying to do my best to fill the rest of my winter with some interesting stories, so hopefully things will pick up soon.

Pumpkin Bars and a cancelled experiment

All in all, today was a disappointing day. I got a call telling me that the Asian brush painting class I was planning on taking this Saturday was cancelled because I was the only person signed up, I had to delay starting on a project at work that has finally gotten moving (after 2 years of prodding people who needed to be involved) in order to work on a project that has nothing to do with my job or the company, and to top it off, the cream cheese frosting on my pumpkin bars was less than impressive. Given, my mom makes some pretty top notch cream cheese frosting, so I have some high standards, but this frosting was runny and tasted more like butter than smooth cream cheese frosting. The bars themselves are good, but the cream cheese frosting leaves something to be desired, so--I'll just keep that part of the recipe out of this. Find your favorite recipe for cream cheese frosting, ask your mom or buy the jarred type at the story to top these off.

Pumpkin Bars
I got in trouble with the people at work who had New Years resolutions with these ones! They're very heavy and rich, but as I heard several times; pumpkin is a vegetable. Ergo, these must be good for you. Right?

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1- 15 oz can pumpkin
• 2 cups sifted all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Using an electric mixer at medium speed (if available--I didn't use one), beat eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin together until smooth.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mix and beat on low speed until batter is smooth and thoroughly combined.
4. Spread into a greased 9x13 pan. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting.
5. Frost with cream cheese frosting. Cut into bars and serve.

Food Experiments: Malva Pudding

I've been wanting to make malva pudding for a long, long time. It's a dessert that I've only ever eaten in safari camps in Africa, and it's also one of the most rich and delicious desserts I've ever tasted. It's also incredibly hard to find a recipe for, and it seems like there's quite a lot of different names for it and variations on it. The one I made tonight isn't quite what I remember and am searching for, but it's close. Maybe I will top the leftovers tomorrow with some custard sauce to try to get closer...sooner or later, I need to cross this off my bucket list!

Malva pudding is similar to bread pudding, especially in texture, but it has a somewhat sweeter, nuttier taste than any bread pudding I've ever had. To me, it brings back beautiful memories of sitting in thatched, open air huts for dinner, with the smell of a mopane wood fire blowing in and more stars than you could probably see anywhere in the United States waiting just outside. It is the sort of dessert that I think is best appreciated after spending a whole day outside--partially from my nostalgia for the safari days and partially because spending a whole day running around outside before eating this is the only way to stave off the immense guilt that I'm feeling for eating it. In short, my dessert experiments that help those of you with new year's resolutions are over!

Malva Pudding

I would start by serving small portions of this dessert. When finished, it looks like a pretty bland cake, but it is deceptively rich!

Ingredients:

CAKE:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon apricot jam
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon butter (a generous tablespoon)
• 1 teaspoon vinegar
• 1/3 cup milk

SAUCE

• 3/4 cup fresh cream
• 7 TB butter
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup hot water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat or whip the sugar and eggs, preferably in a food processor, until thick and lemon colored. Then, add the apricot jelly (or jam) and mix thoroughly.
2. Sieve together the flour, soda and salt. Melt the butter (do not boil!) and add the vinegar. Add this mixture, as well as the milk, to the egg mixture in the processor, alternately with the flour. Beat well.
3. Pour into an oven-proof dish (I used a tall 8x8 ceramic pan), and bake for 45 to 50 minutes. Meanwhile, in a pot, melt together the ingredients for the sauce. When the cake is halfway baked, take it out of oven. Make holes in cake and pour the sauce over the pudding. Return to the oven. When finished, the cake should still be slightly jiggly. (Hint: the softer and more pudding-y parts taste much better than the parts that look completely solid and cooked like cake. Mmm butter sauce!)