There’s also baked macaroni and cheese, but the bread crumb topping I find pretty unappealing and a dish like that wasn’t in my mom’s family cooking oeuvre. I’ve considered making it now that I’m older but I’m not the only one that dislikes crunchy toppings on foods like that so I haven’t bothered.

Saturday afternoon though we needed to make a meal for the kids and a side for the adults (burgers for entrees, which is another story involving a disposable grill…those things cost $3 for a reason), and the rest of the party decided on mac and cheese. I think the idea was to cook macaroni and dump cheese in it? Yeah, I don’t know, but I couldn’t let that happen so I took over. Thanks to Google and WiFi, I found this recipe and adapted it for our needs.

Incidentally, the recipe search was somewhat limited since we had already gone to the store, but we had bought cheese and cream and everything else was in the house. That meant this recipe was not only delicious but wonderfully cheap for pretty luxurious results.

Ingredients:

• about 1/2 lb. pasta–use elbow macaroni if you’re really going for that Kraft feel, but we used fusilli which is one of my favorite pasta shapes and happened to be what we had on hand.
• 2 TBSP butter
• 2 TBSP flour (all-purpose should be fine, we ended up using bread because that’s what we had and it still worked)
• 2 C heavy cream, slightly warmed* (use half-and-half if you’re fat conscious or whatever)
• 1 8 oz. bag shredded sharp Cheddar cheese (about 2 C)
• salt

Directions:

• Cook the pasta in salted boiling water until “al dente” (or until it feels like it’s cooked to your preference, I’m sure the recipe would still work with less firm pasta). Drain in a colander and set aside.
• In the same pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Whisk/stir in the flour and cook for a minute or so, making sure to stir so it doesn’t burn to the bottom of the pot.
• Gradually whisk in the warmed cream, stirring continuously, until the mixture is steaming hot and thick. Apparently this is supposed to take 4 minutes but I didn’t have a clock so I just stirred until it looked thick enough. It’ll still be fairly liquid-y but remember that you’re adding cheese and pasta to this, so you don’t want to over-reduce. Excessive use of made-up words for professionals only.
• Remove from heat and stir in the cheddar until melted. This step will turn the sauce a delightful shade of orange that still looks natural, but it’s also a nice way to tell when the cheese is mixed in all the way–there won’t be any more cream-colored streaks.
• Stir in the macaroni, season with salt to taste, and enjoy tons of compliments when you feed people that are used to the blue box stuff.

As another testament to the success of this recipe: a hugely picky 7 year old that claims to not like cheese and dines almost exclusively on rice thought the mac and cheese smelled so good that he actually wanted to taste it, and after trying one noodle decided to have that for lunch, his rice quickly forgotten.

*You can warm the cream in the microwave easily, but I heated mine over medium-low heat in a small saucepan while my pasta was cooking so I knew I’d have it ready exactly when I needed it.

MANY THINGS HAVE HAPPENED. MANY THINGS. I don’t remember what I wrote in my last post though (something about updating more often? oops) so I don’t know where to start.

On the personal front, here’s the scoop: registered for fall classes not too long ago–NOT cooking related, because as much as I enjoy cooking and baking and recipes and being in the kitchen, doing it at top speed for someone else just isn’t for me. Way too high stress, not enough return. I’ll stick to creating delicious food for myself and my friends and family.

Also working a job (that I don’t really like) BUT going away for two weeks to TURKEY (courtesy of and with my unfailingly generous mother). I look forward to taking a ton of pictures of everything, including the food, and writing about it (but don’t hold your breath) when I get back.

Now for the real subject of this post: NACHOS.

In all of their glory.

See what happened was, I had some avocados lying around, and I didn’t want to make tacos, so I figured I’d make nachos with guacamole.  Normally restaurant nachos are a pile of fake cheese and despair but I had some decent nachos at Lab recently (during their weekly Mariachi Monday, which I recommend to all) and felt inspired. Note that these are not extraordinary nachos by any means, they’re just what tastes really good to me, so sorry if you were looking for some kind of out-of-this-world-super-inventive-should-probably-be-patented recipe.

Naturally by the time I got all the nacho fixings and had a night at home to cook when there would be someone else at home to eat, the avocados had gone bad. Single tear. I couldn’t let all the other nacho stuff go to waste though so I went out and bought fresh avocados, which ended up being  PERFECT.

So here we go: Nachos a la a faux-Communist Russian.

Ingredients:

• Tortilla chips–I used Tostitos Scoops because that’s our preferred chip for snacking and when you have something as messy as nachos with a lot of topping layers, they hold up to the abuse pretty well.
• 1 15.oz can black beans
• judicious amount of shredded cheese–depends on if you really love cheese or not. I used taco cheese.
• some good fresh salsa–either homemade or the kind you get in the produce section of the grocery store.
• guacamole–I have a signature guacamole recipe that I always, always use, which I will post here, but feel free to use your own favorite.
• sour cream
• more cheese to sprinkle on top ’cause it makes it look pretty. maybe stick a sprig of cilantro up there too if you’re super into presentation.

Directions:

• Preheat the broiler and line a sheet pan or whatever with parchment paper (I was making a lot of nachos and I hate washing my sheet pans, so you know.  Anything you can put under the broiler will work.
• Drain and rinse the can of beans, and pat somewhat dry so you don’t get water all over your chips.
• Spread a reasonable amount of chips on the baking sheet. By “spread,” I really mean “mound”,  just not so high that your bottom layer gets no toppings. You don’t want any of the nachos to feel left out. No hurt feelings in this kitchen, is all I’m sayin’.
• Kind of…sprinkle? Arrange? the black beans over the chips. You know, evenly.
• Top with as much cheese as you can handle. Probably even more than that, to account for melting. You won’t regret it, unless you’re severely lactose intolerant.
• Stick the nachos in the oven (not too close to the broiler, mind you, you want to melt the cheese, not set it on fire) for a few minutes–I honestly didn’t time it because I crack my oven door open when I broil so as soon as the cheese was super gooey, I took them out. Definitely keep a close eye on your nachos because this step doesn’t take long at all and you can go from melted goodness to setting off your smoke detector pretty quickly.
• When the nachos look ready, pull them out.  Top with salsa, guacamole, sour cream, and some more cheese if you’re so inclined (I was). Take care to not pile everything on in the middle but try to distribute somewhat evenly across the chips–you’re going for even coverage.
• Sit down, possibly with a fork for when things start getting really messy, and eat the hell out of some nachos. We ate them right off the sheet that I put on a cooling rack so we didn’t burn our coffee table while we watched some fatalistic documentary about the collapse of civilization as we know it.

Okay, now for the guacamole recipe, which is what I really wanted to eat, but nachos are more filling (and probably nutritious) than just eating guacamole out of the bowl with a spoon.

Ingredients:

• 2 ripe avocados
• 1/4 red onion, minced (you might use a little bit less if your onion is particularly large)
• 1/4 tomato, diced (again, the exact amount will vary depending on the size of your tomato. If it’s very small, you could use up to 1/2)
• 4 to 5 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed (I put garlic in things like I’m warding off vampires though, so better change that to “to taste”)
• cilantro, minced, unless you hate cilantro, in which case none.
• one lime
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

• Coarsely mash the avocados with a fork. If you’ve accidentally bought avocados that are too firm to mash, cut them up really small and make “chunky avocado salsa” instead. I have had to do this on multiple occasions.
• Mix in onion, tomato, garlic, and onion (and the cilantro if you’re using it)
• Juice the lime over the guacamole-in-progress. I use a fork and just squeeze the lime around it, no need for a reamer or accidentally squirting lime juice in your eye. I have done that on multiple occasions too, and it’s not pleasant.
• Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve. The lime juice will help preserve the color for a while, but this is really best eaten close to when it’s prepared.

There you have it, readers that have long forgotten my blog because I never update, ever ever ever. Please come back. I’ll try harder this time, really. Please?

You may recall how nervous I was before things started. Among other things I was very concerned that I wasn’t going to be able to afford all of the equipment I needed and that I wouldn’t have it in time to really do well in the class. Luckily, that wasn’t the case. Thanks to my amazingly supportive boyfriend and some money my mom had sent me earlier I managed to scrape together enough money to get my supplies (although I do still need a lighter and a digital timer, but whatever, I can go another week) and my uniform, so that was taken care of. As for some of my other worries…

–What if it turned out the instructor was a total hardass jerk who was just mean and yelled and hated me?

Chef Backer. He's so sassy.

Luckily, I was way, way off on this one. Chef Backer ≠ Gordon Ramsay. As he replied to someone who asked him if class was going to be anything like Hell’s Kitchen, “I don’t get off on being an asshole.” Phew.At the same time, it’s definitely not super party fun time. We’re in class for a reason and although we got off to a slow start (more on that later), things are…well, the pressure’s on. Not only to live up to Chef’s expectations, but also to live up to my own expectations.

–What if everyone in my class was totally weird and smelly and hated me?

Well. One of my classmates is actually a little bit smelly sometimes (no names will be used), but for the most part everyone is really congenial and supportive of each other. It’s a great atmosphere to learn in so far. One thing that stood out on the first day when we were doing introductions was how much some people have gone through to get to this point. Cancer, drug addiction, long-term unemployment…on the one hand, I feel like I have a huge advantage because I haven’t had these struggles and I’m still fairly young (the youngest in my class–next youngest is 27 I believe), so I can put all of my energy and enthusiasm into this. On the other hand, I don’t have the life experience and definitely feel like for all my motivation, this class means so much MORE to someone who has had to deal with everything these people have had to deal with.

On the OTHER other hand (the foot? or some third mutant extremity?), from what I’ve seen so far, while some people should have all the motivation and drive in the world, they’re just not putting in the same effort. For example, we have readings out of our textbook to do–nothing crazy, just about food and cooking. You know, what we’re in class for. Reading is no substitute for practice and experience, but we can’t really go home and take apart a cow in order to learn about the different cuts of meat and the best cooking methods for them, so it’s necessary. Still, someone the other day told me that they hated reading and “My thinking is, why read when you have a TV?” Then stay home and watch Food Network, bro.

A few other tidbits about my classmates before this turns into a novel. On the first day it looked like out of a 12 person class, I was going to be the only girl. Not that I would necessarily mind, but there’s still a certain camaraderie between women, especially in a new situation, that would have eased my fears about being alienated from the rest of the class. Then the other woman in the class showed up–she’s great (even though we’re totally different–she’s married with a 14 year old kid, and I’m, you know…not). I am really looking forward to working with her when it’s our week to be lab partners.  My lab partner the first week was also a guy that seemed a little bit intimidating at first (mostly because of his size, I’ll be honest), but we actually have a lot in common and working with him was a pleasure. Okay, moving on even though I still have more to say, because I am sure you’re tired of reading by now.

–What if it turned out that I secretly sucked at cooking and I couldn’t even hold a knife and broke all of my equipment and started a fire?

This hasn’t happened yet! Obviously I’m still a total amateur, but I am learning a lot (today I took apart a whole chicken! Pretty impressive for someone that only buys boneless, skinless breasts, if I do say so myself) and am definitely giving my all every single class. I just hope I can continue to keep this up and that if I do make mistakes or fuck up, I don’t let it discourage me.

That’s all I’m going to say on that for the time being–now for a quick rundown of the week, since I know you are all fascinated (seriously though, like ten people asked me how my first day went, so interest levels seemed high enough to write up all the juicy details).

Monday was our intro day, we didn’t have to wear uniforms or bring equipment (although some people did), and based on classes I’d taken in college I figured we’d be handed a syllabus and shown out the door. Nope. We were there for the entire. Four. Hours. I make it sound awful but it was actually great and relieved a lot of my anxiety, as well as getting me excited for what was to come. We did hit some speedbumps–most people didn’t have their books yet, and the bookstore wasn’t going to get them in until Thursday, so the homework we were supposed to be working on already was just…not going to get done.  Also, a lot of people didn’t have their knife kits (the bookstore ran out of those too, whoops) and THOSE weren’t going to be in until Wednesday–so we weren’t going to be able to start knife skills until Thursday. Definitely not how the first week was supposed to go, apparently, but it ended up working out alright in the end…

Tuesday we were just doing homework in class. I had read chapter 1 and chapter 5 the night before (since I had ordered my book on Amazon weeks earlier) to get a headstart, and it really helped me out. Working with my partner we ended up finishing all of our work so we had less to worry about for later, which was definitely an advantage. We also went over a few of our homework assignments–they’re just questions from, I guess, an accompanying book of tests (teacher’s edition?) and some of them are kind of tricky but it’s really not labor-intensive.

Wednesday–more book work. I was getting frustrated and bored by this point (and had done my work at home anyway), but Chef noticed and gave me this awesome Professional Baking book to look at while I killed time. He seems to have gotten it into his head that I am going to be a pastry chef–not that I have ruled that out, but I’m not sure that’s my ultimate goal. Then again, I’m not sure what my ultimate goal is at all, so that might not be saying much. I copied down a few recipes while I had the book–now, theoretically, I can make mascarpone cheese at home! Fuck you and your $5 8-oz. tubs, EarthFare. Ahem. Anyway, after class I went and picked up my knife kit from the store so I would be ready for…

Thursday! Finally, working with food! Nothing major, just various size dices (including an onion), julienne, brunoise, chiffonade, mincing garlic and turning it into paste, chopping parsley AND tomato concasseé. I was not familiar with this, but you blanch and peel a tomato, quarter and deseed it, and then do a medium dice. My only issue with the concasseé is that–and I know this might be odd since not everyone is a tomato lover like me–you just get rid of the seeds. I was like BUT. THE SEEDS ARE THE BEST PART. D= I just want to put them in a bowl and eat them with salt but I think eating the produce waste is frowned upon. Alas. Anyway, my knife skills weren’t as horrendous as I was expecting them to be–the knives in our kits are pretty decent as well, which helps. We did go over sharpening and honing (definitely just wrote “hopening, good job, me) but I don’t have a sharpener or whestone of any kind (I do have a steel though), and I wish we could go more into detail with that, because there’s a big difference between knowing how to sharpen a knife and actually being able to sharpen a knife.

Okay. HOPE YOU HAVE ENJOYED THIS NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LENGTH POST.

It’s not over yet–one more tidbit. This Saturday, Slow Food Asheville is having a little thing at the North Asheville Tailgate Market–a Strawberry [short]Cake Walk. Not remarkable, BUT, they actually invited me to participate (I RSVP’d yes, of course) and also said that all local food bloggers who participate will get a mention (and a link!) in the June newsletter. I need readers to desperately pine away while I go weeks and weeks without updating, so that’s a major reason for my participation, but I’m also looking forward to feeling a little but more involved with my new community.

I have to say, I was so hesitant about moving to Asheville last year–my reasons for doing so, as some of you may know, were worth more than any reasons to stay in the DC area, but I was still concerned about what I was giving up…but this city is really becoming home to me, and I am happy.

What I am less happy about is this hideously unflattering shot of me in my uniform. Never trusting Josh to take good photos of me again. =P

Oh yeah. Everything is too big, it's so sexy.

You know you’re loving those houndstooth pants, and the hat. And our couch.

Anyway, Chef has given me the go-ahead to take pictures in class for the blog (actually he is very supportive), so I WILL BE UPDATING REGULARLY I SWEAR. Probably a slew of posts in the next few days while I try to get caught up so I can start posting things the same day I cook them by next week. Now I have to finish up my homework for tomorrow.

I have been stocking up on photos for material but then it’s like THIS HUGE OVERWHELMING AMOUNT of stuff and you don’t know where to start and you’re convinced that all your posts are just terrible and then you’re like “Well maybe I’ll update TOMORROW.” It’s a vicious cycle.

But! I actually have something really, really exciting to blog about now! I hope.

As of tomorrow morning, I will be starting a short course (four days a week, until August 30th) at the local community college called Foundations in Culinary. From what I know (which actually is not much, I’m a total noob when it comes to professional cooking–unless watching Food Network counts, herp derp), it’s a very basic course–definitely not like going to culinary school, but I should get the basics. I’m looking forward to improving my knife skills and time management, which I can definitely apply to even my home cooking. I’m also using this as an opportunity to see how I would feel working in a professional kitchen and a fast-paced environment. Even if I hate it I will at least have learned a lot of valuable things, and avoid spending the much larger sums of money and time involved in a full-time culinary program.

I’m pretty nervous about how the chef is going to be, and what the other students will be like (there’s only 12 of us), and my fear that I AM ACTUALLY THE WORST COOK OF ALL TIME AND I WILL FAIL HORRIBLY.

I want to blog about this whole experience as a way to keep myself grounded and, hopefully, motivated. STAY TUNED PLZ I promise I will stop sucking at updating this time.

Admit it, these cookies are freakin' adorable.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend! Welcome to Part 2 of my DELICIOUS COOKIES FOR MY BEST FRIENDS mini-series. (Part 1 is here)

So when I asked Jenn what her favorite cookies were so I could make her a birthday treat, her response caught me a bit off guard. She told me that her favorites were “these peanut butter cookies my mom used to make when I was a kid with a chocolate kiss on the top.”

I was basically like “…”

Seriously, when someone tells you their favorite whatever is something their mom used to make, that’s setting the bar pretty high I think. So after Jenn told me that anything with mint or cinnamon would also make her happy, I contemplated making homemade Thin Mints. Unfortunately, the recipe I had at hand called for a lot of ingredients I didn’t have on hand and some equipment that I really didn’t have the time to go out and look for. So I turned again to The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion (I am not shilling for them, I swear–it’s just a really awesome cookbook). Flipping through I seemed to recall a picture of some sort of cookie involving chocolate kisses…and there it was. Peanut Blossoms. A peanut butter cookie with a chocolate kiss on top.

I put a lot of general baking notes in the previous post, so I would reference that too if you need to.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter (I really like JIF, it’s got a bolder peanut flavor than some other brands, but it could just be me)
• 1/3 cup sugar (plus a bit more for coating dough)
• 1/3 cup brown sugar (I used light)
• 1 egg
• 2 TBSP milk (I used 2%, some people insist on whole for baked goods. Just don’t use skim)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups (6 1/4 oz) flour
• 48 or so chocolate kisses (or hugs!)–you’ll want to go ahead and unwrap them before you start baking (just don’t put them too close to the oven) since you’ll be putting them on top of warm cookies and you’ll need to work fairly quickly.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Position racks in upper and lower thirds of oven, and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, beat butter and peanut butter until well blended. Add sugars and beat until light and fluffy. Add egg, milk, baking soda, salt, and vanilla, and beat well. Gradually mix in flour. The dough will look a bit crumbly, but once you start handling it, it will feel very smooth and rich.
3. Shape dough into 1″ balls (if you can’t visually determine an inch, I would go ahead and get a ruler to measure your first dough ball, then make the other ones look like the first one) and roll in sugar.*  Place on baking sheets (about an inch apart but these won’t spread as much as some other types of cookies. I fit 24 cookies onto one sheet comfortably).
4. Bake for 10 minutes (rotating baking sheets at the 5 minute mark) until a very light golden brown.
   

   Not "kissed" yet.

   Remove from oven and immediately place one kiss atop each cookie, gently pressing it in. Transfer cookies to rack to cool completely.**

*When you roll the cookies in the sugar initially they will look pretty thoroughly covered, but after they’ve been sitting on the cookie sheet for a minute or two (while you are making more dough balls) they’ll start to look like you’ve barely coated them at all. That’s supposed to happen. Don’t roll them in more sugar.
**Be careful when you’re moving your cookies, ESPECIALLY if you decided not to use parchment paper. I just lifted up the entire sheet and put it on the rack but when I did try to pick up one cookie with my hand it was very fragile and nearly broke. If you just greased your baking sheets, use a spatula to transfer the cookies.

A final note on these cookies. I was making these to give to Jenn on Saturday night, so I had made them that Friday afternoon. UNFORTUNATELY, I didn’t realize that once the kisses were placed on the very warm cookies, they wouldn’t set up again for quite a while. The only way I had to transport them was in a large Ziploc bag so although they were almost cooled off enough by the time I had to package them because we had to get on the road, they still got a little…not as pretty as when I had first assembled them. So if you’re going to just be eating these yourself, it doesn’t really matter, but if you’re packaging them, make them with plenty of time to cool off so the melty chocolate doesn’t get all over the place.

On the road, not really ideal blogging conditions.

Whoops! It’s been a crazy few weeks and I’ve been all over the place–from celebrating my 23rd birthday with some of my favorite people (especially Beth and Jenn, who are the topic of this and an upcoming post, and my amazing Josh, who made it all possible) to visiting my folks up in Maryland–so it’s taken me a while to get my focus back. I have been making plenty of goodies in the kitchen though, so I’ve got lots to share.

On to today’s topic: DELICIOUS COOKIES. Beth’s birthday is a few days before mine, and Jenn’s is several weeks after, so I had made plans to get together with them while I was in MD since I couldn’t be there for their actual birthdays. I love giving people presents and although I couldn’t afford to buy them anything, I could definitely make them something. And considering that they ended up driving eight hours or so to Asheville to surprise me for my birthday, they definitely deserved a token of how much I appreciate having them in my life. Cookies it was! But what kind? I didn’t want to be generic and make chocolate chip when not everyone even LIKES chocolate chip cookies that much. So I went straight to the source. I’ll get to Jenn’s cookies in a later post, but Beth told me her favorites were snickerdoodles. For those of you who may not know what a snickerdoodle* is (I didn’t, because I am a foreigner that just came here to take all your jobs. ALL OF ‘EM.), it is basically a cinnamon-sugar, quite buttery cookie. If you love cinnamon (and sugar presumably), you’ll probably love these. I’m not even a huge cinnamon fan and I thought they were awesome and ate several. Just for quality control purposes though. That’s right. Quality control.

Although I didn’t know what exactly I was supposed to be baking, I had recently gotten The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion, and had seen a snickerdoodle recipe in there, so that’s the one I used. It worked very well for me, with only one tiny quirk, which I’ll address shortly. Also, since this is the first baking recipe I’m covering, I will be offering A LOT of notes–baking tends to be quite a bit more precise than cooking, and there’s many things that need to be taken into account. Off we go!

*Spellcheck is telling me that snickerdoodles is spelled wrong, and one of the suggestions is knickerbockers. Okay, spellcheck. Okay.

Ingredients
Dough

• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening (I always use the butter-flavored kind, I just find it tastier)
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract*
• 2 tsp baking powder**
• 2 large eggs (at room temperature if you can manage, if you forget to take them out, don’t worry)
• 3/4 tsp salt (use table salt for baking unless the recipe specifies otherwise. For one thing, coarser salt won’t dissolve the same way; it also will cause the recipe to be excessively salty if you use the same measurements)
• 2 3/4 cups (11 1/2 oz–a special note about this later) flour (unbleached, all-purpose is my standard. Flour doesn’t need to be bleached in the first place, and it certainly won’t be doing the flavor of your creations any favors)

Coating

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon

*I strongly, strongly recommend buying PURE vanilla extract–not imitation. Obviously if you’re dying to make a recipe and all you have on hand is imitation, don’t let that stop you, but when it’s time to buy more, spring for the real stuff. It really will make a difference.
**Whenever you’re using baking powder, make sure it’s not expired or it’ll be pretty much pointless. To test for freshness, mix a teaspoon of baking powder with 1/3 cup of hot water. It should bubble. If nothing happens, you need to buy a new container.

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Position the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven (just not at the very top and the very bottom, of course). Line two large baking sheets* with parchment paper. You could also just grease the sheets very well, but I swear by parchment paper and its amazing nonstick…iness. You don’t have to worry about missing a spot and getting a cookie that just won’t come off cleanly, transferring the cookies to a rack to cool is way easier, and when you’re done you just throw the paper away instead of trying to wash two quite sizable and unwieldy pieces of metal.
2. In a fairly large bowl (use a stand mixer or a hand-held), cream together the shortening, butter, sugar, vanilla extract, and baking powder, beating until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the flour and salt, mixing slowly until combined. A special note about flour now. You’ll notice I put a weight measurement along with the typical volume measurement. Certain ingredients, like flour, can take up the same amount of volume but actually be a different amount than what you need simply based on how densely they’re packed. If you don’t have a food scale to use in the kitchen, just be very careful with how you measure. Look up the scoop and sweep method, that tends to get closest to the weight measure you’re looking for. If you do have a food scale, always use the weight measurement instead of the volume measurement for best results.
3. In a separate (preferably somewhat shallow) bowl or a large plastic bag, mix together the cinnamon and sugar for the coating.
4. Take about a tablespoon of dough and roll into a ball (if you don’t want to/can’t measure a TBSP, the resulting ball should be maybe an inch in diameter). Place the ball into the cinnamon-sugar mixture.
   

   I used a bowl to coat my dough.

   When you have about 5 or 6 balls (less and you’re making more work for yourself, more and they’ll get too crowded and won’t coat well), gently shake the bowl/bag until they are coated. The bag method is rather obvious but if you’re using a bowl, I found that a sort of circular (like you’re making the bowl hula hoop) motion is best–the dough gets nicely coated and you’re not spilling cinnamon-sugar all over the kitchen.

5. Place the coated balls of dough on your prepared sheets, at least an inch and a half apart. If you crowd the cookies, they will spread into each other and it will not be pretty. Using the bottom of a glass (a glass with a smooth, flat bottom is best here), flatten each cookie to about half an inch thick. Don’t press too hard, a very gentle push down will do.
6. Bake the cookies for 8 minutes–switching the baking sheets** at the 4 minute mark–until they’re just golden brown around the edges. Transfer to a rack*** to cool.

*When I made this recipe, I did not have two large baking sheets. I had a large, a medium, and a small, and I used all of them, and it was not a big deal. If you only have one baking sheet, you’ll just have to bake your cookies in batches.
**If you’re not familiar with the practice of rotating your baking sheets, let me explain. Although it’s a good practice even when you’re only using one sheet, rotating the sheets when you’re using more than one is essential. If you don’t, the cookies on the lower rack are sure to get a bit overdone (read: burnt) and the cookies on the upper rack might not be as done as you’d like. To rotate the sheets, just put the sheet that was on the bottom rack onto the top rack and vice versa. Also, turn the sheet so that the cookies that were in the back are now in the front. This will ensure as even a baking as possible.
***Please, please make the investment ($9 can get you a 3-pack of racks at Wal-Mart) and get racks if you’re going to be baking. If you just cool them on the baking sheet, the bottoms will get soggy and who wants to eat soggy cookies? That goes for other baked goods too.

So there you have it. Delicious, slightly crispy but not hard, cinnamon-sugary snickerdoodles. I mentioned earlier that this recipe had one quirk–it said that the amount of dough would make SEVEN DOZEN cookies, which it fortunately did not. I think I ended up with about four dozen or slightly less than that, which I managed to all bake in one go (although a few cookies did get not-quite-round edges from spreading more than I expected) on three baking sheets.

I won’t be posting this weekend, but Part 2 will be up on Monday!

With that in mind, I’ve always wanted to grow my own herbs. I’ve started seeds on a few occasions (actually last year I had a glorious crop of Thai basil growing on my parents’ deck but after I left Maryland the plant didn’t make it) but haven’t always followed through, this time around I hope to change that.

With some seeds (obviously) and a seed starter greenhouse (I tried using leftover egg cartons but that didn’t take), I’ve managed to already sprout some plants.** Hopefully with a little effort and care, I’ll have full-grown fresh herbs in no time.

Basil seedlings just recently emerged.

*Herbiculture tag invented by Josh.

**My good friend Beth helped with the seed planting, so I’m giving her some credit here as well. =)

All for you, Jenn. All for you.

So, I had never really thought about making baked potato soup. I like–nay, love–baked potatoes on their own! I don’t need to put them in a soup! That would be weird. Besides, every time I saw this particular soup on a menu somewhere, it had bacon in it, which I can’t eat (for those of you who don’t know–I don’t eat pork products of any kind) so I had kind of ruled out the soup entirely. Then, via Twitter:

BaileysBelle @Commiewench You know what you should look into making? Baked Potato Soup. Whenever I try, it’s far too thin

Well. Okay! And I just so happened to have some TURKEY bacon in my fridge from this past weekend, so the bacon factor wouldn’t even faze me this time.

So there’s a ton of baked potato soup recipes online but if you’re looking for a thick, creamy soup, you have to know what to look for. The recipe I ended up picking used butter and flour, essentially making a simple roux–which is basically used to thicken sauces, soups, etc. So that’s what I decided to use.

Ingredients

• 3 to 4 baking potatoes (about 2 1/2 lbs)*
  

  Ramekins as prep bowls works awesomely well for me.

• olive or vegetable oil
• kosher salt
• 2 TBSP butter
• 1/4 of a large onion, diced
• 1 to 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2/3 cups flour (unbleached, all-purpose as usual)
• 6 cups milk (some people only cook with whole milk, I used 2% with excellent results and probably a slightly healthier soup, calorie-wise)
• 3/4 cups shredder sharp cheddar cheese, plus more for garnish if desired
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper (I used a pepper mill with several different kinds of peppercorns in it for extra flavor), plus more for garnish
• 1 cup sour cream**
• 1/2 cup chopped green onions, plus more for garnish
• bacon slices, cooked and crumbled***

*My russet potatoes were seriously huge so 3 taters already had me at over 2 1/2 lbs; if you’re using smaller russets or Yukon Golds you might need up to 5 potatoes. I strongly recommend getting a food scale for the kitchen (or just weigh the potatoes when you buy them).
**I didn’t have quite a full cup of sour cream–it didn’t make a difference.  One of the little 8oz containers, give or take a few teaspoons, is perfect for this recipe.
***The amount of bacon you use depends entirely on how many people you’re serving and how much you love bacon. I was only going to be serving two bowls of soup, and I’m not huge on bacon, so I only prepped two slices. For the full 8 servings this recipe makes, you’ll probably want 6 slices (or more if you’re seriously that into bacon).

Directions

First things first–making your baked potatoes.  My baked potato method, once I discovered* it, hasn’t failed me yet; that’s how I baked the potatoes for this soup.

1. Preheat your oven to 400°, placing some foil on the lower rack (the upper rack should be in the middle of the oven).
2. Wash (scrub if you want) your potatoes thoroughly and dry off. Poke with a fork 8 to 12 times to vent. I’ve never omitted this step so I’m not sure if the potato will explode or what, but seriously, it’s not hard, just poke the damn potato.
3. Now the fun part–you might want to do this over some foil or a plate because it can get kind of messy. Rub the potatoes all over with oil (don’t bathe them in the oil, just make sure they’re nicely coated. Potatoes should be slick but not dripping), then sprinkle thoroughly with kosher salt.
4. Place potatoes DIRECTLY on the upper rack of your preheated oven (the foil you put in earlier is to catch any drippings) and bake for an hour or so, until the potatoes feel very tender when pierced with a fork. If you don’t want to make soup you could just stop here and eat these baked potatoes with a ton of butter, salt, and sour cream. If you are, in fact, going to make the soup, wait until the potatoes have cooled off a bit, then peel and mash. It’s okay if the mash is a little bit coarse, you just don’t want any really huge chunks. Set aside.

Now for the soup itself.

1. In a large pot (don’t skimp on the pot size here, this makes A LOT of soup), melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic, saute until soft. I was using a wooden spoon with a blunt edge and I waited until I could cut a little onion piece in half with my spoon, that’s about how soft I think they should be. Your kitchen will smell amazing at this point. Make sure your heat’s not too high or it will smell amazingly like something is burning.
2. Add the flour to the onions and garlic and gradually add milk, whisking until blended. This step got a little bit tricky for me. I couldn’t measure out 6 cups of milk right away (my liquid measure holds 2 cups) and my whisk is really short so I also couldn’t…whisk as well as I wanted to. Not without burning myself. Next time I would use a long-handled whisk, and you really only have to worry about incorporating the first two cups of milk you pour in, otherwise your flour will end up lumping together instead of thickening the soup like it’s supposed to. Anyway. Cook over medium heat until mixture is a little bit thicker and bubbly (not simmering or boiling, but a few air bubbles here and there is what you’re going for at this stage).
3. Add the mashed potatoes–stir so they’re fairly evenly distributed–then, add the salt, pepper, and cheese, stirring until the cheese melts. Lower the heat almost completely.
4. Stir in the green onions and the sour cream.** Cook over the low heat until heated through–do not let boil. The soup should be a very thick, creamy consistency, with the occasional chunk of potato.

To serve, ladle into a bowl and top with shredded cheddar, chopped green onions, and of course, BACON. Also feel free to add more pepper–my resident taste tester likes a lot of pepper on his soup and after I tried it that way I have to agree, it really does give it a little something extra. Enjoy!

*By discovered, I mean…pretty much stole from Alton Brown.
**I didn’t feel like garnishing the soup that much so I just threw the bacon I had prepared in when I added the green onions and sour cream. It all depends on what you feel like doing and again, how much bacon you like. If you like a lot of bacon, I’d stick with garnishing because then you know exactly how much bacon there’s going to be in your bowl.

This blog. It exists. Okay, it never stopped existing, but I stopped posting after the first major entry because I didn’t have a good enough camera to take pictures I had too many ideas I didn’t have enough ideas I am a lazy asshole. Also legitimately because the vast number of hugely superior food blogs out there was kind of intimidating. I don’t know. OH WELL, NOW I’M BACK. SUCKERS. And now that I’m basically a housewifegirlfriend, I really have no excuse to not update all the goddamn time.

So we’ll see how that goes.

Anyway! This is actually the second time I have tried to make empanadas. The first time, Eric and I were going to do it at my parents’ house, but after we bought all our filling ingredients, we could NOT. Find. Wrappers. Anywhere. So then we ended up buying pizza dough from Trader Joe’s and making these pan-fried weird pastry things that weren’t anything at all like empanadas… so since I had some ground beef in the fridge I needed to use and I didn’t want to do the usual tacos/hamburgers/whatever it is we usually do with ground beef, I figured I should give empanadas another shot. AND THIS TIME I WOULD MAKE THE FUCKING WRAPPERS MYSELF. Ha!

Obviously, then, the first step is to make the dough for the empanada wrappers. The recipe is simple enough (I used this one), and you don’t need any special equipment so even if you think dough is beyond you, this dough isn’t. As usual, recipe will be loaded with totally unnecessary commentary.

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups flour (unbleached, all-purpose)
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 stick (8 oz.) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup ice water*
• 1 TBSP white distilled vinegar**

Directions

1. Sift (and by sift I hope they meant fluff with a fork, ’cause that’s all I did and it worked fine) flour with salt in a medium bowl. Blend in butter using a pastry blender your fingers until mixture resembles coarse meal (with pea-size lumps of butter). Frankly, I’m still not entirely sure what “coarse meal” actually looks like, so I just kind of kept mushing it around trying to get it less floury and more buttery.  Think actually squeezing the butter into smaller pieces with your fingers at the same time that you’re mixing it in with the flour. …Shit, maybe I should just buy a pastry blender…
2. Beat together egg, water, and vinegar in a small bowl. Add to flour mixture, stirring with a fork until just incorporated. The dough will be shaggy. A few notes: the dough will start looking like it’s all mixed together if you just stir in a circle, but I guarantee there will be a ton of flour at the bottom of the bowl. Make sure you check to make sure that you’re not leaving all that flour, while still being careful not to overmix. Also, if you’re not sure what “shaggy” is supposed to look like…I took a picture!
3. Turn out mixture onto a lightly floured surface and gather together. Knead gently a few times (original recipe said once or twice, I found that I…needed to knead it (ha! ha!) a couple more times but definitely less than a minute, timewise), just enough to bring dough together. Form into a flat rectangle (or rectangular lump, whatever) and cover in plastic wrap; chill in the fridge for at least an hour. You could do this the night before if you wanted to and keep it in the fridge overnight, as long as the dough is tightly wrapped.

*When I had jotted the recipe down to take into the kitchen with me, I accidentally wrote 1/2 cup of water. Luckily, my brain remembered 1/3 so I didn’t totally ruin my dough…basically I’m just saying it’s always a good idea to double check your recipes.
**I’m sure most people that cook have plain white vinegar on hand, I did not. I did, however, have white balsamic. Not sure if it would have made a difference, but I went ahead and bought plain white anyway. A small bottle costs less than a dollar, so definitely won’t be breaking your budget if you have to purchase it.

Now that the dough is nice and cozy in the fridge, it’s time to move on to the filling!

Ingredients

• 1 TBSP olive oil
• 1/2 medium onion (I used red but I’m sure white or yellow would work just fine), diced
• 1 garlic clove, finely diced
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 3/4 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp cayenne
• 1 lb lean ground beef (I’m sure fattier ground beef would be fine too, 93/7 is my personal choice)*
• 14 oz can whole tomatoes, drained–reserve 2 TBSP of juice–and chopped.
• 1/2 tsp salt (I used kosher, I’m sure table salt will be fine)
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
  

*So, the recipe I used as a reference point actually called for 3/4lb of beef–I just happened to have a 1 lb pack that I was going to use all at once, but if you want to buy less meat or you have that much, 3/4lb will totally work with the rest of these measurements. Actually I had a little bit of filling left over so 3/4 might actually work better.

Directions

1. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat, add onions and saute until soft. Don’t overcook them at this point unless you want black and/or dissolved onions in your filling.
2. Add garlic, cumin, oregano, and cayenne (and whatever other spices you feel like using, honestly), cook for about another minute. Add beef and cook (breaking up lumps–like you’re making taco meat) until no longer pink.
3. Add in tomatoes with reserved juice, salt, and pepper. Make sure everything’s well mixed and cook until most of the liquid is gone but the mixture is still moist. Feel free to taste the mixture and season some more, I ended up sprinkling a bit more salt and oregano over mine. Once it’s cooked, spread it out on a plate to let it cool.

I have to be honest–as far as empanadas go, this is a pretty spartan filling. Most other recipes called for things like hard-boiled eggs (would have been fine except I didn’t have time to cook them this time around) or raisins (ew) and olives (double ew); basically, all kinds of things I did not want to put in my mouth. If you do like those things and want a more authentic empanada, go ahead and make whatever kind of filling you want. This ended up being delicious and savory even without all the extras, so I’m happy with it.

Anyway. Finally, after you’ve done all that work…It’s time to do even more work and put the empanadas together. And cook them. And eat them.

Assembly

1. Get out your dough, and divide into 12 equal hunks. I rolled mine into balls, you can shape them into disks, whatever. Keep the dough you’re not working on covered. While you’re at it, position racks in the upper and lower thirds of your oven, and preheat to 400°F.
2. Place a ball of dough onto a lightly floured surface. Using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out into about a 6-inch round. Honestly, I found it easier to roll out the round by placing some plastic wrap over top of it–even with flour, it kept sticking to my pin, and I thought this was much easier. You’re going to want to keep re-flouring your work surface as well or your dough is going to start sticking horribly.
3. Place about 2 tablespoons of filling into the center of the wrapper. However much you think you can fit. My hunks of dough weren’t all exactly equal so sometimes I had to use a little less filling, other times I could use a little bit more. It’s a pretty organic process, just do what works.
4. Now, fold the wrapper in half and stick the edges together, then crimp with a fork to seal in filling. This will be difficult if your edges are too thin or there’s too much filling, so if you’re having a hard time at this point you might want to not roll your wrappers out as much or put as much filling in. Like I said–do what works.
5. Repeat steps 2 through 4 with the rest of your dough. You’ll have 12 empanadas. And possibly some leftover filling.
6. Arrange the empanadas on two baking sheets. I lined my sheets with foil so just in case things got messy, I wouldn’t have too much clean-up to do. For the most part, they didn’t stick, but if you’re concerned, just lightly (very lightly) spray the sheets with some cooking spray.
7. Beat together 1 egg and 1 TBSP water in a small bowl to make an egg wash. Brush lightly over the top of each empanada–it’ll give it that nice brown color. If you tried to make this before reading the recipe all the way through and don’t have another egg, don’t worry about it. It’ll still taste good, just won’t look as crisp and shiny. Also don’t be a dumb and read the whole recipe next time.
8. Cook empanadas in preheated oven for a total of 25 minutes (or until they’re golden-brown), switching baking sheets halfway through baking time.

Cool cooked empanadas on a rack for 5 minutes before eating. They taste delicious with a little bit of fresh salsa and sour cream. Enjoy!

So this weekend I was even in more of a mood to cook than usual, and I decided to experiment with Thai food, which is something I’ve never made before. I wasn’t sure what to make (pad thai just seemed too obvious if you know what I mean), but since it was Mother’s Day weekend I settled on my mom’s favorite dish: drunken noodles.
I found the original recipe here , but I ended up tweaking it a little bit. Here’s my version, and then more info on what exactly I changed and why:

Ingredients

• 2 8oz. packages pad thai rice noodles
• 2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp chili and garlic paste
  (I used the vinegar, oil, and chili paste to make a quick marinade for the chicken, but it’s completely optional)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil (olive oil works fine if that’s all you have on hand)
• 1 medium head of garlic; peeled, chopped or pressed
• 1/8th cup  (about 6 or 7) fresh Thai chilies, chopped
• 1/4 cup oyster sauce
• 1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 5 or 6 large carrots, peeled and sliced
• 2 large green bell peppers, sliced into strips
• 1/4 head of napa cabbage, chopped cross-wise

Directions

1. Cook the pasta according to package directions (for me it was 4 to 5 minutes in salted boiling water) until tender but still slightly firm.  You’ll want to stir a lot, and once the noodles are cooked I would add a dash of sesame (or whatever you feel like using) oil to keep them from clumping until you’re ready to use them.
2. If using marinade, whisk together vinegar, olive oil, and chili paste and pour over chicken. Stir to coat and refrigerate until ready to use (at least 15 minutes, but you could do this overnight).
3. Heat oil in large pan (I used a 12-inch sauté pan) over medium-high heat. Add garlic and chili peppers; saute for about 30 seconds. Just don’t let it burn, that would not be good. Add the carrots and cook for a little bit longer, maybe another minute.
4. Add chicken (if you marinated it, just discard any excess marinade), soy sauce, oyster sauce, and sugar, and cook until the chicken is done, about 4 or 5 minutes. I get really paranoid about salmonella so I would either split the biggest chunk to make sure it’s done or use a meat thermometer.
5. Add noodles and whatever veggies you used; mix well to cover the noodles in the sauce. Remove from heat and serve!

Further details on the adjustments I made: for one thing, I couldn’t find the noodles the recipe called for, so I ended up just buying the closest thing I could find. I probably could have found the wider noodles but I wasn’t really going to drive across town to the Asian grocery store for one recipe.
Then, and this is purely because I’m such a picky eater…the idea of using ground chicken kind of gave me the willies. If you don’t mind using ground chicken, that’s totally fine and shouldn’t affectthe recipe, but I just preferred using regular chicken breast (and I happened to have a ton of it on hand thanks to my last trip to Costco).
I cut the amount of chili peppers called for in half, because those little guys are SPICY as hell, but of course you can use more if you like your meals to really burn your mouth and give you an ulcer. =D
Finally, the only veggies the recipe called for was Anaheim chilies and fresh tomatoes. I decided to use bell peppers instead because after my last cooking experiment (almost-vegetarian lemongrass soup, which I’ll write about after I’ve perfected it) I really wanted more flavor and less, you know…BURNING.  I did use the tomatoes, but they honestly don’t add anything to the dish so I’m going to leave them out when I make this again. I added carrots for crunch and flavor and some fresh Napa cabbage just because I thought it would go well (and I wanted to get it out of my fridge), but the dish is pretty versatile in terms of what vegetables you want to use, even if they’re not traditional.
One more thing–the original recipe called for Thai basil as a garnish, but unless you already have some on hand, I honestly wouldn’t bother. It might add a little special something but since I was just cooking for my family (or as I shall refer to them from here on out, The People) I didn’t really want to spend money on it.

The People’s Verdict

The People loved it! My mom said they were a great success, and my dad had two portions. You know something is good when he says “This is going to give me heartburn” even as he’s scarfing down his second serving. They make good leftovers, and as someone that hates leftoves, I don’t say that lightly.