paragiraffe

It’s time for another edition of Super Bowl food. Again, Shaun and I had a party but didn’t invite anyone, and our theme was Mexican. Why? What, you need an excuse to eat Mexican food?

First, we had guacamole and chips. Pretty standard.

Next, we spent a lot of time making pork tamales with tomatillo salsa.

My stove is so dirty. Would you believe I cleaned today?

Not pictured: margaritas. Many margaritas.

Finally, I made tres leches cake.

I spent some time the past couple of weeks looking at tres leches cake recipes and deciding what I wanted to do. First, there is this Martha Stewart Recipe, which I admired for its straightforwardness. Also, there was The Pioneer Woman’s recipe, which has a couple of extra ingredients I liked (vanilla extract, baking powder for extra rising). What I liked about both recipes is they do not contain butter. Butter makes cakes heavy; tres leches cake should be light. One concern I had was Shaun and I trying to eat the leftovers of a 9 x 13 inch cake, so I went for half. Here’s what I did.

Tres Leches Cake

• ½ cup flour (I used white whole wheat)
• ¾ teaspoon baking powder
• pinch salt
• 3 whole eggs
• ½ cup sugar, divided
• ½ teaspoon vanilla
• 1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
• 1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk
• ½ cup milk (any milk you have on hand is fine)

Preheat oven to 350°. Butter (or spray) a 8 x 8 inch pan.

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Separate eggs.

Beat egg yolks with ¼ cup sugar on high speed until yolks are pale yellow. Stir in milk and vanilla. Pour egg yolk mixture over the flour mixture and stir very gently until combined.

Beat egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. With the mixer on, pour in remaining ¼ cup sugar and beat until egg whites are stiff but not dry.

Fold egg white mixture into the batter very gently until just combined. Pour into prepared pan and spread to even out the surface.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Whisk together condensed and evaporated milk. Save or discard half. (I know, I know, I hate throwing away food, but I hate being fat more.) Whisk in milk and pour milk mixture over cake. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 1 to 24 hours.

You can frost this cake with sweetened whipped cream (as I did) or with a meringue (or seven minute frosting) as they do at Atlanta’s best place for tres leches cake, Tierra.

This may be the fastest internet-to-stomach recipe I have found. On Thursday night, I saw this recipe for a chocolate chip cooke in a skillet on Ezra Pound Cake. Being a sucker for anything cooked in a cast iron skillet, this went in my to-make queue, at the top.

I made these to have for dessert tonight, and I ate mine while registering for a half marathon, which seemed appropriate. I went a little shy on the cooking time to make sure they would be soft in the middle. The edges are deliciously crispy. Now, someone come over and help me eat them all!

For Christmas Santa brought me Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2009, because, man, I love me some Cooking Light. They do such an amazing job with their recipes, and I’ve passed off the results as not light at all.

Tonight I made this risotto with Italian sausage, caramelized onions and bitter greens. I loved it, and I would eat it again and again. The use of arugula, in particular, was really stellar.

I have to say, I got a kick out of the couple people who complained about the fussiness of this recipe in the reviews. It’s risotto! What did you expect?

Last Friday my parents were in town for a wedding, so we all went to see the Boston Celtics take on my Atlanta Hawks. My brother was also in town, but since he was in the wedding, he had to go to the rehearsal dinner instead. Too bad!

One of the things that makes baseball and football games so fun, in my opinion, is that scoring is kind of a big deal. When your team gets a touchdown or plates a run, everyone cheers! Since scoring is more or less constant in a basketball game, I figured it wouldn’t be as satisfying for the crowd, but I was wrong. It was a semi-constant scoring high.

My parents watch basketball with a lot more regularity than Shaun and I. My Dad is into the Memphis Grizzlies right now, but nonetheless he and my Mom cheered for the Celtics (their hometown team). As Atlantans, Shaun and I rooted for the Hawks despite knowing nothing about the team (although I hear they are kinda good). In fact, on their first basket Shaun yelled,

“Go Braves!”

Later we yelled things like:

“Matt Ryan!”

“Chipper Jones!”

“Go Falcons!”

One Hawk I do happen to know about is Zaza Pachulia, but that’s only because he owns a restaurant near me. (Prior to seeing him on the program, though, I was pretty sure he played for the Thrashers.) It was a great game, and the Hawks won.

Afterwards I enjoyed an Elvis burger at the Vortex in honor of his birthday.

I’ve been itching to get into Asian cooking for some time, and for Christmas, I got not one but two cookbooks for this. From Shaun I received Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking. I started flipping through this book and came upon a recipe for Kung Pao chicken, which honestly I was quite amazed by because I figured it was an American concoction. It’s the first thing I made.

You can read the recipe over here on NPR.

I had no trouble getting the Sichuan peppercorn, but I wasn’t able to get a hold of any Sichuan chiles at the time. Instead, I added some chile paste to the sauce for spice and a red bell pepper to the chicken for extra color and vegetable goodness. Even though I totally faked it up, I also totally loved it.

I’d recommend this book and recipe for someone, like myself, new to cooking authentic Asian food.

I don’t eat out that often. Well, I take that back. I bet I eat out more often than average, but if Foursquare is to be believed, I eat out less than other people/foodies my age. Often when I do eat out a blank is drawn on where to go, so I thought I’d compile a list of new places I want to eat in 2010.

• Antico Pizza
• Woodfire Grill (if I can get in!)
• Sauced
• Little Bangkok
• Ormsby’s (possibly my future neighborhood bar)
• Taquería La Oaxaqueña
• Brick Store Pub
• Holeman & Finch

Places I plan to return to:

• Bone Garden Cantina
• Baraonda (pretty sure I dined here 0 times in 2009, *tear*)
• Ecco

Mmm. I’m getting hungry already!

We love Christmas over here.

I am so full, and I actually can’t wait to get back to normal eating habits.

Cheers!

[Talking about making eggnog from scratch.]

Shaun: “I’ll make eggnog for our Christmas party.”
Maura: “We’re having a Christmas party?”
Shaun: “Sure.”
Maura: “Who are we inviting?”
Shaun: “No one. Just us.”

Ha! We had our Christmas “party” this past Saturday. As a dish often associated with Christmas, we decided to try our hands at making tamales from scratch, using a black bean filling. (We even cooked the black beans from dry. Nuts, I know!)

First problem: no dried corn husks or banana leaves to be found. Even Whole Foods let me down. Parchment paper stood in with good results.

Second problem: the recipe only made about a dozen, and they’re already gone!

I love peppermint ice cream. So, for our Christmas party* last night, I made some. I chose this recipe from Simply Recipes, and I halved it since two people don’t need that much ice cream.

You’ll want to be careful and add the peppermint extract to taste. I think I could have done more crushed candy canes, but of course that is also a matter of taste. This is definitely on the list for things I am making for Christmas.

*I’ll tell you more about this later.

One of my resolutions in 2009 was to start liking Swiss cheese. I’ll call this a success, because I do not avoid it like the plague like I used to. There are some I even enjoyed.

You may not know this, but I used to be a really picky eater. At some point I just decided I was going to like food. And look at me now! I love it.

So, my foodie resolution for 2010 is start liking runny egg yolks.

I pretty much only like my eggs scrambled until practically dry. I still think light and fluffy, not wet scrambled eggs are a totally valid way to go. But something like a poached egg, with the egg yolk running down over toast (see these lovely photos from Smitten Kitchen)…ewww gross. Carbonara? I may be sick.

But…I’m going to work on it.