Counting the Beans and Cooking the Books

Yes, I realize it’s been 3 months since my last post.  But it’s 2010 and we’re all allowed a new start, right?  I don’t know yet if I’ll resolve to post more often in the new year, but I can promise some fun recipes, TV appearances, another trip to the Olympics, and some wedding-related posts.

Yup, this little cook is getting hitched!  Perhaps I’ll post good little housewife recipes like meatloaf or fruitcake.  Or perhaps I’ll post “Brigitte & Michael attempt to get skinny for their wedding” recipes.  Or maybe, just maybe I’ll try my hand at recreating some traditional wedding foods in the process of writing my wedding menu.  We’ll see…

To make up for my sad absence, I’m posting some pictures of things I’ve either made or happily eaten (or made, then happily eaten) in the past few months.  Here goes!

Oh hello burger, mahi mahi fish & chips, onion rings, and shake from Taylor’s Refresher.  We had a fantastic trip to San Francisco to attend the wedding of one of my besties!  Thanks, Kris, for getting married in Michael’s favorite city.  We celebrated by eating.  A lot.

Happy Halloween!  Um, maybe you can file this away for next year?  My famous nutella-filled sugar cookies, recreated with a pumpkin cutter and a little round biscuit cutter for the inside frame.

Baggies of homemade caramel corn for our trick-or-treaters.  I know this makes you wish you lived in our neighborhood.  And that you were a kid.  In a costume.  On Halloween night.  Or you can just be my friend.  Friends get caramel corn too.

I became a little obsessed with Libby’s Pumpkin Roll around Thanksgiving time.  You can thank my friend Beth for that.

I think I made 3 in one day.  Then I made 2 more for turkey day, including one for my next door neighbor, Joe, who lets us drop a turkey in his fryer every year.  Hurray for deep fried turkey!  Despite the deep frying, Joe is trying to cut back on his sugar & fat intake.  The cake portion of this pumpkin roll has no oil or butter, so I felt quite victorious.  I even bought fat free cream cheese (a first) and some of that Smart Balance spread (unchartered territory) to make a lowfat filling.

Heed my warning: do not attempt to do this.  The whole thing liquified once I started beating it, so I added extra powdered sugar in a pathetic attempt to rescue it.  It did not work.  And it did not taste good.  Joe got full fat cream cheese and butter instead.  Sorry to Joe’s wife, Barb.  I tried!

Since I’d already surrendered to the full fat version, I went ahead and drizzled it with some homemade caramel sauce and toasted almonds.  Joe ate 2 pieces for breakfast that day.

And because it’s Michael’s favorite, I made a pecan pie.  The crust recipe is from Cook’s Illustrated and uses vodka to add moisture, but inhibit gluten formation.  HELLO, this is the best crust I’ve ever made.  Crumbly, buttery, tender, and flaky.  It is crust perfection.  Seeing as how I do not drink, I now have a reason to collect those tiny vodka bottles from airplanes.  PIE CRUST!

Since this pecan pie was so easy, I decided to make it laborious and make pretty crust.  The family has become difficult to impress, so I have to go the extra mile if I want them to oooh and ahhh.  Sigh…

This brings us to Michael’s birthday cupcakes.  Our neighborhood Christmas party was the night of his birthday, so I made his favorite cuppy cakes to share with everyone.

Happy Birthday, Prather!  Three years ago, I bought M some birthday candles for our first birthday celebration together.  To my dismay, when I went to put them on his cake (red velvet, of course), I realized I’d erroneously purchased “Happy Retirement” candles, which have been sitting in our pantry ever since.  I brilliantly figured I could play Scrabble with the letters and spell out his last name.  Wanna know what I did with the rest of the candles?  Stay tuned…

Merry Christmas!  Buche de noel, anyone?  I made this when my amazing, beautiful, loving, kind mother came to see me in Kentucky for the first time!  Growing up, we ALWAYS had a buche for Christmas.  I can’t remember a year when there wasn’t a buche, complete with meringue mushrooms for all us kids to fight over.  It was usually from a Vietnamese bakery and it had the most lovely mocha icing and light sponge base.  I tried Martha’s recipe and thought it was quite tasty.  Most importantly, my mum was proud and liked it so much she ate two pieces.

We spent an entire day cooking together, which warrants a whole other post.  It was the first time we’d really cooked together, despite the fact that we’re both avid cooks and that she is solely responsible for my love of food.  We cooked up a big Vietnamese feast that night and had Michael’s entire family over to meet mom and to celebrate his dad’s birthday.  Here’s where the rest of those candles come into play…

It’s a wee hard to make out, but it reads “Pity men, ee!”  M and I Scrabbled for days with these letters…”piety meen, minty peee, tip my neee, yip mentee” and so on.  Hey, if you can come up with any better, I’m all ears.

And that concludes the highlight portion of this post.  I’m still cooking every Tuesday on LEX18 and we’re ironing out the kinks with the uploading of recipes and videos for your cooking and viewing pleasure.

Is there a recipe I can whip up on TV for you this year?  Something you’d like to lighten up or just recreate?  I often draw a blank when figuring out what to make each week and I love to know what everyone’s eating, cooking, or craving.  Leave me a comment and I will happily tackle it.   Thanks in advance for the idea!