I started cooking with beer and I can’t stop

Howdy and happy summer! Summertime makes me think of two things: the beach and some ice cold drinks. Of course, iced coffee is always at the top of my list (I’ve been drinking it since I was four, I know, it’s bad), but now that I am recently old enough, beer is now part of my summer! Since I started working at an awesome local craft brewery, I’ve been bringing home more beer than I can drink– so I started cooking with it!

 

I got the best birthday present, the Craft Beer Cookbook, for my birthday, and it’s really gotten me hooked. Everything I make is amazingly delicious, craft beer is a great tool for cooking because it adds lots of depth of flavor. Now I know that there are a lot of people who are either craft beer “snobs,” or don’t know what it is, so I’ll explain. Craft beer is typically made in smaller batches, and doesn’t use adjunct ingredients. For example, some big names may use corn or rice to feed the yeast, but they don’t give that much flavor. Craft beer does not use these filler ingredients, and therefore has a fuller, more-developed taste. Yum!

I’m still learning more about beer and working through the cookbook, but I find myself wanting to cook with beer even when I’m not trying out a new recipe. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that this past week I made beer-braised chipotle chicken with red peppers and drunken cilantro lime rice (from the cookbook). It was super easy to make, and the sauce was basically just beer that we allowed to cook in a pot for a bit with the chicken. The rice was also cooked with beer, I used an amber ale instead of the recommended pale ale with citrus notes, and I’m thinking, why don’t I cook with beer all the time? It’s basically a pre-made sauce; the brewers already took the time to develop a beer with nicely balanced flavors, and as cooks all we need to do is throw some protein and vegetable in there!

So next time you are staring in your fridge and don’t know what to make, grab a cold one and make some awesome chicken with it! Or try the cookbook, because there is soo much more than chicken in there! I have to tell you, I don’t believe in making brownies from scratch, because they never seem to come out as fudgy as the box mix. But I made the chocolate stout brownies from the cookbook and they were the BEST. I ate the whole pan, they were rich, velvety and fudgy, and I can’t make them ever again if I plan on fitting into my new summer clothes. I will have to experiment a little more with beer in desserts, and I will report back to you. Happy cooking!

How to impress French people: Green Tea Macarons

It’s spring! Freaking finally! I never thought this would happen, but I can look out my window without seeing a winter wonderland. In honor of all this lovely green, and the fact that my coworkers are mad at me because I might be leaving them, I decided to make them some macarons.

The coolest part about my coworkers is that most of them are French, and I was just too excited today when they all ate my macarons and said they were good! Whoo! And I know what you’re thinking, they weren’t just being polite. French people are very rarely polite for the sake of being polite; my macarons sucked,I would have known for sure.

The green tea flavor was an idea from a book I have, and I slightly modified the recipe to use matcha powder, green tea powder, to color and flavor it. I’ve made some green tea baked products before, namely cake, and the results were not what I desired. But, I decided to give it a go with the macarons and was pleasantly surprised. They start out kind of sweet because of the honey buttercream that I used to fill them, but then you get a strong flavor of the green tea afterward. They are really refreshing and too dangerous; I almost ate all of my extras.

Even my French friends were impressed that I could make macarons, because there seems to be some sort of mythical hype around them. “Did you have to guard the oven the whole time?” one asked. Um, no? Macarons are mythically difficult to make, don’t be intimidated! Here are some surefire ways to get them right:

1. Fold the batter– macarons are made with meringue, whipped egg whites, and its fluffiness must be maintained! You should gently fold the dry ingredients in to the meringue; so basically, gently use a spatula to stir around the edges of the bowl and cut through the middle until it all combines.
2. Let it rest– this is really important! After you pipe the batter onto your parchment, let that batter take a rest. It needs to rest for about 30 minutes, or long enough so that you can touch one of the circles without any of the batter sticking to your finger. It can take less or more time depending on the weather and humidity, so just make sure that film has formed over it before you bake.
3. The frilly foot, or pied— yup. The bottom of the cookie, that fluffy-looking part, is called a foot. But because it’s in French it sounds elegant, right? This is the secret to knowing when the macarons are done; when they are at the end of the bake time, try and lift one of the cookies. If the foot is wobbly or still sticking to the sheet, let ’em cook a little more, just a minute or two and then check again.

See? Simple! They’re not so much hard to make as temperamental, just pay attention and you’ll do fine. You may even impress some people… or just eat them all yourself. For macaron recipes, you can try a book or something online. The way to know if it’s a good recipe is if the ingredients are at least, egg whites, ground almonds, and white and confectioner’s sugar. After that, it’s basically just different flavors that will alter the ingredients. You can also check out good ‘ol Food Network’s recipe.

Is it cheating if you cook with condiments?

After trying to cook dinner at my friend’s house last week I realized: my fridge holds an inordinate amount of condiments. Who knew, right? I never realized it, but I figured that having the whole fridge door filled with condiments was normal. But it’s not true, some people have like, two things on their door! Trying to cook with only ketchup and one kind of condiment made me think; am I really cooking if I’m using condiments?

Chefs are amazing for making flavors, but condiments are equipped with their own flavors already. So it would seem that I’m not a creating flavors like a chef if I’m using condiments to season meat like shrimp and chicken. What do I mean by seasoning with condiments? Okay so last night I needed to whip up some shrimp because I didn’t realize how late it was and how angry my stomach was at me. So I threw some shrimp in a pan and added some balsamic vinaigrette, pesto, sweet chili sauce, and Sriracha. All condiments! But the shrimp tasted great; sweet, spicy and a little bit tangy.

But after trying to cook without these accoutrements, I was struggling! I mean, my pasta still came out really good, but I thought I was good at cooking. Urg. Am I really cheating though, it’s still creative to combine all of those things… I think. I have cooked some pretty kick-ass things without using condiments, it’s really only my unplanned-I’m-starving-and-need-to-eat-now meals that have me grabbing a bunch of condiments like a crazy person. I don’t know if any of you out there do that too, but if you do, I’m telling you that I, a random person writing stuff on the internet, have declared it acceptable. If you made it, and it tastes good, it counts. Go us! *Clinks glass,* to the lazy and/or creative and hungry chefs out there, cheers!

Cooking with Flavor 101: Authentic Spanish Paella

I went to Barcelona for five hours, and it changed my life. Have you every tried paella? It is the most delicious and flavorful thing you may ever eat. But not everyone can just hop on over to Barcelona for a few hours to get some authentic paella, so we may have to learn to be fake Spanish cooks. This is what I’ve done in the past few months, and I am here to teach you my American-Spanish ways.

The real stuff from Barcelona!

The most important thing: the sofrito. It’s fun to say, isn’t it? Sofrito. It’s the base of the paella, a beautiful mixture of puréed fruits that cooks down into a paste and flavors up your rice. I am in no way a sofrito expert, but here is what it looks like when you make it. For a good explanation of it, I would look at this recipe and instructions. But that recipe makes a huge batch, these are the amounts that I use for cooking for four to five people (these are just the sofrito ingredients).

2 red bell peppers

2 green bell peppers

4 tomatoes

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic

however much cilantro you want

If you don’t have a paella pan, you can use a wide flat pan, just make sure that the edges are not very low, you’ll need them to cook the rice. So basically, you puree your peppers, onion, garlic, and cilantro together, and cook on the stove at low heat until all the moisture is cooked out. It can take a while, but you’ll know because it will look like a paste and will separate easily when you run a spoon through it. Once the moisture is gone, put the pureed tomatoes in and cook out that moisture (this will really take a long time).

Sofrito ingredients, pureed.

Sofrito before cooking.

Sofrito cooked before adding tomatoes.

Completed sofrito.

Because making the softrito takes a really long time, I sometimes make double batches and freeze half. That way I do the work for two (which isn’t too difficult) but I can whip up some quick paella later when I want. If you want to do it, you’ll need two pans with the ingredients split between them.

Now the fun part! You should use a short or medium grain rice; add a half a cup uncooked per person. Put the rice in with the sofrito and mix it up and let it cook dry for a bit. Then add one cup of chicken or seafood stock per half cup or rice to the pan. Then flatten the sofrito and rice across the whole pan so it’s even, and carefully pour the stock over it completely (that’s what you need those pan sides for). Then, cook on low or med-low heat until the rice absorbs all of the liquid. This can take a while, and because your stove probably doesn’t have an enormous fire, you may want to rotate the pan so the heat can cook different sides.

A lot of liquid that gets absorbed by the rice.

Arrange the meat on top.

Meanwhile, cook whatever meat you want in your paella. I am partial to shrimp, scallops and chorizo, but pork ribs, chicken, fish, or whatever else you want is good too. The amount of each that you use depends on how many people you’re serving, and how hungry you all are! I usually cook that separately in some sweet chili sauce and balsamic vinaigrette, but it can be flavored however you want. When they are cooked and before the rice has fully absorbed the stock, neatly place the meats all over the top of your rice (yes, they will sit in the liquid). Continue cooking for a while on low heat until all of the liquid is absorbed, you will begin to see some nice crusting around the edges of the pan. When you are ready to eat, you should see some sort of burned/crusty rice on the bottom. Don’t freak out, that’s the good stuff and totally supposed to happen!

If you’re really not sure if it’s done, you can taste a little of the rice from the side, if that’s cooked then you should be good to go. I usually let it rest a little after cooking, because it will be really hot. Then serve it up! I love a dry white wine with my paella, but I promise you either way it will change how you look at food. Talk about flavor!

The snow is filling my fridge

When they know a storm is coming, most people tend to fill up their fridge with as much food as possible, and it gets emptier as the storm goes on. Well, not my fridge; I can’t stop cooking! Talk about getting stir crazy (pun definitely intended). As you may have noticed on Instagram, I have been cooking a lot more than I have been baking. It’s really weird, I very rarely get this into cooking, but I’m not going to lie, I really like it!

Baking is one of my favorite things to do, but cooking is much more fast paced, which I like. I always shied away from it because of the raw meat, but it hasn’t been that much of an issue. I have been cooking roasted chicken, paella, soup, sandwiches and pasta; I am learning most of it as I cook. I admit it, I’ve had some help from my Nana of course (she’s the cooking lady I look up to), but the training wheels are starting to come off. So while you may be missing some pictures of chocolate mousse and cupcakes (which I actually have made but not shown you), let’s cook a little!

 

I’m breaking up with breakfast

The idea of breakfast is like a romance. There are strawberries, chocolate, waffles, capucchinos, muffins, and lazy mornings, but are there really? With all of the snow days that I have been having, yes, lazy mornings and waffles have been a reality for me. But in my day-to-day life, breakfast is just a fantasy.

When I was little I ate two Eggo waffles with Log Cabin syrup every day. Then I switched to Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Then I had Cocoa Krispies. Then Pop-Tarts. More recently, a ham and cheese breakfast sandwich or honey and cheese on toast. So I feel like I’ve been sold short; where are my chocolate chip pancakes and sunshine every day? Still in bed; I can only have them if I get up extra early. Let’s be honest, sleep definitely trumps a fancy breakfast.

So this is it. Breakfast, we’ve had some great times. Some wonderful brunches, beautiful crispy waffles, butter and jam on toast, and espresso, but I’m sick of your empty promises. I’ve been seeing something else: my pillow. My pillow doesn’t make me work hard to be happy; my pillow understands me. I hope we can still be friends, and see each other a weekend or two. But I want you to know that you’ll always be part of my life and I’ll always love you. Goodbye for now.

I put doughnut frosting on a cake and this is what happened

Why hello there! Long time, no talk! This blizzard-ing in the north east has really hit me hard; first with a cold, then a mother broken and displaced arm in need of surgery. So even though I have been dying to bake up a storm in this blizzard, it hasn’t really been a reality. Cut to last week, when it was a friend’s birthday…. *twinkly futuristic transition sound*

A friend of mine does not really like dessert, but was having a birthday. You’re probably wondering why I have a friend who doesn’t like dessert, well so am I. After much contemplation, I decided to make her a strawberry shortcake because you can’t go wrong with some whipped cream and berries. I found a good recipe in my handy-dandy Illustrated Cookbook, and pre-baked the cake. This was Sunday night.

Then Monday came with the blizzard Juno, and of course the party was canceled. So then I was sitting in my house for three days with a cake that was un-frosted that I wasn’t supposed to eat. Can you guess what happens next? Yup. I frosted the cake for me and my sister to eat, because why not? The party was indefinitely canceled because of sickness and stuff.

So I went back to my handy-dandy cookbook in search of a chocolate frosting recipe (I ditched the “healthy” strawberry shortcake notion”). I found a “Fudge-y Chocolate Frosting” recipe that seemed super easy, so I whipped it up (and of course burned a finger). It came out great and delicious, so I leveled my cake and started slathering it on. The frosting went on fine in the middle for the filling, and I put the second layer on. Then something weird happened.

The frosting would not spread on my cake! Like just would pull up the crumbs of the cake in this weird peeling maneuver. So I piled on more frosting to combat it, which worked, but then it would not stick to the sides! So here I am trying to make a pretty cake for myself, and it ends up looking like a poop cake. Literally though the pieces on the sides looked suspiciously #2-ish.

After I started eating a piece of it anyway, I realized what this frosting reminded me of. Doughnut frosting! There’s an amazing doughnut place near my house that makes the best doughnuts from scratch, and they have a chocolate-frosted doughnut. And that’s what I made, the chocolate frosting that should go on a doughnut. I don’t recommend putting doughnut frosting on a cake, it’s very dry and might look a little like poop.

Chocolate-Dipped Cookie Dough

Cookies come in many forms. Cookies, cookie bars, cookie cakes, cookie dough, and even cookie monsters. But the clear winner for me is cookie dough. Granted there are some health risks in eating it (because of the eggs, so I don’t recommend eating it), but I can’t stop myself. I’m not the only one who is obsessed with this fluffy goodness; you can buy pre-mixed cookie dough ice cream, and probably even cookie dough Chapstick.

But what if I told you that cookie dough itself could stand to be improved? Is it possible? The answer is: yes. If you dip it in chocolate.

I as well as many fellow New England-ers have a sick friend right now; this cold is really killing us. But I am one of the lucky ones, and have decided to be nice and make some comfort food for my sickly sister. Her request: chocolate-dipped chocolate chip cookie dough.

Step 1: Make some cookie dough.

Step 2: Scoop it into balls.

Step 3: Freeze them.

Step 4: Melt your favorite kind of chocolate.

Step 5: Dip frozen cookie dough balls in the melted chocolate.

Step 6: Freeze chocolate covered cookie balls until chocolate sets.

Step 7: Enjoy and notice the difference in your life.

So I made a Minion Cake

Well hey there! Long time no see to all of you bakers out there. In the last few weeks I’ve learned that not only are Christmas and treadmills not friends, but Christmas and writing-about-baking are not friends! But that’s cool, because it’s a new year and I have plenty of new things to bake.

Last year (aka, December), not only did I bake up a storm for Christmas, but it was also my mother’s birthday. Not ideal for a baker, but you do not want to be slacking when making your mom’s birthday cake let me tell you. I’m sure you are familiar with those adorable Despicable Me movies, or at least the cute little minions that star in them. Who doesn’t love them? I was dying to make an improved minion birthday cake, the one I made for my brother was not my best work.

This was surprisingly easy to make, so I’ll give you some tips for making a one-eyed yellow sidekick.

1. Only buy white fondant. This may sound like extra work, because tinting fondant can be a pain in the behind, but I have latched on to a new baking trend: spray color! Yes, I cut the white fondant for all of the pieces I need (eyes, clothing, mouth, etc.) and spray them with food coloring spray. It’s surprisingly easy, and saves you from having to knead in four different colors of food coloring. Just make sure you cover your counters, that stuff can be very messy.
2. Keep it simple. The last minion cake I made, I tried to get too fancy and didn’t have enough time to make it work. This time, I only made the absolute minimum decorations and had time to make them look great. Simplicity will always look nice, so don’t be afraid to be lazy and skip those last few steps!
3. Improvise. I always have to improvise, but initially the minion cupcakes weren’t a part of my plan. I had too much cake batter, so I decided to make cupcakes with it. When they came out perfectly round and adorable, I figured Why not make more minions? More minions is always a good choice. Have fun with your decorating and don’t be afraid to stray from your initial plans, who knows what you’ll come up with.

So here are my two tries, which one do you like better?

First try last year

New and improved this year

Christmas Gift Trick: Cookie Mugs

You may recognize Christmas as one of the most pleasant seasons of the year (or you may not, no pressure). But sometimes all of the merriment, gift-giving, cookie-baking, and decorating can start to really hurt your wallet. And that’s fine! I mean losing weight is good… right? Well, maybe not from your wallet; but you don’t want to be cheap (that’s not in the Christmas spirit!). It’s the thought that counts, not how much you spend. Yada-yada, I’m not going to get into it; I’m assuming you’ve seen at least one Christmas movie.

So how do you give thoughtful, quality gifts without starving your wallet? Christmas cookies! Okay, here’s what you have to do. Buy one holiday mug per person you want to give a gift too. They don’t have to be expensive, you can find nice ones at less-expensive stores that are perfectly good. Then, make as many cookies as you can in as many kinds as you want. Next, fill the mugs with the cookies! 

It may sound simple, but a pile of cookies will brighten almost anyone’s day, and the mug will last as a gift that will sit in their kitchen for eternity! (I don’t know about you, but I never throw out mugs.) It helps if you can make a festive gingerbread to put on top, but really this one is all about what you can do. (Ignore the ones in the picture, they were festive but also a thank you gift for people.) To make it look more full you can throw in some bite sized candies too, or a hot chocolate mix! Then wrap them up in cellophane with a nice bow, and you have conquered the holiday gifts for your acquaintances, co-workers, and the people-who-you-aren’t-sure-you’re-exchanging-gifts-with-but-have-to-be-prepared-for-just-in-case.