mouthwatering march!

Well, looky here...carbs, cheese, and alcohol...yup, that pretty much sums up what we consumed in March. Because I was out of commission most of the month due to my headaches (which are now in remission - yay!), I didn't do much cooking, and when I did cook, I wanted comfort foods! I also didn't drink at all for the first three weeks of March because alcohol triggers the headaches. But! We more than made up for that during the last few days of the month when Sara was in town - we spent a fantastic Sunday afternoon draining our wine rack and feasting on cheese.

I was obsessed with making biscuits this month - I tried several different recipes and highly recommend Orangette's Cream Biscuits. I also continued my quest for The Perfect Mac and Cheese Recipe. Food & Wine's recent recipe for Stovetop Mac & Cheese with Cheese Crisps (or as it turned out for me, "Burnt Cheese Leather") was very good...but still not perfection. I also made hamburger buns from scratch, and found a fantastic turkey burger recipe. And Bobby Flay does it again - his recipe for Chile-Honey Glazed Salmon with Black Bean Sauce and Jalapeno Crema was delicious!

But the best thing I ate this month, I didn't even make...it was Sara's Crawfish Pies. Seriously, phenomenal! And after witnessing how much work they are to make, I'm so glad she was in town to make them for me! Thanks, Sara!

What we were eating and cooking this month: Comfort foods - biscuits, mac and cheese, cookies, pasta, cupcakes (from a bakery), crawfish pies. And wine, lots of wine.

P.S. Wondering if anyone will comment that the cupcake pic looks like a boob before Larry does...

bread of the month | light brioche burger buns

People, I made hamburger buns. From scratch. And they were awesome.

I started this endeavor at 9 pm on a Friday night. They require two rises and that definitely takes some time, but it was one of those recipes that came out looking exactly like the picture. And even though it was nearly 1 am by the time they came out of the oven, I couldn't resist slathering one with butter and gobbling it up. In fact, that is how I liked these buns best - fresh from the oven and dripping with butter. I actually think they are too good to use for burgers.

I believe that a bad bun can definitely detract from a good burger experience. We never buy those supermarket buns that have the consistency of a wad of kleenex. Our favorite packaged hamburger bun is actually a good ol' Thomas' English Muffin (a trick we learned a few years ago on an episode of Barefoot Contessa). However, I'm not sure the difference between a good bun and a great bun is detectable when eating a burger...the patty plus fixins always overwhelms the bread. The same happened when I filled the buns with egg salad.

Homemade buns certainly didn't hurt though, and the burgers were delicious! Grilled turkey burgers with smoky paprika aoili, cheddar, and grilled red peppers and onions...oh yeah. I mean, look at this:

I would definitely make these buns again - just maybe not for burgers. The recipe made eight buns and they were huge - I would definitely divide the dough into ten buns the next time. However, what I'd really like to do is make them into slider sized buns and serve mini crabcake sandwiches on them!

Light Brioche Burger Buns recipe on Smitten Kitchen.

flavorful february!

Despite the fact that Larry was out of the country for half the month, and the other half I survived on a steady diet of Oreos, February ended up being a delicious and flavorful month. Due to our aforementioned busy schedules, I failed to cook our monthly international meal or a loaf of bread, but I hope to tackle those goals this weekend.

When Larry's away, I tend to take the opportunity to eat things he doesn't like: namely, chocolate pudding, curry, and broccoli. It's a strange collection of things that Larry doesn't like, and the chocolate pudding thing is just plain weird. Although, I'm probably weird for being excited about the prospect of eating broccoli! So while Larry was feasting on beef tongue (gaaaahhhh - go read my About Me section for my thoughts about this) and mutton (or as he calls it, old sheep) in Tajikistan, I was eating a mostly vegetarian diet while he was away (the exception being the bacon sprinkled on my broccoli, corn, and potato soup). I made egg curry - inspired by reading Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri and was on a pretty big Mexican kick this month. I made Mushroom, Rajas, and Corn Tacos with Queso Fresco and Salsa Quemada - aka Burnt Salsa - a recipe that starts with the instruction to "Make sure your kitchen is well-ventilated". This was good advice, because it turns out intentionally burning tomatoes is quite smelly. I was well-prepared for this endeavor though - not only was my kitchen ventilated, but I had this within arm's reach (which is especially important if you've disconnected your smoke detector):

Larry and I also made Chorizo + Potato Tacos with Avocado + Tomatillo Salsa. According to the website I got the recipe from, this was a Rick Bayless recipe. He does have a similar recipe in Mexican Everyday, but that recipe uses mushrooms and isn't quite the same, so we'll call it Rick Bayless-inspired. We'll also call it freaking delicious and super easy. Yum. Rick wasn't the only celebrity chef who's recipes we sampled this month - we also made Nate Appleman's Pork Loin Spiedino with Pine Nut, Garlic and Currant Cranberry Soffritto from the A16 cookbook. (I'll admit, after watching him on The Next Iron Chef, I do agree that he's a dick - also, is it true that he works at Chipotle now???)

Also, Larry made Ina Garten's Sour Cream Coffee Cake, but that is a (hilarious) story for another time.

And I promise to post the valentine cookie recipe soon - hopefully on Vicious Dishes later today, since I have gotten several requests.

What we (mostly I) were/was eating and cooking this month: vegetarian, Mexican - several types of tacos and homemade salsa, COOKIES, hot chocolate (it was a cold month!), and several recipes from celebrity chefs.

tasty january!

This month, Larry really picked up the slack in the kitchen (it seems I can either be creative with my art or my cooking - but not both at the same time! If it weren't for Larry I would've survived on cereal, cookies, and cheese this month). He cooked all sorts of comfort foods - homemade chicken noodle soup, white chili, meatball subs...perfect meals for a month that I'd prefer to hibernate through. By the end of the month I had rediscovered my cooking mojo and cooked up some comfort foods of my own, like Smitten Kitchen's Vanilla Bean Pudding (which I had been promising Larry for weeks).

I attempted donuts (on my list of things to make for the year) - I didn't have high expectations for baked donuts (a proper donut really does need to be fried), and as expected, I was disappointed as they tasted like donut-shaped corn muffins. In the successes column, we found a simple recipe for chicken breasts that actually has flavor: Herbed Balsamic Chicken with Blue Cheese. I also accomplished two Culinary Resolutions - cooking our first international meal and baking my first loaf of bread of the year.

What we were eating and cooking this month: comfort foods - soups, chili, sandwiches and homemade pudding, lots of cheese, store-bought cookies and sweets (yikes!), olives, chicken, and a Moroccan feast. 

international meal | morocco + bread of the month | kesra

We kicked off our international meal resolution in January with a Moroccan feast! I had also resolved to bake one loaf of bread per month and as I was sorting through Moroccan recipes, I found a recipe for Kesra (Moroccan bread, though some sources list it as Algerian - either way it's a North African bread).

When I had first mentioned my goal of cooking an international meal each month to Larry, I asked him which country we should choose first and he immediately responded "Morocco!" I was surprised by his choice and intrigued - since I really know nothing about African cuisine, other than having eaten in a handful of Ethiopian restaurants in DC. Here's what I learned through cooking our meal: Moroccan food is freaking delicious!

On the menu:

• Chicken Tagine with Apricots and Almonds (served over couscous)
• Moroccan Eggplant Salad
• Kesra (Moroccan Bread)

I had hoped to pair the meal with a Moroccan wine, but I didn't have time to go to the wine store and shockingly, Safeway doesn't carry wine from Morocco. So we drank beers instead...also not Moroccan. And I had planned to make M'hanncha (Snake Cake - awesome!) for dessert, but I ran out of time. First lesson learned - we need to have our international feasts on weekends, as it was an ambitious meal for a weeknight and by the time we ate it was almost 9 pm.


But - it was totally worth the wait. Only a month into the year, and I can already guarantee that the Chicken Tagine will be one of the best recipes we make in 2011. It was phenomenal. In fact, it was probably one of the best things we've ever made. I have a beef with chicken and that is this: it has no flavor.  But this was one of the most flavorful dishes to ever touch my tongue. As Larry summed it up after we'd licked our plates clean without uttering a word to each other throughout the meal, "I could eat this chicken all night!"

The bread was fantastic, too - and the easiest yeast bread recipe I've ever tried. I thought the round loaves might be dense and chewy - but they were soft and light - my first bite from the oven left me exclaiming "it tastes like a biscuit!" I made it because I thought bread would be good to sop up sauces, but I really loved eating it American-style - that is slathered with butter. It would also be good dipped in olive oil or spread with jam for breakfast.

Next up: Portugal!

gluttonous december!

We finished up 2010 with a total of 113 new recipes for the year! And like most Decembers, this one was full of carbs and sweets. It also appears we were into red and purple foods this month.

What we were eating and cooking this month: cookies, cookies, cookies, I ate my weight in cookies and found a new favorite Christmas cookie recipe. I cooked dirt beets for the first time, even though I cheated and hid them in a cake. We had a few snowy days, so we broke out Larry's famous Blizzard Chili (which we first concocted during Snowmageddon last February). I made this Creamed Haricot Vert and Corn Casserole twice. We busted into the homemade blueberry freezer jam for a taste of summer (made from the blueberries we picked in July). I tried out my new pizza stone for the first time. And we enjoyed lots of wine, cheese, and international foods on the last day of the year.

Here's to a delicious 2011!

P.S. See all the monthly cooking collages here.

nothing says Christmas like cookies + bonfires...

We decided to have an impromptu (aka last minute, which is generally how we roll, and generally the cause of great stress) little get-together for some friends over the weekend. It seems that December always flies by and there's so much to do - Christmas shopping, office parties, etc, that gets in the way of hanging out with the people who's company we actually enjoy. We still haven't put our grill away for the winter, so that was the perfect excuse to have a casual dinner party while our house is decorated for the holidays.

I made five dozen cookies...

Italian Chocolate Cookies


I had the frosted cookies sitting out on a platter and one of our friends thought they were mini cheeseburgers...which is exactly what they look like. Disturbing! And it's all I can think of whenever I see the cookies now.

Sparkling Peppermint Cookies. (Or as Larry calls them, Pepperoni Cookies. He also mixes up mushrooms and marshmallows. Note: There is no pepperoni or meat products in these cookies.)

Making Sparkling Peppermint Cookies involves pulverizing candy canes in the food processor until they resemble what I like to call Candy Cane Crack.

And these cookies are indeed like crack, as we crushed two dozen of them in less than 24 hours. They are definitely our new favorite Christmas cookie.

After stuffing our faces with burgers and cookies, we headed out to the patio for a bonfire. We strung up some lights on our busted trellis so it was very festive. (Nothing quite says Christmas like a looming structural failure!)

Our fire pit is one of the best purchases we've made for our house - yes, it's an overpriced metal drum, but sitting on our patio with a fire going on a summer night is fantastic. And it's equally fun in the winter - particularly if there is snow on the ground like there is right now.

Of course, I failed to take any pictures during the party, but I snapped a few after most of our guests had left and there were just a few of us hanging out on the patio drinking beer and enjoying some good clean fun...

Like this...

I know it's blurry, but yes, that is a hatchet.


The evening's late night good clean fun also included drinking Busch beers, burning the cans, poking the fire with a stick, and dousing the fire with urine. So by good clean fun, I really mean general redneckery. (Obviously, I opted out of the above activities. I'll stick with baking cookies and peeing inside, ok?)

Yep, nothing says Christmas like cookies and bonfires and a fire pit full of piss.

recipe binders

Larry and I love to cook. (We also love to eat.) Our interest in cooking began probably a year or so after we started dating because we got sick of eating out all the time (or eating in and eating crap).

We dubbed the first meals we made "Mom Meals" - they usually consisted of a chicken breast, some frozen vegetables, and egg noodles. And at the time they were SO satisfying. I had survived my early twenties on a diet of beer and bar food and plain pasta. Larry often ate a bag of microwave popcorn for dinner, or if he really got creative - a chicken patty topped with cheese sandwiched between two frozen blueberry waffles. (His masterpiece.) Stereotypical bachelor food. So to cook and eat a meal together that consisted of several different food groups was luxury.

We quickly tired of the Mom Meals and started scouring the internet for more interesting recipes. We discovered websites such as Epicurious. We started watching Food Network. We got more and more adventurous and more confident with our cooking skills. We enjoyed trying new recipes, cooking together, and challenging ourselves. I started photographing what we made, exchanging recipes with friends and even ended up starting a cooking blog with friends. And the best part - Larry and I were eating really well (proof: our expanding waistlines). We started by trying 3 new recipes a month. These days we make over 100 new recipes per year.

I started amassing a huge collection of recipes. I kept them in plastic sleeves stored in two office binders for years (one for savory recipes and one for desserts). When the binders filled up, the overflow recipes ended up stacked in piles all over the house. I could never find what I was looking for. I searched online for some sort of recipe organization system - but it seems everything having to do with recipes is cutesy or country and not at all me. I wanted something simple and modern - but more attractive than a binder from Staples.

About a year and a half ago, I decided to create my own recipe organization system. I designed a series of binders and had them custom printed at Avery. There are eight binders in shades of orange to match my orange kitchen. They're actually not stored in the kitchen though - they ended up on a shelf in the library.


You'll notice I have two volumes for desserts...

It worked out beautifully and is like having my own custom cookbooks. Of course, I am constantly collecting new recipes which often end up in a pile like this before they make it into the binders:

Here's what's inside. Lots of recipes we've tried...even more waiting to be tried...

Ahhh, pavlova - I really wanted to make this, but I'm gun shy after Sara's pavlova experiment/disaster.


Remember the Oreo Truffles that were all the rage a few years ago? Love those things. Confession: I've even made them with Nutter Butters. Awesome.


I make notes on all the recipes we try, too.


Some of the recipes are clipped from newspapers or magazines (we subscribe to Food & Wine and I occasionally pick up a copy of Bon Appetit), but most come from the internet- currently, my favorite food blogs are Smitten Kitchen and Orangette. I also like 101 Cookbooks, Simply Recipes, and Homesick Texan. I used to be addicted to reading The Kitchn. We still love Epicurious and gravitate towards Bobby Flay recipes on Food Network (though I'm recently loving Ina Garten, too). And some of my favorite recipes have actually come from AllRecipes.

Anyone else have any favorite cooking websites I should be reading?

gratifying november!

I got back in the cooking saddle this month - not only did I try 12 new recipes in November (without cooking Thanksgiving dinner - my newly retired mother tackled the whole meal on her own), but I hit my 100th new recipe for the year. (Yes, I keep track. This should surprise no one, given my obsession with list-making!)

It appears it was another month of beige (and orange!) food, but what can I say - beige food can be delicious! Despite the seeming lack of green, we did eat a lot of vegetables this month - parsnips and carrots and peppers - and I tried a lot of vegetarian recipes from my Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health cookbook.

I was obsessed with making soups this month - mostly because I always seem to have problems making soup - I can't ever seem to find a good recipe.  The Curried Pepper Soup was good - but only when served over rice, and the Latin Corn Soup was foul, so I guess I'll keep looking.

What we were eating and cooking this month: preparing for winter with some one dish comfort foods - mushroom lasagna (which I actually posted on Vicious Dishes) and the beef pot pie that as mentioned before, was so delicious it appeared in my dreams. Vegetarian dishes - soups, pizza, and black bean confetti salad. Chicken Meatballs. Roasted pumpkin seeds. Larry was out of town so that meant making chocolate pudding from scratch (Larry doesn't like chocolate pudding and yes, I think that's weird). And although I didn't make it from scratch, I finally found a delicious grocery store olive hummus and have rekindled my love for my favorite snack - hummus and pita bread - I eat it on a near daily basis. And the grand finale - cheese-filled pumpkin bread - oh yes!

appetizing august!

I loved the food photo collage from July so much that I've decided to make one every month to showcase what we've been cooking recently.

I definitely took a break from cooking as much as I did last month, but we still ate pretty well and tried 11 new recipes in August.

What we were eating and cooking this month: pulled BBQ pork (in Larry's new smoker) and then pescetarian for the rest of the month, so lots of fish (tuna and salmon); a lot of carbs, unfortunately - pasta/mac & cheese, bread, potato salad; poblano peppers that burned my fingers; plums of various colors and sizes; I tasted a pluot for the first time; and lots of cake! Yum! 

Recipes on Vicious Dishes:

• Summer Salmon Cakes
• Italian Cream Cake
• Chipotle Mac & Cheese
• Irish Car Bomb Cake

irish car bomb cake!

So I've been making (and consequently eating) a LOT of cake this month. In my defense, I know a lot of people with August birthdays and I am the baker among our group of friends.

This recipe combines two of my favorite things: beer and chocolate.
There is Guinness in the cake, whiskey in the filling, and Baileys in the frosting.


Read more and get the recipe on Vicious Dishes.

the return of Vicious Dishes!

It's been a few months, but Vicious Dishes is back with a new look and lots of new recipes!

cake for breakfast

Oh yes, yes I did!

Recipe on Vicious Dishes.

delicious july!

We ate well in July - lots of treats from the farmers' market, blueberry picking, a few homegrown zucchini, and I tried a record-breaking 24 new recipes!

What we were eating & cooking this month: corn on the cob, zucchini, tomatoes, lemonade, grilled (and smoked!) meat, and lots of blueberries.

Recipes on Vicious Dishes:

• Squash Pie
• Buttermilk Zucchini Bread
• Blueberry-Maple Parfaits
• Peach Lemonade
• Blueberry Galette
• Bleu Cheese and Red Potato Tart

happy 4th!

We had a fantastic and summery 4th of July weekend - full of friends, good food, and a 13 pound spiked watermelon.

Our friends came over for a barbeque in our backyard and brought their dogs...

and kids...

Larry manned the grill.

I made a marinade for the kabobs from my new favorite cookbook - The Herbfarm Cookbook - using oregano from my herb garden. This is the most fantastic marinade I've ever had - recipe on Vicious Dishes.  

Some of our guests preferred playing with trash:


We had to skip the DC fireworks this year, but we did catch a good display at a local high school:




And my favorite part - the retina-burning grand finale: