Monthly Archives: April 2011

Caramel-Whiskey Banana Bread

I was going to make pate a choux last night, but on my way to the pantry to grab flour, I was stopped in my tracks by the scent of fermented fruit. Again? I just finished those frickin’ strawberries! Have they come back to haunt me? Further investigation led to the discovery of two very ripe bananas on top of the fridge. Crap. I had bought a huge bunch of them last week to eat for breakfast, ate a couple, skipped breakfast a few days in a row, and then completely forgot about the stragglers. And now they were reasserting their presence in a big way. I didn’t want the sad bananas to go to waste, so I scrapped my plans for pate a...

It’s the weekend, the weather is 82 degrees and sunny, and I’ve just been treated to a delicious sushi buffet for lunch. Could my birthday get any better? Yes, but only if you throw in a pitcher of freshly blended strawberry margaritas (and a nap)! Tequila and I never used to be friends. But, that’s probably because my first experience with it was at a frat party where some guy poured lime juice into a solo cup full of Jose and said “here, have a margarita.” I took one sip and immediately spat it back into the cup. Yuck. Never again. But, because I never wanted to drink tequila after that, I never got violently sick from it — Jose and I never “broke up,”...

Remember when you were a kid and after you got a shot the doctor would give you a lollipop for being brave? The lollipops were always red, purple, or yellow, and were cherry, grape, or lemon flavored. I always picked the red lollipop, because red was my favorite color, and cherry tasted the best. Yellow-lemon? The worst! I mean, who wants to eat candy that makes your mouth pucker and your tongue recoil? Yuck. I was pretty intensely anti-lemon until I started dating Dan, the lemon fiend. He actually enjoyed yellow Starbursts and lemon drop candies; he loved lemon meringue pie; and he could lay waste to a plate of lemon bars. Watching him eat, I was both repulsed and fascinated. After a while I became curious...

The problem with strawberries is that (1) my grocery store never has the the really fresh-looking ones, and (2) they go bad so quickly. I bought a big carton of promising-looking berries last weekend, and three days later they were dark in patches, simultaneously shriveled and mushy, and giving off faintly alcoholic fumes. Mmm, over-ripe strawberries. I’ve been valiantly trying to eat my way through the entire carton of ripe berries all week, but it’s pretty much a losing battle; I think the strawberries are actually multiplying in the fridge. As far as I’m concerned, the only way for me to avoid wasting the rest of the fruit is to chop it up and bake it into something delicious. A lot of the food...

When I was a kid, my grandmother made me eat a hard boiled egg for breakfast every morning. Every. Single. Morning. She’d get up, boil the egg, get me ready for school, and then feed it to me as we walked to the local day care center. The egg was never seasoned in any way — no salt, no pepper, just a plain ol’ boiled egg; slimy and smooth on the outside, dry and powdery on the inside. Needless to say, I was not happy with my breakfast, brain food notwithstanding, and constantly tried to avoid eating it. Some days I’d whine, other days I’d beg, but mainly I would obediently take big bites of the boiled egg, chew, and then spit it out...

I know April showers bring May flowers, but…it’s been raining all freaking day. Yuck. On days like these, the only thing I want to do is stay home and be lazy. And, maybe eat something simple and tasty. My friend Aaron’s chicken and rice/beans dish is just that: no frills, super tasty. He made it for his housewarming party a few weeks back, and it’s been on my mind ever since. I don’t even like beans, but I was loving them in his chicken and rice! After some wheedling and cajoling, I finally convinced him to give me the recipe. And, because I am a great person, I am sharing it here with you, with some minor adjustments. Enjoy! Aaron’s Chicken with Rice and Beans Ingredients:...

Grilled Cheese with Kale and Caramelized Onions

Happy Emancipation Day, everyone! Hope you’re all enjoying your day off as much as I’m enjoying mine! Wait…Emancipation Day isn’t a federal holiday? Only DC government employees get the day off? And I’m the only one of my friends who gets to stay home today? Oh man. That sucks, guys. (I love you all, don’t kill me!) Anyway, being at home all day isn’t as great you’d think. Dan had to go to work, so it’s just me and the cats. The furry little bastards woke me up at 8:30am and wrecked my plans to sleep in, and now that I’m awake and bored, they have mysteriously disappeared. So now I’m tired, bored, and grouchy. Ugh. Well, if I can’t be well rested, I...

Dan and I have a friend visiting from Hawaii this week, and he came over for dinner today. Originally, we were supposed to go out to eat but, (1) the weather stinks, (2) we’ve spent way too much money on restaurants lately, and (3) I stumbled across this recipe in my Gmail recipe archive and I just had to make it. Yeah, you read that title right. It’s not a typo. There are FORTY cloves of garlic in this chicken dish. Forty! Forty deliciously fragrant cloves of garlic, slow-cooked until they melt in your mouth. Mmm. So. Good. Just don’t make any romantic post-dinner plans. Kissing jokes aside, this dish is actually not overpoweringly garlicky. The cloves infuse the chicken and cooking broth with lots of...

Dan thinks I’m crazy because, sometimes, I get overwhelmed by an intense desire to bake cookies at 10:30pm on a Sunday. “You didn’t feel like cooking dinner just a few hours ago,” he says in puzzlement, “So why the hell are you suddenly in the mood to bake cookies? We’re going to bed in an hour.” He just doesn’t understand that the inspiration to bake strikes at random, and it strikes without mercy. It must be obeyed. Tonight, I was inspired by an email from my friend Emily, telling me that she had had a very productive day in the kitchen — she baked bread and chocolate chip scones. I, on the other hand, had been pretty lazy all day. Dan and I slept in,...

(I got a new camera! Can you tell?) Both the Pioneer Woman and the Crumbly Cookie assured me that their favorite pizza dough is at its best the longer it’s kept in the fridge, so I took their advice and let the second half of my dough chill for a few days. I didn’t have the patience to wait 3-4 days, but I figured that two days was plenty, so I pulled the dough out of the fridge today for another round of pizzas. Now that I know what kale is, I’m eager to work it into my vegetable rotation. I bought a big bag of it at BJs the other day, but have been kind of at a loss as to what to...

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Monthly Archives: April 2011

Caramel-Whiskey Banana Bread

Strawberry Margaritas

Mini Lemon Curd Tarts

Strawberry Rum Pound Cake

Egg Salad Sandwich

Aaron’s Chicken with Rice and Beans

Grilled Cheese with Kale and Caramelized Onions

Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Kale and Lemon-Pepper Chicken Pizza

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