Okay, y’all, I love cookies. You know from my past posts that I make a holiday basket for my family and these were included in this year’s basket. A frosted sugar cookie is not only a very fun cookie, but it can take on different incarnations depending on the family. The cookie can be big and soft or thin and crispy, the frosting can be big and fluffy or thin icing or just a hint, barely a smear lightly coating the cookie.
My cookie is a sugar cookie recipe that has been in my family for more than thirty years and maybe even longer, not sure. It is my favorite, full of butter flavor. The frosting has a secret ingredient that I discovered in a bakery a few years ago that serves the best decorated sugar cookies that I have ever tasted, hands down. As I crooked my neck, as I do at all my favorite eating joints, to watch the lady in the back feverishly whipping together some frosting, I saw it, the golden key to what my frosting was missing… butter extract. I know, it sounds weird, but it is crazy good.
Anyway, if you are feeling in a festive mood, these cookies are a winner!
This recipe for zucchini snack squares is from my mother in law and is a family favorite. I make this a few times a year to give my husband a taste of home. A great way to use up any summer squash varieties with beautiful cheese and herb flavors mingling with the squash in snack cake form. Perfect for portable snacks or a great lunch on the go option.
The other day, my husband and I were watching Cook’s Country and they were cooking battered fried chicken. Never even contemplated battered fried chicken, as I knew that my favorite fried chicken was not battered, but dredged in a flour mixture. Believe me, I have watched the fry cooks through the walk up window at that chicken shack so many times trying to discover their secret. I do make my own version of fried chicken, dredged of course, at home when I hear that siren’s call. Having tried battered fried chicken from inferior restaurants, it always had a strange texture about it, not exactly crispy, more pillowy and for fried chicken, that’s certainly not what you want.
The people on Cook’s Country claimed that they had figured it out, a ratio of corn starch to flour would make it crispy. They even tasted it in front of the camera with the over emphasized crunching, (have I ever told you that I hate when the tv shows over emphasize crunching or clanging of bowls or simmering on the stove, it’s a pet peeve, but I digress…) I was scoffing, my husband on the other hand was intrigued. He’s not from the south, he doesn’t understand the rule that you find your favorite fried chicken and you don’t deviate, ever.
My husband kept mentioning that I should try the recipe. So the other day, at the market I found the perfect specimen for frying, small. I know it goes against the American mentality that bigger is better, but in the case of fried chicken, smaller is better. Why, you ask? Because you want to cook the chicken through without burning the coating. We cut it down into 8 pieces and then split the breasts in half, giving us a total of ten pieces of chicken. We battered a few and put them in the hot oil. Always, always work with a thermometer when grease is involved, keep children away from the oil and place a few items in at a time to see where your oil level reaches, the last thing I want is a kitchen fire or someone getting hurt. Capiche.
Alright, so I admit, I LOVED this chicken. It was crunchy and the nicest thing about it, I let it cool all the way down on my counter top and it stayed crunchy in the refrigerator. So if you are into standing by the glow of your refrigerator snacking on bits of fried chicken, this is perfect for you. I will definitely make this recipe again. Yum!
I have had a pretty blah day. Nothing much happened except I watched a few movies that I recorded over the weekend. I pulled a muscle in yoga class the other day. Went too deep into a back bend, so I am out of commission until I re-cooperate. It was stupid and I was foolishly trying to be too competitive with myself. I should have known when my yoga instructor said, “Wow, you are really going deep into your back” and my chest swelled with pride that that was a bad sign. It isn’t the first idiotic thing I have ever done and by far it is not the worst. A saying that we had at my last job was, “for every idiot proof system devised, a new improved idiot will arise and overcome it.” Oh well. So I bring you an empanada that I made last week to use up my Cuban style pork.
At one of the farmer’s markets that I frequent, one stall serves up Argentinian empanadas that are delicious. I wanted to recreate that flavor profile while also throwing in a few extra vegetables to round out the dish a little more. I had some puff pastry in the freezer that became my wrapper. Really it couldn’t get any simpler and the flavors are so strong from the spices that you could substitute most any meat and vegetable and have a wonderful little portable meal. Enjoy!
You guys know my husband loves to make his own homemade batches of beer and together, we love to find ways to cook with it. Last night, my husband and I decided to make these beer battered zucchini fries instead of the standard french fried potato. I am very pleased with the result, deliciously crunchy coating with a perfectly cooked zucchini center. Yum!
Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mom’s out there! Today I am giving you one of my mother’s favorite cakes. This cake came about when I was about ten years old and I am not exactly sure where my mother got the recipe, but this became the cake that I “trained” on. I can tell you now, that I rarely ever have boxed cake mix in my house, it’s just not something that I keep around, because I know how to make homemade versions of all the cakes made on box mix form. What got me there truthfully is my mother and boxed cake mixes…
Earthquake Cake gets its name from the deep cracks created when the cream cheese mixture sinks into the center of the dessert while cooking in the oven. The middle becomes a gooey delicious treat surrounded by chocolate cake with a coconut pecan layer that becomes toasted in the oven. Mmmm…
When I was younger, sure my mother made cakes from scratch while I watched, willingly, in anticipation. At the age of 10 or so, my mother knew it was time for me to start baking a little on my own, so she gave me training wheels, ie boxed cake mixes. I’m not sure, but I think she knew that if I was successful at cooking ventures early on, that I would continue to be interested later. She would have me bake this delicious earthquake cake dessert to bring to church and social functions, with all the older people gloating over my creation and my chest would fill with pride. My cooking became reinforced and I grew and grew and grew.
So I wanted to give all the moms out there a simple dessert that you can share with your children to get them interested in cooking. If you have a little aspiring chef, let them try their hand at this. The cake mix makes it foolproof and it really is simple to put together.
As a southern girl from the United States, I, of course, know my way around a bowl of steamy hot grits. You can even find t-shirts in tourist shops with the acronym G.R.I.T.S. used to abbreviate Girls Raised In The South. Me and grits are friends, I woke up to them many mornings as a child. My husband, on the other hand, not so much. He wasn’t raised in the south and isn’t getting near grits, no matter how much I have tried to convince him it really is okay.
Grits, if you don’t know them, are very similar to polenta. However, they are not polenta. Polenta is made from boiling cornmeal. Grits are made from corn kernels that have been treated with an alkaline solution and then washed and dried and ground down, similar to the process for masa harina, just not ground as finely.
My husband and I had our honeymoon in Charleston, SC. The whimsical cobblestone roads and old architecture made for such a romantic getaway. While we were there, we ate at a quaint brunch spot and I had the best grits of my life there. Doing my research, I found out the Charlestonians boil their grits in milk instead of the all water method of most of the south. I was a convert. Using my preference for yellow stone ground grits and the Charleston method, I make a lovely bowl for one when the mood strikes. Enjoy!
One year ago today, I had just quit my job writing technical reports for a pharmaceutical company to go on a new adventure following my husband’s career. As I found out the hard way, working with Big Pharma had left me stressed out and tired after having worked under three different company logos, three different company names, and three different company mantras in three years without ever leaving the same cubicle, due to acquisitions. Always worrying about my job security, I stayed later than most of my colleagues and came in earlier. I was part of the rat race. Me, the carefree art student, found myself in a black hole of negotiating quality agreements, understanding and enforcing government regulations through various systematic protocols and procedures to ensure compliance, and completing trend analysis of testing data and providing these reviews to not only my superiors, but any regulatory agency that showed up for surprise audits. I had a lot of responsibility on my shoulders and needless to say, this was not how I had pictured my life going.
Moving yet again, I had asked my husband if it would be okay for me to take a bit of time off before venturing out into the working world again. I needed to get back to calm, to an even-ness, before I made a decision of the new direction of my life. He obliged a six month reprieve to do exactly what I wanted, a sabbatical. So I finished projects on our house to prepare it for the sale, I had a huge yard sale, we drove across the country, I decorated and organized our new apartment, took care of all the paperwork that accumulated from moving and selling our house, and then after about three months, everything just stopped. There were no immediate projects that I needed to work on or complete, nothing. After 5 years of scrambling around, my chaotic life had come to a dead stop and I noticed something, a deafening silence. It was increasingly evident that I was in a place where I knew no one. A melancholy quietness had blanketed my life and I started to feel like I was starring in my own version of “Lost in Translation.”
I prepared my resume and started throwing my hook into the water, a few nibbles, but after months nothing came of it. I started to feel trapped in my life, desperate. As January 2012 neared, I started to make New Year’s resolutions. I was going to live my life with gratitude, I felt that I was being too negative and I had a lot to be happy for; I just wasn’t seeing the picture clearly. Everyday, I was going to write down one thing I was happy about. After about ten days, I noticed I was happiest when I was cooking and began to think about how I have used food to interface with people over the years. It is what I love, so I decided that I would share with the world my recipes, my stories, my love. My thinking was, if you blog about it, they will come, so “Creative Noshing” was born.
Today’s post though, isn’t about what I’ve given to you, it’s about what you all have given to me. Each and every day, you give me inspiration, validation, and a community to feel part of. I have laughed and smiled and cried at some of your posts and comments. Every person who has clicked my follow button, I am so honored and amazed that you did. Some of you have touched me even further by giving me a stamp of approval through trying my recipes and blogging about it, reblogging me, “pinning” me, and/or nominating me for awards. Not to mention those of you take time out your day to comment, especially the one’s who I ended up having great back and forth conversations with. This post is for you, I want you to know I appreciate your generosity, kindness and hospitality and in turn I want to promote your blog to others, because you are the real deal and genuine. In no certain order, I want to give a special thank you to the following blogs:
Just like my Grandma taught me, you don’t come showing your appreciation empty handed. Below is the perfect thank you present. Good old fashioned apple bread. Yum!
I am a girl who came from the land of county fairs, each unique for what they bring to the table such as rattlesnake round ups or peanut festivals, etc, but none did I cherish more than the pig jig. That’s right, if there is anything that I love more than cheese, my guilty pleasure in life is BBQ. Barbecue, meaning meat smoked over wood for long periods of time, not grilled. Please do not get me riled up over what is BBQ and what is not. I have eaten Memphis style BBQ, Carolina style BBQ, Alabama style BBQ, Georgia style BBQ, and Kansas style BBQ. I have even tried the California tri-tip.Each having it’s unique and delicious traits. Though I have my favorites in my head, I can not make any true judgments on BBQ until I make it to Texas to try their BBQ. Then I will feel as though I have covered a good area of BBQ and could make a sound decision. What makes BBQ so good are the cheap cuts of meat cooked over the low slow smoky embers until the fat becomes fluid coating and basting the thing in its own deliciousness. Mmmmm….
I owned my own smoker, a nice mid range one, and once a year we would smoke about 40 lbs of pork butt. Notice I used the term owned. That’s right, when we made the decision to move out of our renovated Victorian to a tiny apartment across the United States, we had to give up the smoker. Sadness… My husband came up with a recipe using pork butt (shoulder) that appeals to that place in my brain for BBQ, its not BBQ, but is a very flavorful meat cooked slow and low and it gets a very nice bark on the outside. Very yummy and delicious. The perfect meat to slice and use in a Cuban sandwich or eat alone with a few sides. Enjoy!
Cuban Style Pork
Cuban Style Pork with squash casserole and applesauce
Ranch oyster crackers, how I love thee, let me count the ways! You are crunchy and salty… and ranch-ee… okay, I went a bit too far. These are one of those treats that my mom made for me as a little girl, so they are very nostalgic. I can still remember sitting in my pink tights on the living room floor fresh from ballet class watching Heman and She-Ra bounding around on the back of a green and orange striped cat, all the while I am munching on these little nuggets of joy and through spit stuttered sentences yelling things like, “by the power of greyskull…I have the power!” Oh yeah, I loved She-Ra. What was not to like? She-Ra was a friggin’ bad ass, had a super cute outfit AND she owned a Pegasus/Unicorn, the coolest hybrid animal ever to grace animation. But I digress…
As I have grown older, I continue to make these oyster crackers for snacks every once and a while and everyone I give them to feel the addictive powers of the crackers tugging them in for more and more. This is one of those definites for my yearly holiday basket, as everyone loves them, even my husband’s family has asked that I make more to put in the basket, because they wait all year in anticipation of these crackers. SO if you are in need of a snacky snack, this is a winner!
creative noshing 