Birthday Fun

Some of my friends this year decided to get me food inspired gifts for my birthday and all I want to do is share them with the world.  I received a beautiful oregano plant that I actually made a sauce with, which I will post later, a highly popular book on writing about food, and a 6 month membership to igourmet.com connoisseur club. I will definitely do a post about each of these items but for now, here are a few pictures of them.

Kumquats and Almond Tea Cakes

Here is the sequence of events from April 12, Thursday.

12:00pm - I discovered someone at work brought kumquats into work for everyone to take. I took a lot.

1:00pm - I started looking up recipes and found this one from tarteletteblog.com

2:00pm - I realized that I needed a cake tin, immediately purchased one from Amazon and paid the extra $3.99 for 1-day shipping so I could use it over the weekend

4:00pm - I called all of the Trader Joe's and Whole Foods' in the area to see who had millet flour

6:00pm - I went to Whole Foods to get all of the ingredients I needed.

What can I say? I work fast.

I absolutely loved this recipe. I think it helped greatly that the kumquats I took were incredibly sweet compared to any other kumquats I had ever tasted. You will see in the recipe that it calls for Kumquat Compote, which is super easy to make. You cut up 1 cup of kumquats with the rind on and bring it to a boil with 1 cup of sugar and 3/4 cup water. Once it comes to a boil, turn the heat down and simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and once cooled, drain the kumquats, saving about 2-3 tbsp of the syrup. Puree the kumquats and syrup until it looks and feels like a thick marmalade.

The cake is very moist and sweet, then when topped with the fresh kumquats, it brings a nice tartness to the dessert. This was actually the first recipe I've tried from tarteletteblog.com, which is surprising because I've drawn a lot of inspiration from that blog. I even purchased the food photography book from the blogger and am so happy to report that her recipes are legit! I will definitely be pulling more recipes from her, but in the meantime, enjoy!

Kumquats!

Some kind generous soul brought in a ton of kumquats into work today and left them in the kitchen. I took whatever that would fit in two paper cups and started researching kumquat recipes. I think I found a good one and will be trying it out this weekend. Wish me luck!

Happy Wednesday

This is the result of a failed cocktail experiment and I liked the picture so much I thought I'd post it.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

Shame on me for not updating more often. I haven't even been very busy so I have no excuse. I did attempt to make strawberry cupcakes though and was super excited to finally be able to use my cakestand, but the cupcakes were a fail. The frosting turned out extremely liquidy and couldn't even frost the cupcakes so I left them off the blog. So I turned to this trusty buffalo chicken dip that I made for a get together the other day. Just by looking at the ingredients, you just know it's going to be heart attack good. Below is the recipe. I promise I will put more time into my blog soon enough!

Ingredients:
1 whole shredded chicken
1 16 ounce bottle of blue cheese
1 cup Frank's hot sauce
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
16 ounces of cream cheese
green onions for garnish

Instructions:
1. Combine chicken, dressing, Frank's, and 3/4 cup shredded cheese with the cream cheese in a saucepan.
2. Melt over medium low heat until it's smooth.
3. Place mixture in a 9 by 13 baking dish. Sprinkle the rest of the shredded cheese on top.
4. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes and serve with chips.

I DECLARE A BURGER WAR.

Friday afternoon, Sibyl and I had the following conversation.

me: give me something to make for my blog on saturday

Sibylkavak: umm a burger

me: omg what kind of amateur blog do you think i have?

Sibylkavak: WHATTTT

me: LOL

Sibylkavak: burgers are like the gourmet of gourmet

me: ok i can't tell if you're being sarcastic

Sibylkavak: haha im not

me: burgers are like the easiest thing to make

Sibylkavak: omg make a good burger BURGER challenge

me: no problem yo OMG can we?

Sibylkavak: yess haha do you have a bbq

me: wait i'm seriously down for this like tomorrow? no hahha but you do!

Sibylkavak: hahah yes!! tmw! pool and bbq! challenge

This got my mind churning for the best burger. I immediately knew that I would use the Spanish espanola meatball recipe for the patty because the meatballs have always been very moist. Luckily, it turns out the meatball recipes works just as great for a burger! As for the toppings, ingredients started to click for me. A few weeks ago, I went to the Silverlake Cheese Shop and bought this amazing fig jam that I haven't been able to incorporate into anything except cheese. So, I tried to think of things that would complement the fig jam and went with the following toppings: caramelized onions, Monterey Jack cheese, avocado, and arugula.

The caramelized onions took a lot longer than I had expected, but was really the star of the show. In case you don't know how to make caramelized onions, you just cut an onion into thin strips and cook them in enough oil and butter to coat all of the onions. Keep them cooking and moving for about 30-40 minutes or until nice and dark brown. I added about an 1/8 tsp of sugar within the last 5 minutes of cooking the onions. Anyway, Sibyl made a burger with bacon in the patty with pepper jack cheese and arugula. It was pretty tasty, but in terms of winning, I won by a longshot. ;) Below is the patty recipe.

Good Morning!

So I realize that I am just posting filler pictures because I haven't cooked any new recipes, but I swear I'm cooking again this weekend! I actually cooked chicken adobo yesterday but I couldn't make it look pretty and the lighting was bad, so I decided not to post about it. Anyway, I wanted to take this time to show you all what Nate had gotten me for Valentine's day! He got me a Chemex coffee maker which I have been debating on getting forever now. I used to have a drip coffee machine, but it started leaking whenever I would make coffee so it was time for an upgrade. Anyway, I woke up super early this morning and instead of going to the gym, I made some coffee! I want to make this a daily routine, but I highly doubt that will happen. =) Until next time!