Thanksgiving Fail

This one is for all you math people out there.




That's how many pounds and how many ounces? Is Turkey weight measured differently?

Are we ready?

Well today is Wednesday, and cook I did, although I'm not really sure if this counts or not since I wasn't really trying out new recipes from my cookbooks, but instead making the old standbys that have graced our Thanksgivings for years...like frogeye salad...um yeah.

Actually, recently my Thanksgiving specialty has become Pecan pie. I made one for Thanksgiving a few years ago, and my dad has been raving ever since, and thus my calling in life has been found. I figure, though, I'll make him as many pecan pies as he wants as long as he's around to eat them. Eating pecan pie won't be the same without him.

Pecan pie itself is one of those recipes that really impresses guests, for some reason, but is, in fact, the easiest pie to make, ever (unless you count those pudding pie things in pre-made graham cracker crusts, but I'm going to have an elitist moment and declare that those don't count). The trick, I think, is to get really fresh Pecans and be generous with them. The best source I've found is a little shop called Kitchen Kneeds, but it's very local. There's one in the middle of Ogden and one on Redwood Road in the Taylorsville-ish area. There may be more, but those are the only ones I know of. (ok scratch that, the best source is my Grandpa's tree in Arizona, but since he passed away a few years ago, that became less of an option) Anything sold in a grocery store probably won't cut it.

The other reason my dad rants about mine, I think, is that it's my mom's recipe from a cookbook from the 1950's. Man, those guys knew how to use fat in their cooking. None of this lame-wad low calorie crap. You can compare recipes from the 1953 version of the Better Homes and Garden's cookbook and the current version, and one now will have half the fat, skip a bunch of steps, and not taste nearly as good. Of course, if you want to live past 60 without having a heart attack, maybe this is not such a bad thing, but here's what I figure; if you're eating dessert, make it good, make it satisfying, and only eat a little bit. If you're craving something, eat it--so you don't go around eating everything else and not being satiated.

So, anyway, here's my version of Pecan Pie.

Crust: from Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook 195? (it doesn't even have a copyright date)
This is from the How to make plain pastry directions.

2 C sifted all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
2/3 C. shortening
6-7 Tbs cold water

I'm not actually going to write out the directions, but I also added 1 egg yolk and a splash of vinager, and it worked pretty well.

The filling is adapted from the Better Homes and Gardens Dessert Cook Book 1965

Southern Pecan Pie

3 eggs
2/3 C. Sugar
Dash Salt
1/2 C light corn syrup
1/2 C. dark corn syrup
1/3 C. Melted butter or margarine

1 C. (lots of handfuls) of pecans

1 9-inch unbaked pie shell.

Beat eggs thorougly with sugar, salt, corn syrup, and melted butter. Pour into unbaked pie shell and sprinkle pecans over the top until there's enough to fill the top layer of the filling. Push them down into the filling with a spoon so that they are just coated.

Bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees F.) 50 minutes or till knife inserted halfway between the outside and center comes out clean. Cool pie before serving.



















Their version vs. my version.
See, there you go, peice of cake...er, pie.

Incidentally, I did actually make frog eye salad as well, for the first time on my own. Which also went pretty well, but I think I sort of scrambled the eggs into the sauce. :P Once we got the whip cream in, though you really can't tell.

So, Happy Thanksgiving everyone, go eat some turkey.

-SML

Back in the Saddle...what is the kitchen equivalent to a saddle?

Ok, folks, I know I've really dropped the ball, in fact, I don't know that I was ever really carrying the ball to begin with, but I just saw Julie and Julia, which was such a great movie. It really made me happy. Really. Freakishly so.

I guess maybe it just reminded me of something I love that I've forgotten lately, and that is the joy of cooking. Not the cookbook by that title, necessarily, in fact I've never even owned a copy, but just how much I love to cook, and eat a really great dish.

I kinda want to start something like Julie does in the movie. What she does is make something from Julia Child's cookbook every day for one year. I can't afford this, but I have so many awesome cookbooks that I never even open that I want to push myself to use them and discover what secrets they have to offer. I think I want to make a goal (how's that for commitment) to make something from one of my cookbooks that I haven't tried at least once a week, which means that I'm going to have to invite people over a lot, or die of left-overs. It also means I'm going to have to plan ahead, and budget better so I can afford something besides eggs and ramen, which do make a rather interesting combination, but are sort of nasty nonetheless.

So, here goes...I think I'm going to make Wednesdays my cooking nights since the rest of the week is filled with things like church activities and swing dancing. Tomorrow I shall choose my first recipe, and post what the plan is.

-SML

Pumpkin Prophet?

'Cause nothing says reverence like an effigy in squash.

Just Randomness

Cowboy up and take it like a man made out of chocolate.

What do you know this single's ward stuff actually works; I went to ward prayer one Sunday and found the perfect man sitting on the kitchen counter. Dark, mysterious, sweet looking, and I bet he'd just melt in my arms if I held him long enough.



Yeah, I don't know where this came from, but my first thought was '?!'

Who wants a lousy old Easter bunny or Santa when you can have your very own chocolate cowboy (as long as it's not a chocolate cow pie I suppose). I thought he'd be an appropriate post, it being nearly Pioneer Day and all, but the weird thing is that I took the photo in the middle of winter.

Now if only he were life-sized.

Finally, another restaurant review (Pics coming as soon as I'm not on an iPhone)

So we're trying something new today and I'm posting via my iPhone while I guard the front gate of the pioneer village. Yeah I know I'm supposed to be doing something period, but you can only crochet for so long before your eyes fall out or something. Anyway, I took these photos quite a while ago when my collegues and I decided to have an after school shindig and go out to eat. My good friend and fellow food finder Maribeth Clarke suggested we go to Asain Star on Fort Union. I have to admit I wasn't absolutely sold on the idea since I really have to be in the mood for Chinese and going to eat out with Emily usually fills that quota pretty fast, but I had not yet learned the ways of Maribeth and her mad retaurant finding skills, seriously, every place she's taken me to has been incredible, another of which I intend to post about, but you all know how that goes.

The restaurant itself is rather chic and kind of overlooks a long hill. It's really not what you expect a restaurant to look like, with huge 2 story windows and sort of modern styling. The interior is very clean feeling with two huge well-kept aquariums. The hosts were very cordial, and seemed to recognize that Maribeth is a returning customer and I feel they grated us well.

The parking lot is pretty horrendous since they're on a funny-shapped lot and have a funny-shaped building and people in Utah like rediculously large cars. I admit, I never understood the SUV craze, even though my parents have two of them. *shakes head

Anyway, as it turns out the parking lot is worth braving. I loved that it had all the usual dishes found at the every day Chinese joint, pus dishes from Japan, ant I think other cultures as well. Like I said it was a while ago, and we stuck to the common stuff, and the sushi. Mmm, sushi. They had flying fish eggs on their California rolls, I love that.


Some of the must haves at this place are the lettuce wraps, the honey chicken or pork, the gyoza, and above all the Walnut shrimp, which is really saying something considering how I feel about walnuts and shrimp; although my caution is to plan on sharing the shrimp, since I think a whole order of it would be a bit overwhelming, simply because it's fairly sweet, and quite rich. You need something to cut that sweetness.

I have to give them full marks for presentation, too. The garnishes were quite stunning, large flowers that looked like they were made from a shaved jicama or something and died lovely colors. We took them back to school to show the culinary students we liked them so much.



The icing on the cake, or maybe the fortune cookie in this case, was that we had a leftover buffet of awsomeness the next day. This is a real test, I think to have food that will stand up to a night in the fridge and the microwave. All in all this place gets a pricey thumbs up.


I think the best plan of attack for this restaurant is to do like we did and go with several friends so you can do it family style and try lots of things. Also, make it a special occasion because cheep is one thing this place is not.

Sorry excuse for a post

Yeah, I'm lame, but I saw this, and it has to do with food, and I love love LOVE Louis Armstrong. So there.

A South African meal, with a Botswanan show.

*The photo-uploader is currently not working so pictures will be coming eventually.*

My very good friend and former roommate Brittany just got back from serving a mission in Johannesburg,South Africa and has happily moved back to Utah, well I'm happy she's back, I don't really know how she feels about it, but we'll assume, for good measure.

Anyway, She wanted to make a typical South African meal for all of us old roommies that used to live together in the Green House, and Melanie. Sadly, I missed all the prep because I was stuck at my high school's graduation (as in the one I teach at), so I can't say too much about that, which is really unfortunate.

The staple food is a thick corn meal paste, kinda like polenta, only not quite as thick, called pap (prounounced pop, I'm sorry I can't do the IPA symbols, my brain is too tired for that at the moment). With that we had beans and sausage in a sauce, which Brittany keeps saying there isn't actually a name for since it's different every time you make it depending on what you have around. She calls it garbage sauce, much like when I make fridge soup with whatever vegetables I need to use up. On the side we had mustard greens, in place of rape* greens, since those are hard to find here in the United States, probably because of the name.

According to Brittany Africans have a distinct lack of silverware, so we all ate with our hands to enhance our dining experience. First, Brittany presented a large bowl of hot water and using a cup poured some over each diner's hands before we began. After all, who want to eat with dirty hands if you don't have any silverware.

It's interesting to note there is a polar opposite of this eating culture, China. They find it incredibly dirty to touch any food at all with their hands when eating, and will even eat hamburgers and fries with chopsticks. Then there are the myriad of cultures who range in between, like ours that switch between using utensils and picking food up. I'm inspired to do a study of food borne illness among cultures and see if there is a correlation, or if we're all just germ-o-phobes for nothing.

To actually eat the meal one takes a small amount of the pap in one hand and forms it into a small ball and using it as sort of a scoop for the other parts of the meal. The pap is sticky enough that it makes a good base for scooping and absorbs the sauce. Actually getting into your mouth, however, is a little more tricky since in order for the scoop to be effective, I found it had to be slightly more than I could politely fit into my mouth, but if you tried to bite the scoop instead of just eating the whole thing, it would completely fall apart. Brittany likened it to Sushi that way. You really have to stick the whole thing in your mouth all at once.

The meal itself was very tasty. The beans and sausage had ample spices and a hint of curry. The pap is pretty bland by itself, but the sauce was potent enough that they balanced each other nicely. The greens were also very good, but I'm a sucker for greens, and therefor may not be able to be trusted. I really enjoyed all the flavors, and am very disappointed I missed all the prep, so I'll have to bug Brittany for instructions on how to recreate the meal. To drink we had orangeade, since, according to Brittany, they're always drinking something orange flavored.

I was a little surprised how much Brittany served us since the food was very heavy and quite filling. Not surprising considering the heavy starch and carbohydrate content, not to mention the protein. She ate about twice as much as the rest of us and told us that the Africans would serve even more than that, but she was used to it. Amazing.

The only unpleasantness of the meal was that the starch of the pap would dry on my fingers between bites, especially at the end when we were struggling to finish, and leave a crusty sticky feeling, which Emily delighted in smearing all over my arm. No, we aren't actually in Junior high, not that you'd be able to tell. Em had just come from a wedding so was less hungry than the rest of us or something, and decided to make a pap man with the leftovers.

Speaking of leftovers, the bean/sausage stuff kept fairly well in the refrigerator and made several tasty lunches and breakfasts, but we had no more pap, so we tried it on rolls, whole wheat bread, alone, and found that without the pap it's a little too intense, but will keep you from getting hungry for a good long while. Perfect before a hike or something, except that curry flavored beans and sausage for breakfast is a little much.

We also watched an episode of Lady's Detective Agency while we were eating since it's a very popular show in Botswana, where Brittany spent much of her mission. It's about two women who run a detective agency and solve mysteries. Kind of a fun show.

Thus ends my South African experience, though I'd love to experience the real thing at some point, since I've wanted to go there ever since I was little. Someday, someday.




*The seeds of which being what Canola oil is made from, so the plant is not wholly unknown to us American's it's just not used by us to its full potential, just like beet greens. Honestly, when will we learn that there's more to greens than iceberg lettuce?

Cacophonous Crudités

So I'm home sick of, ironically, food poisoning (most likely, you can never really know for sure, but the symptoms are all there, and statistically speaking there are way way more cases of food poisoning than actual stomach flu) So, I'm poking around on youtube, and I found this:



I love this, it combines two of my loves, Jazz and Food! Does it get any better?

Actually, this isn't the first video I've seen where people take vegetables and turn them musical, here's one of a whole vegetable orchestra:



These guys sound pretty good, though I imagine the whole tuning thing is a bit tricky.


And now for my favorite veggie, Broccoli, not to mention I find this guy inexplicably adorable.



And now for something completely different.



Yeah, I know, there's no food in this one, but I love bagpipes, and I bet that's a food service quality latex glove he's using...anyway, just go with it.

It's a great week for Bacon Science

This was sent to me by my good friend Scott, and it made me laugh, so here you go.

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=102992901

Oh the cuteness!

As I was reading my favorite blog today, Cakewrecks, I happened upon a link to the blog of a 16-year-old who is really talented in the field of cake decorating, and fell in love with her little robot cup cakes. It's not the first post on the page, so click the link and scroll down. I didn't want to steal her pic and post it though, so here's the link:

http://mmmeliacakes.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html

Allergy thy name be Banana.

So, for any of you who are allergic to a food that you like, this post is for you.

Today in Foods we started our pie unit, and as such it was my obligation, and pleasure, to offer a demo on how to make a pie crust. Since we had plenty of pies for the kids to devour at the end of class (which they did; I love teenage boys for that reason, they always appreciate and subsequently get rid of whatever you make) I got to take two empty pie crusts home.

As I was pondering what to do with said pie crusts the thought of banana cream kept filling my head, which is odd for two reasons.

1. I don't like cream pies
2. I'm allergic to bananas

Now, my banana allergy is really very un-severe which I find very fortunate and am grateful for. I can eat them as long as they're covered with enough flour, fat, or sugar that my stomach doesn't notice they're in there, and they really only make me slightly ill, and only if they're spotty. So the trick, I guess, is to get green ones and hide them well.

But I just couldn't shake it, so I went to Harmons to get bananas. They had strawberries on special, and I being the impulse buy-er I am thought that sounded like a good combo. So I decided to try it. I had a great debate in the pudding isle, but decided to shun the evils of instant and even cook 'n' serve. Sorry Jello, but box-pudding can never compete with home-made. Which is pretty much true of anything, really.

The recipe I found in my ancient (or I suppose Vintage is a better term) Better Homes and Gardens tome told me I should use 3 egg yolks in the pudding for the filling, and use the whites for merengue on top. The last time I've bothered with a merengue was in junior high, so I thought I'd give it a go. If only I had a kitchen torch. *sigh*

My roommate's fiancee came over during the course of the evening and had to comment. We sort of have this running gag that when he comes over I'm always making the house smell good. Yup, apparently my calling in life is to make people hungry.

Anyway, I thought it turned out quite nicely:


Although it needs more color. Maybe I should get one of those cool ceramic pans that have the pretty blue or green or whatever color glaze. I actually have a theory that the crust would bake slightly differently since everything bakes better in ceramic, right?

I was a little worried that since I had to re-bake the thing with the fruit inside that some of the moisture from the fruit would seep out into the pudding or crust causing it to do the whole syneresis thing (when the starch releases the trapped water and you get the clumpy pudding with the water in the bottom of the pan after a day or two) prematurely, but we'll have to see about that tomorrow. There was some excess moisture from the strawberries on the top, but it seems to be ok.

See, you can kinda see the little tiny puddle in the crust there. I hope it doesn't get too soggy by morning.

So, speaking of food allergies, I meant to post this photo a while ago, since I found it tragically amusing.


So the story goes, part of my family and I were at one of our favorite restaurants of all time, Maddox. We've been eating there since the dawn of time, and I think hamburgers are just about my brother's favorite thing in the universe. Ever since he was little. And Maddox hamburgers are the best of the best, heck they have the cows right out back (you think I'm joking? I'm not.) So for the first time in years we go to Maddox and he, of course, orders a hamburger.

Now, in the past few years the poor guy has developed an allergy to Sesame seads, and any kind of nut under the sun (which has some poetic justice since he used to torment me about not liking walnuts and them always being in Mom's cookies). So, he goes to do something that's so second nature to him, and is greated with the perfect hamburger on a fluffy sesame seed bun of certain doom. Tragedy has struck.

Here's the face of realization:

Well we solved the problem by switching the bun on the hamburger with the bun from my neice's hamburger since the kid's sized ones were sans sesame, which is why the burger in the picture is so disproportioned.

I suppose the point of all this is to say that, my heart goes out to all who can't eat the foods they love because they're body disagrees with their tastebuds...and maybe to show off my pretty pie.
Now I'm going to go take some benedryl and have a slice.

Look at me!

So, once again I have failed to write something interesting about a restaurant or bakery or anything of the sort, and am now going to toot my own horn at you all, but I'll bet some of you will read this anyway, because now you're probably curious...ha. Or maybe I'm just a little tipsy off the Swedish 'non-alcoholic' cider* and rum flavoring I was using earlier.

ANYWAY...so last week was my niece's birthday and this particular niece wants to be a chocolatier when she grows up, which as the foodie I am (even though I sort of hate that term) I think that's pretty darn awesome. Especially since she just turned 7. So I like to encourage this behavior in her, and one day I was walking through IKEA, buying the 'non-alcoholic' pear cider that my brother likes and that is now making my stomach a little queasy...or maybe that was the week old quiche...nevermind...and I saw their little interestingly shaped silicone ice-cube trays. They have these cute little flower shaped ones, and I said to myself--chocolate mold. The thought also occured to me that my good friend and former roommate Heidi would use edible glitter stuff on her chocolate creations, and I thought the combination of all these elements (minus the cider) would make a really great birthday present.

So I got the chocolate mold ice cube tray, one for her and one for me, the cider, and some sort of breakfast cereal that's package was announcing rather dramatically that it was good for me, and headed off.

Later I went to Orson Gygi's culinary supply shop for the first time, and I was totally blown away by how big it is, and how much I want at least one of everything in it. I got edible shimmery airbrush paint and little Wilton paint brushes, dipping chocolate, and lots of other things both for her and me (does this make me a spoiled brat?) and ended up spending WAY too much.


The sad part of that was not how much I spent but that somehow I managed to pick out the waxy nasty chocolate they make those little foil wrapped Easter candies from. Blech. I went back and got some Ghiridelli chocolate though, so hopefully that will be better, and I can use the waxy stuff to practice on, and put lots of flavoring in, which is what I did tonight.

I decided to paint dipping chocolate into the flowers and fill the centers with truffle filling--mint and raspberry--and make chocolate dessert cups by painting the chocolate into little silicone mini-muffin cups. While I tempered the dipping chocolate, which if you've never attempted is a royal pain in the head, I made the truffle centers, which is kind of like making ganache, and put the flavorings in. They won't be ready until tomorrow, so I used the dipping chocolate I attempted to temper, which sort of failed, to fill the flower molds for solid chocolates. I flavored them with left-over rum flavor oil from some cake of the past, but I really over did it with the whole bottle. I also put in a good amount of cinnamon to cut the rum flavor, and ended up with kind of a cool flavor combination.

The part is that I got to paint them.
And here's how they turned out:



Hopefully I'll be inspired to write more when I finish the truffles and dip them, and when I fill the dessert cups.

I gave the paints, the brushes, and the mold to my niece on Saturday and she seemed genuinly excited about the idea of shiny pink, blue, and purple chocolate flowers, so I was pleased about that too. What a terrible aunt, encouraging her to play with her food.

*It really is non-alcaholic, and I can't find anything on the label to indicate that it isn't, but I'm sort of wondering at this point. That's what I get from trusting a guy who regularly impersonates the Swedish Chef.

This is why Michele should not be allowed in a grocery store after 6 pm when she's hungry for dinner.

Yes, I know I've neglected my blog for over a month through the entire heart of the year (foodwise) so I'll save my holiday blogging for next year.

In the meantime, This is why I should not be allowed in a grocery store after 6pm. when I'm looking for something for dinner, because I'll inevitably see something way too complicated that will take hours to prepare and I'm hungry now, but I don't listen to my reasonable side. Oh no, I see the chicken and think, "gee, wouldn't it be fun to cook a whole chicken, I don't do that all that often."
"Ok, Michele, cooking whole chickens is good, but not fast, and it's getting on toward 7," says the reasonable part of me. Do I listen? No.

To make matters worse, I get this idea that fresh herbs would be really great, but I can't afford them at Dan's where I shop, so on the way home I decide to go to Whole foods which is 10 blocks out of the way of being on the way home because I saw they had little rosemary bushes shaped like Christmas trees, and I figure they must be on sale and still there since they had like a thousand of them two weeks ago, and hey I'd have fresh rosemary all the time. Awesomeness.

They were totally sold out, but the nice produce guy called every Whole foods in the area for me, and I didn't even ask him to, he just offered, which I thought was really good of him. He was just so darn helpful. Kudos to your employees Whole foods. I'll have to blog about them later since I find myself going there more and more often and they have an AMAZING deli and bakery. Anyway, back to tonight...so I grab a packet of "poultry seasoning" fresh herbs, which had exactly what I was looking for: Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme. I love these herbs, so tasty!

And then I think, why don't I make Italian Cream Soda, since they have Italian soda here, and I have cream from Winder Dairy.* So I find the Italian soda, but none of the flavors really tickle my fancy, although blood orange is interesting, just not for putting cream in since I've never really liked orange cream anything. I know, I'm un-American not liking dreamsicles, sue me.

So as my chicken is starting to freeze around the edges from sitting in my car, I make my purchases and head home.

I have had this Ceramic pot with a lid that I've never gotten around to using for anything, although I've had the poor thing since the summer. I remembered it just in time to try it out.


The chicken just fit with enough room to add some potatoes and carrots around the edges. I put some olive oil in the bottom so the chicken wouldn't stick, and loaded it up. I also added garlic cloves, and those little miniature onions since they were lying around from making squash soup. I really like them, they add great flavor and are cute, and you can use a few and still save the rest in whole form, unlike if you were only to use half of a normal onion for something and try to save the other half, which will start to dry out and go moldy a lot quicker.

Ok, so when preparing chicken, everyone knows it will be much more tender if you leave the skin on, but this poses a problem: all the flavoring is on the outside of the skin, and eating the skin is yucky. So I like to separate the skin from the meat before I cook it, and stuff some of the herbs down in. It kinda makes it look a little weird, but flavor gets into the actual meat better.


Sorry for all you "I don't do raw meat people" but honestly, get a backbone, it's not that gross. Anyway, if you look closely you can see the rosemary and sage and a garlic clove stuck in under the skin on top of the breast.

I put a little more olive oil on the breast, filled the pot about half way with water to get some stock, put the lid on, and put it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 2 1/2 hours. The rule of thumb, I guess (I googled this tonight) is you cook it 30 minutes per pound, or 45 min. per pound if your oven is at 325 degrees, which will produce a more tender chicken. Mine was 3 1/2 pounds so this was a little longer than I should have left it, and it was less tender than it could have been in the end, so use a meat thermometer.

Here it is just before I put it in. You can sorta see that the skin is lumpy and the herbs are sorta green under there, but think flavor.

One of the beauties of ceramic bakeware is that your food still browns so I didn't have to uncover it at all, unlike with tin foil coverings. I took it out of the oven and voila! The carrots and potatoes had awesome flavor, and the dark meat parts of the chicken were perfect. So, in the end I suppose it was a success even though I didn't actually eat until 11:45 at night. So the moral of the story is, go to the grocery store early, be inspired, and get a good ceramic baking dish. They are GREAT. And you can use them over a coals if you have a trivet to put it on. If you bake bread in it, it has the same effect as baking it in a brick oven. If you haven't tried bread out of a brick oven, I'm sad for you, it's amazing. So there you go.


My one problem is that I couldn't get the chicken out in one piece, but my dish is pretty enough that it doesn't matter. It was made in Bulgaria...and purchased at TJ Max.

As for the Italian soda I ended up getting Knudson raspberry sparkling juice and simply adding the cream, and it turned out great.

So, thank you my readers, for not throwing things at me, and yay, I'm back, which reminds me, I'm going on a somewhat ludacris road trip on Thursday to Ely, Nevada, and plan on blogging about all the interesting food places we go, so stay tuned!

*The best part about Winder dairy is not only that their milk actually tastes fresh, just like I remember from Country Boy dairy when I was a kid, but they also deliver, so I have a milkman. How cool is that. I recommend them if your willing to pay slightly more for a better dairy product. I'll write more about them later too.

Mini's Cupcakes

So, while I was in New York City this spring we visited the Color Association of the United States, where they do color forecasting for the fashion market. We met their intern, a charming young man, who has several seemingly strange assignments, one of which was to go find 5 of the city's cup cake shops.

This fascinated me, the idea of a shop based soul-ly on the sales of fancy cupcakes. I find it a little pretentious, and rather trendy to be completely honest, but since I love cupcakes, I'm ok with it. I wanted to find a shop while I was there, but sadly, I never did.

Then one day while my old roomie and I were on our way home from the DI (a very handy thrift shop for all you non-Utahns) and we passes "Mimi's Cupcakes." I was incredibly surprised by this discovery and we decided to go back sometime. Unfortunately my roomie moved out before we could, but today I went and found it again. It's a little hole-in-the-wall place in the middle of a slightly crummy neigborhood in Salt Lake City (8th South and I forget what east but pretty close to the freeway), but once you walk inside it's a different little world.

The decor is really cute, and I don't use that word lightly. They've used a sort of black and white checked theme with lots of pink and french curly cues. Just what you'd expect for a cupcake place. This is their front window decoration. The photo doesn't quite do it justice, there are big cupcakes under the tree, and the leg lamp made me smile.

So I walked in and let the lady behind the counter know my purpose in being there (which was to blog about it...and eat yummy cupcakes) She was really friendly and told me the whole story of how it came to be, and here's the story:

The owner, Leslie Fiet, wanted to have her favorite cupcakes shipped from New York, but the shop wouldn't ship. Niether would her favorite LA shop. This is because cupcakes are quite top heavy, which poses a problem for transport around the block, let alone across lots of state lines, as the Mimi's crew found out when they started trying to transport their goods. Well, since Ms. Fiet was left cupcakeless for the holidays, she decided to make her own shop. They've been in business for about two years now, and have cupcakes to rival the best of New York's to be sure. They are 100% homemade...er... shop made? Made on location. As the counter girl put it, you can pronounce every ingredient. It sounds a little trite but this is actually a very important quality in a baked good since a lot of preservatives, dough conditioners, or stabilizers will give the product an aftertaste, like box cake mix, or cake from the grocery store. Even the frosting can taste chemical; particularly the cakes that have the brightly colored air brushed frostings. Maybe most people haven't noticed this effect since they're used to getting supermarket cake, but if you learn to make your own cake and frosting from scratch it will fine tune your taste buds, and you'll never go back to the box. I highly advocate this. Maybe I'll post a recipe or two.

Mini's is very aptly named because it's cup cakes are just that, small. Their explanation: They want to fight American over-consumption and places like Costco where you can get a chocolate 'muffin' (let's face it those are totally naked cupcakes) the size of your head. (Okay the irony in this situation is, of course, that they are a shop that sells cupcakes...CUPCAKES. If this isn't a symptom of a ridiculously affluent society I don't know what is) Their cakes are the standard European size cup cake, about halfway in between our mini cupcakes and our standard sized ones. Of course the lady is explaining about over-consumption as I'm buying three of them for myself, but what can I say, it was for the good of the blog. I had to try a variety. *shifty eyes*

As we were talking about the tasty morsels in front of me in the display case the lady gave me one of their rice krispy treat to try. It was unlike other rice krispy treats; the marshmallow was homemade right there, rolled in butter and then coated with rice krispies. It was quite delictable.

They have quite the variety of cupcakes, everything from Carmel Apple to Twisted sister, featuring pretzels on top, to one called Tainted love. Most have clever names and all of them look really chic, and too adorable.


I decided to go with Black and White, Chocoholic, and Tainted love. Black and white was a chocolate cupcake with buttercream frosting and a little white and dark chocolate disk for garnish. I love a good buttercream, especially on chocolate cake. The cake was high quality and the buttercream was really rich and buttery. Everything was very natural tasting, which is so refreshing after having cakes and icings that taste chemical.

Both the Chocoholic and the Tainted love cupcakes had ganache as frosting, which was heavenly. I love ganache because it's really rich, yet very light at the same time, and much silkier than a chocolate buttercream or fudge icing.

The tainted love cup cake was especially lovely because of the decorator sprinkles they had used on top. It's hard to see from the photo, but they're little pearlized pink and silver bubbles. I thought they'd be particularly good for a baby shower. Here's a closer look:




As I was making my little purchases I noticed they had t-shirts. What could make a highly specialized shop better than a t-shirt, after all. (I'm reminded of Cows in Park City, but I'll save that for another post...hmm excuse to go to Park City, yessss!)

So here it is. I found it slightly amusing, but that's when the lady gave me her over-consumption spiel, cause, it's not about what you're thinking it's about, after all.


Now again, we come to the problem of transportation. This is what got them into the cupcake business after all, and I was about to attempt to get my precious cargo home in a still-photographable state. Well, they had already divised their plan. First the placed the cupcake in a small plastic condiment cup you'd usually put ketchup in. This if for stability since the smaller the base of the cake, the more top heavy it becomes. Then they place it in a small cupcake-sized
cardboard box. Each cupcake get's it's own little box. Very cute for gifts.

Here's how it works:
And sometimes it doesn't:


This is why I didn't get a better shot of the black and white, tasty though it was. It's almost like having your ice cream fall off the cone as a kid, really.

If you really splurged and got 4-6 cupcakes you get them in a nifty box specially made to not let them tip over. I thought these were really pretty, even though the lady told me they were just for display,had been there since they opened, and were probably hard as rocks.
These reminded me of my friend Heidi who likes to decorate cakes and makes all sorts of cute confections and would totally use those little silver sugar things.

So my overall rating of Mini's is this. The over-consumption thing bugged me. If you're going to sell me a smaller cake don't preach to me about it, just tell me how much better it is than anywhere else. They were slightly pricey, at $2.00 a cupcake, but the cakes themselves were very good, so I would definitely go back, and I've already recommended them to several of my friends. I like them because they make me feel like Salt Lake is a little more up on the trends, even if the trends are a little silly sometimes, but what a tasty trend this is.

Fonduly noted

Thank you, Michele, for the warm welcome :) Hello! I am Michele's aforementioned friend Lacey... and I am a cheeseaholic. And a chocoholic. So fondue is something very near and dear to my heart... or my stomach. If you have never tried fondue (you must!), it involves skewering things on long skinny forks and dipping said things into a pot of warm tasty substances, then eating the tastily covered things. It's kind of like getting to play with your food ;)

There are 3 main kinds of fondue: oil/broth fondue (in which you dip raw pieces of meat/veggies into flavored oil or broth and cook them), cheese fondue (dip bread/veggies/cooked meats/apples into melty cheese), and dessert fondue (dip fruit/marshmallows/cookies/other sweet things into melty, sweet, usually-chocolate-based yumminess). I haven't tried the oil/broth kind, primarily because I don't go in for the meat so much, but if we make that at some point I'll report back about it. For the inauguration of my new fondue pot, we made cheese fondue.

First, a note about fondue pots. I can't claim to be an expert - I've only had the one - but I think, given a do-over, I might have gone with an electric one, if only because it was so hard to find the alcohol gel fuel stuff I needed for this one. I found it at a cooking supply store, and you can also order it online (is there anything you can't find on the internet?), but the plug would probably have been easier and more cost-efficient in the long run. What I do like about my pot is that it's a "3-in-one" - I can cook oil or broth directly in the metal pot, or put boiling water in it and turn it into a double boiler with a ceramic insert for cheese or chocolate. These can burn if you put them over direct heat - I had it happen to chocolate fondue at one of my favorite restaurants when they forgot the water, and you just don't want to do that to chocolate. It's sad!

So, on to the food :) The classic cheese fondue involves Gruyere/Swiss, but there are many variations, and we went German-style with what we had, which was Cheddar and beer. I looked at a couple of recipes, and they all seem to call for about a pound of cheese and a cup of beer. That made enough for my boyfriend and me to have for dinner, with a salad accompaniment. I used mostly mild cheddar (yay for giant bags of shredded cheese from Sam's Club!), with some uber-sharp Cabot mixed in. Cabot makes some delicious cheddar, do look for it in your grocery store or Sam's. The recipes I saw said to use a lager, but what I had was an ale we got free from a place that brews their own, and it was quite tasty. I don't like beer, and consequently don't know much about it, but I say go with what tastes best/is most palatable to you. Don't worry, the alcohol cooks off :) Other recipes also recommend things like Worcestershire sauce, dry mustard, hot sauce or other seasonings, but I found it simply delicious without them. Season to taste, dear readers.

Making fondue is pretty simple. Mix your shredded cheese with about a tablespoonful of flour or cornstarch. Heat the beer til it's basically boiling in a regular pot on the stove. Add the cheese a handful at a time, stirring it until it's all melted in. Rachael Ray recommends using a wooden spoon and stirring in figure-8 patterns - I have an awesome plastic spoon that looks like a wooden spoon, so it works the same and doesn't get food stuck to it as badly. The figure-8 pattern was good though. Once all the cheese is melted in, transfer the fondue to your fondue pot to keep it warm. Fondue pots would probably also work quite well for queso dip, come to think of it. Serve with whatever you want to dip in it :) We just cut up some bread (Portuguese rolls, actually) and frozen broccoli, but apples are also tasty, and you can pretty much use anything you think would be good covered in melted cheese. If you want, you can also have dipping sauces - I've had a provolone-mozzarella fondue with a side of marinara sauce, and it was delicious. Experiment! I'd love to know what other people do with their fondue :)

I'm sure soon we'll be trying a chocolate fondue, so I'll report back with the results of that. Recommendations are welcome! :)

A dry week

I must make my apologies, readers, I left my camera cable at a friend's house in Provo last friday, so this week I've shirked in my blogging duties. Don't worry, I think I'll get it back tomorrow.

Anyway, for your enjoyment, and mine we have a guest blogger, my good friend Lacey, who recently acquired a fondue pot, and wanted to share the delicious results. Take it away, Lacey.

Mormon Root Beer

There's no rootbeer like the homemade rootbeer found at LDS Ward parties where the dry ice makes it all cold and just carbonated enough, and it's so sweet and refreshing. Mmmmmmmm :)

The Porcupine Restaurant

At the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon there is a lovely little restaurant called The Porcupine. Well, actually I guess it's technically considered a pub, but since I don't drink I forget about that part.

Anyway, my good friend and former roommate Emily introduced me to this great little spot. It's got a lodge-y sort of feel, perfect for the end to a day on the slopes. Her favorite is the fish 'n chips, which are great. My favorite is this Ahi salad with a Mexican-esque twist, as in there's black beans, salsa, and tortilla chips involved. They're sandwiches and pizza are also very good, so there's pretty much something for everyone.

What I really want to write about, though, is their signature dessert: the Chocolate Porcupine. This adorable little guy is made of a layer of chocolate cake, then a custard filling and a layer of chocolate mousse covered in a hard chocolate shell. On the back they stick slivered almonds into the mousse before they dip it into the hard chocolate so it has quills, then they use white chocolate chips dipped in dark chocolate for eyes. They serve him with a delicious vanilla bean ice cream and a sliced strawberry and whipped cream. He's cute and so tasty! He's really the reason we go there.

Here he is peeking out from behind his whipped cream cloud.

Does he look nervous to you, too?

The waiters are typically attractive, which is like an added bonus, and when we went this weekend they were having a special for Oktoberfest, so all the waiters were in Lederhosen, and the waitresses in German-looking outfits with skirts that were way too short when they were walking up the stairs. Emily was kind (or brazen, take your pick) enough to ask if I could take a picture with one of the waiters (alright I admit it, I had been checking him out the whole time, but he was cute).

And here's the pic:
He was going to get some steins for us to hold, but he couldn't find any, how sad. Geez, I look stiff.

And here's the girl that got me into this mess...
The trick is in knowing there is no spoon...which is probably why she looks so confused at the fork.