Worth a Try

On Monday KFC offered one free piece of their new KFC grilled chicken to all customers. I tried a wing, the chicken skin was so flavorful and very CRISPY! It left a greasy feel on my lips, I was skeptical whether or not this tasty chicken was much healthier than the fried version. KFC website claims 4 grams of fat and 70 calories in a grilled chicken drumstick! I guess voodoo makes this chicken taste so good because this chicken has a lot of flavor and is low cal compared to a drumstick of their original recipe which has 110 calories and 7 grams of fat.

Trader Joe's has a wide variety of tasty cookies. Their graham crackers are unlike any i've had before and their peppermint Joe Joe's tasted great when I coated them in chocolate this Christmas. My most recent favorite is their Inside Out Carrot Cake Cookie. Once again I was skeptical when C bought a container but I was wrong! These are amazing!!! There are several websites circulating online to make a homemade version, I definately will have to try it!

One step closer to the President

I spent the weekend in Iowa and got a chance to try the first families favorite cookie: Chocolate Chunk from Baby Boomer's Diner.

Here's the story:President Obama spent alot of time at his election head quarters in Des Moines, Iowa located near Baby Boomers Diner. Naturally, President Obama ate many late night meals there after a rough day on the campaign trail. Sasha and Mali took a liking to the Chocolate Chunk Cookies that sat in a large glass jar on the counter and the Obama's ordered dozens and dozens of these cookies to take with them to Washington. Eventually this cookie was declared a favorite by the first family. When the world caught on everyone wanted these cookies.

Here's what the Boomers website says about the sweet treat: "Perhaps you found us because you were intrigued about what the First Family finds so delectable in a cookie. No matter what your political affiliation, one bite and you'd agree, along with thousands of others, that this is one GREAT cookie. Always delicious, but just now getting the recognition they deserve, Baby Boomers Chocolate Chunk Cookies are mighty."

What Did I think of the cookie?

Obama is a man after my own heart because this cookie is made just the way I like it, soft and chewy! There was just one thing missing, the flavors didn't pop, was there no added salt? I scoured the ingredients list. Sure enough, no salt! Salt is a flavor enhancer, it acts as bifocals for your taste buds. Now I understand that many people cut down on salt for health reasons however if you are going to have a sugary indulgence such as a cookie I say do it right!

In the mood for a good cookie after reading this?

Try this recipe for Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies courtesy of Simply Tasty. Last week I brought these to a gathering and they were a hit. These cookies stayed soft, and the oatmeal and peanut butter complemented the chocolate nicely. Click here for the recipe.

Food Planet Tour

On Tuesday my best friend and I took a trip to Chicago for Food Planet's Near North Food Tasting and Cultural Walking Tour. We took a one and a half mile walk through the Lincoln Park, Old Town, and Gold Coast neighborhoods of Chicago with a group of 6 others. We visited 7 food locations all providing us with a wealth of food knowledge, food samples, and coupons for a return visit. Most of the businesses are family owned and was served up by the owner themself. That is what made the tour so special. In between stops we found out fun facts about the neighborhood architecture including seeing the original Playboy Mansion. Here's where we went:

Ashkenaz Deli
Sampled a thick potato pancake with sour cream and apple sauce. (I previously tried potato pancakes at Walker Brothers pancake house and wasn't impressed, I had no idea how wonderful they could be until I tried the ones at Ashkenaz) definately want to try recreating the recipe.

(pictures are included but with the exception of the smore cupcake picture, the others were pulled offline as I was busy tasting and didn't take many photo breaks)

Tea Gschwendner
I found out that all varieties of tea: black, white, and green come from the same tea plant. I sampled a cup of hot Rooibos tea. Rooibos varieties are the future of tea. Even though they are called tea, this variety comes from an African plant, not the tea bush. Rooibos has more anti oxidants than green tea and unlike green tea, is caffeine free.


The Spice House
The Spice House is America's authority on spices. All spices were ground within the last 5-6 weeks where as spices on the shelf of your local grocery store may be up to 6-8 months old at the time of purchase. Spices lose potency overtime so it is important to buy as fresh as possible. Prices at this shop are also cheaper than those at the grocery store. You can also buy spices in small amounts if you only want enough for one recipe. We learned about various types of cinnamon. Cinnamon is European and has a chalky taste, what we know as cinnamon is actually cassia. There are several types with potency varying depending on the amount of oil in each piece of cassia bark. The saigon "cinnamon" cassia was my favorite, it had a flavor cinnamon to Big Red gum.


Old Town Oil
Sample balsamic vinegars and extra virgin olive oils. The White Peach Balsamic Vinegar mixed with Blood Orange olive oil was my favorite combo. Perfect drizzled on chicken, fish, or a salad.


The Fudge Pot
Sampled Chocolate covered toffee served up by the owner. At the end of the tour we were asked to name our favorite place we visited, overwhelmingly people liked the fudge pot best.



Catering and Chocolate
This place caters large events for political figures such as former President Clinton. We sampled cheese and crostini served up by the owner himself. Their smore cupcakes looked amazing. They also sold fresh butter with the claim that it would "blow your mind." I've tasted some very fresh European butter that my Grandma used to buy and wondered it the butter here was even better than that.



Bacino's Pizza
Samples America's 1st heart healthy pizza served up by one of the Bacino sons. Their deep dish isn't greasy like Uno's. Bacino's is my new favorite deep dish. I definately want to take C here sometime to sample their pizza.

Pan-Seared Sesame-Crusted Tuna Steaks with Avocado-Orange Salsa

This is one of my favorite quick and healthy dinners. (Last Tuesday C and I were in a hurry to get out the door, we had this meal prepared and eaten in 30 minutes so I mean it when i say this meal is quick to prepare.) The heat from the jalapenos, the sweet from the orange, and the creaminess of the avocados in the salsa compliment the texture of the tuna and the flavors of the toasted sesame seeds. I love the salsa so much that I typically make a double batch of the salsa and opt to not serve this meal with a side starch.


I would recommend this recipe to someone who loves sushi and likes the idea of eating rare fish with a pink center. The center should be very pink. If you try this recipe and cut the tuna steak open to find an all white center then I feel sorry for you, as you mine as well serve the orange salsa over a can of tuna as it will taste the same.

I own several cookbooks but this recipe comes from my go-to book, The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook (pg 265.) My copy of the book is seasoned with remains from past recipes i've made, it's really gotten it's use. As I try recipes I put a check mark by them in the book and leave notes in the side margins rating the recipe (all of the recipes i've tried from this book have been winners) and tips to try when making the recipes a second time.

Avocado-Orange Salsa-

1 large orange, peeled and pith removed, segmented and diced into 1/2 inch pieces
1 ripe avocado, diced medium
2 tbsp minced red onion
4 tsp fresh lime juice
1 small jalapeno, stemmed, seeded and minced.
2 tbsp minced fresh cilantro leaves
Salt, to taste (be generous, it brings out the flavor)

Combine all ingredients in small bowl.

Pan-seared Sesame Tuna-

3/4 cup sesame seeds (a large bag is under $2 in the Indian aisle of your local produce market)
4 tuna steaks, 8 oz each and about 1″ thick (2 large yellow tail tuna fillets are approx. $5 at Trader Joe's, this is the best price i've seen)
2 tbsp vegetable oil
Salt and ground black pepper

1. Spread sesame seeds in shallow baking dish or pie plate. Pat tuna steaks dry with paper towel; use 1 tbsp oil to rub both sides of steaks, then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Press both sides of each steak in sesame seeds to coat.
2. Heat remaining 1 tbsp oil in 12 inch nonstick skillet over high heat until just beginning to smoke; swirl to coat pan. Add tuna steaks and cook 30 seconds without moving. Reduce heat to medium-high; continue to cook until seeds are golden brown, about 1 1/2 minutes. Using tongs, carefully flip tuna steaks; cook, without moving steaks, until golden brown on second side, about 1 1/2 minutes for rare (opaque at perimeters and translucent red and cool at the center) or 3 minutes for medium-rare (opaque at perimeters and reddish-pink at center). Serve immediately (there is no making the salsa in advance or reheating the fish, it will ruin the recipe) with orange salsa on the side.

Milwaukee Public Market

C and I took a trip to Milwaukee over the weekend. We ate at the most famous German Restaurant in the U.S., Mader's and I had an inventive Gingersnap cocktail at the Branded bar in the Iron Horse hotel. Our best Culinary stop was the Milwaukee Public Market.

I discovered the market walking around Milwaukee during a business trip several years ago. I had a Gingersnap cookie that was so good I promised myself I'd go back again someday. The market is comprised of gourmet food stations including a fresh juice bar, seafood counter, sushi station, florist, meat counter, cheese counter, Middle Eastern food area, Panini shop, and Wine area to name a few.

The highlight of the market is C. Adams Bakery. I've been jaded by bakeries that have deceivingly good looking pastries that are cheaply made with bland taste as the baked items are nothing more than flour, sugar, and margarine disguised by food coloring.


C. Adams bakery isn't your typical old timer coffeecake place. It has primarily inventive grab and go items such as the Wisconsin cookie, homemade graham crackers, German chocolate cupcakes, Red velvet cake bon bons, Mini silk pies, pavlovas, Giant cheesecakes, and bar cookies with names like "Seventh heaven."


We drew quite a bit of attention due to our excitement over being at the market and due to the number of photos we took, one woman asked C if he was a professional food photographer. Seeing our excitement, one knowledgeable customer at the bakery stopped us to tell us she's tried every item at C. Adams bakery and recommended a few items to us. She knew the French and German names of some of the pastries which made us think perhaps she had gone to culinary school so we headed her advice and tried some of the items she recommended.



Here are the items C and I couldn't resist that we had to bring back with us: A Cowboy cookie (spiced cookie with pecans, chocolate chips, and coconut flakes,) homemade Oreo, homemade Nutter Butter, Butter Cookie Sandwich with Raspberry jam filling, Chocolate covered peanut butter cookie, a huge macaroon, and the most amazing cheese danish that i'm certain will be served in heaven ;)



While we'll be sampling the baked goods for the next few weeks I already have alot of great ideas for items I could make at home such as making my own Oreos or Nutter Butter cookies as seen at the bakery.

I also left the market with some soft Manchego cheese and some flaked coconut the size of white flower petals that I will use to decorate Coconut cupcakes in the future.

A Study in Italian Cooking

I'm off work this week and i've spent some of my free time experimenting with Italian foods. It all started the day before Easter standing in a long check out line at the produce market. An old Italian man behind me in line commented on how many people "were buying out the whole store." He pointed out some Feng Shui brand rice crackers and recalled a random story with me about how a prospective buyer wouldn't buy a house he was selling because it didn't have the proper Feng Shui. He was buying two cans of Escarole soup and a ball of cheese. Could canned soup be good enough to stand in such a long line? I had to find out. Needless to say, I made a pot of escarole soup today.

I love making soup, I love how you can not use a recipe and just go with your senses and it usually works. My escarole soup was basically a head of leafy escarole, one potato, some chicken thighs and the other typical brothy soup ingredients: bay leaves, water, garlic, onion, salt, pepper, parsley. I boiled the heck out of it and the broth was a rich brown color and fantastic!

My next Italian food was some pasta sauce. At the produce store I found some tomatoes in the discount bin: 10 luscious reds for $1.26. I added some hot pancetta, fresh basil, jalapeno, onion, and garlic to make some chunky Arrabiatta sauce. A few years ago my friend M and I went to a cooking class at Pina's Culinary Experience in Roselle. M later went to a sauces class offered there and had a pasta party making this recipe. It's a great sauce that i've made several times since. Served over Pina's favorite noodle: Buccatini (very thick spaghetti noodle with a whole running vertically through the middle) delish! I'll freeze the sauce to save it for a quick weekday meal.

The star of my Italian cooking experiences this week has been the Panini Sandwiches! All the comfort of a grilled cheese sandwich but with more sophisticated flavors. I tried to make some Rustic white bread...didn't turn out so well. My breads never turn out quite right (does anyone have any suggestions?) so I settled for store bought Turano bread which is a tried and true panini basic. Here are some combos I tried:

• Brie, honey, pecans, raisins, and apple slices
• Gruyere cheese, arrabiatta sauce, basil leaves, and hot pancetta
• Cheddar, turkey, pecans, and cranberry sauce
• Brie, dark chocolate, and basil leaves

Giada, of Food Network fame, made chocolate, brie., and basil panini's on the Oprah show over the holidays. I was reminded of the recipe when I stumbled upon it once again while searching for panini combination ideas on the food network website.

There is something sexy about this odd combination that received a 5 star online rating. Cheese and chocolate are sexy foods, Giada is a sexy lady, just had to try it. C and I agreed it was fantastico! Rich flavors of the brie cheese and Lindt Semi sweet chocolate blended well while the fresh taste of the basil cut the sweetness of the chocolate.

I have to admit, by the end of today I reached my cooking limit, I washed enough dishes today, tomorrow I think i'll take a break.

(Picture of Panini with Chocolate and Basil complements of foodtv.com I've been trying to use more pictures of foods I actually made but C didn't have his camera with him today and I lost mine but regardless hopefully you'll bee seeing more authentic pictures from here on out.)

Lemon Sandwich Cookies

This Easter I made lemon sandwich cookies (my cookies shown right. Martha Stewart website picture shown left) and packaged them as Easter treats to give to friends and family. These cookies are so buttery they melt in your mouth. There's a punch of lemon in each bite.

I picked up a microplane grater and a 2" round cookie cutter at Sur La Table to zest lemons and to cut the dough into miniature circles.
These cookies are worth it but very time consuming; I wouldn't suggest this recipe to a baking novice.

A few years ago if I tried this recipe I would've struggled with rolling out the dough, given up and settled by rolling the dough into balls before baking. Not before giving the recipe a poor online rating. Knowing what I now know from my baking experiences, I knew some tricks to make the recipe work: chilling the dough to prevent sticky, fragile dough; letting the refrigerated dough slightly warm back up outside of the refrigerator before rolling it out to prevent crumbling; to ensure dough didn't stick to the rolling pin I rolled out the dough between sheets of parchment paper; picking up the cut dough circulars using a metal spatula to place on the cookie sheets; placing parchment paper on the cookie sheets to prevent sticking to the cookie sheets and overly browned bottoms; and finally taking the cookies out of the oven when they still look blonde and slightly doughy to prevent overly crispy cookies.

Parchment paper is a baker's best friend, it prevents so many potential baking mishaps! It saved this recipe. Parchment paper is not to be confused with wax paper. While wax paper looks similar and is cheaper, wax paper burns in the oven and there will be a waxy residue left on your baked goods. Spend the money on a roll of parchment, it will save your cookies and will make clean up easy!

Each batch didn't make many cookies (claims to make 3 dozen but since they are bite sized cookies, 3 dozen doesn't go a long way) so I doubled the recipe. I bought a large bag of 5-6 lemons from Trader Joe's but still needed more zest so I improvised. I made a batch of dough without lemon zest and instead of adding lemon flavor to the cream filling I added strawberry jam. A funny thing happened to the strawberry sandwich cookies, they flattened out in the oven (see two stacked cookies outside of the bag shown to the right in the picture.) They tasted heavenly but I was surprised that such a small tweak to the recipe such as excluding lemon zest could change the composition of the dough. And who said baking wasn't a science? I'd love to experiment with the dough in the future and make the strawberry sandwich cookies my own signature recipe.

Lemon Cookie Recipe can be found on Martha Stewart's website.

Makes 3 dozen

• 16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest (I used 2 lemons to get 1 T. zest)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for rolling
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, for sprinkling
• Creamy Lemon Filling
• 1 package (4 ounces) cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest (I used 2 lemons to get 1 T. zest)
  
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

Creamy Lemon Filling Directions

1. In a small bowl, mix cream cheese and zest until smooth. Gradually add 1 cup confectioners' sugar, mixing until smooth. Mix in remaining sugar as necessary to create a firm but spreadable filling.

Lemon Sandwich Cookie Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl using an electric mixer on high speed, beat butter, confectioners' sugar, lemon zest, and salt until combined. With mixer on low, add flour (dough will still be stiff); finish mixing with a wooden spoon.
2. Turn dough out onto a piece of plastic wrap, pat into a disk about 1/2 inch thick. Wrap, and chill until firm, about 1 hour (and up to 3 days).
3. Unwrap dough; place on a lightly floured piece of parchment or waxed paper. With a lightly floured rolling pin, roll dough about 1/8 inch thick (if dough cracks, let it warm up slightly).
4. Cut out cookies with a 1 1/2-inch round cutter (reroll scraps once, chilling of too soft). Place 1 inch apart on two baking sheets; sprinkle with granulated sugar. Bake until barely beginning to brown, 15 to 20 minutes; transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
5. Form sandwiches: Place about 1 teaspoon Creamy Lemon Filling between two cookies, sugared sides facing out; squeeze gently.