When I was little, I believed in the Easter Bunny. I didn’t really believe in it past the age of five, but I wanted to believe. Not that there was some sort of rabbit running around putting candy into my easter basket, but that something magically enabled the candy to be there. I would come down to Easter brunch shouting “The Easter Bunny was here!” and clutching my little basket of goodies. The “Easter Bunny” also hid plastic eggs filled with small candies or coins in my backyard, which my brother and I would race to find. I knew that my father hid the eggs, but it was more fun to pretend.
My little fantasy had to end the year that he forgot to hide the eggs. When I wanted to out on the egg hunt, my dad told me that the Easter Bunny said he needed help and had asked my father to hide the eggs for him. Dad hadn’t quite gotten around to it yet. But all things must come to an end eventually and I still got candy, so I didn’t complain.
I still decorate easter eggs every year. I blow out the eggs so they’ll last then I dye them using food coloring. I like solid colored eggs, but sometimes I make swirled patterns by adding oil to the dye.
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I look forward to blogging events. It’s like going to a party where everyone has a little present for everyone else. Of course, this is because I, like so many other food bloggers, love food. Once a theme is anounced, I start brainstorming what I’ll make. Cupcakes (or muffins) were a great choice by Maki. They’re already like little presents.
Ok, enough with the present analogy.
For this month’s Is My Blog Burning, hosted by i was just really very hungry, I was pleasantly surprised to see the theme because I can always use an excuse to make dessert. Cupcakes aren’t something that I make often because usually I want the whole cake. But you have to love single serving foods sometimes.
Cupcakes seem a little less serious than full-sized cakes, so I had a difficult time narrowing down my ideas. Mainly, I wanted something that looked fun… oh, and taste good, too! I started with a cake from a Cooking Light recipe I had lying around, made it plain and then remade it. Into what? Neopolitan buttermilk cupcakes.
The final product was very moist and had a nice, subtle buttermilk-vanilla flavor. I think the moistness keeps them from getting over mixed when you mix in the strawberry and chocolate flavors, since I didn’t detect any toughness at all. In fact, they had a very soft crumb. No egg yolks were used, since I wanted to keep the pink-white-brown color distinction clear. I used a cream cheese frosting, which is always a hit, but I think they would be great with a whipped cream frosting, too. I liked these a lot as a straightforward tasting, but fun looking cupcake. I’m also sure that these would do marvelously well at a bake sale.
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You will need:
a chicken breast, preferably grilled or bbq’d
tomatoes
an orange
baby spinach
Chop chicken, tomatoes and orange. Toss with salad and leftover bbq sauce from chicken. Season with salt and pepper, if desired.
Sometimes you can afford to be a bit pretentious with your desserts. Souffles already have an aura of mystery, so why not throw in a dash of pretention? That’s how you get Soufflés Chauds au Citron in lieu of Warm Lemon Souffles? Just kidding. I like to keep it simple, so we’ll stick with the simpler name here.
I was never a huge fan of souffles. Often they’re too eggy, which is the case with many all-cheese souffles, or too heavy because someone has poured a cup of some sort of sauce into the souffle to mask the poor taste of the dish itself. Why even bother baking a souffle if all you wanted was a chocolate lava cake? I suspected that I must be missing out on something, as people generally seem to like these mile-high desserts, so I signed up and took a cooking class at Sur La Table in Santa Monica on souffles to find out.
The class was interesting. You have to be a little bit assertive with regards to the perparation, since for most of their classes you’re required to work in small groups. We made (and ate) Cafe au Lait souffles, Raspberry souffles, Chocolate Banana souffles – which my group was in charge of – and cheese souffles. I confirmed that I don’t really care for plain cheese, but I also realised that souffles can actually taste pretty good. They’re also easy, since you can prepare the base ahead of time and just whisk and fold the egg whites before popping them into the oven. Many people worry about the souffles falling, but once they’re out of the oven they’re supposed to fall. Trust me, you won’t surprise anyone if your souffle isn’t towering 12 feet over the dinner table. Just take your souffles out of the oven and serve them piping hot. Everyone will “Ooh!” and “Aah!” and enjoy – not only because they’re tall, but because they taste good.
This recipe is from Epicurious, but I’ll reprint it here. I used skim milk instead of whole milk to no ill effect. These souffles were just lemony enough without being either sour or overly sweet. If you happen to want something very sweet, use Meyer lemons instead of regular. Feather-light texture. I loved them.
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That is a mighty fine pork loin.
This week at Trader Joe’s, I spotted a Snake River Farms Kurobuta pork loin. I knew that this was supposed to be some of the finest pork there is. It’s cut from Japanese Berkshire black hogs and, according to the producer, is celebrated for it’s moistness, tenderness and pork flavor (read: lots of marbled fat).
Actually, I didn’t find the meat to be fatty at all beyond the nice thick layer that the loin was situated on. The loin was cooked using the “Maple Glazed Pork Roast” recipe from Cooks Illustrated, which I will not reprint here because I don’t think it was the ideal recipe for this pork. Oh, it was very tender and very juicy, but the low cooking temperature prevented any sort of crust from forming. Sometimes it’s a shame not to put that fat to use!
So, how was this big slab o’ meat? Good. Very good. It tasted like… excellent pork. Could have chosen a better recipe despite the fact that the spicing (garlic, cloves, cayenne, paprika and maple syrup) was excellent. There’s always next time, though. And next time may be coming up soon…
