Just A Girl Who Bakes

One Post to Rule Them All

2012-01-23T18:23:00.003-05:00

Due to my lack of discipline and motivation, I have yet again neglected to compose any sort of blog post for the past few months. Not because nothing of significance has happened, but because I simply haven't. I aim to remedy my blog failing with this epic post!

Let's go back to October and start with my family's visit to Vermont...

My parents and brother & sister-in-law all flew out to the East coast to spend a week with me vacationing in New England. Activities during their stay included stopping at an apple cider mill, tour the Ben & Jerry's Factory, hiking Gile Mountain, eating good pizza, car shopping (and to those keeping track - no, I have not bought a new car yet) , bacon making, and an official King Arthur Flour bakery tour.

Moving on, my 24th Birthday also occurred in mid-October. One year til my quarter-life crisis kicks in.

My birthday dinner consisted of typical Karen fare. Exotic and something I've never eaten before, let alone knew existed. Rice and lamb stuffed grape-leaves with lemon, mint and other things I can't remember because I ate them three months ago. Eaten with an extremely colorful salad and pita bread. Dessert was a rather large peanut butter chocolate cake.

Then came Thanksgiving! My 2011 Thanksgiving was also spent at Karen's house with a combination of her family's friends and my friends. Everyone brought a little something, Karen and Greg fried the turkey and we feasted. I contributed pumpkin pie and bread. Oh, the perks of working in a bakery...

Pie!

Stay tuned for a Christmas post!

Tunbridge World's Fair

2011-11-04T14:35:00.002-04:00

So, the Tunbridge World's Fair took place about two months ago. And I'm just now blogging about it. Please don't judge me.

My adopted family (Oh hey, Ogrincs!) and I took to the Tunbridge World's Fair in Tunbridge, Vermont. As a child growing up in Iowa, I toured my share of county and state agricultural fairs so I was eager to experience Vermont's rendition.

The Tunbridge World's Fair began with an impressive tractor-trailer ride from the parking lot to the fair entrance. That's some Vermont hospitality right there.

The fair was comprised of several sections. The first area show-cased antique farming equipment. Mostly, lots of rickety iron mechanical objects sputtering fumes and cutting logs. Or Vermonters tediously re-enacting old-fashioned farming techniques. Overall, very informative.

Next, we headed down-hill to tour our feasting options. Good fair food is essential part of any fair-goers experience. The Tunbridge World's Fair offered a surprisingly vast and diverse array. While fried Oreos, pretzels and funnel cakes occupied many booths; roasted corn, beet chips, eclairs, buffalo burgers, maple cotton candy, apple crisp, and local barbecue. Epic food success.

After scoping out our food options, we moseyed down to the agricultural section. Personally, one of my main priorities of the fair was to see an ox. I've seen a great number of cows, chickens, pigs and various other farm animals, but never an ox. I found oxen quite impressive. These animals are massive and strong.

Oxen home!

Sheep!

Fancy chickens.

Fancy chicken eggs.

Awesome root beer station!

More food. Hotdog style.

After fooding, rides were in order. This fair had quite the spread, not just your typical farris wheel.

Our day concluded with a pig race. Oh yes. The first two races involved feisty little pigs that tore around the race-track with mad speed. So inspiring. The final round featured four thick, squatty sows who moved at the speed of saplings growing. Actually, they were hilariously entertaining. I would would go to more pig races if they were available.

The Tunbridge World's Fair was quite a wonderful day!

Livin' the Dream - VT Style

2011-09-12T14:54:00.003-04:00

Several weeks ago, three of my favorite Kansas residents journeyed cross-country to visit Vermont and entertain me. Dave, Wendi and Amanda flew into New England Wednesday afternoon and our epic vacation-time began immediately.

Our first destination was the incredible Farmway store in Bradford, VT. Farmway mashes outdoor gear, pet supplies, a vast shoe selection, men and women's clothing and other random rural items into a giant super-store. Amanda and I bought matching jackets!

Our next stop was P&H truck stop in Wells River, VT. P&H boasts an extensive diner menu full of delicious options. My favorite was the cinnamon french toast made from P&H's Cinnamon Raisin bread baked fresh daily. Amanda and I may or may not have made a late night pit-stop for this french toast on our final drive home at the end of the week...such happiness.

We're happy because our blue jackets match. And we're eating. Both good things.

Amanda & I kicked off her first morning in Vermont with a longish run and pancakes! Amanda and I have dreams of opening our own pancake shack together someday. We discussed our business options over these whole wheat granola pancakes topped with fresh strawberries, peanut butter and maple syrup.

Thursday evening, Amanda and I drove north to Waitsfield, VT to meet Dave and Wendi at American Flatbread. American Faltbread bakes pizza with fresh locally grown ingredients in a wood-fired oven. Mass portions of pizza were consumed...

Dessert was a house-made apple pie. This slice was warmed in the wood-fired oven and topped local vanilla ice cream.

The whole gang!

We have a special friendship...

Friday brought a King Arthur Flour class. Seasonal Sensibility: Eating Locally from the Wood-Fired Oven with Paul Krcmar, to be specific. Paul is actually a chef at American Flatbread. Needless to say, we got our fill of pizza. In fact, I'm pretty sure we after pizza everyday...

Potato pizza joy.

Post class on Saturday afternoon, Amanda and I hi-tailed ourselves up to Miles Pond in Concord, VT. Our friends Dave, Marge and Pine were already there relaxing. Was wonderful to share such a beautiful environment with such beautiful people. Our activities included, swimming, biking, ice cream eating, kayaking, pizza eating, touristing, ATVing, caving and others.

Amanda capturing the moment with her new non-ghetto camera.

Amanda and Dave enjoying the flames.

Caving adventuring!

Our hosts for the weekend (Marge & Pine). Thanks for tolerating our craziness.

Thanks for visiting friends! Come back soon!

Summer in New England

2011-07-28T10:49:00.003-04:00

Summer in Vermont, combined with my wacky bakery schedule, has resulted in an unintended blogging hiatus. Don't worry, my dear tens of readers, I'm back to blogging. I promise never to leave you out of the wicked exciting happenings in my life again.

Summer in New England is a beautiful sight. All at once, the hills and valleys turned a brilliant shade of green, farmer's markets popped up in every town, kayaks and canoes began riding a top tightly packed vans, cyclists crowded the roads, and temperatures rose into the mid-80s. Soft serve ice cream shops have become my second home, I finally resigned myself to wearing shorts, and I have more freckles than I did a couple weeks ago.

Lately, I've been spending a large amount of time with my friends Liz and Joska. One of my favorite meals we've prepared is grilled pizza. Normally, I grab pizza dough from the bakery, bring a gallon of watermelon, and Liz and Joska provide toppings. We've taken to dining outdoors.

I've been bugging Joska (a native Jamaican) to make Festivals since practically the first day I met him - and so he did!

Ice cream is a critical part of a New Englander's summer. Literally a dozen small shops sprang-up at the first touch of warmth. I fully support this past-time and have partaken very willingly.

Liz and Joska were also expecting their first child! Baby Willa was born 8 lbs 3 oz on June 23rd.

Happy Grandma!

Family Photo

To continue the happy occasions, my lovely friend Katie got hitched July 3rd. I flew back to Kansas City for the event. Katie's wedding was incredibly beautiful and very much a reflection of her personality.

After the wedding, my parents drove down to KC to pick me up and haul me back to Iowa. I spent several days relaxing with my parents and brother. S'mores and fireworks were involved.

Overall, this summer has been a busy one. I'm still plugging away working in the bakery. Right now, I rotate three days on pastry and two on bread. I find myself becoming more comfortable with the atmosphere, but I still have a great deal to learn. I'm hoping to drag my camera to work one morning and capture the ~~mayhem~~ magic.

I'm going to *attempt* to blog twice a week for the remainder of the summer. Until next time!

Flax Seed Crackers

2011-04-21T11:06:00.003-04:00

I recently polished off my box of store-bought crackers and came to the realization that I could probably bake a comparable cracker at home for a much lower price. Crackers (or these crackers I should say) are incredibly easy to produce. With my surplus of flax seeds and whole wheat flour, I created these crackers based off of Alton Brown's recipe. While they are no Wheat Thin, I quite like them.

Flaxseed Crackers

Adapted from Alton Brown's Seedy Crisps Recipe

9 3/4 ounces whole-wheat flour
2/3 cup Flaxseeds
1 teaspoon table salt
1 1/2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
3 tablespoons olive oil
6 3/4 ounces water

In a medium bowl whisk together flour, flax seeds, salt, and baking powder. Add the oil and stir until combined. Add the water and stir to combine and create a dough. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead 4 to 5 times. Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces, cover with a plastic wrap and allow to rest for 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out 1 piece of dough to 1/16-inch and place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Score dough into desired size with knife or pizza cutter. Poke holes into dough with fork. Bake for 8-9 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack.

Maine Travels and Apartment Update

2011-04-14T11:28:00.000-04:00

Last week, my dear friend Katie journeyed out to New England to visit me. While she was here, we embarked on a small road-trip to Maine. We drove up through the White Mountains, then down to Portland where we stayed overnight in Portland at a cute Bed & Breakfast. The following morning (after discovering a lovely City of Portland parking ticket on my windshield) we ventured down the coast of Maine, cruising along the smaller back roads. Most of the tiny coastal towns were sleepy and quite this time of year, but still incredibly scenic and quaint.

Katie, with her sharp interior design eye, helped me piece together my apartment so the space looks a little more homely. We rearranged the furniture, hung picture frames, placed flowers and lit candles. I'm still looking for a dresser to replace my cardboard set-up, sew a couple pillows, and finish storing odds and ends.

I feel as though my life has been very hectic lately, resulting in less blogging. However, I did recently purchase a fancy a new camera, so hopeful the new toy will spike my motivation. Vermont is slowly thawing out from the bitter winter. I'm looking forward to viewing another season change in the Upper Valley.

This One's For You

2011-03-02T23:16:00.006-05:00

Occasionally, I try to do something nice for my kid brother. You know, kindle that sacred brother-sister love. In my head, I like to think my acts of kindness would be more frequent if he didn't wrestle me to the floor and sit on me every chance he got. Despite our painful encounters, I know somewhere, deep inside, Russ loves me. Right, Russ? Right. Regardless, I've taken to mailing my little brother baked goods. After all, he is in college and probably experiencing the ~~wrath~~ joy of college dining centers.

This months baked items included Brownies, Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars, Peanut Butter Cookies and Oatmeal Cinnamon Cookies. I am not ashamed that the brownies came from a box. They are delicious and I would eat the whole pan.

I started working in the bakery this week. My shift starts at 4 AM so my afternoons are free for the taking. I prefer to bake and mail my packages the same day, but that doesn't always happen. I baked the brownies and chocolate chip cookie bars and mixed up the cookie dough last night. Then baked off the cookies this morning. Later, I walked down to the post office to pick up a large flat-rate box for shipping, trudged home through the snow/ice, packed up my fragile goods and drove back to mail the whole item. This one's for you, Russ. Enjoy.

PB & Jelly Bread

2011-02-15T22:11:00.004-05:00

A new bread book popped into my ever-growing food library recently. I acquired Jim Lahey's My Bread last week and since then I've spent an enormous amount of time sitting motionless gazing longingly at his beautiful photographs and simplistic recipes. Jim Lahey re-introduced the world to the increasingly popular "no-knead" bread technique and his book showcases the uncomplicated procedure with breads, pizza and other yeasty delights.

My mind immediately fixated on this Peanut Butter and Jelly Bread. I'm always clinging to recipes that allow me to eat peanut butter in abnormal ways. Plus I needed an excuse to buy a giant jar of strawberry jam. The final loaf yielded a moist faintly peanuty tender bread. While a plain slice would suffice, I highly suggest toasting a slab and smearing a hefty dollop on top. Mighty good.

Life outside the baking realm has been hectic and good. I start working in the KAF bakery March 1st. Be thinking of me as I start work at 4 AM. I'm actually very much looking forward to the opportunity - I will certainly learn a great deal. Until next time!

Grains

2011-01-22T20:25:00.010-05:00

My apartment and I are slowly coming to terms with each other. The thermostat remains smarter than me, a few un-packed boxes linger in the back corner, picture frames sit on the floor rather than hang from walls, and I find myself shuffling kitchen items around every few days. However, at the end of the day, stepping into my largely mis-matched poorly situated apartment never tires. For now.

In the spirit of abusing my kitchen to the fullest, I now employ the majority of my free-time cooking and baking. My granola bar stash evaporated last week, so I whipped up a new batch using the Chewy Granola Bars recipe, sticky bun sugar, Harvest Grains Blend, oats, almonds, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds and a little bit of sunshine.

My fresh bread supply also ran out a few days ago, creating a need for a fresh loaf. Enter sad severely neglected sourdough starter. I drug out my forlorn friend and put him to work making Clay's Multi-Grain Sourdough Sandwich Bread using Harvest Grains Blend, Bread Flour and Whole Wheat Flour.

Can you tell I work at King Arthur Flour yet?

Movement

2011-01-15T00:35:00.003-05:00

I seem to have a great deal of movement in my life these days. During the past five months I've moved from Kansas to Iowa to Norwich, VT and now most recently to Hartford, VT. A month ago, a small studio apartment became available in Hartford and I leapt at the opportunity. Despite ample opportunity to improve my packing skills, I still find myself shoveling random items into boxes or bags without much thought to organization. Fortunately, this last move only required a short five mile drive down the road. Therefore allowing me to survive on minimal forethought. With a dozen extra hands helping, my belongings were stacked into vehicles, transported to my new apartment and unloaded in about 45 minutes. Such a blessing to have available and willing friends.

My pre-packed piles.

Unloaded and spewed all over my new apartment!

Futon my new landlords offered until I find my own furniture.

The bed my dear friend Karen gave me. It's so soft.

My tiny kitchen! With a gas stove!

Drawer full of silverware.

Make-shift pantry. Since this picture I've actually re-done the pantry situation. I'll keep you updated - because I'm certain you are all very interested in the status of my pantry.

Inaugural breakfast in new apartment! None other than Cinnamon Banana French Toast.

I've spent a fair amount of time (and money) situating my apartment this week. I still have a long way to go, but I'm beginning to feel slightly more at home in New England.

I Was Home for Christmas

2011-01-03T20:45:00.000-05:00

On December 20th, 2010 I boarded a couple planes, slept through a few flights and found myself back in my native territory of Iowa. My mom and little brother picked my older brother, sister-in-law and I up from the airport and whisked us home. I was over-joyed to reunite with my family. We spent the next seven days eating, playing games, talking (95% about food - what food to eat, where to buy said food, how to prepare food, and what food does to our bodies after consuming) and visiting our extended family in Kansas.

Breakfast Fake Christmas Morning:

Fake Christmas Dinner:

Desserts from Christmas Eve:

Breakfast Christmas Morning:

Dinner Christmas Day:

My Aunt Cheryl's Beautiful Cheesecake:

Sledding Adventure:

Pizza Night:

Sister-In-Law's annual snow angel:

I finally schlepped back to Vermont a week later with 90 lbs of luggage in tow. Next Sunday I am moving into my very own apartment! Merry Christmas!

Ma' amoul

2010-12-22T01:36:00.004-05:00

On my very first day of work at King Arthur Flour, I met Karen. We started training the on the same day and shared many what-the-heck-is-going-on-I-am-going-to-mess-this-up-so-badly looks with each other. One evening after work, Karen graciously invited me over for dinner with her family. I was introduced to her husband and three boys before we all sat down to beautiful meal prepared by Karen. Since that first supper, I started inconspicuously forcing myself upon Karen and her family. I now regularly show up for amazing meals and quality evenings. Fortunately, they don't seem to mind an extra body. Or are too kind to tell me to go away...

This past Friday, Karen was busy baking a whole slew of cookies. When I arrived at her home that evening, she was pulling a batch of Rugelache out of the oven and the house smelled of cinnamon joy.

After dining on yet another delicious meal - goat cheese risotto and butter roasted shrimp - I was able to help Karen make a final cookie. We made a traditional Lebanese cookie called Ma' amoul. Ma' amouls are built from a buttery dough and a spicy nut filling. We stuffed the nut filling into dough, then pressed the mounds into a special spoon.

After the cookies were baked and cooled, Karen dusted them with powdered sugar for the finishing touch.

Karen allowed me a few to take home to Iowa for my family to taste. Thank-you Karen!

Baguettes

2010-12-11T15:13:00.003-05:00

We've been very busy at King Arthur Flour this past month. Many Christmas orders to be taken, Christmas baking questions to be answered and general holiday mayhem to deal with. However, last weekend I was able to step into world of the Baking Education Center and assist with some good ol' fashioned bread baking. The class I assisted was all about baguettes. I mostly did dishes, cleaned up dried dough and unloaded the ovens, but I got to eat super fine bread in the process!

Home to Iowa in 9 days!

Thanksgiving Day

2010-11-27T18:54:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving Day 2010 marked my first Thanksgiving in New England and my first major holiday away from home. Despite the distance from family, I was looking forward to spending a relaxing day with friends and a fellow Iowan. King Arthur Flour gives each employee-owner a free-range Vermont turkey so, my fellow Iowan and I decided to tackle baking our first turkey together. I drove over to her house Thursday morning and we began our food preparation. Our menu was relatively plain, but traditional.

As we were getting started in the kitchen, her husband ran to the nearby dairy farm to pick-up some fresh egg-nog for substance. Super thick delicious egg-nog.

We prepped the turkey very simply. We stuffed the cavity with thyme, onion, garlic, celery and carrots. Then we smeared butter all over the skin.

During the afternoon we snacked on a variety of cheeses, crackers and stuffed mushrooms.

After 4 hours the our 17 lb beast reached 165 degrees and was declared finished. Not too shabby for a first time, eh?

Turkey and gravy...

Freshly baked white-whole wheat rolls.

Spiced mashed sweet potatoes seasoned with cumin, honey, salt, pepper and butter.

Carrots with Dijon mustard sauce and parsley.

And, of course, pumpkin pie. None of us like whipped cream, so we ate slices with vanilla ice cream instead. It was amazing.

My first Thanksgiving in Vermont was a day well spent with good friends and good food. I have many things to be thankful this year including graduating college, getting a job at King Arthur, my lovely family, my terrific old friends, my new friends and entering a new stage in life. Happy (belated) Thanksgiving all!

Saving the Sourdough Starter

2010-11-24T12:24:00.000-05:00

A couple nights ago I was experiencing some difficulty falling asleep. I needed to awake up earlier the next morning, so that thought fueled my what-if-I-sleep-through-my-alarm-clock-never-wake-up-and-must-show-up-shamefully-late-to-work paranoia . I find the earlier I am required to wake up, the more reluctant I am to fall asleep.

Anyway, at about 1 o'clock in the morning I decided enough was enough. Time to do something more productive than lay curled up in a ball in my bed counting to 100 over and over. Feeding the sourdough starter I'd been holding ransom in my refrigerator for approximately two months was the first activity that crossed my mind. Twas time to set the captive free...

This is the tiny sourdough starter guy that I acquired from KAF quite some time ago. It's 200 years old and very stubborn.

Flour for feeding!

Flour + water + starter = win

After fermenting overnight.

I fed the starter several times to get the culture's juices flowing. Then I made some sourdough banana bread with the "unfed" starter discard. I followed the formula from here with a few minor alterations. The resulting loaf was beautiful, but not my favorite. The sourdough flavor was very mild but somewhat muffled the banana aroma and flavor. The texture was stiffer than traditional banana bread, yielding a very sturdy loaf. Not bad, but not overwhelmingly great either.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I've got a 17 lb turkey to bake! Huzzah!

Tejal Visits Vermont

2010-10-29T11:18:00.001-04:00

My beautiful sister-in-law came to visit me in Vermont last week. She travel 2,964 miles to see me. And Vermont. But mostly me. She's cool like that.

I tried to plan lots of Vermonty activities for us to do while she was visiting , but quickly found out there aren't a lot of things to do in rural Vermont. Mostly, we ate a lot of food, browsed many shops and gawked at nature.

Thursday we tooled around in White River Junction, Vt and found a Lampscapes shop. Oh yes, this man designs and paints lamps.

I took her to my place of employment and the retail store.

I ate Pumpkin Chocolate Chip pancakes at Lou's Diner in Hanover, NH. Tejal had an un-pictured omlet.

We tripped up a mountain to view the Von Trapp (As in The Sound Of Music Von Trapp) Family Lodge. It was quite beautiful but there wasn't much to do...

We hit up the Norwich Farmer's market Saturday.

In this picture we standing over the Connecticut River in-between Vermont & New Hampshire.

We went to the Ben & Jerry's Factory! It wasn't the awesome factory that I had built up in my mind, but we still got free ice cream.

We spent some time rummaging around the Vermont Salvage. This building was brimming with old doors, antique cupcoards, sinks and other random house items.

Most of the leaves are off the trees now. Foilage is ending! Thank-you for coming to visit me Tejal! Vermont (and I) miss you!

Croquembouche

2010-10-15T23:00:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to take a class at the KAF Baking Education Center. The class was Croquembouche taught by Roland Mesnier, who spent 25 years working as a pastry chef in the White House.

I had never heard of Croquembouche until the day before I took this class. After a little research I found that Croquembouche is a French cake often served at weddings, baptisms, and first communions. The product is a high cone of "cream puffs" sometimes dipped in chocolate bound with caramel, and usually decorated with threads of caramel, sugared almonds, chocolate, flowers, or ribbons.

The morning started with fresh pastries and coffee from the KAF bakery.

We dove immediately into making pate a choux - the dough for "cream puffs". I've never made this pastry before so I had a lot to learn.

Wall of mixers.

Wall of supplies.

Mr. Roland Mesnier himself.

Butter - the beginnings of delicious baked goods.

Checking for consistency.

Mine did not look so great.

Puff covered in caramel.

Beginnings of PB & Jelly goodness.

It's an acorn!

It's a mouse!

PB & Jelly filled eclairs. Probably my favorite.

Since we weren't all able to construct an elaborate Croquembouche, each student built a smaller version filled with raspberry mousse.

Roland built a much more extravagant tower of pastry puffs.

Was a very fun morning! I don't know that I will be making this dessert anytime too soon, but I'm satisfied to know I've expanded my baking horizons.

Test Bake II

2010-10-07T21:54:00.001-04:00

Last Monday night I was gifted another opportunity to bake in the test-lab. I know that these baking affairs will eventually become a routine part of my work schedule, but for now I still relish them.

On the docket for Monday were Whole Grain Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies, Baked Chocolate Donuts, Whole Grain Pumpkin Scones, Molasses Cookies and Lemon Ginger Scones.

Some white chocolate chunks may have found their way into that batter. It just felt right.

Before I started mixing these, I tried to recall the last time I'd eaten a doughnut. Then I remembered the Saturday morning that a box of Dunkin' Donuts that showed up at work a couple of weeks ago. Those doughnuts were fried. These are baked! Yay for healthiness!

Special donut pans are required for this donut-makin' party.

I would eat these donuts everyday. Very chocolatey. Then I would pat myself on the back for being so health-conscience.

The pumpkin scones were very moist and harvesty.

Mid-baking another baker (P.J. Hamel) offered me a small slice of pie. It was divine. I can't remember exactly which type of apples she used, but they were mighty good.

Then came Molasses cookies! All covered in sugar!

Last, but not least, came the Lemon Ginger Scones. Also laden in crunchy sugar.

Tomorrow is a baking class in the Baking Education Center!

KAF Apple & Berry Picking Day!

2010-10-03T22:05:00.000-04:00

The skies down-poured rain several days this week in Vermont. The weather made outside activities difficult.

The skies cleared just in time for the King Arthur Flour apple and berry picking day! The HR department at King Arthur organized a lovely farm festivities day for the KAF employees. We were able to pick our own berries and apples and enjoy a delicious catered lunch.

I car-pooled out to the farm with two of my co-workers, who graciously waited for me while I got lost. Yet again.

Lunch was provided by Fatty's BBQ. The baked beans were mish-mash of all kinds of beans and were very good. But not as good as Iowa baked beans...

The farm had two types of raspberry bushes for the picking. Regular reds and kiwi golds.

Massive pumpkin patch!

In other super exciting news, I finished my table... 4,629 coats of paint later. The cooler weather prevented the paint from drying regularly, consequently extending the life of this project. But I'm happily using to blog at the moment now!

On to another work week!

Gluten-Free Baking

2010-09-28T18:17:00.000-04:00

On the Baker's Hotline at King Arthur Flour, we receive a great deal of questions regarding the relatively new KAF gluten-free mixes and products. Last week I was able to duck into the test kitchen for a few hours to play with the gluten-free mixes to become more familiar with how they function.

The playground.

First on the agenda, was the gluten-free cookie mix. Since I knew the cookie mix would yield terrific chocolate chip cookies, I decided to push the mix a step further. Naturally, I went the Monster cookie route. I stirred PB, oats, M&Ms and chocolate chips into the mix. They actually turned out quite well. For a first test-bake anyway.

Next in line was the gluten-free brownie mix. Again, since I knew the mix would create fantastic regular brownies, I attempted to transform the batter into cookies. Specifically, chocolate crackle cookies.

This modification still needs some work. I think I got a bit carried adding the the Multi-Purpose Gluten-Free flour to thicken the batter so the cookies were slightly crumbly and overly dry.

The last item I had time for was the Gluten-Free bread mix. This was the mix I was most excited for. Relatively, I think I've eaten a decent amount of gluten-free bread products in my day and most of them were pretty awful. This bread, however, tremendously exceeded my expectations. This loaf of bread was easy to assemble, a breeze to bake and crazy good. The texture and crumb was more similar to a normal loaf of bread than all other gluten-free products I've put in my mouth. I would make a sandwich with this bread.

My time in the kitchen was most appreciated. I now feel as though I can form coherent thoughts or suggestions to customers calling in with questions. I still have a massive amount to learn though...

My Weekend & Backyard Escapade

2010-09-19T16:07:00.000-04:00

Saturday I was able to attend the Norwich Farmers Market for the first time since moving to the Upper Valley. I'd heard good things about the food and vendors and was not disappointed. Vegetables, scratch baked goods, local cheeses and grass-feed meats, unique jewelry and honey abounded.

I managed to restrict myself to a few essential items. I was most excited about the apple purchase. I bought a bag of Macoun apples. The apple-man said they out sell MacIntosh apples 3:1. I'd never heard of them before but Wikipedia says they are a cross between MacIntosh and Black Jersey apples. They are mighty good and crunchy.

After the Farmer's market trip, black bean burger making commenced. I very closely followed this recipe. For dinner, I ate a freshly packed black bean burger with KAF Flax Seed bread and roasted butternut squash.

Sunday afternoon I decided to venture out into the great unknown. I walked out the back door and into the forest that is my backyard. (Alee-I thought of you the entire time. Wish you were here hiking with me!)

Despite that I really had no idea where I was going, there was no trail and I've never hiked solo before, everything went well. All things considered it's pretty amazing I didn't get lost.

Tree down. I wish this picture better illustrated how massive these stumps are.

Then out of nowhere, there was a clearing with a small path that lead me to a road which took back into town. Success!

Fall foliage is coming!

My Desk at King Arthur Flour

2010-09-16T10:27:00.000-04:00

Today marks my 9th day of employment at the great King Arthur Flour. Thus far I've trained in dealing with customer service, answering questions on the baker's hotline, responding on the baker's live chat, feeding and preparing the sourdough starter and baking in the test kitchen. Additionally, my group is responsible for maintaining & interacting with a couple social medias such as Facebook and Twitter. For now, I still cringe slightly every time my phone rings, as I never know what lies the other side. I very frequently bombard my co-workers with questions and frantic pleas. I applaud them for not killing me yet.

Because my employment at King Arthur represents my first real job, I thought I should document this moment by sharing some photos of my desk.

My name badge. Complete with a KAF magnet. I would also like to take this moment to relay that my initials are K.A.F. King Arthur Flour's initials are also K.A.F. We're twins- destined to be together.

My complimentary bi-weekly loaf of bread. However, I will say I have come home with 3 loaves of bread (Rye, Flax Seed and Organic Miche) and some multi-grain pancakes since I started. I either need to begin an all-carb diet or quickly develop a mass of friends. The Baking Sheet magazine pictured above is a bi-monthly magazine King Arthur produces loaded with recipes and luscious images to drool over.

Just a couple of my written resources. Most baker's wedge 5-6 commonly used baking books in their space to use as references. Another constant tool is the KAF website. I probably spent 30 hours looking at all the pages last week and still haven't covered everything.

Here is my first bag of King Arthur flour! I chose White Whole Wheat because I've never had the opportunity to play with one before. I'm plotting with some recipes to experiment.

As I near the end of my two-week employment streak, I am pleased to say I thoroughly enjoy working at King Arthur. Happy Baking everyone!

Welcome to Vermont

2010-09-08T20:43:00.000-04:00

My mom and I survived the 25 hour car ride (barely) and I've safely arrived at my new home in Vermont. My host family (I've decided that's what I'm going to call the family that lives below my apartment) helped me unload my car when we pulled up to the house and fed us a welcome dinner. They are a very friendly couple with a younger son still in middle school.

My mom stuck around for about a week to help me unpack and set-up my living space. I've got a huge bedroom, an enormous queen-sized bed, walk-in closet and a TV. I haven't hung very many picture frames or done much decorating. Mostly because I'm not very good at that type of stuff and I'm hoping it will just magically happen over time.

My living room area is mostly unfurnished and I'm on the hunt for a cheap love-seat and desk to fill some space. I found an awesome green paisley love-seat at a local consignment shop but my mom wouldn't let me buy it. She thought it was hideous. I thought it was beautiful. Anyway, I just need to do some rummaging.

This is the driveway with my car parked outside. Mostly just take notice of the trees. All the trees seem to loom over everything here. Lots and lots of trees. I've already heard people talking about the "foliage season" coming and to prepare for gazillions of tourists. I feel kind of privileged to be a resident and not a tourist.

This the everything store (and only store) in Norwich. Their motto is "If we don't have it, you don't need it". Dan & Whit's carries groceries, cookingware, clothing, shoes, paint, hardware, office supplies, gardening equipment and anything else you can dream of buying. I have already ridden my bike here several times to pick-up some items I forgot.

This is a poor picture of the Post Office in Norwich. Like everything in New England, the office is cute and quaint. And also directly connected to a small cafe and a hair salon.

Baking time! This it King Arthur Flour store itself. People come to the retail store to purchase baking equipment, supplies, mixes, flour, bread, ingredients and other miscellaneous baking products.

The first building in this picture is the Baking Education Center. The BEC teaches baking classes to kids, adults, novice and professional bakers. There is a class for virtually anybody. The second building is the retail store.

This is the building I actually work in daily. This facility is a brief jaunt up the road from the retail store and baking center. I've completed my first two days of work yesterday and today and I feel like they went pretty well. I definitely have a lot to learn, but my co-workers are very friendly and willing to help. Most of them are experienced bakers and hold an incredible wealth of knowledge. I haven't destroyed anything yet. Just give me some time.

This is a church in Norwich - typical New England.

Lastly, this is the Norwich library. I haven't been inside yet, but I hope to be joining a book club soon.

Vermont is certainly different than the Midwest, but so far the transition has been fairly painless. I'm attending a church this Sunday in hopes of meeting a couple new people as potential friends. Tomorrow night I am having dinner with a co-worker and her family! She and I started together and I've really enjoyed having another clueless person around. Will be nice to start getting to know some people!

Now the Time Has Come to Leave You

2010-08-30T22:31:00.000-04:00

Well, the day has arrived. My car is packed to the absolute max, my bike is ghetto rigged to the trunk (Cheap rack + 1,439 zip ties courtesy of my father. Thanks Dad.), we have 3 directional tools (Garmin, Mapquest directions and an atlas), a book on CD rented, a snack bag stuffed with food (Read a large bag jammed with homemade granola bars, store-bought granola bars, apples, almonds, bananas, cheese sticks, applesauce, Wheat Thins, pretzels, and PB&J sandwiches. I do not think we will be hungry. Ever.), hotel reservations booked, fresh fuel in the gas tank and an alarm set for 5:45 AM. Tomorrow begins the voyage across Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York to my new home in Vermont. All totaled, the trip takes 24 hours. I am thankful my mom is making the drive with me. Tonight, I'm feeling a range of mixed emotions. I am excited to start a new job that I expect to enjoy, explore a beautiful region and begin to become more independent. However, I am sad to be leaving my family, friends and the Midwest behind. Without a doubt, this will be an adventure...

Maine Trip Part II

2010-08-15T13:10:00.000-04:00

Friday morning in Skowhegan began with another early morning jog around along the back country roads. No deer flies this morning so we were able to run father in a much more enjoyable fashion. We stumbled upon Dave out running- he had probably run 14 miles before we had run 2. Back at the house Amanda cracked open some farm-fresh eggs and snagged swiss chard from the garden to create a delightful egg concoction.

Eggs = 1st breakfast

Grapes + watermelon + granola + yogurt + blueberry coffee cake = 2nd Breakfast

In the morning, I attended Jim Lahey's workshop about "No-Knead Bread". His concept, contrary to most bakers, utilizes an extremely limited amount of kneading. The action is not actually really even technically kneading, it's more-or-less stirring the dough quickly until it's cohesive. Jim owns a very successful bakery in New York called Sullivan St. Bakery that showcases his no-knead technique.

Lunch time! More garden fresh greens and tasty grain salads.

Since they didn't serve us any dessert at lunch, we took it upon ourselves to indulge in some more Gifford's Ice Cream.

After our ice cream endeavor, I attend Ciril Hitz's workshop. Chef Ciril Hitz is the department chair of the International Baking & Pastry Institute at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island. Ciril has competed on the Nation Bread and Pastry Team and represented the USA as a member of the Bread Bakers Guild Team and competed at the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, Paris, France, where the team took home the Silver Medal. Needless to say, he's quite accomplished. He gave a well-organized and easy-to-listen to presentation. He prepared loads of delicious baked goods for us and gave us the recipes to keep.

Cinnamon buns proofing.

Linzer. Was my first taste of this beautiful stuff.

Fresh fruit tarts.

After the final sessions the conference was over and everyone filled out evaluation sheets for whoopie pies. Then we got our picture taken with the Jeffrey Hamelman poster.

After our long stressful day of eating anything and everything we could, our host mom took us swimming! She took us to Lake George which was the most stunningly clear beautiful lake I have ever seen.

Back at the ranch, I took some random photos while waiting for dinner preparations to commence.

Susan went all out and bought some terrific looking salmon and mussels. I love seafood. I love fresh seafood even more.

Amanda whipped up some quick bruschetta as an appetizer.

Dave set out some of his refreshing home-made tea and wine. The wine wasn't homemade. Just the tea.

Awesome grill for grilling food!

Dave outside around the fire singing a camp song.

Feast table.

Grilled salmon and squash.

Steamy muscles that I had to fight Susan for. That woman loves mussels and ate probably half of this pot.

Dinner by the fire.

After dinner we polished off our 4 quarts of ice cream and hit the hay!

Maine Trip Part I

2010-08-07T09:31:00.000-04:00

Before the sun rose last Wednesday, my adviser/boss Dave picked me up and we drove to the airport. We flew off to Manchester, NH where my friend Amanda picked us up from the airport. Our destination was Skowhegan, Maine for the Kneading Conference, but first we needed lunch. Dave's wife recommended us to a local Manchester diner famous for New England cuisine called the Red Arrow Diner.

The walls and pictures stated that lots of famous people have sat at the counter. Adam Sandler and Bill Clinton were two that I remember.

Amanda and I decided to order two entrees and split them. She ordered the buffalo burger with sweet potato fries and I was craving some waffles.

Chocolate & Peanut Butter chip waffles! They were advertised as stacked in a tower, so I was mildly disappointed when mine were plated horizontally.

Dave with his tuna melt.

After re-fueling we began driving north to Maine in Amanda's "Kansas Mafia Honda Civic".

Along the way we pit-stopped at a couple bakeries Dave knew about. The first was Borealis Breads. I had to try their granola bars. I think I may need to work on mine a bit more.

Our next stop was the Standard Baking Co. in Portland. Not surprisingly, Dave knew one of the workers and we got a tour of the bakery. We bought a baguette and some croissants from them and dashed out the door to glimpse a view of the Atlantic ocean.

From the coast we drove inland to reach our final destination of Skowhegan, Maine. After some slight directional confusion we arrived at our host family's home. David and Susan live in a beautiful house "off-the-grid" outside of Skowhegan. When we pulled up, Susan and David were outside tending to their massive garden and beginning the makings of a delicious dinner. Our meal was a tabouli salad with newly plucked green beans and fresh bread.

After our delightful meal, we all crashed into bed. Amanda and I arose bright and early at 6:30 am to take a jog out into the forest trails. Unfortunately, the deer flies were up and active also, so we cut our run short. Mostly because I whined a whole lot. I hate things buzzing around my ears.

Naturally, after burning a few calories we needed to consume more calories. David and Susan's kitchen was extremely well stocked- full of nuts, great coffee, fresh fruit, dried fruit, newly laid eggs and homemade yogurt.

We explored/grazed for a bit in the kitchen and house, then showered and drove into town for the Kneading Conference opening ceremonies.

The conference featured lectures and workshops by bakers, oven builders and grain-growers. Thursday I chose to attend the pastries with whole-grains workshop. Doug Brown and Cate Conway demonstrated baking croissants, danishes and various other pastries with completely whole grain dough.

All the ovens at the conference were mobile wood-fired beauties by La Panyol. While they are lovely, they are also expensive. Ovens range from $5,000-$20,000. I started saving yesterday. I have $3.27 so far. Feel free to contact me if you'd like to make a donation.

Whole-wheat croissant with beets and feta.

Cinnamon bun.

Lunch was catered by a local organization called Fire Fly Farm. So many greens. So many vegetables. So much greatness.

After lunch the festivities continued with a gluten-free workshop. Kelley Hughes of Wildflours Bakery prepared gluten-free bagels. For a gluten-free product they were mighty tasty.

I meandered over to the clay-oven building workshop to watch their progress. It was very interesting to watch and dream about building my own someday.

When the lectures and workshops concluded a corn dance was conducted by the Penobscot Nation. Our host mom, Susan jumped right into the action. I wasn't feeling coordinated that day so I refrained.

Following the corn dance, dinner was served.

Massive amounts of leafy greens.

Lamb skewers, garbanzo bean and lentil salad, green beans and more bread.

Pie. Of the blueberry kind.

After scarfing down all that delicious dinner and pie we scampered over to Gifford's Ice Cream. Because we hadn't eaten enough that day. Because we'd run all of two miles that morning. And because we were in vacationland living the dream. Rather than ordering a measly one scoop ice cream cone, which probably would have been wiser, all four of us bought hand-packed quarts of flavors to our liking.

The Maine Wildberry called my name. Amanda got Maine Deer Tracks, Dave got Moose Tracks and David upped the wow-factor and got a dual packed quart with chocolate and coffee ice cream.

Thus concluded our first full day in Maine. In sugar/cream comas.

My Grandma's Birthday Party

2010-07-25T15:32:00.000-04:00

My Grandma turned 80-years-old this Saturday. When somebody, especially your grandmother, turns 80 you should have a party. So my aunts organized a birthday celebration gathering for my grandma on Saturday night. We ate dinner at local restuarant then 7 of her 8 sisters and brother (yes, he had 9 sisters) came over for dessert and punch. I had never met her sisters as an adult, so it was really fun to sit down and chat with each of them. I've also baked a couple of their recipes in the past couple years - peanut butter rolls and kolaches - so I enjoyed putting the recipes with faces.

The sisters and brother.

My family minus a few members.

My mom ordered the evening special - which was a beef patty with bacon, mushrooms and cheese served with broccoli and smashed potatoes. They had a much more fancy name than "beef patty" but I can't remember it right now.

I ordered the rum glazed salmon that came with green beans and mashed sweet potatoes. It came with a maple glaze that tasted exactly like maple syrup.

Then it was cake time. Cake time is otherwise known as happy time. My aunts brought a red-velvet cake and an assortment of flavored cupcakes from Daddy Cakes. Daddy Cakes is a Topeka based pastry bakery that specializes in cakes and cupcakes.

Cupcake options were carrot cake, german chocolate, chocolate, lemon, vanilla and strawberry.

Red Velvet Cake. Twas very red. And velvety.

I can only hope that my 80th birthday party will be as fun and tasty as my grandma's.

A Morning in The Lab

2010-07-16T23:16:00.000-04:00

During the entire month of June, my co-worker Amanda and I worked super hard in the Bake Lab. Every day we slaved away, sweating and toiling. I thought I should re-cap what a typical morning looked like for us.

8:30 AM - Arrive in lab. Turn on oven to heat up.

8:30-9:00 - Check for non-existent important e-mails and surf various food blogs for inspiration.

9:00-9:05 - Load oven with cookies.

9:05-9:17 - Hover around oven to ensure cookies are properly baked.

9:18-9:19 - Remove cookies from oven.

9:20- 10:00 - Mix and deposit a fresh batch of cookie dough (molasses!)

10:00-10:15 - Plate baked cookies on trays.

10:15 - 10:30 - Walk trays-o-cookies over to the College of Agriculture.

10:30-10:50 - Wash dirty dishes and moderately tidy up lab.

10:50-11:15 - Check e-mail. Call egg-ladies. Is it lunch time yet?

11:15-11:25 - Discuss what we will be making for lunch.

11:25- 12:00 - Track down Dave and bother him for something to do.

12:00 - LUNCH!

Lunch is unquestionably the most important part of our day. Typical lunches range from massive colorful salads to poached eggs on toast with Call Hall cheese. Generally, lunches are funded by Amanda's huge garden. She brings the goods. I eat the goods.

Amanda made "kosher" pickles. They were not blessed by a rabbi though. I asked.

Gargantuan salad!

This is an Ice Creamy Joy. I made it with leftover cinnamon test-bake cookies and Call Hall ice cream. Don't worry. I shared it with Amanda. It's probably the only thing I contributed to lunch that day.

After enjoying our sacred lunch hour, our afternoon work activities vary greatly. Major projects for the month included sanding down tables, steam-blasting racks, cleaning-out the storage room, and cleaning out the freezer. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

Graham Crackers

2010-07-05T16:04:00.001-04:00

My youngest relation headed off on a week-long trip very early last Monday morning. So I offered to bake him some snacks to pack along for the gruesome thirteen hour car ride. He requested Graham Crackers. These graham crackers are remarkably different-dare I say far better- than Honey Maid graham crackers you may buy at the local grocery store.

This formula is chocked full of intense flavor, crispiness, crunchiness and crazy addictiveness. And as all good things should, this recipe begins with copious amounts of butter that gets creamed with a robust helping of sugar.

If you were ambitious or over-achieving you would cut out pretty shapes like hearts or stars. But if you were lazy or uncreative you would cut out squares. Like me.

I do, however, mildly redeem myself by spelling out a super difficult word into the crackers. You're welcome, Russ. I love you too.

Down on Main Street

2010-06-26T22:58:00.000-04:00

I trekked north back to Atlantic this weekend to spend some quality time with the family. The climate as I drove went from deliriously hot to slightly less insanely hot. But still unnecessarily humid. I just love it when my sweaty clothes cling to my body and I feel as though I've got a lifetime membership to a global sauna. Have I ever mentioned I'm not a huge fan of summer?

For our Friday night out on the town, my parents and I ambled down to Main Street Grill for dinner. Main Street Grill is probably the nicest restaurant in Atlantic. Back in the day, flocks of gussied-up teenage schoolboys and girls would dine at Main Street before high-school dances. Main Street is a family-owned restaurant housed in a 1890 refurbished historical hotel. The interior is of Victorian Architecture, stenciled wood beaming, wild-life trophies and hand-painted murals. Each room has individual decor with displays of a local artist. The seven-page menu ranges from a 1/2 lb "Cardiac Burger" to Sicilian Pasta. Additionally, the owner offers a fresh supply of homemade fudge varieties, classically delicious desserts, and crunchy caramel corn when in season.

Please take note of the large buffalo head mounted on the wall. Oh yes.

My mom and I shared the Grilled Chicken Pita. A plethora of grilled zucchini, carrots, mushrooms, tomatoes and chicken mounted on a pita and secured with cheeses. Was quite tasty but still moderately healthful. My dad got the "Quesadilla with a Kick" but I don't have a picture of his plate.

Dessert was naturally in order as an ending to our fine dining experience. We ordered the Fried Bread Pudding. The house bread pudding melded apples, raisins, nuts and bread into a cohesive mass which is then fried, rolled in cinnamon sugar and topped with caramel sauce and whipped cream.

We were all quite fond of the combination of crunchy exterior crust and soft doughy middle. Tasted like a fried cinnamon roll. Who wouldn't like that?

And Then We Feasted

2010-06-18T13:11:00.000-04:00

My advisor /boss recently asked me to dog-sit his two canines while he vacated town for a week. His pooches, Fizbo the beagle and Fontella the lab, are very friendly and low-key. To better care for the dogs, I am staying the night at the house. Fizbo sleeps in the bed with me and must be touching my leg the entire night. The only time I heard her make a sound was when I was in the shower one night. I thought tornado sirens were going off, so I poked my head out and there was Fizbo-sitting in front of the bathroom door howling. She was experiencing seperation anxiety or something.

My co-worker/friend, Amanda, stayed the night with me Thursday night. Originally, we intended to cook a feast in our boss's new toy- The Big Green Egg. The Egg is a combination smoker, grill and oven. We were hoping to grill some naan on the stone oven. Unfortunately, we had some difficulties lighting the coals and getting the grill up to temperature. So we altered our meal plan and began cooking food inside.

The Egg. It was smarter than us.

Butternut squash.

Potatoes from Amanda's garden.

The final stew contained butternut squash, onion, green chili peppers, potatoes, black beans, cayenne pepper, sweet curry powder, garam masala, black pepper, salt, ground coriander, paprika and cumin. Was a rather spicey brew.

Naan is supposed to be baked in a Tandoor oven, a cylindrical clay oven used in cooking and baking. Temperatures in a tandoor can approach 900°F. Well, we don't have a tandoor oven. I've never even seen a tandoor oven. After doing some research on the wonderful world-wide-web, I learned this style of baking can be sufficely replicated on the stove top. Our contraption is a cast-iron skillet with a bowl placed over top as a lid.

Huge table for two.

All together now.

I believe there may have been some moaning during the consumption of this meal. For just throwing stuff in a pot, this dinner was mighty tasty.

Bananas Foster

2010-05-27T17:05:00.000-04:00

After our impressive Bananas Foster experience at Tony's BBQ Bistro, my family and I decided to reinvent the dessert in our home. Of course all good things start with butter...

Add some brown sugar and cinnamon...

We melted the butter in a skillet, added the cinnamon mixture and combined.

Next we added the sliced bananas to the mix and sloshed them around to combine.

Then came the fun part. Bring on the rum. I think these two tiny bottles of rum are the first hard liquor this house has ever seen.

In the restaurant, the owner just threw the rum in the pan and the whole mess exploded. So, we prepared ourselves for the worst. My younger brother manned the fire extinguisher.

Unfortunately, our flaming expectations weren't met. We threw in the rum and nothing happened. We're not certain what went wrong. We speculate that the pan wasn't hot enough or we didn't buy a high enough proof rum. We needed more alcohol. So we dumped in some more rum and lit the pan with a long-stem lighter. This method rewarded us with a meager combustion.

After the small fire died down, we spooned the mixture over vanilla ice cream.

We concluded that our recreation of Bananas Foster was not quite as tasty as the restaurant version. In the restaurant the sugar crystallized giving the cinnamon mixture a delightful crunchy texture. Our formula was not crunchy. Next time, we'll buy rum with a higher alcohol content and really get the fire started.

BBQ & Windmills

2010-05-22T16:35:00.000-04:00

To make up for my lack of pork consumption Thursday night, my parents and I went to eat at a nearby barbeque restaurant. Tony's BBQ Bistro is located in a small town about 20 minutes away. The drive to dinner was very scenic and full of windmills. These windmills started sprouting up in southwest Iowa farm fields a couple years ago.

They almost look as though they don't belong on earth and are the creation of some space-age society. At night, every windmill simultanously blinks a red-light. It's a rather mesmerizing sight.

Tony's BBQ Bistro is located in Walnut, IA, a small town widely known for its antique shops.

Brick roads!

Here you see a blurry picture of pork ribs. The pictures may be horrible, but the ribs were phenomenal. They were coated with a dry rub and served with barbque sauce. The meat cleanly pulled off the bones and was very succulent.

Although the ribs are fantastic, my favorite item on the menu are the baked beans. These are hands-down the best baked beans I've ever tasted. They are slightly sweet, riddled with bacon and hunks of pork and flavored with spices I couldn't quite recognize. I would buy these beans by the 5-gallon bucket. I almost wish I'd never been introduced to these legumes because now I constantly daydream about them.

Remains.

Complimentary napkin wipes. They were needed.

After we gorged ourselves on pork slabs, our waitress pursuaded us into ordering Bananas Foster for dessert. We were told it would be an "experience". The owner of the restaurant came out with a single-burner stovetop and whipped the concoction up right in front of our table. He melted butter, added a cinnamon/brown sugar mixture, then stirred in the bananas. After the bananas were coated, he "flambed" the mixture by tossing a little rum into the pan causing it to burst into flames. Once the flame died out, he poured the blend over a bowl of vanilla ice cream. The glaze became crunchy, the ice cream began to melt, and the bananas were warm. A rather delightful combination of flavors and textures.

Stay tuned...tomorrow we try to recreate Bananas Foster at home...

Food From the Homeland

2010-05-21T15:36:00.000-04:00

I am back in Iowa for the week- hanging out with my parents, annoying my little brother and enjoying my academic freedom. Dinner last night was quite delicious and beautiful. A lovely Iowa farm-friendly meal of mashed/smashed/whipped potatoes, an assortment of vegetables, and pork chops. Of course I had to go and ruin the farm-friendliness with my catfish filet.

1. Boiled potato cubes

2. Mashed potato cubes

3. Whipped potatoes

Vegetables!

George-Formaned pork chops. It was raining outside. Not good grilling weather.

My catfish.

Now that I think about it more, farms have ponds right? Some catfish live in ponds. Maybe catfish could be farm-friendly. Never-the-less, I still recieved some slight oxtracization from my family for choosing fish over pig. They just don't know what they're missing...

College Student No More

2010-05-19T18:56:00.000-04:00

As of May 15th, 2010, I am no longer a student at Kansas State University.

Goodbye college, hello real world.

Lucky Gnocchi

2010-05-09T16:50:00.000-04:00

I seem to be eating with Cyndi a lot lately. A couple Thursday's ago she invited some friends over for a traditional Argentinian gnocchi dinner. After doing some reading up on the topic, I found out that when people got paid on the first of every month in South America so money was always tight by the end of the month. Since there was little funds available, Gnocchi became a good way to enjoy a hearty, inexpensive meal on a meager budget. Gnocchi are cheap since all you really need are potatoes and flour and hence a way of dealing with low funds to eat at the end of every month became a tradition. People all over certain parts of South America get together on the same day every month (29th) just to eat Gnocchi. To partake, you simply slide some money under your plate and eat Gnocchi.

Whole-Wheat Gnocchi

To top off the Gnocchi, Cyndi made a Cannellini, spinach, tomato mixture. It was quite delicious.

After dinner we had Yerba maté tea. Mate tea is another Argentina tradition. The infusion called mate is prepared by steeping dry leaves of yerba mate in hot water. Drinking mate with friends from a shared hollow gourd with a metal straw is a common social practice in Argentina. I blieve Yerba mate tea is an acquired taste. While some may find it enjoyable, I found it extremely bitter. Probably more bitter than anything I've ever tasted- and I love unsweetened coffee. It tastes similar to what I imagine drinking grass would taste like. Supposedly,the health benefits of drinking this beverage are huge though. Go figure.

An Evening in Ethopia

2010-04-22T00:05:00.000-04:00

I am fortunate enough to have friends with connections. My lovely friend Cyndi received some Ethiopian bread from a friend of a friend. It's good to know where your food comes from huh? Anyway, this bread is called Injera. It's a yeast-risen flat bread with a unique, slightly spongy texture. It is traditionally made out of teff flour and is traditionally eaten in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Yemen. This bread sparked an Ethiopian feast.

Injera bread has a spongy, somewhat elastic texture. I wouldn't describe injera bread as all too flavorful. It's simply a vehicle for the main dish.

The first dish Cyndi conjured up is called Ethiopian Cabbage. It contained potatoes, carrots, cabbage, onion, cumin, tumeric, salt, and pepper. It was thick, hearty and spicy. Perfect for eating with injera.

The second dish was Yemiser W'et or Spicy Ethiopian Lentil Stew. It contained red lentils, onion, tomato, garlic, cumin, paprika, and some other spices we don't own. This dish was extremely flavorful and fiery.

Thanks for the wonderful meal Cyndi!

California Here I Come

2010-04-17T20:00:00.000-04:00

Over Spring Break I was able to take a trip to California to visit my brother and sister-in-law. (Yes, I realize that happened 4 weeks ago. Better late than never, eh?) They moved out west this past summer and I promised to visit them in their new home over Spring Break. Plus I love them and wanted to spend some quality bonding time with them. I flew into the John Wayne airport on Monday afternoon.

Legit John Wayne.

One of our first stops in California was a cozy quaint local tea cafe. I got stawberry kiwi iced tea with pineapple Choobees. Choobees are flavored cubed Coconut Jelly. Basically, they sit at the bottom of the cup and you try really hard to suck them up through the giant straw. They are like little chewy squares of fruitbursts. I'm not sure what the nutritional benefits are, but they make tea more entertaining.

We spent one afternoon browsing the local consignment shops in downtown San Clemente.

Downtown San Clemente at dusk

Beach! Of course we wandered around the beach for a couple hours. The ocean is massive, blue, and beautiful. Sadly, we did not build a sand castle or surf.

Before our hiking expidition, we fueled up with crepes at a charming little cafe called La Galette Creperie. I ordered the berry crepe filled with strawberries, blueberries and whipped cream. It was full of berries and delicious. Just the sort of breakfast most hikers would eat before setting out on a mountain voyage. Then we went hiking! If you drive 10 minutes outside San Clemente the scenery vastly changes and it feels as though you've left the city altogether. The terrain was fairly mountainous and full of fun wildlife.

We also spent an afternoon grocery shopping. Grocery shopping is literally one of my favorite things in the world to do. Food shopping is extra awesome in different new locations. My sister-in-law and I went to Trader Joe's, Costco, Albertson's, the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base commissary and the local farmer's market. We shopped for 4 hours. It was glorious. And exhausting.

Local fare.

While shopping around, we stepped into a restaurant called the The Cellar to do a cheese tasting. I can't remember which cheeses we actually sampled, but they were mighty tasty. I'd just like to comment here that my sister-in-law is awesome. She encourages food love and food photography.

I had a lovely time with my brother and sister-in-law in California. I wish I could've stayed longer. Although...they have offered to allow me to stay in their home after I graduate college and become a hobo.

Chocolate Revel Bars

2010-03-19T13:31:00.000-04:00

My parents recently took a trip to Hawaii. Keep in mind while they were in Hawaii, I was toiling diligently over midterms in the rather dreary mid-continental state of Kansas. No, I was not wildly jealous. I definitely would not rather have been exploring mountainous terrain or whale-watching than cramming my brain with daunting calculus formulas. Anyway, for the occasion, my parents bought a new camera. A Canon EOS digital rebel XSI. I was also very jealous of this beautiful machine. Evidently, it's been a jealous period for me lately...

Unfortunately, I am not able to afford a trip to Hawaii or a new camera at this time in my life. However, I am able to take advantage of my parents' new toy while I'm home. I broke out the fancy picture-taker for some less-fancy baking. My little brother needed a dessert for his upcoming basketball banquet, so I volunteered myself for the task. Enter the Touch Ipod I received for Christmas. These gadgets have about a million applications people can download for entertainment, business, health, travel weather, and a variety of other reasons. I tend to gravitate towards food applications. Specifically, the allrecipes.com application caught my eye. A person can search for recipes by ingredient, time allotted or type of meal needed. I went straight for the chocolate desserts. The Chocolate Revel Bars recipe I used can also be found here.

Shiny Red Mixer

Butter and brown sugar. Goodness.

Goodness creamed.

Can-o-sweetened-condensed-milk

pre-baking pan-o-awesome

Baked chocolate.

So I may have used a roasting pan instead of a 9 x 13" by accident. I just got more dense chewy chocolate squares. I win.

This recipe was scrumptious. The bars were chewy, fudgy, dense and chocolaty. They hold their structure well, are simple to assemble and don't require extravagant ingredients. Plus my Mom told me they were a hit at the banquet...

Chana Masala

2010-02-23T00:46:00.000-05:00

Lately, I've been trying to eat more sophisticated food in an effort to make myself feel slightly more cultured. Fortunately for myself this task isn't hard, considering many nights I chow down a bowl of Raisin Bran for dinner. While I do love a heaping bowl of crunchy slightly sweet carbohydrates, girl cannot survive on Honey Nut Cheerios alone.

Tonight I threw together a pot of Chana Masala following the recipe found on Smitten Kitchen. I adore the simplicity of chopping everything up and tossing all the ingredients into a big pot. This uncomplicated process yields impossibly devine results. Also, I am falling in love with Indian food.

Chana Masala, or chole masala, is a popular vegetable dish in Indian cuisine. Main ingredients include chickpeas, tomatoes, and onion. In addition, similar to many Indian dishes, this creation is loaded with spices that add a lovely depth of flavor to the final product. I served the dish over cooked lentils and topped with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt.

Next on the menu is red kidney bean curry! I need to figure out how to make my own Naan soon...

Kolaches

2010-01-28T23:57:00.000-05:00

My last semester at K-State has officially commenced. Classes have begun and I'm bracing myself for the coursework to start rolling my way. My class of greatest concern this semster is Calculus. I have not been nor will ever be a mathmatician of any sorts. Other classes I'm enrolled in include Microbiology, Agricultural Business Communications, Human Resource Management and Family Relations and Gender Rolls. The final class I'm enrolled in this semester is more of a project than a course - I am working for a local grocery store to develop a kolache formula for their new bakery. I'm excited for a new baking challenge, but, I have never seen, eaten or baked a kolache in my life. Should be an interesting project...

Wikipedia told me that kolaches (also spelled kolace, kolach, or kolacky) are a type of pastry consisting of fillings ranging from fruits (including poppy seed, raspberry, and apricot) to cheeses inside a bread roll. They were originally only a sweet dessert from Central Europe (specifically the Czech Republic), but they have become popular in parts of the United States.

This kolache recipe came from my Grandmother. I filled them with raspberry filling. My only qualm with this recipe is that the dough contains a box of instant vanilla pudding. I cannot bring myself to believe that authentic kolaches from Czech call for instant pudding.

Fortunately, both of my parents have consumed kolaches in their childhoods, so I was able to pull from their expertise to compensate for my lack of knowledge. They informed me that these kolaches were delicious and very similar to the treats they grew up eating.

I am still hunting for the ideal kolache formula. It could be a long road to kolachedom.

Christmas Time Was Here

2009-12-27T19:47:00.000-05:00

Better late than never right? This Christmas break has been far busier than expected. My brother and sister-in-law traveled from sunny California to join my family in snowy Iowa. Was great to have the whole family under one roof.

My dad's work-of-art. It has about 1,000 strings of lights wrapped around it.

The huge snow storm blew across the midwest Christmas Eve prevented us from traveling to see family in Kansas. Instead we stayed home, went sledding, made snow angels and played an unhealthy amount of board games. Puzzles were also invoked.

Ice was everywhere.

Snow angel!

Charlie Brown Christmas puzzle

Of course Christmas isn't Christmas without loads of food, so my Mom and I went into a baking frenzy to supply sweets for the holiday week. We made a raspberry cherry pie, pumpkin pie, chocolate peanut butter cake, cinnamon rolls.

FUDGE. The good stuff.

Hot chocolate. Mmm frothy.

Pie of the pumpkin.

This chocolate PB cake was massive and intense. Also, the dessert proved to be quite the challenge. The first attempt at the cake was botched while I was trying to assemble it to frost. I pretty much destroyed the middle layer. In addition, I had baked the layers in 9" cake pans rather than the 8" pans the recipe called for, making the layers thinner than recommended. Second attempt was made using a cake mix (yes, I was ashamed) because we didn't have enough of the required ingredients to attempt the batter from scratch again. I also proceeded to anilate one of the layers while attempting to assemble it for frosting. My mother mixed and baked the final cake layers from a recipe of her own. This cake survived the frosting process. While the cake is a sight to behold, we all agreed the layers were a bit dry and could be moister. I am not too fond of cake these days.

Devil cake.

Raspberry cherry pie goodness.

On the day after Christmas we prepared a hearty brunch. Egg casserole, chocolate chip muffins and fresh fruit with plenty of coffee. My older brother spotted the breakfast casserole recipe came from the Omaha World Herold newspaper. The casserole included eggs, whole wheat bread, sausage, bacon and cheese. It was supposed to have a layer of onions, but some people in my family don't like onions...

These chocolate chip muffins were a hit. They had an immense about of chocolate chips in them.

Coffee- French Press style.

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas!

Random Food Pictures

2009-11-28T13:00:00.000-05:00

I was sifting through my picture folders last night, and thought I'd post some of my favorites that never got a post of their own.

I took this picture this summer. I believe there is yogurt and cereal somewhere in there.

This is a vegetable pizza of sorts. Brussel sprouts, butternut squash, carrots, mushrooms, zucchini, cheese and topped with salsa. I think I ate this for lunch everyday for a week.

Eggs- pretty self explanatory.

Kettle corn! Popcorn is a big deal in my household. We have a stir-crazy popcorn maker and have perfected the art of popping up a bowlful of the fluffy crunchy stuff. My dad likes salty buttery popcorn. Mostly, my dad likes butter. On the other hand, my mom and I really like kettle corn. Basically, the popcorn is coated in sugar while popping. The result is a slightly salty sweet kernel.

Greek yogurt topped with kiwi, ground flax seed and honey.

Adventures in Cinnamon-Roll-Land

2009-11-25T00:56:00.000-05:00

Last week my roommates and I embarked on another late night baking fest. Our victim of choice was the cinnamon roll.

Around 8 o'clock we began our journey by scalding a milk & sugar mixture. At 9 o'clock, when the milk/sugar mixture cooled to lukewarm, we added flour and yeast. When 10 o'clock rolled around we added more flour, salt, and baking soda (I'm still trying to figure out why there is a chemical leavening agent in a yeast raised dough- so far I'm still confused). From there we rolled the dough into a rectangle and added pools of butter, copious amounts of sugar and a heavy dose of cinnamon. Per usual, we had difficulties sheeting the dough out - the first batch was too thick and the second too thin. Maybe next time it will be just perfect. We rolled the our imperfectly thick dough into a log, sliced it up and placed it in pans. It was about this time we started to realize we were going to need a lot more pans than we had originally planned. Unbeknownst to us, the recipe yielded 8 pans of cinnamon rolls - not simply one. Fortunately, the problem was easily solved by rummaging around in our cabinets for more roll baking vehicles. After allowing the mini rounds of happiness proof (rise) for about 30 minutes we popped them into the oven. Twenty minutes later the oven proudly presented us a hot bready cinnamon laden sweet pan of goodness. We moved quickly to top them with sugary icing.

Too thin.

Too thick. In the process of rolling this batch, we emptied about 1/3 of the butter-sugar-cinnamon filling onto the counter. Not wanting to leave any juiciness behind, we spooned the nectar off the counter and onto the rolls.

Our next step in the adventure was to grab three forks, sit on the couch and devour some warm gooey cinnamon rolls. One of the best decisions we made all evening.

However, the real fun began after we had baked and iced all 8 pans. Understanding the profound significance of removing the remaining 7 pans from our apartment -lest we end up eating them all- we drove off at 11:30 PM to deliver the sweet dough mounds to men. First door, none of the roommates we knew were home and we woke up the only guy inside. Sorry. Second house, again the only boys we knew weren't there, and the guy who answered the door looked severely confused. Third house first try- wrong house where we met a really nice girl. Second try- wrong house where we met a bunch of random guys and a dog. Third try- correct house! I believe the problem was the darkness and that all the houses looked the same.

Things I've Noticed About Roommate Baking Sessions:
Reject products are easily and readily consumed
We bake in large quantities by accident
Baking begins after 8 PM
Errors become exposed approximately half way through the process
Things to Improve for Next Roommate Baking Session:
Read directions fully and notice recipe yield amount
Begin baking before 8 PM
Obtain sufficient amounts of necessary ingredients
Notify recipients of baked goods and understand where they live

Here's the recipe we used:

Pioneer Woman Cinnamon Rolls

Ingredients
1 quart Whole Milk
1 cup Vegetable Oil
1 cup Sugar
2 packages Active Dry Yeast
8 cups (Plus 1 Cup Extra, Separated) All-purpose Flour
1 teaspoon (heaping) Baking Powder
1 teaspoon (scant) Baking Soda
1 Tablespoon (heaping) Salt
3 cups (to 4 Cups) Melted Butter
2 cups Sugar
Generous Sprinkling Of Cinnamon
_____
FROSTING:
1 bag Powdered Sugar
2 teaspoons Vanilla
½ cups Milk
¼ cups Melted Butter
⅛ teaspoons Salt

Preparation Instructions
Mix the milk, vegetable oil and sugar in a pan. “Scald” the mixture (heat until just before the boiling point). Turn off heat and leave to cool 45 minutes to 1 hour. When the mixture is lukewarm to warm, but NOT hot, sprinkle in both packages of Active Dry Yeast. Let this sit for a minute. Then add 8 cups of all-purpose flour. Stir mixture together. Cover and let rise for at least an hour.
After rising for at least an hour, add 1 more cup of flour, the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir mixture together. (At this point, you could cover the dough and put it in the fridge until you need it – overnight or even a day or two, if necessary. Just keep your eye on it and if it starts to overflow out of the pan, just punch it down).
When ready to prepare rolls: Sprinkle rolling surface generously with flour. Take half the dough and form a rough rectangle. Then roll the dough thin, maintaining a general rectangular shape. Drizzle 1 ½ to 2 cups melted butter over the dough. Now sprinkle 1 cup of sugar over the butter followed by a generous sprinkling of cinnamon.
Now, starting at the opposite end, begin rolling the dough in a neat line toward you. Keep the roll relatively tight as you go. Next, pinch the seam of the roll to seal it.
Spread 1 tablespoon of melted butter in a seven inch round foil cake or pie pan. Then begin cutting the rolls approximately ¾ to 1 inch thick and laying them in the buttered pans.
Repeat this process with the other half of the dough. Let the rolls rise for 20 to 30 minutes, then bake at 400 degrees (see note below) until light golden brown, about 15 to 18 minutes.
For the frosting, mix together all ingredients listed and stir well until smooth. It should be thick but pourable. Taste and adjust as needed. Generously drizzle over the warm rolls.

Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

2009-11-16T23:11:00.000-05:00

One of my missions in life is to put peanut butter in foods that are secretly hoping peanut butter will be added to them. PB sweet rolls, PB & carrot wraps, PB rice krispi treats, and PB banana bread. PB+ Banana+ Chocolate chips= success. This bread is thick, dense, hefty and rich. I already feel better about the world.

Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

2 c. All-Purpose Flour
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
2 medium ripe mashed bananas
1/2 c. creamy Peanut Butter
3 TBS unsalted butter, softened, divided use
1/2 c. Granulated sugar
1/2 c. Brown Sugar
2 Large Eggs
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla
1/2 c. Milk
3/4 c. Semi-Sweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 tsp Turbinado sugar, optional

Preheat oven to 350 F. Coat 9" loaf pan with butter. In medium sized mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt
In large mixing bowl, using a mixer on medium speed, beat together banana, PB, 2 TBS butter and sugars until creamy. Beat in eggs, vanilla and milk until combined.
Stir in flour mixture until well combined. Add chocolate chips.
Pour batter into prepared pan, bake for 50 minutes. Remove pan from oven, melt additional TBS butter evenly over the top and top with turbinado sugar. Continue to bake an additional 5-10 minutes.
Cool for 20 minutes before removing from pan and transferring to a wire cooling rack.

While this bread is delicious and indulgent when eaten solo, I highly recommend slightly warming a slice in the microwave and topping it with a dollop of peanut butter. More PB never hurt anything.

FarmHouse

2009-11-10T03:29:00.000-05:00

Monday evening I was cordially invited to dine at FarmHouse fraternity. Actually, a friend of mine rather has been rather casually asking me to eat dinner with him at FarmHouse for the entire semester. My friend, Drew, and I actually went to high school together back in the day and I was estatic when he chose attend K-State. He is the only person, outside of my family, to attend K-State from my hometown in Iowa. And he's also majoring in Bakery Science. I'd like to think that I influenced him a little in his decisions... Unfortunately, because he was the only person at K-State from my hometown, he had to bear with my verbal moments of glee whenever we crossed paths on campus. I have, however, really made an effort to tone down my "Hey Everybody! I know that guy!!" proclamations. Poor kid.

Anyway, Drew joined FarmHouse when he arrived at K-State and I'm frequently hearing about his fraternal adventures. Sadly, the fraternity/sorority scene is completely lost on me. But from what I'm told, they have a lot of fun. So when Drew asked if I'd like to have dinner at FarmHouse, how could decline a chance for a greek experience?

Monday night I walked over to FarmHouse after my painful engineering class. The night was rainy and dark, so I slightly irked at Drew for not offering to pick me up. Nevertheless, I arrived safetly and slightly wet to the FarmHouse door where Drew welcomed me inside. In the foyer I could see about 30-40 guys assembled in the living room, talking and waiting for dinnertime.

Drew motioned for me to enter the living room with him, and as I walk in behind him, all the boys stood up. I totally had no idea what was happening and why were all these guys suddeningly standing up? I thought I was missing something and probably had a slightly panicked look plastered on my face. Even now, I'm cringing just thinking about how pathetic I must have looked in front of the entire group of men *sigh*. Evidently, the men of FarmHouse stand up whenever a woman enters the living room. Although I first felt foolish, it's nice to know that chivalry isn't dead everywhere. When we finally made it across the room, I was introduced to the FarmHouse "Mom" who lives in the house with them. The doors opened for dinner shortly thereafter and we were ready to eat.

To adhere to the prestablished chivalrous standards, Drew escorted me (arm in arm) into the main dining room. Because I was a guest we sat at the head table with the house Mom. The rest of the guys filed in behind us and took positions at the round tables standing in the room. When everybody was situated behind a chair, the singing began. The "song leader" began a prayer song and all the boys quickly joined in. The small room filled with men's vioces and...wow... were they were good. So beautiful. Following the prayer song came an actual prayer.

Drew pulled out my chair for me to sit in, and all the guys waited until the "Mom" and I were seated before sitting themselves. I tell you what, I was just simply not prepared for all this chivalrous treatment. Plus it was slighltly awkward. The place settings were set with a salad fork, a dinner fork, a dessert fork, a spoon and a knife. The beverage of choice was tea- no substitutions. We passed around sugar, and many of the guys made sweet tea. Servers brought out dinner and served Mom and I first. On the menu was Rueben sandwiches, green beans, potatoes, and a salad. Conversation at dinner was simply "Leave It to Beaver" style. We talked about old TV shows including Full House, Home Improvement, Seasame Street, Power Rangers and Becker. Simple, clean conversation. After it appeared that most everyone was done with the main dinner, the song leader announced another song- "Lean On Me" and the room broke out into a harmonious rendition of the old classic. This song was supposed to signal to the kitchen that the group was done with their main meal and the dishes could be cleared. While the dishes were being removed, the group sang another song. I asked Drew why they weren't a choir. I'd attend their concerts. Dessert was a fruit cobbler. Once dessert was finished, the guys sang one last song- the FarmHouse theme song or something like that. Drew then escorted me back out and gave me a tour of FarmHouse.

Incredibly, I found this video of the K-State FarmHouse on YouTube. It's a very good tour of FarmHouse. There is sound, but it doesn't come until you've reached the front door.

Honestly, I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I agreed to having dinner at FarmHouse. However, I loved the traditional mannor and how gentlemanly the guys treated women. I don't see much of either of those characteristics much in my daily life. The FarmHouse website says:

FarmHouse encourages social growth and awareness and practice of the conduct of a gentleman that will become so much a part of the man that he is no longer conscious of effort in achieving social amenities.

FarmHouse boys are great guys. I felt very priviledged to be eating dinner with them.

Fall Food

2009-11-03T23:15:00.001-05:00

I've been eagerly awaiting this dinner for the past several days. I'm making more of an effort to eat "real" meals this week. Too much cereal last week. Evidently, cereal does not replace vegetables nutritionally.

Fall is my hands-down my favorite season and this meal is the definition of autumn. Acorn squash, brown rice, dried cranberries, roasted almonds and goat cheese. I followed a recipe from Katheats. Extremely delicious. Goat cheese is so creamy...

The Anti-Friendship Bread

2009-10-19T22:53:00.000-04:00

Do you remember Amish Friendship bread growing up? I remember nursing and caring for those Ziploc baggies filled with fermented batter a couple times during my youth. I never fully understood the process, but the final product was delicious. Recently, my roommate came into possession of 4 Friendship bread starters. So, we tenderly cared for the batter for ten days, "mushing" it everyday, adding more ingredients and even toting the baggies to Kansas City for a weekend lest it be alone. Needless to say, after our dedicated commitment to assuring the dough reached its total potential we were more than excited to bake the final loaves. If only we knew how this Friendship bread would torture us.

We began by taking 2 bags and emptying them into a large bowl. To the starter we added more flour, sugar and milk. We then separated 1 cup of the batter to be saved and passed on to others. We proceeded to use the remaining batter to mix the dough. That's where we went very wrong. We should have portioned out 4 cups into individual bags and saved only 1 cup to create the dough from. We failed to properly read the directions. Yes, we are both seniors in college.

Because our dough was so disproportionately wet, we panned 6 loaves instead of 4. We didn't fully recognize our mistake until the pans were already in the oven. Fail. After a brief period of mourning and feeling of defeat we decided to allow them to bake regardless. The failed loaves actually ended up tasty, but slightly burnt on top. Between three of us, we didn't have much difficulty eating the good parts though.

Fail bread

After a brief grieving period for the loaves we lost, we regrouped, remixed and re-baked. Our final product was three loaves. Now, we originally began with 4 bags of starter batter. From those 4 bags we should have portioned out 5 new batters equaling 20 starters. Each starter makes 2 loaves. All totalled we would have made 40 loaves of friendship bread. Ultimately, it was for the best that we didn't bake 40 loaves of bread. We didn't have the ingredients nor need for 40 loaves of friendship bread.

After this experience, friendship bread and I are no longer on speaking terms.

Birthday Bouquets and Paper Trail

2009-10-18T20:33:00.000-04:00

My birthday was a couple days ago and look at the beautiful bouquets I received!

My new sister-in-law must already know me too well. She & my brother sent me this fantastic fruit bouquet. It's edible! And fruit! I love fruit. I was ecstatic when this came through the door and as soon as I finished taking 121 pictures of its beauty I comsumed approximately half of it on the spot. So wonderful! Thank you Tejal & Evan!

The next beautiful bouquet came from one of my very good friends. We went out for breakfast at a cute cafe and afterwards she bought me these lovely fall flowers. She said I got fall colors because I'm a "fall person". Thanks Carolyn!

My Mom and family sent me loads of cards too. Some of them sang!

Birthday card parade:

Birthdays are great :)

A Korean Connection

2009-10-14T22:31:00.000-04:00

This evening I had the privilege of dining on a home-cooked Korean meal. I've never eaten Korean food and was excited to taste a meal prepared by one of my good friends who is studying at K-State from Korea. She said the meal she prepared was very similiar to food her mother would make as an everyday meal.

Right from the get-go I knew I was going to love this meal. Check out this incredible jar of Kimchi. Nearly 8 lbs of spicy cabbage. The label said it contained Chinese cabbage, radishes, water, salt, onion, red pepper, garlic, spices, fish sauce and salted shrimp. What's fish sauce? I think I need to eat more Kimchi in order to fully apreciate the flavors and texture.

Next we had a soup made with fermented red bean paste, zucchini, red pepper, tofu and oysters. The oysters were soft and lovely. After eating this soup I feel that everything should be fermented.

Black paper! Actually, it's seaweed paper. It's cut into squares and we ate it by using the chopsticks to fold it around rice to resemble a rice/seaweed roll-thing. Probably my favorite part about the meal. Between the seaweed paper and rice there was this great crunchy/chewy texture.

She made an onion and egg roll/omlete. The tofu was pan seared and covered in a sauce. I'm not certain exactly what was in the sauce, but I know it contained onions...

For dessert she made chia tea. Now, I realize chia tea isn't exactly Korean, but it's still international so it qualifies for this meal.

For our next meal, I'm responsible for cooking something "American". We actually spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what that meant. So far I haven't decided on anything. Ideas?

Homecoming

2009-10-06T17:47:00.000-04:00

I am taking a break from my mammoth BioChem study session to post some food pictures. I have a test in BioChemistry and Engineering Graphics tomorrow, so I will be feeling much less anxious after 6:30 tomorrow evening. Right now, however, I'm trying to cram as much information about aldehydes, ketones, esters, amides and carbohydrates into my brain as possible.

Last weekend I traveled home for the long weekend. K-State had fall break so I had Monday off and was able to go home for my little brother's homecoming parade and football game. Many wonderful foods were eaten.

Vegetable Salad

Cheesy Potatoes & BBQ Pulled Pork

It's a fall (and winter & spring & summer) tradition in our household to make caramel popcorn. As a family we've been making the sweet crunchy kernels for many years and have virtually perfected the recipe now. When I lived in Chicago a couple summers ago, I had access to Garrett's caramel popcorn. Garrett's takes caramel popcorn extremely seriously and once you've tasted their buttery rich version of the treat, it's hard to submit your taste buds to any other version. So we experimented with a variety of different caramel popcorn recipes and have finally found one that compares the Garrett's caliber. Normally, my Dad is in charge of popping the popcorn and I stir up the caramel sauce. Then we pour the syrup over the kernels and stir up the popcorn together. This is very addicting stuff.

My Mom made apple pie. But not just you're run-of-the-mill apple pie. She made a Caramel Pecan Cinnamon Apple pie. Instead of another crust on top, it's covered in struesel. Very delicious with vanilla ice cream.

For the non-pie eaters of the family, my Mom also made an ice cream cake roll. It's a chocolate sponge cake rolled with vanilla ice cream. Ice cream cake roll is another family tradition. It's my grandmother's recipe and she's famous for always having it in her freezer.

Week 6 of marathon training got devoured by studying for 3 exams, writing a paper, homework and working in a bakery. Running should resume to semi-normal this week. Hopefully sleeping will resume to semi-normal this week too. Okay, back to studying!

No-Bake Cookies

2009-09-28T19:10:00.001-04:00

So I have this friend named Alee. Whenever I make no-bake cookies I think of her and smile. She is a no-bake cookie goddess. I love no-bakes because they are super easy, quick to make and ridiculously delicious. Honestly though, whenever I make no-bake cookies it tends to stem from a craving for the warm buttersugarpeanutbutteroat mass created in the pot. I eat it straight from the pot by spoonfuls. No shame. Here's to you Alee!

Ingredients:
1/2 c. Butter or shortening
2 c. Sugar
1/2 c. Milk
1/4 c. Cocoa Powder
1/2 c. Peanut Butter
3 c. Quick-cooking oats

Process:
Boil butter, sugar and milk in a medium pot. Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter until smooth. Add cocoa powder and oats. Drop by spoonfuls onto waxed paper. Allow to cool or refrigerate.

Dinner Party

2009-09-19T22:53:00.000-04:00

These past few weeks have been very busy. School has preoccupied more of my life than I prefer. Between going to classes, doing homework, study for quizzes and exams, writing lab reports, group meetings and everyday activities, I haven't had much free time. I feel most of my classes are going well enough. Surprisingly, I'm enjoying engineering graphics more than I ever thought possible and I actually don't despise Intro to Organic & Biological Chemistry. Food during these hectic weeks has been delicous though.

My roommate (a lovely talented baker & cook) made snickerdoodles yesterday and filled the apartment with wonderful cinnamon smells. They were buttery coins of cinnamon divinity.

I had been keeping a couple severely overripe bananas on the counter the past week to bake some banana bread. Friday afternoon I had a couple free hours so the banana bread was born! However, I was slightly dissappointed with the recipe I used. I don't think this is my favorite banana bread and probably won't be making it again. Wasn't as moist as banana bread should be. But I'm sure I'll manage to choke it down somehow :) Just add more butter right Dad?

Last weekend the campus ministry Christian Challenge held their annual Sushi party. So much sushi! As soon as you opened the door to the building, sushi smells flooded out. I love sushi and it's hard to come by in the midwest. They even had octopus sushi! It was a beautiful sight.

Tonight was a dinner party with a pasta theme! My roommates and I made lasagna rolls. We started with whole wheat pasta, made a ricotta & mozzerella spinach mixture, rolled them into indvidual mini lasagna lumps and topped them with tomato sauce.

Naturally, I couldn't resist adding more vegetables to my rolls. I sliced up some zucchini and mushrooms to add to the mix. Made for a very chunky roll.

Any dinner party is not complete without brownie sundaes. I whipped together a quick pan of brownies and we topped them with vanilla ice cream and fudge. Making dinner with friends is such a fun way to spend the evening.

Brownie pan after we demolished our sundaes. Most people don't like the corners, which is sad. I actually love the corner pieces. I'm happy to live with people who don't like them so I can have more of them.

On the running front, I'm right on schedule with my training plan. Most days I actually look forward to running, which is mind boggling to my brain. I hope it never wears off. Only 29 weeks to go...

Take care!

The Marathon Project

2009-09-06T22:33:00.000-04:00

mar·a·thon
Pronunciation: \ˈmer-ə-ˌthän, ˈma-rə-\
Etymology: Marathon, Greece, site of a victory of Greeksover Persians in 490
b.c., the news of which was carried to Athens by a long-distance runner
Date: 1896
1 : a long-distance race: a : a footrace run on an open
course usually of 26 miles 385 yards (42.2 kilometers) b : a race other than a
footrace marked especially by greatlength 2 a : an endurancemcontest b :
something (as an event, activity, or session) characterized by great length or
concentrated effort

Marathons loom as incredibly intimidating feats over an average person such as myself. An ancient Grecian runner I am not. I'm just a college student that can barely collect enough concentrated effort to finish homework assignments.

After the jarring realization that I recently entered my final year of college however, I've decided to actively pursue some goals that have been hibernating in my mind for the past couple years. After successfully finishing a half marathon last fall, I knew that someday a full 26.2 miles would be in order. Now seems like as good a time as ever.

I've got a training schedule, good running shoes, the Abilene Eisenhower marathon in April, and a varying degree of sanity to help me complete the task. The actual date for the Eisenhower marathon hasn't been posted online yet, but it's sometime between early to mid April. I figure I have roughly 30-31 weeks to train, which should theoretically provide plenty of time to prepare. Theoretically. I intend to upload my training schedule, once I figure out how...

Anyway, so the marathon is going to be my project this semester/year. I figure at the very least it will give me something to regularly blog about.

Today I ran 2 miles on this lovely fall afternoon. Until tomorrow!

Edit: Here's my marathon training schedule!

First Week Down

2009-08-28T16:30:00.000-04:00

I survived the first week of classes. Was a very long five days. It's going to take a few weeks to get used to the whole school schedule thing again. My courses for the semester are:

Intro to Organic & Biological Chemistry - nice professor, I'm frightened of the labs, but should be an alright class.
Engineering Graphics - extremely tedious slow work, I am 1 of 2 girls in the class.
Food Microbiology - really funny professor, interesting material, lots of lab work
Professional Selling - the professor is really into "roll playing"...I loathe roll playing. And business classes have never been my specialty.

BioChem and Food Micro both have two labs a week. That threw me off. I already completely forgot to go to one of the BioChem labs. That was not a fun way to start the week. Luckily I am able to make it up tomorrow.

Here are some examples of my engineering homework. This is what we did the first day:

In other epic news, the HyVee in Manhattan opened right before school started. It's the greatest thing to ever happen to Manhattan. I love it dearly. It's so clean and bright and new and huge and lovely. I really enjoy grocery shopping. They have wonderful produce, fish and large variety of yogurt. I can't ask for anything more. However, Aldi still holds a special spot in my heart.

I went for a quick run this evening at Anneberg Park. It's such beautiful weather for running. Tomorrow is another full slate of classes. Oh and tomorrow is the first night of Bake Club! Should be fun :)

On-the-Fence Brownies

2009-08-14T22:48:00.000-04:00

Brownies are a blessing to this earth. These chocolate dream cubes often carry gooey caramel, creamy peanut butter, chunky walnuts, thick frosting, crisp mint filling, fluffy marshmallows, rich ganache, and hoards of other creative confections. But sometimes, I just need to go back to the basics. These brownies are simple and delicious and they offer a perfect compromise between fudgy and cakey. They are dense and fudgy yet thick sturdy. This recipe originally came from the King Arthur Flour website. Heating the sugar in the batter preparation will dissolve more of the sugars and yield a delightful shiney top crust on the brownies.

1 c. (226 g) unsalted Butter
2 1/4 c. (450 g) Granulated Sugar
1 1/4 c. (125 g) Cocoa Powder
1 tsp (5 g) Salt
1 tsp (5 g) Baking Powder
1 TBS (15 g) Vanilla
4 large Eggs
1 1/2 c. (190 g) All-Purpose Flour
1 c. (170 g) Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1 c. (226 g) Walnuts or Pecans (optional)

In a medium saucepan, or microwavable bowl, melt butter then add sugar and stir to combine. Return the mixture to heat breifly, just until it's hot (about 110-120 degrees), but not bubbling.

Stir in cocoa, salt, baking powder and vanilla. Whisk in the eggs until smooth. Add flour, chips and nuts.

Pour into a lightly greased 9 x 13" pan and bake at 350 F for 27-30 minutes.

This recipe can also be easily halved and baked in an 8 x 8" pan.

Kitchen Sink Cookies

2009-08-14T16:16:00.000-04:00

I love baking when I'm home because there are more people to bake for and my mom always has a fully stocked kitchen. And I love Kitchen Sink cookies because I'm an indecisive person and these cookies allow me to put virtually everything into one without having to decide- Hurray!

1/2 c. unsalted Butter
1/2 c. + 2 TBS Granulated Sugar
1/4 c. Brown Sugar
1 Egg
1 TBS Milk
1 tsp Vanilla
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 1/2 c. Oats
3/4 + 3 TBS Flour
1/2 c. Choc. chips
1/2 c. PB chips
1/2 c. Rice Krispis
1/2 c. Shredded Coconut

Cream butter and sugars.
Add egg, vanilla and milk until well combined
Combine flour, baking soda and salt. Stir into creamed mixture.
Add oats, chips, Rice Krispis and coconut and stir until well combined
Drop by spoonfuls onto slightly greased cookie sheet
Bake at 375 F for 10-12 minutes

Girl Vs. Boy

2009-08-13T10:42:00.000-04:00

At lunch yesterday, after another discussion about the differences between my daily diet and the rest of my family's, I suggested doing a post showing what Russ (my 18 year old little brother) eats versus what I eat on a daily basis. Surprisingly, Russ willingly agreed. So today Russ & I took pictures of everything we ate.

Breakfast!

Russ:

1 flour tortilla
2 strips bacon
3 slices roast beef
2 eggs
handful of cheddar cheese
glass of O.J.
Cherry Juicy Juice

Kelsey:

40 g Kashi GoLean cereal
3 strawberries
8 g Almond Butter
4 oz Skim Milk
giant coffee
H20

Lunch & Mid Afternoon Snacks

Russ:

Hamburger Helper
Snickers & cheese stick
2 cookies
Gatorade + water + Juicy Juice

Kelsey:

Carrot + Almond Butter Wrap
Apple
Boiled Egg
Odwalla Bar
water in there somewhere

Dinner

Russ:

3 Chicken hunks (he put one back- epic fail Russ) w/ BBQ sauce
Broccoli
Potatoes w/ Ketchup
fruit cup (in reality he probably only ate 3/4 of it)

cookie
enormous bowl of Cookies & Cream ice cream

Kelsey:

Tuna fillet
Broccoli
Potatoes
Fruit cup

more fruit left in the bowl

I asked Russ if he had anything to say about what he ate. He said, "I'm the man." I'll say that he eats a lot more meat, drinks a wider variety of beverages, and- aganist all odds- consumes more sweets than I do. Oh to be an 18-year-old-football-crazed-lawn-mowing boy...

Texas & The First Supper

2009-08-12T00:31:00.000-04:00

I finished with the bakery last week and made the trip back up north to Iowa. Back to a more temperate climate, smaller town and greener grass. I am happy to be at home with my family and will really enjoy spending the next week with them. Although I feel my true home is in Iowa, there are definately some things I'll miss about Texas.

Obscenely large trucks
Two-step dancing
Blue Baker & co-workers
My roommate's TiVo
Fresh seafood in grocery stores
the possiblity of eating at Sushi restaurants
Hilarious yet intriguing and intellectual conversations with my roommate

However, there are things I will not miss about TX:

Killing enormous cockroaches
Road medians
110 degree weather everyday
Stop light cameras
Sweating the moment I step outside
geckos
crazy drivers

Home for the summer

View from my home in IOWA!

Whenever my older brother or I come home from college, my Mom likes to prepare a nice dinner for our first meal. It's a tradition I highly enjoy. However, I get a lot of grief from my family about the food I eat. With two brothers and a Kansas-farm-raised father, I often get questioned for why I frequently choose black beans over beef, carrots over BBQ potato chips, and tuna over pork chops. In general, I don't eat exactly how a girl raised in rural Iowa would eat. But mostly, I think my food selection is always a popular conversation because it's just an easy way to tease me.

So, for one of my first meals back home my Mom made roast beef, corn on the cob and potatoes. And fresh fruit. Very American. Very delicious.

Later I made some cookies for dessert:

Kitchen Sink Cookies- Oatmeal, PB chips, chocolate chips & Rice Krispis

My Mom and I are driving west to Omaha tomorrow to spend the day in the city. We're going to a "paint your own pottery" shop in the afternoon to spend a couple hours creating our own pottery masterpieces. Should be a fun afternoon.

Blurry

2009-08-05T00:37:00.000-04:00

These past couple days seemed to have run together. I can't believe tomorrow is Wednesday. Only two more days left in the bakery! It's a bittersweet feeling. On one hand, I'm really excited to go home and spend time with my family and I think I've learned everything I wanted to learn from the bakery this summer, but on the other hand I will be sad to go and leave behind new friends I've made.

This morning at the bakery I got to work with the other intern Abby. It's the first time I was able to work with her all summer, and we had a lot of fun. As the only two girls in the bakery, I really enjoy talking and working with her becuase we're finally able to have conversations about things other than ninjas, cars, and lifting weights. It's fantastic.

Italian Batard

Parmeson Cheese bowls used for salads

For dinner I just wanted something easy. An almond butter + carrot wrap with a salad with stawberry & yogurt dressing.

I'm headed to work in a half an hour and baking pastries this morning. Bread baking is still my favorite baking shift though. Good Morning!

17 Cups of Coffee and 24 Hours Later...

2009-08-03T01:45:00.000-04:00

...I finished my Labor Relations homework. It's submitted. Finished. I wash my hands of it. Never speak to me about unions, arbitrators, contract clauses or worker strikes again. I finished my test just in time to come home, change into my work clothes, eat a bowl of cereal and head off to the bakery. I was awake for 24 hours today. Fortunately work went really smoothly this morning and I was able to finish right on time. The bakery has started work to replace the wood-fired brick oven with a newer gas system. I was super sad to hear they were swapping out wood for gas, but can understand how it makes more sense financially. Since the brick oven is under construction all the bread had to be baked in the convectional MIWE.

Everything around the oven is all tarped up. We've been cooling the oven down by loading ice-filled pans for the past couple days. Because the walls hold heat for days and the oven is never cooled past 380 F it takes a long time the radiant heat built up over the years to dissipate.

Cappuccino Chip Bread & Cinnamon Rolls

Lots of food from the marathon homework session yesterday!

Kashi GoLean

1/2 Banana

Blueberries

PB/ Almond Butter

Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze

Lunch was:

Egg & cheese wrap

Broccoli & squash

Then I changed location and went to Blue Baker and slaved away for five hours. I snacked on an apple & Chocolate Chip Clif ZBar. And buckets of coffee.

I came home and made a quick dinner.

Seared Tuna

Boiled carrots

Balsamic Vinegar Salad

Later I ate a PB Clif bar and an iced coffee.

Right before I went to work I had some more cereal! Gotta keep the addiction alive.

Kashi GoLean

1/2 Banana

4 oz Skim Milk

Plans for this evening include a possible grocery run, a quick run, and just relaxing some before work at 1 AM again. I also want to go back to the bakery in the evening sometime this week to pictures of the lamination process. I'm pretty tired from my epic 24 hour day yesterday, so I think I'm mostly just going to lay low. Have a good evening!