BCP: Shortbread Cookies

Does this look fun to you? Me neither. Some tips for next time:

#1 If you've never made pie crust before, you need to realize shortbread has a lot of pie crusting skills involved.

#2 Don't use a food processor when the directions clearly call fo a mixer (and you don't have a paddle attachment).

#3 Shortbread dough is sticky.

#4 Don't overbake the shortbread.

Next....

BCP: Caramel Chocolate Nut Ice Cream

Let me begin by saying I'm a bit of an ice cream fanatic. And I love lots of "stuff" in my ice cream. Not to mention in addition to the stuff in the ice cream, I normally add a touch of peanut butter and dry oatmeal as my ice cream topping. Yes, I'm disgusting (or so my husband says!).

My sweet, dear hubby once again helped the cause by single-handedly making this ice cream for me. We bought an ice cream maker at Lowe's about 8 years ago and I think this is the third time we've used it. It makes great ice cream and is easy to use but I can't seem to give up my Edy's--it's cheap plus you don'thave to wait when you need a fix.

This ice cream required many steps. First, to make the "caramel" element, hubby slowly (and I mean ssslllooowwwlllyyy) stirred and stirred waiting for the sugar to disolve into water over a very low heat setting. Then he combined this with straight heavy cream (Ina skips a ratio of milk and halfnhalf and just goes straight to the good stuff). Pour this into an ice cream maker for awhile. Then mix in chopped chocolate truffles and pecans.

The end result was a very rich, almost buttery ice cream. It had a slightly burned flavor that I think was intentional. It was good but really too much. I might make this again and scale down the cream. Or maybe I'll just stick with Edy's:-)

The World As I Know It Has Ended.

My computer bit the dust this week. Ouch. I am squeezing in a quick internet session at the library--so much to do in 25 minutes!!! Anyway, thanks for stopping by and I should be back in action near the end of December (we leave on a cruise in three days!). Don't give up on me--I'm still cooking!! It will just take a bit of catch-up once we get our new system.

BCP: Pesto, Pesto Spaghetti

What can you say about pesto that hasn't already been said? Garlicky, oily, cheesy, basily deliciousness. I think that about covers it.

No real surprises to this recipe aside from some walnuts and pignolis.

Oh, if you want some good, clean fun, drive down to your local supermarket and start asking random employees what aisle pignolis are on. The blank stares are worth the price of gas.

Ina should probably include "pine nuts" in parenthesis just to give readers a fighting chance.

I get a two-fer with this recipe as once you make the pesto, just toss it with cooked spaghetti to satisfy another BCP recipe. Yea!

BCP: Tropical Smoothie

You really don't need a recipe to make a smoothie. That's the whole beauty of this drink--throw a bunch of stuff in a blender and get something new each time.

My kids really liked this recipe and drank the majority of it themselves. Then again, we usually drink spinach smoothies in our home so the fact that this smoothie was a beautiful fuchsia instead of bright green was a huge selling point.

If you want a diversion from the traditional smoothie, throw a banana, two cups of loosely packed fresh spinach and a cup of water into the blender. Blend until smooth. It know it sounds really disgusting but it's actually quite tasty. And it's a super easy way to get in your veggies!

A BCP Thanksgiving Special: Spinach Gratin, Smashed Sweet Potatoes with Apples and Chocolate Ganache Cake

We usually head to South Florida for Thanksgiving so I haven't had a chance to try out this type of holiday fare before this year. I selected a few recipes to bring to my parent's house: Spinach Gratin, Smashed Sweet Potatoes with Apples and Chocolate Ganache Cake.

My dear husband, Dave, helped me with the arduous task of squeezing three boxes of frozen (now thawed but still really cold!) chopped spinach. Anyone who has ever squeezed even one box of spinach can certainly commiserate with the sheer tedium of this task. But Dave's not a big cooker man so I thought this would be easy if not boring. (And secretly I was doing cartwheels inside knowing I wouldn't have to do this--yeah!!!).

While the spinach was being prepped, I began heating the secret BCP ingredient--butter! Oh how Ina loves her butter. Actually this recipe only called for a tablespoon or two to saute an onion. Then the second rockstar ingredient--cream! Boil this with a pinch of nutmeg, some Parmesan cheese and the spinach and get it all gooey and yummy. Spoon it into a baking dish and top with more parm and Gruyere cheese. I took the dish over at this point and then just heated it when we were close to eating. I think we left it in a touch too long as it got a bit brown but it was soooooo good!!! I really don't like cooked spinach but I loved this--maybe my favorite recipe of the day!



Next was the Smashed Sweet Potatoes with Apples. Thankfully I glanced at this recipe early in the morning because I forgot that I'd have to cook and cool the sweet potatoes before actually assembling the dish. It took a good hour plus to fully cook the potatoes. Thanks again to my wonderful hubby for following the recipe and making the sweet potato portion of this dish while I worked on the apple element.

After scooping out the sweet potato meat, you add a touch of orange juice, cream and butter (hooray!), a bit of brown sugar and a pinch of both cinnamon and nutmeg. Using a mixer, blend this all together until creamy and smooth and spoon into a baking dish. Meanwhile, peel/core/slice a few apples and cook these in a skillet with butter and brown sugar. Place on top of sweet potatoes. When ready to eat, just pop in the over for about 20 minutes.

I liked the sweet potato portion of this dish but it is very sweet. Everyone said it tasted just like the filling of a pumpkin pie. The apples were okay. I don't think it added anything to the dish and I'd probably skip them in the future.

Bad news. I totally forgot to take a picture of the Chocolate Ganache Cake. It went very fast and was so good. The cake itself was not difficult to make even though it looks quite fancy. You do need a spring form pan though. The ingredients are fairly simple: butter, sugar, chocolate (actually Hershey's chocolate syrup!), and a mere one cup of flour. It's important not to over bake this cake or it will be dry and tough. That's one thing I hate about baking (in addition to having to really measure the ingredients!)--I can never tell when baked goods are ready. I'm a notorious under-baker because I hate dry cake, cookies, brownies, etc. I think I did well on this. The center was still very moist but it was definitely done.

The ganache is made from heavy cream (wee!), chocolate chips and instant coffee granules (I used a tablespoon or two of strong brewed coffee instead). Melt all this in a pan (it said to use a double broiler but I don't have one--really not necessary) and pour over the cake. There's a ton of extra ganache so we ended up using this as a sauce to go on top of the cake when sliced. Total heaven!

BCP: Sour Cream Coffee Cake

I'll begin by saying making a cake from scratch is a lot of work. This cake especially, had so many dang steps to it that I wanted to beat someone about halfway through. Couple that with a few screw-ups on my end and it was a long afternoon!

Ina calls this coffee cake her homemade version of a Drake's Cake. I've never had a Drake's Cake so can't really compare.

You need a tube pan to make this cake. I don't have one so I substituted a bundt cake pan. This essentially delivers the same results.

The best way to begin is to work on your mise en place. I'll admit I usually skip this step and just fly by the seat of my pant adding this and that and making a huge mess. But because you have to dump and mix so many different ingredients I decided to treat my self and mise en place everything first (can that be a verb?).



The brown sugar component is the struesal and was comprised of several ingredients. Once I made the batter, I poured half in the greased pan, added a layer of struesal, poured the remaining batter in and topped with the rest of the struesal. Here is where my first error occurred. Since my bundt cake has ridges, I should have actually layered struesal/batter/struesal/batter because after the cake is cooked, you are supposed to flip the cake over and not have struesal on top. Oh well.

I baked the cake and flipped the cake to cool. I then whisked together maple syrup and confectioner's sugar for the glaze. Unfortunately, I did not whisk this nearly enough so there were quite a few unsightly clumps (error #2).



So, I flipped the cake again and it looked nice. The time the bottom for glazed instead of the top but the flavors were all there. My family loves sweets but this probably would not fall into our favorites category. The flavor and texture were awesome but it was a tad dry. The cake still dissppeared within a couple days so it was obviously pretty good!

BCP: Lobster, er, Crab Rolls

My kids went to Grandma's this past weekend so I thought it the perfect opportunity to make one of the more expensive dishes from Barefoot Contessa Parites (BCP). Mainly because I could scale down the recipe to feed two instead of our usual family of four.

I was excited to make the Lobster Rolls. They looked yummy but not too frou-frou. I've had lobster a few times on a cruise but I've never made it at home...and apparently never will.

After perusing two separate grocery stores, neither carrying lobster (am I out of season??), I decided to switch gears and use crab as my base. I didn't break any rules though (ha!): Ina says if lobster is too expensive to substitute crab or shrimp. I chose crab because it's a bit more high end and we almost never eat it.


Sweetbay had just received a shipment of beautiful stone crab claws so I ordered a pound for about $10. The other ingredients were pantry staples: mayo, celery, dill weed, S&P. Hubby and I had fun cracking the claws and making the recipe together--something we don't do very often.

The end result: The crab rolls were tasty but nothing extraordinary. I served them on potato rolls (which I love!). The meat was tender but I didn't think this recipe had any more flavor than a tuna sandwich. It sounds exciting using crab and it was fun to eat (especially paired with some celebratory champagne) but I don't think I'd make these again.

BCP:Cinnamon Honey Butter

After a trip to the grocery store today, I was finally able to tackle my first recipe: Cinnamon Honey Butter. It's funny--this recipe took all of two minutes to make--very simple--but would be quite impressive to serve to guests.

Simply combine unsalted butter (room temperature), good honey (i.e. whatever you have!), cinnamon and kosher salt. Whip this up with an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or in my case, a food processor) and you've got yourself some fancy butter!

I don't need fancy butter right this minute but I popped it in a Ziploc container and stuck it in the freezer for when we do have guests.

I have a bunch of recipes picked out for the week--including some for Thanksgiving--so stick with me. Fancy-schmancy butter is the only the beginning....

My Way (i.e. I reserve the right to make the rules)

#1 I'm not cooking the recipes in order. Though BCP (Barefoot Contessa Parties!) is set up as a series of "menus" for entertaining, I am going to take some liberties to play around. Let's take caviar for example. There are two recipes (in different sections) calling for caviar. Instead of buying two containers of caviar at different times, I'll probably make these recipes within a couple days of each other. Really a money-saving technique.

#2 I reserve the right to adjust serving sizes. I'll probably make 1/3 to 1/2 of certain recipes. Most of BCP's recipes are meant for gatherings of 8-10 people. My family of four doesn't need a chicken soup calling for three 5-pound chickens. I can easily scale the recipes down so we aren't saddled with a month of leftovers.

#3 I'm going to shoot for making at least three recipes each week. Some weeks I may be able to knock out a few extras.

Julia Child, French Laundry, Alinea, Gourmet....Barefoot Contessa?!

No, I don't think I'm in the same league with people cooking Thomas Keller's inspired creations but there are several reasons I selected Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Parties! as my initial cookbook.

1) I don't want to waste food. I'm married with two young children. While I feel that my husband and kids are very supportive of whatever I'm doing, I'm pretty sure they'd draw the line at pig snout and calf hooves. Unfortunately, my husband is super picky with vegetables: no mushrooms, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini or squash (to name a few). Do you understand what I'm working with here?!?! So I selected a book that could feed my family--not my trash can. I just don't live in a world where fois gras is coveted.

2) I love Ina's easy, breezy style. Whether reading her many cookbooks or watching her show on Food Network, she is welcoming and warm. She never seems stressed or pretentious. I know people have a love/hate thing for her but I hope you'll learn to embrace your inner-Ina.

3) The food is awesome! It's not snooty nor does it try too hard. Barefoot Contessa aims to comfort. And who couldn't use some of that as we approach the colder months (well those of you who don't live in Florida with me!). Not to mention Barefoot Contessa Parties is a mere 81 recipes--I think I can knock this out in a few months.

4) This book allows me to dip my toe in the water--before I dive in head first.

Let's get started!

Um, why?

A couple years ago, I read the intriguing Julie & Julia project--a married, no kids New Yorker chronicled her attempt (and success!)cooking all 524 recipes of Julia Child's infamous Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I in the span of 365 days.

I don't know what exactly appealed to me about cooking my way through an entire cookbook. I've had the idea several times but never quite got around to diving into the project. After stalking several blogs of people doing the same, I've decided to go for it.

Plus, I need a new blog to spout my thoughts.

Hope you'll join me for the adventure....