Piece of Mind Cost Me $18

Baking can be great fun or great frustration in my kitchen. On a good day, I can zip through a few recipes no big deal, happy as a clam and full of dough and batter. On a bad day, I cuss like a freaking sailor. Yesterday was a cussing day.

It was in part rainy and snowy, making for an exhausting drag-yourself-around-the-house-like-a-zombie day; it was really hard to get out of bed even after a full night's sleep.

So I decided it was a soup day. And you need bread with soup. Need it. But the only thing I really had time to make was a quick bread. I've been meaning to try and replicate these scones I had at this little coffee shop in Charleston, and have been looking for a test recipe. They were sun-dried tomato and basil scones. And there was cheese in there, too, but I can't recall what kind.

The recipe I found called for dried basil rather than fresh (note to self: try fresh next time around) and grated Asiago cheese (I think either a milder cheese like mozzarella or a full-blown Cheddar would be better).

I mixed everything according to standard scone instructions (and another note: make sure you choose a bowl big enough to work your hands around in. I think I bruised up my knuckles using one that was too small. Mixing scones any other way than with your hands really doesn't work.) and rolled the dough into a round. I usually prefer to make drop scones, but the recipe was for a round so I followed instructions.

I preheated my oven and baked the things at the maximum time. When I pulled them out, I thought they looked a bit undercooked but told myself it was just the cheese melting. Nope. After they cooled and I pulled them apart, it was clear that the scones were half raw inside.

So I heated the oven and popped them back in.

Meanwhile, I had also made my first batch of cheese biscuits (crackers more than biscuits, really) and wasn't very happy with how they came out. They had the right consistency but pretty much fell apart when I tried to remove them from my very greased baking sheet.

At this point, you can imagine I was getting pretty annoyed. For a while now, I've been questioning whether our oven is heating to the correct temperature. Yesterday proved to be my breaking point. I decided that if it the oven was in fact running off temperature, it might be a big part of the frustration with these recipes. So, out of extreme exasperation, I finally broke down and found an oven thermometer at WilliamsSonoma.com, called the store to confirm they carried it, and drove over there to pick it up.

$19.52 later (that's with tax), I discovered that the oven I was using has indeed been heating to about 25 degrees lower than the setting. Good to know! I doubt our landlord will pay to have the ovens calibrated, but at least now I know how to set the freaking thing so that I can bake correctly.

Personally, I think it was money well spent. In reality, I guess I don't have to use the thing more than twice here, but it'll certainly come in handy if we move.

And the scones did finally bake and my subsequent cheese biscuit batches came out much better. So after all that I had a yummy snack and bread to go along with my soup (which thankfully proved not to be frustrating at all).

If you're interested, here's the thermometer I bought. Pretty inexpensive and it clips right to the oven rack.

Bread!

Ever since I read Cathy Erway's The Art of Eating In, I've been dying to try the No Knead Bread method that came out in 2006. Here's the NY Times article that started it all. I'm likening it to the slow-cooker method. You know, you put all of your ingredients in the slow cooker, leave to go to work and when you come home you have dinner ready. That's a bit what this bread method is like.

First, you have to plan a day ahead of time to make it. I started mine around lunchtime with the intention of having it baked and ready for dinner the following evening (I had made some semi-clam chowder and we had at least one leftover meal left out of it).

It really couldn't have been easier. I mixed my bread, salt, and yeast and then added the water per the instructions. I also tossed in a couple of teaspoons of fresh chopped rosemary. I then wrapped the bowl in plastic wrap and left it.

Now, I think that although my recipe worked, I have a sneaking suspicion that my kitchen is way too cold to actually allow the chemicals to all work their magic. I found a tip online where the person heats her oven to 350 for one minute and then turns it off, placing the bread into the warmed oven to rise.

The instructions for the following day are to roll the dough into a ball and leave under a towel to rise for two hours. I left mine for an hour and a half with no real results. The tip did say that eventually even bread left in a cold kitchen will rise, but I stuck mine in the oven for 30 min and then proceeded with the baking instructions and it worked fine.

After plopping the dough into the hot Crueset pot, I sprinkled about 1/4-1/2 cup flaked Parmesan over the top. And voila! 45 minutes later we had bread.

Mike walked in the door about 30 minutes after that and promptly ate half the loaf. We had more with the soup and it was fantastic!

So here's my recipe adapted from the NY Times adaptation:

Rosemary Parmesan No Knead Bread

3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons fresh chopped rosemary

1/4-1/2 cup Parmesan flakes

In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups (that's 1 cup and 10 tablespoons since my measuring cup didn't have eighths) water and chopped rosemary, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth -- I used plain dinner napkins) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. I sprinkled my Parmesan over the dough at this point, trying to get all of it on the surface of the dough and not the heated pot. Cover the pot with the lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes (I only allowed mine 15 since it was already a bit browned from the melted cheese and I didn't want to burn that), until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

The way I see it, the possibilities with this recipe are endless. I'm going to do some research on how to make sweet loaves (Erway mentioned a couple that were baked in her book), but I'm thinking of doing roasted garlic next -- roasting the garlic and then mixing them in on the second day. Kalamata olives are also a possibility. Man, just thinking about it is making me hungry and I've already come up with a few more to try as well!

Beet Salad

My semi-healthy dinner after the cupcake class: roasted beet salad with blood oranges, red onions, and (here comes the unhealthy part) blue cheese. I then drizzled 2 teaspoons of orange olive oil and 2 teaspoons of sherry vinegar over the whole thing and topped it off with some cracked black pepper. Yum!

Here's my beet roasting method -- you can do as many or as few as you like. Mike doesn't really like the red ones so I actually sometimes do just one at a time if I don't have any yellow ones to share with him:

Preheat oven to 425.

Trim the greens off, leaving about 1-inch of stem attached (or none, I only use them for holding the beets while I peel and cut them later). Save the greens for later -- you can cook them the same as any other greens. I wash them and cut them before storing them in a paper towel lined Ziploc bag or Tupperware container.

Cut any dangling root off the bottom of the beets and then wrap the beets in a foil pouch. Be careful to fold up the ends of the foil securely (you don't want to wrap the beets tightly, but you don't want any of the red beet juice to be able to spill out of your foil or it will make a terrible mess).

Place the pouch on a sheet pan and bake the beets for 1 hour 15 minutes. You want the beets to be soft enough that a knife will slide right in an out.

Let the beets cool for a few minutes and then you can use a paper towel to slide the skin right off.

Slice and serve as you like.

BBQ in Boulder!

Yes it is quite a feat. For some reason, amidst the bevy of restaurant choices we have locally, we've not had much in the way of BBQ restaurants until now. And it's amazing!

As you know, the plan on Sunday was to attend the Oscar party being held in honor of The Cove and Precious. Our understanding was that Mike, as an editor on The Cove, and I, as his plus one, were getting into the party free. We were wrong. The day of, we discovered that the plus ones for The Cove team actually had to buy tickets at the door to attend. Can we say complete communication breakdown? Most of the team was actually in LA, so there were only a very few who could attend and we ended up not going at all.

Sadly, I don't think anyone from the team was actually there when it was announced that The Cove had won the Oscar for Best Documentary.

Anywho, it's not like the dress and shoes can't be used for another occasion. But being broke made it a bit hard to swallow that expense!

We decided that we still wanted to go eat to celebrate. I'd picked up a copy of the latest Denver/Boulder Dining Out guide and noticed that The Rib House, a Longmont BBQ place that I'd been meaning to try for ages, had opened a location in Boulder. Actually, I'm way behind the times because they opened the Boulder location in April of last year. Yikes!

So we celebrated with illegal ribs. Yep, that's what they call them: Tracy's Famous Illegal Ribs. And they are literally fall off the bone, juicy, tender, amazing, yumminess. We also ordered a sampler platter with brisket and pork. The table was literally covered in food (and all for less than the price of my one ticket to hobnob with the rich and... rich). We had chipotle potato salad, baked beans, and The Rib House's famous Cheesy Corn bake. Yum!

All of the meats are hickory smoked, long and slow, which gives them a great tender, juiciness -- exactly the way bbq should be -- and all of the sauces are served on the side. We opted for the XXXHot (as they say, tangy hot BBQ) and the Fire, a sweet sauce packed with heat.

I'm not sure the above photo actually conveys the true massiveness of those ribs. My stomach is growling just thinking about them!

To finish it off, we had one of Rib House's huge brownies topped with a cheesecake frosting. And the best part: we came home with leftovers!

I've been told that The Rib House will have live music on Saturdays starting this spring, as well as a beer garden. This is going to be pretty amazing considering they're only one block up 13th from the Boulder Farmer's Market location (which starts in April).

Needless to say, The Rib House will be seeing much more of us in the future!

For menus and location information, visit www.theribhouse.com

Produce Delivery

Every other week I get a new box of mixed produce from Door to Door Organics. They're my grocery fairies (sorry guys, is there a more manly word I could use here? The delivery person is always a guy.).

Signing up for the delivery has helped me to get a little more creative in the kitchen and I'm hoping it'll eventually help my diet as well.

I have to admit here that I am not the healthiest person out there. Don't expect any sort of diet friendly trends on this blog. Inevitably, even if I have weeks where I have posts regarding seemingly healthy eating habits in my house, there will be chips, tons of butter, and real olive oil hiding in there somewhere, even if I don't tell you about it.

I have tried to lose weight. And have been successful at it. It's clear to me that I can't actually be trusted to make my own food decisions, though, because after I got off of the stringent eat-what-we-tell-you-for-each-meal diet plan, I gained the weight back. Seeing as how realistically I can't spend a lifetime on a diet like this (some folks can and more power to you, I just don't have the mental capabilities to do it long term, nor do I think I can actually do it again), I will have to figure out how to take care of myself at some point. It hasn't happened just yet.

But I think my produce delivery is a step in the right direction for me. I've definitely worked to incorporate each of the delivered items into our meals so that I'm not wasting anything, which means that we're eating a wider variety of fruits and veggies now. And it's really fun.

Here's what came in Thursday's delivery:

Avocado

Beets with tops

Celery

Red onions

Baby bunched carrots

Cucumber

Leeks

Romaine lettuce

Blood Oranges

Brauburn apples

Spinach

Bananas

Gold nugget tangerines

Roma tomatoes

Cupcakes!

After reading Cathy Erway's The Art of Eating In, I was inspired to look up cooking classes in my area. I knew that Williams Sonoma offered various classes, but I had also found various places while working on the cookbooks last year (doing research for a book that never came to fruition).

So I did some googling and found the classes at The Culinary School of the Rockies in Boulder. Lo and behold, they were holding a cupcake class that still had an opening.

Mike and I briefly discussed it and decided that I should go ahead and spend the cash to take the course. After all, one of my biggest complaints out here is the fact that high altitude baking is so difficult. Cupcakes had become my nemesis in the kitchen and I was seriously ready to throw in the cupcake pan and send my cupcake cookbook to my little sister at sea level.

So I was hoping to walk away from this class with a working knowledge of baking adjustments for high altitude. Sadly, it turns out there is no tried and true method that holds for every recipe. It sounds as though it's really trial and error. But, I did come home with a packet of cupcake recipes already adjusted for high altitude and a recommendation for a book that should help with some of the common issues occurring in my kitchen.

And it was fun!

It was a four hour class and we baked seven different kinds of cupcakes. We paired up in teams of two and each made one variation. My team chose a St. Patrick's Day cupcake with Bailey's Irish Cream. There were six recipes, though, and seven teams, so with our instructor's suggestion, we actually made a chocolate raspberry cupcake with raspberry buttercream frosting. And they turned out fantastic. No explosions, no volcanos, no dense hockey pucks. They're cupcakes!

I also came home with at least one of each different cupcake made today, and a ziploc baggie full of my leftover frosting (which is awesome because you really need a stand mixer to make it and I don't have one yet. Holding the hand mixer for the time required to make the meringue and then add all the butter would be exhausting. I'm determined enough to do it at some point, however, until I can get a stand mixer for my kitchen.)

I have to say, this was definitely a fun way to spend a Saturday. Maybe one of these days I can get Mike to attend one of the classes with me.

I'm thinking that the recipes I came home with can be used as a reference for adjusting some of the recipes in the book that I own. And I've already got a variation I want to figure out on my own -- Tres Leches. I've been dying for some!

Fractal Veggies

So I mentioned that I signed up for produce delivery and it really is fantastic. Door to Door Organics delivers all over Colorado and offers bi-weekly or weekly delivery. They also let you choose the size of the box and whether you want all veggies, all fruits, or a combination. They deliver in other areas as well, so if you're interested, I'd definitely recommend checking them out.

I opted for bi-weekly delivery, so I get an email every other week listing the produce that's set for that box. I can go in and make changes according to preference (so if I don't want broccoli one week, I can sub out for something else). You can also set preferences so if you really HATE broccoli, you never have to get it.

I'm a spur of the moment shopper and was buying organic milk from a local dairy at our Whole Foods. But every time I had to go buy a new bottle, I found myself doing some heavy Whole Foods shopping -- good for them but not so good for my budget. I thought that signing up for produce delivery (and milk delivery actually) would help keep me from spending so much money at the store. And it really has. Plus it's helped me to add more fruits and veggies to our meals. I get a different variety every other week and it's made me use some things that I normally wouldn't have purchased for myself.

I'm such a dork that it's like getting a gift every other week. And I love trying to figure out new ways to prepare the stuff that I get. Some of it I've never even tried before, like this funny looking member of the broccoli/cauliflower family.

I didn't find many recipes for romanesco, but seeing as how it's supposed to be so similar to broccoli and cauliflower, I figured the preparation must be the same. Part of me was remiss to actually prepare it since it was so cool looking!

I ended up making smothered pork chops with brown rice, and the romanesco to go alongside.

I cut it up like I would broccoli and steamed it. Since I prefer my broccoli more mushy than crunchy, I figured this would work for the romanesco as well. After I steamed it, I placed it in a baking dish and sprinkled minced garlic over the top with a little fresh lemon juice. I baked the romanesco in a 350 degree oven until the garlic was cooked (I probably should have put the garlic in when I steamed the romanesco, but it was a bit of an afterthought). Then I sprinkled Italian bread crumbs and Parmesan over the top and turned up the broiler for about 5-10 minutes to brown the bread crumbs and melt the Parmesan.

The romanesco was a bit sweeter than broccoli. Given the choice, I'd definitely try it again. Not really sure when I'll come across it again, though. It definitely lightened up the smothered pork chop dinner.