
and this next one only partially pertains to cooking, but I think it’s funny:


and this next one only partially pertains to cooking, but I think it’s funny:

Yes, friends, here in Warren, NJ we have figured out how to turn the BEST DISNEY CHANNEL SHOW into a DRINKING GAME! You’re impressed, don’t deny it.
“How can I play such an awesome game?” you may ask. Well, here’s the rules:
1. Find an adult beverage. (We drink wine… yes, classy. Also tried some smirnoff coolers… strawberry acai coolers. Not that good, but they grow on you).
2. Watch Phineas and Ferb on Disney Channel (Or online if it’s not on TV)
3. Drink when any of the following happens. The best part about this game is that most of these things happen every episode.
Drink two sips when any of the following happens (These are more rare and don’t happen every episode”
Also, the final rule is that you have to sing along to the “Doobie doobie doo wop” Perry theme music when he defeats Doofenshmirtz.
Enjoy. Please comment with any new additions/rules/changes to the game!
This is not the first time I’ve been baking cookies until 2AM. Last time I was up so late I was trying to make cookies for Ardea Arts/Family Opera Initiative’s Opera, Ice Cream and Goodnight Moon event featuring composer, Glen Roven, and soprano, Charlotte Cohn. I managed to make 200 chocolate chip cookies from scratch with the other intern. It was truly epic.
These cookies were for class. At the end of my Oral Presentation class (to BU students: Great Class! Take it with Professor Byrne), we decided to have a class party on the last day of class, so I volunteered to bring cookies. We all know that I don’t ever make food half-heartedly, so after making the cookies, I had to embellish them with some extra chocolate touches.
I found two bags of Nestle’s chocolate chunks in my fridge and happened to have all of the other ingredients, so I decided that this would be a good idea. I used this recipe that I found online at allrecipes.com (it’s pretty self-explanatory):
The most important thing about making these cookies is that you really beat the egg, yolk and sugars together at the beginning. Most people think that this is just so the ingredients are mixed well and don’t beat it for long enough. What actually happens here is that the sugars break down the egg chemically. You’ll even notice that the mixture gets lighter as you beat it. If you don’t have a hand mixer, just whisk it for a long time. If you get tired, make your roommates beat it for a while.
Also, these cookies are huge. They actually grow to be 3-4 inches in diameter. Be prepared for that and only bake a few at a time. For me, this recipe made 23 cookies (which was perfect because there were 17 kids in our class).
Most people would stop there and say they were done with the cookies, but not me! I chopped up some pecans and put them in the batter halfway through so I had some plain chocolate chip cookies, and some with pecans.
When the cookies were cool, I melted some chocolate in a double boiler (the entire other bag of chocolate chunks, to be exact) and dipped 1/3 of the cookies in. Only dip half in the chocolate. It looks kind of gourmet–a cookie half covered with chocolate. It gives the eaters a chance to switch between the two options–the super chocolate-y side and the regular side of the cookie. So delicious!
You can also drizzle some of the melted chocolate over the whole cookie to add extra chocolate. Again, this makes the cookies look really pretty. I did this on 1/3 of the cookies as an option. The three different options for cookies (half chocolate, chocolate drizzle, and plain) made a really pretty platter for the class.
Because I used chocolate chunks and not regular chocolate, I couldn’t temper my chocolate. (Chocolate chunks and chocolate chips contain stabilizers so they won’t temper properly). If you have an option to melt down some plain chocolate, follow these directions to temper the chocolate. Tempering makes the chocolate hard and shiny and always helps make a pretty presentation.
Also, my new obsession is this site: cookingforengineers.com. It has some great information and scientific explanation of what happens when you cook, which really peaks my interest as a former chemistry major!
Also, I apologize for the lack of photos. Baking at 2AM makes me want to go to sleep immediately after rather than have a photo-shoot with my food.
Currently Cooking to:
The Chemical Brothers – Where Do I Begin
Sticking with the science theme of Cooking for Engineers, we have a song by The Chemical Brothers. I’ll warn you right now–don’t skip through this song. It builds, and by the end it’s really weird if you hear it out of context. It’s like a theater piece or an oral presentation–you have to catch your audience at the beginning and then you can take them anywhere you want because they’ve suspended their disbelief. If this song started out crazy, I’d probably hate it, but it’s so pleasant at the start that I totally accept the ending.
Thanks so much to Kate from Warm Olives and Cool Cocktails. Her recent cookbook give away has provided me with a copy of Extraordinary Meals from Ordinary Ingredients. Expect a post about some of the recipes in it sometime in the very near future! Thanks again, Kate!
Roommate Kristin is a big fan of meat: bacon, sausage, steak… really anything that comes from an animal. So when I make salads with no meat involved, she calls it “Rabbit Food.” So when I made this salad a few days ago, sure enough it earned the title “Rabbit Food.” But I don’t care; it was delicious and really fast.
Things in this salad:
Spinach Salad Mix (the spinach leaves are a little more meaty than some other forms of lettuce and have some great vitamins in them. Vitamins A, B, C, E, and K… not to mention a LOT of Beta Carotene)
Cherry Tomatoes
Olives (I can’t help it; I’m addicted to the olive bar at Shaws. My favorites are the Katamala Olives with pits–they last longer)
Avocado (how to slice an avocado)
Chevre Cheese (a soft goat cheese)
Toasted Almonds
Reduced Balsamic Vinegar
To toast the almonds, put them in a skillet over medium heat and flip them every once in a while until they darken a bit.
It seems like the ingredient of the week is balsamic vinegar! I’ve used it twice already (here and for the balsamic butter sauce over my tortellini) and will probably use it once more before the week is through. For this salad, I like to reduce it. I’ve found that if you just use it straight from the bottle, it dissolves the chevre cheese and you end up with a lot of extra cheese-y vinegar at the end. The reduction is thicker and doesn’t run off the spinach leaves.
To reduce balsamic vinegar, put about 1 cup of regular balsamic vinegar in a skillet. If you like it sweeter, you can add some brown sugar or honey. Put it over medium heat until it boils. Then adjust the heat down and let it simmer until it’s syrup-y. Remember that it will continue to thicken as it cools, so you should let it simmer until it is just a little more viscous than you want it.
I find that it is easier to reduce balsamic vinegar in bulk (and by that I mean about a cup at a time). You can save what you don’t use for future salads, sauces, or fruits and cheeses. It goes with just about anything really. You can drizzle it over salmon for dinner or fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil for a caprese salad. It’s always a nice thing to have around. Keep it in a tupperware container (I keep mine in the fridge).
To assemble a salad, rinse the spinach and put it in the bottom of the bowl. Add the olives, tomatoes and almonds. Open one side of the chevre cheese and scrape a fork over the cheese. It’s a soft cheese so you can’t really cut it and it has a tendency to stick to itself. As you scrape the fork over the cheese, it will fall out of the package and into your salad in little clumps. Arrange the avocado slices around the outside, and drizzle balsamic reduction over the whole thing.
Currently Cooking To:
It’s not really a song I’d download and put on my iPod, but since we’re talking about rabbit food, I figured what’d be better than this youtube clip from Parry Gripp with small animals eating food. It’s one of those videos that makes me smile every time I watch it. Check out their youtube channel. There’s a lot of fun videos that are basically clips from other youtube videos set to songs about them. For example: “Young Girl Talking About Herself” is a song that makes fun of all the girls that just talk about their lives and post it to youtube. It’s set over videos of girls doing exactly that. I’m also a fan of Fuzzy Fuzzy Cute Cute. Obnoxious song, but SO MANY cute animals. Especially the bunny at the end.
On a more serious rabbit based music level:
Frightened Rabbit – Keep Yourself Warm
It’s a little sad but also kind of epic song from Frightened Rabbit. Enjoy!
It may seem odd, but I’ll eat an Avocado for lunch. While cutting one open today, it occurred to me that they’re actually a confusing kind of fruit. You can’t eat the skin… you can’t peel them… what do you do with them?! Here’s some simple steps for opening an avocado. (This one is a little under-ripe. When they’re ripe, they’ll give a little when you squeeze them (but if they’re soft and squishy, they’re probably over-ripe.)
1. Run a knife around the avocado, cutting through the skin and flesh, and just touching the pit. Make sure the knife goes through the place that the stem originally was.
2. Twist the two halves in opposite directions. They’ll separate.
3. To remove the pit, slice a knife into it. Press down hard on the knife to make sure it’s lodged in. Then twist the knife parallel to the flat surface. The pit will pop right out.
4. To make slices of the avocado, run a knife down each half at whatever thickness you want. You can do this while holding the avocado, but make sure the knife doesn’t go through the skin. If you’re afraid of cutting yourself, do this on a counter. Then take a large spoon and go around the edges. The slices will fall out perfectly.
If you want cubes, you can just run a knife in the opposite direction before you use the spoon. Basically, with an avocado, you can do all the cutting before taking out the flesh.
I’ll eat each half with a spoon and a little oil and vinegar. The hole where the pit once was is a perfect place to put some salad dressing.
You can use the slices in a salad. This salad has olives, toasted almonds, spinach, tomatoes, chèvre cheese (a soft goat cheese), and a little balsamic vinegar. And of course, avocado.
I honestly don’t know what to say about this song. It opens The Decemberists’s album, The Crane Wife with a mix of bittersweetness and determination. Yes, I, too, think it’s odd that you’d open an album with a song that is in a series of 1, 2 and 3, but it’s such a lovely introduction to the album that I wouldn’t have it any other way. The album opens in the middle of the story and eventually makes its way back to the beginning.
In recent news, The Decemberists will be releasing their multimedia project next week! Here Come the Waves will feature pieces of the band’s album The Hazards of Love accompanied by animated shorts created specially for the occasion by filmmakers Guilherme Marcondes, Julia Pott, Peter Sluszka and Santa Maria. I just learned that there will be a screening in Boston! Oh, goodie!!
For our potluck Thanksgiving dinner, my friend Kelly Gallagher made mushroom ravioli with a balsamic butter sauce. I have no idea how she made it but I figured I’d make up my own version of it. This meal took about 5 minutes to make, so I’ll try to write a post that takes only 5 minutes to read. Ready? Set? Go!!
You’ll need:
Frozen tortellini
Butter
Balsamic Vinegar
Walnuts (if you like them, they’re not necessary)
Salt and Pepper
First start a pot of water boiling. Salt the water and when it boils, throw the tortellini it it. The tortellini should only take a few minutes to cook. 5 minutes should be plenty of time.
While waiting for the water to boil, toss some walnuts in a pan and put them on the stove over medium heat. Toast them for a few minutes (stirring or flipping occasionally). When they’re done, toss them in a bowl for later.
You should be able to put the tortellini in the water by now. It should’ve boiled.
Then throw some butter in the pan (for a meal to feed just me, I used maybe 3 tablespoons). Keep the pan over medium heat and the butter should brown. Once browned, throw in some balsamic vinegar (I used maybe 2-3 tablespoons) the amount depends on how much balsamic flavor you want in the sauce. Add salt and pepper.
By now, the pasta should be done cooking, strain it and toss it in the pan with the sauce. Throw the toasted walnuts in the pan as well. Toss the whole thing together. The tortellini will continue cooking in the hot sauce for 1-2 minutes over medium heat. Then pour the entire contents of the pan into a bowl and enjoy!
You could also absolutely use this sauce over any kind of pasta. I bet it’d be great on angel hair!
Currently Cooking To:
The New Pornographers – Myriad Harbor
The New Pornographers – The Bleeding Heart Show
Despite the band’s slightly off-putting name, The New Pornographers have an upbeat and catchy thing going for them. The super indie sound of a bunch of people singing makes me just want to throw my hands over my head and wave them back and forth while doing the pony. Don’t understand what I’m talking about? Listen to the end of “The Bleeding Heart Show.” I won’t lie, I played it on repeat for the last 20 minutes of my bus ride back to Boston at the end of Thanksgiving break. The girls sitting next to me probably didn’t understand why I kept bouncing my head from side to side.
Once upon a time (actually, when I was about 5 years old and my little brother was 2) my mom wanted to make a Bûche de Noël (like a roll-cake) for Christmas. While the cake was still warm and rolled in a towel my 2-year-old brother climbed on the counter and exclaimed “Look! A pillow” and proceeded to smash his head down into it.
We’ve never tried to make a roll-cake again.
Until this year. My mom is in love with Ina Garten, so we tried her recipe for Pumpkin Roulade (which my family affectionately calls “pumpkin a-bleu-bleu-bleu”). It was delicious and I’m sure it’ll be a new traditional Thanksgiving food. If Bûche de Noël is the roll cake of Christmas, then Pumpkin Roulade is the roll cake of Thanksgiving:
For the cake:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup canned pumpkin (not pie filling)
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, plus extra for dusting
For the filling:
12 ounces Italian mascarpone cheese
1 1/4 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1/4 cup minced dried crystallized ginger (not in syrup)
Pinch kosher salt
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 13 by 18 by 1-inch sheet pan. Line the pan with parchment paper and grease and flour the paper.
In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt and stir to combine. Place the eggs and granulated sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium-high speed for 3 minutes, until light yellow and thickened. With the mixer on low, add the pumpkin, then slowly add the flour mixture, mixing just until incorporated. Finish mixing the batter by hand with a rubber spatula. Pour into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake the cake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the top springs back when gently touched.
While the cake is baking, lay out a clean, thin cotton dish towel on a flat surface and sift the entire 1/4 cup of confectioners’ sugar evenly over it. (This will prevent the cake from sticking to the towel.) As soon as you remove the cake from the oven, loosen it around the edges and invert it squarely onto the prepared towel. Peel away the parchment paper. With a light touch, roll the warm cake and the towel together (don’t press!) starting at the short end of the cake. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.
Meanwhile, make the filling. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the mascarpone, confectioners’ sugar, and cream together for about a minute, until light and fluffy. Stir in the crystallized ginger, and salt.
To assemble, carefully unroll the cake onto a board with the towel underneath. Spread the cake evenly with the filling. Reroll the cake in a spiral using the towel as a guide. Remove the towel and trim the ends to make a neat edge. Dust with confectioners’ sugar and serve sliced.
It was fabulous. Here’s a tip that my mom taught me while making this: Kosher salt is a lot coarser than iodized salt, so if you’re like me and you use the salt from the container with the girl and her yellow umbrella, divide the salt in half. The mass of iodized salt is about twice that of kosher salt (when dealing with the same volume). So when the recipe says 1/2 a teaspoon of salt, use 1/4.
Also, if you don’t have a jelly-roll pan, you can use a baking sheet. Our baking sheet was about 12×17, but it fit fine. This cake doesn’t rise much so it shouldn’t spill over the top. Just make sure you bake it for the whole 12 minutes.
Also, chop up the ginger very fine. And when you think you’re done chopping, chop some more. It’ll flavor the filling and you’ll have a smoother filling. Large chunks of ginger have a too strong of a flavor, but small bits mix well and balance out the sweetness of the sugar.
I wish I had a picture to share with you, but people ate this cake before I had a chance. It was completely wrecked within a few minutes of hitting the table. Here’s someone else’s photo of what it looks like!

Currently Cooking To:
The Hit Crew – Rock and Roll All Night
Billy Joel – It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me
Bob Seger – Old Time Rock and Roll
Since we’re talking about roll cakes, I figured adding a little rock to this roll would be perfect for the occasion. As a bonus, this music shouldn’t offend your parents if you happen to bake this cake with family for Thanksgiving! Enjoy!
We all know that the best part of a meal is the appetizer, right? Or you usually enjoy those small in between meal snacks better than you enjoy your meals, right?
This summer, I learned about a book called “Japanese Women Don’t Get Fat” or something like that. I admit, I didn’t read it, but the summary had some great advice. The one that stuck with me is that you’re more satisfied with your meal and you stop eating if you’ve had small bits of a lot of things. I totally get how this relates to Japanese food (Have you ever seen a bento box? Small portions of a lot of things).
This year, I’ve tried to follow this principle, so I’ll make a small something and fill the plate with small bits of dried fruit, nuts, cheese, vegetables, really–whatever I’ve got lying around. It’s made for some really great meals that I can eat while I do homework or read because I can munch on different things from lunch.
This is the most recent lunch creation:
Garlic Lime Bread
Brie Cheese – leftover from the puff pastry appetizers
Figs – also leftover from the puff pastry appetizers
Olives
Walnuts
It makes for a pretty plate and keeps you interested in your meal. You don’t get bored halfway through and you’ll feel fuller and enjoy eating more. Give it a try!
Currently Cooking To:
Dispatch – Elias (Live)
Dan Mei & Marc Johnce – My Life on the Crazy Train Sucks (So What?)
Girl Talk – Bounce That
Like the lunch in this post, these song has a bunch of small bits of other songs thrown together to create one cohesive song. Elias somehow manages to keep me entertained for 11 minutes, while I can listen through Girl Talk’s whole Night Ripper album without getting bored.
What do you do when you find a killer recipe but only have half the ingredients? Substitution!! My mother has taught me the art of substituting one ingredient for another since I was a baby. That woman could make chicken parm with turkey and mozzarella and it would still magically taste good.
When I bought my mom Ina Garten’s cookbook, Back to Basics, she tried the recipe for Bay Scallops Gratin and did everything right. But when I am away at school and scallops go on sale, I don’t want to spend the money to go buy Pernod and shallots when they’re not on sale. So what do I do? I forget them. Leave them out. And it worked marvelously.
Ingredients
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
6 large garlic cloves, minced
2 medium shallots, minced
2 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto di Parma, minced
4 tablespoons minced fresh parsley, plus extra for garnish
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons Pernod
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
6 tablespoons good olive oil
1/2 cup panko
6 tablespoons dry white wine
2 pound fresh bay scallops
Lemon, for garnish
Directions
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Place 6 (6-inch round) gratin dishes on a sheet pan.
To make the topping, place the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (you can also use a hand mixer). With the mixer on low speed, add the garlic, shallot, prosciutto, parsley, lemon juice, Pernod, salt, and pepper and mix until combined. With the mixer still on low, add the olive oil slowly as though making mayonnaise, until combined. Fold the panko in with a rubber spatula and set aside.
Preheat the broiler, if it’s separate from your oven.
Place 1 tablespoon of the wine in the bottom of each gratin dish. With a small sharp knife, remove the white muscle and membrane from the side of each scallop and discard. Pat the scallops dry with paper towels and distribute them among the 3 dishes. Spoon the garlic butter evenly over the top of the scallops. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the topping is golden and sizzling and the scallops are barely done. If you want the top crustier, place the dishes under the broiler for 2 minutes, until browned. Finish with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a sprinkling of chopped parsley and serve immediately with crusty French bread.
But for my version, I left out the Pernod, the white wine, parsley and the shallots and switched the prosciutto for bacon. Still delicious. Try it. You can also cut down the recipe to suit your needs. I just made a me-sized portion, which meant six scallops, one clove of garlic, some butter and olive oil (I just added enough until the crust seemed like the right consistency). I also threw a little olive oil on the plate before putting the scallops on it just so they wouldn’t stick. I ate these scallops them with toasted sourdough bread rather than French bread (another good substitution, I think so!).
When trying a recipe for the first time, it’s best to follow the instructions. Normally, I would’ve gone out and bought what I needed to make these scallops the way Ina intended, but I had a good reason for my substitution. I was leaving that day to see Ragtime on Broadway and didn’t have the time to go food shopping. I had purchased the scallops the previous day, and they would’ve been bad by the time I would’ve made them if I hadn’t eaten them for breakfast that morning. Yes, breakfast. I will say, this is probably not a breakfast food, but if you must, you must. It was delicious nonetheless!
What are your best substitution stories? Good reasons for substitution? Best substitutions?
Jupiter One – Mystery Man (EP)
Jupiter One – Mystery Man (2007)
I did this in my last post: Two different versions of the same song. The first is slower and closer to a ballad. The second is a little more pop-rock-energy. I’m a fan of the earlier song (the EP), even though it may have been less heavily produced. Heck, I may like the first song better because it’s been less heavily produced. Give both a listen and let me know. Which one do you prefer?