Chapel Hill

So, this week, I returned to Chapel Hill to go see The XX with my friend Cindy. It was the first time I have been to the Local 506, and I thought it was a pretty cool little venue.  We had a great time at the show, and of course, ate some good food while we were in town.

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We ended up pretty hungover the day after the concert, so Cindy and I went to Franklin Street in search of some good bar food.  We ended up at Spanky's, where we enjoyed a couple of Bloody Marys. I devoured a club sandwich with ham, turkey, bacon, and Russian dressing.

hangover cure at Spanky's

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For dinner, the three of us were all strangely craving some good sushi. So, we went to Margaret's favorite spot in Chapel Hill, Akai Hana.  We sat at the sushi bar, and the chefs gave us each a little bowl of cucumber, crab, and sesame salad to start with.  It was a really nice little palate cleanser.

 
Cucumber salad at Akai Hana

We ordered some edamame and several rolls to share.  Along with some beers and hot sake, it was a fun, enjoyable dinner.

Pretty little sushi platter at Akai Hana

 

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To keep up with tradition, Cindy, Margaret, and I ended up at Lantern for cocktails.  Still haven't eaten there, which is kind of a bummer, but we loved our drinks. This time, Cindy ordered the Strange Acquaintance, which sounds kind of strange but tasted pretty good. It had whiskey, ruby port, Blenheim spicy ginger ale, and egg whites. I got the Cunning Kimono, which was house infused jasmine flower vodka, honey, and a lemon twist.  Margaret had the Junebug, which was my favorite of the three. It was made with Pimm's liquor, fresh ginger, lemon soda, and a cucumber.

 
 

Strange Acquaintance, Cunning Kimono, and Junebug cocktails at Lantern  

I love the little darkly-lit bar.  Maybe someday I'll actually eat there.

Another Pork Roast Dinner

mmm...

 I know, I know, it seems like I just posted about a pork roast.  The truth is, they're really cheap! When I find one on sale, I can't help but to grab it up, even if I'm not exactly sure what to do with the cut.  This particular cut was a pork sirloin roast, and was very easy to make. I just followed this simple recipe on Epicurious.com for Honey, Mustard, and Rosemary Glazed Pork Roast.

marinating 

So, to change things up, I'm not going to focus this post on the pork.  Instead, I want to showcase the beautiful acorn squash I picked up at the Farmer's Market this week.

I wasn't too sure what I wanted to do with these

I've really wanted to experiment with squash recently, but Brandon gets a little finicky when I mention the idea.  Upon my continual prying, he finally admitted that he doesn't really like sweet preparations (brown sugar, marshmallows, etc.). Which makes me kind of sad. But, alas, you can't always get everything you want, so I set out to find a savory recipe. I finally found a recipe that I deemed acceptable for both of us on Allrecipes.com, which I used as a base for this recipe:

Savory Roasted Acorn Squash

 

 
2 medium acorn squash

3 tablespoons butter

1 1/2 onions, thinly sliced (the original recipe called for 2 onions, which seemed like just a little too much in the end)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced

1 teaspoon ground coriander seed

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 cup chicken stock (use your judgment here)

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce (here as well)

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  

Cut acorn squash in half. Roast them cut side up on a baking sheet for 50 minutes or until the flesh is just tender.  Let the squash cool for 20 minutes. 

Going into the oven

In a large skillet over medium heat, melt the butter; saute the onions.  Stirring occasionally, cook the onions for 10 minutes, or until they begin to brown at the edges. Mix in the garlic, ginger, coriander, and nutmeg. Cook the mixture 2 minutes more, then remove the pan from heat.

Spoon the seeds and stringy middle out of the squash, and discard these. Spoon out the flesh, chop it and add it to the onion mixture. Discard the skins.  Heat and stir the squash-onion mixture.  Add chicken stock and applesauce to moisten the mixture, as it may seem a bit dry.  Gently mix the ingredients, adding more stock and applesauce if the mixture still seems dry.  Season with salt and pepper, and serve hot. 

Finishing up the squash, sauce, and brussels sprouts.

To round out the dinner, I made some easy Brussels sprouts.  I washed and trimmed them, taking off all bitter outer leaves.  Then, I boiled them until they were tender.  I cooled the Brussels sprouts and roughly chopped them while the squash was roasting. When I was starting to finish up the squash and the pork sauce, I browned some chopped bacon with a little garlic, and added the Brussels sprouts to the pan.  Finished with a little salt, pepper, and dried thyme, and it was as easy as that. 

The final product

 All in all, this was a pretty easy dinner to make.  Roasting the pork and squash took a little time (I roasted the pork first, then the squash. Probably could have done them at the same time, but I was happy doing it this way), but it gave me time to get everything cleaned up.  I was also able to enjoy a couple of leisurely glasses of wine with Brandon.  Who, by the way, enjoyed the not-so-sweet squash.   

A Rare Sunday Morning

The pampered and the pauper

Rare because I usually have to work the dreaded brunch shift.  Indeed, I was scheduled to work a double (as usual), cocktailing tonight.  When I came in though, we had too many servers on and I was asked if I wanted the morning off. Which, of course, I did.

So, what to do?

I visited my favorite coffee shop right down the road, Alchemy Coffee. Got their signature coffee, The Alchemist, which is a mocha sprinkled with a bit of cayenne pepper.  The cayenne adds a nice spicy complexity to the cocoa/coffee flavor.

Picked up a Sunday paper (which I never do) and read the entire thing, front to back. 

Spied on Bam Bam spying on the black kitty outside.

And.. made a big batch of breakfast hash.  I had a leftover baked potato from lunch the other day ( I always bake one extra with this very breakfast in mind) (Mom gets props for teaching me to do this) that I chopped up.  To start, I sauteed the onions and garlic until they softened.  In the meantime, I cooked a couple boneless chicken breasts (one for the hash, and one to have in the fridge for the next random meal) (are you seeing the trend?) and steamed a bunch of broccoli florets.  Add the potatoes to the onions, brown, and add the chicken.  In goes the broccoli, some frozen corn, salt, pepper, chili powder, dried thyme, and it looks like this:

This is one of my dad's favorite breakfasts

Then, cook an egg.

Still trying to perfect this art

 You know what to do next.

Breakfast!

Now that I'm fat and happy, I have to go back in for the night shift. Boo. At least I had a nice morning :)

Halloween Sugar Cookies

Sprinkling a bat

This is my Halloween post, part II.  I really felt the need to make these cookies, even though they were pretty tedious and time consuming.  I recruited Caroline to help me with the decorations. I took my recipe from The Joy of Cooking, doubling both the cookie batter recipe and the frosting recipe:
 

Sugar Cookies

1/2 cup white or brown sugar (I used white)

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla (I used half almond extract because I love the flavor)

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in remaining ingredients.  Chill the dough 3 to 4 hours before rolling.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Roll out, cut, and place cookies on a greased or lined cookie sheet. Bake 7 to 12 minutes.

Ready to be decorated

 

 I also took the frosting recipe from The Joy of Cooking:

1 lb (4 cups) confectioner's sugar

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

2 to 4 tablespoons milk or heavy or light cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Site confectioner's sugar into a large bowl.  Add and mix the remaining ingredients and mix well with an electric mixer.  Continue beating until frosting is smooth.  It will be slightly stiff.  Add more liquid to reach the proper consistency.

I didn't know they sold black food coloring!

The frosting actually tasted really good. We separated the frosting and made three different colors: black, orange, and white. For white, I read that one or two drops of blue food coloring helps the color stay bright.

Ready to play

Then came the fun part. We had a blast decorating these special cookies.  We had a few tubes of decorative gels as well as some colored sugars. 

 

Feeling silly

 

So...many...cookies

So, we took these into work on Halloween and everyone  enjoyed them. However, there were a lot of bats left over. For some reason, no one seemed to want them (black frosting not appealing?). I was supposed to work a double and actually ended up getting cut... kind of think the cookies helped me get the night off!

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

...and the story of the pumpkin that they came from!

 
I got myself a pumpkin

Gutted and carved said pumpkin

Bam Bam was a big helper...

Now the pumpkin is a freaked out Jack-o-Lantern!

Now, what to do with all those seeds?

I tossed them with 3 tablespoons of melted butter, some sugar, salt, cinnamon, cloves, powdered ginger, nutmeg, chili powder, and cayenne. Baked them on a cookie sheet at 300 degrees for about an hour (stir every now and then).  And..

Ta da! Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds!

Daily Life Lately

I haven't been doing a lot of extravagant cooking lately. Honestly, I've been working all the time and haven't had the time or motivation. I am also desperately in need of a grocery shopping trip, but again, have been putting it off. So, I thought I'd post a couple of pictures of my day-to-day eats that I haven't (until now) felt were worthy of a mention.

  This is the kind of salad I like to make for lunch on work days. I'll season a chicken breast with whatever strikes me (this particular breast has dried tarragon, salt, pepper, and lemon juice) and cook it in my grill pan. I'll make a salad with whatever I have on hand.  This salad has arugula, cucumber, tomato, carrot, black olives, cheddar, croutons, and hard-boiled egg. I threw together a dressing with olive oil, tarragon vinegar, dijon mustard, honey, salt and pepper. It's healthy, and the chicken keeps me full all night at work.

I made this orzo tonight.  I'm really at the point where I have no groceries whatsoever, so I had to get creative. I was craving some veggies, so I steamed some broccoli that I had laying around in the fridge.  I added it into the cooked orzo with some crumbled bacon, halved grape tomatoes, and some arugula that needed to be used.  Splash of chicken stock, white wine, and fresh Parmesan.  The heat of the pasta wilted the arugula and tomatoes, and even though it was nothing spectacular, it was pretty good. I felt like I got some much-needed veggies as well. 

Not too much else is going on in my daily life right now. I did get my acceptance letter to the Trident Tech culinary program this week.  Even though I wasn't worried about whether or not I would get in, I still felt proud of myself.  I also completed my FAFSA this week, all by myself.  Now, I just have to do a bunch of paperwork to prove myself as an in-state student.  Go to orientation and get all registered. I'm pretty excited about going back to school, and will keep updates posted :)

Chocolate Chip Cookies

A classic combo

Recently, I felt like baking something without having to go to the grocery store for ingredients.  I had two half-full bags of chocolate chips in the fridge that I decided I would turn into cookies. One bag was your standard Nestlé semi-sweet morsels, and the other was Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips, which are noticeably bigger than your standard chips.  I thought they might be nice used together in a cookie.  A traditionalist when it comes to chocolate chip cookies, I used the classic (easy!) recipe on the back of the Nestlé bag.  And so, the recipe:

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar *I used half dark and half light, because I had the end of 2 boxes*

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups (12 oz. package) chocolate chips

1 cup chopped nuts *I used walnuts*

Preheat oven to 375.

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. 

Mmm.. cookie dough..

Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

 

Ready to be baked

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. *I like soft cookies, so I usually aim to have them out of the oven sooner rather than later.* Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.  

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They turned out great! I took them in to work, and everyone seemed to love the big chips along with the little ones.  The only complaint I have is that the recipe said it makes 5 dozen cookies, and I barely came out with 2.5 dozen. They weren't huge cookies or anything - I dropped by tablespoonfuls like the recipe told me to. So, keep this in mind next time you're trying to make enough for, say, an entire restaurant staff. And the boyfriend was a little sad that there weren't any left at the house.