Crushed

If you like salt and oil and crispy goodness, make these crash hot potatoes immediately. That is all.

Image from Pioneer Woman

PS Isn't the name awesome too?

PPS Thanks to the Pioneer Woman.

Summer goal

I am going to make my own jam this summer. This statement immediately elicits images of me in a pioneer style nightgown, barefoot in the kitchen stirring a pot. In actuality, I will probably be wearing workout attire, running around the kitchen like a crazy woman whose jam is currently burning on the stove. But my goal is out there, so I'm doin it.

{Image from the Pioneer Woman}

Actually, it sort of looks like a lot of steps...

Powdered sugar lips

Despite my intense love of sweets, I am absolutely not a pastry person...unless it comes to Polish paczki (punch-key). I have been devouring some raspberry paczki that my mom picked up at the store yesterday, and you know what, I don't feel bad about it. Sometimes you just need to make life a little bit sweeter.

Trick or treat!

Trick or treat! This week: treats to sip.

A sweet cinnamon rimmed carmel apple cider martini.

Hola Jose! A smoky pear margarita.

Sip some apple pie (sans alcohol) with apple pie cider.

Candy corn vodka? Oh yes.

Dust off the Crockpot and make some mulled wine.

Pumpkin pie in the sky.

Have some halloween candy with your blood martini!

It wouldn't be autumn without some hot buttered rum.

Good ole' Hershey's hot chocolate.

Nothing beats homemade ginger ale.

This cinnamon roll milkshake is almost too much to handle.

{Photo}

Trick or Treat...

I have decided that for the month of October every Friday will be "Trick or Treat Friday" on the blog- I'll post a delicious treat or a beautiful trick. Today: one of my favorite fall dishes, my mom's pumpkin lasagna. Don't be intimidated by the many ingredients or several steps; this one is worth it.

Pumpkin Lasagna
Pumpkin filling:
1 stick butter
6 leeks, trimmed, rinsed and minced
4 cups pumpkin puree, fresh or canned
1/2 cup white wine
salt and pepper

Bechamel (white sauce):
1 stick butter
6 tablespoons flour
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups half-and-half
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
salt and pepper
3 large egg yolks, beaten

For the assembly:
1-1/4 pounds lasagna noodles, cooked and drained (or use no boil noodles)
1/2 pound thinly sliced prosciutto (or smoked ham)
1/4 cup sage leaves, torn into pieces
1-1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups walnut pieces, toasted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter or spray a 15 X 10 inch baking pan and set aside.

Prepare filling:
Melt butter in large skillet over medium heat. Add leeks and sauté, stirring occasionally until tender, about 15 minutes. Stir in pumpkin and white wine; cook, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Remove from heat; season with salt and pepper. Reserve.

Prepare béchamel:
Melt butter in medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add flour and whisk 1 minute until smooth. Gradually whisk in chicken broth and half and half. Cook, whisking the bubbling mixture constantly, until smooth and thickened. Stir in Parmesan. Season with nutmeg.
Stir in 1/2 cup of the sauce into beaten egg yolks and whisk the mixture back into remaining sauce, blending completely. Stir 2 minutes longer; remove from heat. Set aside covered.

Make a layer of lasagna noodles in bottom of prepared dish. Top with 1/2 the prosciutto and 1/3 of the béchamel. Scatter half the sage leaves evenly over top. Cover with a second layer of noodles, all the pumpkin filling, 1 cup Parmesan and 1 cup walnuts. Make a third layer of lasagna noodles; top with remaining prosciutto, 1/3 of the béchamel and remaining sage. Make a final layer of noodles; top with remaining béchamel, walnuts, and Parmesan.

Bake uncovered 1 hour or until browned and bubbling. Cool 10 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

{Photo from Closet Cooking}

Painted the town red

Why oh why do my weekends fly past? This weekend was spent visiting roughly 15 of Chicago's beautiful neighborhoods. Count em, 15. A combination of doing a 20 mile run all the way up to Evanston (see previous post explaining my crazy) and having my parent's car to take a spin in made us quite the little social butterflies.

The Saturday morning sun rose to a gorgeous day to run 20 miles on the lake.

What does one do after a 20 mile run you might ask? Absolutely nothing. Or, limp half a block to the Chicago Bagel Authority, order a monster sandwich, and watch college football all day.

The best part about marathon training- marathon eating. My boyfriend and I decided to reward ourselves on Saturday night with a hamburger from a great Chicago institution, Kuma's Corner. Kuma's has been rated best hamburger in Chicago by many magazines lately. Unfortunately, we were hugely disappointed with the long waits (an hour wait after we ordered our burgers), fairly tasteless hamburgers, and screaming heavy rock music.

What to do when disappointed with dinner? Go have dessert at Hot Chocolate. Absolutely the greatest dessert place on earth.

As if we hadn't already eaten our way through Saturday, we had to have brunch at Milk and Honey in Wicker Park.

Then it was on to the Farmer's Market, where I got the most beautiful and delicious heirloom tomatoes. It is definitely the time for these babies, I would recommend to anyone to buy them up!

On the way home we made a stop at one of Jewel's new concept stores- Urban Fresh. I normally wouldn't blog about a grocery store, but I fell in love. If possible, this store was like a combination of Trader Joe's off-brand foods, Whole Food's freshness, and Jewel's low prices. And it has cases of Diet Coke Plus, a staple from my college years that I can rarely find.

Because I couldn't handle any more football, the rest of my afternoon was spent at Bed Bath and Beyond. Though I usually associate this place with college freshmen and moms, filling up their carts with plastic storage bins, I have to admit they do have every staple. Plus a little tip- those 20% coupons you get in the mail never expire. Just take in any big blue advertisement and they will honor it.

I hope everyone had a food-filled weekend!

las margaritas

After a long day, my boyfriend and I decided to try a cute Mexican restaurant by our new place. Sometimes you just need to sip a margarita and pretend the summer is everlasting.

Smookies

Tonight I'm making combining two of the most scrumptious desserts to ever exist- cookies + s'mores. Smookies? Co'mores?

{Image from marthastewart.com}

The oven is about to ding, so here is a link to the lovely Martha recipe! Just a side note, in place of some of the dry ingredients (namely the flour), I crushed up 1/2 cup of graham crackers to add to the batter to give it a graham cookie taste.

Sweet as a cupcake.

My college roommate came into town for the weekend, and, since her birthday is next week, we obviously needed to eat a lot of cake and/or cupcakes. Along with many similarities, we share an intense love of cake, and the two of us have quite a history of good cake eating in college (we once ate an abandoned cake in the kitchen on her dorm floor, but we knew the birthday boy so it's okay). Though I considered ordering treats from one of Chicago's delicious cupcakeries, I decided to try out my own recipe and made, wait for it, cookie dough cupcakes.

Ingredients:

Cupcakes-

1 box of cake mix (I used marble cake so that there would be some chocolate but not an overwhelming amount)

1 can of diet cream soda (If you haven't tried making diet soda cake before I would highly recommend it. Instead of oil and eggs, just blend one can of diet soda with the cake mix and you cut out tons of fat. And then you can eat more cupcakes.)

1 package of pre-made cookie dough (I'm not Martha Stewart, let's make things easy.)

Blend cake mix with can of soda and bake according to the box directions.

Let the cupcakes cool.

Once cool, use a sharp knife to cut the center out of each cupcake.

Stuff the cupcake with as much cookie dough as your heart desires.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting (Sprinkles Cupcakes frosting recipe)-

1 cup of butter, softened

3 1/2 cups of confectioners sugar

1 teaspoon of milk

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1/3 teaspoon of salt

Combine butter, sugar, and salt. Beat until well blended (should be fairly creamy).

Add the milk and vanilla and beat until smooth and creamy (3-5 minutes).

Frost liberally. (This recipe frosts about 12 cupcakes).

Decorate the top with a mini cookie dough cookie.

Enjoy lots.

• 
  

C is for Cookie...

I dedicated an entire post a couple weeks ago to my ultimate cookie making failure, so I thought it only appropriate to dedicate this entire post to celebrate my FIRST SUCCESSFUL HOMEMADE COOKIES EVER!! I won't bore everyone with the details of how they are the perfect size- 4 inches across- a lovely golden color, crispy around the edges and slightly unbaked chewy in the middle, and filled with the perfect amount of melty M&Ms. But I will share the recipe. Enjoy!

M&Ms Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups of all purpose flour (note: I only used 1 1/2 cups since my cookies always turn out way to dry and cakey)

1 1/4 teaspoons of baking soda

1/4 teaspoon of salt

3/4 cup of butter at room temperature

2/3 cup of granulated white sugar

2/3 cup of firmly packed light brown sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 1/2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract

As many M&Ms as your little heart desires

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium size bowl.

Beat the butter and sugars until they are creamy, light, and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes- do not over beat).

Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the egg and egg yolk, beating until well mixed.

Beat in the vanilla extract.

Gradually add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and beat just until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Now, you can either mix the M&Ms into the dough (the superior choice because then the whole cookie is chocolatey and melty) or place them on top of the cookie once formed on the baking sheet.

Form balls of dough as big as you can handle, leaving plenty of space between them on the cookie sheet. Nobody likes a siamese cookie.

Put some more M&Ms on top of the cookies for good measure.

Put in the oven and bake for about 6-7 minutes, then turn the sheet on the baking rack so that the cookies bake evenly.

Bake for another 6-7 minutes or until perfectly golden brown but still soft.

Take out of the oven and eat them while they're hot, the only acceptable way to enjoy a cookie!

Makes about 12 large cookies, plus a little extra cookie dough to snack on while they bake.

yummmm

The Taste of Chicago begins next week, and though I think that the event can be a hellishly crowded and overrated mistake if you go at the wrong time (aka any day around the 4th of July), I am still excited to browse the booths.  I have checked out the vendors, which can be found here, and though I'm slightly disappointed with the seemingly smaller restaurant selection, decided on several restaurants that are a must.

Adobo Grill- I have yet to visit this Old Town favorite, but I hear the guacamole is to die for, so I will definitely check out their booth.

Blue Bayou- I have no idea what this restaurant is all about, but after months of searching for a place that has Bananas Foster on the menu (one of my boy's favorites) and not finding a single place around, we will definitely need some of their Bananas Foster bites.

Original Rainbow Cone- Chocolate, strawberry, palmer and pistachio ice cream with orange sherbet in a waffle cone.  Can't go wrong, especially on a hot day.

Lou Malnatis- By far the best pizza in the world.

Any place that offers sweet potato anything.

Hashbrowns- Good ole southern food?  Check.  This booth is offering sweet potato fries and sweet potato hashbrowns.

C'est Si Bon!- Sweet potato cheesecake.  What more can I say.

Aunt Diana's Candy Makers- A chocolate covered banana always does the trick.

My stomach is growling already!

cookie FAIL

I am officially THE WORST chocolate chip cookie baker in the world.  After several attempts, following several recipes perfectly, I give up.  As my hysterically laughing boyfriend likes to say, my cookies are ghost cookies.  Every single time, no matter what recipe I use, even if I buy fresh new ingredients, my cookies come out about 3/4 an inch thick and pure white.  They are like a strange mixture between cake and bread.  If anyone knows what I am doing wrong, please help!!

Here is the recipe I used.