This months recipe for the EBcO was for croissants. I used Beth's recipe and illustrated directions and they were amazing. Flaky and light, they melt on your tongue. My only complaint is with myself- when I was spraying the inside of the oven with water I accidentally hit the light bulb and shattered it!

I was prepared to crash and burn on this one. The recipe was looked so complicated, there were so many steps, so much folding... so much deliciousness.

These came out so well, Josh and I oohed and ahhed, we mmmed and ughhhhed. I am almost too impressed with myself. It's just another one of those recipes that, in the end I can't believe I actually made from a little flour, milk and butter.

The 2010 February Daring COOKs challenge was hosted by Michele of Veggie Num Nums. Michele chose to challenge everyone to make mezze based on various recipes from Claudia Roden, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Dugid.

This was my first Daring Cooks challenge, and it was a lot of fun. I decided to go for the pita bread, hummus, falafel, cucmber raita and some baba ghanoush.

From the get go I was a little intimidated by the pitas, but they were actually really easy, and luckily my oven gets nice and hot- making this recipe a breeze. I brought a few to work and got begrudging approval from my Jordanian coworker- "they tasted good, but should have been more brown."

I'll take it. In fact, I liked these so much more that store-bought pitas (which at my market are always a little stale) that I think I'll hold onto the recipe for future pita needs.

The falafels tasted good, but every fifth falafel or so would mysteriously crumble and disappear in the deep fryer.
(That's right, I own a deep fryer. It was a gift, and we only break it out very six months of so, we're not like those folks on those "I Eat 35,000 Calories a Day" shows.)

The hummus, baba and riata were so easy and delicious that I'm no longer lamenting our proximity deficiency to all the good take out places on the North Side. I could whip up any of those in a few minutes for a tasty and healthy snack.

I did learn one big lesson during this challenge. If a bag of dried chick peas says it will expand to six cups once soaked overnight, believe that. I didn't, so I soaked TWO bags and ended up with 12 cups of chick peas! We had enough hummus and falafels for us and our neighbors to eat for over a week!

Beth's blog (her old blog, A Bread A Day) has become my bread baking go-to website lately. This weekend I made this recipe for Challah bread.

I accidentally used all purpose instead of bread flour (which is a shame because I have a ton of bread flour) and I'm thinking maybe that's why my bread wasn't as light or fluffy as I know challh can be. Or maybe I was a little too rough with it when I was forming and braiding the strands.

But the flavor is great, and the bread isn't so tough that I'm put off from using it for sandwiches this week. My turkey and cheddar with horseradish was terrific. I will definitely give this recipe another shot- with a lighter touch.

I've never had homemade lemon squares, only the mix and bake from a box. I have to admit I've always been fond of that tacky lemon square texture, but not so much of the taste of the preservatives. It never occurred to me to make lemon squares, and that's one of the things I like about participating in these baking challenges. I might never bake if left to my own devices, and I almost certainly wouldn't bake lemon squares.

I opted to include the pine nuts, I had some in the cupboard and I liked the idea of that extra texture in the crust. I'm so glad I included them; the oily chewy texture of the pignoli really enhanced the crust and added a nice unexpected level of complexity to a very familiar dessert.

This dessert was incredibly easy and would transport very well. The recipe can be found on the EBcO website here.

At Graham Elliot instead of bread they give you popcorn at the start of your meal; savory, garlicky popcorn. I am a big popcorn fan- in fact my favorite single girl dinner was a huge bowl of buttery popcorn and a big glass of red wine (and I was thinner then, can you believe it?)

The popcorn at Graham Elliot was so good- but you know what I was thinking- I bet I could make this!

The recipe is simple, and can be adjusted to suit your preferences.

1. I used an air popper to pop my corn, but anything- barring microwave popcorn with that goopy artificial "butter" will do.
2. In a small sauce pan melt butter and very lightly sauté as much minced garlic as you like. I think it goes without saying that I like a lot. Try not to brown the garlic as it will turn bitter.
3. Add a splash of truffle oil and pour over popped corn.
4. Toss in minced parsley and shave a bunch of hard cheese over the top. I used a truffled pecorino I snagged from the odds and ends bin at whole foods, but and fresh parm/ regg/ etc. will do. Bonus! Shave it with your microplane and it is so fine it almost melts onto the popcorn- it'll certainly melt onto your tongue.
5. Sprinkle- sparingly!- with salt and dig in.

I like that this recipe adds more flavor than just butter- so I can use a lot less butter and oil than I normally would.

Next time your Netflix arrives, grab a blanket and a big bowl of this popcorn and you'll feel like such a sneaky gourmet.

This month's EBcO recipe is Cheesy Zucchini and Red Onion Flatbread from Bon Appétit .

This super simple recipe was the perfect thing to make for my mom on the last night of her visit earlier this month. After a weekends worth of especially indulgent dining out, light pizza and a green salad were just right.

I forewent the store bought pizza dough and tried my hand at the homemade stuff. Once upon a time I found yeast breads intimidating, but now that I've conquered pie crust, nothing seems out of my reach.

I went to the bread expert- well, my bread expert, Beth at A Bread A Day, and searched her archives for a pizza dough recipe, she swears by this one, adapted from Pizzeria Bianco (Phoenix, AZ) and now I do too.

The dough was great, easy as pie (pizza pie...) and with a light touch I was able to stretch it out into a passable- but not perfect- pizza round.

I also opted not to line the zucchini and onions up into dainty rows, I wanted every bite to be a perfect bite with a little bit of everything. The pizza was fantastic, I'm sure it will find a way into our regular rotation, my husband loved it.

December's EBcO recipe was for decorated sugar cookies. I went with a different recipe that I'd had my eye on. I'm not a huge cookie person, but I've wanted to try decorating with royal icing for ages, and I found just what I was looking for over at Annie's Eats.

This is such a production that it really makes sense to bake a whole lot of cookies, so I made three batches of sugar cookie dough. I only used one, and it made 4 dozen cookies, so I threw the other two balls in the freezer to use at a later date. Maybe Valentines Day?

There isn't much new to be said about baking and decorating sugar cookies. It just took forever, but they came out beautifully, and the things I did to try and streamline the process led directly to what I don't love about them.

1. I didn't want to switch out too many pastry bags of icing, so I piped all the cookies in white, if I'd done it right and piped the cookies with the color I was planning on filling them with, they would have looked much neater.
2. I didn't want to buy a new pastry tip, but I think a smaller piping tip would have also made for neater edges and detail.

That's it. Everything else about these cookies is great. They are fun to decorate once you get the hang of flooding the icing, they have a great texture once the icing is dry and the flavor is absolutely compelling. These are some addictive little cookies.

In fact...

And I'm a little ashamed to admit this...

But Josh and I ate all of them. The angels didn't even last long enough to be photographed.

All 4 dozen cookies. I will admit that they are small cookies, but still... 4 dozen!

My favorite thing about Hanukkah has got the be the food.  And the presents.  And the fact that there are 8 days of food and presents.

I love the stories behind traditional foods- and the nice thing about Hanukkah is that several recipes are fried in oil to symbolize the burning oil lamps that should have only lasted one day, but miraculously lasted eight days. 

Alas, even I can't eat fried food eight days in a row. 

We did, however celebrate this weekend with latkes and sufganiyot.

The jelly donuts were surprisingly easy to make, and I was thrilled that mine looked just like real donuts.

I used Martha Stewart's recipe.  That bitch knows her holidays- all of them.

Filling the donuts was really easy with the pastry bag, but I've heard it's even easier with a turkey flavor syringe.  I don't have one of those, so pastry bag it is.

 

Always taste testing. 

The donuts puffed right up for easy filling.

 

Easy and delicious, hand rolls are maki's low maintenance cousins.

You can start with any mayo you like, you know I like to make my own, it's quick, easy, flavorful and cheap. Add as much or as little spice as you like with sriracha or any other chili sauce.

Roughly chop your fish- we have some tuna and some salmon, and slice a few green onions.

Give 'em a mix.

Spread some sushi rice (rice, rice wine vinegar and mirin) on a sheet of toasted seaweed and top with your spicy tuna or salmon mix.

Roll it up. That's it.

Sushi is expensive and pretty intimidating when you eat out, but really, so easy to make at home. Give it a go!

** This is a post only about the food we ate and the restaurants at which we ate said food. You've been warned.**

This weekend was an over-the-top indulgent weekend on the dining front.

Friday we had lunch at Xoco - the line wasn't as long as I'd expected and the food was more than worth the 20-minute wait.

We had:
House made chips and Guac- good and totally standard.

Ahodaga: Golden pork carnitas, black beans, tomato broth, spicy arbol chile sauce, pickled onions. This was my favorite of the two sandwiches we ordered. I love my food wet and the tomato broth mentioned here was a served in a bowl, and the sandwich was served in the broth- it was perfect for dipping! The sauce was lip-burning spicy, but not so much so that the flavor was obscured, in fact the heat focused the flavors, and the pickled onions provided the perfect amount of relief and contrast to the spicy sauce.

Pepito: Braised Tallgrass shortribs, caramelized onion, artisan Jack cheese, black beans, pickled jalapenos. We almost didn't order this sandwich because I'd made short-ribs for the dinner the night before, but I'm glad we did. This was my mom's favorite, while she found the ahogada a bit too spicy, this was perfect for her. Moist and tender- the cheese really held the sandwich together- both physically and with respect to flavor.

Normally neither of us would order dessert at lunch, but something about "vacation" makes you just go for it. We shared a sweet, rich and slightly spicy Aztec chocolate and an order of churros. Definitely worth the calories.

We had a few hours to digest and relax before our 7 pm dinner reservation. Josh joined us and we headed north to The Drawing Room. This restaurant is so cool; it is primarily a cocktail bar- they specialize in prohibition-era cocktails and freshfreshfresh ingredients. The cocktails are almost indescribable- unlike anything you can find elsewhere made with liqueurs and spirits that aren't widespread, and prepared tableside with a history lesson.

We had a long, slow dinner- the food at this place is just superb.

We started with the oysters- ok, I started with the oysters, served with a gardiniera mignonette, Josh was a good sport and tried one but I had the rest all to myself.

Our first course also included the yellow tail poke- avocado, sesame, quail egg, and, something I can't remember, some sort of emulsion came together to create an incredibly balanced dish.

Second course was the Sweetbreads and the fish and chips.

The sweetbreads were lovely, served with pineapple, pomegranate, artichoke and pancetta brittle- each bite was perfect. The fish and chips would be better described as "fish and chips"- creative, fun salt cod croquettes served with aioli, American chips and malt vinegar powder.

Our third course was rich, meaty and decadent. Josh and my mom loved the wagyu cheeks- the meat braised and so tender that it melted if you looked at it funny and served with an addictively salty truffle oil and frisee panzanella. My favorite was what they called bacon squared. Perfectly cooked pork belly wrapped in crispy bacon served with smoky eggplant puree- this might have just ruined pork belly for me forever- it's absolutely amazing. I definitely ate more than my fair share of this rich little dish.

For dessert we ordered the flight- perfect pistachio gelato, some sort of praline tart, an amazing curry spiced apple crisp, and peanut butter crème brule. I never would have ordered peanut butter crème brulee, and thinking about it I'd never think the flavors would work, but it was really, really good.

The cocktails here can't be glossed over. I wholly recommend everyone order a drink called an Aviation, not on the menu, it's still the most popular drink they serve. It's a really subtle introduction to the type of old-fashioned cocktails they serve. All together we tried six or seven different cocktails, and the remarkable thing is; it doesn't seem to matter if you don't like gin/tequila/bourbon/whatever, the drinks are so balanced and the ingredients so fresh that you will completely change your mind by the end of the evening.

Can you believe that all that is just the food we had on Friday?

On Saturday we had breakfast at home- fruit and a Dutch Baby late in the day. Saturday night's dinner was going to be big, and we wanted to be ready.

Josh took my car out to the suburbs so my mom and I braved the Metra to get us up to the city. Because of train schedules we were about an hour early for our reservation at Graham Elliot. oThis worked to our advantage as it gave us a chance to enjoy a few cocktails at the bar.

My mom sipped prosecco and I sampled two different cocktails. The second was a quite refreshing rather dry cocktail called a London Calling; Plymouth, Pimm's, ginger, apple... It was very refreshing, but that hardly matters because I can't stop thinking about the first cocktail I had. It was a lovely warm toddy-type of concoction that erased the chill from my bones, and I wish I'd written down the name or the ingredients because it would be the perfect warm tipple to sip on a cold Saturday afternoon after walking the dog. It had rum and cloves and... see, I'll have to live with that regret. But now I will begin in earnest my search for a rum based hot-cocktail recipe. Good, I needed a new project.

So we sat for an hour and discussed the important issue at hand. What to order. Surely we wanted to try as many different things as possible, and yes they have a tasting menu, but we kept eyeing the full "experience" menu. Surely that would be too much; too much food, too much money, too much decadence. Well that vacation spirit took over again, and we decided to go for it. We ordered the "Experience," the full tasting menu.

Wow. Before I get into details let me say, we began dinner at 7:30. We paid the bill at 11. It was an experience indeed.

So. Here we go.

Signature Caesar Salad
Delightful- lovely dressing, crisp lettuce, salty anchovy, theatrical parmesan fluff and brioche "twinkie"- a perfect start to the kind of semi-deconstructed and creative new-twist-on-an-old-classic meal we were expecting.

Deconstructed Italian Beef
This was maybe my favorite part of the whole meal (I'll actually say that about five times about five different things). The fondue, the aioli and the giardiniera really captured the idea of an Italian beef sandwich- but the meltingly delicious beef tartar went in a completely different direction and I wish I could have one everyday.

Chestnut Bisque with quince jam and Maple Marshmallow
I found this cloying while we were eating it, but I was surprised to find myself thinking of it first thing the next morning. I guess it just needed a little time to grow on me, but it turns out I loved it. (Does that ever happen to you?)
I don't know what happened; maybe I was dreaming good things about it.

Wisconsin Cheddar Risotto
According to my mother, who is the expert in this situation, Graham Elliot prepared this risotto on Top Chef Masters and claims it is his specialty. She really liked it, but I have to say that every bite- save the one that contained green apple - was far too salty. I mean, faaaaaar too salty. I think I drank an entire glass of water with this tiny dish alone. Yowza.

Arctic Char Fillet
I thought this was a little salty, but it might have been residual salty from the risotto. The mustard caviar was fun to eat- little bursts of mustard flavor with each bite.

Pan Roasted Scallops
With lentils, raisins, almond, cauliflower. The woman seated next to us ordered it as her entrée, three scallops and after eating our tasting sized portion of one scallop I wonder how she did it. This was a lovely two bite dish, but anymore would have been too much.

Glazed Pork Belly
Sadly, the pork belly really suffered in comparison to the pork belly at The Drawing Room. Any other night I'd have been able to judge it on its own merits, and I would have been able to point out that the sweet root beer bbq sauce and the bitter collard greens really set up a balanced dish but... Well I just couldn't separate the two. Compare to the perfect pork belly the night before this seemed almost tough and chewy.

** Let's take a little interlude here, shall we? So something happened with our server between the char and the pork belly courses. I think he got in the weeds a bit and, well frankly I think he forgot about us. We were cool, because we had a great bottle of wine, and we were slowly but surely getting stuffed, but after a while it was pretty noticeable that the course wasn't just taking a little while. He finally remembered us, apologized profusely and sent over the manager. Like I said, we were fine, we were enjoying ourselves, but I shudder to think what would have happened if he forgot about another table. One less relaxed, one less prepared to enjoy a leisurely meal might be upset by the server forgetting about us half way through our $300 meal. He seemed relieved when I assured him we were fine (duh, I'd be relieved too).**

Wagyu Beef Stroganoff
Holy wow. This was just... the most perfect dish and by far my favorite (see, I knew I'd end up saying it again). The beef was cooked perfectly, seared crispy and hot on the outside, the inside tender and almost rare. The dill-crème fraiche stroganoff sauce and the peppered spaetzle were the perfect accompaniments, but the beef was the real star of the dish.

Foie-lipops
As if we weren't already bursting at the seams, the manager sent us an extra course as an apology for, you know, forgetting about us. Fortunately our designated driver showed up just in time to help us finish up the last few courses- and just in time. My mom refuses to eat foie gras- no ethical concerns; she just thinks it sounds gross. Crazy, huh? Well, more for us. The foie-lipops were lollipops shaped discs of foie rolled in poprocks on a stick. And they were... awesome. No big surprise there, they were just lovely of course. Paired with a couple of gratis glasses of Muscat they were quite delicious.

Alright, dessert, the homestretch; did I mention that dinner lasted almost 4 hours?

Orange Dreamsicle
This might have been my favorite dish of the evening (yeah, yeah, yeah...) the juxtaposition of flavors and the perfect melding of flavors made this a real masterpiece. And I'm not even a big dessert person. I can already tell you that in the future whenever we have dinner downtown I'll be popping over to GE for a nightcap and dessert just to taste this- or something like it- again.

Flourless Chocolate Cake
For me this was sort of a meh. But for my mother, chocoholic extraordinaire, this was the prefect end to a perfect meal.

To wrap up, a few last comments. I mentioned that they kind of forgot about us, but otherwise the service was amazing. We gave our waiter pretty much carte blanche on wine selection, and he passed that little test with flying colors, I really appreciate that our waiter had the chance to pad the bill and didn't. Not only did our wine open up and pair differently with each course it was a really delicious wine at a really reasonable price. Also! You don't have to have a few hundred dollars in your pocket to have a beautiful dinner here. The stroganoff dish I had was probably about $30 as an entrée, and it paired perfectly with the $11 cab our waiter recommended to go with it. That would be a totally reasonable dinner (by Chicago standards)- thought I definitely suggest the "experience" if you ever get the chance.

You read my post about the why I'm making lard, here is the how. I (mostly) followed the directions in Karen Soloman's book Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It.

To start off, I called up a great butcher and ordered 10 pounds of pork fatback; ten pounds translates to a big old bag of fat.

Chop all that fat up into small pieces and get it into a very large pot over very low heat.

Turns out that for ten pounds of fat, you need two very large pots.

Now settle in, because this is a very long process, here it is after the first hour.

And after it's cooked three hours.

And here it's rendered for seven hours- looks about done.

A tasty byproduct I didn't except (as a first timer) was the pork cracklin's; crispy, super fresh pork rinds. Sprinkled with salt and cayenne pepper they make a great snack, just take it from me, don't snack on a handful followed by three martini's and call it dinner. I learned that one the hard way.

Day 2 I woke up with a little hangover and got back to business, melt and filter the lard and then, sort of like magic it turns into this luxurious creamy solid that looks just like- well, just like lard.

For me- pie is all about the crust! I used to be nervous about making crust, and it never turned out quite right, not light enough, not flaky enough. Well this weekend I discovered the magic ingredient, and I'll never buy a frozen, pre-made again.

I'd had my fill of pie on Thanksgiving- Josh and I buy our pumpkin pie from our favorite bakery, Lovely in Wicker Park in Chicago, IL; instead I made these "Toaster tarts" from Karen Soloman's book Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It. They are really just homemade pop tarts, but man, are they about a million times better.

The dough for the crusts is rolled out thin, and pinched shut around a little filling, I used some cherry preserves I had in the fridge. The tarts are baked just until they are mostly done, then finished off in the oven or toaster right before you eat them.

They are sort just little pies that could fit in your pocket, they're light on the filling but they're a great recipe to showcase an outstanding crust.

About that crust; I'd been looking for an excuse to make some lard for a while, and this baking challenge gave me just such an opportunity. You can read all about the lard making process here, and it is a process, about 2 days worth of work, but let me tell you that it is worth every minute.

What do you do with your pumpkins the day after Halloween? Some people make sweets, my folks put them out back for the birds, but I like to take the unique opportunity to make an entire winter worth of pumpkin ravioli filling.

First roast or sauté the pumpkin flesh until it breaks down into a puree, add some cream or half and half and some butter and season to your taste, I like sage, tarragon, salt and pepper.

Make your favorite pasta recipe and roll out sheets for filling.

Once it is completely cooled, drop in spoonfuls of the pumpkin filling, cover with another sheet of pasta and seal. You can use a pasta cutter to make neat pretty pasta, but I always like to leave them very rugged and not waste the pasta by trimming it off.

Let the ravioli sit while you prepare the sauce, and then drop in boiling water for just a few minutes to cook. My favorite sauce "recipe" is below but a simple sage and brown butter is also very complimentary:

Sautee diced shallot or onion and garlic in butter until soft, add about 2 cups chicken stock and reduce sown to ¼ cup. Add cream or half and half (about a cup) and reduce until liquid is ½ the original volume. Strain out the bits of shallot and return the reduction to the saucepan over low heat. Whisk in a few tablespoons of cold butter, allowing the sauce to thicken and serve immediately. Garnish with crispy sage leaves.

For this month's EBcO recipe I made Spicy Molasses Cookies. I have to admit, I was pretty disappointed at first; I'm not really a cupcake person and I hate the smell of molasses so I figured I had to pick the lesser of two evils in picking a recipe to make this month. I decided on the cookies because I was really, really not into the cupcakes.

These cookies were extremely simple and I was beyond shocked when I taste tested a cookie and loved it! I went on to taste test several more cookies just to be sure...

Modifications? Well, at my rinky-dink grocery store I was out of luck on the cardamom front and while the cookies were absolutely mouthwatering without, I can just imagine the little exotic something extra the cardamom would have brought to the bite. Next time (and there will be a next time, I now have an entire jar of that foul smelling molasses in my pantry) I will go out of my way to find some cardamom.

This month's baking challenge with the EBcO baking group was soft pretzels.

I decided to make Alton Brown's recipe, and I was surprised how easy it was. I'm not a very experienced baker, and though the pretzels didn't look perfect, they tasted great.

There is something very comforting about making dough and watching it rise. I'm a tiny bit impatient, so I always leave the dough to rise in a bowl I've covered in plastic wrap and placed in the sun to hopefully speed up the process.

Pretzels are the fussiest bread I've ever made, just because they need to be rolled out and twisted. It took me a few tries, but by my fourth pretzel I had it down.

I had a lot of fun with the forming step, once I got the hang of it.

Please forgive my haggard appearance; this was that day I was crazy hungover and just a mess. I was feeling pretty rough, and pretzels seemed comforting

By far the hardest part of the whole process was boiling the pretzels before baking them. My pretzels had a tendency to fall apart and untwist once I got them in the boiling water. Unlike the twisting, I didn't really get better at this part of the process as I went along. Fortunately, after a 30 second dip in their boiling bath they were pretty easy to put back together- though they didn't look very promising.

I popped these glutinous, mushy blobs in the oven and out came soft, golden pretzels.

While they baked I put together this really tasty hot mustard for dipping.

They were quite something actually, Josh and I abandoned dinner altogether and supped on hot pretzels brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with kosher salt instead. Dipped in the hot mustard they were irresistible.

Italian sausage is ubiquitous in the American supermarket, you can find both hot or sweet, and if I'm making a big batch I'll use both. Brown the sausage in a heavy pan- a cast iron skillet is perfect, make sure to let the sausage brown deep all over, the sugars will caramelize and everything will taste better.

While the sausage is browning slice the peppers, I like to use a variety of red, yellow and green peppers for more depth of flavor.

In a second pan heat olive oil and sliced garlic- it is important to heat garlic slowly over lowish heat to prevent it from browning and turning bitter. I add the oil and garlic to the pan cold and heat them up together. Once the garlic has warmed, softened and begun to turn translucent add the tomatoes.

San Marzano tomatoes are the only tomatoes I'll use, we take our tomatoes very seriously- in fact my parents brought me a whole case as a wedding present. Dice the tomatoes before adding them to the garlic and oil and sauté. To make quick work of it I use an immersion blender to break up the tomatoes instead of dicing them.

Transfer the sausages into the sauce and simmer until they are cooked through, meanwhile sauté the peppers in the drippings. Add a little salt, pepper and oregano to the sauce. I'm not crazy about oregano simply because I think people overuse it. Add a bit, but don't overdo it of else you'll overpower the sweet flavors you've worked so hard to create. Sadly this isn't a one pot meal- unless you have all day- but it's worth it to brown the sausage and peppers before adding them to the sauce.

Sausage and Peppers is the easiest, most satisfying and versatile dish in my arsenal. Last night I wanted pasta, so I made a sauce, but if you wanted sandwiches you could leave out the sauce, a sautee makes a great appetizer too- serve with crostini or just toothpicks. Leftovers are super delicious so make sure you make extra.

I turned a pint of berries into a delicious raspberry tart inspired by this post on Annie's Eats, Fresh Fruit Tart with Vanilla Pastry Cream.

I stuck pretty close to the recipe, though I left out the apple jelly glaze. It is perhaps less aesthetically pleasing, but I didn't want anything interfering with the amazing berries.

Everything about this dessert is delicious, the pastry cream is rich but not too sweet, the crust almost tastes like a sugar cookie and they really let the fresh fruit be the star here. My only complaint is that the crust is steadfastly stuck to the pan, making it almost impossible to serve a slice intact. Next time I make this tart I'll do a little research and see what can be done about that.

Campari is a type of bitters, an alcoholic aperitif obtained from the infusion of bitter herbs, aromatic plants and fruit.

I love a Campari and soda; tart, refreshing, cringe wotrthy if you are my brother-in-law...

But, it's Sunday. And I love champagne on Sundays.

See, I don't just love Champagne, I also love Champagne cocktails. Mimosa, Kir Royale, Black Velvet, but especially especially the classic Champagne Cocktail.

A Champagne Cocktail is simple; champagne, Angostura Bitters and sugar. This morning I was feeling very bubbly, so I whipped up a little Sunday morning cocktail; champagne, sugar and a splash of Campari in place of the bitters.

Lovely.

Sunday night we threw together a quick pizza on the grill. This is my absolute favorite and quickest pizza for summer. Pizza dough, unlike pie crust, is actually quick and easy to make, but I was deeply involved in a CSI marathon and didn't feel like abandoning it, so store bought it was. Heat your grill*, both sides turned to high for about ten minutes; once the grill is very hot turn one side down to medium. Oil both sides of the dough, and, toss the dough on the side of the grill turned to medium. Let the dough cook long enough that it is crispy on the bottom then turn it over and shut off the flame underneath the dough. Leave the other burner on high.

You'll want to work quickly through the next few steps so you don't lose all the heat you built up.

During the summer I don't really like sauce on my pizza, but I don't want a dry pizza either. Drizzle olive oil all over the cooked side of the pizza dough and top with plenty of dices tomatoes. All the moisture will come from the tomatoes, so add them liberally. Top with torn basil, crushed, cured olives and fresh mozzarella cheese. Close the lid and grill until the cheese melts. The cheese will take as long to melt as the crust takes to cook through. Let your pizza rest for a minute before slicing and dig in. This pizza is simple and delicious; my two criteria for a summer Sunday dinner.

*I have a two burner grill, one burner on each side; this allows me to cook things on the grill on indirect heat; that is, not directly over the flame. It is a very cheap grill, but this one feature was very important to me in choosing it. My parents have a very expensive three burner grill, but all three burners run the length of the grill, making it impossible for them to grill on indirect heat, thereby limiting the number of things they can cook on the grill. However my parents are fancy, and make up for that by also owning a smoker.

I was too tempted by the fresh cream at the Farmer's market on Saturday, but the last thing I need is to have that rich, delicious cream sitting in the fridge, begging to be poured over berries and devoured. I figured this was as good a time as any to try something that has been on my to-make list far too long.

Butter

Here's the thing, it's almost too easy to make butter.

Take a very clean, wide mouth jar. Make sure it is VERY CLEAN. If it has any lingering salsa or pickle ghosts your butter will taste like salsa or pickles. Give the jar a sniff, and if it smells funky, reach for the next one.

Pour in some cream, screw on the lid.

Start shaking. It will start to thicken and stick to the sides of the jar.

If it's your first time you might not think anything is happening. Open up and take a peak, you'll see that the cream is decidedly thicker than when you first poured it in the jar.

Screw the lid back on and keep shaking. It will take on the consistency of whipped cream (yum, try not to eat it all) and it will be very hard to shake. I just kept smacking it against my hand, first the top, then the bottom, and repeat.

So keep shake, shake, shaking and then... all of a sudden... it will make this tiny sloshing noise and it will separate into butter and buttermilk. I didn't save the buttermilk since I only made a little butter, but you could save it and make something else delicious.

Wring out the rest of the liquid; I used a cheese cloth and then spread the butter out on a cutting board and used a towel to sop up any remaining water, sprinkle with salt (helps preserve the butter and tastes good), mix and refrigerate.

This fresh butter tastes so good, I've been eating it on bread. Just what my diet needs.

Some weekends we get out and about. We go to dinner, we grab drinks we see friends. I think of these weekends as "Josh" weekends; he has a great time and I end up exhausted from all that running around. He's a bit more social by nature than I am. Some other weekends we get some groceries, cook at home, make a few cocktails and sit on the couch to catch up on CSI episodes I haven't had time to watch. I think of these weekends as "Me" weekends. I have a great time and Josh ends up exhausted from all that lounging around the house.

This weekend was a bit of a hybrid. We had a date on Friday night to King Crab on Halsted (Josh was a great sport and actually ate a few oysters), and after the farmers market on Saturday I was done being out. We spent the rest of the weekend at the house.

Armed with our bounty of spring time produce from the farmers market (read: asparagus, asparagus and more asparagus) I set to work in the kitchen. The first thing I made was this chevre, grilled asparagus and bacon quiche. So yeah, yum. It doesn't hurt that the dairy stand was out of half and half by the time we got there so we had to settle for cream*. Talk about your decadent treats.

I use a really basic recipe for quiche and just swap out the fillings:
One frozen pie crust (because I just don't have time to make crust from scratch, I'd rather drink a Bloody Mary on the deck)
5 eggs
1 1/2 cups half and half (or cream or milk, but I like half and half)

Bake the empty pie crust and toss in whatever cheese, veggies or meat you like. Combine eggs and dairy and pour over toppings. Bake at 350, this will take anywhere from 40 min to an hour depending on your ingredients, the size of your pie pan, etc. Just keep an eye on it, when it's firm but slightly jiggly, it's done.

Next we grilled up some asparagus and I made two dipping sauces- garlic mayonnaise and a thick balsamic vinaigrette. I used recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking (a gift from my MIL), and I have to admit that now that I've made real mayonnaise I'm not sure I'll ever buy it again. Well at least, as long as my immune system is healthy enough for raw eggs, so, barring any illness or pregnancy or salmonella poisoning.

For the mayonnaise:

Using a food processor makes this job a snap. I tossed three egg yolks** into the food processor and ran it for about a minute, then I added a pinch of mustard powder, a pinch of salt and a splash of lemon juice. Whir that all around for another minute or so. By drops add olive oil and then begin to add it in a small stream. Keep the food processor running and keep adding oil until it all emulsifies, add more lemon juice and salt and I like a little more mustard, and then keep adding more oil until it emulsifies again and reaches the consistency and taste you're looking for.

Yum! So good. Once my mayo had come together, I added a few crushed garlic cloves and voila- one delicious artichoke dipping sauce. Use sparingly of at the very least infrequently since the only ingredients here are egg yolks and oil, this isn't exactly a diet food.

I also whipped up a very quick balsamic vinaigrette for dipping (I love the richness of the mayo together with the acidity of the vinaigrette) in a bowl whish a diced shallot, some salt, some dry mustard oil and vinegar. That's all. If you have the skills you can get it to emulsify a bit, but I don't mind it broken. It all tastes the same. And by the same I mean awesome.

Rounding out our local feast (well, not the artichokes, but everything else) I topped some sliced baguette from the Red Hen bakery with some Capriole Wasabi Chevre and sliced green onions. Good lord, this is one addicting little snack. Seriously, I can't stop eating it.

*Check back tomorrow to see what I did with the leftover cream. I feel so handy and brilliant.
**The recipe in MTAOFC calls for two egg yolks and one whole egg, but I don't care for raw whites. That's not a health thing, it's just my issue as runny and raw whites give me the icks, so I stuck with all yolks.

I love food. I adore it. I love eating it, cooking it, talking about it, reading about it, and shopping for it. My deepest hearts desire is to open a little neighborhood market that sources local produce and the awesome Italian imports I could never find in Denver (and still rarely find in our neighborhood in Chicago). I'd love to feature inexpensive wines and interesting cheeses; raw milk products that are so tough to find and fresh baked breads.

Alas, I am resigned to the reality that that will never, ever happen. So instead I cook, I eat, I farmers market the hell out of my Saturdays. But what I love to do most, is grill.

I grill on a relatively cheap two burner Char-broil gas grill that my mom gave me as a graduation gift. We could debate the pro's and con's of gas vs. charcoal vs. wood, I think they all have their merits, but for our little patio in the city, this is the perfect little grill for me.

I grill burgers, steaks, sausages, chicken thighs, chicken wings, beer can chickens, pork chops, pork butt, pork loin, fish, mussels, veggies, fruits, you name it, I grill it.

Since I've learned my way around the grill I've begun to branch out on my own, but my go-to for recipes, instruction, techniques and inspiration is Elizabeth Karmel's Taming the Flame.

After a long winter and months of hearty fare my heart leaps a bit at the sight of all the lovely produce in the markets. Baby carrots, zucchini and eggplant; radicchio, bell peppers and sweet potatoes; asparagus, bunches of green onions, big bulbs of fennel- I can't help myself.

When I was single I'd grill up a big batch of this weekly. Josh however, needs more for dinner than just a big plate of grilled veggies. Turns out this recipe for grilled veggies in a garlicky-anchovy sauce is great tossed with pasta or grilled in a Panini. So, I get my grilled veggie fix and he gets a robust dinner.

Win-win.

I don't want to plagiarize, but she does offer this recipe free on her website (along with a few others), I can't recommend it highly enough.

Grilled Antipasto with Mezzo Soprano Sauce

As I'm a bit of an anchovy and garlic freak, I up the amounts of both and take a Pepcid before I dig in. It can take a little while to grill up all these veggies, and they take some minding since they all have different cooking times, so Josh whipped us up a couple of cocktails and a quickie appetizer to munch on while we grilled.

Not-Your-Grandpa's Arnold Palmer
Combine sweet-tea infused vodka, soda water, and a generous squeeze of lemon. You can add a splash of lemonade if you like you cocktails a little sweeter. Serve over ice.

Butter and Radish Open Faced Sandwiches
Butter sliced French bread and sprinkle with a pinch of salt (I like kosher salt of sea salt, anything with a bit of texture), top with thinly sliced fresh radishes (I use a mandolin for paper thin slices). Eat, but be careful not to fill up, these are addictive.

We ate.

We drank.

We ate and drank.

I had good bangs.

The real fun was had on Sunday.

Last night dinner at home just wasn't really happening, so Josh and I popped around the corner to Sweets & Savories, a restaurant right around the corner from our house that serves "casual French American cuisine."

We'd talked about checking it out several times, but Josh's brother had mentioned he thought it wasn't very good, so we kept eschewing it for other restaurants in the area. Lord knows there are plenty.

We shared tomato soup and an order of frites and we each got a hamburger (American Kobe beef, foie gras pate, black truffle mayonnaise and white truffle oil) they are normally $17 but we had a groupon for $5 burgers.

At least it looks good...

The soup was, well, soup, and the frites were good, but sadly these were the highlight of the evening. We both ordered our burgers medium rare and they both came out well done- dense, dry little hockey pucks. We ordered 2 burgers and took one and a half burgers home for the dog.

I know that they sold 644 groupons, so maybe they are getting tired of making burgers, but we wont be back to try anything else. What a waste of a good opportunity to make a great first impression and secure our return business.

Josh and I finally celebrated Valentines Day (a little late) with Lobster rolls.

There are as many different recipes for the rolls as there are people who make them, this just happens to be mine. I always like to get my mise in place, even if it's something simple like this recipe:

2 lobster tails (I cook mine on the grill)
mayo
celery rid, diced
melted butter
lemon juice
tarragon
salt and pepper to taste
brioche buns

:
Thin the mayo with a little lemon juice, just enough to very lightly dress the lobster. mix in the tarragon, salt and pepper.

Ideally you'd be able to find top split buns, but I couldn't find any that looked good. Trader Joe's had these great looking brioche buns, so I picked them up instead. Brush the crumb side with some of the melted butter and grill them up to a nice golden brown.

This is where it gets really decadent (as if lobster salad on brioch wasn't decadent enough already), brush the tops of the buns with some more melted butter and grill the tops too.

That's just about it. When you use these buns it will be a little messy (that's why the top split buns are so handy), but it will be just as tasty.

One thing we did this weekend- all the eating- we did really, really well.

Bin 36
Bin Wine Cafe
Catering by Bonsoiree
Tsuki

And that's just dinner. We also had breakfast at S&G and brunch at our house- I made a bunch of quiche and the baked french toast that everyone loves (just don't ask what's in it, you don't want to know).

You'd think we'd be tired of eating at this point, but i spent last night planning our plan of attack for Chicago Restaurant Week, we decided to maximize our adventure with out wiping out our bank accounts we're going to go every night, but order just one pre fixe and one salad. Hopefully this will keep us from getting fat and going broke.

The restaurants we've decided on include:

Farmerie 58
Joe's Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab
NoMI
Brasserie Jo
La Sardine
Hugo's Frog Bar & Fish House
The Lobby
The Berghoff
Carnivale
Tizi Melloul
The Cape Cod Room

Now we're just saving our pennies. Yum!