The Prodigal Daughter Returns

     Hello, folks!  It is I, returned from a month-long absence of blogging.  In the past few weeks I have:

-failed to land a job
-failed to acquire more interviews
-had some pretty clumsy accidents (sunburn, black eye, etc.)

     However, I have succeeded in:

-weeding and planting the entirety of my vegetable garden
-giving my squeeze a great birthday party
-taking some great shots of my friends' beautiful newborn, Giana
-coming up with other things I want to blog about (all my first times in local restaurants!)

     See, the positives outweigh the negatives!

     In the spirit of summer officially landing its beautiful rump in Southeast Wisconsin, I embarked on making one of my favorite summertime treats: Bananas Foster Bread. 

     Allow me to preface this; I do not like baking.  I know many people who adore it, some of which really excel at it.  I am not in this group.  Putting me in the kitchen to bake is like inviting a natural disaster into your home.  It's a mess; there's debris everywhere, children are crying--really horrible stuff.  I cannot handle the multi-tasking.  "Where's the 1/4 c. measuring cup . . . I can't find the flour . . . Damnit, I forgot the salt!"  But for the Bananas Foster Bread, I think the ends justify the means.

     Anyway, as I mentioned, my squeeze's birthday was last week, and because we had a whole weekend of bad eating/drinking/playing around planned, our whole bag of bananas from the week's shopping sat untouched.  This was the perfect opportunity to go for banana bread, since I'm pretty sure over-ripe bananas were invented specifically for this purpose.

     One of the things I love best about this recipe from Cooking Light is its "adult twist"--aka, the boozy taste of rum in the bread and the frosting.  It adds that extra layer of flavor among the usual suspects of sweet, salty, banana-y.  Another thing I love, and this is usually to Cooking Light's credit (although, there are sometimes where it's like: "Um, no."), is their incorporation of healthier substitutes to old school recipes.  For example, this recipe calls for milled flaxseed and fat-free yogurt.  I have really no idea what those items take the place of, but they sound healthy, right?  (Sidenote: I've heard that using applesauce or canned pumpkin in place of butter in certain baking items like brownies, is a health-wise tip.)

     

      At this risk of a boring digression, there's something else I'd like to address here.  Do you ever find yourself frustrated when browsing recipes, and there's inconsistencies in ingredient amounts?  You all know I love my Cooking Light, but I do have one critique.  You could be reading two recipes on the exact same page of the magazine, and while one calls for half an onion, diced, the other calls for  1 1/2 c. sliced onion.  I realize that this can be due in part to the recipes having different authors with different styles and different requirements--I just remember being extremely frustrated with this in my earlier cooking days.  Like, can't they just list everything based on the item's size?!  How do I know when I'm at the grocery store if this red pepper is going to yield a full cup's worth or not?! 

     The best way I've come to combat this with is, if you're not baking, take Rachael Ray's advice and "eyeball it."  Seriously, just guess.  In the land of baking, precision is paramount.  If you're stir-frying, making a pizza, grilling a burger--guessing won't ruin your food.  This is something I believe I absorbed from my dad.  He used to say it a lot when I was a kid and worrying about messing stuff up.  And there was Myron with his soothing, "It's ok, Nicole, it doesn't matter."

     Alas, we are baking here.  So let me inform you: when the recipe calls for 1 1/2 c. mashed ripe banana, what they mean is 3-4 bananas.  Like much of cooking, this is something you can only learn from doing.  But, I want to spread the word of Mashed Bananas!  Let me lead you to the accurate amounts!  Go forth and be glad in it. 

 

Yeah, buddy.

Crabby Challenge

    Pun intended, there.  These crab cakes put me in a frustrated mood at first.  I followed a recipe from Cooking Light's April issue entitled Crab Cakes with Spicy Remoulade.  The recipe was part of a special "40 Fast and Easy Meals" feature, which is one of my favorite parts of the magazine.  And after a weekend of eating like crap (tailgate food, Mexican twice in one day, baked ham), we wanted to opt for two lighter/meatless meals this week.  However "fast" this recipe was, it definitely wasn't easy.

     That is, until I employed a little trick I learned from one of the restaurants I used to work in.  I should probably back up a bit and tell you that a few years ago, I attempted to make shrimp cakes.  I worked at a Southwestern restaurant when I first moved to Milwaukee and they had the tastiest appetizers--or "tapas," as we called them.  Tapas were the best part of the menu: shrimp cake sliders, seared scallops, grilled shrimp, fresh-made guac & salsa...the list went on.  It's definitely a penchant of mine to attempt to remake my favorite restaurant food at home.  I'm not usually good at it; the shrimp cakes were a perfect example.  Generally when you make "cakes" or meatballs of any kind, you use an egg to sort of glue things together.  Not only did I accidentally omit the egg, I forgot to pop the mixture in the fridge so that it'd be easier to mold.  That night's feasting ended in sauteed shrimp crumbles.

     There was one thing I'd seen the cooks doing, however,  and it's the trick I'm going to strongly advise you to employ.  Take any jar lid (even your mayo lid would work here), place a sheet of plastic wrap inside it, and then pack your crab cake mixture in it.  This compacts your mixture into a tightly, evenly-formed patty that will not only hold together, but will cook evenly as well.  The plastic wrap ensures that nothing gets stuck inside the lid.  It'll look something like this:
 

   
     However, before I remembered this trick, I spent about 5 minutes trying to keep the first patty (and subsequently, my spirits) from crumbling and falling apart--and I even remembered the egg this time.  So, fear not, you lovers of the homemade crab cake!  I urge you to give this a shot.  Here's more aptly-helpful photographic evidence:

Be sure to flip it upside down in order to remove your cake.

 

And rather than dredge in panko, I just held each patty and gave each side a little dusting, pressing the crumbs in to finish.

Dust away.

As you can see, even with this little trick, it's not a perfect enterprise.

This was also my first experience with homemade remoulade!  You won't be surprised to hear that I forgot to add the ground red pepper.  But for those of you with milder palates, rest assured, it's still tasty without!

Pre-fry.

Post-fry.  Not bad, eh?

 

Rounds out a pretty delicious meal!  Serving size is two cakes--but that's a little too small of a meal for me.  Three cakes was still less than 500 calories.  Also, because multi-tasking in the kitchen isn't my best modus operandi, I just made up a "salad" of arugula, red onion, s&p, and lemon juice, then garnished with some fresh basil from my cheater garden.  

Tilling Your Plot

     Without the candy coating: gardening is a shitload of work.  I mean, really.  This stuff's not for sissies.  You think your old gardening gran is so meek and fragile, but she's a badass.  There's so much physical labor involved that, according to my diet tracker, gardening burns almost 300 calories an hour.  Shoveling and heaving and pulling--somehow even my hamstrings were sore after last weekend's endeavors?

     Allow me to set the scene for you.  The entire area of the garden was overgrown with chest-high weeds.  Abby Hoffman could've hidden in there.  Step one: bring out the weed-whacker.  And don't forget to use the strongest plastic ties you can find.

     Upon felling the forestry and examining its floor, we realized we had to dig up all the roots and top level grass that the weed whacker couldn't tackle.  Step two: grab a shovel.  Or two.  And volunteers, if you can.

     After two hours of over-turning soil, shovelful by shovelful, we re-examined and realized we needed something that required less effort and could produce maximal results.  Preferably something motorized.  Step three: Call Home Depot and rent a rototiller.  I cannot emphasize the importance of this enough.  It took us two hours to dig up one tenth of the garden.  It took us half as much to till the entire plot after acquiring our rental.

    Step four: call your dad.  When I called mine, old My-Guy informed me, to my dismay, that we have to pick out all the roots we dug up.   Step four is still in-process.  The most we've managed to do is rake out the stuff on top of the soil.  Re-implement step two.  If you don't, you're putting your plants/seeds into a terror zone.  Any leftover roots or weeds will strangle and kill anything you attempt to grow.

     I'll be keeping you posted.

I have no idea how large in numerical area our plot is, but it's approximately 12 hours+hand blisters+sore muscles big.

The depth perception in this photo doesn't do it justice, but there were two HUGE weed systems--like, larger than basketballs--rooted here.  It took us an hour to dig each out.

We also spent time mulching around the trees in our yard.

This is our plan for 2012 plant & harvest.  Because we both grew up on this staple, we're going to be planting raspberry bushes as well.

I refer to this little joy as my "cheater garden."  It's called an Aerogarden and requires almost zero effort beyond refilling the water trough, adding nutrient packets, and minimal pruning.  Here we have monstrous cilantro and basil plants, and a growing assortment of thyme, oregano, and parsley.

    

Can anyone (mom?) identify this flower bush?  It just started blooming like crazy once we got all the warm weather two weeks ago.

It also attracts tens of bees, which provide a soothing hum in our backyard.

Tuscan Bean & Kale Soup

     This was an interesting enterprise.  After I wrote about the beautiful weather we were having, April came to its senses and grew cold and rainy.  This is fine with me, since I'd rather not rush the spring.  Sure, I love warm weather, but I also appreciate seasonal changes.  So there's no snow, but there's no consistent temperature either.  This makes for some extra time for hearty food endeavors like soups, casseroles, and whatever else is blasphemous on the summer palate.  I found this recipe in Cooking Light: Tuscan Bean Soup.  The original recipe calls for escarole, but I find that any one dark, leafy green is an ample substitute for any other.

Prep pile.

Stirring in the thyme & parmesan rind.

Delights.

Kale is becoming a staple around here--delicious in soups, stir-fries, and on their own as chips.

As it turns out, the parmesan rind should either be harder or older.  Mine melted, but the soup was still insanely tasty: that perfect combination of flavorful, not-too-creamy, & not-too-salty.

Something sacred: breaking bread.

Dinner is served.

Buon appetito!

That's one spicy meatball!

  

...but only because I added a lot of crushed red pepper.  I'm telling you, it's probably in my top five spices.  Followed by chipotle pepper, salt, garlic, and thyme.  What are yours?

     I followed this recipe from Cooking Light entitled Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs.  This was about the easiest thing in the world.  Boil pasta, chop onions, saute with (jarred) red sauce, brown meatballs, done.

     Well, actually, it was a little more than that, there's some combining and a little prep work involved, but this was as close to a 30-minute meal as I've ever come--save microwaving anything.  I apologize for the lack of photos, this recipe breezes by just that fast.  The trick to these meatballs being so dang flavorful is that they're made with Italian turkey sausage, rather than plain old ground whatever.  I, of course, jazzed it up with about 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper.

     So after you form the meatballs, you brown them on all sides, and remove from the pan.  Then in go the onions and garlic, followed by the jarred sauce (I like Ragu brand, garlic, onion, and olive oil flavor).  Then you put the meatballs back in to finish cooking and boil your pasta.  The whole thing gets plated less than 10 minutes later.  Garnish with grated parmesan and torn basil leaves.  Here's a close up in case your salivary glands need some work:

La Primavera ha venuto a Milwaukee

     For all you English speakers out there, that's "spring has come to Milwaukee," in Italian.  For all you Italian speakers out there, feel free to correct me if that's inaccurate.  Truly: all the birds in the neighborhood are flying in pairs, we've moved our grill to the patio, the blades of green far outnumber the winter browns of the backyard, and much of my elastic-prominent clothing is surfacing in my wardrobe.  (Jeans and regular bras in the heat?!--gross).

     After having the out-of-laws visit two weekends ago, we had a bunch of our friends visit Milwaukee for the first weekend of the NCAA tournament.  This meant three straight days and nights of watching basketball.  Now, as a Spartan, I don't mind some exciting games, but I couldn't keep up with the fellas and my interest waned after State played their games.  So, my old MSU roomie and I did some traipsing around Milwaukee to various bars, breweries, and restaurants.  It was a fun four days!  But it didn't leave much time for anything else, so we're glad to be back in our regular routines. 

      We've had a string of perilously (sunburn, climate change) beautiful days down in Southeast Wisconsin, so I took a bike ride around my neighborhood to show you some interesting shots that contrast the winter scenery in my post from less than a month ago.

Daffodils have grown up and out, even though you can still see their dead comrades in the background.

Not snow-covered boughs, but petal-covered.

Choke Cherry Tree?  We're unsure.

For whatever reasons, this is the third barn I've become compelled to photograph.  I like the contrast between the decrepit building and the bright, blooming bush.  (Alliteration was unintentional here)

This fella, the cardinal, my squeeze captured rested atop the birdie "summer cottage."  He chases his mate around all morning.

      There's a little old ditty my dad used to sing to us every year:

          "The spring is sprung,
           the grass is riz,
           I wonders where
           the flowers is!"

Naan Pizza

     Ciao, amici!  Sorry I've been gone so long; we had a busy week.  My squeeze's parents, my "out-of-laws," or, King and Queen, as I've come to call them, came down to old Milwaukee for a weekend of food, culture, and window treatment shopping.  This meant that my house became cleaner than it's ever been.  But honestly, having company is what it takes for us to do anything more than low-level maintenance.  

     So we had fun!  On the first night, I tried to recreate the seafood risotto I blogged about two weeks ago, we had some awesome Southern fare at Maxie's Southern Comfort on Saturday night, got two trips to Alterra in (one of my favorite places in Milwaukee), and then I whipped up some polenta and pasta sauce Sunday night for the final meal before they hit the road early this morning.  

 

     We also enjoyed two amazing theatre outings: Saturday night to the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra's performance that included a 19 year old prodigy violinist who accompanied the orchestra through a Sebelius (Finnish composer!  We're all Finnish, if not by blood, than by marriage!) concerto, and then the full orchestra performed Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony.  If you've never been, I absolutely recommend it.  There's nothing better than live music performed by intensely talented musicians in a room so specifically designed to enhance the listening experience.  It was my first symphony and I loved it.  

 

     Then we attended the Sunday matinee performance of a hilarious show called "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged," which was so comically performed by three young men at hyper light speed.  There was audience participation, hyperbole, drama, and a tinge of political folly.  We were rolling.  Even our Doc Jones was (reluctantly) plucked from the audience, brought on stage, and coached into a hysterical Ophelia--whose scream I can still get goosebumps from thinking about!

     But anyway, you clicked on this link because I lead you to believe there was a recipe, right?  Right.  Let's get to that.  Last week, before the King and Queen's arrival, we made Naan pizzas.  But, what is naan?  I'm glad you asked.  It's a delicious, crusty Indian flatbread.  You can actually make it at home, which we haven't, or you can find it in most grocery stores' deli area.  

     The topping combinations for any pizza are countless, but there are a few things that I can't seem to get enough of: goat cheese, grilled veggies, and garlic.  Throw a little bacon and onion on for good measure, and you've got yourself one fine 'za.  I'm almost heartbroken to tell you that I bought pine nuts solely for this recipe, and forgot to use them.  Could've been overkill, though. 

     I began by making a garlic paste in my mortar and pestle.  This is pretty simple, it's just garlic gloves and salt smashed around until it looks like this.  Then I stir in some olive oil and spread it over each of the pizzas.

     Then I added the goat cheese.  Tip: buy crumbled goat cheese if you can find it; spreading the creamy stuff can be a little trying because it's so sticky.

     I sliced some zucchini, sprayed it with olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, and grilled (maybe 3-5 minutes each side, depending on the size and heat of your grill).

Then I topped it all with bacon, shallots, and crushed red pepper.  I should also mention that my preferred method of cooking pizza is actually grilling it.  Just make sure to keep an eye on it; I had the naan pizzas on for about 10 minutes on medium to medium-high heat. 

     I decided we should enjoy it with a bottle of my favorite Zinfandel, Edmeades. 

It was so dang good, it took us all of ten minutes to eat each of our pizzas.  I also garnished with a little bit of basil because I had it on hand.



     Seriously, this was the best combination of pizza flavors I've had: garlic, shallot, bacon, goat cheese, basil, baby bellas, grilled zucchini, crushed red pepper, and mozzarella--but you can do anything you want.  My best advice is to use what you like.  Maybe not peanut butter and olives on the same pizza, but let your appetite guide you!  Buon appetito!