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I Made It Myself: Milkshakes, Donuts, etc.

19 Jan

I’ve been making lots of things!

First, Julia and I made milkshakes with a fancy milkshake maker!

Raspberry!

Chocolate!

(Thanks, Julia, for the awesome photos and milkshake support.)

Then, Marjorie, Jess, Justine and I made a gazillion gluten-free donuts!

Marjorie is pleased with the donuts.

Fancypants.

Other things I’ve been making recently include illustrated instructions for solving a Rubik’s Cube, new friends, mistakes, and a mess.

Also, my niece is coming to visit me soon, and I want to make something with her – either food or crafts. Any ideas?

 

I Made It Myself: Macarons

7 Oct

In addition to being part of the regular I Made It Myself feature, this is also the secret bonus addendum to my Sabbatical series, since I made these macarons during the France part of my trip.

My mom and I decided that we wanted to take some sort of cooking class while we were in Paris. We found a great English-language school, La Cuisine Paris, that offered the perfect gluten-free class: macarons! Highly recommended if you’re ever in Paris.

Our workstations

One team made lemon macarons, while the other team made pistachio.

Here's my mom mixing up the pistachio dough. We learned the Italian method, which is a little more complicated than the French, in that you have to make a syrup, rather than just mix in the castor sugar. Our instructor explained that this method is more forgiving, though, and therefore a better choice for beginners.

Here's how the cookies look coming out of the oven. The little ridges are called "feet" and they're the mark of a successful cookie!

Here's me having a go at piping in the filling. You can see that I'm trying really hard not to mess up!

Everyone in the class got to take home a whole box!

We had an extra lemon and an extra pistachio, so we did a mix-and-match version. I ate this one soon after this photo was taken.

While I can’t give you the recipe we learned, I can point you to this recipe from the You Can Do It…At Home blog. The author explains the method in detail, and provides a nice recipe for a chocolate ganache filling. Yum!

I Made It Myself: Cookie Cutter Tortilla Chips and Jalapeño Lime Hummus

30 Jul

I have to say, IMIM is getting weird. I do love that I never know what’s going to happen when Julia comes over for a cooking session/photo shoot. So much improvising. And snacking!

The tentative plan was homemade tortilla chips and jalapeño-lime hummus (recipe courtesy of the gluten-free goddess). But that didn’t seem nearly interesting enough for an IMIM photo shoot. Fortunately, my mom, who is awesome, had sent me both a musical note cookie cutter and a palm tree cookie cutter, and Julia and I had the idea to make tortilla notes and tortilla trees to accompany the dip. (Note to self: Find boat-shaped cookie cutter and make tortilla ships.)

Here’s what we came up with:

Chickpeas and jalapeños hanging out. Do they know they're about to become the world's greatest party food?

We practiced with some standard triangle-shaped chips...

...and they looked pretty good

Then we broke out the cookie cutters...

...and snacktime became awesome.

p.s. Looking for a good homemade tortilla chip recipe? Here’s one: cut up some tortillas into your favorite shapes, and fry them in oil on the stove, then drain them on a paper towel. Prep time: 45 seconds. Total time: Two and a half minutes. Serves: you and a friend. 100% of the people who wrote this blog entry would try this recipe again.

I Made It Myself: Ice Cream Snowballs

11 May

My mom used to make ice cream snowballs as a special occasion dessert. For the uninitiated, snowballs are a ball of ice cream rolled in something delicious like coconut, and served with a candle in it. I think it’s a traditional Christmas thing, but I figure it’s good any time of year.

Julia and I recently had a go at recreating the magic of my youth.

We started with some really good ice cream.

We rolled some in coconut, and some in crushed peppermint sticks.

Then we added the candle. And some fake diamonds!

The best desserts offer punny advice on improving your interpersonal skills.

Just like mom used to make. (With fake diamonds!)

We Made It Ourselves: Croissants

4 Feb

I’d like to introduce my new food feature partner, Julia Smith. I asked Julia to help me revamp the “I Made It Myself” feature, because I felt it was severely lacking her photographer’s eye and food styling skills, and because I like hanging out with her. Our goal is simple: to give ourselves semi-regular food creation challenges, and to rise to the occasion (or not). We hope to create something delicious each time, but the real joy is going to be in the process.

For our first effort of 2011, we present: Croissants!

Here’s how it went:

Not bad, right?

We started out following the recipe here, but we veered a little off course when certain aspects didn’t go as smoothly as advertised. The repeated freezing of the dough resulted in some unexpected ice crystals (solution: maybe check the temperature of your freezer?), our geometry was way off when it comes to cutting isosceles triangles (get a protractor?), and we had to invent a new brushless technique for applying an egg wash (no solution needed; our fork spatter technique was a-ok).

Lesson learned: Don’t be afraid of croissants. Just add more butter.

I Made It Myself #15: Cinnamon Chocolate Mousse

14 Nov

I Made It Myself is a series where I document my attempts to cook food that I would normally pay someone else to make, or buy in a package.

I’ve never made mousse before. But I’ve had these ramekins for a few months and I haven’t used them yet. What a shame. The obvious choice for the ramekin debut would have been crème brulée, but I didn’t feel like crème brulée. I felt like mousse. So I made some for the first time. Turns out, it’s pretty easy.

Basically, you make a chocolate cinnamon mixture in a double boiler, and then a whipped cream/vanilla/sugar mixture with a hand mixer, and then you combine them.
And then you serve it in ramekins! Easy peasy.

IMIM (#14): Pavlovas

4 Oct

I Made It Myself is a series where I document my attempts to cook food that I would normally pay someone else to make, or buy in a package.

Pavlovas are a meringue-based dessert named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. I’m in Seattle this weekend and my mom and I decided to give it a go. First, we watched Giada do it. Then we did it ourselves.

Beating egg whites is half the battle.

Still Life with Meringue and Dutch Oven

Fully dressed

IMIM (#13): Root Beer!

26 Sep

I Made It Myself is a series where I document my attempts to cook food that I would normally pay someone else to make, or buy in a package.

Okay, I think we can all agree that root beer is really excellent, right? Great. I’m glad we agree.

I spent some time looking at homemade root beer recipes, like this one which shows you how to make root beer either from an extract or from scratch (this is also how I learned that the FDA has banned sassafras because it contains safrole which is a carcinogenic). In the end, I decided to go with the (easier) extract method, and actually ended up buying a root beer making kit because I am lazy and busy.

Then Mark came over and we proceeded to follow the directions included in the kit, except for one. Missing one step in the process can’t be too big of a deal, right? I mean, there were, like, five steps.

All the supplies. At least I got a funnel out of the whole debacle.

The step we missed was “add the yeast.” It turns out this part of the process is actually sort of critical. By the time we realized it, we had already bottled the root beer, so we decided to just add one quarter of the yeast to each bottle at the very end and cross our fingers. At this point, we were in a hurry to eat delicious Mexican food.

The root beer did end up getting a little bit carbonated over the next couple of days, and when we finally tried it, it was….um…the word I’m looking for is….okay.

It was okay.

A little flat, but rather flavorful. Adding seltzer helped.

I will try this again, and when I do, I will bring some humility to the task.

Just before trying it for the first time. At this point, I still had hope that it would work out. Damn you, Science!

Pietopia!

10 Aug

Last Thursday I had the honor of attending the third annual Pietopia event in Portland, Oregon. My pie recipe and essay were selected, along with two other amazing pies/stories, for the community showcase at the Buckman Farmer’s Market. The event is organized by Tricia Martin of Joyful Life Wellness and Eating Is Art.

The entire Pietopia experience was an adventure for me. I’ve never entered any sort of food-related contest before, and it was all very new and exciting. It was a fortunate circumstance that I happened to be in Portland during the week of Pietopia, and that Julia happened to tell me about the contest a few weeks prior. I’m grateful for this unexpected sweetness in my life, and for the opportunity to meet Tricia and Margit, one of the other winners (unfortunately, Caroline wasn’t able to make it, but her Messy, Sticky, Ooey, Gooey Banana Caramel Chocolate Fudge Brownie Pie spoke for itself!)

This is the poster I won, designed by Vanessa Kauffman

I think life is best when it’s surprising. I never would have thought of myself as a pie maker, and yet it was so thrilling to see so many people turn up to sample something I had made. And not only did I make it, I invented it! (Several times while I was making the pies I turned to the recipe for guidance, only to realize that I was the recipe writer. I was on my own!)

I had a few stunning realizations during Pietopia: first, I’ve always loved learning people’s stories, whether through spoken word, books, or photographs. Now I can add “baked goods” to the list of successful storytelling mediums. Second, I love telling people I won a pie contest (though I’ve found most people assume I mean a pie eating contest). To me, preparing food for others is such an important skill. It’s a significant expression of caring, and I want to become better at it. Finally, I realized I want to step outside of my comfort zone more often. There were several moments during the event when I became vividly aware of my own presence there. I was the winner of a pie contest. It wasn’t a mistake. I belonged there.

p.s. I realize this isn’t the Academy Awards, but I would like to thank a few people. First, thanks to Julia for the initial inspiration, and for being the first recipe tester. Also, to my mom and sister for the last minute advice and ideas (and for coming down to Portland to be my chauffeurs!) Thanks also to Chris, Craig and Celly for showing up and winning all the raffles, and to Meg for being so very Meg. Extra special thanks to Patrick who allowed me the use of his kitchen for several hours the night before the event.

IMIM (#12): Strawberry Shortcake

10 Jun

photo by Julia Smith, who makes things look extra delicious

I Made It Myself is a series where I document my attempts to cook food that I would normally pay someone else to make, or buy in a package.

Strawberry Shortcake was one of my favorite treats when I was a kid. My mom used to get those inexpensive poundcake shells, and we’d top them with sliced strawberries and mounds of Cool Whip. It was such a delicious summery treat, and it makes me nostalgic for sprinklers and lemonade. So, to welcome the warm weather this year, I decided to make Strawberry Shortcake for my 12th I Made It Myself adventure.

I followed the gluten-free biscuit recipe here, and they turned out pretty well. I sweetened the already sweet strawberries by putting them in a bowl with sugar for 20 minutes and then mashing them a little bit. Finally, I learned something from Anne (who learned from Amelia) about whipping cream. If you put the bowl in the freezer for a few minutes first, it’s a lot easier/faster to whip the cream. We added a bit of sugar and vanilla and that made it extra tasty. Put it all together, and voila! Summer in a bowl.

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