Sharing Meals and Sunday Mornings...

I love to feed people. All too often, I end up cooking for myself and having a ton of leftovers. Unfortunately, I haven't quite mastered the art of cooking for one. I eat leftovers but sometimes I just cannot keep up with everything that I've made.

This weekend was a special treat because I got to share three meals with my honey; one of which was also shared with my good friends, Ben and Tessa. There were no leftovers!

On Sunday morning, I awoke to the sun shining and a sweet and snuggly boy in my bed. It's was nice to lay around for a while and NOT have to jump up and get ready for work. I relish in those lazy mornings where I can wake up slowly, throw on some wrinkled clothes, and walk to the nearest breakfast establishment for some poached eggs, home fries, and chicken sausage. Well, this weekend, I made breakfast.

I made a roasted turkey hash, and poached eggs with toast. It was a really quick breakfast, came together in less that 25 minutes and tasted really great. As usual, I didn't follow a recipe and just threw stuff that I thought would taste great together.

Here's my recipe for two:

3 small yellow potatoes (You can leave the peels on if you would like to. I peeled two and then got lazy)

Dice the potatoes and par boil them in salted water(or chicken broth for extra flavor) for about 5 min. You don't want them to be too soft. They will finish cooking in the skillet. (The longer you leave them in the there, the less they need to cook in the pan; you don't want them too mushy, though)

Meanwhile, get the rest of the ingredients prepped/cooking:

1/2 medium onion, diced
1/3 small red pepper
1T olive oil or butter
a few sprigs of thyme
3 ounces of roasted turkey
a few dashes of worcestershire sauce
pepper to taste
salt to taste
sprinkle of parmesan or sharp cheddar cheese.

Saute the onions, peppers and thyme in the olive oil/butter over medium heat until soft and translucent. Add the parboiled potatoes and let them finish cooking and brown up. Once they are getting near desired doneness, throw in a few shakes of worcestershire sauce, the pepper, and the turkey. Heat the turkey through. Taste for seasoning and serve it up with a sprinkle of freshly grated cheese. Plop some poached eggs on it and it's good stuff.

Baby Tart

Tomorrow at work, we are having a "baby party". Weird, I know. This is at a research labs that has exactly 4 women employed. Three of the researchers in our office have had kids in the past month, plus we added another team member, hence the party. Honestly, I think we just look for every excuse to eat and not work between 9-5.

Anyways, the reason I got into that is because everybody was asked to bring some food to contribute. We have a VERY diverse group of people and I'm looking forward to the tzatziki, tiramisu, and indian sweets that I know are on the list.

I had bought some leeks at the Berkeley Farmer's Market last week and was itching to make something with them. A search on google came up with "Leek and Camembert Tart" on Epicurious.com, of course. ..

Never to be one to follow a recipe exactly, I made some changes. The recipe, with my changes, is below. I substituted brie cheese because a. I LOVE IT and b. it was cheaper than the camembert(hey, I'm TRYING to stick to a budget). Also, I added onions to it since I only had 3 small leeks, some garlic, and I made a pie crust instead of using the puff pastry.

Admittedly, I haven't tasted the completed version yet; however, the custard was delicious. I'll update tomorrow and let you know how it was.

Update: The tart was a pretty great. I served it room temperature because we didn't have an oven to reheat it and it was definitely tasty. When I make it again, I'll serve it warm with a salad.

Baby Tart:

1 9-inch pie crust, pre-baked

2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter
3 small leeks (white and pale green parts only), sliced
2 large onions, sliced thin
1 sprig of thyme
2/3 cup whipping cream
4 ounces Brie cheese, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 large egg
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Pinch of ground nutmeg
Salt to taste

2 Tablespoons of Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Caramelize the onions, onions, leeks, and thyme in butter. This took me about 20 minutes.

Bring cream to simmer in medium saucepan over medium heat. Reduce heat to low; add brie and stir until melted. Remove from heat and cool 5 minutes. Whisk in egg, cayenne, and nutmeg. Mix custard with the caramelized onion and leek mixture.

Pour the filling into the pie crust and sprinkle Parmesan over crust. Bake until bottom is golden, about 20 minutes. Transfer to rack; cool 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Ok, Let's try this again...

I made one post and disappeared for a few months. Unfortunately, I was not off traveling to exotic locations, running marathons, or anything cool like that...I admit it. I was lazy. But I really want to make this work.

My friends, Gabe and Kourtney have been raving about the different foods they have been cooking lately and I, of course, demanded the recipes. They put them on a website since they had so many requests. They inspired me to update this more often. Thanks guys!

I suppose I should post about something I cooked in the past week: Carrot Cupcakes.

On Thursday, I made some carrot cupcakes for a Zombie party that I threw with my honey on Saturday night. I ended up making two recipes that night.

I orginally made a recipe for carrot cake that I found on epicurious.com, which included coconut, crushed pineapple, and pureed carrots. I somehow missed the step of beating the eggs and sugar together prior to adding the other stuff, and when I baked the cupcakes, they tasted eggy and were all sorts of lumpy.

So I grated 4 more cups of carrot with my handy little cheese grater and made a different recipe (from the same place). This one came out really yummy and moist. I added golden raisins, substituted 1/5 C. brown sugar, and only added one cup of white sugar. Oh, and there was some ground ginger, nutmeg, and allspice thrown in there, too.

I made a simple cream cheese, butter, vanilla, nutmeg frosting to top it and was going to frost them when I got to Calistoga that night; however, I forgot it in the fridge and I arrived to my destination with naked cupcakes. I had to run to the store and pick up some canned frosting before the party. The cupcakes received rave reviews. Most people commented that they never get carrot cake so it was a nice treat.

I plan on making the cake again so I'll use the frosting for that.

Here's the recipe. I'll update with some pictures after I bake the cake:

Carrot Cake:

2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon all spice
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 1/4 cups canola oil
4 large eggs
3 cups grated peeled carrots
1/2 cup golden raisins
You could add 1 1/4 cups walnuts. I didn't cause one person has a nut allergy.

Icing
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg

For cake: Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch-diameter cake pans. Line bottom of pans with waxed paper. Butter and flour paper; tap out excess flour. Whisk flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and nutmeg in medium bowl to blend. Whisk sugar and oil in large bowl until well blended. Whisk in eggs 1 at a time. Add flour mixture and stir until blended. Stir in carrots and raisins. Divide batter between prepared pans.

Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Cool cakes in pans 15 minutes. Turn out onto racks. Peel off waxed paper; cool cakes completely.

For icing: Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese and butter in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add powdered sugar and beat at low speed until well blended. Add vanilla and nutmeg. Chill until just firm enough to spread, 30 minutes.

Place 1 cake layer on platter. Spread with 3/4 cup icing. Top with second layer. Spread remaining icing over entire cake.

I'm a freak of nature and like my carrot cake cold. Most people serve it at room temperature, though.