Monthly Archives: October 2011

Make Me a Sammich: Chicken with Leek Confit

“Make me a sandwich.”
“Poof!  You’re a sandwich.

You want jokes?  I got ‘em.  You want funny jokes?  Try back next week.

Josh and I have been trying this radical new thing: “making our own lunches and taking them to work.”  Innovative right?

You see, I work on a college campus that happens to be nicely situated amongst the city’s downtown area.  I am surrounded by restaurants of all kinds–Indian buffets, sandwich places, Mediterranean joints, sushi places, pizza delivery, milkshake delivery and the best soup-shack this side of Heaven.  It is, needless to say, very difficult for me to ignore all of that and eat a lunch I packed.  If I packed.  Hey, sometimes I’m too lazy busy to remember little details like that.  But the down side of this genuine first-world problem of having lots of restaurants nearby is that it’s expensive to eat out all the time for lunch and frankly, eventually it gets boring. Continue reading

TEDTalk: Jennifer 8 Lee

Josh sent me a delightful TED Talk by New York Times journalist Jennifer 8. Lee all about “Chinese” food in America.  It’s not only extremely informative but witty and entertaining as well.  It’s 16 minutes or so, but worth watching it all.

My favorite part? Learning about French and Italian Chinese food!


 

Candy Apple

[highlight]”I used to think the brain was the most important organ in the body.  Then I realized who was telling me this.” –Emo Phillips [/highlight]

apple caramel over ice cream

The brain is clearly the most superior of all the organs, and I’m not just saying that because it told me to.  Well I kind of am.  Ok, I totally am, but with other good–nay, delicious–justifications.  After all, my brain is what told me to buy a couple gallons of cider at the Dexter Mill a couple weeks ago and my brain is what told me to use that cider to make apple syrup, which was delicious, and my brain decided that if apple syrup is good then apple caramel sauce must be just as delicious and obviously, if the brain thinks it’s true, then it must be. Continue reading

Cheesy Chicken Stew

cheesy chicken soupSunday was a busy day.  I got out of bed–and that was an effort, let me tell you–and made breakfast, prepared bread dough, did the week’s grocery shopping, found out my Twitter account was hacked (again, apologies to all involved), roasted chicken, made stock, made soup and still managed to watch Squid Invasion on Netflix streaming and thoroughly freak myself out.

But the important thing here is the soup.  It’s my cheesy, chunky comfort stew.  I originally made it for Paul and Josh last week for dinner.  Paul and I had a very good trade going: if I made dinner, he would bring cinnamon pie for dessert.  (I freaking love cinnamon pie and Paul makes it brilliantly.)  And since I knew I was going to want to have a really large piece of pie for dessert, I figured I would make something for dinner that was simple (cause I was tired), quick (cause I was short on time), vegetarian (because Paul is not of the meat-eating persuasion) and filling without being super heavy (cause pie).  Oh and delicious, of course, because that’s how I roll. Continue reading

Apple Syrup. Yes, that’s a thing.

As I mentioned in the apple dumpling post, we (Josh, Paul and I) recently took a mini-foodie-field trip to Dexter Cider Mill to stock up for Falltopia.  (I’ve decided to re-name autumn from the pessimistic “Pre-Winter” to the more halcyon-sounding “Falltopia” in hopes of learning to appreciate it more.  Will it work?  Probably, right up until it gets cold again.)  We got donuts, apples, and plenty of cider for drinking, making hard cider (Josh’s thing) and lots of other goodies.  This apple syrup here is the first of those “other goodies.”

Continue reading

The New Apple Dumpling Gang

One of the perks of living in Michigan is fall.  I know, I know: I said in the plum tart post that I hate fall because it’s basically “pre-winter.”  It is.  It is pre-winter.  However, like any good femme fatale, there are certain things about it that you can’t help but be seduced by even knowing that it will end with gunshots and tears icy roads and snow-shoveling.  Like super crisp blue skies, shimmery gold and red leaves, corn mazes and most of all, Michigan apples.  Because where there are Michigan apples, there’s cider and donuts.  And wherever there is cider and donuts, you’ll find me, nomming out. Continue reading

New season, new look, new levels of awesome

Yep, that pretty much sums it up.

I know you think I’ve abandoned you.  But you’re wrong.  Don’t you know me better than that?  Didn’t I tell you I was never gonna give you up?  That I was never gonna let you down?  That I was never gonna run around and—

Sorry.  What?  Anyway, no, I’ve been here, behind the scenes, tweaking things.  Just when you thought you’d reached the depths of this site’s awesomeness, guess what! There’s an awesome underground garage.

So come on in, take a look.  Let’s get reacquainted, shall we?

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  • Looking for a particular recipe?  Try the Recipe List page and search by tag, category or date.
  • Need some new reading material or food sources?  All my favorites are on the Lovely Links page.
  • Need to brush up on your cooking skills?  My Learn to Cook page is not-new-but-improved and now includes my favorite How-To video playlists!
  • For my local loves, there’s a whole page devoted to everything delicious about Ypsi and the surrounding area, including local bloggers, organizations and purveyors of tasty delights.[/box]

Plus there will be more videos, more image galleries, more info and more candy bars (I look at the search history for this site…I know what you all are really looking for :)).

Grab your forks.