about
about me.
i'm kelly.
26 year old stressbaker.
about-to-graduate grad school.
new england transplant.
eating through philly & the burbs.
baking my way into the hearts of friends.
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Monday, January 31, 2011 @ 5:06 PM
if you give an Anne arugula...
You might just get yourself soup. My friend Anne is Sicilian and was describing the most delicious escarole soup the other day. She mentioned how difficult it is to find escarole, so I said I'd be on the lookout for her in my food travels. This isn't uncommon for me as I've been known to squeal at the sight of fresh lima beans and call friends who've been trying to hunt them down. So, while at Reading Terminal on Saturday, I happened to stop in front of a mountain of leafy greens in hopes of finding escarole. I grabbed what I thought were two heads, texted Anne to let her know I scored the greens and was on my way.
A few minutes after dropping the stuff off, I got a text from Anne saying that I had actually brought her arugula. whoops! Turns out, you can make the soup just the same and it comes out delicious. Anne was kind enough to deliver me some while it was still hot and it is creamy-dreamy and delicious. There's no actual cream in it, but she gave me the recipe (no I'm not sharing) and the beans are undrained, giving the broth a creamier texture.
So. Darn. Delicious.
Labels: arugula, beans, friends cooking for me, italian, soup
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Friday, November 5, 2010 @ 9:34 PM
Ivy League Eating: Princeton
It's no secret that I'll travel for food. However, when I think of dining destinations, Princeton, NJ is not the first place that comes to mind. I went to go visit my friend Corey and was recently surprised at how much it had to offer my starving stomach.
Corey works at Princeton and gave me a tour of the campus. It was peak fall foliage time and even the ivy was burnished with the yellows and reds of the season.
(What? You think I'd make a post about the Ivy Leagues and not show you ivy?)
After looking at all of the gorgeous buildings, we headed into town to investigate our options. It was an awkward time to eat, as brunch was ending and dinner hadn't yet started. Though several places had tempting menus, we ultimately decided on Italian at Teresa Cafe in Palmer Square.
We each got an appetizer and a main course. Whereas Corey went with salad and pasta, I wanted something I couldn't get in every Italian restaurant around. After scrutinizing the menu, I paired the Antipasto Misto with a fig and pancetta pizza (they've since changed the menu so I don't remember what it was called). Both courses featured crusty bread with sweet fig, salty smoked meat, cheese and something to add a tiny tang.
(My tower of delicious Italian treats - crusty bread, fig spread (paired so well with my pizza to come), salty prusciutto di Parma, capicola, salumi, sharp provolone, a tangy local cheese and caramelly-sweet candied walnuts for crunch.
Quite the mouthful!)
My pizza - fresh mozzerella with a tang of aged balsamic vinagrette, sweet mission figs, crisp pancetta on a soft, doughy crust.
Next we decided to satiate my sweet tooth. Is that proper English? Probably not. Do I care? Not really.
Anyway, I wanted cupcakes. My friend Katie had texted me a picture of The House of Cupcakes over the summer and I nearly exploded with excitement when I saw it. A WHOLE HOUSE OF CUPCAKES. My greedy little eyes couldn't believe the pixels in front of me. It was even better seeing it in person!
(Note the elation on my face)
Before I get your hopes up (as mine were when I got there), I should tell you that it's not actually a house of cupcakes. Rather, it's a wall full. Still, it was a beautiful display of cupcakes.
There were a lot of traditional flavors like red velvet, carrot and chocolate. Actually, there were several varieties of chocolate cupcakes, all featuring a complimentary flavor like peanut butter or raspberry. Normally I won't order a chocolate cupcake unless it's staring me in the face from behind a sheen of glossy ganache and no other cupcake looks as good. In this case, I spotted a creme brulee cupcake which intrigued me. I had to try it because I love the namesake dessert so much, I wanted to see how it would translate to cupcake form.
(Helloooooooo cupcake!)
(Helloooooooo cupcake!)
Well folks, it CAN be done. Creme brulee makes for a delicious cupcake flavor. The texture was off, though. While the rich buttercream was a slighty denser version of its namesake's silky custard, there was nothing to mirror the signature crunch that makes a brulee, well... brulee. Adding pieces of caramelized sugar would have made this cupcake perfect, but it was pretty good without it.
I could have stopped eating at this point and the trip would have been worth the hour it took to drive to Princeton. However, I had one more round of dessert to face. Yes, folks, you read right. Double dessert. Corey was kind enough to buy me lunch for driving all the way up to see him, but I couldn't accept lunch without giving him something in return. Corey loves apple pie. In fact he loves it so much that he once paid $30 for one that was, in his words, "okay." I wanted to bake him something that would be worth every penny he spent on lunch. For this, I relied on an award-winning recipe from Food Network, and put my own crumb-topping twist on it.
I like my pies spicy. I don't skimp on cinnamon. Nor do I go easy on the ice cream. Whenever I bite into a piece of warm apple pie, I feel like it has a magical way of warming my insides and making me feel like I'm safe at home, no matter where I am.
Prep Time:
30 min
Cook Time:
1 hr 8 min
Level:
Intermediate
Caramel Apple Pie - 2003 1st Place Apple
Recipe courtesy Marles Riessland- Serves:
- 8 servings
Ingredients
Pie Crust: (I still haven't conquered this baking fear, so I used good ol' Pillsbury to help me out)
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon butter flavored shortening, chilled
- 1/3 cup ice water
- 1 tablespoon vinegar
- 1 egg, beaten
Filling:
- 6 cups apples (Jonathan or Granny Smith)
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup all-purposeflour
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 4 tablespoons heavy cream
- 4 tablespoons butter
Streusel Topping:
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 2 toffee bars or 3 ounces chocolate covered peanut or pecan brittle, crushed (I left this ingredient out and put a little cinnamon in the crumb topping because I'm such a sucker for homey fallish spices)
Directions
Pie Crust:
Chill all ingredients, including the flour and vinegar. Combine the flour, salt and sugar. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles cornmeal. In another bowl, mix water and vinegar with the beaten egg. Add the liquid mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time, to the flour mixture, tossing with a fork to form a soft dough.
Filling:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Peel and slice apples. Sprinkle with lemon juice. Combine dry ingredients in large bowl and add apples. Toss to mix. Add vanilla and cream. Melt butter in heavy skillet. Add apple mixture and cook approximately 8 minutes, to soften apples. Turn into pie shell.
Streusel Topping:
Combine the flour and sugar. Mix in butter with fork until coarse crumbs. stir in the crushed toffee bars. Sprinkle over pie. Add top crust. Seal, flute edge and vent top. Brush with beaten egg white and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees F and bake 45 minutes longer.
Chill all ingredients, including the flour and vinegar. Combine the flour, salt and sugar. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles cornmeal. In another bowl, mix water and vinegar with the beaten egg. Add the liquid mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time, to the flour mixture, tossing with a fork to form a soft dough.
Filling:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Peel and slice apples. Sprinkle with lemon juice. Combine dry ingredients in large bowl and add apples. Toss to mix. Add vanilla and cream. Melt butter in heavy skillet. Add apple mixture and cook approximately 8 minutes, to soften apples. Turn into pie shell.
Streusel Topping:
Combine the flour and sugar. Mix in butter with fork until coarse crumbs. stir in the crushed toffee bars. Sprinkle over pie. Add top crust. Seal, flute edge and vent top. Brush with beaten egg white and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees F and bake 45 minutes longer.
Labels: apple pie, apples, cheese, eating with friends, figs, italian, ivy leagues, new jersey, pie, pizza, prosciutto, salami
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Monday, September 27, 2010 @ 8:23 PM
baked eggplant parm in pictures
Along with those caramel apples, I also made eggplant parm for the potluck. It's been a while since I attempted eggplant parm and I've only ever known skin-on fried eggplant so peeling and baking the slices was a whole new venture for me.
peel. slice.
meet eggs.
breadcrumbs. parmesan cheese. spices.
bake at 350 for 5 minutes on each side.
ready to meet the pan.
things get saucy.
layering is key.
add mozzarella and parmesan cheese. lather, rinse, repeat.
bake til the cheese on top is golden brown (this could have used a few more minutes).
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Sunday, August 29, 2010 @ 7:20 PM
fun with my foodmill
I don't know why, but lately I've had an itch to make food from my backgrounds. It's almost as if each part of me (Irish, Italian, Hungarian, Polish and German) is battling for control of my tastebuds (and my kitchen). Last week it was Hungarian paprikash. Tonight it was potato gnocchi and sauce. It all started with yesterday's trip to Reading Terminal Market. I was strolling through the center of the market and happened upon a featured local farmstand selling baskets of beautiful bright red tomatoes. I've been longing for a garden since moving to my boxed-in high-rise apartment because I miss the taste of freshly grown tomatoes. Naturally, I bought a basket, intending on eating my heart's content of tomato sandwiches. I walked about 3 feet from the stand before I had the brilliant idea to make spaghetti sauce from scratch. Afterall I had just brought up my food mill from my mom's house (is it weird that I own one? maybe, but I did ask for a Ronco food dehydrator for Christmas when I was 9 and a George Foreman grill when I was 10). What better way to break it in and pay homage to my Italian roots than with a little marinara?
I decided to wait until this afternoon to make my sauce, but in the interim, the strangest thing happened. I was reading about Irish History for class and I started craving potatoes. Mind you I was in Ireland for the majority of the summer, eating potatoes to my heart's content, but I had never had such a spud hankering before. I thought to myself, "Why not make gnocchi? It's potato-ey and you can use your food mill!" Perfect.
I set out on my mission half-heartedly, as I figured that my bad luck with dough and past failed attempts at making pasta (my pasta roller was a Christmas gift when I was 12...) would result in a gluteny, chewy mess of potato and flour. I had tortellini in the freezer in the event that such a nightmarishly messy scenario became a self-fufilling prophecy. My Italian grandma must have been with me in the kitchen because no such thing happened. My bright red tomatoes boiled down to become a rich red-crimson sauce and my gnocchi were perfect pillows of potato. I credit my grammy with instilling in me my deep love of baking, but I'm pretty sure she passed down some Italian kitchen skills, too. If you're looking down on me, gram, I hope I made you proud!
Summer tastes like a garden-ripe tomato.
Ready for some heat!
Double, double (no) toil and trouble. Fire burn and dutch oven bubble.
1 1/2 lbs of russets ready for the oven.
After a trip through the food mill
, my potatoes cool off on a cookie sheet.
Tossed with a cup of flour.
Make a well, add an egg and some salt. Stir until everything is just slightly moistened. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead until dough comes together. Divide the dough into four pieces and roll each into a long tube about 3/4" in diameter.
Cut into pieces with a knife.
Boil in a simmering pot of salted water for 4 minutes (or cover and store in the fridge for up to 2 days).
Light potato dumplings and tart, hearty sauce. Given my trepidation, I can't help but be proud of myself when I look at this photo.
Labels: food mill, gnocchi, italian, potatoes, sauce
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Saturday, August 7, 2010 @ 4:10 PM
DiBruno Bros.
So after my friend Maddie gorged ourselves on Ben & Jerry's ice cream happy hour, we sat in Rittenhouse Square, ogled the cookbooks at Barnes & Noble and perused Anthropologie. We were going to head over to Philly Cupcake, but it was closed. On our way back to Market East Station, I spotted the Di Bruno Brothers store and had to go in. I had been to their Italian Market location, but this store was an experience. The walls were lined with aromatic olive oils and Italian specialties to take home. The center of the store featured smoked meats and beautiful Italian pastries. The front of the store had a vivid array of produce and an espresso bar featuring Illy coffee. As the rich aroma of espresso drifted toward me, I was instantly brought back to the many afternoons I spent drinking lattes un banco in Firenze. The back wall was lined with huge hunks of cheese in all textures and tastes. When I looked at the cheese section, it was like the giant wheels of delicious dairy were magnets drawing me near. I couldn't resist. I talked to the cheesemonger who was eager to give me some cheese to sample (and who was I to refuse such generosity?). After discussing the baking advantages of European butter and what accoutrements he adds to his blue cheese, I walked away with a hunk of Swiss Cave Aged Emmentaler, onion foccacia and my favorite iced tea in the world, San Bennedetto Te Limone, which I drank every day four summers ago to cool off in the Firenze heat.
Here, my friends, is a look at Di Bruno Brothers' shop on Chestnut:
Di Bruno Bros.
1730 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Labels: cheese, di bruno bros, iced tea, italian, rittenhouse square