Empirical Foodism

Have you ever had one of those days that you just shouldn't be in the kitchen?  Like the kitchen Gods are just telling you to go and get some take out?  Yeah, that was me tonight. All I wanted to do was make something to share with a friend who just had a baby.  A nice little casserole, a salad to balance out the carbs, and some baked goods. The plan started out fine.  I prepared a quinoa mac and cheese (which, if I remember to take pictures and mark up the changes I made to the original recipe, I might share on here).  I have it ready to go into the oven tomorrow and will take it to her family on Thursday.  CHECK. Salad... well, I bought some bagged salad, and will make a quick Vinaigrette tomorrow, probably while the quinoa is baking.  CHECK Baked goods.  Well, I'm a little strapped for time, and I wasn't looking to do anything fancy, so broke out the old stand by - Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookies.  I can make these in...

I have issues with pie crust.  I can make an okay crust, but I always strive for a crust that's more than just okay.  Thanksgiving is the time of year where I put my crust skills to the test. I won't lie, I get a little nervous every year at Thanksgiving.  I mean, being responsible for dessert for a dozen people is a big responsibility! Every year I try a little something different with my crust, striving to come up with that perfectly flaky crust that makes people wanting to go back for more. I THINK I might have found it this year.  I think I ran across the concept on Pinterest , and although I didn't pin that recipe, it got me thinking about it.  Sour cream pie crust.  It was intriguing... would it work?  Would I like the result? I had the ingredients, so I tried it (with slight modification).  Here's the recipe from food.com.  My modified recipe is below: Sour Cream Pie Crust (supposedly will make enough for 1 9in pie, but I ...

I did mention that I wouldn't be a regular blog poster, right?  I'm finally coming up for breaths from my months of working one and a half jobs.  It's amazing how much time 60 hours a week of working sucks from you.  One of my summer resolutions is to ramp up blog posts (let's see if that works out). I've been a little obsessed lately with Pinterest ( www.pinterest.com if you are totally out of the loop).  I've been 'pinning' lots of recipes that I want to try, and have vowed that even in the 90 + degree heat of the North Carolina summer, I will do so. The other inspiration I've had lately is that the Durham Farmers' Market ( http://www.durhamfarmersmarket.com/ ).is in full swing, and I've already managed to make it there twice this season.  Being surrounded by that much fresh produce, homegrown meat, hand made cheeses ... yeah it's hard NOT to be inspired. This weekend I plan on whipping up some baked goods with freshly picked...

I admit, when I saw the recipe for these cookies, I was completely intrigued by the idea.  I found the reicpe on Baked Perfection's blog.  Orange creamsicle, um, yes please!!! I whipped out my bowl and all my ingredients and got to mixing.  After I put in the flour, I realized that this wasn't going to work out.  The dough was super dry, I don't know that it would have even held together had I tried to make cookies.  I don't know what I did wrong.  I look on the above blog and the cookies are super beautiful.  I was cooking at night, so there is a chance that I screwed something up (in fact, there's a good chance that I screwed up). However, I knew I could salvage this cookie dough.  I added an extra egg.  It made sense, there was a lot of flour, and not much in the way of liquid ingredients.  After adding the egg, it was better.  Still a really stiff dough, but definitely workable.  I added in my zest and my white choc...

Lately I’ve been craving pesto. I don’t even really like pesto, but I’ve been craving it. Normally pesto is just too much basil for me, so I tend to steer clear. In this time of craving however, I dug up the recipe I created for feta pesto. For me, it’s a really good balance of basil, and feta. I LOVE feta… it also has a slight nuttiness from the toasted walnuts. I imagine that I was simply out of pine nuts, and that’s why I used walnuts (plus, it’s also cheaper). Feta Pesto: 1 cup fresh basil ½ cup walnuts (toasted) 1 garlic clove 6 oz reduced fat feta cheese 2 Tbsp. olive oil 1/3-1/2 cup water Place walnuts, basil, and garlic clove into a food processor and pulse, until combined. Add the feta and olive oil and process the mixture until it resembles paste (yum, right?). To the paste, add 1/3 cup of water, and process until creamy. If you want a thick pesto, you can stop here. If you want a more sauce like pesto, continue to add small amounts of water and process until...

I've decided to stop promising future blog posts, because apparently I can't keep up with my promises! :) I'm once again back to 1 1/2 jobs, so it'll be even harder for me to keep up with the promises.  Therefore, I intend to keep everybody on their toes and surprise everybody when I DO blog!! Below you will find pictures of cakes from the last two weddings I attended (and made cakes for). This is from Emily and Terry's wedding.  I used the vanilla cake recipe from this blog http://sweetapolita.com/2011/07/fluffy-vanilla-cake-with-whipped-vanilla-bean-frosting/ The only thing I changed was adding a tad bit of orange zest, and orange extract in place of vanilla.  It made a nice citrusy cake.  (I also made an almond buttercream to ice with). This is Steven and Allie's wedding cake.  My first attempt at a stacked cake (I won't lie, I freaked out quite a bit).  Steven originally wanted all 'stucco' finish, but when Allie saw a picture of a cake...

So, back in April, I made cupcakes for John and Heather’s wedding.   I promised a post about these cupcakes, I also promised recipes as I recall.   I’ve decided that I’m only posting the recipes for the cupcakes that I would make again without altering the recipe.   When John and Heather first approached me about helping out for their wedding, I was overly ambitious.   I thought that it would be fun to have 5 flavors of cupcakes.   I don’t know what I was thinking! After talking it through with the bride and groom, we came up with the following:   Citrus cupcakes with chocolate buttercream; Pistachio cupcakes with lime buttercream; Chocolate Coconut cupcakes with a coconut buttercream; Strawberry cupcakes with a vanilla bean cream cheese icing; and a cookies and cream cupcake with a basic buttercream icing.   I also made a carrot cake for the two of them to cut, I used the vanilla bean cream cheese icing for this (covered in some bought fondant). ...