Top Chef Recipes

In my family, everything Bravo is taken very, very seriously.  There is no other show that gets more of our time as viewers, reviewers, and even gossipers.  Honestly, my mom and I watch the Real Housewives of every city so religiously that we've now had to start hiding our obsession from my dad.  

I would just like to note, however, that he has as much love for Bravo as the rest of us.  It's to the point where the last time I was home I listened to my dad explain why the Rachel Zoe Project was so good, and why he just loved to watch it as he worked out at the gym.  

Yes, my dad is straight, I promise.

But on to the important things, like Top Chef.  I have a million jillion things to say about Top Chef, but all I can say right now is that I miss it.  When I'm back home, I never have to go a day without thinking about Top Chef because the TC Cookbooks are the most treasured and adored things in our kitchen.  But when I'm here at school, I start to miss those amazing books and fail to remember all the awesomeness that is contained within those pages.  

My current fix? This.  The new Top Chef recipe finder.  Enjoy.

http://www.bravotv.com/foodies/recipes

xo

JAS

Nutella-Swirled Donuts

Sometimes you really need a bedtime snack.  And sometimes, that snack manifests itself as a donut.  So there I was with the problem: make a donut or go buy one.  So I decided to think about this decision in terms of time.  I knew I would have a 10 minute walk to the place where I would venture to buy such a treat.  However, being the math goblin I am, I knew that meant 20 minutes of dedicated walking time.  That's when I realized that the alternative was a 10 minute cooking process, give or take one minute.  So, decision made!

Going on the theme of time, I wasted no more and grabbed a 1/2 used box of yellow cake mix.  I added the correct amount of water and an egg.  Only problem was that I technically should have used 1.5 eggs.  To substitute for the egg dilemma, I added some orange juice for some taste and a little bit of baking soda.  Then i swirled the dough with as much Nutella as I had at my disposal, and magic!

xoxo
JAS

Homemade Pasta!

So the other day, I decided I needed to tackle one of my big culinary goals: to try to make homemade pasta by hand.  I enlisted the help of Teags (btw have you read her blog yet?) to create our delish dinner.  We followed this basic recipe.  Here's the shorthand version:

1. Clean off a good countertop space.  You will be making your pasta here, so get it nice and clean!
2. Mix together 2 cups flour and 1/4 teaspoon salt on counter, then make into a big mound.
3. Create a well or little hole in the center of your flour mound.  Fill this mound with 3 eggs, 1 tablespoon milk, 1 teaspoon oil.

4. Mix together ingredients by slowly bringing flour into the mound.  Work those hands.  FYI it's going to get messy.  Just go with it.

5. Add a little more milk or egg if your dough is still too dry (aka not all flour is incorporated)
6. Kneed dough and cover with a damp towel for at least 30 minutes.  This is the time for the dough to 'relax'
7. Roll out dough with rolling pin.  If you are classy like us and can't find your rolling pin, you can use a wine bottle to double as your roller.  And yes, you should have already finished all of the wine out of that bottle during steps 1-6.
8. Get the dough nice and thin! Then cut out the shapes you want!....

-make 'spaghetti' by cutting nice long, thin strips
-make fusilli by taking those strips and rolling them, creating a spiral shape
-make bowties by cutting out rectangles, then squeeze the center together!

9. Let dry for 15 minutes
10. Drop into boiling water for 2-3 minutes.  These cook quickly, so keep your eyes on them!

Then enjoy!
JAS

Coffee and Donuts Cupcakes

Coffee and Donuts. In a cupcake.  Wanna see it to believe it? Ok.

Today I spent my day with one of the bestest friends ever, Teagan.  This was one of our activities.

This recipe came from Always with Butter.  I will note now that the donut recipe seems a little off.  We added lots more milk to it (basically until it was the correct batter consistency.)

We had a grand old time rocking out to some Country music while we made these.  I'm going to say that that is definitely the secret ingredient.  For sure.  ZBB encouraged.


Here are the coffee flavored cupcakes.

After you add the icing to the cupcakes (optional: dye it darker brown) then you can place the frosted mini donuts on top of the cupcakes.  Don't forget the sprinkles on top!

JAS

Donuts! (they're pretty too...right?)

I think donuts are the new cupcake.  If you don't believe me, well then you may be right too.  But luckily, they are so delicious most people don't argue with me when I try to tell them my predictions as I sneakily feed them these glazed little puppies.

So where should one go for donut inspiration?

in NYC, grab some milk and scurry off to The Doughnut Plant.  flavors include: PB&J, blackout, Tres Leches, Creme Brulee.  These are so beyond good that I can't tell you enough how much you must experience eating these straight out of their magical little oven.

in Boston, Verna's will satisfy all your donut craving needs.  A Verna's post can be found here at my other blog (that me and my sister write together)

Rumor has it the Betty Ann's Food Shop is where it's at. (NOTE: in a previous post, I accidentally said it was Carol Ann's.  It's actually Betty Ann's and is located in East Boston) Unfortunately, I haven't yet made it there, but no fear! It's on the list of places to go ASAP!


Any more recommendations? Write them up! In the meantime, these will probably be my next attempt.  Yay red velvet everything!

JAS

Cake Batter Pancakes

So if you're like me, you often wake up and face a serious dilemma.  On the one hand, I want pancakes.  On the other, I wish I was holding a delicious cake.  The perfect answer, this.  That's right... Cake Batter Pancakes.  So grab these ingredients and warm up the griddle. It's breakfast time!

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2/3 cup yellow cake mix
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups milk 
• assorted sprinkles (rainbow... obvi!)

So here's how it looked in my kitchen.

Here's your batter... 

For added excitement, I suggest adding sprinkles into the batter, pre-griddling.  Look at how pretty it looks now!

Then you grab your syrup (or if you want a cavity in 4 minutes then you can make a sugar glaze for these with powdered sugar + water)

Oh and don't forget more sprinkles on top!

Ahh grab a fork! Hurry!!!!!

Little Cupcake Bakeshop

When your boyfriend goes out of town for the day for business, what should he bring you back? Flowers? NY bagel? Cupcakes.....? Definitely.   Let's just say that the two fastest ways to my heart are through my stomach (via my sweet tooth) and my liver.  Between good alcoholic beverages and desserts, my life is pretty much complete.  That's why I was very elated when I received this perfect little package the other day...

Little Cupcake Bakeshop has two locations in NYC and both times I've walked passed them I've wanted to go in, but have never had the time.  So this was a perfect surprise!

Inside were two cupcakes.  One was "Chocolate Cloud" which was a chocolate cupcake with marshmallow frosting, topped with shaved chocolate.  The other cupcake was cookie dough and it had nice little chunks of cookie dough baked right into the core of the cake.  Both were scrumptious and I now wish I had more of those as I write these.  Of course I ate them so quickly there was no time to take a picture, so you'll have to go yourself and get some.  It's worth a trip!

image from google

JAS