Raspberry Milkshakes

Organic raspberries, whole milk, and five-ingredient vanilla bean ice cream.

Cafe Summers-Couch

Since the life-changing advent of the espresso machine into our little home, Matt and I have been making noises about baking our own croissants.  This Saturday, we allocated the morning to finally making good on this big dream ... only to discover that a morning does not contain nearly enough hours to successfully make croissants. One week from exams, I spent fourteen hours making French pastries instead of studying:

 At 9:00 AM, we printed off the recipe from Epicurious, pulled out the big bowl and hand-mixer, and industriously whipped together some flour, yeast, and whole milk.

At 10:00 AM, we pounded three sticks of butter between the folds of a dishtowel into a thin slab half an inch thick, then chilled both dough and butter slab.

At 11:00 AM, we rolled out the dough and placed the butter on it, folding like you would a piece of paper you want to stuff in an envelope, rolling out again, folding again into envelope shape, before putting the whole thing back in the fridge to chill.

At 12:00 PM, we did this again.

At 1:00 PM, again.

By 2:00 PM, the butter slab had started to roll into the dough, starting to look kind of flaky (like a croissant!) so after a final roll-out and envelope fold, we could put it away to chill for ABSOLUTELY NO LESS THAN eight hours and ABSOLUTELY NO MORE THAN eighteen.

Eight hours from 2:00 PM is 10:00 PM.  Eighteen hours from 2:00 PM is 8:00 AM.  Neither is ideal, when you have friends coming over for the evening and an intent to drink a few beers on a Saturday night.

This is why you should always read through instructions all the way through before beginning a project.

In the end, we'd just worked too hard all day not to have the flaky, buttery reward at the end, so we pulled the dough out a little early (oh nooo) and started in on the next (no less complicated) steps:

We measured and cut half the dough into six rectangles, then measured and cut those rectangles into twelve triangles, then rolled those triangles into little crescent shapes on a baking sheet.  The other half the dough we measured and cut into eight rectangles, rolling each of those around an ounce of bittersweet chocolate, placing on another baking sheet.

We then placed these baking sheets into two trashbags, propping the trashbags up with glasses:

This Pizza is a Whole Food

BELIEVE IT. 

We spread Bertolli pasta sauce (tomatoes, assorted seasonings, olive oil) on a Rustic Naturals crust (flour, yeast, assorted seasonings) and topped with fresh grated mozzarella, some browned C&D farms ground beef, chopped mushrooms and black olives from Whole Foods.

HECK.  YES.

Granola Bars

Found these at Z & H Market, and have fallen desperately in love:

To Juliet, Love Juliet

Have I mentioned yet that my birthday present to myself this year was an espresso machine?  Or that it has been TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY LIFE-CHANGING?

Pre-espresso machine I used to end up at Medici three or four times a week for lattes, at about $4 a pop. 

Post-espresso machine I am saving money by drinking wayyyyy more espresso than I ever did before.

This is where addiction and frugality meet back on the other side. 

Bad News Bears

When I started this journey, the basic rules I chose to live by were:

1) Don't eat anything containing ingredients my great-grandmother Genevieve wouldn't recognize as a food.  (Rephrased: don't eat anything containing ingredients I wouldn't keep in my own kitchen.)

2) Eat fresh and local as much as possible.

3) Avoid meats from sources I'm unfamiliar with.

4) Take one exception meal a week.

The problem with #2 and #3, of course, is that I qualified them.  It's hard to eat fresh and local in Chicago in winter without dining out at ridiculously expensive boutique farm-to-table restaurants every day.  And aside from the stuff I get from Crystal, my farmer, I'm really never quite sure where meats are coming from.  Since I don't want to be a de-facto vegetarian, this means that every time I eat out, I'm in a sense breaking one of the rules.  So if I eat out more than once, I'm overloading on #4.

Rule #1 was the only hard and fast one.

Then came this:

You can't possibly convince me that Fritos are unprocessed.  They are the VERY SOUL of processed.  So Rule #1 clearly needs a little rephrasing.

Why is this all so hard??

Breakfast of Champions

Oatmeal raisin cookies and a big glass of whole milk to dip.

I don't miss cereal at all.

Fiesta Night and Chocolate for Breakfast

After the infamous meatloaf disaster, a more rational group of people might have thrown in the towel and just dined out.  I mean, Chicago has at least a couple good restaurants.  Not us.

We cleaned up the mess from Thursday and launched right into the next endeavor: fiesta night!  Nan drove up on Friday, so between Matt, Mara, Jen, Nan, and I, we had a WHOLE lot of cooks in the kitchen.  This time, though, everything turned out great:

Jen and Mara made Mara-style guacamole (read: avocados mashed with salt and a squeeze of lime.)  Sidenote: when Matt and I get around to registering, someone remind me to put a masher on there.  Sorry, Jen.

Meanwhile, Matt, Liza Nan and I created a health-conscious seven layer bean dip:

The bottom layer is four cups of black beans blended in the Cuisinart with garlic, cumin, lime juice, salt, and cayenne pepper to taste.  Top that with a spread of organic sour cream (took me a while to find one not containing that dang locust bean gum...).  The next layer is just a couple cups of frozen corn, thawed on the stove with some chopped fresh cilantro and more lime juice.  Finally, a fresh salsa from chopped red and yellow tomatoes, a jalapeno, more fresh cilantro and lime.  The flavors are wonderful, and because it doesn't have any cheese and not much sour cream, it's also remarkably low calorie.

We also heated some C&D ground beef on the stove, simmering with cumin, chili powder, salt, and cayenne, and everyone built their plates...

The last one there is mine, because it is noticeably missing a taco shell or tortilla.  We didn't have the energy -- or, for that matter, room in the kitchen -- to home cook tortillas, and all the packaged varieties contain things like Yellow Number 5, so I stuck with Donkey Chips and was perfectly satisfied.

The only thing we were missing was margaritas.

After the dishes had been washed (thank you, family), we whipped up a quick pot de creme.  

I love that I can say that: "whipped up a quick pot de creme".  

No, wait, I don't love that I can say that, because pot de creme is TOO EASY to whip up and TOO DELICIOUS not to, and this impacts my hips alarmingly.

In any event, we whipped it up and popped it in a fridge, and then I forgot about it because Matt and I dashed over to Amy and Lauren's birthday party (happy birthday!) and when we came home, everyone else had knocked out in sheer exhaustion.  

So we had pot de creme for breakfast on Saturday. 

Nobody minded.

And whipped cream, which Jen and Matt had whisked up the night before.  

Also on the registry: an egg-beater.  Sorry again, Jen.

Mara took the inaugural bite:

... I think she approved.  

There's nothing like one big happy family, all together, sharing a pot of chocolate pudding for breakfast.  

NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

Matt and I toyed with the idea of going to Indianapolis to watch my alma mater Duke play Butler for the NCAA Championship (which, for those who live under a rock, we ended up winning by one point after a thrilling game).  When the logistics started getting too tricky, we made the decision that if we were willing to spend that much money and that much time going to the game, we should be willing to spend at least half that much money and that much time making our private viewing SUPER AWESOME.

We started with Swedish "cheese bread" toasted in a skillet.

Then it was enormous, juicy, 1/3 pound burgers from C&D farms, topped with artisanal cheddar, mushrooms sauteed in butter, organic lettuce, tomato, ketchup, and mayo.  We stacked it all on fresh-baked ciabatta buns from my local bakery, which were soft enough to rip when bitten into, but firm enough to hold ALL. THAT. FOOD.

I didn't have the wherewithal to fry fries, so we tested a recipe for kale chips we've been meaning to try: we brushed a couple cups of kale leaves with olive, sprinkled with salt, and toasted it in the oven for twenty minutes or so.

I'd doubted the recipe, which claimed that kale crisps under heat, but the "chips" did in fact come out crisp rather than wilted!  They were tasty (if you're into kale) but sort of odd, the crispness crumbling to a kale-y ash in the mouth.  I'd make them again, but really, if you're in the mood for french fries or potato chips, this just isn't going to be the replacement you're looking for.

Matt wanted to replicate my undergraduate basketball experience, so he was bent on making us "Big Beers" a la Satty's (shout-out to all the Duke grads reading this blog).  32 ounces of beer in a plastic cup.  Unfortunately, he failed to find a plastic cup capable of holding 32 ounces of beer.  We ended up with these, instead:

Finally, at half-time, when the game was nail-bitingly close, nothing would do to comfort us but a big pan of brownies, lovingly crafted from Ghiradelli unsweetened baking chocolate, fresh eggs, organic sugar, walnuts, flour, artisanal vanilla extract, and a stick of butter borrowed from our lovely upstairs neighbors, Joe and Lauren.

This feast may not have been better than actually seeing Duke win the championship in person, but it went a long way toward making up for it.

GO BLUE DEVILS!

Exams, In Sum

Latte and a fresh-baked croissant from my local bakery.  I'm pretty much living on espresso, milk, eggs, butter, and pastry flour.