Didn't fail
at mumsy's Honey Baked Chicken last night.

Though, I think each of us girls learned to make that one around 13.  

I tried making homemade spaghetti like my mom's last night.  I failed.  Pretty disappointing to taste "bland" after sauteing fresh garlic, onions and mushrooms.  I have a lot to learn my friends.  A lot to learn.   

On a similar note, my boss asked me if I'd ever used AllRecipes.com.  That was an unexpected conversation for the two of us to have.  Turns out he's a big spaghetti fan.  And he had some good suggestions.  Only weird if you know him. 

I have a dangerous habit. I tend to pick out recipes I've never made before whenever I have company coming over.  I find myself in the kitchen with a handful of ingredients, googling "How to wash a leek" and thinking, This could all go very wrong.  Monday - Wednesday we are having someone over each night for dinner and when I sat down to write out the menu, I determined Salmon and Quinoa sounded delicious. I blame this largely on Kaylee who is constantly posting these amazing looking photos of quinoa creations she's concocted.  I decided lime and mango type flavors (not original, but sounded delicious).  From there, I did the next important thing - texted Kaylee, who gave me encouragement that I could do it.  And then began my All Recipes search.  I settled on a mango salsa that had a lot of great reviews - and went with the suggestion to replace the habaneros with bell peppers.  While I also discovered mid-cooking that I didn't have a peeler for the mangos, a pyrex big enough for the salmon, or any foil.... and John got to run around from store to store... and my guests showed up before anything was in the oven even, it was an incredible night.  Thankfully my guests were the Sittigs, and things are allowed to go wrong or be late when you are entertaining close friends.  We ended up wrapping up the meal preparations all together, and intentionally I'd picked a quick-cooking meal.  Before you knew it we were sitting down (at our not-so-kitchen-table) to quite the tasty meal and already laughing hysterically.  I love summer nights that allow for new cooking adventures and close friends.

I woke up this morning, was brushing my teeth and suddenly realized I was humming The Galway Girl. : /


Interesting.

On that note, I'm already excited for St. Patricks Day!  A little over a month away.  As soon as Valentines Day passes, I'm breaking out The Pogues playlist on my itunes.  : )   (Deal with it, Unger.)   A friend just gave me some good information on some great beer bread recipes.  I just learned a few great bourbon spirit-forward recipes. ; )  And let the search for a more tasty traditional Irish meal begin... hopefully this time it doesn't require me up to my elbows in 7 pounds of raw lamb for a meal most people agreed was bland.  It had more aroma than taste. :( 

Please feel free to pass along dinner, bread, hors d'oeuvres, and drink recipes.  :)



.

I cook so little.  Yet, I'm finding I love it more and more - and this weekend I discovered I really, really enjoy reading through a good cook book. I've been checking in regularly with my favorite food blogger What Katie Ate, hoping beyond hope to see a post telling me her book is out.  It hasn't happened yet.  But, I do have another especially beautiful treat.  For my recent birthday, my good friend, Braden bought me one of the coolest cookbooks I have ever seen.  I spent over an hour (maybe two) sitting at the kitchen bench sipping coffee and eyeing through page after page of incredible recipes and mouth-watering photography.  I kid you not - I FaceTimed my sister Kim to make her look through it with me!  Then I brought it down to my mom a half dozen times to show her discoveries.  She laughed at me when I exclaimed "Oh my gosh!  There's a glossary!"  And boy is there ever.  How thoughtful.  Truly, glossaries are written expressions of kindness and thoughtfulness from an author.  That's how I see them.  I think my love for them started back in Junior High when I discovered how useful of a study tool they are.  But as an adult, with less tests, I'm no less grateful.

Here's a recent post from WKA, on a few of her favorite cookbooks:

Out of the 300 or so + cookbooks piling my shelves, there are about 20 I return to over and over when pondering what to cook for a dinner party or such. Obviously there are ones which stand out from the crowd for me: 'Cooking for Friends' by Gordon Ramsay springs first to mind, whilst the recipes are great and I've cooked often from this book, it's the unsurpassed Ditte Isager's photography that causes the stir in this book for me personally, she's one of my most admired photographers. Others are anything really from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall; Heston Blumenthal; Jamie Oliver; Stephanie Alexander; Ferran Adriá, Neil Perry and the author who brings me to the purpose of this post; Stéphane Reynaud.

I think I might enjoy pictures of food almost more than eating food.  Perhaps because pictures can't make me sick.  And a close second is probably the process of making the food.  I love cooking... by myself or with close friends.  I love sipping wine in an apron.  I love the smell of sauteing garlic, bread in the oven, any and all of it!  I love shuffling the pan over the heat.  (See my very technical, experienced term there?  I'm practically professional.)  In fact, I love it all so much, I've already given myself a very bad reputation of making a simple meal take about 3 hours to prepare and cook.  How I do it, I don't even know... but if I'm every going to have a life (or a family!) I guess I better figure out how to speed up the process.  Maybe I'd even do it more often if I didn't feel like it took half of my day each time!

Bourbon in chai. Turns out it's good. :)

Sister, "Drink.my.hot.Kool-aid!"

That line alone, when properly delivered, can make Kristin come as close

to peeing her pants as I think exists. :)  And yes,  I might in fact have reason

for wishing her to experience that ...event.

WHY is this funny to me?! I guess potatoes are just funny. They have a sneaky way of ending up in every meal at my house.   This past weekend, my mom made one of my favorite soups.   I have to admit, I was so excited when she woke me up from a nap to tell me "Minestrone Soup will be ready in 10 minutes."   I crawled out of bed with such a warmth of expectation in my heart.   And then, I found potatoes.

I asked, "Mom, did this have potatoes in it before?  [insert confused :/ face] THIS many potatoes?" She responded, "Oh no, I added them." She explained later that she'd run short on noodles and had added the potatoes in their place. I love noodles. I loathe potatoes. :(

Haters gonna hate. Potatoes gonna potate. I think for the first time in my life, I'd count myself in that first group. If it's hating or potating... I'd hate.

15. A Recipe: Mom's Honey Baked Chicken.  Picking just one recipe I'm grateful for?  That's terrible.  I hate "What's your favorite?" questions.  Truly.  Strong, strong dislike.  But, seeing as these questions aren't about favorites, they're about things I'm grateful for... I chose my mom's chicken.  It has always been a family favorite.  And it was the first recipe of hers I learned to make.  Come to think of it, it is a certain rights of passage in our home.  Katherine made it for her first time this past year.  Learning to bake mom's honey baked chicken is something simple, but special.  And it tastes amazing.  I chose it as the recipe I am grateful for, because it helped open up the culinary world to me.  And, because it's one of those meals that makes me feel at home.

Sunday.  I love Saturday night service!  Sleeping in on Sundays feels so... incredible.  It's better than sleeping in on any other day.  I'm not sure why, but it might be because it is so foreign.  It's like your first bite of candy, or sip of bourbon (was that just me?). 

So, after sleeping in rather late, and then spending an hour or so 'sloaking' in prayer... I crawled out of bed, started the coffee and got immersed into some fun crafts.  By 1pm, my dear friend and weekend guest, Meg, gently prodded "Hey Kati, want to eat something?"  To which I replied from the other room, "yeah."  "Maybe want to eat it before you get into another project?"  "Yeah."  I shut off the sewing machine and realized I'd been starving my sweet friend.  From there, we began plotting our delicious day.  A quick trip to the grocery store and we were set for our kitchen adventures.  Meg's has begun a foodie blog... which I am very grateful for, since I think it will require both of us to become more adventurous and confident.... changing, amending and owning recipes.  Yesterday, we began with our very own, Bourbon-Bacon-Pecan Sticky Buns.  And they were delicious.  I'm not bragging (okay, yes I am), but I've had several from Specialty's (it's a weakness... and there is one RIGHT by my building! Some mornings, they just scream at me!)... anyways, ours were better.  That was probably just because they were smothered with butter, brown sugar and bourbon and sprinkled with bacon.  Hard to go wrong there.. especially when you begin with a nice warm piece of carb (aka bread). 

A few hours later and I was back in the kitchen making the ceremonious first butternut squash soup of the year. :) MMmm.

I might be more in love with the photos of the food than the food itself on What Katie Ate. The presentation is amazing!  They make me want to sit and cook/bake all these beautiful, authentic looking meals and treats. For starters, I want to try these cookies. Another food fetish: oatmeal.

I want to make these!

*recipe and photo from "What Katie Ate"

Nutella Mug Cake

As promised, Here is the recipe for the nutella mug cakes I mentioned last week. I initially found it on a different blog, but since I don't see it pulling up, this is the exact same recipe. The only difference is the other blogger explained how to make your own "self rising flour" with a bit of salt, flour and baking soda. I'm probably the only one who didn't know that though. ;)

Nutella Mug Cake
Ingredients

4 tablespoons self rising flour
4 tablespoons white granulated sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 tablespoons Nutella
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil

Method

1. Combine all ingredients in a large coffee mug. Whisk well with a fork until smooth. Microwave on high for 1 1/2 – 3 minutes. (Time depends on microwave wattage. Mine took 1 /2 minutes.) Top with whipped cream and a little chocolate sauce if desired.

2. Top with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. Enjoy!

Note: Depending on the wattage of your microwave, you may have to increase cooking time.

Makes 1 very large serving.


Remember, it is remarkably rich... and makes a pretty big mug. You could easily split it between two mugs, or just plan to share. We topped it with fresh cut strawberries and enjoyed it with a good cab blend.

PS, how cute would these be in jars? ;)