The older I get, the more I find that the saying is true: It’s the little things in life that bring the most happiness. I love the new AwK site that a group of friends and I have been contributing to. When I find that I’m in a blah mood or feeling unhappy about the stress of my life, I turn to AwK. Writing a short blip about some stupid thing I cooked somehow brings me an enormous amount of happiness. Not only do I get to write, but I get to write about something that I really enjoy: Food.

A couple of weeks ago I reviewed a recipe that I dug up in an old Bon Appetit magazine, called Sweet & Sour Tangerine Chicken Stir Fry. I made it again last night and was so thrilled with the results. The recipe is a two-serving dish and, for minimal effort, anyone can put a nutritious meal on the table. I even made a little extra tangerine sauce and drowned my rice in it. It was so good that I can’t stop thinking about it.

AmateurswithKnives.com is up and running. Hope you love it as much as we do.

The food blog I mentioned a few days ago is coming together. We’ve got Ken and Rich lined up to help write for it, Ed’s even volunteered to do a monthly segment on wine, and we’re still searching for more. As I said previously, my only criteria is that if you volunteer to become a contributor, you have to agree to write consistently. If that means writing weekly, every other week, or monthly, so be it - I just don’t want someone coming in with the best intentions, writing one post, and then disappearing completely from the site.

In order to get a site going, you need a site name. After much discussion, some disagreement, and many virtual shrugs, Ken came up with the following:

AmateursWithKnives.com

I was smitten. The name was available for purchase so Tom bought it for us last night. We should have a blank site up and running by this weekend, and I’ll keep you posted on the kickoff. We want to have a new recipe site attached to it, and I’m thinking about getting a subscription RecipeZaar.com, as they also have a nutritional calculator for recipes. We’ll let you know. I’m very excited. If you’re interested in being a contributor, or know of someone who is, shoot me an email or post below!

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about group blogs and how much I would love to be a part of one. I did try it once, but the topics on that particular blog were so varied I felt like there was no real place for me. So what I’d like to do is contribute to a blog that revolved around one subject. There are a couple of subjects I could really sink my teeth into, but I just wasn’t sure who I could get to do this with me, and what their interests would be. After a drawn out discussion with Ken, we agreed that we would do a food blog.

Group food blogs aren’t unheard of. There are a bunch and I subscribe to some of them. The only thing that really bugs me about group blogs is that there will be 50 posts in one day because there are so many writers. I don’t have time to read 50 lengthy posts in one day. What I end up doing is glossing them over just so I can mark them read.

I do think that to be a successful blog (and by “successful” I mean something I can be proud of, not that we have thousands of readers) there should regular posts, and a few of those having actual substance. There has to be a balance between long and short posts, a variety of humor posts mixed with serious recipes and the gadget reviews. As for long posts, I’m not usually a big fan of them unless they’re broken up with pictures or the subject is really interesting - and that’s ironic since my posts are usually long. I don’t know why that is.

This blog should reflect the writers - so there would have to be a great deal of humor involved. If someone isn’t exactly a foodie and they can’t really cook but would like to write funny reviews of food television shows, I’d be all for that. It can be short and funny with photos, and that’s fine. Or, if a non-foodie friend wants to be the writer of the “horrors” of cooking ingredients - such as frozen, canned or boxed food, I’d be all for it. “Do NOT eat this, people!”

This will mean that my food posts will all go to a different site, and I can focus this site to be something else. What that else will be, I have yet to decide. It will still be a general blog, but I’d like to focus it a little more and put the food elsewhere.

I’m still looking for friends who want to participate and write for the food blog. My only criteria at this moment is that if someone wants to participate they need to agree to write on a regular basis - whether it is weekly, every other week, whatever - I just don’t want to find myself trying to support yet another blog alone. Too often do friends have good intentions and then mysteriously disappear after committing… I have this site and LoO to support; the last thing I need is one more site to put on my shoulders. If anyone out there thinks they can be a contributor, let me know…

We also need a name for the blog. If you have any ideas, post them in the comments section below. When the site goes up, I’ll let you know!

Every year I send out boxes of Christmas cookies to my friends. Well, I did skip a year just recently, but I’m back in full swing. The last group I sent out was extremely disappointing; a group of fruity recipes I had never tried before became the theme of my Christmas delicacies. Most of them did not travel well or even come remotely near to what I had been expecting. They were fruity and flimsy and fun and, before they left my kitchen they were even kind of pretty, but they weren’t at all the sexy cookies I am used to.

This year, I went back to my roots and made a mess in my kitchen that would have had my mother praying to Jesus. I’m feeling a little more confident in what I’m sending out, although it’s hard to be completely assured that what you’re sending will make everyone happy. Also, I’m excited that I’ve been able to add good friends Jeff and Caroline to my list, even though I have no clue what kind of sweet treats they enjoy.

So I went with half cookies, half chocolate confections. Right now I have a batch of raspberry shortbread dough chilling in the freezer, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to fit them into the packages. It was my one and only fruity cookie, but I don’t think it will make it. Another time, perhaps. Here’s what we ended up with for this year:

Butterscotch Blondies
Peanut Butter cookies with Hershey’s Kisses
Orange Chocolate-Chip Biscotti
Chocolate Mint Candy (Fudge)
Chocolate-Cranberry Truffles
Fantasy Fudge
Chocolate Earl Grey Truffles

Have a very, merry Christmas, and enjoy!

I found this linked on Alton Brown’s blog and wanted to also share it with you: Cave Cibum

Hilarious and clever. And scary. Great tastes that go together.

It’s been so busy that I had forgot to mention my Thanksgiving adventure. So here we go.

This is the first Thanksgiving that Tom and I would not be spending at home, just the two of us. His mother ended up not having to work on the holiday and wanted to have a family gathering. Since this is the first time it’s happened since Tom and I have been married, I didn’t make an issue or express my disappointment. Also, I had declared and coordinated the first church potluck for Thanksgiving so I knew I could get some cooking out of my system.

What I didn’t realize is how much cooking I would get out of my system.

We had been planning this for a month, and I had been talking to my pastor and her husband about this for weeks. Her husband, Dave, loves to cook. So do I. The last we spoke, they had a roaster, and were looking forward to bringing a turkey. Great, I said, I would bring everything else.

Fast forward to Friday morning before the Sunday potluck. I get the message on my cell phone:

“Hi Jen! Dave’s working this weekend, so he’s wondering if you can bring the turkey? Thanks!”

If you’ve never cooked a turkey before, let me explain that you can’t thaw a turkey in a day. I know I have to buy a fresh turkey, which doesn’t excite me because it’s more expensive. If I were cooking for my family or for Tom’s family, I would go all out with some fancy fresh turkey. It’s not. It’s my church friends and, as much as I like them, I don’t think they warrant the price of a fresh turkey. Although it’s too late, and now I have no choice.

Next, I turn to Ken and complain that I’ve been saddled with this turkey two days before the potluck. His response:

“Oh man, you’ve gotta brine it!”

I’ve never brined a turkey, but of course I value Ken’s culinary opinion. Immediately I consult the Grand Poobah of Food, Alton Brown.

From the “Romancing the Bird” episode of his show, Good Eats, I find the recipe for the Good Eats Roast Turkey.

Basically, you take the ingredients for the brine…

1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 gallon vegetable stock
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1/2 tablespoon allspice berries
1/2 tablespoon candied ginger
(Note: Candied ginger can be expensive so I did not buy any and it turned out just fine.)

…and you put it into a bucket. Put your turkey in there and add ice water until the bird is covered.

Before Tom posts this in the comments section, I will go ahead and tell you that I didn’t have an appropriate bucket. I had considered a couple of different tubs, but they were so big that the turkey would not have been covered and the brine would have been really diluted. We go into the basement and start looking at our storage shelves. We see an empty bucket sitting on a bottom shelf amidst a stack of boxes.

Tom points it out and notes that it really is the best shape and size for a turkey brine in our whole house. He sees the contemplative look on my face and starts to laugh. Hard. I can tell he will not be eating the turkey.

I cleaned the bucket out. I did! In fact, I scrubbed it out twice. I mean, it never had USED cat litter in there. The cat litter was clean! Oh sure, it’s toxic and can kill you, but the Soft Scrub with Bleach I used to clean it out is probably worse!

So after I scrubbed it with harsh, people-killing chemicals, I washed it out again with hot water and dish soap, and brought it upstairs.

It’s good to note that no one in my church reads my blog - they don’t even know I have one. But I digress.

I bring the bucket upstairs and, after my brine had heated up in a pot, I poured it into the bucket. After cleaning the turkey, I set it into the bucket, breast-side down. Then I added my iced water. The lid sealed up the bucket nicely and I set it out in the garage overnight to keep cool.

In the morning, I got up, took the turkey out of the brine and thoroughly cleaned it - if you do not thoroughly clean your turkey, it will be salty. Rinse it. Then rinse it again. Then rinse it once more just to make sure! Pat dry. I put it into a disposable roasting pan that I had set on top of a cookie sheet - for structure.

After you roast the bird, uncovered, at 500 degrees (gives the turkey a nice golden color), cover it in a double layer of foil. Seriously. I think this is the key. Reduce heat to 350 and bake for another couple of hours. I had to leave for church early because I had to do worship, so I reduced it to 300 degrees and let it cook. Never basted it. Never touched it. I left for church at 9:45am and got home at about 12:00 — the turkey was done. When we took it out of the oven, the roasting pan was filled with juice from the turkey, which has never happened to me before. Originally we intended to have someone carve it, but it was so tender that even the white meat could be carved with a spoon. The meat was fallling off of the bone, it was so tender. The flavor was equally amazing. I will never go back to the “old” way of cooking a turkey. Not only was it delicious, but I barely did any work on it. After it sits in the brine, you just stick it in the oven and let it sit there until it decides to be done!

Tom still pines away for a deep-fried turkey, which he once had at his brother’s house, but I don’t care for (A.) all that grease and (B.) lighting my house on fire. So for me and my house, we will brine the turkey.

The next time you make your turkey, consider brining it. You won’t be sorry.

Once again, Rich and I got together for the Annual Truffle Weekend. This year we wanted to make completely new recipes, and I was feeling a little exotic, so I went with two dangerous looking selections:

Photo Courtesy of Epicurious.com

Chocolate Earl Grey Truffles

Goat Cheese Chocolate Truffles

I realize the names alone sound strange because they don’t sound like flavors that should be paired with chocolate. Although I do guarantee that they are fantastic chocolates and I would proudly serve them to most of my friends, they aren’t for everyone. If your tastes are slightly more “commercial” then I would suggest you review last year’s truffles and make Chocolate Truffles with Pecans and Dried Cranberries, and Vegan Truffles. Not that I look down on you for not having a more exotic palette or anything, because I don’t. The truffles we made this year aren’t for everyone.

Before you start your truffles, always read through the recipes first and make a mental note of how long they all make to chill. Start with the recipes that takes the longest to set, and then while that is in the fridge or freezer, move on to the next recipe. If you have a helper, have them chop up the chocolate. If you have a food processor with a grating wheel, I would suggest using it. I have one, but I’ve never used it before. I think it’s time to pull out the instructional video and watch it.

There is a myth that truffles are very difficult to make well, and in all honesty I would say making good fudge is more difficult. How many of us have made the horrible mistake of swiping the sides of the pot over and over again, and your fudge ends up grainy because of the sugar crystals you unknowingly put into the mixture? The first time you make truffles it will feel a little overwhelming, but once you’ve got the first time under your belt, it will be easier. So don’t be afraid of these tasty little chocolate gems.

Chocolate Earl Grey Truffles

This delightful recipe calls for a good quality loose-leaf earl grey tea. Melt the butter and heat up the cream and put in your tea leaves. When I made this, I made a made a slight mistake in that I only heated the cream to a boil and put my tea leaves in it. After we strained the tea out of the cream and poured it over the chocolate, I realized the tea was supposed to be steeping in the butter and cream mixture too. It actually was no big deal. We melted the butter separately and poured it in.

At this point, we realized that the chocolate had not been chopped up finely enough. This is one of those recipes where the cream is supposed to melt the chocolate on its own. Never fear. Pour the chocolate mixture (all of it!) into a metal bow. Take a small pot and put an inch of water in the bottom. Place the metal bowl over the pot, but make sure the water does not touch the bowl! It only takes a minute or two to melt the rest of the chocolate. Do NOT plop your chocolate into a pot and place it directly onto a burner. You will burn your chocolate and it will be dry and taste like monkey butt.

Not that I know what monkey butt tastes like - I’m just taking a wild guess, here.

After the chocolate has chilled, wash your hands. It’s time to form your truffles and roll them into the mixture of your choice. This is the hard part, and I admit I was really bad at this at first. After watching something on Food TV about some famous chocolatier who makes truffles for her own business, it was a little easier for me to do. Some people use a small melon ball scooper with the mechanical lever - like a mini ice cream scooper. I just use my hands.

Take a small spoon and scoop a small amount into the palm of your hand. With your other hand and using only the tips of one or two fingers, move the little ball of chocolate around in the palm of your hand until it becomes a ball. If this is your first time trying it, this will take a few times. Don’t use both palms of your hands to do this or you will melt the chocolate. Practice using just one or two fingers to keep from melting the chocolate.

After you’ve formed it into a mostly-spherical shape, drop it lightly into a bowl of sifted powdered sugar or sifted cocoa powder. Roll this around with fingertips - NOT the ones that were just rolling it into a ball previously. If you use the same fingertips for both, you’ll end up getting cocoa powder or powdered sugar mixed into the truffle body and you don’t want that texturally.

I have tried dipping my truffles into melted chocolate, and I have to say it was unsuccessful. This is mostly due to my not being patient enough for the chocolate coating to cool off before dipping the chocolate truffles in there, and the truffles start to melt from the hot chocolate. I may try this again later, but for now, dipping it into powdered sugar and cocoa powder is what I use. What is nice about coating it in a powder is that the powder will hide most blemishes in your not completely sphere shaped truffle, helping it to appear quite lovely.

The Chocolate Earl Grey Truffles are a beautiful little truffle with a nice, creamy texture. The flavor of the tea leaves is very faint, and comes in at the very end. I definitely recommend this recipe.

Goat Cheese Chocolate Truffles

Allow me to begin by saying if you don’t like Goat Cheese, you will probably hate this truffle. In fact, when Tom bit into it, he nearly vomited.

The truffle takes on the texture of the goat cheese and it can feel a little drier than other truffles. In order to make this truffle successful, use a little extra vanilla and a high-quality goat cheese. Some reviews on epicurious.com complain that the recipe tastes too “goaty” but I would disagree - if you use a better quality cheese, it won’t be. I think using a little more lemon extract would also be a great idea, possibly even doubling it. The lemon taste is quite faint, as are a lot of the flavors; nothing overpowers the other. Be careful to keep everything in harmony here. This is not your standard truffle, and people who are expecting something slightly more commercial are going to be disappointed. It’s not for the Lindt crowd. Rich and I thought they were fantastic, but they aren’t for everyone.

Enjoy.

I have two new awesome meals for you that you must try this summer - with pictures!

Penne with Creamy Mushrooms

For my birthday, my coworkers showered me with a lot of gifts. I was stunned and flattered and it was an absolutely wonderful gesture. One of the items I received was a book called “Pasta: 40 Wonderful Classic Pasta Recipes” by Suzanna Tee. You can find an older edition on amazon.com, used, for around $5.00. The recipes it contains are absolutely wonderful and of course worth $5.00. If you have a pasta machine, the book has a recipe for a basic pasta dough, but I have not yet tried it. I do have a pasta machine, but I have not yet used it. Of course I keep saying I will…

When I saw the recipe in the book, it reminded me of a dish I had at Macaroni Grill. Granted, the Macaroni Grill dish was never the way I wished it would be but, as I had no close approximation that I could have elsewhere or make at home, I would order it and be as happy as I could eating it. Now I have my own recipe that is everything I wished that canned restaurant dish was.

Some tips: Before you heat up the butter and olive oil, slice up all of your shallots - use them all - and get at least half way through slicing up your cremini mushrooms. This prep is what will be most of your time sink with this recipe. After slicing everything up, you will coast right through to the finished product.

When I made this, I did not have any port. It was still delicious, but I think it needed a little something else so next time I will add it. You can find Penne with Creamy Mushrooms on the recipe site, and it is now listed in the Recipe Index.

Hawaiian Kabobs

This recipe has been on the site for a very long time: It is the second entry of the site. (First entry: the Tom Special. It has been known to cause vomiting. Literally.)

It is called Hawaiian Kabobs because it calls for pineapple. Beyond that, I can’t vouch whether or not it’s Hawaiian, but hey, at least it’s not some freaky fried spam with rice wrapped in seaweed thing.

I love this recipe. If you’re looking for something a little different to throw on the BBQ, try these kabobs. The meat only takes an hour to marinate (I prefer letting it sit for two hours, but it is still good after one) and it is delicious. The marinade is a simple concoction of pineapple juice, soy sauce, vegetable oil and spice. Throw these into the fridge to marinate while you finish making the side dishes.

If you aren’t a big fan of the vegetables listed, pop some different ones on the sticks. For example, zucchini would also work very well. Be creative.

As an aside, if you have kids just take everything off of those sticks and let them have at it. The sticks are very, very pointy - I have the puncture wounds to prove it.

Chili Cheesy Creamy Chickey Crock Pot, now available on my recipe page, and also the halffull recipe index. I printed this recipe off of Recipezaar.com and stared at it for a long while before trying it. It just looked too weird. But it did have 50 ratings, with an overall rating of 4.5 stars (out of 5), so last night I whipped it up.

Let’s explain where I’m at with “whipping up dinner” lately. I’ve been working late, going to school, my time with Tom is limited, and I try to write my book every single night - writing my book is an obsession and I just can’t help myself. By the time I get home, I still have to defrost chicken which takes quite a while. So you can imagine that by the time dinner is ready, it’s almost 8:00, Tom’s covered the cats in BBQ sauce and he’s out back, getting ready to cook them up on the baby Weber.

That’s why my dinners have been relegated to recipes of the easiest common denominator. This recipe fit in perfectly with that scheme. Granted, I don’t have time for a crock pot recipe because I’m hungry NOW and don’t have six hours to wait. No problem; that’s what Pyrex and ovens are for.

I want to convince you to try this recipe, even though it’s slightly weird. If you aren’t really a cooking guru and you want something that you can throw together in 5 minutes, go with this dish. In case you’re a little worried about all of the cheese that’s listed - don’t be. It wasn’t at all overpowering. Brown up your chicken breasts in a frying pan (I used a little oil), then start layering all of the ingredients accordingly: chopped onion, cheddar cheese, cheddar cheese soup, chili powder (I didn’t even measure, I just unscrewed the top and started sprinkling), cream of chicken soup, Rotel tomatoes (I only used one can, although the recipe indicates 2). Now leave them layered. Don’t stir. Cover it tightly with foil and bake on 350 for 1 hour, 15 minutes. You can stir the sauce up when it comes out of the oven if you need, but I found that I didn’t because the ingredients all blended together fairly well while it cooked. Serve it up with rice or flour tortillas — I served them up as breasts, but I think next time I will cut them up and serve them with flour or corn tortillas, rice, guacamole and sour cream. Seriously, it takes all of 5 minutes to assemble this dish. Throw it into the oven and let it cook. I served it with a side of corn, which was a great, sweet contrast to the spiciness of the dish. If you are looking for the nutrition information, you can find it on recipezaar.com here.