since last time...

I don't really have a whole lot to say today except that I wish I was blogging more. A lack of inspiration combined with being really busy ( the #1 blogger excuse, courtesy of lazy.com/blogger)  has accounted for my invisibleness on this blog. However, I am super excited to start a new series called "Make Your Own:______." Obviously the blank will be filled in with exciting things, mostly food.

Over Christmas and New Year's I was sick for a couple weeks which allowed me to read a lot. I read the book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingslover. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. It's fast, interesting, and very yummy (as much as a book can be). Besides being all of that, it inspired me to start making some of the things that we buy at the store without thinking if we could make them or not. So here's to a delicious (hopefully) expedition of making and not buying bread, butter, cheese, yogurt, jams, and whatever else I can without going broke or ruining my taste buds.

And just because no blog post should be without a picture, here's some of what we've been eating and making since my last post.

taco night. yuuuuhm! steak and chicken, cilantro-lime rice, sauteed red onions and peppers, guacamole, salsa, sour cream, and siracha (for an extra kick of heat)  

Black Pepper and Nutmeg Popovers from Bon Appetit's November Magazine.

This is such a yummy, fast lunch. Homemade bun sliced in 1/2 with a fried egg and topped with Trader Joe's chicken andouille sausage. Their sausages, while expensive, are some of my favorites ever. They don't have any nitrates, are already precooked and have such a delicious flavor. I highly recommend them!

What yummy food have you cooked recently?

What I ate in Europe.

Currently, we are in Basel, Switzerland. We're staying with a friend from the Crescendo Institute (the violinist in our quartet) today and tomorrow Karl, me, and our friend will travel to Paris. It took us 21 hours and 9 trains to arrive in Basel and we are so happy to be here. 

Since I last blogged we have been in Padova, Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre, (and Nice, France- although it was only for 25 minutes, so it doesn't really count). Today I want to share about some of the food we have been eating while we have been in Europe. We've tried some of the local foods and some familiar foods and have seen strange things that aren't usual at all for Americans. 

For instance, we stayed with a host in Padova, Italy and on the way to his flat he pointed out the butchers store. But this wasn't just any butcher. It was a butcher that only sold horse meat. Yup. Horse meat. It's quite common and tasty, he told us. (thanks, i'll take your word for it) 

(fresh salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, feta, dill and bacon)

This first picture if from our free-day at the festival. We went on a wine tasting tour that included a 3-course meal at a French restaurant in Hungary. I loved the idea of this place- it was opened by some French artists and chefs who have a beautiful restaurant filled with their artwork! 

 (couscous, herbed chicken, and a sweet squash loaf)

this was the second course at the restaurant. I felt so fancy eating in courses and trying new flavors!

 (different kinds of desserts- sweetmeats, etc.)

The final and 3rd course of our meal had some sweetmeats and different dessert bites. I'm not even sure what to call them. The little meatball-looking things were very sweet- I think they had some nuts and honey in them. They were served neither hot nor cold.  Interesting, but I think my taste buds would have preferred gelato ;)

this is a traditional Hungarian dish- chicken paprikish. It is VERY DELICIOUS (!!!!!!!!! I loved it) and is served with their traditional pasta, which is super dense and therefore, super filling.

speaking about paprika, this is one of the stands at a Hungarian market (in the Great Hall Market) that sells all different kind and forms of paprika. In restaurants you won't find salt and pepper on the table. You'll find paprika. I bought a beautiful tin of paprika and plan to make some chicken paprikish when we get back home. 

(just so you know, we're not choco-alco-addicts) We found these (and more!) flavors of chocolate in the Hungarian supermarket and thought it was slightly funny since there were so many alcoholic flavors.

one night during the festival, we had a grill party outside the castle gate. they served kebabs, pita wedges and salad. Yum!

our last night at the festival we went to our favorite hangout-food place in Sarospatak. They have the most adorable outside garden to eat in. Also they have a bajillion different kinds of pizzas with every topping imaginable- from hot dog pieces to corn.

here we are in Venice trying a Spritz. It's white wine, bitters, red flavoring, ice, seltzer water and lemon wedge. If you leave it on your tongue it tastes sweet, but the moment you swallow it, you could breathe out fire. Oh, also I wouldn't recommend drinking it in the morning on an empty stomach. just saying :)

beautiful marzipan in Venice.  

an outside street market in Venice- these hot peppers were so beautiful! they also had a notice saying don't touch them. Yeah, I'm going to listen to that.

 a night dinner in a beautiful garden in Venice. Al fresco eating is pretty much the only way to eat in Venice, Rome and Florence. As far as I can remember, I didn't see a restaurant that didn't have outdoor seating. This meal was very yummy- Karl had the gnocchi with meat sauce and I had penne arrabiata. They served it with bread and a healthy helping of parmesan. Also the wine was cheaper than my water. That's how you know you're in Italy.

 A bakery window with gigantic meringues and biscotti. Seriously, these meringues were bigger than my hand. And every bakery has bigger meringues than the last one. That's my kind of bakery.

This is the traditional pasta dish in the Vernazza of the Cinque Terre. It looks like worms, but it's actually pretty tasty and covered in a basil-pesto sauce that is wonderful!

Well, that's all for now. I can't believe we don't have a picture of gelato-we probably just gobbled it up to fast to think about taking a picture. But hey, we've got priorities.

WWOTM. Maple Beach Burgers.

(this is part of the We Wandered Out To Minnesota series)

One of the days we were at the lake we went on a fun double date with Karl's brother and his wife. They had found this little burger place on the edge of Lake Lida and had been there before. If there ever was a cute, out of the way joint, this was it!

Maple Beach is this tiny little cabin across the street from a beautiful, big lake. You go in and order your food and then take a seat outside on one of the many picnic tables. When your order is ready, the cook bangs on the window and holds up a number card. If the number he holds up matches your order number, than the food is ready. You just go inside and pick up the tray.

 Here's our tray. And our family fries. They have all kinds of different burgers for such a small place. It's reasonably priced and very tasty!

There are no soda fountains at a small place like this- just a vintage fridge where you can pick out a can of soda. How could I resist this Strawberry Crush??

Sometimes you just gotta go for the artificial. 

Who's with me on that?

Ted's Burgers (man v. food)

As you may already know, we  love eating food. good food, to be more specific. lately we've been watching that show "Man Versus Food." (it's on Netflix now) We loooove all food-centered shows: Throwdown with Bobby Flay, Diners, Drive-In's and Dives, America's Next Food Star, Restaurant Impossible, Kitchen Nightmares, The Best Thing I Ever Ate... you get the idea.

When we go to NYC we always try to go to one of the places we know has been labeled by chefs and foodies alike as delicious. When my awesome friend and food-lover came to visit us, we just had to go to Ted's Burgers in a little Connecticut town to have their steamed burgers.

We all (Karl, me, and H-Banana) had seen the the episode on Man Vs. Food where Adam Richman goes to Ted's Burgers to try their famous steamed burgers. Basically they have a special machine that steams the burgers and drains all the fat away from them. After they are cooked, they melt the cheese right on top of the burger by also steaming the cheese. Guys, this has to be the best cheese I've ever had on a burger. 

 In the back left, you can see the little steamer oven. These are our burger which have just been taken out.

 Ok, are you drooling now? I told you this cheese was amazing! 

I looooove cheese and I was pretty much on cloud 9.

I had a bunch of toppings on my burger- I think you can order up to like 5 or something without any extra charge- and it was super flavorful. Plus since it didn't have all that fat I didn't feel gross or bloated after eating this burger (I wasn't even hungry when our food arrived) AND some of their freshly cut potato fries. If you're a plain-cheeseburger-with-no-other-toppings-kind-of-guy (like my husband) you may not like this burger as well. 

I think H-Banana sums her feelings up about this burger pretty well.

glorious.

the best of bacon

i pretty much love bacon. it is sosososososososo good. it may surprise you that i did not have bacon until i was in college. (yay! sheltered food diet growing up)

i also did not have chocolate until i was 16 years old. that also may surprise you.

however, unlike my reaction to chocolate, i loooooved bacon from the minute it crunched in my mouth and the smoky, salty wonderfulness filled my mouth.

i had 12 pieces of bacon that day. in one meal. breakfast.

that being said, you can imagine my delight at finding these wonderful pins on pinterest.

please, be my guest and let your eyes and heart feast on the wonderfulness and humor below.

source

source

source

i'd have to say, it would be my dream if i was paid to review different brands and kinds of bacon. except for turkey bacon. that stuff should not be allowed to be called bacon. it shames the name from whence it came. anyone else agree? ;)

are you a bacon person too?

e a t a l y. mario batali's little market.

ok guys, so I promise not to blog about food for a while.....after this post, that is.

 I cannot resist sharing with you some crazy supermarket pictures with you. what?!!??? supermarket pictures??? 

yup.

 if you haven't heard of it (and don't smack yourself, i just heard of it recently too) mr. mario batali (aka the famous chef who wears orange crocs all. the. time.), has opened up this mega market  in nyc. it's called

e a t a l y and their slogan is "we eat what we sell and we sell what we eat." basically it's this like 20,000 square foot market. 

it's divided into sections. produce. pastas. meats. sandwiches. coffees. gelato. breads. chocolates. desserts.

and in each of those sections, there's a mini-restaurant. so you see the food. and you can:

1) either buy it and figure out what to do with it

2) have chefs make you food with the items in that particular section.

for instance: in the pasta section (where they sell both fresh and dried pasta) you can buy some like you do at the regular grocery OR, you can sit down in that area and have them make you a pasta dish. 

sounds pretty simple, right? 

well, each section of the store has it's own complete menu. that's like 20 different menus. woah.

so needless to say, if you are hungry for good food, go to eataly.

but be prepared. it is crowded. and not just "it's crowded like every other nyc store" its like SUPER crowded. but cool, so kinda evens out. maybe.

ok, enough chit-chat. here's the eye candy:

cheese and sausages.

 a little view of some meats.

and fish below.

coffee and espressos. 

some fresh pastas.

preparing some dishes in the vegetable section

some fruits and veggies.

some sweets.

 one of the entrances. there are like 5 different entrances to this place.

 we didn't end up eating here because it was super-de-duper crowded. but on our next trip we will definitely be eating here. until then, i need a snack......

Tuesday, Late -Night Style

Is late night even a style? Not really sure. I think it's just my excuse for any typos or lack of cohesion you may find in this post. Anyways, its Tuesday and as I am suuuuuuuuuuuuuper tired and pooped (which is just a more intense version of tired) so I thought I'd share a couple picture from this week. Mainly food, which has not made nearly enough appearances on my blog as of late. :)

The food we got to take home from a wedding we did at the Mark Twain House. Favorite: the dumplings. You can't eat just one. (and I didn't)

Spring rolls. dumplings. fried rice. fried crab dumplings. veg. noodles.

My West Coast Burger (fried egg, avocado, and olive mayo) with a deeeelicious pickle and parmesan fries. (which were a waste of the $2 upgrade from regular fries)

The Irish Soda Bread I made the other morning. As you can see, I cut the "X" too wide and ended up with 4 pyramid-like corners. Lesson learned.

Last night's dinner: fresh corn chowder, salad and soda bread. 

That's all for tonight! 

Random, Fantom Tuesday

I'm starting to learn that if I want to do a post with pictures in it, nighttime is the best to do it. (Since Karl is usually home, which means his laptop is home, which means I can use iPhoto...you get it...)

As usual, Tuesdays posts will be random. So are you ready for a smattering of picture and a whole lot of random? Put on your adventure hat and here we go!  (that was...awkward, weird, whatever. just scroll down)

Bought I couple red pears this week. Mostly because they're so pretty.

Can't get enough pears.

Made some salsa for the church picnic. Also these (hot chocolate) cookies.

Church picnic! 

The teens are hosting this "rice bowl" project. This little rice bowl is basically a piggy bank and you fill it with your pocket change for the next two weeks. The money collected in all the rice bowls gets donated to a children's orphanage overseas. love it.

Leaving the picnic (karl keeps his name tag on as long as possible) :)

Super-awesome vintage Leed's suitcase I picked up outside a big house on Prospect that had tons of stuff on the curb. 

Simple, tasty beans: 1 can (15.5oz) of beans, 2 garlic cloves, 1 serrano chile pepper, handful of cilantro, chicken broth. Dump it all in a pot and cook for 15 min. 

Macho-Nacho dinner night! 

I made this lemon-scented sweet bread today...mmmmmmm...It's a not the easiest recipe, but I love to try new things. Recipe found here. See some steps below:

The final product. Breakfast, anyone?

Happy Tuesday!