Twix Blondie Bars

Twix Blondie Bars - made January 17, 2014 from Curly Girl Kitchen

I'm posting slightly out of order because today, January 22, is National Blonde Brownie Day. Bet you didn't know that. Yeah, me either until I looked up January Food Holidays. Lest you think I actually planned ahead and coordinated to bake and post this at the appropriate time, the truth is I originally picked this recipe to try out because the original recipe from Curly Girl Kitchen uses cream cheese for the frosting and I still had a Costco-sized block of cream cheese from my holiday baking season to use up. Hitting National Blonde Brownie Day was pure coincidence. The recipe reads like a chocolate chip cookie in bar cookie form which I traditionally don't make because I prefer chocolate chip cookies as actual cookies, not bars. But I decided to try it anyway and since it technically isn't chocolate and is in bar form, it qualifies as a blonde brownie or a blondie for short. I'm glad I did try it though because this was a nice little blondie. It's more of a chewy brown sugar blondie than a chocolate chip cookie. I added chopped up Twix as well as chocolate chips and that added a little bit of crunch from the shortbread of the Twix.

Ironically, I liked the taste of the plain blondies so much that I skipped making the frosting for it because I didn't want the cream cheese to mask or compete with the dark brown sugar flavor of the bars. I'm going to have to try another recipe to use up my cream cheese. These bars were great just plain.

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
2 cups packed dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (I substituted cinnamon)
optional add-ins - chocolate chips, chopped pecans, etc (I added chocolate chips and chopped up Twix)

Frosting (if you're inclined)
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon light corn syrup

1. Preheat the oven to 350.  Spray a 9 x 13 pan with nonstick spray.
2. In a large bowl, combine the melted butter and brown sugar with a whisk until smooth.  Whisk in the eggs and vanilla.  In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder and nutmeg, then add to the batter.  Stir in any add-ins such as chocolate chips or nuts.  Batter will be thick.
3. Spread evenly in the pan and bake for 25 minutes, until the edges are golden brown but the center still looks a little gooey.  Let cool for 30 minutes.
4. Combine the softened cream cheese with the powdered sugar and corn syrup until smooth; spread over the still-warm bars.  Let cool completely before cutting into squares. 

Buttermilk Baked "Fried" Chicken

Buttermilk Baked "Fried" Chicken - made January 11, 2014

Did you know if you want to oven bake anything and make it have the texture of something deep-fried, an easy way to do it is roll it in panko crumbs? It comes out crispy and not as greasy as if you had fried it. I don't buy regular bread crumbs anymore (ha, like I ever did since I don't cook as much as I bake) but instead go with panko crumbs. They're Japanese bread crumbs and you can find it at any Asian grocery store or in the Asian food aisle at a "regular" grocery store.

I made up this recipe after reviewing a number of similar ones. They all had the same basic premise: soak the chicken in buttermilk for a couple of hours, dredge in a flour and spice dry mix and roll in panko. Spray with cooking spray to help it brown during baking. This is a simple recipe to make although it came out a little bland for me. I think it would be better to add more spices to the flour or even directly on the chicken before rolling it in the panko crumbs. Try ginger, cayenne pepper, chili powder or any other spice of your choice.

Nevertheless, I was pleased that it did get crunchy thanks to the crumb coating. Not only was it healthier than deep frying but I didn't have the hassle of cleaning my deep fryer or dumping the excess oil. Just line your baking pan with foil and it's easy to clean up after.

6-8 chicken thighs or 4 boneless chicken breasts
2 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon paprika
2 cups panko crumbs

1. Whisk together the buttermilk and sour cream. Place chicken in a gallon-size ziploc bag and pour in buttermilk-sour cream mixture. Seal bag and refrigerate for 2 hours.
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
3. Combine flour, salt, pepper, allspice and paprika in a shallow bowl. Pour panko crumbs in a separate shallow bowl.
4. Remove chicken pieces from ziploc bag and shake off excess mixture. Dredge in flour and spices then roll in panko crumbs coating completely. If panko crumbs aren't sticking to the chicken, re-dip into the buttermilk mixture and roll directly in the crumbs. Arrange chicken in single layer in prepared pan and lightly spray with cooking spray.
5. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through.

Slow Cooker Chicken in Honey Sauce

Slow Cooker Chicken in Honey Sauce - made January 5, 2014 from Slava's Recipes

After I got back from my trip, I didn't jump right back into baking since I figured everyone was trying to eat healthier and cut back on baked goods, including myself. At least for now. January is also the time when I make yet another effort to cook more and eat at home more instead of going out to eat with friends or getting takeout (20 days into the new year and I'm having only mixed success with this one.)

As always, pulling out my slow cooker is a safe bet. I looked through the recipes I've pinned onto my Cooking board on pinterest and was struck with how I tend to pin the same type of recipes: easy to make, slow cooker or otherwise, usually shrimp or chicken and if a chicken dish in a slow cooker, always seemingly some combination of soy sauce and honey. They all taste really similar too. I'm a pretty boring eater if I have to cook it myself.

This recipe epitomizes the stereotype of my cooking on almost all fronts. It was ridiculously easy to make since it didn't involve anything more than stirring the sauce ingredients together and throwing in the crock pot with the chicken. And like almost everything I cook in a crock pot, it gets watery/soupy so I had to thicken it with some cornstarch dissolved in water. It was fine and fed me for a week but I have to admit, by the end of the week, I was so tired of eating the same thing that I packed up the rest to put in the freezer for another time. And I only made half the recipe below. Alas, the drawback of crock pot cooking for one.

1½ - 2 pounds boneless,skinless chicken breasts
salt and freshly ground black pepper,to taste
2 cups honey
1 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic,peeled and minced
sesame seeds for garnish

1. Place chicken breasts in slow cooker, season with salt and pepper.
2. In a mixing bowl, combine honey, soy sauce, ketchup, olive oil and garlic.
3. Mix well and pour mixture over chicken
4. Cover slow cooker and cook on low heat setting for 6-8 hours.
5. Garnish with sesame seeds and serve over rice or pasta.

London Day 9 - Rest Day and Restaurant Review: The Pheasant Restaurant

London Day 9 - January 3, 2014, lunch at The Pheasant Restaurant

A break in the rain

Our last day in London was a quiet one, partly because we were tired after traipsing all over London and Paris for the past week and a half and partly because a good portion of the day and night regaled us with rainy weather. At one point it even hailed. Fortunately, that point was when we were still holed up in the hotel room. My nieces had discovered the BBC channel and we watched The Great British Bakeoff. We love cooking and baking shows and we were able to catch back to back episodes of the bake off, including the finale. Fun times.

When the rain finally let up, we ventured out for our last meal of "real British food". Thanks to yelp and google maps, our best technology friends on vacation, we found a place called the Pheasant Restaurant that had gotten good reviews on yelp and was a mile away - very walkable given what we were used to walking during the whole trip.

Inside one of the levels of the restaurant

We lucked out as the weather held and didn't start raining again until we had reached the restaurant and gotten seated. We got even luckier as the Pheasant Restaurant served delicious food from start to finish. Seriously, forget that stereotype that you can't get good British food in the UK. You can. You just need to know where to go. And if you're ever around Heathrow, I would recommend searching out the Pheasant Restaurant.

To start with was a lovely basket of fresh, crusty but not too crusty bread rolls. After a long, cold walk without any breakfast or lunch (it was mid-afternoon by the time we got there), it was manna from heaven. I hadn't thought I could get bread that good outside of France but I was wrong. You have to have some idea of how good that bread was when I could gush about it for a whole paragraph. Good bread.

Shyla's Chicken and Mushroom Pie

Steak & Kidney Pie

In keeping with the traditional British food, Shyla and I both got meat pies - chicken for her while I went with the steak and kidney pie with a side of chips. (At this point, I'd been overseas long enough that I could almost think of "chips" as French fries instead "Doritos".) I have to say once again how amazingly good the meat pie was. The crust was so flaky it was almost like phyllo dough but better. Although I know enough about making pie crusts to understand there was probably lard or butter or both in it, it wasn't greasy at all, just flaky. It was done to perfection and the meat chunks were very tender. The sauce was delicious. I've had good meat pies before but this was probably one of the best if not the best.

Fish and Chips with mushy peas

Lauren went with traditional fish and chips for her last British meal and that was impressive in its size, presentation and taste as well. Crisp on the outside, tender, flaky fish on the inside. The chips on all of our orders were a bit too large for my taste as not all of them were done to mealy tenderness which is how I like my fries, er, chips, but that was only a minor issue.

Sticky Toffee Pudding - the before shot

For dessert, of course, it was sticky toffee pudding for Lauren (Shyla was full) and I have to give the nod to this one over the one we had at The Windmill a week prior. This one had the texture of a baked cake rather than a steamed one so it was lighter and fluffier. Although I still don't like dates, I avoided the obvious ones on top and just had a couple of bites of the cake. It was so good I instantly started plotting how I was going to try and make one when I got home and hope it turned out equally well.

Bread and butter pudding with custard

For my own dessert order, I decided to try the bread and butter pudding. I was thinking it would come out like the American version of bread pudding but I was slightly wrong and slightly right. Wrong in that it was baked with less custard so it was more dry but it did come with a side of custard you could pour over the top. I was slightly right in that the middle of the bread pudding had more of the moistness and consistency of the bread pudding I'm used to having. This one had a more pronounced butter taste, hence the "bread and butter" moniker. I can't say it was my favorite dessert but I'm glad I tried it to see what it was like, even if I did have to nudge the raisins aside.

Pouring Rain

Thus ended our last meal in London. We left early the next morning to catch our flights back home. It might have been somewhat fitting that we waited for the bus that would take us to Heathrow in pouring rain. Considering the time of year though, I consider we were pretty fortunate that it didn't rain as much as it could have during our trip and we lucked out with some good weather days. All in all, it was a fantastic trip. Thanks, London (and Paris) for the memories. I will forever "Mind the Gap".

Back to the recipes next...

Restaurant Review: Comptoir des Crepes

Comptoir des Crepes - lunch on January 2, 2014

Since we had been thwarted by not finding a creperie the night before, for our last meal in Paris, we knew we wanted crepes. Fortunately, the area near our hotel was known as Creperie Row so it was easy to find a crepe place before we picked up our luggage at the hotel.

Comptoir des Crepes lived up to its name by offering a variety of both sweet and savory crepes. In France, savory crepes are more commonly known as galettes. I had been used to thinking of galettes as the open-faced easy version of fruit pies, easier to make and more rustic looking. French galettes are savory crepes made with buckwheat flour while sweet crepes are made with wheat flour.

Thai galette

As with crepes, galettes can take any number of "fillings". My nieces went ethnic with galettes of a Thai and an Indian flair. I stuck to the more traditional with jambon, emmental and egg. I wasn't expecting the egg to be over easy and I normally don't like runny yolk but this was good. The galette was crisp without being hard and there's no such thing as bad cheese in France so the emmental was a good touch.

Galette with jambon, emmenthal cheese and egg

The galettes were also light enough that we had room for dessert crepes as well. Although, let's face it, we would've probably gotten dessert anyway whether we had room for it or not. When in Paris....

Banana and Nutella Crepe

Since I have a love for bananas and nutella, especially together, my dessert crepe was an easy choice. There's just something good about caramelized bananas paired with nutella that says "pick me! pick me!" My nieces wanted something different that they'd never had and normally wouldn't get at home so they got the Pistachio Cream Crepe. It was like a lighter-than-custard but heavier than foam texture, definitely tasting of pistachios, also a good choice.

Pistachio Cream Crepe

Comptoir des Crepes isn't very fancy but it serves good food at reasonable prices and is a good option if you're searching for crepes. It was a fitting ending to our sojourn in Paris before we headed back to London for our last day of vacation.

"Restaurant" Review: Angelina

Angelina - brunch on January 2, 2014

When I first went to Paris after I graduated from business school, I remember passing a place supposedly famous for its hot chocolate. Back then it was 6 euros, I had just graduated with a load of student debt and wasn't scheduled to start my post-b-school job until after I returned and I was using the last of my savings to pay for the trip. Therefore, forking over 6 euros for a cup of hot chocolate was a little outrageous to my thrifty soul. So at the time, I passed on it.

 

This time around, I'd been working for a number of years, all debts except my mortgage have been paid off and I had enough discretionary budget to splurge on a visit to that same tea room so famous for its hot chocolate: Angelina.

Croissant

My nieces and I went here after the Louvre and before Notre Dame. We joined the line coming out the door and waited 20-25 minutes before we were finally able to get it. There's a little gift shop at the front and a large room that serves as the tea room behind it. The lighting was rather dim so I didn't get a good picture of it. Like most places in London and Paris, the tables are placed rather closely together and there's not much room to maneuver but that's okay since we were there for the pastries and hot chocolate.

Tarte Fromme (Apple Tart)

We each got a pastry: croissant, apple tart and chocolate éclair and shared so we could get a taste of each other's orders. Overall I'd say they were pretty good - remember, you can't get bad food in Paris. It must be some kind of city ordinance or just national pride. However, Angelina is pretty pricey and I have to admit, while the pastries were good, I don't know if they were worth what we paid. Not when there are a million other patisseries in Paris just as good that charge less. So going to Angelina was more about the experience than what we actually ate.

Eclair Chocolat 

I will say however, the hot chocolate was delicious. Thicker than the hot chocolate made from cocoa powder and hot water that I'm used to, it was like sipping a liquid truffle of the highest chocolate caliber. It was smooth, creamy, perfectly chocolaty but not overwhelmingly so and just rich decadence. It probably redefines both "rich" and "decadent" in any culinary vocabulary. The only time I've come close to something like it was when I took a class at Sur La Table with Emily Luchetti as the instructor and she made her hot chocolate recipe from A Passion for Desserts. That was also like sipping a liquid truffle but Angelina's hot chocolate was even more creamy and decadent than even that. Another item to check off my foodie bucket list.

The Famous Angelina Hot Chocolate

But much as I enjoyed the Angelina hot chocolate and much as I have an appreciation for fine chocolate in any form, I have to admit that I don't know that one little pitcher of the best hot chocolate I've ever had was worth 8,20 euros. At today's exchange rate, that's over $11 for hot chocolate. I don't pinch pennies when I'm on vacation and I don't have any problems indulging while I'm traveling but that's probably not something I'd spend $11 on again. I'm glad we went and Angelina is worth experiencing once to try it but I'm okay not going on a repeat visit. There are other places to go in Paris to get great food and drink that won't break the bank.

I also have to mention, I wasn't overly impressed with their service. Everyone was nice but they took an inordinate amount of time to take our order. Once we had given our order, it came out very quickly so no complaints there but afterward, there was another interminable wait for the check. We tried to be sensitive to the cultural differences and not be the impatient Americans demanding service so we politely waited to catch someone's eye to both give our orders and later to ask for the bill but there definitely wasn't much concern about turning the tables over and getting people in and out to make room for the others still lined up outside. Sometimes it felt like the wait staff went out of their way not to make eye contact so we had a harder time getting their attention to ask someone to take our order. Since we had time while we just sat there waiting, I noticed this phenomenon occurring throughout the room with other people at other tables. Maybe it's a French thing or an Angelina thing.

After we had eaten our pastries and drunk every drop of the expensive hot chocolate, I went to poke around in the little gift shop outside the tea room while my nieces agreed to wait for the check. It was fun to look around. Not as fun as at Laduree but it was set up so that I could actually browse the shelves and the display cases. And we know I can look at nicely packaged, delicious food for hours on end.

Angelina also offered macarons but since I had already eaten the ones at Laduree, I wanted to try something different.

Angelina macarons

I ended up selecting this Florentine cookie and a chocolate-enrobed disc of caramel for our snack on the train.

Of course they were both pricey but at that point, in for a penny, in for a euro so I just went with it.

Both were good choices that we enjoyed on the train ride back to London. The Florentine cookie was good: caramelized sliced almonds with one side covered in milk chocolate. It was more chewy than crisp and thicker than the more traditionally wafer-like Florentines I've had. But the caramel confection was my favorite of the two. I love caramel anyway and it's hard to go wrong when it marries chocolate but one bite of this and my immediate thought was "this is the good stuff". I don't expect anything less from Angelina or Paris or France for that matter.

Paris Day 8: Louvre, Notre Dame and back to London

Day 8 - January 2, 2014

Our last day in Paris was a busy one. We were scheduled to catch the Eurostar back to London that afternoon and this time I doublechecked the departure time and had Lauren look at the tickets as well since I didn't want to miss the train again and buy 3 new train tickets. Once we were all assured of when we had to leave, we planned the day accordingly. Our first stop was the Louvre.

Outside the Louvre

On my first trip to Paris many years ago, I didn't get a chance to go to the Louvre as my friends and I ran out of time. We only saw the famous pyramids outside but the Louvre was closed in the short time we had left in Paris. So I was pleased to be able to go inside this time. Our mission, of course, was to see the Mona Lisa in person.

Inside the Louvre

I'm no art aficionado and what I know about art can be written on the top of a pin. I just like looking at the paintings and sculptures and some things I like from an aesthetic point of view and some art is just impressive in their style, colors and creation. Michaelangelo's David, for instance, impressed me from the first moment I saw it in Florence. The Sistine Chapel gives me the same sense of awe. I would like to say the Mona Lisa had the same impact but....I can't. I don't have enough of an appreciation for art or DaVinci to understand how she got to be so famous. It's a small painting, well roped off to keep all the tourists and gawkers at bay and yet she was crowded enough that it was difficult to get close enough to get a picture. Thank goodness for the zoom function on my camera or I wouldn't have been able to even get this shot without someone's iphone waving in the air as they try to get their shot. But hey, it was the Mona Lisa and now I can say I saw it in person at the Louvre. Bucket list - check.

After the Louvre, we went to Angelina (next post) as another place several friends told me, "you've got to go to Angelina". So we did.

Then we hustled to Notre Dame. I love Notre Dame. Call it another place/structure/cathedral/tourist attraction I could look at all day long. It's just so majestic and impressive. My nieces weren't as familiar with it as I was and I assume Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame wasn't one of the books they read in high school English so I tried the tack of "Remember the Disney movie? Quasimodo and Esmeralda?" "Ohhhh yeah." Whatever lets you connect with the millennial generation.

Notre Dame

Notre Dame

Alas, by the time we got to Notre Dame, it was almost the middle of the day and the lines to get inside were worthy of Disneyland in summer with the newest ride, even down to the rope lines snaking around. Since we didn't have hours to spend in line and we wanted to do some souvenir shopping in Paris before we went back to pricey London, we skipped touring the inside and instead took off to buy gifts for family and friends back home. Chocolate was our main mission because you can't go to Europe and not bring back European chocolate but we also managed to find some prints of the Eiffel Tower, L'Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre and Notre Dame to commemorate our trip as well as other tsotchkes for my nieces to take back to their friends.

Then it was off to a crepe place (future post) for authentic French crepes for our last meal in Paris, back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and a final Metro ride to Gare du Nord to transfer to the Eurostar. This time our ride back was uneventful and direct to St Pancras. We had another transfer on the Underground at Kings Cross to go to our last London hotel, this one near Heathrow as our trip headed into its final day.

Laduree, Paris - the Mecca of Macarons

Laduree - visited January 1, 2014

Before Paris, I had never heard of Laduree. Oh I had heard people wax poetical about macarons (no, that's not a misspelling, that's how the French spell their ganache-filled meringue sandwich cookies, not to be confused with the American macaroons of coconut) and where to get them but since I've never really liked macarons, I never paid much attention. But since I was in Paris, I yelp'd where to get good ones and at nearly the same moment, I had no less than three friends tell me I must go to Laduree.

Fortunately Laduree has several locations, one of them being on Champs Elysees which is where we went on New Year's Day. Even more fortunately, they were one of the places actually open on New Year's so I had the opportunity to join the line of people out the door waiting to get in to line up some more inside. Boy, these had to be some kind of macarons, right? I figured if I didn't like Laduree's macarons, I wasn't likely to ever like them at all.

Despite not being a macaron fan, I enjoyed my visit inside Laduree tremendously. It was just so....French. Beautiful confections, not just macarons, were lined up invitingly behind glass counters manned by neatly attired Laduree personnel ready to help the customers and move the line along. When it was finally my turn, I wish I could've lingered and stared at everything but mindful of all the people behind me, I had to be decisive.

The  famous Laduree macarons

The smallest box of macarons you can buy is a box of 6 for 15.80 euros. Ouch ($21.50 USD!). The box was pretty but since I wasn't a macaron fan, that seemed excessive for 6 mini macarons. But of course you know I bought them anyway. They give you a flavor brochure while you're in line so you know what to select when it's your turn. I chose the praline (1), chocolate (2), lemon (1) and salted caramel (2) for my nieces and I to share. And, because I couldn't resist it and I was already there anyway, I chose two individual cakes, both having some form of chocolate, because they were pretty and I wanted them :).

And they have very pretty packaging as well so in this case, you can judge the book by its cover. I don't know the official names of the cakes I bought, just that they were chocolate and they were pretty. That's all I needed.

My review of the macarons: I can understand why people like them so much, some flavors are better than others, the ones from Laduree are the best of all the macarons I've had, the meringue cookies were crisp and airy while the ganache fillings were rich and creamy. The praline was good, the lemon was lemony, the chocolate was almost too chocolaty for me (as hard as that is to imagine) and the salted caramel was my favorite but probably the only one I'd get again if I happened to be in Laduree again. But I don't think I'd go out of my way for them. I'm just not into macarons. But I'm glad I've had what's reputed to be the best of them so I know what a great one tastes like.

Praline Macaron

But can I tell you this hazelnut praline confection (below) was one of the best desserts I've ever had?? While I can remain somewhat indifferent to the best macarons of Paris, I would line up multiple times for another one of these hazelnut praline slices. By all that's sacred in desserts, this is the Holy Grail. Or close. The bottom layer was crunchy, the mousse filling was creamy decadence and the overall look and taste was just scrumptious. It's just as well I don't live in Paris or I'd be as big as a house because I'd have to eat one of these every day just because I could. And as proof of how much I like this cake, it doesn't even bother me that it was 6.10 euros. $8.30 a slice? I don't care. It was worth it.

Hazelnut Praline slice

The second chocolate dessert I got from Laduree was this chocolate square, layers of chocolate cake sandwiching a chocolate mousse filling and topped with chocolate ganache and a decorative nut crunch with a bit of edible gold foil. This was good too and had similar elements as the hazelnut praline slice but it wasn't quite as good. On a scale of 1-10, this would be an 8.5 while the hazelnut praline would be a 43. Still, it was a good choice and I'm glad we were able to sample more than macarons from Laduree.

Oh and for anyone in Southern CA, rumor has it Laduree will be opening a branch in Newport Beach so you don't have to go all the way to Paris for a macaron or the hazelnut praline slice. Not that I minded the travel....