lakeside

I am writing to you from the top of a mountain in Vail, Colorado, at Piney River Ranch--my new home for the next two months.

It's happy hour at the ranch right now, and I'm happily sipping away on a watermelon margarita and munching on chips and salsa and guacamole.  Yum.

Did I show you a photo of my new office yet?

Life couldn't get any better, really.

Since this is a food blog, I think I should begin writing by showing you my new kitchen!

Actually, it's not my kitchen.  It's Chef Jeremy's kitchen... but he shares it with me on occasion.  Jeremy is a BBQ master and an incredible teacher.  He's also your typical chef, flying f-bombs every other word and banging around pots and pans when he gets an order in 30 minutes before close.  Yesterday, I learned how to hold an especially sharp knife (and how to sharpen it), how to carry a huge kitchen tray, technical names of all the kitchen utensils, how to properly season ribs... the list goes on.  He may be rough around the edges, but the guy sure knows how to cook.

Today was Jeremy's day off and my first day as the stand-in chef.  Intimidating at 9am this morning, but luckily the restaurant was fairly slow and I could take my time getting to know the kitchen and all of Jeremy's tools.

And, I only burned ONE grilled cheese!  Not bad for my first day, I think!

Last night, we stayed up late in the main lodge and ate short ribs (compliments of Chef Jeremy), drank wine, and made s'mores. 

I'm on a mission to make as many different / gourmet versions of the s'more as I can think of.  Last night, we started with the classic: honey graham crackers, roasted marshmallows (a little on the burnt side, which I think is always better) and Hershey's milk chocolate.  But to spice things up a bit, I added chocolate sprinkles to the parts of the marshmallow that billowed over the graham cracker.

For the second s'more, I tucked a piece of a chocolate covered mint stick inside the marshmallow and browned it over the hot coals.  The chocolate surrounding the mint stick melted into the toasty masrshmallow, but the mint stayed hard and cool, and was the perfect complement to another thick slab of Hershey's chocolate on top.

Living on a ranch has its perks: firewood and firepits literally everywhere, so when I think about it, I could eat s'mores for dessert every night for the rest of the summer if I so desire.

 
I think a recipe for these puppies is unnecessary; unless you A. didn't grow up in the ol' US of A and never had the delightful childhood experience of making s'mores, B. are completely useless in the kitchen and couldn't possibly figure out how to assemble one of these... or C....

You'll figure it out.

Cheers.

the snack

Ran errands all day today.  I mean all day.

In the blazing hot sun in the middle of a Colorado summer, in an old '97 Pathfinder with tinted windows, errands are not fun.

The worst part is when you arrive somewhere you need to do something, only to realize you forgot something you needed to do before you did the other thing... then you have to turn around and drive all over town... ugh.

Luckily, somehow, I found myself in the heart of Denver's barrio latino.  The Spanish billboards and exotic-looking store windows just touch a soft spot in my heart.  I love those hole-in-the-wall restaurants and grocery stores; it seems that you always find the best foods in the crappiest looking places.

I ordered a tres leches cake for my high school graduation, and I was right near that same panadería (which you can find here), so I decided to stop in and see what was baking. 

I grabbed a couple of mini cookies, a churro, and a grapefruit soda... all for $2.25.  Rosales has a sizeable selection of baked goods: big and small cookies, churros, cakes, muffins, pastries, and all for a very reasonable price.  You can also stock up on hard-to-find authentic Mexican food in their "mini-mart"; I even saw some dulce de leche!!

I think Americans should incorporate "the snack" into our daily eating regimen.  La merienda, or the snack, is usually a cookie, some cheese and jam and crackers, and a cup of tea or coffee, taken sometime mid- to late-afternoon, depending on when you're planning on eating dinner.

I mean, who doesn't love snacks.

Oh, by the way, I'm moving to the mountains tomorrow.

To a remote ranch in Vail, Colorado.

More cooking adventures from there to come...

Reflections on an imperfect life (and ugly food)

There are certain things I've always wanted to own in my kitchen.  Things that are unnecessary in a "regular" kitchen, but could always come in handy when you're trying to start a food blog.

Have you ever walked through a Crate & Barrel and seen these sorts of things?  Neon green mixers, Christmas tree-shaped ice cube trays, high-tech waffle pans, martini glasses that look like they are leaning to the side.  It all seems like fun stuff, but it's really...unnecessary.

Maybe I am cheap.  But when I'm going to use something to make just one meal, I just don't really want to buy it. 

My stepmom is one of the lucky ones.  She actually owns these random kitchen things.  And being related to her, I have free reins to go into her kitchen and use any of these appliances, whenever I want, without having to spend my own money on them!  

So when I came home from Argentina, I was startled (and, yes, a little excited) to find a mini doughnut tray sitting on the counter, conveniently placed alongside a homemade doughnut cookbook. 

I've never known so many different kinds of doughnuts existed.  Chai Tea doughnuts, Red Velvet Cake doughnuts, S'more doughnuts, Vanilla and Lavendar doughnuts, PB&J doughnuts... you name it, it's in the book.

As you probably already know, the first attempt at making certain foods is often a complete failure.  While I was in Argentina, I could always tell if my attempts at new Argentine concoctions weren't good because Julián would take a bite and say "oh. Well it's ok.  What do you expect for the first time?" 

(Which guys, by the way, is not the first thing to say to your girlfriend after she's been slaving away in the kitchen for hours on homemade dulce de leche.  Just take a bite and smile and say it's good.  Trust me.)

Good thing Juli wasn't here this afternoon to see my first attempt at doughnuts.  He would have been horrified.  Actually, he probably wouldn't have tried them.

Lucky for me, I tried them.  And they were really good.  I made a basic cake doughnut dough and added a mashed banana, trying to imitate a banana bread doughnut.

You can see in that picture above that I first tried making a regular doughnut, average size with a hole in the middle.  Once I tried moving it to the frying pan, the whole thing expanded and was nearly impossible to flip, so I continued with doughnut holes instead.

I even got a little crazy and added chocolate chips to the last two.

I used a maple sugar glaze, as the original recipe recommended, but I'll bet a good old-fashioned chocolate glaze with these beasts would be divine. 

I was hesitant to post this recipe on Mustgo.  Every other food blog in the internet world has fancy, 7+ ingredient recipes, professionally photographed and seemingly too perfect to eat.

But in all honesty, that's not what real cooking is like.  Real cooking is starting to make a recipe, only to realize halfway through that you're missing two ingredients... so you experiment.

Real cooking is trying to flip a burnt doughnut hole with, not only one...but two spatulas, while burning your hands and ruining your shirt over the spattering oil. 

I'm not a professional chef.  I'm not an aspiring photographer.  I am a broke, inexperienced, young, picky, curious, and above all, hungry food blogger, that likes to experiment in the kitchen.  And I fail, a lot.  So I won't lie to you about what I cook, and I won't just show you what turns out looking like it's from a 5-star restaurant.  This is real life, people!!!

And these are some damn ugly doughnuts... but damn are they good!

Banana bread doughnuts (adapted from Doughuts: Simple and Delicious Recipes to Make at Home by Lara Ferroni)

Dough:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp. vegetable shortening
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp. plain yogurt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 mashed banana
vegetable oil (for frying)

Maple sugar glaze
1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
2 tbsp. maple syrup
2 tbsp. milk
Mix all ingredients together in a bowl until they form a smooth, pourable glaze.

1.  Mix flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and sugar in a bowl.  Add in vegetable shortening and mix.

2.  In a separate bowl, mix the egg, 1/4 cup of the milk, yogurt, and vanilla.  Slowly pour the egg mixture into the dry ingredient bowl, mixing at the same time.  Add more milk as needed until the dough is sticky and resembles a wet cookie dough.

3.  Add mashed banana, being sure not to over mix the dough.  Set aside and let stand 15 minutes.

4.  Cover the bottom of a deep dish frying pan with vegetable oil and heat on high.  You will know the oil is ready when you hold your hand over the pan and can feel heat radiating off the surface.  Drop spoonfuls of the dough into the hot oil, turning the ball every 30 seconds or so, until golden brown.

5.  Drop the doughnut holes on a plate covered with a paper towel to soak up any remaining oil.  Once cooled, dip one by one in the bowl of maple sugar glaze.

I feel home

After over 16 hours of flights and airports, I am home in good ol’ Colorado, back into the dry heat of mid-summer, the land of peanut butter and daytime television in English… and living under dad’s roof (again).  

And honestly, all I really have to say is… TAKE ME BACK!!  What a horrible, helpless feeling it is to be on an airplane taking off the runway, when all you want to do is scream to the pilot “wait! I change my mind! I want off!!!”

I have been trying to do everything and anything to take my mind off of Argentina, Julián, and the wonderful two months I just spent on vacation, but I can’t.  I feel like a brokenhearted thirteen-year-old, when every song on the radio or every movie on TV reminds you of that one special person.

Ugh.

You might have already guessed that I wasn’t in the mood to cook last night.  Besides being exhausted from flying (isn’t it funny how travelling wears you out?  You don’t really physically do anything but sit in an uncomfortable chair for hours, but it’s exhausting!) I just didn’t feel like being in the kitchen.  Thankfully, my dad took me out to dinner last night—Mexican food, my favorite!, and two mind-numbing margaritas.  

Ahhh.

I’ve decided that for today, I am hosting a “guest” chef to share a dinner recipe with you.  Julián only has about three recipes that he rotates through whenever it’s his turn to cook, but he’s a master at them all. 

The closest thing I can come to describing milanesa to the American chef is chicken fried steak.  It’s a prime cut of very thin meat, soaked in a mixture of garlic, eggs, and freshly chopped parsley, and covered in a thick bread crumb batter.

Then, it’s fried.

Eating a well-prepared milanesa is no time to think about your diet.  Milanesa is usually accompanied with a heaping pile of mashed potatoes—but the potatoes should be very mashed (almost runny), and covered in salt.

If you want to get a little crazy, you can even top it with a big slab of melty mozzarella cheese, a slice of fresh tomato, and a sprinkle of oregano.  Juli loves to use the leftovers for milanesa sandwiches the next day—just add a little mayonnaise (a staple Argentine condiment) and two slices of bread.

Milanesa a la Julián (serves 4)

4 thinly cut steaks

3 eggs

two tbsp. chopped garlic

1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley

2 cups bread crumbs

oil (for frying)

salt (to taste)

1.  Mix the eggs, garlic, salt, and parsley in a large bowl, and set aside.

2.  Even if your steaks are thinly cut, Julián likes to give them a good pounding to thin the meat out as much as possible. So, give them a few good punches, and let the meat soak in the egg mixture for 5-8 minutes.

3.  With the bread crumbs spread evenly across a plate, transfer the steaks one by one from the egg mixture and coat them heartily with bread crumbs.

4.  Cover the bottom of a frying dish with oil, and heat on high.  The oil will be ready once you can feel heat radiating off the surface of the oil, and the oil starts to "crack and spatter".  Fry each steak for about two minutes per side, adjusting heat as necessary.  Serve hot with a side of mashed potatoes.  

You go Martha

When I was a child, I loved waking up early and crawling into my mom's big bed to watch the Martha Stewart Show.

Everything she did, all of her crafts and her food and her parties, all seemed so perfect.  Her big white country kitchen was always spotless.  All of the ingredients for her cookies were all pre-measured and set aside in neat little ceramic bowls.  She always had cool, seasonal crafts to make out of (what you thought was) junk lying around the house.

Sigh.  If only we could all be like Martha.

Of course, when I make anything in the kitchen, I end up with a mess.  Either on the countertop, or on my shirt.  One of my biggest pet peeves is finishing a huge, hard-to-put-together meal, when the absolute last thing you want to do is clean... and there is a mountain of dirty dishes just looming in the sink.

I want Martha's kitchen.

Feeling nostalgic thinking about Martha Stewart the other day, I decided to check out her website.  More specifically, her cookie recipes.  Let me tell you, the woman has about 150+ cookie recipes, organized with categories like "Christmas Assortment Cookies", "Grown-Up Cookies", "Cookies For An Occasion"... the list goes on.

Yesterday was "Friend's Day" in Argentina, and seeing as how I have, oh about two friends here, I decided to bake for Julián's friends.  I wanted something that would show off the fact that I could, indeed, cook, but... it had to be something that I could, indeed, cook.  I didn't really feel like going to the grocery store, either.

"Lime Meltaways".  Let's see, I had limes.  I had powdered sugar.  They looked easy.  Done.  I made the dough and let it sit in the fridge for about 5 hours, and later on that evening decided to make them just before Juli left to meet up with the boys.

I was delightfully surprised at how easy the cookies were to make, and even more surprised at how good they were! True to their name, Lime Meltaways literally melt the instant they touch your tongue, and the sugary, limey aftertaste keeps you grabbing for more and more. 

Martha's done it again.

Unfortunately, Julián's original plans fell through, and their "Friend's Day" was celebrated elsewhere.  I, however, celebrated with my best friends in the world: my girls from Sex and the City, a hot cup of tea, and a plateful of these cookies. 

Lime Meltaways (adapted from The Martha Stewart Show)

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup confectioners' sugar

Finely grated zest of 2 limes

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon coarse salt

1. Mix butter and 1/3 cup confectioners' sugar until fluffy. Add lime zest, lime juice, and vanilla, and mix until fluffy (again).
2. Whisk together flour, cornstarch, and salt in a separate bowl. Add to butter mixture and mix until just combined.  Be sure not to overmix.
3. Divide dough in half. Roll into two logs, about 1 ½” diameter.  Wrap in parchment paper and refrigerate for at least an hour.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove parchment from logs; cut into ½” thick circles. Space cookies 1” apart on greased baking sheets. Bake until barely golden, about 11 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through.  Remove cookies and let cool slightly, about 5 to 8 minutes.  While still warm, toss a couple of cookies at a time with remaining 2/3 cup confectioner’s sugar in a resealable plastic bag.

One down, five to go

As I'm sure many aspiring chefs do, I have a list of things I want to try to cook.  A cooking bucket list, so to speak.  It's an ever-changing and growing list, but here's what I have so far:

• some sort of big, multi-layered cake (like this)
• Chinese pan-fried noodles
• Rugelach
• bon-bons
• an entire stuffed chicken
• garlic knots (last night for dinner)
• candied nuts (keep reading)

Last week, I managed to whip up some ice cream (no pun intended) and chocolate-filled croissants (which, in case you're wondering why I didn't post the recipe, were horribly ugly.  They were delicious, but lumpy and burned on the bottom and nowhere close to a shape resembling a croissant.  So once I perfect the recipe, I will share).

Another rained-in afternoon inspired me to turn to my bucket list.  We live in a sort-of studio; the bedroom is cut off from the kitchen by a sliding door, but the door doesn't quite reach the ceiling.  This basically means that anything I cook in the kitchen will inevitably linger in the air of the entire apartment for the following two or so hours. 

Since we were trapped in the apartment for the rest of the afternoon, I didn't want to stink it up / smoke us out.  Indeed, I could seize this opportunity and cook up something so stinking delicious, it would fill the apartment and make us WANT to stay inside and EAT all afternoon!!!

In the streets of Buenos Aires during the winter, little old bundled up men huddle close to big steaming pots of nuts, stirring constantly and chatting up the other little old bundled up men selling newspapers next door. 

I love walking past these men.  Suddenly, after coming up for air from the humid, disgusting subway, I get a blast of the smell of sweet, hot sugar in my face.  They are called garrapiñadas, but I think they're basically candied peanuts. 

It smells good in the street, so it should make my house smell good, right?

 

Oohhh, yes.

They were so easy to make (took about 15 minutes) and I didn't even have to walk to the end of the block to grab that one stupid little ingredient that always seems to be missing.

I chose to use almonds, but you could candy pretty much any old nut you've got lying around the house.  Well, the kinds of nuts you eat... if you live with a crazy old nut, that's a different story.

Candied Almonds

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup almonds

3 tbsp. water

1 tbsp. vanilla

1 tbsp. sea salt

1.  Heat the almonds, sugar, and water over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon.

2.  Once the sugar begins to melt, mix in vanilla.

3.  The almonds are finished when the sugar is brown and sticky and covers the nuts.  Remove from heat and place on non-stick surface.  Break apart any nuts that are sticking together.

4.  Sprinkle with sea salt and let cool for at least five minutes.

A hot bowl of something

I woke up yesterday thinking it was already 6:00 pm. 

From my side of the bed, I can see into the bathroom, which has a skylight window, and I can make my daily weather call before my toes even touch the floor.  If the bathroom is yellowish-bright, its sunny out.  If its just bright, its cloudy out. 

Yesterday, the bathroom was dark.  Like scary movie house dark.

It was kind of nice, at first.  I made my ritual cup of morning coffee, ate a chocolate filled croissant, and watched Tom and Jerry in bed. 

But around 2:00 pm, it didn't look like the weather was clearing up any time soon, and I had cabin fever.  Julián and I decided to venture out to a park for a hotdog lunch.  The weather man (the real weather man, not my bathroom window) was reporting a whopping 64 degrees despite the cloud coverage, so I dressed appropriately. 

Stepped out of the subway after a 30 minute ride, and it was pouring rain.  I know I speak to all of you women out there when I say my heart dropped.  Why does it always have to rain on the day you decide to give your hair a New York style, big-momma style blowdry??  And no umbrella!  I was crushed. 

Of course, Mr. Latin Charm tried to make me feel better by saying my wet jerry curl looked even sexier than my hair did before.  It worked.  We went to the park and ate our hotdogs under the safety of the hotdog man's tent.

Getting home last night, I couldn't wait to throw on my pajamas and curl up around a bowl of something hot.  I've got it! Chili!  My mom always made the best chili when I was a kid; she would make so much in fact, that she'd freeze giant Ziplock bags of chili in our garage fridge, so we could just pull it out and eat it whenever we wanted. 

Argentina does not have chili.  Argentina has guiso, and more specifically in this case, guiso de lentejas, or lentils.  In layman's terms, it's lentil soup.  And it's incredible. 

This recipe takes about two days to prepare.  Just like you would when preparing dried beans, you'll need to soak the lentils overnight before using them in your soup the next day.  You can even soak them a few days ahead, like I did, and store them in the refrigerator.

As with the case of any old soup recipe, you can play with the recipe and add / take out ingredients as you please, make it more watery or more hearty, etc.  This specific recipe called for beef AND spicy sausage, but I just doubled the amount of sausage.

As with the best things in life, this soup takes time and patience.  Besides boiling the lentils, I constantly kept the heat at medium or medium low, and let the flavors of all the ingredients simmer and mix together slowly.  It will make your kitchen smell divine. 

Guiso de lentejas

(Adapted and translated from Recetas Simples Y Deliciosas)

3 cups lentejas

2 tbsp. fresh garlic, finely chopped

1 yellow onion, chopped

2 green onions, chopped

1 red pepper, chopped

1 green pepper, chopped

2 spicy sausages

1 small box tomato puree

2 sweet potatoes, cooked and chopped

2 potatoes, cooked and chopped

1 tbsp. crushed red pepper

2 tbsp. oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

4 tbsp. canola oil (for frying)

    1. Soak the lentejas in water at room temperature water for at least 8 hours.  Throw out the soaking  water and strain the lentejas.  Cover with fresh water, about two inches above the lentejas, and boil until tender, about an hour.  Remove from heat and set aside.

    2. In a large pot, combine garlic, onions, peppers, and oil, and fry 5 minutes.

    3. Add the spicy sausage and fry two minutes longer.  Add tomato puree and condiments.

    4. Cover with water until all ingredients are submerged. Cover and cook on medium heat for an hour.

    5. Add potatoes and sweet potatoes and let cook 7 more minutes.

    6. Add the lentejas, stir well, and cook 5-10 minutes longer, just enough to allow ingredients to mix.  Additional water can be taken out/added as desired.  Serve with a side of crusty bread and a hearty glass of red wine.