Cup o' Tea!

In addition to edible messes, Hot Mess Garlic Press is also interested in crafty chaos!

A few weeks ago, I made a birthday gift for my father-in-law, who drinks a lot of tea and will only drink said tea from clear glasses. While rummaging through the internet for handmade gifts appropriate for men, I was very excited when I discovered this tutorial for creating personalized, etched glasses.

The hardest part of this craft? Finding simple, clear glasses appropriate for tea! I finally scooped these up from World Market.

I wasn't able to follow Martha's guide exactly, since the Michael's I went to in Chicago's South Loop cannot legally sell etching cream, but I adapted the instructions by using glass paint, which I purchased at Starvin' Artist , a local art supply store in Oak Park.

I found a great H via Google image search, printed the image, cut out the H and taped the resulting stencil to the glass. Then I painted in the silver, let it sit to dry for 15 minutes, removed the stencil, and painted the black border around the letter. I repeated the painting process on the second glass, reusing the stencil.

Once the paint had dried for 24 hours, I put the glasses into a cool oven. After turning the oven on to 325 degrees, I left the glasses there for 45 minutes. The baking sets the paint and makes the glasses dishwasher safe.

I plain to give only handmade presents to almost all of our large, extended family this upcoming holiday season. But of course that means I won't be able to post those projects until the end of the year! Sad face goes here.

Until then! What's the best craft you've ever made? What would you create tomorrow, if you had the time, the tools, and the materials? Where do you get inspired when you're looking for inventive crafty ideas?

Painted Personalized Glasses

Time: less than 2 hours to paint the glasess, 24 hours for paint to dry, 45 minutes in the oven to bake and set the paint

Tools/Materials: stencil, glass paint, paint brush, glass(es), tape, functioning oven

Sweet potato biscones

I’ve had two difficulties with our transition to shopping for fruits and vegetables exclusively at the farmers’ market. One, I never seem to get enough food to last us to the next market, and two, I find myself in a roasting rut.

Roasted potatoes, roasted squash, roasted cauliflower, roasted brussel sprouts—all delicious, yes, but sometimes I just want more from my vegetables. I came to the cross section of these two problems when I realized that two days from Saturday’s market I had exactly one sweet potato—and I didn’t want to roast it.

Today was the first cold day in October. We’ve had chilly and wet—and surprisingly warm—but today, scarves became more than accessories. Winter snuck in to remind us that Chicago is about to get serious. Don’t get the wrong idea, I didn’t zip the lining into my trench. However, I did consider it.

Enter sweet potato biscuits. Something warm, something savory, something that can be made with just one sweet potato.

A quick search through Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food app and I had a recipe. The bad news: My pantry was not stocked with all of the ingredients. I did like Martha and got crafty.

Martha’s recipe calls for chilled sweet potato puree, “see page 233.”

…So I boiled The One until tender, mashed it with a fork (same pot points), and set it on the porch to cool. Chilled sweet potato puree, check.

While the SPP C-ed, I started measuring my drys. Flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt… light-brown sugar! Oh, Martha. You think you can fool me so easily? Joy the Baker, for the win.

Next, Martha really got serious: buttermilk. Cue the lightning and thunder, Jay from last night’s Halloween episode of Modern Family. Not so bad, actually. Turns out you can make buttermilk from vinegar and regular milk. Bangarang, Rufio!

Thus, with all my components manufactured I began compiling. Mix up the dough, knead it (read: smush it together on your too-small cutting board), roll it out (smush it in a downwards motion), cut the dough into rounds (ahem, tear off regular-ish sizes and smush them into rounds), shove together on baking sheet (no really, that’s what she recommends), brush with butter, and bake.

The twenty-minute oven period is long enough to sweep the eighth-biscuit worth of crumbs off the floor and do just enough dishes to make your request that your boyfriend finish the washing reasonable.

Out of the oven and split in half, the biscuits are beautifully golden and flecked with orange, a tangerine reminder of their humble origins. I topped one with butter and drizzled it liberally with honey. It was quite dense in a way that I liked, almost like a scone (maybe a factor of my kneading technique). The butter melted into the hot biscone, creating a tender, salty inside while the top was slightly crispy and sticky from the sweet, floral honey.

Martha sure does know a thing or two about baking.

Chicken potfantastic

“If an egg isn’t cooked the way you want it, it’s the most disappointing thing. The only thing I know as disappointing is a bath that’s not hot enough.”

That’s straight from the gob of Nigella Lawson, famous Brit cook and jean-jacket wearer, and I completely agree. I’ve experienced both of these disappointments in the last week, but she was there to understand and pick me back up. I sought comfort and Nigella delivered with her Chicken Mushroom and Bacon Pie.

Her recipe is lovely, however I made a few adjustments, adapting to what I had on hand. No Marsala, for one. Love of carrots, for another. What I enjoyed most about this recipe was the ease of making it. Nigella really is serious about there being “no fuss” in her food. Besides two ramekins, the cooking is all done in one pot. It’s also a terrific two-person meal—I get tired of so many delicious dishes meant for four, six, and eight.

I think that what made this potpie extra terrific was the quality of ingredients. All the veggies came from the farmers’ market. I’m okay with sounding snobby because when you peel a real carrot, the whole kitchen smells sweet, fresh, and slightly spicy. It’s hard to go back to the dry, woody stalks of the grocery store. I bought the puff pastry at Trader Joe’s because I found the simplicity of the ingredient list calming. It’s reassuring to see flour, butter, and salt as the top three components. We got the bacon and chicken from CityProvisions, a delicatessen that specializes in local farms and fresh food. The bacon (which was house-cured) was intoxicatingly smoky and the Gunthrop Farms chicken (which, like all of CityProvision’s meat, was labeled with its farm of origin) tasted, to borrow a term from Julia Child, more chickeny than that of the grocery store.

Your spoon crackles through the flaky top crust, revealing a gooey underside and provoking a deeply smoky steam. It dips into the thick filling and arises coated with a rich gravy, carrying chicken and veggies, all of which are tender and flavorful. It’s the kind of meal you eat through foggy glasses, burning your tongue on most bites, not caring to slow down.

I lit my jack-o-lantern for ambiance and enjoyed Nigella’s chicken potpie as a perfect Sunday supper in late October.

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Chicken Potpie for two

3 strips of bacon, cut into pieces

1 clove of garlic, diced

2 cups cremini mushrooms, quartered

½ carrot, diced

1 chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces

2 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves separated from stems

1 tablespoon butter

1 1/4 cups hot chicken stock

½ tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

½ tablespoon of balsamic vinegar

1 (13-ounce) 9 by 16-inch sheet all-butter ready-rolled puff pastry (defrosted)

Start by preheating the oven to 425 degrees F. Fry up the bacon pieces in a large saucepan until beginning to crisp, then add the mushrooms, carrots, and garlic.

As veggies soften, toss the chicken with flour and thyme, then melt the butter in the pan. Add the coated chicken and the remaining flour that did not stick to the chicken. When the chicken has begun to brown and the flour has cooked into the butter, add the stock, Worcestershire, and balsamic. Stir to incorporate, allowing the flour to thicken the sauce. Nigella then directs you to “let this bubble away for about 5 minutes.”

Cut a thin strip of pastry to make a rim on each of your ramekins. That is, lay the strip over the edge of the ramekin and fold it down over the sides. I did mine in three sections, overlapping the strips. Next, cut a lid-sized circle to drape over the top of the pie.

Fill the pastry-rimmed ramekins with the thickened chicken and vegetable mixture and top with the pastry lid. Use a fork to seal the edges.

Cook in oven for 20 minutes, until they “puff up magnificently.”

Souper sweet Saturday

I put two cookbooks through the rigors of the Miller test kitchen: the recently released Soups and Sides by Catherine Walthers and seemingly author-less oldie but goodie Cookies! A Cookie Lover's Collection.

Both cookbooks have a hearty variety of recipes all thoughtfully organized in useful groupings. I scanned them all and found myself needing more scraps of paper to indicate must-try recipes because almost all are tempting. Perhaps a first, but I didn't notice any recipes in either cookbook that made me want to turn the page because I had no idea who would want to make—or eat!—the shown foods.

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Soups and Sides ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
I made "Cauliflower Soup with Great Hill Blue Cheese" with "Parsley Sauce" (modified per Walthers' "optional" suggestion, swapping out blue cheese for sharp cheddar—creamy and yummy!, p. 64); "Potato-Leek Soup" (perfect exactly as she advises you make it—tasty and straight-forward!, p. 69); "Mexican Quinoa Salad with Black Beans, Corn, and Edamame" (my only change was to not add my food nemesis cilantro—delish and quick!, p. 88); and, "Lime Spice Cookies" (an easy-to-make, simple shortbread-esque tea cookie with an unexpected but delightful hint of lime—special and a new fave!, p. 198). The time listed for each step to make in each of these recipes was accurately described and not exorbitant. Any of these dishes would be do-able, even in a pinch after a long day at work. The servings were also on the money. I only wish she had provided ballpark nutritional information. Most of the recipes, save for the butter-tastic cookies, seem healthy enough.

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Cookies! A Cookie Lover's Collection ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
I made "Choco-Cherry Macaroons" (these were so simple to make and they smelled like heaven because of the recommended addition of almond extract, p. 67) and "Crunchy Butterscotch Chip Cookies" (bizarre in texture but über-addictive in the taste department—definitely a keeper!, p. 105). I need to invest in a new oven thermometer because the cooking time for each was more than listed, but that was the only snag I encountered. The nice thing about all of the cookie recipes in this book is that they don't require too many odd-ball, not-in-your-pantry ingredients. Plus, every single darn cookie has a big and beautiful picture so you know exactly what you'll wind up with when you're done. Hurrah for retro cookbooks with gratuitous photography budgets!

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I recommend both of these cookbooks without reservations. Queue up Soups and Sides for your cookbook wish list and troll your library for their old copy of Cookies!. Neither will disappoint you—or, the people you make eat the treats you cook using recipes from them.

Sushi: A miracle

Alex and I finally rode the sushi train this weekend. I’ve been out to Japanese a number of times with Sarah, my bff and college roommate, but I stuck to the schnitzel of Japanese cuisine: chicken katsu. And though my sister regularly makes her own maki rolls, I’ve never lined up to try them—rice makes me nervous. There are just too many of them. What we experienced yesterday was nothing short of a miracle.

After a rainy walk to the farmers’ market for cabbage and honey, Alex and I decided to clean. We’ve been squatting in our own home. Underneath the socks, books, and stray cheerios, we found a coupon. Buy one brunch get the second for $1. Done and done. We dropped our rags and dustpans on the spot. (That last part is a lie.)

In any event, we headed out to brunch at the bistro belonging to the coupon only to find an empty restaurant. My dreams of croque monsieur washing down the gutter with the leaves, I gave up hope of happy late lunching.

Behold the miracle: We had parked directly outside of Tank Sushi, which, I had on good authority, is delicious and offers a half-off menu with select rolls on Saturdays and Sundays between 1 and 5 pm. It was 1:04. We had already paid the box. And we were hungry.

In we went. We ordered two bowls of miso soup for strength and then it was time for maki rolls. The menu was scary. WTF is tobiko? Masago? Unagi? But we did not falter. I rattled off three makis to the waitress and the miracle was complete.

Out of our three-roll trial the veggie tempura (sale price $3.50!) was my favorite. One word why: sweetpotato. I love sweet and salty, and it paired really well with the bright bite of the pickled ginger. We went with the Philly as a safe option: obvs, cream cheese and smoked salmon are best friends. Alex thought it was much improved by wasabi, but spicy isn’t my game. We rounded out lunch with Ika maki—fried calamari, avocado, sriracha—my gift to Alex. Those came topped with slightly crunchy, tiny green orbs, like caviar-inspired sprinkles. I have no idea what they were. It was all very exciting.

A few cups of green tea and one pair of abandoned chopsticks later, we left satisfied and trendier worldlier.

Battle Kale

Every time I go to a farmers market, it's a live Iron Chef episode. What fruit or vegetable will be at almost every booth and in varied colors? This week's secret ingredient: KALE.

What are your favorite kale recipes? Do you have any recipes involving kale that you've been meaning to try? Have you ever even cooked kale? Like me, did you have no idea that it appears to grow like a flower?

Food in Our Food

There's something you should probably know about me. I'm what one would lovingly refer to as detail-oriented, but more accurately refer to obsessive. While I don't find the need to wash my hands repeatedly in multiples of fifteen, I can relate to those who do. I try to remind my husband that when I was in high school at least once every week I'd turn around and walk the three blocks back to school to make sure I shut my locker and he should therefore be grateful that all I'm asking him to do is confirm (without any doubts on the matter) that we locked our cars' doors. Every time we lock said cars' doors.

When it comes to food, this obsessive tendency of mine exhibits itself in the fact that if it were possible to healthily subsist on only digestive biscuits and wine gums, I would be the first person in line to do just that. Furthermore, I may or may not have conducted my own preliminary research experiment in conjunction with Sainsbury's on that same topic during my study abroad experience at the University of Bristol in early 2005.

Thankfully for us all, digestive biscuits and wine gums are not as easily available in Chicago as they are in England, and so I have been forced to consider nutrition and vitamin needs in my daily diet. However, that doesn't mean I don't eat a lot of the same food everyday. I could happily consume the same breakfast (toasted English muffins and peanut butter) for the rest of my life. And I eat whole wheat pitas, hummus, and spinach for lunch five days a week.

But where dinner is concerned, I have recently finally begun to mix up things. I used to make a lot of food that ended up all thrown together in one messy, often overfilled pot. Stir-fries and pastas almost every night. Lots of leftovers that a certain someone would refuse to eat and would ultimately go to waste. Within the past few months, however, we've been trying to eat more food in our food (Lloyd Dobler's sister would be so proud), and as a result larger servings of vegetables have replaced whole grain mega-bowls most nights. Leftovers are now fought over.

When I started branching out in the recipe department to non-served-in-a-bowl dishes, I immediately realized that I'd be required to get creative with recipes a lot of the time, since we are a dairy-free household, and almost every recipe ever has a dairy component. Lots of times I can just leave it out, which causes shock and horror to those who can digest cheese (read: Hanna), but not so much to anyone who has been eating their food without dairy in it for the past two years like us. Other times I substitute extra virgin olive oil or almond milk. I used to use soy milk, but we are trying to keep soy out of our food as much as possible where we can. I learned the hard way that rice milk does not work as a replacement when making corn bread, if you want the corn bread to form one solidified loaf and not be a crumbling avalanche when you bring it with you to Thanksgiving dinner at your in-law's.

The interest in more food food and less filler food in our daily diet was supported by how we felt in the aftermath of watching the documentaries No Impact Man and Food Inc. this past year. It was legitimately hard for me to eat any meat for the first week after I saw Food Inc., and it ultimately resulted in my only purchasing free range chicken meat and eggs, despite the significant price difference, ever since. Those films also piqued my interest in local farmers markets. However, it was my locavore of a sister who truly inspired me to start actually frequenting and making purchases at farmers markets almost every week this past fall.

To anyone who thinks they can't get up early, that the food won't taste any better, or that they don't want to carry two pounds of Russian fingerling potatoes and half a dozen Spigold apples picked yesterday back to their office and then home on the train, all I can say is I wish I had made the effort and taken the time years ago. The experiences and food have made this past autumn one of the tastiest, most inspired, and healthily obsessed seasons I've ever enjoyed.

Them Apples

I have three corncobs hanging on my door. I've recently driven across two states with a pumpkin in a car seat. My boyfriend, Alex, clocked me at a 6 on the one-to-crazy scale when I stopped on the quad to fill my bicycle basket with fallen leaves. He says it was my helmet and the way I was zigzagging across the paths and grass. I'm pressing those leaves in a phone book weighed down with Dickens and a few of his friends—probably Browning, you know, for posterity. What I'm trying to say is: Fall is my jam.

So I made apple pancakes. Genius really: Apple. And then in pancakes. A coworker sent me the recipe from smittenkitchen and I tried it out in Michigan last weekend for my halfsiblings' fourth birthdays.

The pancakes were pretty fantastic—apple pancakes, come on—and pretty easy to put together. I don't measure well which is why baking has always been a challenge to me, but the pancakes were forgiving of my ½ palmspoon measurement system.

I do have a few thoughts: I'd recommend grating the apples after measuring your wets and drys. We realized a little late that we were missing baking powder (a quick google told me that was the fluffing agent I didn’t want to do without) and in the time it took to run to the store, the apples—which had begun to color almost immediatley—really started to brown. Other advice includes making sure you have all of your ingredients before starting.

Also, the 'cakes definitely benefit from the addition of cinnamon. I wouldn't "perhaps" it as smittenkitchen says. The spice provides an incredible warmth and gives every bite a holiday glow. It was like eating memories. Really delicious memories.

I’ll be making these bad boys again—that’s happening. It sure is nice living in the apple basket of the country.