Whoops.

This blog has been sorely ignored, probably because of all that moving to MD and stuff. Whatever. I think we're settled-ish now, I should be able to keep updating. Not that I have cirkus food to post about.... I'll just have to get creative. Post about pugs and panera, sure.

Whoa, wow I'm behind. Moving to MD and catching up with everyone is kind of taking ALL OF MY TIME. This is kind of low on the priority list, but I'll totally get to it.

Love you guys.

:)

Crap, the zucchini bread was perfect too.... The batter kind of looks like puke, and I would suggest a shallower loaf pan (moist throughout, whereas the deeper pan left the middle a smidge dry - if you don't have it, don't worry about it). This was a really great recipe, and it went over really well. I actually had to wrestle the second loaf from the last of the cirkus-folk, ha.

-Recipe-

We also made a cake for a birthday party at work. How the request went from white cake with white icing to Hershey's cocoa something-or-another. Anyways, this recipe is on the back label of a jar of Hershey's unsweetened cocoa (go buy it, you'll need it for the recipe anyways). It's pretty simple, and doesn't take a very long time, but you (duh) have to make room for the cooling time before applying the icing. The recipe says to take the cake out of the pan about 10 minutes after pulling it out of the oven, and it LIES. We did this, and it fell apart. If anyone has ever had the fortune of perfect cake every time, icing a broken cake is a huge pain. Huge. Anyways, we made about 1 1/2 servings of the icing (which I think was hand-spun by Jesus). We had to tin-foil tent it so that the foil wouldn't lift the icing and, thereby, the fall-apart cake. This got great reviews, but I'll remember to leave it in the pan longer (at least 20) and grease it alot (COVER the pan in flour, just in case - if you're worried that too much flour would make it bitter, the icing will totally fix that).

Poppyseed mini-muffins. I'm kind of bothered with how short this entry will be because the recipe is PERFECT. A warning if you try it, the glaze is MAD messy and will get all over the counter, so put down wax paper or something.

-Recipe-

Alright, delicious truffles. (the zucchini bread was moved to next week) They are also a HUGE
PAIN IN THE ASS. My Gramma is reading this, so I have to clean up the language a bit. Pshaw. Anyways, the recipe sounds nice and simple, quick and clean. WRONG. 7:34pm. Alright, the ingredients are all together (extra of course, just in case) on the table, the good stuff too. We followed the recipe and let the ganache sit for an hour, expecting perfect thick roll-able truffle-y bits. Um. No. We had to add about 1 cup more chocolate to the recipe just to make it malleable. Great. That worked a bit, but it was still too soft to roll. Gramma tears the freezer apart to make room for the massive mixing bowl, and we wait.... In and out of the freezer, several bowl transfers, and it is 9:41pm. Almost done, kitchen is a mess, dishes everywhere, chocolate under our fingernails.... Yep. But gee, they sure are delish. Alright, going out to anyone who tries this recipe, YOU LIE INA! YOU LIE!

Ahem. In conclusion, add 1 cup of chocolate (equal parts) to the recipe. If it isn't firm enough after one hour, put it in the freezer and check it periodically. Instead of using confectioner's sugar OR cocoa powder, I suggest equal parts conf. sugar and hot cocoa mix (what of it? it worked!) Put aside at least 3 hours for this recipe and be prepared for a big cleanup. Put down newspaper or something. When you put it up in the fridge, make sure to put parchment paper between each layer.

9:49pm, this is the result of 2 batches:


Buh. They are dern good though.



-Recipe-

So, I felt like a moron Wednesday. Tuesday night, Gramma and I made chocolate covered pretzels, and they are delicious. They also never made it to practice because I grabbed the wrong bag. So, when I got to practice at the hangar, which is populated by punk-rockers who build bicycles and don't eat meat, and whip out what I thought was a bag of delicious vegetarian chocolate covered pretzels but was actually a bag full of lunchmeat that my Uncle and I had mixed up.... Yep. Yeah. So no real post on those.... Looking like zucchini bread next week though.

City O' Brotherly Love

Yeah, so Philly is off the hizzy. To say the least. Besides the 301 dollar parking ticket, getting hit by a deer, and disgruntled museum employees, everything was cherry pie. :) I can now say that I have parallel parked in a snowbank. On purpose.


Anyways, we're really here for the food.

Day 1 - We rolled in at 1pm from a 12 hour drive, BLuh with a capital 'BL'. We woke up around 6pm to my Mother's awesomely satisfying enchiladas. Mmhmm good, campbell's eat your heart out.

Day 2 - Off to the train station, freezy freezy. I can't even express how much I wish that we had Wawa down here, everything about it is awesome. I start my morning with strawberry milk and tasty cakes (breakfast of champions!), love.

We make it into Philly (wrong train stop, whoopsie). We spent the first day walking, being cold and getting lost for the most part. It was still great. We dropped into the Reading Terminal Market. Got a (magical) sugar cookie, Josh got a (perfect) roast beef hoagie, and I got a plate of (fantastic) hummus, homemade pita, and pan-fried falafel. We hit South St., after touring the Freemason Temple, for some seriously awesome shoppage. Pretty much everything was lights out by 7pm, I had no idea that the city would shut down so early! We got some soft pretzels on the street, wandered around, and rolled back home from the train station around 11pm.

Day 3 - Dash dash to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (really cool place, a must if you're in the city), drop in the cafeteria for an EIGHT DOLLAR SIDE SALAD. I mean, it was good but jeez.... Afterwards, we stopped by RTM for another cookie, and found out that they close at 6pm, so I didn't get my cookie. Bummer. Found the DiBruno Bros. Market , which is a big shiny grocery store of awesome on JFK blvd and got a fresh baguette (which I haven't shut up about for about 2 years) with a 1/4 lb. of Humboldt Fog (my favorite-est cheese ever). Stopped at a little Italian pizza joint and shared a greasy stromboli-something, which was actually really great. Anyways, we drive to a Wawa, get dolled up, and go to a way-out restaurant at The Mendenhall Inn.

It's a fancy-schmancy kind of place, hosts and servers with bowties and white gloves. First, the host brought us a basket of rolls with scoops of sculpted butter from a bowl of icewater (I exclaimed "fancy butter!" to the host), nom. For an appetizer we got fried spinach dumplings drenched in magic-love sauce. For the meal I got a vegetarian sampler platter with spinach raviolis, stuffed portobello caps, roasted red peppers, sauteed button and shittake mushrooms.... Heaven. Josh's entree was a 4"x3" steak, perfectly cooked with a pepper rub, a side of green beans sauteed with roasted red peppers and some more of that magic-love sauce from the dumplings, along with a dollop of mashed potatoes brought from Mt. Olympus to the kitchen to his plate. Afterwards, our awesome server Mark wrapped up our food into a tin-foil swan. Yeah. Drove home in the snow, got hit by a deer, and arrived around 11pm.

Day 4 - Went to the 'disturbingly informative' Mutter Museum which is a showcase of all things medically weird and kind of icky, a great time was had by all. :) Dashed to RTM again, remembering at 6:04pm and a block away that they close at 6pm, so I still didn't get my damn cookie. Wandered around Chinatown for a few hours, had a fantastic time. Lots of cheap candy and cute trinkets all over, weird videos and magnetic hula-hoops. We asked a girl at one of the stores what her favorite restaurant was in the area, and she directed us to a ritzy joint with fishtanks full of eel, crab, and mackerel lining the walls of the dining room. The prices weren't bad, and the food was great. Tea was served at the beginning of the meal without question. We had to rush out before we could finish, but still enjoyed our time there. Rolled in around 2am from my Aunt's house (she's a hoot).

Day 5 - The Philadelphia Zoo was great! A lot of the animals were sent away because of the snow, but the open exhibits were really something. :) I actually liked that it was February, because there were maybe 4 other groups besides us in the whole park (no noisy kids!). Finally, we get back to the city and hit up Little Italy. Josh had a cheesesteak at Geno's a few years prior and so, naturally, we went to Pat's for a 'wit-out, cheez wiz'. Wandered around, got $40 of cheese at the original DiBruno's. These guys know cheese. We asked their opinion on the best Philly Cheesesteak, so they (oh, snap!) directed us to 2nd and Oregon, under the I-95 bridge (hint hint) to Tony Luke's.

Oh ehm gee. My mother had a 'roast pork w/ sharp provolone', Josh had the 'beef buster' (a suggestion from DiBruno's, the website doesn't mention the curly fries in the sandwich), and I had the 'Uncle Mike's' sandwich, which should just be illegal. So good. Still no fucking cookie.

Day 6 - Wake up, pack up, Exton Mall. I love orange julius, and it loves me, and they should bring it back to Greenville. Buzzed back into Philly for the last day before we had to pick up my Dad and make that horrible drive back to SC. Hit up RTM again, and the cookie store closed an hour early. So I never got my goddamn cookie. We soaked in the city (which can't be good for your lungs in Philly) for awhile and hit up Chinatown again. Stopped into a hole-in-the-wall (the best kind, of course) restaurant where they sold Thai food and American breakfast food. Yeah, that's what I said too. Anyways, Josh found 'bitter melon' which is this lovely beef dish that he hasn't had since Hawaii. I got french toast with peanut butter in the middle and sweetened condensed cream on top, along with an egg sandwich on the house (the first time it came out with ham). Hit a couple bakeries, had a custard pastry and got this weird melon biscuit thing (which was delicious later). We then found my loverly parking ticket and drove to Chichester to pick up my Father. Stopped at Wawa and stocked up on milk (strawberry, cookies & cream which tastes like a pack of oreos, and double-dutch chocolate) and one last soft pretzel. Sigh. Drive drive drive yuck, and back to Greenville we went.

I never got that second cookie.

But we had a great time, and I can't wait to go back up. Sooner than this time, I hope. :)