There's always a reason to eat in this damn city. Most people in the country are trying to work off the holiday pounds or are just getting back into a normal life routine, but in New Orleans today, we're celebrating Twelfth Night, which marks the end of Christmas and the beginning of Carnival. Which means king cake. And more booze. Oh, dear.
Of all the "party" holidays, Mardi Gras is hands down my favorite. On Halloween there's too much pressure to find the perfect costume and mine usually sucks. On New Year's Eve you're expected to do something amazing with all of your closest friends that will set off the New Year right, but I mostly find myself celebrating by finishing my second bottle of wine and watching fireworks with whoever didn't go home for the holidays. Which is super fun, but not quite *watching the ball drop in NYC while being fed caviar from David Beckham himself* fun.
Mardi Gras is different, though. You don't have ...
Read More
![New Year's Eve Tart [ Chocolate + Salted Caramel]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5451b54de4b0d0c075728ccb/1434034478027-93STSWLB9WKI18MHSNK3/image-asset.jpeg)
I put butter in ice cream because I simultaneously hate & love myself. It's complicated.
This week I finished my second-to-last EVER semester of college and I *finally* learned how to tie a neck tie. So, in honor of getting one step closer to being an unemployed, poor and probably sad college graduate who can look cute in a tie,I get to eat as many of these buttery-pistachio-cold-figgy things as I want, damn it. I'll need the extra calories for this long, cold New Orleans winter, anyway (just kidding its hot and muggy outside right now and its really messing up my Christmas spirit).
I chose to put figs in this ice cream because they are a Christmas thing, but it wasn't until literally yesterday that I looked into why they are a Christmas thing. They're in season in the summer, but it's December. I don't know, its just weird. Yes, I know the song that goes "something, something, figgy pudding" is like a Christmas anthem but I wanted to know WHY. Well, surprise, surprise...
Read More
This recipe is super simple and so is this post.
Read More
This is one of those cakes you should bring to a party and casually place in front of everyone and say something like "Oh, it was easy, I do this stuff all the time *hair flip*." I would go into grand detail about why this cake made me so happy, but I think the title kind of sums it up. For those of you who aren't familiar with Grand Marnier, its the fancy orange liqueur that gets put into your top shelf margarita when you have the extra cash to spend on getting drunk in style. It goes shockingly well with the goat cheese buttercream, which may or may not be the real star...
Read More
I'm all about the standard Thanksgiving fare. Give me turkey and gravy, different kinds of stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc. I love it all, and will eat it until I feel adequately gluttonous. This year, though, I thought it would be fun to mix things up a bit. These cookies were my attempt at doing so. No one cried, or yelled, or told me I wasn't American because I put corn into a cookie. There were no screams of "socialist!" or comments about how my liberal views of appropriate tThanksgiving cuisine were ruining traditional family values. So, that was cool.
Quick profile of these cookies...
Read More
It's now the week of Thanksgiving and I have hardly had any time to plan what I'm making for my family's thing and Matt's family's thing because school has just been completely life-absorbing and every day feels like my soul is being sucked out - dementor style - by my professors. So, in need of something both easy-to-make and calorically substantial enough to warm my numb heart, I made a peanut butter pie! Seriously, the words bring a smile to my face. Peanut. Butter. Pie.
In my opinion (I'm always right), the beauty of peanut butter pie comes from the balance of flavors and texture. It needs to be sweet and salty - silky smooth and crunchy - fluffy and rich - mess any of those up and you've just ruined my whole god damned day. And it was already ruined from the aforementioned soul-eating professors. I feel like I ...
Read More
My favorite doughnut is without a doubt the apple fritter. I feel like I should capitalize its name to give it full due respect but that would be silly. The apple fritters I grew up eating were weirdly crispy, but also gooey on the inside and bursting with heinously artificial apple flavoring, which tasted like canned apple pie filling was just dumped into the batter. I loved them...
Read More
Ok, I know, putting bacon on anything and everything possible is so 2012. But look, I don't care, these are awesome.
These brownies have the perfect balance of salty and sweet, as well as a gooey fudgey texture that really just makes them irresistible, like actually irresistible, like I ate seven of these. :/
Anyway, pitting the cherries is a real bitch but its worth it. Canned cherries just won't cut it. They really won't. Do what I did and set up your laptop in your kitchen with Scandal or How To Get Away With Murder (shout out to Shonda!! Love u!) and just start cutting these...
Read More
I'm all about easy ways to make food look way more elegant and refined than it really is. I mean, come on, it's half the work for twice the praise. Candied citrus peels do just that. People are always like "oooo, aaaaah" and what not but it's hella fricken easy and equally delicious.
Also, if you ever make a cake and don't have the energy to do a perfect job of frosting it, just throw some of these on there and cover up any imperfections. I ate too many of these today. Whatever...
Read More
Bread + Chocolate + Beer
I feel like that could be the title to my memoir. "Bread + Chocolate + Beer: the Tragic Story of a Young Life Gone Terribly Awry." But for realsies, this bread pudding is bomb. It's super gooey, and when eaten warm it suddenly becomes the most satisfyingly comforting comfort foods of all time...
Read More
Do y'all remember when pomegranates became a thing? Like there was definitely a year, I'm gonna make a stab and say it was 2007, when pomegranates arrived. Suddenly, everyone was walking around drinking those weirdly curvy bottles of "Pom" and saying things like "it's a super food" and "have you heard of this thing called 'twitter'?" Anyway, its been a while since then but I'm glad these little guys got their spot light cause otherwise these cupcakes would probably have been made with cranberries and no offense to cranberries but they really aren't that hip...
Read More
I used this batch of focaccia to make a pizza!
Read More