It's Fall!

Fall is without a doubt my favorite season. When I first moved to New York I couldn't get over how awesome it was to have four distinct seasons. Now that I've experienced a small taste of Fall in northern Michigan though, I know that what I consider Fall here is a littttle bit lame. That said, I love 50 degree weather in NYC and even though there aren't a lot of colored leaves falling, there are a lot of little dogs in rain coats... almost as cool?!

Of everything I love about Fall, pumpkins are my absolute favorite. Particularly eating pumpkins. Last night I ate pumpkin ravioli...yum! My mom sent me an amazing pumpkin themed care package with a pumpkin loaf pan from William Sonoma. I had been dying to try it out but school has been insane so it took awhile. Finalllly:

It has this pretty little leaf print on top, and I just sprinkled a little powdered sugar.

There was a ton of extra batter so i made muffins also.

Mmmm... I love pumpkin everything! In other news, I had to make a bodysuit this week. Looking back on the extreme unpleasantness of sewing plaid spandex, I don't really know what possessed me to buy it, but I am pretty sure it had something to do with the lumberjack-y feeling that also reminds me of Fall.

I like the final product, but I definitely don't think it looks as complicated as it actually was to construct. I'll credit it to the hours I spent painstakingly matching plaids, but it is really hard to see that the front is actually 9 separate pattern pieces. (Also, the lines you see underneath the mesh are just style tape on the dress form, not part of the design.)

GUEST POST!! Vegan Candied Clementine Cake

Natalie has appointed me as an honorary blogger for this week. My name is Libby Parsons and while I'm not cooking my way through a fashion degree, I do cook for a vegan co-op once a week (but only for a fun challenge, I love meat!) and also happen to be majoring in International Relations. This is my first ever blog and I'm humbled to be blogging about something I don't know much about.

This past weekend, I made a vegan clementine cake that everybody loved and even went as far as to say that it was one in their top ten cakes they had ever tried (however, obviously they haven't tasted one of Natalie's cakes before). This is quite an accomplishment because, I don't know if you have ever tried a vegan cake, but they are usually quite bland. The recipe is easy and, besides candying the clementines, fast.

My friend, Hugh Brown, candied the clementines which entails simmering the clementines in sugar water for 1 to 2 hours. The recipe calls for pureeing the clementines with peels. However, I blended half of the clementines with peels and half without. I think that this made the cake more moist and less bitter.
The cake turned out to be extremely moist, flavorful, and slightly bitter. The citrus-y sweetness of the powdered sugar/clementine juice icing balances out the bitterness of the cake. I suggest this cake to those of you who want to show your friends that a vegan cake can be moist and flavorful!

Recipe! (and picture source)

Fall at Pond Hill Farm

This past weekend I took a spontaneous trip to Harbor Springs to see my mom and experience Fall in Northern Michigan. It was freezing! But really, really gorgeous. The leaves were all changing and the whole town was all decorated... so amazing! My mom and I went bike riding and of course ate a ton, but we ended up spending most of our time at Pond Hill. We had apple cider and apple cider donuts in the cafe, and fed the sheep and goats fresh squash. Endless fun. Seriously, I want to live there.

Dinner with my hometown ladies!

Back before school started, by some miracle, Natalia, Jaqui (and Mat!) and I were able to get together for dinner. Thinking that I wanted to make something light and summery for what would probably be the last little gathering before school started and summer was totally over, I searched epicurious for substantial and meal-worthy salads. I was instantly attracted to the photo accompanying the Grilled Chicken Summer Salad. Despite the incredibly long list of ingredients, I headed off to Whole Foods.

Essentially, the Grilled Chicken Summer Salad is like 7 separate salads all dressed with the same super light vinaigrette and displayed beautifully on one platter. I accidentally forgot to buy green beans, so that salad was out, but I don't think it was missed. Although it was a little time consuming to make, it wasn't difficult, and the end result was totally worth it.

left 2 right: chickpea salad, chicken pesto salad, radish/ cucumber salad, grilled mushroom salad, fresh tomato salad, and a green salad

I don't actually have a platter, but it still looks pretty good on a cookie sheet right?

Since my little window unit a.c. is weeeeaak, I couldn't bear the thought of turning the oven on to bake anything, so instead I went for Caramelized Banana Splits with Hot Chocolate Sauce. Also really delicious and easy to make. I've made this recipe again already and it really is a crowd pleaser and is so simple (with a fairly short ingredient list- always a plus!)

This did not photograph well, but I wasn't really in the mood to mess around with trying to get a pretty shot when I could have been eating it...

Recipes: Grilled Chicken Summer Salad & Caramelized Banana Splits with Hot Chocolate Sauce

both from epicurious.com

Coming soon: Melissa and I's easy and delicious burger night (for vegetarians and meat eaters!)

Strawberry Orange Ricotta Cake with Almonds

All summer long, my mom had been really wanting to try out some dessert recipes using ricotta cheese, but we never seemed to find the time. For her birthday, I thought I would try a cake recipe I found on Epicurious.com called "Strawberry Orange Ricotta Cake with Pistachios", but when I went to the grocery store in Harbor Springs, I couldn't find any natural unsalted pistachios. I decided to substitute the pistachios with almonds (which I prefer anyways). To make this cake I had to enlist not one, but two, sous chefs in order to get this done in a reasonable amount of time. (There are A LOT of steps to this one!) In the end, the cake was very well received, but it is probably not one that I would make again. With strawberries, oranges, chocolate, ricotta, Grand Marnier, almonds etc. there was just too many flavors going on for my personal taste. It did however, turn out to be a totally beautiful cake (again, thanks to my sous chefs Matt and Michael!!).

Recipe!

(I substituted all pistachios with almonds.)

I also wanted to post a picture of the amazing table my aunt Judy set for the birthday dinner...

sooo lovely...

Tuxedo Cupcakes

A few years ago my mom, neighbor and I took a cooking class at Central Market with Rebecca Rather of the Rather Sweet Bakery in Fredricksburg. We picked up a couple of her new cooking books, "The Pastry Queen" and have found tons of tasty recipes in it. The definite favorite has been the Tuxedo Cake, which has been a favorite in our household for years now. This summer I was looking for the perfect chocolate cupcake recipe when I remembered the Tuxedo Cake...

(those yellow cupcakes in the background are some of the lemon cupcakes from the previous post, un-iced)

Recipe!

The cake recipe translated to absolutely delicious cupcakes. I used the same whipped topping recipe, as well as the chocolate ganache. The yield was about 4 or 5 dozen cupcakes, and they were all gone in one night...

*If you don't have Lyle's syrup, which I didn't in Michigan, corn syrup is a totally acceptable replacement. Also, the whipped topping does not save well so it's best to only top the ones that you plan on eating within the hour.

Korean BBQ in K Town and Lemon Cupcakes with a Lemon Cream Filling

Before I get into this summer's cupcake creations, I have to document what could have been the most amazing meal I had all summer. Sunday afternoon, after watching the India Day parade from Hye's apartment window while playing with her 3 baby kittens, we headed over to Don's Bogam BBQ on 32nd Street between 5th and Madison. Since we were there at an off hour, around 2:30 pm, we had the place almost to ourselves and were able to sit in one of the amazing booths (really bad pic below). Hye ordered for us since I wouldn't know what I getting, and we decided on both pork belly and the marinated beef. Sooo delicious. The side dishes were all wonderful, and a couple of them were a little bit different than what I've seen before. I'm going to get Hye on here to describe in detail everything we ate... so delicious.

I forgot my camera so I borrowed pics from here.

OK! Back to summer. In Michigan, our fridge was consistently filled with farm fresh berries the entire summer. In an effort to use some up I started looking for a good fruity cupcake recipe on epicurious.com. I eventually decided on this lemon cupcake recipe. Since the yield is a ridiculous 4 cupcakes, I multiplied the measurements by four. I also seriously upped both the lemon juice and zest in both the cupcakes and the lemon cream filling.

The recipe I came up with was:

3 cups of cake flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

~1/4 cup freshly grated lemon zest

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp.

2 cups + 4 tablespoons sugar

4 tablespoons + 8 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

8 large eggs

8 ounces of cream cheese, room temp.

I then came up with a tasty cream cheese frosting for the top:

2 1/2 8 oz. packages cream cheese, room temp.

1 stick unsalted butter, room temp.

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

3/4 teaspoon almond extract

After the cupcakes cooled, I put a generous swirl of icing on each one and then topping them with a few fresh blueberries... These were a huge hit with all the guys in the kitchen at my night time hostess job. I really wish I had pictures, but they were all eaten waaay too quickly! (I barely got half of one!!)

Delicious chocolate cupcake recipe to come, but I've got to get ready for Sue's bday dinner at Saigon Grill in Union Square!