BBQ Birthday

This weekend we ate. And then we ate some more. And then we continued to eat the leftovers on Sunday and I finished everything off with a chocolate bar form Ghirardelli (judge me, it was the 4 oz LARGE baking milk chocolate bar that is way better when it's dark chocolate, but I needed something sweet on a Sunday night because let's be serious, sprinkle cookies, funfetti cake and strawberry shortcake always needs a chaser of pure chocolate).
We were celebrating one of the guys birthdays, he's from Nashville so he has a special spot in his heart for BBQ. I decided to make pulled pork and strawberry shortcake (his favorite kind is from the Bisquick mix, so that was beyond easy!).
The pulled pork turned out really well- it was a mix of a few recipes I had tried in the past, plus some helpful hints I had read about online. It's also extremely easy (as anything in a slow cooker is)... the hardest part is waiting (hence why I cooked mine on high :) ).

BBQ Birthday Pulled Pork
Feeds: 8
Hands on time: 15 minutes at the beginning, 20 minutes to shred
Cook time: 4 hours + 2 hours

6 lbs Boston Butt
2 white onions (I used one HUGE one and then half of one I had leftover)
6 cloves of garlic (peeled)
1 T ground mustard
Salt & pepper
Root beer (at least two cups, but it depends on what size crock pot you have)
2 cups homemade or store bought bbq sauce
1/2 c reserved liquid from crockpot

Cut the onion into slices.  Place half of the onion on the bottom of the crock pot. Score little bits into the meat and tuck the garlic into the meat (not too deep, I could still see mine poking out). Rub the salt, pepper and ground mustard on the meat. Place the meat on top of the onion in the crock pot. Fill the crock pot so about 2/3 of the meat is submerged.  Cook on high for four hours.  Remove the pork from the pot and shred the meat using two forks, save 1/2 c of root beer and empty the crock pot. Whisk the liquid with your BBQ sauce (I ended up using Sweet Baby Ray's and half a cup of BBQ sauce I had left over from when I went to Salt Lick (outside of Austin)). Put the pork back in the crock pot and toss with the sauce. Cook on low for about two hours (loved taste testing).
Serve on a roll (with or without coleslaw) and a pale ale (I personally love Daisy Cutter by Half Acre).

Out to Dinner... A New way of blogging

Hello! Hi! How are you?!
I've realized as much as I love cooking and baking (I just finished inhaling half of a large apple pancake hot out of the oven- super easy to make and pretty tasty!), I just don't have the proper camera or time to track what I make.  I wish I did, I love food and I love making it, but I just don't have the time.
And if each month has a total of 20 possible meals, I go out to eat for 15 of them (I don't usually do breakfast out).

In the past month, I have gone to the following:
Leopold
Mercadito
Market
Pierrot Gourmet
Zocalo
Tango Sur
The Florentine
Lillie's Q
Karyn's On Green
Table Fifty-Two
The Farmhouse
Smoque
New Star (my favorite Chinese place by my parents house)
Two different Chicago pizza places (Pequod's & Giordano's)


I've had cupcakes from More, Sprinkles, Sweet Mandy B's and Crumbs.
I thought I would put my dining out to good use, I can talk about the food I love (and the food I didn't) and let you know where to go (and what you can't not order :) ).

I'll review everything I've listed above, along with any new places. I also will discuss some of the "all time best meals ever" that I haven't been able to forget (think Longman & Eagle, Xoco (simple, but so tasty!), Maude's (a girl never forgets her first time... eating bone marrow), The Purple Pig and the Publican (twice).

As I've documented at least half of these meals in emails to friends and family, the posts will be authentic and flow right out :) I can't wait to share with you what I've been up to & what I've been eating!  Happy night everyone

Sweet & Flighty

Summer is the busy season at work- it's hectic with the client and party after party with vendors. I barely have time to cook dinner let alone run to the grocery store. So when I made the sugar cookies the other week, I was horrified at the idea of throwing away three egg whites- I didn't have enough ingredients to make any pie (if only I was so lucky), but meringues popped into my head, so meringues I made :) 

If a meringue could be a guy, he would have to be french- it wouldn't be an option. He would be smaller in stature, sweet and fun, easy to be around- no trouble at all. You couldn't date him- he would be too flighty and unreliable, but he'd always be excited to see you and always add a little pow! to whatever you're doing.

I couldn't find a recipe that made me happy, so I made this one up based on a few others (most notably from BHG Cookbook (again)):

3 egg whites(leftover from the perfect sugar cookies)

1/4 t cream of tartar

1/4 t vanilla

1/8 t salt

3/4 c sugar

Preheat oven to 200F (yes, 200, these babies bake for 90 minutes). Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.  In a large bowl beat the egg whites, cream of tartar, vanilla and salt until soft peaks form (medium speed).  Gradually add sugar - about a tablespoon or so at a time until stiff peaks form.

Normally you fill a pipping bag and pipe them onto the cookie sheet, but my bag was not cooperating that day, so I just dolloped them onto the sheet- as long as they have the nice tip and round shape, you're good to go.

Bake for 90 minutes (I took mine out 10 minutes early because I was running late for a party and they turned out fine).

Busy!

Oh my gosh. Moving, work, summer (read: heat) really take a toll on my baking...
I think the only things I've made that had sugar in them in the past two weeks were sugar cookies, rice krispy treats and cake batter truffles (again).
The sugar cookies were meant to be- they were perfect. I was going to a party in less than two hours and didn't have anything to bring or time to run to the store... but these cookies are so easy- I already had everything at home!
I don't know what it is about the oven at the apartment, but the cookies were still golden on the bottom. They were soft and crumbling, gooey and crisp, everything a sugar cookie needs to be to make everyone happy. Oh and I drizzled 60% Cocoa Dark Chocolate on them.
If these cookies were a guy, they'd be a Brian I think...Brian is a nice guy, but he's kind of dull- he's generic- I had to add (very special) chocolate to make these cookies sing- Brian is someone your friend dates that you like- but mainly because they don't really ever have an opinion. Brian doesn't chime in, he doesn't really bring much to the table and you don't realize how dull he is until your friend (thankfully) dumps him and you don't see him anymore.
Thankfully these cookies have pizazz! and happiness! and chocolate! They aren't dull, they aren't generic, they are decadent and tasty and the best part? Everyone likes sugar cookies and they are season-less. They work at Christmas, for the Fourth of July, for a house-warming party or just for a midnight snack (they are beyond easy to make!).

Delicious (and Exciting) Sugar Cookies with Chocolate (adapted from Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook)
1/2 c softened butter
1/2 c shortening (this is what makes the cookies so lovely)
2 c sugar
1 t baking soda
1 t cream of tartar (gives them great shape!)
1/8 t salt
3 egg yolks (do not throw out the whites!)
3/4 t vanilla
1 3/4 c flour

Preheat the oven to 300F. Mix butter and shortening with a mixer for 30 seconds, add sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt. Beat until combined, scraping the sides of the bowl as you go. Beat in the egg yolks and vanilla. Gradually add the flour- I have a stand mixer and this was a cinch, but I can see it getting tough with a hand mixer and you might have to switch to mixing by hand with the last bit of flour.
Roll into one-inch balls- they don't spread too much- I fit 16 on a regular baking sheet
Bake for 12-14 minutes, rotating top to bottom half way through.


***Note recipe to come on what to do with you three egg whites you have left over***

The Tart Works!

I'm told that I'm one of the lucky ones: I love my job. If my job were a food, it would be a ten course meal or a dessert it'd be the tasting course. Alas, I can't write an entry long enough for a ten course meal (nor should I be eating ten courses... though if you want to hear about my adventures in the Chicago Dining Scene, tell me how to use html to make  a tab for it in my blog...).

Yes, my job. My job is divine. It's delectable, it's organized, it's neat, sometimes it's beyond chaotic, but it's always fabulous.  Even when I'm at the office until 10pm and my eyes are crossing and I am starving and just want dinner and want the report to download, I still love my job.

On the outside, my job is just like any other job, I start at work at 9am and I leave at 6pm.  On the inside, I do everything I love, but mostly I plan. It's in my job title: media planner.  I do totally nerdy things like make pivot tables and format charts in Excel. But I also get to do fun things like figure out the best way to display the client's ads so that the target sees it and more importantly so the target wants to buy it. It's beyond interesting, but I don't think you're that interested.

Oh, I also get amazing perks that are beyond fabulous and I am forever grateful (if only because the base salary of a media planner is something like a bag of peanuts and postage stamps every two weeks). I do things like cooking classes at The Chopping Block (go if you can, the chefs are extremely knowledgeable, nice and patient. Some of them are also cute :) ), dinners at the newest restaurants in the city (again, someone people teach me how to make a tab for night life), lunch from the "It" place (hello, Grahamwich!) and cupcakes. We get cupcakes at least once a week at work. Cupcakes from Crumbs, Sprinkles, Molly's, Sweet Mandy B's, More (did you know there were this many cupcake bakeries in Chicago?).  But this is relevant because my job is like a cupcake. Simple, easy to make, easy to understand, but also complex with layers to learn and with things ever changing.

But I love my job, how does that make this cupcake different. It makes it a chocolate (and gasp, I don't normally like chocolate cake.... don't tell my best friend, she'd disown me) stout (I always like stout) cake. I'd experimented with multiple types of cakes with beer in them. Always chocolate cake, but so many different stouts. The first I tried was with one cup of Guinness. It was dry. I don't know why, it shouldn't have been, but it was a shade below extra moist, divinely delicious.  Then I made one with an Imperial Stout, also not the best. Good, but not great.

Then I researched my stouts and looked into it and realized, I'm making dessert. I should be using a beer that sounds more like a dessert. Chocolate Stout, Oatmeal Stout, Raspberry something Stout.  I ended up using a Cream Stout, which I believe can also be called a Milk Stout.  Perfect. This cake turned out to be the kind that was moist and decadent with the perfect amount of everything.

Then because my job isn't just a plain Jane kind of place, the cupcake needed to be filled. It needed to be filled with something out of this world. Normally for me, this means cream. But cream is too blase for a situation like this. Cream is too day-to-day. My job is extraordinary. It is a ganache. Again, easy to make, but sounds fancy and the resulting product is spectacular.

I went to the chocolate factory (Blommer's Chocolate) a block from my office (have I mentioned my job is great) and picked up a pound of bittersweet chocolate dots (similar to chips, but smaller and better for melting). It is important to pick up real chocolate, if you are buying it from a commercial store, buy a brick, I've read that manufacturers need to put more wax into chips to help them keep their shape. I don't know if this is true or not, but I can definitely tell a difference when using this chocolate.  I also added a little bit of Jameson to the chocolate and cream mixture. Chocolate+Cream+Whiskey= Hello Happiness!
I used an apple corer (or a metal teaspoon) to dig out the center of the cupcakes and filled them with the ganache (using a frosting bag).

As if my job  wasn't fabulous enough, I love the people I work with. They are the icing on the cake :)
And they are so FUN, we play on the same softball team, go out to baseball games, have dinner together and invite everyone to our birthday parties.

I topped the cupcakes with a fluffy, sweet, Bailey's Butter Cream Frosting. I used a star to pipe it on to the cupcakes and they turned out perfect. Easy and fun to make; even more fun to eat :)

Recipe to Follow

Happy Monday Cupcakes (Adapted from Smitten Kitchen's Irish Carbomb Cupcakes)

Stout Cake:
1 cup and 1 T stout (I used Sam Adams Cream Stout)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter (straight from the fridge works just fine!)
3/4 cup and 1T unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Ganache Filling (Updated to double it, based on many commenters suggestions — thanks!)
1 1/2 c bittersweet chocolate dots (if you buy a brick of it, use about 12 ounces)
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
2 teaspoons Irish whiskey

Baileys Frosting
3 to 4 cups confections sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperatue (vital that it's room temp!)
4 tablespoons Baileys (if you happen to run out, you can add any left over heavy cream)

Special equipment: apple corer (I've used a metal teaspoon (measuring kind) before and it worked fine) and a piping bag (though a plastic bag with the corner snipped off will also work)- these are not the type of cupcakes you can just slather with frosting due to the filling

Make the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners. Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.
Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, rotating them once front to back if your oven bakes unevenly, about 17 minutes. I live in an apartment where it took my cupcakes 20 minutes to cook in a preheated oven- just keep testing them! Cool cupcakes on a rack completely.

Make the ganache (don't you love the way that sounds... gah-nah-shhh): Chop the chocolate and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream until simmering and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for one minute and then stir until smooth. (If this has not sufficiently melted the chocolate, you can return it to a double-boiler to gently melt what remains. 20 seconds in the microwave, watching carefully, will also work.) Add the butter (make sure it's room temp!) and whiskey and stir until combined.

Fill the cupcakes: Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped (the fridge will speed this along but you must stir it every 10 minutes). Meanwhile, using an apple corer, cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes. You want to go most of the way down the cupcake but not cut through the bottom — aim for 1/2 of the way. A slim spoon or grapefruit knife will help you get the center out. Those are your “tasters”. Put the ganache into a piping bag with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.  I have a hard time sometimes gauging how far to cut the hole- I usually do too deep in my first dozen and then have to scrimp on my second dozen. I've taken to just take the centers out of the first twelve and then filling them- if it seems that I have half the ganache left, I do the exact same thing I'd did before, otherwise, I make the hole shallow for the second batch.

Make the frosting: Whip the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, for several minutes. You want to get it very light and fluffy. Slowly add the powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time.  Per Smitten Kitchen's Note, they learned from Martha Stewart that this makes the frosting less grainy and you don't have to add as much sugar.
When the frosting looks thick enough to spread, drizzle in the Baileys (or milk) and whip it until combined. If this has made the frosting too thin (it shouldn’t, but just in case) beat in another spoonful or two of powdered sugar.
Ice and decorate the cupcakes. [I used a star tip and made little "poofs" everywhere- the best part is, if your ganache didn't fill the cupcake enough, you can disguise the hole with frosting.

I've found even men & boys alike enjoy these cupcakes (i.e. men that say, oh I don't like sweets!, have been known to eat three or four in a sitting)

Boy Besties

Not all guys are duds- some are fabulously fabulous friends that you adore and don't ever get bored of- they are always up for a Sunday Funday or will try that new bbq and whiskey restaurant you want to go to but all of your girlfriends hate whiskey or bbq (how this is possible is anyone's guess). They also are amazing at giving you good new music- some are friends from work, some friends from high school and some that you just picked up along the way- but they provide you with some of the best new (or classic) music that you could hope for- like rap music months before it hits mainstream (who doesn't feel cool knowing all the words to a supposedly new song?) or they tell you to listen to Astral Weeks (Van Morrison) when you just need to wind down.  They are 100% drama-free and never take you for granted.

Some are peanuts (note- apparently calling a guy you are dating 'peanut' can be construed at demeaning or unmanly...  I know, I know, I was as shocked as you are)- peanuts are usually smaller in stature and perfect gentlemen (yes, they can be fratty and fun, but at heart, they are the guys that you wish you had a friend to set them up with) and someone you could never date. Peanutty Peanuts are just those friends that you love being around- they are unassuming and sweet- smart and darling. Again, most guys don't appreciate this description so I keep it to myself and file them away as 'darling peanuts angels'.

I made the mistake of calling a guy I dated (to be discussed in a later post) peanut and angel. As he was still taller than me when I wore my six-inch-leg-crippling-foot-punishing pumps, I can understand him not loving the whole peanut moniker- but angel? That was a little depressing to find out.

Buddies are a blast- you watch basketball with your buddy, you can grab a burger with your buddy (if he gets it medium-well or ::gasp:: well-done, rethink this friendship) and most importantly, you can kick your buddy's buddy's butt in a chugging contest without fear of any judgement- more likely just jealously.  Buddy's are great for cookouts (they man the grill (well they actually own the grill, too- which is vital for a cookout)).

Boy Besties- who doesn't love a boy bestie? You can ask them all of your questions or just vent about annoyances about duds and they will give you feed back (though sometimes it's definitely not what you want to hear)- they are all of the great and wonderful things that a friend can be and provide zero drama and unconditional love (in their own boy-bestie kind of way- note, this is drastically different than girl friends- boy besties usually show their love by always being DTP and RTR (ready to rage).

These guys can be thought of as chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodles, or most accurately (on the thought of sweets) cake batter truffles. 
Cake batter truffles are small delicious morsels of magic that taste like heaven and take about five seconds to make.  Much like a guy friend, they are easy, fun, make you smile and are great at parties.

Cake Batter Truffles (adapted from "The Girl Who Ate Everything")

1 ½ cups flour

1 cup yellow cake mix

½ cup unsalted butter, softened

½ cup white sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/8 teaspoon salt

3-4 Tablespoons milk

2 Tablespoons sprinkles

Truffle Coating:

16 ounces (8 squares) almond bark (or white candy melts)

4 Tablespoons yellow cake mix

sprinkles


Beat together butter and sugar using an electric mixer until combined. Add cake mix, flour, salt, and vanilla and mix thoroughly. Add 3 Tablespoons of milk or more if needed to make a dough consistency (I ended up added more than a fourth of a cup of milk- just add until it comes together). Mix in sprinkles by hand. Roll dough into one inch balls and place on a parchment or wax paper lined cookie sheet. Chill balls in the refrigerator for 15 minutes to firm up- I tossed them in the freezer because they were a little too soft to work with.

While dough balls are chilling, melt almond bark in the microwave in 30 second intervals until melted. Stir between intervals. Once melted, quickly stir in cake mix until incorporated completely. Using a fork, dip truffles into almond bark and shake of excess bark by tapping the bottom of the fork on the side of your bowl. Place truffle back on the cookie sheet and top with sprinkles. Repeat with remaining balls until finished.  As I found out, do NOT reheat the truffle covering with the cake mix in it- it melts unevenly and doesn't provide the nice shiny coating you want.

Chill cake batter truffles in the refrigerator until serving. Makes around 24-30 truffles.

 

Enjoy!

The Tart Herself

I love all food. I will try anything twice (once is never enough) and usually add it to my "ohmygosh this is delish" list of foods.  There are some things that I won't ever crave (brussel sprouts- cliche, I know, but it doesn't mean I won't eat them) or things I prefer not to have (fish with bones- mainly because I want to savor my food and not fight for it).  But really, I love all food. 
I am usually a neutral person when it comes to meeting someone new. I try to lean to the positive side, thinking that everyone can bring *something* to the table... granted there are some people you love the second you meet- they either remind you of your long lost best friend or are the daughter of a Nebraskan meat farmer (this would be my ideal bff) and others you dislike (they remind you of the girl your ex cheated on you with- irrational, but you can't help it!). 
People can go up (and they usually do) or they can plummet- it can take weeks or months to figure out where someone sits, or it can take hours.
As we've now established that I love food and I like (most) people... what's the point? The point is that a lot of the people I don't like haven't done anything to me. But that is the point- they haven't done anything. They are a dud. A person can be a dud for any of the following reasons:
- they don't call/text you back
- their conversational skills are limited to where bitsy and kent are getting married and how they stayed in last weekend because their 'sig other' was too busy to go out with them 
-they rely on anyone other than themselves to have fun
-for males- they use more than one ! in a text, i.e. Hey! What do you think you're doing later today? Do you want to hang out?! I'd love to see you! Let's hang out! That would be fun! Let me know if you can hang! Text or call me back! Whatever's easier!  (sadly, that's a real text...)
-people that make excuses for things that don't need it (the guy that sent the above text is 26 and was telling us how he doesn't go out that much any more because 'he's old now'- in what world is 26 old? he's not old, he's just a dud)
-Anyone with a lackluster personality (someone that you would rather have NOT talk then listen to them and for me silence is almost never golden)
There are other types of people, we all know people that drive you crazy and if you never saw again, that'd be too soon.  Duds aren't like that because they don't ignite that kind of passion.
There are the weirdos that we all know- this is a large category and pretty much anyone can fall into it, but the main culprits are people that facebook chat you at all hours of the day to ask 'hey how have you been? it's been a long time', weirdos can also be guys that tell you they cheated on their ex girlfriend dozens of times, but it was ok because she got fat (how, oh how could someone ever actually say this?!)  There are plenty more types of weirdos, like the guy that you met once, hung out with all night and then told you he was having an out of God moment and was going back to Cali next week. Then he texted you asking you to come visit him (um what?).
There are fillers- people that are... nice- not much more than that. They are the fake green grass in an Easter basket. You need the grass to keep everything else in place, but it's interchangeable to the other colors or even tissue paper. You can toss it if you get a smaller basket or add more if the basket's huge (but then you'd def want more treats).  These people are good at parties or events when you need a certain number- they are even good on weekend trips- they don't cause drama and go with the flow.
Value Adds- Usually friends of friends and people that you don't know very well- they are any of the following funny, energetic, generous, wild, passionate, big drinkers, crazy, good planners have connections or are just all around fabulously fun.
Sadly, most of the guys that we date seem to fall into the dud category. While they are duds, there is something about them that stood out to us in the first place. Some duds you won't ever hear about because they didn't even make the cut, but other guys need their story told, and how better to tell it than through food? and who better to tell it than the Tart Next Door?