Mocha Baby Cheesecakes

For the first time in a long time, I feel excited to be in the kitchen.  It was something I regarded with dread because I knew I would need an aspirin and 2 bags of peas by the time I was done.  But you know what, screw it.  Instead of focusing on what I can't do, I need to just do.  I need to create things.  I need to have projects.  I need to make messes!

I decided to step back into the kitchen full force by creating one of my signature baby cheesecakes.  This was an idea born from my coworkers during a fat kid discussion, probably one of my favorite things to talk about.  I brought in some pumpkin baby cheesecake leftover from Little Toasty's birthday that went over pretty well and was getting requests to bring in more.  So, I thought I would play to my audience and ask what they wanted in a baby cheesecake.  What we brainstormed was an indulgent coffee and chocolate fantasy that needed to become reality!

I feel pretty confident with what works and doesn't work in a cheesecake at this point, so I thought I would just wing it.  Instead of normal graham crackers, I used some chocolate teddy grahams and toned down the sugar in my normal crust to accommodate for the slightly sweeter product.  I overloaded my french press with fresh ground coffee beans to create a super concentrated coffee base to add to the cheesecake batter.  Brown sugar instead of regular sugar echoed the richness of the coffee and unsweetened cocoa powder.  I used only one egg to create a denser final product.  I made a whipped cream with a dash of the concentrated coffee and then finished with a shaving of chocolate.

Rich and decadent, these little cheesecakes are sure to please any coffee lover.  Hope I did my fellow fat kids proud!  (And yes, I wrote this with my ankle sandwiched between two bags of frozen peas!)

Pretzel and Salted Caramel Brownies - March Secret Recipe Club

March Secret Recipe Club Post!  I'm so excited to share these salty sweet brownie with you, but first a quick update.  I'm mostly independent with a bit of cast thrown in here and there when I've really over done it.  I am SO HAPPY to be back on my bike, but the rain slash snow has thrown in a bit of complication.  Lost a fight with a curb last week when unlocking the bike, but I think I need one more boot day and I'm back to fighting shape.  Most importantly, I have been able to wear my rainbow of flats again!  Now back to the food...

Just last week, I was sitting at my desk and proclaimed aloud: "I really want something with chocolate and caramel... and pretzel!"  Which naturally led into a conversation about how yogurt covered pretzels are terribly inferior to chocolate covered pretzels.  I mean who would pick chobani over chocolate?  I'm not really a chocolate girl (I know, gah I'm the worst) and I always pick out the pretzels in chex mix but the combo is heavenly for me.  Add salted caramel in the mix?  Perfection.

So when I was digging through the many many recipes over on Colleen's blog Secrets from The Cookie Princess, her pretzel brownies and her salted caramel pretzel bark sounded so great that I thought I would combine them!  Colleen was the first person to ever get me for Secret Recipe Club, which premiered while I was waiting for surgery on my ankle.  It was a lovely post where she put cookie butter into one of my all time faves Nutella Buttermilk Bars.  Not only was it an ingenious swap, but her kind words about my blog and my food put a smile on my face during one of the hardest days of my life.  And to the ladies who were able to shuffle my post around the few days before for the September SRC, thank you again for accommodating this cripple.

Back to the brownies!  I used my new favorite toy, the brownie bite pan.  Those pretzels that look like a checker board fit perfectly into the molds so that you get a salty crunch in every bite.  I really loved Colleen's technique of using semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of cocoa powder or bakers chocolate, will definitely be keeping this in brownie rotation!  A quick caramel with himalayan pink sea salt (Trader Joe's, 3 bucks, just do it!) was adapted from the recent Smitten Kitchen salted caramel brownie.  I sprayed the pan with baking pam, added enough batter to fill the molds halfway, topped with a generous chunk of caramel, and finished with a pretzel on top to keep it crispy.  I'm a texture girl, I needed the crunch!

The resulting brownies are fudgy, chewy from the caramel, and salty-sweet with the crunch of pretzel.  All in all, one of my favorite desserts I have ever made.  Sorry, Nigella, your bacon brownies have been beat!  Thanks, Colleen, for the inspiration!

And for a little more inspiration, here are the rest of the B group recipes!  Happy SRC Monday!

Caramelized Onion Bread - February Secret Recipe Club

I'm a bruised up mess, guys.  I tweaked something in therapy and now whenever I use the foot I get black and blue marks all over the inside of my ankle.  Nothing is torn and the x-rays look a-okay but it is so frustrating because just a month ago I really was on my way.  So much so that I thought I could break out the bike again and start getting back my biker muscles (oh how I miss you, defined legs).  Boot and crutches are back in my routine and I'm working hard to slow down a bit and let myself heal.

So here is my monthly Secret Recipe Club culinary lifeline - an easy bread recipe that incorporates my favorite ingredient ever, caramelized onions.  I probably could eat caramelized onions plain for the rest of my life, but I would break more bones since there is not enough vitamin D in that meal.  Oh well, I'll stick to burgers and sandwiches and everything else I can squeeze it into.  Like this bread.  Oh my god, this bread.

This month's recipe comes from Amy at Amy's Cooking Adventures.  She is a stay at home mother who started learning how to cook when her kids started eating with her.  In addition to her ridiculous skills with sweets she has impressive array of breads inspired by her grandmother, the baker of her family.  As I have no yeast bread recipes on here and want to start exploring different types of flour, I decided to tried out her Caramelized Onion Bread.

I switched out the canola oil for bacon fat because I can't leave well enough alone.  A little thyme added to the onions made it a little reminiscent of the flavors I love in french onion soup.  To echo the richness of that soup, I replaced some of the water with half and half.  Because standing for a long time isn't the best thing for me, I used my stand mixer to knead for me for about 8 minutes on medium low, finishing the job on the counter.

This is the perfect twist on the whole wheat sandwich bread, a little sweet from the onions that would complement a strong cheese like brie or cheddar.  Amy originally paired the bread with tomato soup, so I think I need to make a grilled cheese for dinner...

Here are the rest of the reveals for group B:

Pumpkin Toffee Cake Bites - January Secret Recipe Club

Secret Recipe Club time!  I'm really glad I signed up for this because right now obligation is what is getting me in the kitchen.  Still busy, still almost walking.  BUT I do have almost full rotation back, can walk without a limp (with shoes on when I'm concentrating, eep), and had my first impact workout at therapy last week.  I'm working hard, people!

Today's recipe comes from Ashley at Cheese Curd in Paradise.  A new mom with a flair for the recipe redo, I was drawn to her improv cooking challenges.  In particular, I tried out the Heath Pumpkin Cream Cheese Cake because the combination sounded heavenly!  Instead of a large cake with the swirls of cream cheese, I made another one of my tiny desserts with my new brownie bite pan.  Which shows you are never too old for toys at Christmas, they just grow up with you...

This was also one of the first times finally getting to break out my beautiful aqua blue stand mixer, which has improved my baking a million fold.  I am an impatient person, so the option to leave butter and sugar to cream for five minutes while I take care of everything else I need to do for the recipe is my favorite.  Creaming with the butter this time was a combo of regular and brown sugar that gives the cake a moist, light base while cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg spice the batter.  For the canned pumpkin, I have to give a full endorsement to the 365 brand Pumpkin from Whole Foods.  As a person who doesn't love pumpkin, I have never been disappointed by the brand.  Go for the good stuff here, please.

Once the tiny cakes were baked up and cooled, I whipped cream cheese and lightly sweetened it to act as a quick frosting.  I sliced the cakes in half and layered cake, cream cheese, and then toffee bits.  They were cute little bites filled with flavor!  Thanks, Ashley, for the inspiration!

Almost Back to Two Legs...

Just wanted to give you guys a quick update on my progress.  I'm going back and forth from my boot and sneakers with crutches based on how I'm feeling.  I had a bit of a set back over Thanksgiving involving cooking pasta and the dishwasher door, total accident.  The ankle got tweaked a little bit and I assumed I could still function as I had been up to that point.  Mistake.  I spent Thanksgiving day at the island with a cutting board and ignored orders to sit back down whenever I tried to help.

I got to therapy the next week and had so much bruising that I couldn't finish out.  They told me I needed to take it easy and of course I ignored it in favor of my experiments and finishing my proposal for my thesis project.  Another mistake.  It got to the point where even walking in the boot was painful and I knew I needed to step back and take a break.

So in that vein, I'm going to set a limit for myself to start blogging again regularly only when I feel like I can handle everything.  School is crazy right now due to my candidacy exam and I really need to save what limited energy I have for my work.  I love cooking and I miss it so much, but right now I don't want to jeopardize any progress that I'm making.  Thanks for the support during what has been the hardest three months of my life.  I'm lucky to have great people in my life, especially my family who has had to put up with an increasingly frustrated lady as I've lost the humor about the situation.  

I'm still talking about food and my adventures in #broken on twitter @sarah_toasty and I'll be back as soon as I can!   I've got a lot of great ideas to revamp in the new year, so I hope you'll stick around to see what I come up with!

Curry Chicken Burger - November Secret Recipe Club

Today is Secret Recipe Club day!  I had Jane from Jane's Adventures in Dinner.  She is an accomplished baker and loves a good burger re-do.  Her philosophy on the "twisted" burgers?  Take everything she loves about a certain dish and put it between two slices of bread.  For example, her Beef Curry Burgers are based on take-away curry that she loved while living in England.  Curry paste, chutney, ginger, cilantro, and grated carrots all got mixed into ground beef to recreate one of her favorite dishes.

I am a big fan of the re-do, so I thought I would run with her curry burger and translate it into some of my favorite Thai flavors.  To approximate a red curry, ground chicken is combined with red curry paste (or sriracha) lime zest, onion, garlic, ginger, and cilantro.  I made a quick peanut sauce to accompany the burgers and topped them with crunchy red bell pepper and carrots.

It's been really difficult to get me in the kitchen during the transition from boot to walking, but this completely motivated me.  At the end of the day, I'm exhausted and stressed and all I can think about is two bags of frozen peas sandwiching the ankle and a bowl of salsa and chips.  I constantly feel frustrated by how much I can't do yet.  People stare at me when I'm out and all I want to do is blend in to the city like normal.  The people who pitch for charities downtown all come up to me now because, and i QUOTE, "You can't run away from us!"  Yes, people that happened.

So thank you, Jane, for giving me a great way to be creative.  Be sure to check out all of the other group B submissions!

Herbed Zucchini Bread

There is something to be said about open-style galley kitchens.  My beautiful kitchen is complete with cherry cabinets, black granite counters, gas stove, and accents of chrome with full view of the entire great room.  It is my favorite spot in the condo, which should surprise absolutely no one.  But it has become something else for me, the place where I'm trying my damnedest to get back on both of my feet.  I got cleared to start weight bearing a few days ago and it has gotten to the point where I can start almost putting all of my weight on the ankle.  I will pace back and forth in the kitchen with my arms out, using the counter tops to catch me when I inevitably fall over.  But I'm getting so close!

This weekend, I got to take my first crutch-walk in my neighborhood.  I went to my favorite cafe for coffee and croissants followed by a visit to my farmers market on the way home.  What used to be a usual Saturday has become such a luxury and I'm so thankful to be getting back to normal.  To be independent.  And mostly, to smell garlic cooking in my kitchen again.

That fragrant perfume is currently wafting through my living room, a reward from my trip to the farmers market.  I got huge local garlic, just picked leeks, the last of the zucchini, and a lot of new vendor friends because my large metal accessories attract a lot of conversation.  Using these three items as inspiration, I combined my family's zucchini quick bread recipe with the idea from Ruth Reichl to pair zucchini and marjoram.

I basically took my sweet version, removed most of the sugar, and replaced it with melted leeks, garlic, and dried herbs.  I slowly sauteed the leeks in an obscene amount of butter to soften the texture, added finely minced and intensely scented garlic, and revived dried marjoram and thyme in the last few minutes of cooking.  I let the leeks cool (while resting, I could do things in about 15 minute intervals) and then combined it with shredded baby zucchini (seeds and skin included due to baby-ness), eggs, olive oil, and buttermilk.  After gently folding in the dried ingredients, I baked it low and slow to ensure the bread stayed moist and the zucchini was completely cooked.

As the bread was baking, the smell was intoxicating enough to draw my sister out of her room (okay, some of it was Gossip Girl).  She was certainly skeptical of a savory version of a Toasty classic but I definitely think that I won her over!  Because zucchini bread is not complete without cream cheese, I quickly mixed in some finely minced sundried tomatoes and schmeared it over a still warm slice.

I'm really proud of this bread and can't wait to have a slice with lunch!

Watermelon Cilantro Granita - October Secret Recipe Club

Inaugural Secret Recipe Club post!  This was supposed to happen last month, but unfortunately I broke my ankle and had surgery the day of my first reveal.  Oops, sorry SRC!  But no fear, my post was covered and I'm ready and raring to go for October!  Well, more puttering than raring but you get it.

The blog I was assigned is an adorable four-sister venture called Crumbs and Chaos.  It is run by Becca, Emily, Kate, and Megan and there are so many recipes I want to try!  The ladies have lovely baked goods, a focus on seasonal food, and highlight their fellow bloggers every week with their 5 on Fridays posts.  Bonus - the incredibly creative children's parties like the Minnie Mouse Party and the Spiderman Party.  I loved the Caramel Apple Cinna-minis for their tiny package of big fall flavors, the innovative Apple Pie Salsa that would perfectly pair with some baked pie crust pieces, and the supremely simple but flavorful Mongolian Beef Lettuce Wraps.  However, I don't have a crock pot or two legs to stand on so I chose something that was simple and fast so that I wouldn't hate my kitchen by the time I was finished.  Enter Watermelon Granita!

I love granita for its ease of preparation, its versatility, and (in my versions) a balance of tangy and sweet flavors.  The basic idea is to combine juice from any fruit(s), sweeten with a touch of sugar or simple syrup, freeze, and scrape (read: fluff) with a fork to create a light and airy frozen treat.  The key is to find the balance in the "base" of the granita before freezing by slowly adding the lime juice and simple syrup and tasting in between.  I chose cilantro and lime to complement my watermelon base, simple and unadorned flavors.

And you may be asking me, "Sarah, why are you doing a frozen dessert when my google reader and facebook is filled with apple and pumpkin recipes?"  Well, first of all, I made this last week when it was still 70-80 degrees out in DC so I could still comfortably wear shorts outside.  I hadn't taken my boots out of their boot shapers since April.  But most of all because it was barely fall yet.  This week, I feel like it is finally time to flood me with all things pumpkin and spice yet here I am with a granita.  Oh well, win some lose some.  Thanks, Crumbs and Chaos, for the inspiration!

Life on One Leg

Just wanted to check in after receiving lovely well wishes from the comments and my facebook page.  Surgery went well, everything is back in place!  I'm officially bionic, with a plate on my fibula and a screw holding the rest together (yes, I finally got the nerve to look at the before and after X-rays).  Long scars to be expected, but luckily it will be boot season when I get out of the (boot) cast!

In terms of getting back to real life, it's a process.  Getting around is not great, but I'm getting a baller ab and arm workout whenever I'm crutching.  Birthday party had to be cancelled, but I had a really fun night with my kickball team for the last game of the season on my actual 25th.  Let me tell you, crutches are definitely a conversation starter at a bar.  Working with surgeons means you can't skip recovering from surgery, so I'm doing half days as much as I possibly can without getting scolded.  I'm writing and studying at home while the experiments I had running have watchers and are going well.

I've started a little notebook with all of the food ideas in my head for when I get back.  The day I broke everything, I had just brought home a beautiful new stand mixer (life goal accomplished) and it is dying to make its debut.  For now sandwiches and raviolis are about all I can manage, but believe me the second I feel comfortable enough I'll be back!

Thanks again go to my family for putting up with gimpy me.  Appropriate to start a countdown for when I can walk again?  I'm thinking yes.

Missing in Action... Or why I am really really stressed

Just wanted to issue a blog-pology for being missing in action. It was first because I thought I could do everything without having Internet in the condo until little Toasty moved in. Mistake. I am a researcher in every aspect of my life and had a series of failures because I could not fully explore an idea before I tried to cook. Good food, but nothing I was proud enough to share.

And then Thursday night happened. I am a short girl who loves a tall ridiculous shoe, so of course I've had my share of rolled ankles. I was trying to get home after kickball and slipped in a puddle, dislocating it after years of pressing my luck. I flagged down a guy on a bike who found me a cop to hold the ankle in place until I could get to the emergency room. I am a squeamish person so even I don't know how many bones are broken because I refuse to see the x-rays. Monday I am headed into surgery to put everything back into place.

I want to thank little Toasty for being amazing and taking care of all of the gross talk for me in the ER, my dad for racing up to DC and taking care of me, and my mom for getting me my favorite foods and trashy magazines and anything else I need.

I am trying to look on the bright side of this in terms of getting ready for quals for my PhD candidacy but I'm itching to get back into the lab. I need to take care of myself and my work right now, so unfortunately I'll be taking a brief sabbatical from blogging.

Thanks to everyone who has supported me so far and I'll hope you'll come back when I do!