This Kicks a Cupcake's Ass

We’re having a bit of a staycation while A is in St. Louis. Today while H was doing homework I ran a few errands and then went to a matinee to see Beginners. I was in the same part of town as Mrs. Backer’s Bakery and stopped in for this delicious treat. If you like the frosting piece of a layer cake this one is for you. All sides of the triangle are covered in buttercream and then toasted pecans are pressed into the buttercream. It’s topped with chocolate buttercream and the center is german chocolate cake with the traditional coconut pecan frosting in the middle. As my friend B would say, “It’s so good it’ll make you want to stand up and slap your mama”.

Eating this last night compelled me to exercise this early afternoon in the 100 degree heat, but it was worth it.

Christmas Dessert

Recipe compliments of the Barefoot Contessa -- Delicious!

Breakfast Recipe

Pumpkin – I’ve been obsessed since I returned to America and always have a can of pumpkin on hand. This recipe originates from Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious cookbook but I’ve modified it. Yes, Jerry Seinfeld’s wife wrote a cookbook and if you have picky eaters who won’t eat vegetables, this book is brilliant.


Pumpkin Oatmeal

1 c. skim milk

1/8 c. packed brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

½ c. solid pack pumpkin

Healthy pinch of sea salt

1 c. old fashioned Quaker Oats (not the quick oats)

Mix everything but the oatmeal on a saucepan on medium heat. When it starts to slowly boil, add the oatmeal and cook for two minutes.

If I have time, like on weekends, I will toast some nuts in a pan to put on top, whatever we have in the house. I’ve tried it with pecans, walnuts, and almonds and they’re all good.

This recipe makes two servings.

Be warned, it doesn't look too pretty.  I've had both members of my family walk into the kitchen, look in the saucepan and say, "What is that?!"  I think it's delicious, filling, and has the power of oatmeal and pumpkin in one bowl!

Comfort Food

H has to work on Thanksgiving morning so we’re going out this year. My expectations aren’t super high on the food. I’m focusing on the fact that I don’t have to cook or clean up afterwards.


Monday night we had a home cooked meal that ended up making us feel as full as one does on Thanksgiving and harkened back to our days in Germany. H made pork schnitzel and the spaetzle. I made the braised cabbage. This braised cabbage recipe isn’t as good as H's but his manages to make a vegetable very unhealthy with lots of bacon and butter so I’m including the recipe here that I used which comes from Lydie Marshall’s book, Slow-cooked Comfort. If you make it, do make it a day ahead as she suggests. Enjoy!

Red Cabbage Braised in Balsamic Vinegar

1 ½ pound head of red cabbage

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cups thinly sliced red onions

2 Golden Delicious apples about 1 pound, cut into 1/4-inch cubes (3 cups)

½ cup golden raisins or currants (I omitted this)

1 cup balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Discard the tough outer cabbage leaves; cut out and discard the core. Split the cabbage into six wedges and shred very thin; you should have about 16 cups.

Heat the butter and oil in a 7 ¼-quart Dutch oven over medium heat. Stir in the onions and add 2 tablespoons water. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes or so, until the onions are wilted.

Add the cabbage, apples, and raisins to the onions and stir. Add the vinegar; sprinkle with sugar, salt, and pepper; and stir.

Cover and simmer slowly for 2 ½ hours, checking the cabbage and first adding ½ cup water after 1 hour of cooking, then again every half hour.

Let stand at least 12 hours to develop flavor before reheating.

Buh-bye Buttah

After force feeding me butter for about a year calling it homework, I get back to the States, get my cholesterol checked and am told by the doctor that no medication is necessary, but through diet and exercise I need to drop my cholesterol by about 30 points. H, on the other hand who has been eating the same things goes and gets his checked and it’s great. Where’s the justice? While I enjoyed every mouthful, it’s time to pay the piper.


Work has been tense and I made a decision when I got back that I would start working on things I could control like the cholesterol bit. A and I have started working out at rec center and I thought I would take it a step further and hire a personal trainer, one rec center has on hand. My first discussion with J went something like this. I can’t afford to hire you for a weekly appointment but I need some accountability and would like someone to help design challenging workouts for me so I’d like to meet with you every month. J is great. She’s perky but not too perky. She’s encouraging but not easy on me. By the end of the workout, I hate her guts. After my first appointment I walked in my bare feet around the house like I had high heels on because my calves were unbelievably sore. It has been a good investment because the exercises she has me do really are things I would have never challenged myself to do. When I’m in the weight room I’m actually out of breath during my workout, something I’ve never experienced before.

So, what’s the end result? I’m a work in progress, LOL. I should be proud that I’ve been making fitness a priority since June, and that’s probably the longest stretch in my life. Have the pounds just melted away? No, but my stress level has decreased. I was doing pretty good cutting back nutritionally until all of the company rolled into town. Now I’m struggling to bring that back in line. I’ll get there.

Good Morning All You Breakfast Lovers!

I’ve always loved going out for breakfast and have enjoyed starting back that weekend tradition. There’s something so satisfying about the morning paper, the endless cup of coffee, the waitress calling you “hon” that feels like home.

We’ve been trying out some of the local places and one that’s mighty popular is a place called Ruth’s Diner in Emigration Canyon which has been featured on Diner’s Drive-ins and Dives. They are known for their biscuits, which I thought were pretty tasty but different than a southern biscuit. While the location and the restaurant were charming, we weren’t blown away by the food. H has become pretty particular about the way his eggs are cooked and his over easy eggs had been cooked to death.

The lunch menu looks good and because the location is so beautiful I’d like to try it one more time before I decide whether it’s suffered from its success. On to the next place!

Street Food in SLC

Oh Mexican food, how I've missed you!

For a buck at one of the taco carts in downtown SLC you get a double layer of small soft corn tortillas, some grilled meat, and any condiments you want complete with tomatillo sauce, pico de gallo, grilled jalapenos, etc. Delicious! The day I went along there was a guy in line in front of us who had a shaved head covered with a massive tattoo of a Mexican bandit, so it was a visual as well as a culinary experience.

Food, American Food

I will probably have quite a bit to say on this topic. Where do I begin? Let’s start with Sizzler because it fed right into the stereotype that the rest of the world has about how America eats. Sizzler is still alive and kicking in the American West. I remember when it first arrived on the scene, a step up from Ponderosa. H loves a good salad bar and suggested we go there for an early dinner on our first weekend. It’s funny how at that place, even though there have been tons of additions to the salad bar that make it a sufficient dinner option all in itself I found myself making the same salad I made when I ate there in say 1984, lettuce, a few tomatoes on the side, some blue cheese dressing and sunflower seeds sprinkled over the top. I noticed a table sitting nearby who came back to sit with huge salad mounds like four inches tall at least on their plate all dripping with dressing so there was no recognizable vegetable, sides of wings, asking for extra Texas toast and drinking huge endless glasses of soda. This was all before their meals arrived. It made me sick just watching it. H came back from the salad bar with a salad on his plate and some guacamole on another plate and said that while he was up there, even though they had guacamole on the salad bar a woman reached up and grabbed a whole avocado from the veggie display around the salad bar and put it on her plate. I couldn’t get over that.


But falling into a stereotype myself (Americans only eat burgers). We live close to a local institution, a burger stand called Hire’s Big H. They have a dining room or you can park and flash your lights and get car service. H & A had visited before I did and raved about it. Finally a few weeks ago we all visited. The first thing A said was, “they’ve got the good ice”. They serve their drinks with that ice that’s small and kind of like gravel. The burger was rich and divine. I got it with all the fixins including sautéed onions, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and fry sauce. Fry sauce is a unique Utah condiment, a mixture of ketchup and mayo. It’s so rich it’s up there in the top ten of burgers, but it’s also a once in awhile treat. I’ll be planning my next visit soon.

Love Bakery

Cupcakes seem to be all the rage on both sides of the Atlantic. A and I stopped in this adorable and tiny bakery on the Kings Road in Chelsea when we were in search of Rupert Grint. I was chatting with the lady working that day and she was telling me that Michael Caine was a regular at the chocolate shop next store. His favourite treat – the sugar free chocolate.  We bought two cupcakes, an oreo and a red velvet.  Who can resist red velvet especially when it has sparkly frosting?  I didn't try either but they got two thumbs up.

Last Full English

H and I took a moment out as we were packing to have breakfast at one of my favourite places close to the office. It’s a beautiful old building and the two ladies that own it are delightful. Very low ceilings! Neither one of us can walk to the counter to pay the bill without injury.

The Cheese Toasty

There’s a gallery/tea room close to work that I’ve visited once before that I haven’t been to in awhile that I ended up having lunch at two days in a row during my last work week and it’s all because of the weather and the sandwich. They make a cheese toasty (think grilled cheese) with a secret cheese blend and sundried tomatoes and it is super fine. It’s also got a nice seating area outside and when the sun is out, there’s nowhere else you want to be. According to the owner’s website, there’s a ghost in the building. But that won’t keep you away, it’s the “service” of the proprietor might. I asked my friend B at work, “Hey, have you ever eaten at The Drawing Room?” She said no and I went on to tell her that in spite of the service it’s still a good place. That made her laugh and she went on to demonstrate the difference between American service and English service. In her opinion English service is much more (in an accusatory tone) “What do you want?!”

Relief Maybe?

After dinner last night we checked nats.co.uk and they’ve cleared the airspace over the UK for flights! So if all remains in motion we’ll be flying on Friday. I cannot wait! I’ve been working in the hotel lobby on their wireless network and have had the opportunity to meet several stranded travellers. We are all happy to have a hotel room but the bills are piling up. I felt particularly sorry for a couple from Phoenix. He’s been in Europe for work and the tour he was working on ended last week in Amersterdam. His girlfriend flew out there to meet up with him and they decided to add a quick stop in London to their trip and got stuck for a week! Of course, because work has ended this is completely on his dime.


We’ve spent some quality time in the area around our hotel and it’s been interesting to be in a working class community that supports all of the posh people of London. I walked down the street the other day looking for lunch and on the busy high street the only language I heard was Polish. We had dinner at a Polish restaurant (my dinner pictured below) and it was the best meal we’ve had this week.

The Flat White

Flat Whites are all the rage in the coffee houses in England. The other morning my buddy A and I had our last coffee together and instead of me getting my normal Americano I went for a flat white. We stood at the counter for ages until finally the exhausted barista said to me that she had finally gotten one to look half-way decent. I explained that as long as it had caffeine I didn’t care what it looked like but she said they weren’t allowed to serve them if they didn’t look nice. I told her that I’d take a pic of my flat white so she wouldn’t feel like her work was in vain. I’ve since had a few more and she is right, some baristas can get pretty fancy.

Dinner at Artichoke

With our move date set (19 April) and lots to do to prepare, H is now done with work. Before we left he wanted to have dinner at the restaurant where he’s been working. It’s getting a lot of attention and we thought with A in France, what better time to have our last fancy meal in England.


We decided we would have the tasting menu and the accompanying wine flight (and taxi home). As the evening approached, whenever the dinner would come up, H would start describing to me one of the courses and how it was made. I had to stop him and explain that I wanted to be surprised. I asked him why he wanted to eat there when the experience would be totally demystified and he had two reasons, one was that he wanted to see how the front of the house worked knowing all he knew about everything else. The second reason, and the most important is that they serve local venison (or they did until last week when the seasonal menu changed).

A few hours before dinner H said that he wanted to take some parting gifts up to the restaurant, some cookies for staff. I asked if he wanted to me to make some homemade chocolate chip cookies. His response was no, we’d stop at the store on the way to the restaurant and pick up some things. He picked up the junkiest junk food like Jaffa Cakes, Haribo, and Krispy Kreme donuts. After paying for these items he slipped them all in a gift bag and me, not knowing what really goes on in a professional kitchen was shocked that he was going to bring that crap into this beautiful establishment.

We were the first seating and had the restaurant to ourselves for a good bit of time. The chef came down to greet us. We had a laugh about the junk food and how much they loved that stuff.

The atmosphere is really lovely, making the most of the historic building but also having a modern twist. We were treated like royalty. I remember the beginning of the evening and the arriving glass of champagne best of all. As the courses came H would describe how they were created which gave me more of an appreciation for all that goes into the preparation. The course I thought I would dread was an early course, primarily beetroot and one that H used to make and has described in detail. I’ve mentioned here before that the English love beetroot (or what we just call beets). I think they taste like dirt. The dish that was put in front of me was a work of art with pieces of beet, goat’s cheese, and some beetroot sorbet which I just couldn’t imagine being good until I tried it. My favourite course was the scallop course which was served with shaved coconut, pickeled carrot, and cilantro. It was amazing. My friend M said it best when I was telling her about the dinner and the accompanying wine with every course, “With that much wine, I forget a few of the courses”. By the end of the meal, the restaurant was completely packed and I was totally drunk. I actually haven’t wanted to look at wine since that night. I remember waking up Saturday morning with my 40th birthday looming large the next day thinking you don’t bounce back like you used to, do you?

Winter Guacamole

Yes, the tomatoes this time of year don’t resemble tomatoes so skip them. Sunday night we had carnitas for dinner and I’m going to call H’s avocado concoction “winter guacamole”. Yum


Dice one ripe avocado and put it in a bowl. Add the juice of half of a lime, two cloves of garlic minced, and chopped cilantro to taste. Mix and mash a little to make it as chunky or smooth as you would like.

Make sure if you’re planning to kiss someone that they eat some of this too!

Boxing Day Bread Lesson

All is quiet on Boxing Day. I asked H if he would teach me how to make bread so we spent the afternoon doing that. We started with a white loaf, then H made a fruit loaf which had dried figs, dates, cherries, cranberries and toasted walnuts, and then finished with a brown loaf. We used a lot of spelt flour and recently stocked up on some flour that was milled locally. I sliced and froze most of the loaves, and what wasn’t frozen made for a delicious dinner paired with the Christmas Day ham. Here’s some pics from the yeast to the finished product.

Random Food Stuff

Want the secret to weight loss? Work five days a week for at least 15 hours a day in a kitchen. H is becoming the incredible shrinking man, which makes me wonder, are they hiring? :)


Recently I read an article in one of the London commuter papers that said that the number one job that people would consider if making a career change was cooking. Now, this survey was conducted at a grocery store so I think their sample might be a little skewed. But watching someone go through that very change makes me think that all of the cooking competitions and the reality shows on television give an unrealistic view of the life of a chef.

H has been making bread at home practicing for work. We’ve both been reading Richard Bertinet’s books about breadmaking. H tried Bertinet’s techniques and said it’s a workout. If you make the bread his way you could probably eat all you wanted. The bread is delicious but even if I never ate a bite, that smell throughout the house is heavenly.

Here’s a new favourite recipe that I tried last weekend. I’m always looking for a good one pot meal and this was great over couscous.

Through blogger I stumbled upon this blog written by an American chef living in Australia. His pics are absolutely gorgeous and the posts are very interesting. If you’re into cooking, check it out.

A New Opportunity

H moved restaurants a few weeks ago. It’s a move into fine dining and it is closer to home so that’s an added bonus. His shifts are long, starting at nine in the morning and not ending until after midnight. A and I stayed up the first night to hear how it went. At one point he was explaining a dish he was plating which had about eight different components on it. As he began A was in the room. She left the room and came back several minutes later and he was still explaining the same dish. Upon her return she said, “Why do you spend so much time on something that will be eaten in thirty seconds?” As H says, “Out of the mouth of babes...”.

They had an event at his restaurant Sunday night and I went up and met him so I got a tour of the place, got to meet his boss as well as Jean-Christophe Novelli who came by for support. Chef Novelli has a new show that is airing on Bravo in the U.S. called Chef Academy.

Dinner Party

My buddy N from the B&B who moved back to New Zealand is here until the first week of January. We had him and his girlfriend J over for dinner Saturday night with my work colleague H who also lived at the B&B and her boyfriend. I had been busy with work and errands so I didn’t even ask H what he was planning to cook. He made everything from scratch, and it was outstanding. Not that I need any new favourite fattening dishes but he made a chicken liver pate with berries that was really delicious. When he brought out individual chocolate lava cakes with raspberry sauce and homemade ice cream the conversation ceased as even the person who said they weren’t crazy about chocolate ate every bite. Can’t do that often, but it was sure delicious and fun!

The Cook's Update

I’ve gotten a lot of questions about H’s job. He is enjoying the work but the hours are very long. He works six days a week and leaves the house about 8am and doesn’t get home until sometimes midnight. The restaurant business is interesting and he’s collecting some stories that’s for sure. I’m always amazed when he comes home and starts telling me a story about the evening and he mentions in passing that he cooked staff dinner or staff breakfast. He has to pick from available ingredients that aren’t too expensive and make a meal. Since I’m a recipe kind of cook and also pretty rusty in the kitchen I would find this the most stressful part of the work day! It doesn’t seem to bother him.


I’ve been enjoying doing some cooking again, although that dread of figuring out what we are going to eat every night always gets to me. Today I had to travel with a colleague to a customer site and both of us were griping about this very thing. He was sharing with me his go-to recipes when he’s out of ideas and I was doing the same.