don’t update readers just yet, but check out the new digs

http:// prissycook.com/wordpress

At least four other people rode their bikes to work today. So, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not monumental that I rode my bike to work today, but in my little world it was super exciting. And what was more exciting than that was that I rode it to work toting my April Cupcake Hero entry: Prickly Pear Lemon Cupcakes.

There was some definite engineering that happened before this bike ride began this morning. I have a front basket on my bike, so it seemed logical that I tie them to that. I also choose a cupcake caddy that had deep wells, so that they would stay in place during the journey. But the best plans don’t always work out. Some where between Chandler and Gilbert the sidewalk/bike lane literally ended and I had to go off road. You can see that there were a few of them that took a tumble.

But it was actually fun watching them bounce around. By the time I made it to the office, they had all bounced upside down and right side up again. And that caddy stayed in place the whole way. It was interesting for me to see how many different ways I could go green with this challenge. Here’s some of the eco-friendly things that went into these babies:

• Choose a prickly pear product that was bottled within 100 miles of Phoenix (eat local)
• Selected locally grown lemons from a local farmer’s market (eat local)
• Used silicone cupcake cups rather than using paper (reduce/reuse)
• Rode my bike to work to transport these little babies to the office (reduce)

Prickly Pear Lemon Cupcakes

These cupcakes were so moist and the lemon flavor zinged. I think I am officially hooked on prickly pear syrup (margaritas and iced tea posts here). The flavor is subtlety sweet. I choose a lemon cake recipe from Chockylit and made a simple butter cream and added in the prickly pear syrup. I chose this frosting because I wanted the prickly pear taste to stand out and I see a buttercream like a good paint primer, it’s a frosting that helps whatever you mix in really stand out.

Lemon Cupcakes
12 regular cupcakes / 350 degree oven

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ cup milk
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
zest of one lemon

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
2. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. Measure out milk and vanilla.
5. Add flour mixture and milk alternatively, beginning and ending with flour mixture.
6. Mix in lemon juice.
7. Fill the ice cream cones about 1/2 inch from the top (just over the lower ridge). Tap the cones to ensure the batter fills the bottom. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.

Note: The batter makes 12 regular cupcakes.

This is my April 2008 Cupcake Hero Entry for Earth Day!

“I don’t know why anybody would eat fish that comes from warm water.” I had never thought about the difference between cold water and warm water fish until on day when we were talking about food, Alaska born Molly said that. I’m not much of a fish eater anyways. I love shell fish and you’d be hard pressed to find a fried shrimp basket on the Texas Gulf Coast that I haven’t tried. But I’ve never been a big fan of any type of fish filet.

I feel badly for my parents who love fish. They would literally wait for me to sleep over at friend’s home or go to summer camp and I think they would eat fish every night I was gone. As I’ve gotten older, I’m trying to branch out a little more. I like tuna sushimi, California and spicy tuna rolls and I’ll eat squid salad.

A few years back I got the South Beach Diet Cookbook. It was an interesting read and there are several recipes I absolutely love. One of those is the Spinach stuffed Salmon fillets. This recipe is so super simple, tasty and perfect for a busy weeknight dinner. It literally takes from start to finish about 15 minutes.

Process:

Take one salmon fillet and split it in the center. Squeeze out the excess water in one package of spinach, mix in two table spoons of pesto, a tablespoon of pine nuts, salt and pepper to taste. Stuff the mixture into the salmon and bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes or less.

Oh and Big Ups to EricaLucci for her new job and for taking the bus to work. Woot!

Sometimes I watch the Weather Channel. Not often. It’s one of those channels you don’t realize is on, don’t know how it got there, but nonetheless, it’s on. Sorta like when NPR turns off and switches to jazz. You’re still listening until something jolts and you switch the station.

So, it had to have been during one of those episodes when I saw these crazy storms starting in Central Texas and going all the up through Missouri. Michigan and Minnesota are still with freezing temperatures. It’s crazy. But in Arizona, things are as predictable as always. Today was our first official 90 degree day and in another two weeks we’ll be flirting with 100 and we all know too well what happens once we hit the century mark…oy.

Before we’re all confined to our air conditioned homes, this is the time of year where everybody is outside enjoying the weather. Neighbors grill outside, kids play in pool and the sunsets become more amazing. Right now it feels like a lazy Spring evening.

I grew up in a house where there was always iced tea in the refrigerator. Our brand is Lipton. I don’t brew tea all the time, but through the summer, I usually have some on hand. I used to be a two teaspoon of sugar and squeeze of Minute Maid Lemon, but now I’m a Splenda and take it or leave it lemon. My mom is totally hooked on mixing in a spoonful of Minute Maid Lemonade mix into her tea. Her own quick Arnold Palmer (or if you’re from Baltimore a Half and Half).

What I did here is just take a simple Arnold Palmer and mix in Prickly Pear syrup. The syrup has a subtle sweetness, so I didn’t have to add any sugar or sweetener to the mix. For every 10 oz. of tea, I added 1 T of syrup and a quarter of a lemon. It was so refreshing and light.

I hope that if you’re reading this from a state that’s still stuck in the craziness of Spring weather that you remember this when the weather finally turns. Cheers!

Sara and Pat flew down for breakfast this morning from Tucson. The last time Pat attempted a visit I had to rescue him from Eloy’s covert Guinea Pig farms. So, a simple breakfast sounded nice. We met at Hangar Cafe, which is the diner style restaurant at the Chandler Airport. Not many (any) of my friends have babies except for Sara, so it’s always fun to see how fast the tot is growing and how fast he move.

They’ve conditioned him from birth to be in the air. Sara was 7 months pregnant and franticly trying to finish her private pilot’s license before she gave birth. Me on the other hand, if the commercials switch too quickly on the television I get a little queasy.

But I couldn’t resist an invitation to go up in the air and Pat is an excellent pilot. It was really a great experience. Pat was good about walking us through our safety briefing, explaining the instrument panel and letting everyone feel like they were taking part in the adventure.

I know I was green the whole trip, but I was so much fun going up with them. They’re so passionate about flying and made such an effort to make me as comfortable as possible. And as for the tot, do you think we already know what he’s going to be when he grows up?

“You’re so tall.” I don’t know how many times Molly must hear that in a week and for a chick, she IS tall. It’s so obvious that she’s tall, that for me it cracks me up every time someone feels obligated to mention it to her. It’s the equivalent to saying to a person, “You have two arms.”

Seriously.

But this post isn’t about what irks me about how people address Molly. It’s about MOLLY’S BIRTHDAY! She lived in Dallas at the same time I did. I lived off Greenville Ave and she lived in Uptown. The neighborhoods are different (Tudor homes versus Brownstones) but if you lived in one, you found yourself going out in the other. It’s highly likely that we were at the same places at the same time.

On Molly’s website, she states that her favorite food is Red Velvet Cake and Wingstop wings. While I can’t figure out how to ship wings, I do know how to get her the cake.

This cake was made from a Sprinkles! cupcake mix I purchased at Williams & Sonoma. At $14 dollars for the mix alone, not counting the frosting and adding in the wet ingredients.  I’ll post a review on their box mixes later. Cost aside, this cake mix is moist and tasty. The cream cheese frosting is traditional and flawless.

Weekend negotiations. I love them so much more than I like the ones that happen at the office. I don’t know what happened to me this week, but I didn’t do any chores around the house, laundry is piled high and there are at least five coffee cups in the sink and the mail is still piled not even opened.

For me that means that today is the day I’ve got to start digging out of this mess. And what’s so hard about it, is that the temperatures are mild outside, the wind is strong and it’s just too perfect to be bogged down with housework. Hence, the negotiations started.

“Just get the kitchen finished, get a load of laundry in the machine and tidy the living room.”  I told  myself that if I got those things done, I could do a bit more tomorrow and be fine. My motivation was the new bottle of Cheri’s Prickly Pear Syrup in the fridge.

I don’t know what made me think about prickly pears, but I found myself searching Phoenix for the past month trying to find either a prickly pear petal (tuna) or prickly pear syrup. I searched at the local grocery store, the organic store and finally found the syrup at a high end grocery store. If you’re flying thought Tuscon or Phoenix Arizona you can find prickly pear syrup at the gift shops in the airport. It’s worth grabbing a bottle.

Cheri’s Prickly Pear Syrup was just under $8 for 12 oz. I have plans to see how many different ways I can use this ingredient. Todays agenda was to reward myself for getting the housework done with a Prickly Pear Margarita. I love margaritas and have had several experiments over the years. You can review previous posts here, here, and here.

The recipe I found on the Cheri’s website was straight forward and easy. That bright pink color is amazing! The margarita has a punch, but it drinks light because there’s no simple syrup in the recipe.

PRICKLY PEAR MARGARITAS
Cafe Terra Cotta Restaurant
3 oz. Jose Cuervo Gold Tequila
2 oz. Triple Sec
4 oz. Lime Juice
1 oz. Orange Juice
2 oz. Cheri’s Prickly Pear Syrup
On rocks: Mix ingredients, pour over ice into 4 glasses.
Makes 4 servings.

There’s a coffee shop by my house has a board up for patrons to write down song lyrics they thought said something else. If this was a contest, I know I would win hands down! Nobody can mess up a song like I can. A few years ago I got a red convertible, and named it Cherry Pie. To compliment this new little zippy thing, I downloaded a lot of songs with the word “cherry.”

You can guess a few right? “She’s my cherry pie” by Warrant and “Cherry Baby” by Erick Donaldson. And there was one song I couldn’t find, no matter how much I searched for it. I searched by artist, I searched by key word and no luck. One day I was at the office and I had it and I asked a co-worker if they would help me. I told them about the mix tape I was making for my car and that I wanted to find one more song, “Sweet Cherry Pie.”

“Sweet Cherry Pie?” Yeah you know the one, “Sweet Cherry Pie. Da da da. I think that Neil Diamond sings it.” Only to hear in reply, “Every body in the USA knows that the song is Sweet Caroline.”

I adapted the recipe below from the published Sprinkle’s Strawberry Cupcake recipe.  Previously, when I made this recipe I used fresh strawberries and I didn’t feel that the strawberry taste was pronounced enough. So, with this adaptation I used frozen cherries. And, the taste was still very mild. I think maybe it would have been stronger if I had used cherry pie filling instead, but I don’t know.

Cherry Cupcake Recipe

Makes 1 dozen

• 2/3 cup whole fresh or frozen cherries, thawed
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1/4 cup whole milk, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 2 large egg whites, room temperature

It’s a very busy night. I’ve got Cupcake Week on Martha Stewart on the DVR. American Idol is on and tonight is the season premier of Hell’s Kitchen! Whew! In honor of Cupcake Week however on MS, I think it’s important to talk about cupcake essentials.

My favorite kitchen essentials are my OXO non-slip bowls. I’ve got two sets of the three graduated sizes. I like that they’re light and stackable. Most cupcake (cake) recipes call for the butter and sugar to be mixed separate from the dry ingredients. These bowls are the perfect for sifting flour and other stuff. Finally, these bowls have a pouring tip on them. When I’m making a cake recipe that’s runnier, I don’t have to scoop out the batter; I can just pour it out.

Another cupcake essential (or pet peeve) is good baking cups. I hate it when a cake sticks to the liner. I’ve had my share of using Reynold’s Baking Cups and I think that if I was only making cupcakes every now and again, they would be fine. But I’m baking every week and I’m not always baking the nice and simple box cake recipe: Sometimes cake recipes are dense, sometimes they’re sticky and other times they’re just messy. My favorite baking cups have been Beyond Gourmet Unbleached Baking Cups and for fun these Fluted Baking Cups. I’ve got two sets of silicone baking cups, but I think they’re a pain to wash.

Finally and I blame this blog, for my mostest essential baking item. My camera. I use a little point and shoot Kodak and I love it. It’s got two settings that I use most when shooting food; Auction and Bright Flower. I feel that it shoots a picture that’s clear and I don’t have to play with too many settings. I use a few free photo editing packages to clean up the pictures, but for the most part I like how it takes pictures. You might like to read this blog post about how to take pictures of food too, Photojojo.

So, what I want to know from you is what can you not live without in your kitchen?

…so you know it’s going to be a good thing!

I’m so excited that it’s going to be Cupcake Week on Martha Stewart. I’ve set my DVR and I’m ready to see what’s cooking in the kitchen and who she’ll bring on to interview. And because it’s Martha, you know that the decorations will be perfect and the flavors will be decadent. And there’s even a Cutest Cupcake Contest this week. I’m going to be so stoked if one of the blogs I read has a winning entry!

If you’re so inclined, here’s my entry into the contest. You can go to the Martha website and vote or comment on my entry.

Do you have an entry? Let me know!