This is a news story I found interesting.  California state Senator Carole Migden authored a bill to name Zinfandel the state.  Wow!  That’s fun, a state wine. Does that mean that at State Fairs, you’d have wine drinking contests, a wine queen and even a wine stomping competition?  Pack up the bags honey, we’re movin’ to California!

But, don’t pack up too quick, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill only saying that zinfandel was a significant, historic wine, but that a commercial product shouldn’t be listed as representative of the state.

To see more on this story, check out what the San Francisco Chronicle has to say about it, here.

Here are some fun wine stats found in Wikipedia:

• United States holds about 5% of the world’s export in wine
• California produces 90% of that total export amount
• The most consumed wine in the US is chardonnay
• Christmas 2005 after the movie Sideways, Pinot sales went up 20%

Here’s a picture of Hubby with baby cousin with a nice tall glass of vino.  I bet that this is from an El Torro magnum bottle from CostCo (my grandparents taste buds aren’t so discriminating). 

We live in the Arcadia area of Phoenix.  Historically, this area was all citrus farms.  The neighborhoods are all still laid out for irrigation.  So, it’s funny to turn into our neighborhood in the middle of the desert and see green grass, and tall trees.  One nice bonus is that we have quite a few citrus trees.  We have an orange, tangelo and lemon.  While it’s not citrus season yet, you can still buy it all reasonably cheap this time of year.

So, a bushle of lemons and one Martha Stewart Baking Cookbook later, I’ve got myself a project.

I decided to attempt to make a Lemon Curd Cake, partically after seeing the Cupcake Queen’s success with Lime Curd Coconut Cupcakes, and partically because of said bushel of lemons.

After jumping head first into this recipe, I remembered how many steps Martha baking involved.  It’s not just add this, mix that and whip it all together.  It’s add part of that, separate this, then put it back together kind of cooking.

What I’ve found so far, is that I have to bake her cakes about 10-12 minutes longer than the book recommends.  The crumb of the cake is dense, but not as moist as other recipies.  So far I’ve had a lot of luck with the Williams Sonoma basic cake recipies.  Maybe I’ll try that next time.

The funnest part of this recipe was making the lemon curd.  I tried to find how this type of curd differed from say a dairy base curd, but didn’t have a lot of luck.  Here’s the recipe from Martha’s cookbook:

8 large egg yolks
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
1 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 sticks (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cold, cut into pieces

Combine yolks, lemon zest, lemon juice an dsugar in a heavy-bottom saucepan; whisk to combine.  Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, untilthe mixture is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon, 8 to 10 minutes.  It should register 160 degrees on an instant-readthermometer.

Remove sauce pan from heat.  Add salt and butter, one piece at a time, stirring until smooth.  Strain through a fine sieve into a medium bowl.  Cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly onto the surface of the curd to prevent a skin from forming.  Regrigerate until chilled and set, at least 1 hour or up to 1 day.

One lesson I learned here, was that when they said a “fine sieve” they didn’t mean a cheesecloth.  It was too fine and the curd was too heavy for the cloth.  I made a last minute switch to a mesh metal strainer and that worked much better.  The curd was the consistancy of a mousse, it was tangy and bright.  It was actually quite pretty.

I combined the cake, the curd and a lemon icing that called for 4 sticks of butter!

 Now I’ve got this cake that’s bigger than most  babies, and I should have taken to work to share, but I can’t.  I’m selfish.

Have fun!

This weekend has been a busy one.  Hubby and I started this weekend with a date night, how romantic.  We went to Morton’s at the Esplanade.  Dinner was good, right, everything you’d expect from a great steak house.  I had the prime rib and he had a rib-eye.  The souffle was awesome, but the belle of the ball was a 2003  Franciscan Cabernet.  It’s cherry undertones were very pronounced and it was very smooth.

Saturday, we were invited to a birthday party.  The guest of honor hails from the Pacific Northwest and spent a good amount of time in Alaska.  That said, he’s a fish snob.  I guess when you grow up with the good stuff, it’s hard to turn back.  So, in a effort to please, we got him a gift certificate to the Alaska Salmon Company.  It’s a family owned fish company right off of 32nd Street and Camelback.  They get new shipments in almost daily and most fish is on display only 8 hours after being caught.  I think it’s amazing.  I think it’s great.   I’ll report back in once, I get the final verdict from the expert.

For dinner, we celebrated at Maggiano’s Little Italy.  I’d only been there for drinks and appetizers, and had no clue on the amount of food that would soon be coming to our table!  We ordered family style and had so much good stuff.  We had fried cheese, veal and mushroom ravioli, pastas, beef medallions and roasted chicken.  Featured wine was a 2005 Robert Modavi Pinot, it was only $30 and fantastic.  Dessert almost put me over the edge!  There were so many great choices; Cheesecake, Boston Cream Pie, Banana Pound cake, Apple tarts.   I had been quiet the whole dinner, allowed everyone else to choose our entrees.  Now, we were at the part of the meal where I had an OPINION.  We, ahem, I choose the cheesecake and the apple tart.  They did not disappoint.

Now it’s Sunday, and I finally get a minute to be the captain of my own ship.  I finally have a block of time, where I can get into the kitchen.  Yesterday morning, I finally made it to the Roadrunner Park Farmer’s Market. 

Roadrunner Park Farmer’s Market

It’s a far cry from the Dallas Farmer’s Market, that for a while Hubby and I could walk to, but it looked like a nice group of growers and home cooks.  There were a few fresh produce stands with bushels of okra, egg plant and cabbage.  There were also stands where local cooks were marketing their secret sauces and seasonings.  I found Molly’s Tamale’s, where they had fresh, beef, pork, bean, and chicken tamales.  I snatched up a few, and had the beginning of some great inspiration.  I found another stand selling, Nana’s Sassy Salsa.  We had met Nana at a party back last fall, and it was nice seeing her again.  I snatched up a jar of her Pineapple Margarita Salsa.  So, between loads of laundry and other domestic chores, I hope to put together a tasty dinner. 

Have a good week, y’all!

I’m on a mission to discover good food and fellow foodies in Phoenix. It’s not proving to be an easy task. I’ll blame it on the scorching dessert sun (for now).

So, where does one go, in search of previously mentioned food and foodies; A food festival.

Phoenix Cooks is an event whose beneficiary is the Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Proceeds come from the selling of merchandise, tickets and specialty sessions.

General Admission tickets include access to all the food and wine tastings, marketplace and wine and dessert rooms. Advanced purchase tickets cost $65 + tax. New this year are Food Forum sessions. These sessions are sponsored by various 4 to 5 star hotels or other local kitchen moguls. The sessions are 30 minutes and cost $5 + tax. I signed up for Knife Skills being presented by the Scottsdale Culinary Institute and Desserts of the Mediterranean sponsored by the Royal Palms Resort.

In total, the whole day set us back $162.18. For more information, you can visit their website, Phoenix Cooks.

It’s nights like this that make me want to shout, “My kitchen smells better than yours!” I’ve really been craving Indian food lately, and we’ve found a few spots in the metro area that have great food, but nothing really within our bubble. So, I’ve taken matters into my own hands.

Tonight we’re having Chicken Masala with Rice, Peach Lassies and Vanilla-spice ice cream. My staple Indian item is usually a vindaloo, but I’m having personal issues with peppers lately, so we’re on a bit of a time-out.

I learned some new things with this dinner, I found that Chicken Tiki Masala differs from Chicken Masala mainly with ginger being the main contributor to that. Cooking methods other than that are the same. For the masala I’m using a recipe from Sandra Lee:

4 chicken breast halves without skin
1/3 cup all-purpose flour, for dredging
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 onion, chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon garam masala seasoning, plus 2 teaspoons
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
1/2 cup cream of chicken soup,condensed
1 cup light coconut milk
Salt and pepper
1 cup frozen peas
Cooked white rice, to serve

Place chicken breasts and flour in zip-top bag. Shake until chicken is coated with flour. Remove from bag, shaking off excess flour and set aside. Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. When oil is hot, add the chicken breasts and fry until golden brown on both sides. Remove chicken to a plate and set aside. Add the onion and garlic to the pan and cook until soft. Add the garam masala, tomatoes, soup, coconut milk, and salt and pepper to taste and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and return the chicken breasts to the pan. Simmer for 15 minutes, then add the frozen peas. Return to a simmer and cook for an addition 10 minutes. Serve hot with white rice.

While all this is cooking, my husband has whipped up a cool Peach Lassie. He’s been to India for business and has never heard of this drink, but here’s what Wikipedia had to say about it,

Lassi is a traditional South Asian beverage, originally from Punjab, India/Pakistan, made by blending yogurt with water, salt, and spices until frothy. Yogurt is mentioned in ancient Indian texts, and so is buttermilk. Yogurt sweetened with honey is used in Hindu rituals. Lassi, the salted watery version, was probably introduced by the Turks in India, (lassi is similar to Ayran). Traditional lassi is sometimes flavored with ground roasted cumin. The Lassi of the Punjab sometimes uses a little milk and is topped with a thin layer of ‘Malai’ — a clotted cream — also known as Devonshire Cream. Lassis are enjoyed chilled as a hot-weather refreshment. With a little turmeric powder mixed in, it is also used as a treatment of gastroenteritis.
Dessert was different. How’s that for a description? It’s sorta like seeing someone’s prized (insert strange collection here) and saying, “wow, that’s nice.” I don’t know what to name it other than a Chai-vanilla ice cream.

I whipped up a basic vanilla ice cream recipe, from my Krump’s user’s guide and added these ingredients,

1 pint vanilla ice cream
1/4 cup brewed Chai tea, chilled
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Sliced almonds for garnish

I like the idea of rich, multi-flavored, savory ice cream, and I bet my friends over at Ice Cream Ireland, would be happy with my experimenting. It just didn’t give that finish that I was looking for, I think I wanted the savory with a sweet finish.

Left overs are going to be so good.

I love a good margarita and besides a few of them, I’ve haven’t found many that I haven’t really enjoyed. Our friends C&K make a really good one, it’s a lime-tequila drink with a splash of orange liquor. Recently, I’ve been, testing a similar recipe, I found from Mesa Grill and it’s pretty yummy. What I like about it is that it has a stronger citrus base, limes, lemons and oranges.

So, while I was visiting A in Minnesota, her dad found this “Libation” in the Wall Street Journal. It was a orange-based margarita.

We made this one not with an anajo tequila, which has a smoother taste, but choose a nice mid-grade El Tesoro (the treasure). I think the, smoother higher grade anajo would have been lost in the deep orange flavor, the younger tequila had a bit more kick to it and you could taste it in this drink.

I’ll get the Mayor to send me the exact recipe to post later. He found it in the August 12th issue of the WSJ.

“Do you want to go to Minnesota?” my friend A asked, and I said, “I’ve never even thought about going there.” I mean why would a girl from Texas ever consider going to Minnesota? Next thing I knew, I had my ticket and I was ready to head onto my next adventure.

“Oh look a duck!” I said when I got off the plane, where A exclaimed, “That’s a loon. It’s the state bird.” You learn something new everyday, I suppose.

“Are we going to go on a canoe?” I asked one morning, “She said sure in Wisconsin, there’s a great spot.” How exciting, I didn’t know I’d get two state visits for the price of one.

“How about a Mint Julep?” her dad asked me one evening, and that’s when I finally paused and thought, “That doesn’t quite go together does it. Kentucky society Mint Juleps in Minnesota.” And, that’s when I got my lesson on one of St. Paul’s famous fathers, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I hear that somewhere in Chapter 7, there is a Mint Julep reference. I don’t know, I picked up the book this weekend, and I’m only on Chapter 3.

Now, here’s part two of the Julep story. A’s dad is known as the mayor of the block, he keeps up how people are doing, knows where all the kids go to college and greets the mailman at the door. A few nights a week, impromptu “townhall” meetings commence on their front steps. People walking, biking or strolling seem to just stop at the mayor’s house. What they find there is good conversation and good refreshments.

It really does have that great small town feel to it. Everyone watches out for one another and they truly care about how the others are doing.

I’m glad I went.

My dad calls my husband and I D.I.N.Ks (double income no kids) and that’s his nice way of saying that we’ve got nothing better to spend our money on except what we want. Well that’s the funny part, we’ll spend money on the house, the travel, we like to eat out and we drink too much good wine. BUT what we don’t do is buy things because of the label or trend. That all came to an end this weekend, you see hubby went to Vegas and got momma a Louis. I’ve never had one, in fact, I’ve never been in the store.

No matter how good it feels let me tell you, it was the most uncomfortable I’ve felt shopping EVER. I felt when I walked in that suddenly, everything on my being wasn’t good enough. And I had some sales person, talking to me about how personal Louis Vuitton bags are and how there’s one for every personality. My internal dialogue is that they all sorta look the same?

That didn’t stop me though, I got over that really quick and finally decided on this one, my new little baby, Louis.

Funny, I always thought my first baby’s name would be John?

I need your help! This little guy is part of a training guide re-write, re-style we’ve been working on. You see, I haven’t always had a passion for penguins. I mean I don’t wish the little guys any harm, but I’m not part of any penguin activist group. That was until the creative services team at my company created this guy and mi corazon derritio.

Brainy penguin was the first one and to show my appreciation, sacrificed doing my laundry to make cinnamon cupcakes, freaking Martha Stewart cinnamon cupcakes. That’s not easy people. She turns her damn cupcakes every 10 minutes in the oven so they cook evenly.

So now it’s time that I need another penguin, I wanted one to put next to exercises the students would use to learn about our products. Look at what they came up with, I mean seriously, with his little stubby worthless wings just flapping away.

Here’s the ransom part. I get a note on Monday at work that says that if I want to see more penguins I have to deliver brownies. Not just any brownies, but ones without nuts or any other junk. Just good old fashion brownies.

I did it…I made them freaking brownies to feed my sick-sick penguin addiction.

help.

I’m actually learning a lot in this little venture of mine. I had a German cookbook I bought off the sale rack at Barnes and Noble for $6.99 and had a great forward that explained a lot of the agriculture in the region and what types of foods are staples in the region…one recipe that caught my eye was the KirschTorte (kirsch= cherry and torte=cake). It looked like it had potential- chocolate, cherries and vanilla whipped cream.

Now that I knew where I wanted to start, I went searching for different recipe’s to find the right combination. I came across one at, Andrea’s Recipe Box, and what a coincidence is that she made one earlier this past week.

But my searching wasn’t over, I had to find black cherries and I wasn’t hopeful. When I was doing my staples run at Safeway, I found a jar of cherry pie filling to have just in case I couldn’t find the right variety. I knew that if I was to have any luck, I’d have to go to my favorite overpriced gourmet grocery store, AJs.

Jackpot, you wouldn’t believe what was on display when I walked in, freshly imported jars of black cherries! Can you believe my luck?

I got to cooking following Andrea’s recipe and it took a lot of concentration. There were phases and steps and this before that and not this before that. Oy! The recipe calls for cooking one cake and cutting the cake into layers. I picked up a tip from our friend Martha. She says that if you place toothpicks around the cake, that will help guide your cutting. No more lopsided layers.

So the cake isn’t as dense as a pound cake and isn’t as light as a regular sheet cake, it’s somewhere in the middle, you could call it a mittletorte (mittle= middle). The cake is actually quite pretty with the whipped frosting and chocolate shavings. I didn’t take time to create the same decorative edge Andrea did and I didn’t reserve cherries to garnish the rim. I’m not that advanced. It’s hard enough for me to just get the steps in order!

Now that I got the most important part of dinner out of the way, I cooked a main dish, it was a leg of lamb with a gherkin sauce (gherkin= pickle). That sauce, it didn’t look too appetizing, I must admit. Have you ever sauteed pickles, mixed in flour and then added broth? It made this lighter than mustard yellow gravy. Don’t let looks deceive you, it was actually very good.

I had all this ready on queue for when my husband came home from a “conference” in Las Vegas. I must say, this “conference” really worked out for me, look what he brought home!!! It’s my first Louis!