"17: I have never been here before:
my breath comes differently,
the sun is outshone by a star beside it."

Franz Kafka (via kimbus2000)

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Smashed Chickpea and Avocado Sandwich recipe mmm

(Source: vegandailynews, via courtneyannabelle)

anditslove:

chocolate chip cookie dough truffles.

World Peace Cookies →

Need to make these stat. Yesterday stat. Found them whilst searching for the perfect shortbread recipe. Just after I was thinking about how I’ve only ever had Lorna Doone’s. Who IS Lorna Doone??

“While world peace is truly a lofty and admirable goal, it’s unfortunately not cutting it in my apartment as if you were standing in front of me holding one, I would probably try to take it from you. (Just ask my husband.) I don’t know if it because this is another frantic entry in those 28-day, must eat chocolate or else I will die, files or because they are the best chocolate cookie I have eaten in my entire life but there is nothing peaceful about my relationship to them.”

Love me some smitten kitchen. Though it seems she blocked her site for reblogging on tumblr, which is really strange. Otherwise there would be pictures of how amazing and wonderful they look posted here. Too much incoming THINGSTOCOOKLATER traffic, probably. Must investigate more.

-k

Not So Humble Pie: Royal Icing 101: Space Invaders

A guide to intricate icing, which is exactly the opposite of what I’m about to do.

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Ingredients 8 potatoes, peeled and cubed
4 cups chicken broth
1 pound bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
3 leeks, sliced
1 cup heavy cream

Directions In a large saucepan or stockpot, bring potatoes and chicken broth to a boil. Cook until potatoes are tender. Meanwhile, place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, reserving 3 tablespoons of grease and set aside. Sautee the leeks in the frying pan with the reserved bacon grease 8 to 10 minutes.

When the potatoes are tender, stir in the fried leeks, heavy cream and bacon. Stir to blend and remove from heat. Serve hot.

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Creamy Potato Leek Soup II Recipe - Allrecipes.com

Just made this and it was DELICIOUS and easy. Perfect texture too if you cube the potatoes really small and then use a potato masher to make it to your liking.

Changes:

Substituted veg boullion for chicken broth, skipped the bacon, cut down the heavy cream to 1/2 cup and used 1/2 cup 2% milk. Sauteed the leeks in a tiny bit of butter and a lot of olive oil with 2 cloves pressed garlic. 

Top with shredded cheddar cheese and fresh cut chives or just serve plain. Delicious!

mushroom bourguignon | smitten kitchen

Hi! 

This is Kelsey. And this is my first post here. And let me tell you: THIS RECIPE MIGHT CHANGE MY LIFE, AND YOURS.

Mushroom Bourguignon

The best part about this — well, besides all of it, if I can so humbly say — is that it’s a bourguignon without the heft of beef, but all of the indulgence. Plus, since you don’t need to braise it in the oven for three hours, it can be a weekday night dinner. And you can serve it to vegetarians. And nobody will miss a thing.

Serves 4

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter, softened
2 pounds portobello mushrooms, in 1/4-inch slices (save the stems for another use) (you can use cremini instead, as well)
1/2 carrot, finely diced
1 small yellow onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup full-bodied red wine
2 cups beef or vegetable broth (beef broth is traditional but vegetable to make it vegetarian; it works with either)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (1/2 teaspoon dried)
1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup pearl onions, peeled (thawed if frozen)
Egg noodles, for serving
Sour cream and chopped chives or parsley, for garnish (optional)

Heat the one tablespoon of the olive oil and one tablespoon of butter in a medium Dutch oven or heavy sauce pan over high heat. Sear the mushrooms until they begin to darken, but not yet release any liquid — about three or four minutes. Remove them from pan.

Lower the flame to medium and add the second tablespoon of olive oil. Toss the carrots, onions, thyme, a few good pinches of salt and a several grinds of black pepper into the pan and cook for 10, stirring occasionally, until the onions are lightly browned. Add the garlic and cook for just one more minute.

Add the wine to the pot, scraping any stuck bits off the bottom, then turn the heat all the way up and reduce it by half. Stir in the tomato paste and the broth. Add back the mushrooms with any juices that have collected and once the liquid has boiled, reduce the temperature so it simmers for 20 minutes, or until mushrooms are very tender. Add the pearl onions and simmer for five minutes more.

Combine remaining butter and the flour with a fork until combined; stir it into the stew. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 more minutes. If the sauce is too thin, boil it down to reduce to the right consistency. Season to taste.

To serve, spoon the stew over a bowl of egg noodles, dollop with sour cream (optional) and sprinkle with chives or parsley.

roasted eggplant soup | smitten kitchen

Roasted Eggplant Soup
Adapted from Bon Appetit

Serves 4

3 medium tomatoes, halved
1 large eggplant (about 1 1/2 pounds), halved lengthwise (I used 3 smaller ones)
1 small onion, halved (eh, mine was medium)
6 large garlic cloves, peeled
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried
4 cups chicken stock or vegetable broth
1/4 cup heavy cream (you can add more to taste, or skip this entirely)
3/4 cup (about 3 1/2 ounces) crumbled goat cheese

Preheat oven to 400°F. Arrange tomatoes, eggplant, onion and garlic on a large baking sheet, or two smaller ones if you, like me, have a tiny oven. Brush or drizzle vegetables with oil then roast them for 20 minutes, pausing only to remove the garlic cloves (the original recipe had you keep them in the whole time, and mine, sadly, burned) and returning the pans to the oven for another 25 minutes, until the remaining vegetables are tender and brown in spots. Remove from oven and scoop eggplant from skin into a heavy, large saucepan or soup pot. Add the rest of the vegetables, the thyme and the chicken or vegetable stock and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook until onion is very tender, about 45 minutes (mine took longer). Cool slightly.

Working in batches, puree soup in blender until it is as smooth as you’d like it to be. (Or, if you have an immersion blender, you can do this in the pot.) Back in the pot, add the cream and bring the soup back to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper. Serve in four bowls, sprinkled with goat cheese.

A spicier riff: As I mentioned above, if you like to play with spices, this soup has a lot of potential. The next time I make it, I might give it a spin with 1 to 2 teaspoons ground cumin, 1 teaspoon ground coriander and a pinch of red pepper flakes or Aleppo pepper added in with the broth. I might finish the soup with a squeeze of lemon juice and I might use feta, which has a stronger flavor than the soft chevre that I used. If you add any spices or made any changes, I’d love to hear what you came up with in the comments.

via smittenkitchen.com

Beetroot & Blue Cheese Pizza →

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Tonight I tried this Toffee Apple Upside-Down Cake recipe from A Bloggable Life and it was yummy! And an easy enough way to use apples that I got from apple picking this weekend. 

There are a couple of amendments I would make to this recipe, however:

1. MOAR TOFFEE TOPPING. The recipe has you make the topping with 1/3 cup of brown sugar and 4 tablespoons of butter. This didn’t end up cover my pan even half-way so I had to make a new batch on the fly. Just double this topping part, cause even if its a lot you don’t have to put it all on… or you can because the extra won’t hurt you.

2. PEEL THE APPLES. The recipe suggests slicing an apple, unpeeled, to arrange in the topping. My advice: peel those suckers. While you’re trying to eat your way through your piece of cake with a fork, the peel holds on and causes severe structural damage. 

That’s it! Do it!