A British Breakfast

Arguably the easiest international breakfast ever. A few weekends ago, T- and I went over to a friend's house in Austin. She and her boyfriend had this lovely apartment near 6th street, and we enjoyed ourselves very much 


As a mid-afternoon snack on our second day there, our lovely yet tiny hostess suggested beans and eggs on toast, and I was like uhhhhhh, okay? 


It was awesome, and easy. It's literally eggs, beans, and toast. After returning from our mini-vacation, I desperately wanted more beans on toast, unfortunately we had neither beans nor toast in our house. BUT, we retrieved those items from the grocery store this weekend.

I am glad to say, my foray into British cooking was a success. I feel very international. I made mine with just egg whites (I really hate yellows unless they're in baked goods...seriously hate yellows) and T- with two poached eggs.


Try it, and saying things like "Cheerio" and "right then" or "tea time??" while you're doing it. (My favorite is: "Long live the queen!" interspersed with "good ol' chap)  


Beans and Eggs on Toast
1 can vegetarian baked beans 
2-4 slices of toast (I used Jewish Rye) 
4 eggs
1 tblsp butter


Put the bread in the oven to toast. Then heat the butter in a medium saute pan over medium-low heat When it's melted, crack two eggs in there. and cover so they can poach. Be sure to check on them to see if you need to adjust your temperature lower. It should take about 5-6 min depending on how firm you like the yellows (bleh)


While that's going, open up your can of baked beans and heat them in a small saucepan over medium heat. Just stir them every few minutes to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom. 

To set it up, put the toast on a plate, slide your eggs on top, and then top the whole thing off with half the pot of beans! 

Use the other half for another serving! Note that this tastes fantastic with just whites as well, and you can cook/poach the whites in the same way you did the whole eggs, it will just take less time (2-3 min). 


Right then, cheerio!  

Should Gays Boycott Straight Weddings?

The Article: Not Going to the Chapel


To summarize: The article above is an argument for gays to boycott straight weddings this summer because in all but five states, same-sex marriage is banned. 


So I'm getting married this summer to a man, and I'm a woman. I went to a women's college and there are gay friends that I am inviting, and I want them to be there. 


I am an adamant supporter of equal rights for gay individuals and couples on the state and federal level, I believe that sexuality is mostly biologically determined, and I will gladly stand up any day and scream for equal rights. 


But I'm still getting married. 


The author argues that it's not just the "crazies" that are the obstacle facing same-sex marriage, but also heterosexual allies: 

"Even well-meaning heterosexuals often describe their own nuptials in deeply personal terms, above and beyond politics, but tend to dismiss same-sex marriage as a political cause, and gay people’s desire to marry as political maneuvering."

I rebuke this argument. If you say that the desire for same-sex couples get married is primarily for political reasons, then deep down underneath the layers of what's "PC" you're not really an ally. 


If you say that two individuals want to get married because they just want the tax breaks and other marriage perks, you're most certainly not an ally. 


The desire to get married is the same regardless of gender: to express your love, and to have the state and world recognize you as a partner in your lover's life. 


And yeah, you get some pretty damn good perks with it (heck yeah I'm happy about the tax benefits and the fact that I can visit Tyler in the hospital god forbid if he was ever in there). 


So Mr. Benjamin, I believe you have it wrong on two counts: 


1. Those heterosexual allies that would ever say that same-sex couples value marriage for its political benefits, are not allies, and yes, are an obstacle for same-sex marriage. 


2. By boycotting straight weddings, you're widening the chasm between gays and straights. You're making it seem like we're enemies and on different sides, when we really shouldn't be. By not attending straight weddings across the board, you're in effect saying, "Thanks, but you're not really an ally" which is ridiculous. 


Meaningful events like weddings should not be politicized, but sadly they are. Mr. Benjamin, I think we need to work to make them less political and divisive, not more. 

A nice guy

So this weekend was fun. Friday we went to see a movie (Bridesmaids...hilarious!), Saturday we went to a TFA end-of-year celebration, and then today I'm going to study some Biochemistry and make cupcakes. Could it be more fantastic? 


Yes, one more weekend day.


Anyways, enough dreaming. Friday got off to a rocky start. I had an iffy day at work, my students were okay, but something else happened that irritated me, so I was already on edge. I came home, and we were going to go out...so I went into my closet.


And flipped out. 

I had nothing to wear. Which is kind of funny if you think about it, because my closet is full of clothes. The problem is, they're basically all work clothes, woren out tank tops, and my favorite shorts (which now have a rip in them so ugh). I have plenty of nice winter clothes, pretty sweaters, nice jeans, but when its humid and 92 degrees outside, your clothes turn into second-skin sticky demons, so heavy jeans are a no no. 


But seriously, I flipped out. T-, being the adorable bunny that he is, had no clue what was going on, every time I would come out wearing something, he'd say, "but you look great in that!" and not fully understand why I was flipping out. But that's what so great about him, he knew I was flipping out, didn't understand why, but still wanted to make it better. So after my 15 minutes of freaking out was up, he calmly gave me a hug and said, "tomorrow, we'll go shopping" 


"BUT YOU HATE SHOPPING! You'll just sit there and complain, and I'll buy stupid stuff--"


"nope, I'll come with you, and it'll be fine. Boring, but fine."



Then he looked up a movie time, and off we went. And here starts the second part of our story. We got to the movie theater, with me whining that we were going to miss the previews (wow, I'm really coming off as kinda irritating in this story...), but the theater literally wasn't there. There was a sign for it, but where it was supposed to be...there was a bowling alley. So I was like huh. 


So we ended up deciding to go to a late night movies and go to the bookstore and read. I was still in a grumpy mood...but this is wear my awesome fiance comes in. We get to the bookstore and there's a table of one dollar books, and of course, being Indian and Jewish, we head directly towards that table. 


I was browsing through books, still mentally bitching about my clothes and work and applications and biochemistry and the ugly puppy I saw a little while ago and anything else I could think of, I had entered the vortex of "everything sucks," when T- animatedly held up a book and said, "Jonathan Keller!" 


Me: "Huh?" 
Him: "You know, the mystery writer!!" (T- has no particular fondness for mysteries, but he knows I really do)
Me: (having never heard of this author) "oh" 
Him: "I'm gonna get this for you" 
Me: "I don't know who that is" 
Him: "It's mystery, you'll like it"
Me: "I don't know who that is"
Him: (Has already walked off to purchase the book) 


I stared at him as he walked to the check out line with the book, and started playing with whatever random items Borders has near their counter.

This seems like nothing if you don't know us, but it was the sweetest thing in the world. He did it to make me feel better, and it worked. After that, he announced that we should go to California Pizza Kitchen and eat a lot. 


What can I say, the man knows me. 


Either way, I feel lucky that I get to marry someone who can deal with my particular brand of crazy and know how to make me feel better.  

Austin

I really love San Antonio. With it's vibrant hispanic roots, the riverwalk dotted with all kinds of restaurants, and it's suburban neighborhoods with each house being architecturally unique. It's a great city.

But Austin definitely has an appeal to it. A college town, the carefree feeling of youth is infectious and pervasive. T and I went to visit two friends, R- and Mi-, and they live near 6th street. For those of you not from around here, 6th street in Austin is like...well, a mini-version of downtown Boston. It's right near the capitol building (which is in fact bigger than the actual Capitol), has lots of shops, restaurants, bars, ice cream places, pizza being sold out of the back of a car, and really anything else your little heart could desire. It is also near UT Austin, so there is a constant stream of patrons.

Some of the organic veggies we got from the farmers market

Anyways, our friends showed us around 6th street, and we had a wonderful night on the town, where I discovered that a "Blue Wave" involves getting water thrown on you, I saw a woman spit fire from her mouth, and a street covered in people that was ostensibly meant for cars. Overall, a fun experience!

The next day though, was cooking day! Bread Master Man made AWESOME pizza dough (I am a bit sad I forgot to get the recipe), Tiny Cooking Monster made these amazing caramelized onions, and yours truly made peach short cake! T- provided interesting conversation and had the difficult job of sitting on his tush tush :-)  If you are jealous right now, you should be, because we got to eat all of this.

hello handsome

I must say, there is very little better than the tartness of peaches, mixed with brown sugar, cream, browned butter, on to of homemade biscuits, and topped with brown sugar whipped cream.

Can you tell I'm on a brown sugar kick?

Making your own brown sugar is surprisingly not hard, and quite gratifying. I learned it from this blog, and decided to try it. Result: success. 1 cup sugar + 1 tbsp molasses = brown sugar!

Anyways, on to the tasty goodness

Peach Short Cake with Browned Butter and Brown Sugar Whipped Cream

Start by making biscuits. I added a table spoon extra brown sugar into this recipe to make it sweeter for the shortcake. You can put them on some parchment paper, and keep them in the fridge until you're ready to bake them. 

Peach Filling

3-4 ripe peaches

4 tbsp. brown sugar

0.25 tsp salt

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/3 cup half and half 

4 tbsp. butter

2 tbsp brown sugar

Water

Cut the peaches into small cubes. Mix them together with the brown sugar and salt. Add in the half and half and vanilla, and then add a little bit of water so the peaches are partially covered. 

Stick them in the fridge for at least half an hour.

  

While this is going, heat up some butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook the butter until it's brown, you'll hear it crackle, that's it boiling off the water, you'll some foam form at the top, that just some of the milk fats. It should take about 3-4 minutes only for the butter to take on a carmel color. The taste is seriously indescribable. 

Anyways, take that off the heat and let it cool. You can keep that aside until you're ready to cook the peaches. 

When you are ready though, heat the butter up again, and put in the 2 tbsp. brown sugar. As that is heating up, strain the liquid off of your refrigerated peaches. Then add these peaches in to the pan and cook them for about 5-7 minutes on medium to low heat (depending on how soft you want them). 

While these are going, you can make your whipped cream! 

Brown Sugar Whipped Cream

3/4 cup heavy whipping cream

3 tbsp. brown sugar

You can do this by hand or in an electric mixer. In an electric mixer, put on the whisk attachment, and add in the whipping cream. Turn it to 6-8 (fast), and whip it. After about a minute or so, you should see small peaks forming, and then add in your brown sugar. Keep going until stiff peaks form, and then you're done! Keep it in the fridge till you're ready to use it. 

If you're doing this by hand it's basically the same thing, just use a whisk and a bowl.

Anyways, now you're ready to put it all together.

Tasty

Open up a biscuits, top it with some peaches and pour some of the browned butter mixture on top, then a dollop of whipped cream, and you're set.

It's tasty! 

Anyways, I am quite happy that we visited Austin and got to spend some time with our buddies who also make tasty food.  

So to sum up -- if you haven't visited Austin, TX -- do it. It's awesome. And, if you haven't made peach short cake, do it. It's awesome.  

Cocoa Brownies with Salted Peanut Butter Frosting

So I really should be working on my essay. Really, I should.


But I have a rough draft done, so why not celebrate?


Rough draftish. Judge away.

These were made while watching an episode of "Bones"

Anyways -- I stole this recipe. Seriously. Stole. I started reading a new blog, Not Without Salt, and it's amazing! I really like the way the author writes, and her recipes seem amaze-balls (my new word -- I ran around HEB saying it about any and all products -- parchment paper? AMAZE-BALLS!)

Minute 35 of Bones.

I found this recipe about Salted Peanut Butter Frosting on top of beautiful brownies. I usually tweak them to my liking (less sugar, more sugar, add lemon, don't add lemon, you know the deal). Anyways, I didn't do that at all for this one. I'm not even going to post it, I'm just going to direct you to her recipe, and post my pictures.

Bones has been long forgotten...

Since my wedding is coming up...I think I'm just going to take these into work and give them away. But seriously, so good. 


Make them -- you won't regret it!

Seconds before it hit T-'s mouth.

Update: I've had a few requests to post this recipe...so here it is from Not Without Salt (the brownie recipe is word for word). All credit goes to that website!

Cocoa Brownies with Salted Peanut Butter Frosting

Frosting
6 Tablespoons butter, soft 
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 cup powdered sugar
flaked salt for topping

Cream peanut butter and butter together. Slowly stir in the powdered sugar. Spread over cooled brownies, and top with salt.

Brownies

10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) butter

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (natural or Dutch-process)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 cold large eggs

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

Prepare an 8 inch square pan by spraying with pan spray. Line the bottom and sides of the baking pan with parchment paper or foil, leaving an overhang on two opposite sides. Spray the foil or parchment with pan spray.

Preheat your oven to 325*.

Combine the butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt in a heat-proof bowl and place over a large pot of simmering water. The bottom of the bowl should rest in the pot but not touch the water.

Stir occasionally. When the butter is just about melted, remove the bowl and let the residual heat continue to melt the butter. Stir until smooth. Carefully touch the cocoa mixture. It should feel warm, not hot. If hot, wait until warm to add the eggs.

Once the cocoa mixture is warm you can stir in the eggs, one at a time. Wait until each egg is completely incorporated before you add the next. Stir in the vanilla. Once the mixture looks cohesive and shiny stir in the flour. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes up with a few moist crumbs. This will take about 20-25 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack.

TMDSAS, AMCAS, and Lemon Bars!

So medical school applications opened this past week for Texas and AMCAS. I'm busy pecking away at the key board trying to find the right words (but under 5000 characters) as to why I want to be a doctor. I definitely thought 5000 characters (with spaces) was more than what it is...so now I'm anxiously trying to cut down on the essay to make sure I'm not leaving out any important parts. 


But I figure I'll be writing A LOT of essays anyways, so whatever I don't say in this one will get covered in another one. 


I'm surprisingly excited about this whole process, the medical school application. The scary process is actually...soothing in a way. After a year of teaching, which is most certainly no walk in the park, it is nice to have something...concrete. Something I know I can do, something I want to do, something I want so bad. So -- in a sick, masochistic kind of way, I'm looking forward to it. 


So! To celebrate the process, and to get T- off my back about making these again, I decided to make lemon bars! 


I used a recipe from the great Ina Garten...but I just modified a tad bit. 


Try them -- they're so good. If you've never had them before, let me try to describe them...


they're like lemons, but sweeter, with biscuits on the bottom, but flakier, with eggs, but it's not at all eggy. It's wonderful.


My first try with the recipe today, was terrible. I forgot to turn the oven down when I was cooking the lemon custard stuff on top, and it turned into lemon scrambled eggs. BLERGH. epic fail. 

At least he thought they were tasty

So I let the dog eat some, after I threw a mini-fit about ruining them. 

woof

Try 2 = perfection. I turned the temperature down, checked them like an insane person every 10 minutes. Beautifulness. 


Enjoy!


Lemon Bars
Recipe modified from Ina Garten


Shortbread Crust
0.5 lb butter, room temperature
0.5 cups sugar 
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350F

Cream together the butter and sugar in a mixer with the paddle blade. Add in the flour slowly (I did about a 1/2 a cup at a time), and add in the salt. 

Yep, I ate some.

You can change the amount of salt for how salty you like things to be...I like more salt to contrast the sweet, but it's really up to you. 

Spread it in a 9x13in evenly, and toss it in the oven for 15 min. When it's done, pull it out. 

It was good.

Ready for the oven!

Lemon Topping
6 large eggs
2.5 cups sugar 
1 cup flour
1 zest of lemon
1 cup lemon juice

Lower the temperature of the oven after the shortbread crust comes out to around 250F.

Whisk all these items together. I suggest the wet ingredients first, then the flour slowly to prevent any clumping. If you don't have zest of lemon, seriously, don't worry about it. I did it the first time without, it's not a big deal. 

Pour this on top of the shortbread crust after its cooled for a bit. 

hello, beautiful.

Put it in the oven for 30 min at 250F, but check it every 15 min. You don't want the eggs to scramble, that's why you lower the temperature. You want it to set like a custard (kind of like lemon curd, but thicker). 

Yum yum yum

Tasty :-)

After that, pull it out, let it set and cool, and sift some powdered sugar over it! 

Tasty goodness :-)  

The Day of Epic Cooking

8:30 -- Get woken up
9:00 -- Poached eggs over beet greens and a theological discussion with T-
10:00 -- So the cooking begins...today I have made:

• Baked Mac and Cheese
• Spanikopita
• Cinnamon-Mascarpone Cheese Filo-Dough Pocket
• Black Bean Burgers (yes, made from scratch)
• Crepes Batter
• Roasted Fennels
• Egg Salad

Yes, it was an EPIC day of cooking after which T- came into the kitchen stunned simultaneously by how much the kitchen looked like it exploded on itself, by how covered in flour and various food stuffs I was, and how tasty it all looked. Needless to say he was not enthused to clean up the kitchen while I showered, but he was quite pleased to have tasty deliciousness to eat :-)


Anyways, I figured -- why not take some recipes and share them here? I've done baked goods for a while, so why not savory foods?


So we'll start with Baked Mac and Cheese, adapted from Alton Brown

Yep. We ate some.

Mac and Cheese
0.5 lb macaroni
3 tblsp butter
3 tblsp flour
1 tblsp dijon mustard
3 cups milk
0.5 red onion
1 bay leaf
1 egg
12 oz. pepper jack or cheddar
1 tblsp kosher salt
black pepper to taste


Topping 
3 tblsp butter
1 cup bread crumbs (italian style)


Preheat oven to 350F


Boil the macaroni until al dente. Meanwhile, melt the butter on medium heat and let it sizzle for a while to burn off the water. Then add the flour and whisk together until its a light blonde color -- this makes the rue.


As soon as that's done, you can add in the dijon mustard, the bay leaf, and then the 3 cups of milk. Then add in the red onion. Whisk for about 10 minutes, until its super thick and creamy. 




Then take it off the heat, and temper in an egg. If you don't know how to do this, visit the Alton Brown website, he has a really good video of it. Basically, you don't want the egg to turn into scrambled eggs, so you bring the temperature of the egg up slowly. You do this by cracking the egg into a separate bowl first, whisk it, then...while you're still whisking...add a spoonful of the thick milk mixture into the bowl. This increases the temperature of the egg slowly. Do this one more time, then you can add the mixture back into the original pot. 


Then add the cheese! So I added pepper jack, then some parmesan cheese -- you can't go wrong with cheese I tell you. 


Then toss the macaroni in the there, mix it all together and put it in a casserole dish. 


For the topping, mix together the bread crumbs and the melted butter and spread it across the top of the mac and cheese. 


Bake the whole shabang for about 30 minutes, and it should be ready to serve!


Tyler and I tend to eat this with a HUGE spinach salad, but if you just want a meal-in-one, you can mke this dish healthier! 


To make it healthier -- 
You can use whole wheat pasta instead of white, it's a bit chewier, but it's still good.
You can add in wilted spinach, corn, and black beans -- it tastes really good! 


and for your second recipe -- crepes!! So I think I linked to a website a while back that showed you how to make buckwheat crepes. Anyways, I haven't made these in a while...when I first started I had an obsession. Seriously. I'd eat these every night with lemon curd and some chocolate ganache...for like...two weeks. Then I got sick of them. 


Then the other night, I remembered this place Tyler and I used to go to in Davis Square called Mr. Crepes. They were AMAZING!! They had chocolate strawberry banana beautifulness, and mozzarella tomato amazingness, and more chocolate, and more cheese...and GAH...brain food explosion. I miss Boston, can you tell? 


Anyways, I was feeling super nostalgic about savory crepes, so I decided to recreate something I had over there with my crepes at home..so I made fennel, tomato, spinach, mozzarella crepes :-) 


FSTM crepes (pronounced phonetically) 


Two bulbs of fennel
Two tomatoes
Mini Mozzarella Balls 
Baby Spinach
Buckwheat crepe batter

Tasty goodness

Roast the fennel with olive oil, salt, and balsamic vinegar in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes. When it's done, pull it out to cool. 


Meanwhile you can make the crepes. If you're going to use a nonstick pan (as I did), just butter the bottom first (you should only have to do it for the first crepe), and make sure its hot before you put the batter on there.


Put only 1/4 a cup of batter on the pan and swirl to spread it out into a thin pancake style. Cook it over medium to low heat, and flip every once in a while (the buckwheat crepe website above has a way better description of how to do this -- so visit it!). 


Anyways, when it's done, put it on a plate, put 1/4 of the fennel down, then the baby spinach, 3-4 slices of tomato, and the mozzarella balls! 


Before you serve, drizzle with a little bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar...mangifique!

Yuuuuummm!

These a filling and super tasty!