Sunday, February 28, 2010

Spring Garden

As it nears March, we are busily preparing for our spring garden.  We have seeds started in the garage and seeds of chard, peas, and spinach in the raised beds.  We also have a nice crop of garlic up and running.  It's the first time we've done garlic, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.  The primary goal of the garden, aside from the hobby aspect of it, is to provide produce to feed the two of us.  We started by focusing on produce we love (and eat regularly) that was expensive to purchase, and then ventured into trying some other things.  Our space is rather limited because we have wonderful tree cover on our lot.

We're planning out the layout and building the remaining raised beds, and carefully watching the weather so we can cover our outside plants if needed. (Side note on the weather: the weather here this time of year is insane.  I can have ice on my car in the morning and by 3 pm, it's 70 degrees.  Only to get back down to freezing by dawn the next day.  Gotta love the Hill Country.)

Some of the big lessons we learned from last year (see below for pics of last year's garden - the first one is the garden in the spring and the second is in the fall, after we raised some of the beds):
1. Squash vine borers are the devil, and we may not try squash and zucchini because of them
2. When it gets above 95 degrees outside, tomatoes do not set fruit.  We have started them inside earlier this year, with the hopes of getting some fruit before it gets too hot.  We also hope to have a slightly cooler, damper summer this year (no more drought, please!).
3. Deer like the pepper plants.  Garlic clips seem to work.
4. Plants do much better in raised beds in soil as opposed to our rocky, clay-filled dirt.

Some of the things we are excited about trying this year:
1. Raised herb garden in the back yard!  Last year, we grew basil, oregano, parsley, sage, and thyme in pots.  I am very excited about being able to grow many more herbs, and maybe even some different varieties (lemon thyme, purple basil, etc).
2. More types of tomatoes.  We were very successful with grape tomatoes last year.

What do you think?  What have you grown successfully in the past?  What should we try?

  


Favorite Friday

Every Friday I will post a favorite recipe of ours, one we have made countless times, with a brief description. The next time we cook it, I'll add some photos. Posting at least one favorite a week will ensure weekly content regardless of whether or not I have time to otherwise cook, photograph, and blog that week, and I get to share our favorites with you!

The first featured recipe is Chicken Pot Pie, a recipe we have made countless times since it first appeared in the May 2008 issue of Bon Appetit magazine.  It's taken on a life of its own and we've managed to tweak it over the years. I will post our version and a link to the original, so you can compare (and see how easy it is to change it up a bit based on what you have in the fridge).  This is one of the only recipes we don't half or otherwise reduce in size, and we always eat all of the leftovers.

Chicken Pot Pie
The perfect thing to do with leftover chicken.  We have used leftover roast chicken, leftover smoked chicken, fresh rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, and leftover turkey.

Crust: if you make your own crust (well worth it), keep in mind that this process must be started at least an hour and a half before you want to eat, so there is enough time to chill the dough.  If you're short on time, use a prepared rolled pie crust, and start the crust recipe at the rolled out dough part.
1 1/4 cup flour
pinch of salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) of unsalted butter, chilled, cut into half-inch cubes
3 tablespoons ice water
1 egg yoke and 1 more tablespoon ice water
Preheat oven to 425.  Combine the first 3 ingredients in the food processor, blend until mixture becomes a coarse meal texture.  Add ice water as needed to moisten the dough.  When moist clumps form, remove the dough.  Gather it into a ball and flatten it into a rectangle, about an inch thick.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.  Remove the dough, roll it out on a floured surface to an approximate 12" x 8" rectangle.  Cut dough into Bake on parchment paper in a 425 degree oven for 10 minutes until golden.  They can sit after baking for a little while as you finish the filling.

Filling:
7 tablespoons butter, divided into 2 and 5
5 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
8 ounces assorted wild mushrooms (shiitake with stems removed, crimini, oyster)
3 or 4 peeled carrots (cut into 1/2" pieces)
3 or 4 celery stalks (cut into 1/2" pieces)
1 medium onion chopped
other vegetable options: frozen peas, green beans, cubed potatoes, and so on
1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme or sage or a combination
1 garlic clove, minced
1 cup dry white wine (optional, of course, replace with 1/2 cup broth in the same place in the recipe if omitting)
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
5 cups (or whatever you have) roughly torn or chopped roast chicken (or turkey)
1/3 cup whipping cream (or milk)
1/3 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley

Melt 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons oil in large pot.  Add mushrooms, carrots, celery, onion, and any other non-frozen vegetables to pot. Cook until vegetables are tender.
Add the thyme/sage and garlic, stir for 3 minutes.  Add the wine and boil until almost all the liquid is gone. Add the chicken broth, bring to a boil.  




Combine the remaining butter and the flour in a bowl. Over medium heat, add the butter and flour mixture one tablespoon at a time, stirring until dissolved. If the mixture reaches the desired thickness before all of the butter-flour is used, discard remaining butter-flour. 


Add the chicken, the cream, any frozen vegetables, and parsley at this time.  Simmer, season to taste with salt and pepper.  Filling will last at least 8 hours chilled.

Transfer filling into an oven-safe dish, approximately 9" x 13", or smaller if you prefer more filling to less crust.  Top with the crust pieces and bake at 425 for 20 - 25 minutes until the entire thing is heated through and flavors meld.  Let stand for 5 minutes before serving.

If baking from a chilled filling, let filling come to room temperature (about an hour) before baking.




Spaghetti and Meatballs (Bacon Paste!)

Or, Spaghetti and Meatballs All'Amitriciana.
We enjoyed this recipe very much.  The bacon adds a richness to the sauce and the roasted red pepper in the meatballs brightens them and provides a distinct taste, since so many of the ingredients are in both the meatballs and the sauce.  However, it took a lot longer to prepare than I had anticipated, so we ate quite late for a Thursday night.  No matter, still very tasty. Next time we make it I know it will be much quicker, in part because we have made it before and also because I know which steps can occur simultaneously.

Step by step:
The husband started this process early in the day when he ground up the chuck roast we would use. He is a big fan of the grinder attachment for the KitchenAid. The meatball ingredients require some chopping and grating. Grating onion is so much more painful than chopping it, and my eyes were a leaky mess after the first two grates. The onion candle we keep in the kitchen helped a little, though I lit it after I had started.

The meatballs themselves were easy enough to make, combine all of the ingredients after pressing the garlic on top of the bacon paste (!) and mix, and then let it sit.

Instead of starting the bacon for the sauce at this point, like we should have, we waited the full 15 minutes to form the balls (probably longer) and passed the time by preparing other ingredients for the sauce.  The tomatoes went in the blender (this may be one of the only places we deviated from the recipe. We did use San Marzano tomatoes in juice, but they were whole tomatoes, not diced.  I figured that since the recipe called for them to be blended until smooth, it didn't matter) and quickly got blended into a lovely thick tomato-y liquid. (Highly recommend this brand of San Marzano tomatoes - whenever we find them in the store, we buy 4 to 6 cans to have on hand. They are by far the best sauce making tomatoes I've used.)

KitchenAid ProLine Blender - 48 oz.(Have I mentioned how much I love my blender? It is incredibly fast and very powerful. KitchenAid, three speeds and a pulse option. My one requirement when I purchased it was that it could blend ice to a frozen margarita machine consistency, and it hasn't let me down. It can also chop ice to a coarser consistency, and it makes pureeing soups and other jobs a cinch.  I LOVE my blender.)

After the waiting period for the meatballs, the husband got started shaping them while I cooked the bacon for the sauce. (As I said, this step could have been started immediately following the combining of the meatball ingredients, so the pan would have been ready to take the meatballs once they were formed.)

Turning the meatballs in the pan was the trickiest part of the recipe.  We used tongs (I love my tongs, too) to gently push them over to brown all the sides, but some of them still insisted on coming apart a little bit. It took three batches to get them all done.

The sauce was easy, just took some monitoring, since things were added in steps.

By the time the meatballs went in, we were very hungry, so letting them cook for enough time was hard. Pasta boiled, was tossed with olive oil and Italian parsley (instead of marjoram) and then we ate. Yum. Some of the meatballs had come apart in the sauce, so in addition to whole balls there were some meaty chunks. The sauce was a nice texture and consistency, thicker than I would have expected but very smooth and velvety. We found the spice levels to be just right (we enjoy spicy things, being in Texas and all) but if we make it for a group in the future I would cut down on the red pepper flakes in the sauce. Some of our northern relatives would find it to be too much.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Dinner tonight!


Spaghetti and Meatballs All'Amatriciana  

Check back tomorrow for the review!


Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Tuesday Treats - Caramel Chocolate Cheesecake

Yum.  Adapted from Epicurious and smitten kitchen.


crumb-crust recipe , made with chocolate teddy grahams
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup heavy cream
8 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped (I used 60% bittersweet by Scharffen Berger)
3 (8-oz) packages cream cheese, softened
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla


1. Make your crumb crust.  Take 10 oz of teddy grahams (one box) and turn them into crumbs.  I used the food processor.  Melt 9 tablespoons of unsalted butter.  Mix together the crumbs, the butter, 1/2 cup sugar, and 1/8 teaspoon salt.  Press the mixture into the bottom and up the sides of a springform pan (mine is about 9 inches).  If you want less crust on the sides, don't use all of the recipe.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
3. Heat the sugar in a dry saucepan over medium-low heat, until it melts and turns light golden, stirring occasionally to frequently.  This step will take awhile, but yes, the sugar does actually melt.  I went ahead and whipped the cream cheese while I was waiting.



4. Let the sugar achieve a darker golden color, swirling the pan occasionally.  This step takes much less time, thankfully.  I was getting impatient.


5. Remove the pan from the burner and add the cream.  The mixture will bubble and steam.
6. Return the pot to the same lowish heat as before, and stir.  Eventually the caramel will stop being a clumpy lump on your spoon/spatula/whatever and blend in with the caramel.


7. Once it is all melty and smooth, remove it from heat and stir in your chocolate.
8. If you haven't done so already, whip your cream cheese until it is fluffy.  I used the regular attachment (not the whisk) of my KitchenAid.


9. Slowly add the chocolate-caramel mixture.  Scrape the sides and continue to beat.


10. Add eggs, one at a time, scraping bowl before each new addition.
11. Add vanilla, blend.
12. Pour the cheesecake mixture into the crust.  Place the pan on a cookie sheet to catch the leaks.  All that leaked out of mine was lots of what appeared to be butter.
13. Cook the cheesecake for about 55 minutes.  Remove it from the oven when the center is still wobbly but the edges and most of the top surrounding the center is set.
14. If your crust did not go to the top of the pan, run a butter knife around the edges down to the crust to loosen the cake. Let the cake cool completely. At this point, it's time to remove the sides of the pan, and loosely cover it and chill it for as long as you can stand it (the recipe I used calls for at least 6 hours, but we tried ours after about 3, and it was soft, but tasty.  After we taste it again tonight I'll let you know about the extra chilling time).


I prefer my cheesecake coldish, but you can also remove it from the refrigerator and let it come to room temperature before serving.  I served it with fresh whipped cream (1 cup whipping cream, 1 capfull vanilla, and 2 tablespoons sugar, whipped together until it looks like whipped cream and not like liquid).








Photos...

(side note on the photographs - my husband and I share a desktop computer and his desk, since that is where the computer is. Right now, the desk is covered with his readings, papers, the occasional dirty dish, and other odds and ends. I want to install Photoshop on the desktop - my poor laptop has no "t" key right now - but cannot spend more than a few seconds at that desk in its current state. So while I could install the program, sitting there and going through the pictures would be a very painful process. Anyway, I've mentioned to him about cleaning the thing, so hopefully by the end of this week I will have a desk, and then you will have some pictures. So make sure you check old posts in the future for the promised images...)

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Black Pepper Fettuccine

Last night I made pasta. Usually the husband does it, and I'll help, or watch, or do other things, but last night I did the entire process myself. In our pasta book, The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles, there was a recipe for Black Pepper Pasta. It's an easy one, with 3 or 4 ingredients, depending on whether or not you need to add water to moisten the dough in the food processor (I did). The husband kept trying to get me to use the dough hook on the KitchenAid, but I kneaded it by hand (great shoulder workout) and ended up with a very nice doughy texture.

After resting for some time (20 minutes min) it was time to get out the pasta roller attachments. I highly recommend a KitchenAid mixer (mine is Caviar, a lovely dark grey with sparkles in it), and I highly recommend the pasta making attachment. We love ours and use it frequently. I started out with a quarter of the dough and rolled it through on the '1' setting (widest) for awhile. Fold and feed, fold and feed, fold and feed. Each time the dough rolls through, it gets folded in half and rolled through again, usually in the opposite direction. Figuring out when to move to a narrower setting might be the trickiest part of the entire process, but as the husband said, I just kind of knew when it was time to move to the '2'. Once I got up to the 4 or 5, the paced picked up, since I was no longer folding and feeding; instead, I was feeding and adjusting the setting to the next narrow number.

I prefer my pasta slightly thicker than the skinniest possible (an 8), so after the dough went through the 6, I had to switch attachments, to the fettuccine one. At this point, my dough sheet was quite long, so I cut it into 4 manageable segments, and fed each one through the cutter. The husband received this rack for Christmas, and the best part about it is the arm that comes out of the top. We use the arm to catch the pasta as it comes through the cutter to transfer it to the drying rack.

The best thing about fresh pasta, aside from the amazing texture and taste, is how quick it cooks. I served my pasta with a pesto cream sauce, made from Central Market's prepared pesto and some whipping cream. I started by heating the cream and then added pesto by the spoonful until I achieved the flavor and consistency I wanted. I would have liked some fresh tomato pieces to top off the pasta (and make a pretty presentation for the dish) but I will have to wait until summertime for sweet ripe tomatoes.

All in all, a very successful dinner.

Black Pepper Fettuccine (from the book mentioned above)
2 cups flour (and more if needed)
1.5 teaspoons fresh ground pepper (I ground mine in a coffee grinder that has been converted to an herb grinder, worked very well and I had control over how coarse it was)
3 eggs
water, if needed, by the teaspoon

Combine flour and pepper in food processor and pulse a few times. Add eggs and blend until the dough forms a ball on one side of the bowl. If the dough is sticky (mine was not), add flour by the teaspoon until the ball forms. If the dough is dry, it will resemble large couscous and you will need to add water by the teaspoon. Once you have your dough ball, remove it from the processor bowl and knead it for 1 to 2 minutes, until the dough feels nice and elasticy. Wrap the ball in plastic wrap and let it sit for at least 20 minutes before making pasta.

*note: dough keeps for a few days in the refrigerator, or for a long time in the freezer. We have yet to determine exactly how long, because I think it depends on that particular batch of dough. Sometimes we have perfect dough out of the freezer, and sometimes once it has been frozen it no longer does the pasta thing and the husband gets frustrated.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Deb's Caesar Salad

(A quick note about this recipe: when I first met my husband, this was a long-time family favorite, a staple at special meals in their house. When I first learned it was adapted from a cookbook, and the cookbook was still referenced from time to time, to check quantities and whatnot, I was amazed, until I read the recipe myself, and realized I would not be able to make it from the recipe as I had witnessed it made, because it had adapted that much. So bear with me as I try to get it onto paper, it may change over time, and it may never be made exactly the same. It’s all part of the evolution and sharing of a recipe that is adjusted, passed along, and treasured.)

1 head of romaine lettuce, washed and torn into pieces

½ cup olive oil

2 large garlic cloves, minced or pressed

Good squirt of anchovy paste

3 T white or red wine vinegar (try one, then the other to see which you prefer)

Several dashes of Worchester sauce

¼ t. dried mustard powder (or ½ t. whole grain Dijon mustard)

Lemon juice from 1 lemon (more or less, depending on the size of the lemon)

Freshly grated or shredded Parmesan and/or Pecorino Romano to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

2 slices of bacon, cooked crispy and crumbled (or diced then cooked)

Can be served with croutons, mushrooms, tomatoes, anything else as desired

1. Soak the garlic in the olive oil in a container that has a lid. This step can be done up to a day in advance.

2. Remove most of the garlic from the oil, and remove 2 T of the oil.

3. Add anchovy paste, wine vinegar, Worchester sauce, mustard, and lemon juice. Can be done a few hours in advance.

4. Add egg, shake the container vigorously to blend.

5. Add cheese, shake again, this time lightly.

6. Pour dressing over lettuce, toss to coat.

7. Add more cheese, bacon, croutons, mushrooms, anything else that you desire.

For really good croutons, take the 2 tablespoons of the garlic olive oil after it’s been marinating for awhile, and drizzle it over French bread cubes. Toast them in the oven for a few minutes, or sauté them in a large skillet until lightly toasted. Toss with a little freshly chopped Italian parsley.

Caramelized shallot mashed potatoes

This is another Bon Appetit recipe (no surprise there). I was hesitant to try this one, in part because of the amount of shallots used. I did not want a particularly shallot-y mashed potato (would defeat the purpose, in my mind). However, these were just lovely. They were light and fluffy and the caramelized shallots provided a wonderful slightly sweet, deep flavor. Heating the milk in the pan before adding it to the potatoes is a new one for me, and one I will remember and use again.

Slice the shallots, then cook them in the pan long enough to get some brown bits on them, then move them into a bowl and pour the milk into the pan. Boil the potatoes until cooked, then drain, then return to pan and dry out a little bit. Mix in the milk, then the shallots. I saved a few shallots to garnish the potatoes once they were on the plate, which you also could do if you serve this in a dish on the table.


Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Amazing Caramel Chocolate Truffles


3 notes before I get to the description.
1 We halved this recipe, and used the little bit of extra chocolate in the second part to dip strawberries. It was perfect for that.
We did not follow the instructions exactly as written in the recipe. We followed the ingredients, but the process is where we changed. More on that below.
3. Fleur de sel is available in bulk at Central Market (gourmet grocery store in Austin, of the HEB chain). It might be available at similar groceries in places that are not fortunate enough to have Central Market.
We used Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate, available in the baking aisle. The husband chopped it up into small pieces, then it went on the stove. The recipe called for a metal bowl on top of a pot of water, but we used one of the pyrex ones instead, and stirred almost constantly to keep the chocolate melting at an even temperature and to keep it smooth. That got set aside once it was melted and we started on the caramel. There is a very delicate point when boiling sugar and water where it goes from being completely clear to having a gorgeous amber hue to it, and this one was no exception. (The husband wanted me to interject with a comment on the recipe. It says to “brush down” the sides of the pan while all of this sugar water boiling is happening. It is tricky to brush down the sides of the pan. We found that keeping a small bowl of water nearby, and dipping the brush in the water before and after brushing down the sides, kept the brush from getting too sticky. We also tended to brush around more than down. It must have worked ok, because the recipe came out great.) Back to my beautiful amber gooey pot. The hardest part of this recipe was this step, the addition of the whipping cream to the caramel. It said to stir until smooth, but we did not know exactly when that point was. The caramel was clumping at the bottom of the pot, and the cream did not seem to want to combine with it, but it eventually did. Keeping it over the warm burner (it was turned off) helped. The addition of the salt and the caramel to the chocolate was no problem, and the whole thing went into the fridge for 3 hours, which ended up being more like 4 hours by the time we got it back out.

When the filling comes out of the fridge, it will be HARD. The husband was afraid he had broken our melon baller trying to make little balls. The ice cream scoop worked well, and his hands got very messy rolling the filling, but he did say that the heat from his hands helped soften the filling enough to roll it, and enabled the cocoa powder to stick easily.
The next part of the recipe is where we substantially changed our procedure. Because it was Sunday already, and we wanted these little guys for dessert Sunday night, we did not chill the rolled balls over night. I doubt we chilled them for more than an hour before coating them, and they were still amazing. The salt provides a nice relief from the sweet caramel, and the bittersweet chocolate tops off the deep richness.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Tenderloin

Yum. We purchased this tenderloin from Central Market for around $16 a pound. It was on sale, and a good deal by CM standards. When we got home from the grocery store, I rinsed, dried, tied, and salted the meat. I didn't measure the salt (I'm bad about that) but sprinkled it on; it was probably about 1 to 1.5 tablespoons of course sea salt. Then into the fridge it went. Somehow I managed to teach myself how to do the butcher store tying of the tenderloin, so it was very pretty and professional looking. The husband was impressed.


A note about twine: we use organic cotton cooking twine. We didn't always, it used to be standard twiney twine, but it always seems to disappear from the kitchen, moving to other parts of the house to do other tying duties. After a particularly stressful search for the runaway twine, I found and purchased the organic stuff. Because of its nature, as food safe and special and all, it does not have the same wandering tendencies and stays in its place in our silverware drawer. It is well worth the extra couple of dollars, as far as I'm concerned, to have a special kitchen twine that stays in the kitchen where it belongs.

The meat came out of the fridge roughly 2 hours before it went in the oven. The recipe recommended one hour, but I took it out and it took us some time to be ready to cook it. We used our remote thermometer thing (an amazing tool, and I highly recommend it for cooking meat. Meat of any kind. I also said to the husband, during dinner, that if his folks had one we would have been spared many stressful and dramatic pre-dinner experiences. I want to quote them here but I won't, out of respect to the husband. Maybe in the future...) and the meat beeped when it was the perfect temperature to remove from the oven, 125.

Once out, it got a nice tent of foil over the top, and it sat that way for about 20 minutes as we finished other things. The husband said the internal temperature raised 13 more degrees while it sat, and then leveled off at a nice 138.

The simple rub of olive oil and cracked pepper, combined with the salt, gave the meat a lovely crispy edge with a nice pink color and unbelievably tender inside. I wish I had better words to describe the texture of this meat (I will work on my descriptive prowess, I promise). Very soft, easily cut with a butter knife, and moist and yummy. I took the middle pieces (they were more red than pink) and the husband took the ones closer to the edge, since he likes his more done. The beauty of the tenderloin is the range of done-ness that can be achieved; everyone can dine happily.

 


Valentine's Day (or tenderloin, truffles, and taters)


Details to come tonight on our lovely Valentine's Day meal (here's a peak!):
Deb's Caesar salad (courtesy of the mother-in-law)
Beef tenderloin (adapted from Bon Appetit)
Steamed asparagus
Caramelized Shallot Mashed Potatoes (Bon Appetit)
Caramel-Dark Chocolate Truffles (Bon Appetit, with modifications)


Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Why a blog?

After spending much time online reading other people's cooking blogs in search of new and interesting recipes, I realized that I (or I should say we) cook quite a bit. Enough, in fact, to be able to blog about it in much of the similar manner of all of the cooking blogs I follow. I'd also like to include photographs of the process and of the final product, as I have my new camera that needs some love. My husband has said several times that good food photography is very difficult, and I am intent on proving him wrong.

Comfort Foodie. A blog about the love of good food, quality ingredients, the process of recipe crafting. There is very little more exciting to me than reading a new recipe - the anticipation builds as I scan the ingredient list, my mouth waters as I contemplate the particular flavors and how they might combine with each other, and by the time I get through the steps of the recipe I'm already bouncing in my seat, making grocery lists and checking the cupboards for ingredients. The excitement grows at the store, the search for that one last ingredient and the slight anxiety, the flutter in the tummy, if I can't find it (what can I use instead? is it that important?), and then the satisfaction of discovering it and carefully placing it in my cart, as if I might lose it if I just tossed it in. Once home, I don't want to waste time unpacking all of the groceries, eager to get started on my newest recipe. The assembly, watching a meal come together from scattered ingredients, is remarkable. And tasting. Of course tasting, learning how the different ingredients affect the flavors and textures throughout the cooking process. The final assembly, the combination of different parts of the recipe into one whole, the point when I can finally step back and proudly admire my hard work for a minute before sitting down and enjoying the final product. Sometimes I don't know which I like more, the cooking or the eating.


In addition to recipes and photography, there will probably be some musings on our vegetable garden. It will be the second year we've attempted such a thing, and we learned a lot the first year. It's a challenge to keep plants protected from the late frosts only to battle with keeping them cool enough to produce in the scorching summers.

We cook a lot. And we cook a variety of foods. There will be our favorites, our go-tos on nights when we don't really know what to do or don't have anything planned, and there will be our adventures, new recipes or new ingredients that may or may not work out.


I find peace in the kitchen. I am most comfortable there, with or without a recipe, and I derive great satisfaction and contentment from my efforts. On that note, I present to you Comfort Foodie, taking the love of food from the recipe to the tummy.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Up and running!

We're up and running! Very exciting! However, because of too much work tonight, the introduction and first post will have to come tomorrow...

Until then, happy cooking!

(oh, and dinner tonight is Tomato Sauce and Pasta, thanks to smittenkitchen.com)