Author Archives: kaprise

Pumpkin Bran Bites

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It’s midnight here, and I’m running some random shows on hulu.com and eating some bacon. I have homework and reading tomorrow… but I needed some time to blow of steam so I baked some pumpkin bran bites and packed them up into little containers and hung them with recipe cards on some of my neighbors’ doors. It might be a little creepy that I was tiptoeing around the halls hanging muffins on doors at midnight, but Santa does it too…. and at least I left little cards!

Pumpkin Bran Bites (adapted from Joy of Baking)

  • 1 cup of pumpkin puree
  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • 1/2 cup of greek yogurt
  • 1/2 cup of canola oil
  • 3/4 cup of all purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup of wheat bran flakes
  • 3/4 cup of granulated sugar
  • 1 teaspoon of baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon of baking power
  • 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon of allspice
  1. Preheat oven to 400 F
  2. In a bowl, mix together the dry ingredients
  3. In another large bowl, blend pumpkin, eggs, yogurt, and oil until well blended
  4. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined
  5. In a mini muffin tin (either lined with paper liners or brushed with oil). Spoon batter into tin
  6. Bake at 400 F for 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

These muffins are moist, squishy, little bites. I love them!

Bits and Pieces

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I can’t remember if I mentioned it here, but my computer kerplunked in November last year, so I have gotten a Mac. My first one ever. It’s skinny, silver, and super pretty. And as thrilled as I am with my new little piece of technology, I’m still figuring out how to use it. As a pledged PC girl… Mac and I are still becoming friends. The point is, I did back up my computer, but I haven’t been able to access my back-up drive because it’s formatted only for PCs and I only have a Mac. So I’ve lost a million recipes I’ve written (during class) and all those pictures I haven’t shown you yet. I mean… I posted the embarrassing ones of my friends on facebook, but I just didn’t get around to sharing them with you in conjunction with my recipes.

But maybe that’s an amazing thing… All new things for this year. I like new! Speaking of new, I recently purchased a handheld mandolin so I could feed my obsession with shredded red cabbage salad. I made it first using my mother’s amazingly thin and sharp chef’s knife… but I’m terrified of sharpening my own knife (come on… all that shing and shang while to fling your blade up and down the sharpener… just seems like an accident waiting to happen) so chopping all that cabbage was a snore at my apartment. So I bought that little mandolin. I love it. LOVE it. I think it loves me back, though it first nipped the tips of my fingers off… but now we are friends.

 

Pink Slaw (Kaprise Kitchen)

The best part of this salad is how pretty it becomes after wilting a bit. The beautiful purple melts a little and turns the white sections of cabbage into bright pink slices.

  • One head of purple cabbage, medium/large
  • 2 limes
  • 1 small mandarin
  • 1/3 cup of olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon of mustard
  • 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
  1. Quarter and core the cabbage
  2. Thinly slice the cabbage. If you have a food processor, you can use the slice function. But if you’re like me and have a mini food processor, go ahead and use a knife. OR that zippy new mandolin.
  3. Sprinkle shredded cabbage with salt
  4. If you have purchase spray free fruit, zest one of the limes. Juice limes and mandarin for about 1/2 cup of juice
  5. In a small jar, shake together juice, olive oil, and mustard until creamy.
  6. Toss shredded cabbage with 1/2 of the dressing before adding more as to taste. (The amount of dressing you use is up to you… and somewhat related to how large or small your cabbage is)
  7. Salad will keep in a well sealed container and refrigerated for about 4 or 5 days.

And, since I didn’t take pictures of my pink salad (I wolfed it down right out of the bowl), here are some pictures for the last couple weeks.

Smashed fingerlings, waiting to be crisped with bacon

My Christmas wreath that the grumpy old man at the Farmer’s Market sold to me…. that did not smell Christmassy at all!

Thanksgiving Turkey, slathered with thyme, lemon zest, and butter. 🙂 Pretty!

 

Smoked Gouda Pork Chop

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I’ve been making serious effort to make every single one of my meals at home. Not only is it healthier and cheaper – but the few minutes it takes me to prepare my own meal is a good way to unwind at the end of the day. But, there are those days that you get home late and you have to walk the dog and by the time you get to the kitchen the clock is reading closer to bedtime than dinner time. So a simple and quick recipe is in order… and when you are trying to reduce your wheat intake – toasting a slice of bread is not an option. This recipe is easy. In the time it takes your chops to sizzle, you can get a salad together and silverware on the table and pour a glass of wine.

Smoked Gouda Pork Chop (Kaprise Kitchen original)

  • 2 boneless pork chops
  • 1/4 cup of mayonnaise
  • 1/4 cup of shredded smoked gouda
  • 1/2 teaspoon of mustard
  • 1/4 teaspoon of cracked black pepper
  1. Set your broiler to high
  2. In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, cheese, and mustard until smooth
  3. Rinse and pat your pork chops dry. Sprinkle both sides of pepper.
  4. Place the pork chops on the baking sheet
  5. Smooth the cheese mixture evenly over the two pork chops.
  6. Place the baking sheet on the lower shelf of your oven for about 30 minutes, or until the pork has reached an internal temperature of 145 degrees F (see notes).
  7. Once the minimum internal temperature has been reached, place the sheet on the higher shelf and allow the chops to brown just a bit more.
  8. Serve over salad with a good white wine. I had mine with spinach salad and a glass of dry pinot gris.

 

 

Notes:

  • Connie at OuiChefCook has an excellent post about mayonnaise and instructions on how to make your own here.
  • You can substitute the cheese for other variations – I’ve only tried this with aged white cheddar and parmesan. Both work well, but if you try other cheese variations – let me know how it turns out!!
  • Suggested internal temperature for meats can be be found here on the USDA website. They say “Cook all raw beef, pork, lamb and veal steaks, chops, and roasts to a minimum internal temperature of 145 °F as measured with a food thermometer before removing meat from the heat source. For safety and quality, allow meat to rest for at least three minutes before carving or consuming. For reasons of personal preference, consumers may choose to cook meat to higher temperatures.”

Ushering In the New Year

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Happy New Years 2012!  We all usher our New Year in with different traditions, some drink champagne and squeeze into the corrals in Time Square. Others gather with dear friends. And if you are like my younger sister, she flies across the country with her snowboard and spends the last daylight hours of the year swooping down snowy slopes. However, if you are like me, you’ll spend the last day of the year cleaning out your room and throwing out the clutter that has accumulated and making room for the new memories and new things that will come. Of course, the cleaning is generously interspersed with some TV, chocolate, chatting with your older sister, and teasing the dog.

I make a long list of resolutions every single year, but I often get distracted from these resolutions or find myself forgetting what I had promised. So, I wrote myself just a few. Simple. Easy. And utterly achievable.

  1. Write more here.
  2. Run more.
  3. Study harder.

What are your resolutions??

 

Endive Salad

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The first time I read the word “endive” was out of a fancy cookbook that my mother had bought me as a gift. I was 13, maybe 14. It was Thanksgiving, and I wanted to make all of those fancy dishes. I wanted an elegant dinner filled with bubbly champagne and crystal and fancy food. It took a few trips before I found those little endives, and I proudly assembled my fancy salad. Then… I tasted a leaf and declared it “sour” and “gross” before proceeding to bake the stinkiest gruyere potato gratin (which I also deemed “gross”). My 14 year old self felt that the fancy food was a flop, but it’s been a decade since I cooked my first Thanksgiving, and I think my palate has matured with me too.

This year, I went for some last minute Thanksgiving bits with my mother and I spotted the tightly leafed buds once more. I purchased two of them and fixed a simple but beautiful salad. It was simple and elegant – the kind of pretty salad that my 14 year old self would have loved. This time, I garnished the salad with a bit of homemade pomegranate dressing (easy peasy recipe below)

Endive and Grapefruit Salad 

  • 2 Belgian Endives, thinly sliced
  • 1 bunch of mint, leaves removed and thinly sliced
  • 2 ruby red grapefruits, peeled and membrane removed (alternatively, you could supreme the citrus)
  1. After thinly slicing the endive and mint, toss gently together with the grapefruit. I chose to peel the fruit out of the membrane and crumble the slices so the grapefruit was distributed. Alternatively, for the presentation conscious, you could supreme the grapefruit and place the slices in an endive leaf with mint garnish.
  2. Keep chilled until ready to serve. Toss gently with dressing just before serving.

Pomegranate Dressing (Kaprise Kitchen)

  • 1/2 cup of pomegranate seeds
  • 2 spray free limes
  • 1/2 teaspoon of dijon mustard
  • 1/2 teaspoon of good olive oil
  1. In a small bowl, crush the pomegranate seeds until the juice is released.
  2. In the same bowl, squeeze the limes until all of the juice is released (you may also zest a little of the limes into the dressing if you want a punchier lime taste)
  3. Strain the liquid (to remove the pomegranate seeds and lime seeds) into a small jar
  4. Add the mustard and oil, and shake until the dressing is well combined. Add more mustard if you like.

Jalapeño Spiced Beef Stew

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I have never been one to diet or one to restrict anything I eat or drink. I truly believe that I should enjoy every single thing that I want to, and so I have never curtailed my consumption of food or drink. I scorn diets and I scorn the calorie counters… because it turns the ethereal and wonderful experience of food into a mathematical equation that makes you miserable. However, recently, I have found that the tremendous stress I deal with has negatively impacted my eating habits. I used to eat all I wanted – but I ate fresh fruits, vegetables, and lean protein – and  because I ate good and clean foods… I felt good and maintained a trim figure. However, I am in law school and I live in a city where fried chicken is an institution and fries accompany every meal. And when you cook for one, it’s easier to snag a pizza and it’s easy to justify ordering in because the 40 minutes it takes for delivery to arrive is a precious 40 minutes you could be reading for school.

Anyway, this semester winds down, and finals scare the living sense out of me – I have made some small dietary changes to take my focus off being scared (I always start projects when I’m stressed out so I can distribute my nervous energy and handle my neurotic insomnia). My sister and mother recently transitioned to a paleo/primal eating pattern and both have felt they are vastly improved. Both have slimmed down and enjoy eating paleo/primal. While I have not made the drastic switch that they have, I have eliminated nearly all processed foods (with the exception of my candy stash for finals studying) and have drastically cut down my wheat intake. I’ve cleaned out my pantry, and just in time for donating to charities for the holiday season.

This December has been unseasonably warm, but with the drippy rain I felt the need for some stew. Instead of dusting the beef in flour, I seared the beef chunks in olive oil and then gently muddled a baked yam into the stew to thicken it up and for some added flavor. And since it is stew, I allowed myself a small handful of egg noodles to round out my dinner.

Jalapeño Spiced Beef Stew (Kaprise Kitchen)

  • 16 oz ribeye steak, cubed (you can use any other cut of beef, but I prefer ribeye in mine)
  • 2 tablespoons of olive oil
  • 2 small seeded jalapeños, diced (be wary of those teeny ones that pack a punch. Mine were the small ones that positively emanated heat, so I seeded and rinsed mine with great care)
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 1 portabella mushroom, diced
  • 1 cup of red wine (I used a good Malbec, but anything on the drier side will be fine)
  • 1 orange yam, steamed until soft
  • 2 carrots, sliced
  • 2 stalks of celery, sliced
  • 2 cups of filtered water
  • 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
  • salt/pepper to taste
  1. Cube meat and dust with black pepper and salt
  2. In a heavy bottomed pot, heat olive oil and sear the cubed ribeye, flipping cubes as the sides brown.
  3. Once the meat has browned, stir in the jalapeño and onion, until both have softened slightly.
  4. Stir in wine and allow the wine to reduce by half before adding filtered water
  5. In the broth, muddle the yam until it dissolves into the liquid. I steamed my yam for about 15 minutes until it was soft to touch.
  6. Add the remaining ingredient and simmer for 1 hour.
  7. Serve over noodles or on it’s own.

 

 

Making A Change

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Last week I told a friend that I would no longer be skipping class, because it is truly a waste of money to skip classes that I have so precariously put myself in six digit debt to pay for. And then I proceeded to skip the next two classes. Which is just so unlike me. I never skipped class in college and in 1L year, I almost never missed a class. I was at school promptly and paid attention, so in reflecting back I am disappointed that I have not improved over the couple years, but instead I have regressed to a class-skipping kid. Further, my apartment is just messy. My clothing isn’t folded or hung properly, things are simply stuffed into shelves and there are things dropped across my apartment. Dust (DUST!??!?!) was on my counter this morning.  So as I walked to class, I vowed that this week, I will make a change. I will get my life together. I will be the highly functioning, intelligent, and well rounded person I know that I am.
I deactivated my facebook account, because I spend too much time on it and really, how much do I actually care about people uploading stupid pictures? Not much really.
I wrote a list of the things I need to tick off, and… I will be back with more recipes and more inspirational things here.
In life, we can only trust ourselves to be happy and inspired. I have faith in myself. So here is to pulling it together and being the best me possible.

Changing Seasons

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At the change of seasons, I always find myself a bit down. It’s the whole leaving one season behind to get to another… the weather changes just a bit at a time until you’re suddenly 100% in a new season.

This summer/fall, I have been feeling a bit foggy. I feel as if I’m covered in those opaque and sticky clouds. I just can’t see the outline of myself and my true shape. I feel smudged. It’s 3L year, and I’m so excited that the end is near… but I’m so so anxious because I just don’t know what happens next. I don’t know! And I feel so uncertain and insecure because I know I am overqualified for anything entry level, but underqualified for anything I want… and I have the burden of over a quarter million dollars of student debt. And? There are just so many things to do. And there are so many things I want. I feel unprepared for all that is coming, and I know there is so much more to come. I don’t like feeling as if I am hanging on by a thread, I want to feel as if I am dominating.

Anyway, when I doubt, I stand at my kitchen counters and put together pretty food to cheer up.

Tomato and Pesto

  • 1 Heirloom Tomato, sliced
  • 1/4 cup of pesto
  • 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar glaze
  1. Arrange the tomato on a platter
  2. Dollop just a bit of pesto on each stack of tomato
  3. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar glaze

 

Freezer Food

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Since I am a student, and I am a master procrastinator (try saying that 5 times fast) I often find myself with a lack of palatable food options. There are only so many times you can eat celery and hummus, or granola bars. (Note that while I write this post about making healthful options for your freezer, I am actually consuming a massive and unlady-like quantity of bagel bites. Yup!)

Anyway, I do find that having a couple different options in my freezer is the best way to stay happily fed on those days where I just don’t have time or the foresight to make something yummy. I normally keep pesto, tomato sauce, and some variation of protein stocked in my freezer. Tomato sauce is easily accomplished with some good tomatoes and a slow simmer on the stove. Pesto comes together easily in a food processor and when pine nuts are scarce, I make it with walnuts or almonds. Protein requires a bit more patience, but I like keeping seafood, poultry, and red meat so I have plenty of variety. But this is just how I change up my menu

This week I have stocked my freezer with bison/spinach meatballs and turkey/carrot meatballs. It’s not a recipe, because you just need to figure out what you like in your meatballs. And to taste test, you should just fry a small portion of your meatball mix and adjust from there (you know, so you don’t have a freezer full of bland meatballs). The bison meatballs came together nicely with some chopped spinach, parsley, onion, and a generous sprinkle of spices. I like to saute the meatballs in a little wine and chopped tomatoes for an easy over-pasta meal.

 

 

Seeking Serenity

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It’s only been a couple weeks since classes started again, but I already feel the need to run away. I feel responsibility to do this league long list of things, but inside I just want to fleetly race away. I was asked when the last time I painted, and I didn’t remember. In fact, it’s been months and months since I last unpacked my oils and painted. What happened to me?

Anyway, as always my serenity comes from long hours of patiently cooking, painting, or running. I haven’t cooked in quite a while, but these ribs are the right answer for any number of ailments. Brushing the ribs with mustard and dry rub, and then patiently waiting as they gently bake in your oven? This is as close to end of summer salve as it gets. And as summer unwinds and turns dramatically into fall, this is the perfect way to kiss summer goodbye. And for those apartment dwellers, like myself who do not have grills, this is perfect.

I eyeball the ingredients and taste before generously patting the ribs with the rub. Feel free to change and add the herbs you want to make your ribs taste the way you like. The only necessities are brushing the bottoms of the ribs with mustard and some salt/pepper and then a generous pat of dry rub.

Dry Rub Ribs (Kaprise Kitchen style)

  • 3 to 5 pounds of baby back pork ribs. (I’ve used spare ribs with good results)
  • 1/4 cup of brown sugar
  • 2-3 tablespoons of chili powder
  • 1 teaspoon of cumin
  • 1 teaspoon of paprika
  • 1 teaspoon of ground red pepper
  • pinch of lavender powder
  • 2 tablespoons of fine mustard
  • salt/pepper
  1. In a bowl mix together all spices and sugar but the mustard and salt and pepper.
  2. Trim ribs as necessary. I normally trim any unsightly bits and overly fatty sections. Pat dry with a clean paper towel.
  3. Sprinkle both sides generously with salt and pepper
  4. Brush the bottoms of the ribs with the mustard
  5. Pat the dry rib over the tops of the ribs and sides. (I once patted the entire rack with rub…. it was a bit messy and the flavor was no different, so spare the bottoms of the ribs).
  6. Before pre-heating your oven, scrub the racks and line the lower shelf with foil that is tilted slightly towards the center to prevent any dripping. If you have one of those super-sized cookie sheets that will protect your entire lower shelf… use that.
  7. After preheating the oven, place the ribs directly on the oven shelf
  8. Bake ribs in a 275 degree oven for 2 to 3 hours. I normally let mine cook for 2.5 hours and then raise the temperature to 400 degrees and brush the tops of the ribs with just a thin layer of BBQ sauce (I’m not cool, so I buy mine at the grocery store. This time? The yellow one)
Notes:
  • I have read a number of recipes on wrapping ribs in foil and blah blah blah but you know… that’s so complicated and this is so much easier
  • I do like my rub on the sweeter side, so feel free to scale back the sugar if it’s just too much for you
  • If you’re feeling particularly lazy, you can use a dry packet of Italian salad dressing with the sugar. You won’t need to salt the ribs or do anything else.
  • If you are from Baltimore? Do what I know you will, use Old Bay!