Category Archives: Uncategorized

Leifsdottir Love

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After graduating, I worked as a paralegal. Without noticing, I had suddenly acquired a closet full of black and white clothing. I had a “uniform.” I always wore a black skirt with a combination of shirts and sweaters. I wasn’t frumpy by any means, I was well dressed but terribly boring. So I decided to change it up a bit.

I still needed to appear professional at work so I took myself shopping.  After chewing my nails for a bit, I bought myself my favorite (and still favorite) luxe Francesco Biasa bag. With this bag slung over my left arm, I felt stylish but still professional. So I went on to collecting clothing that was fun and professional. I sighed in the windows of Elie Tahari and his printed dress and sharply tailored suits. I breathed little bubbles of contentment at the pretty things in BCBGMaxazria. And I inhaled anything Theory. I’d pat my hands over the Marc Jacob’s shoes and gorgeous skirts. I had a little affair with Charles David and a butter colored bag that I still pat affectionately whenever I sling it over my shoulder.

And most recently, since I can dress a little less sharply at school, I have been breathing in anything Leifsdottir. I love the fabric, the vibrant colors, the cut and the concept. I love the smart lace jackets, the sweet as candy dresses and the ruffled hems. Their website is beautiful and I frequently purchase a little guilty pleasure when I need a boost in the library. So, I’m sharing with you the bright spot in the library: these sweet little dresses and jackets I’ve been savoring while studying.

Links to click:

Milk and Cookies

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Does anyone remember that book If You Give  Mouse a Cookie (http://www.minilink.me/25799/)?

Well, whenever I think of milk and cookies, I get the image of a little gray mouse in my head. He’s tiny and fluffy and just begging for a cookie. I had a fresh container of these cookies that I baked at 1:00am because I couldn’t sleep and my boyfriend came over this morning bright and early to drive me to the library. So now, instead of that little mouse, I have the image of my bf perched on the counter dipping his cookie in some milk while I got my bag together. Please note, that despite my adoration for anything cookies, I am a firm believer in WHOLE milk for milk and cookies type activities. First, it tastes better, and second, you are already eating a cookie so you should enjoy it to the fullest!

Heidi’s Milk and Cookies

  • 1 quart of whole milk, very cold
  • 2cups + 1 tbl of all purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp of baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp of Kosher sea salt (I just like it better, but you can use whatever you want)
  • 3/4 cup of butter, melted and cooled
  • 1 1/4 cup of brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup of granulated sugar
  • 1 tsp of vanilla extract
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 1 cup of Ghiradelli 60% cocoa chocolate chips (these are the best chips for your money)
  1. Melt butter (either in the microwave in 15 second increments, or on the stove top in a pan, or even in a pan in the oven at 325 for 8-10 minutes)
  2. Allow the butter to cool. Let it sit for 15-20 minutes. (Or if you are impatient like me? Pour it into a large bowl in a thin stream while continually whisking to facilitate cooling).
  3. Whisk the butter with the sugar until well combined
  4. Add the egg and egg yolk. I separate the eggs and remove the chalaza (the little white stringy thing in eggs) before adding them to the batter, but it doesn’t make a difference in flavor or aesthetic. (As I’m writing this, I realize I’m not sure why I do it, but I do it anyway)
  5. Whisk in vanilla
  6. Add flour and sprinkle baking soda and salt over the flour before mixing into the egg mixture
  7. Add chocolate chips and stir to combine. Put the bowl in the refrigerator for 10 minutes
  8. In the mean time, pre-heat your oven to 325 and line your cookie sheets with parchment paper
  9. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough about 1 inch apart on the cookie sheets
  10. Bake at 325 F for 10 to 14 minutes. I like to bake mine until they are just golden around the edges. This makes for crisp edges and dense and chewy centers. Bake for longer if you prefer a more crisp cookie.
  11. As you slide your cookies into the oven, put your milk in the freezer. I love my milk to be ice cold when I dip my hot cookies in them – so I chill my milk while my cookies bake.

Comments:

  • Store in an air tight container once cooled. Baked cookies keep for 1 week. Refrigerated dough should be well sealed and keeps for no more than 3 days. Frozen dough can keep for 2 months well sealed. Defrost frozen dough in the refrigerator overnight before using (or freeze dough in balls so you can just bake them)
  • I have seen similar recipes all over the web, so if this looks like your recipe, thank you for your inspiration!!

Links to click:

Little Things

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This morning, I treated my boyfriend and myself to bacon, egg and cheese bagels from a little deli near my place. And as a native New Yorker, I was displeased with the bagel (obviously!!). However, at the counter was a pile of little snacks and this caught my eye:

This is by far one of my favorite chocolate bars. It’s the perfect sized chocolate bar. The dark chocolate isn’t overly sweet and the hazelnuts are whole and plentiful. I snapped one up and threw it in my bag to eat at the library. 🙂

I also did a little shoe browsing this week. I bought the Pour la Victoire Bridgette sandals below and I got them yesterday… except the heel is wiggly and wobbly on the right side. They’re clearly going back – but how sweet are they? They come in pink and blue suede too!!I can’t decide if I want to re-order them. The price is so reasonable for Pour La Victoire (especially since I have a soft spot for the brand).

My friend and I also ordered those suede boots, and they are supposed to get here today – we’ll see what they look like.

Chicken Soup

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A couple days ago, a friend told me she was making chicken soup and invited me over. Much to my dismay, she was pouring a carton of chicken stock into a pot and throwing some random things from her refrigerator into the pot. I do like making everything from scratch, if not for the challenge but to procrastinate just a teensy bit more, but chicken soup is one thing I will never eat out of a box, a can, or otherwise. I cringe at the thought of pre-made soup, and I cringe at restaurant made soup too. I just don’t like the idea of someone else making my soup.

This chicken soup is a little riff on what my mom used to make us as kids. It’s easy, and all you have to do is put it all in the pot and walk away until it’s just beautifully fragrant and delicious. I use chicken legs for this because I dislike using whole chickens, but you need some bones to boil to get that delicious and silky quality to your soup.

Chicken Soup

  • 4 to 6 drumsticks, cleaned and skinned
  • 1 carrot, cleaned and chopped in half
  • 1 stalk of celery, cleaned and chopped in half
  • 1 small shallot, peeled
  • 1 tbl of fresh garlic
  • 1 bay leaf
  • salt and pepper

finishing touches

  • 1 carrot, sliced into coins
  • 1 stalk of celery, sliced into half moons
  • 2 small red potatoes, diced and rinsed thoroughly
  • sprinkle of fresh parsley
  1. Put all of the main ingredients into a large pot (my Le Creuset and I are inseparable during the winter) and cover with filtered water (use about 1 tsp of salt and pepper)
  2. Simmer on medium to low heat for 1 hour (I normally put this on the stove and then go for a walk, pick up some bread and come home).
  3. Remove the chicken and bones. Discard the bones and shred the chicken meat into a bowl.
  4. Remove the boiled vegetables and discard
  5. Skim any fat off the top of the soup (shouldn’t be much since we took the skin off the meat)
  6. Season to taste – maybe a little extra pepper
  7. At this point, I usually put the entire (cooled) pot into the refrigerator to make sure I get ALL of the fat off the top of the soup. But you can skip this if you can’t wait to have your soup
  8. Bring to a gentle simmer and drop in the potatoes and cooked chicken. Boil for 5 minutes before adding the rest of the vegetables. I like crunchy vegetables, so I let everything percolate for only 2 or 3 minutes more before I serve… but feel free to cook the vegetables to your liking.

Store leftovers in an airtight container. I freeze the stock before I add the finishing vegetables. The soup should keep well in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 days and up to 1 month frozen

In Honor of Finals

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Any law student knows that after Thanksgiving, it’s game time. And this mostly means that you turn into an emotionally unstable crazy person that will spend endless hours in the library reading and pulling your hair out. So, for your amusement are the little stories that come with reading statutes and cases in dark corners of the library.

  1. A friend used to wake up every morning so confused because she’d be certain she had packed her book bag before going to bed – but she’d wake up with her books scattered everywhere and hugging her laptop to her chest.
  2. My friend had a dream that she was getting mugged, and she was clutching her laptop to her chest, pleading them not to take her laptop. She even offered to give them her car. She was so relieved when she woke up, she immediately backed up all of her notes and then ran to the library
  3. A friend walked into the library bathroom to find someone brewing coffee on the bathroom counter…. more than once.
  4. I was studying when someone answered their phone in the library. I promptly stood up, glared at them and then when they didn’t get the hint told him to “shut up and take it outside.” Did I mention I found out he is a professor at my school?
  5. My friend threatened someone snoring in the library with pepper spray to get him to shut up
  6. My friends and I show up at the library armed with snacks and multiple bottles of water
  7. I almost cried when I couldn’t find an empty table on Friday night to study at the library
  8. When I see one of the good tables open on the 3rd floor, I feel a huge surge of triumph that I managed to beat the crowd so I can lay claim to the table.
  9. I run to the library

So. All the students out there, good luck!

Simple and beautiful

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I know I promised to share by project last week, but after making two dozen spanikopita triangles and a huge crowd of stuffed cabbage in spicy red sauce, I was pooped. Not to mention the week I spent stressing about school and staying up all night…. so the minute I roasted my last ribeye stuffed cabbage, I was out like a light on the floor…. My puppy woke me up when she came over with her prickly little whiskers to sniff my face and check for doneness.

Clearly, in such an incapacitated mental state of frenzied studying and frenzied cooking for stress relief…. I took 1 picture. 1. Out of 4 hours of cooking… 1 single picture. So it works wonderfully, that I didn’t love either recipes I concocted. So, until they are perfect? I will withhold!

I do have tons of new recipes that I’m playing with…. port reduced portabellas, perfect ribeye steaks, pilaf, wheatberry salads, and RICOTTA GNOCCI! but, until I get my law school brain sorted out and my pictures uploaded and edited, you’re stuck with….. broccoli.

Now, this is not rocket science, nor is it the most brilliant recipe. However, this is a wonderful way to get a full serving of greens and have a healthy lunch that uses up some leftovers!

Butter Braised Broccoli

  • 1 bunch of fresh green broccoli, washed and chopped into bite size pieces
  • 1 small onion, peeled and sliced thinly in half moons
  • 1 left over boiled potato
  • 2 tablespoons of butter (or if you are like my boyfriend and think butter will kill you, that fake stuff in the tub or olive oil with a sprinkle of salt is fine)
  • 1/4 cup of wheatberries, bulgar, or any other whole grain that you have easily on hand *
  • options: any other left over vegetables, or a poached egg
  1. Heat a fry pan, toss the broccoli in with a few tablespoons of water and cover until the broccoli is bright and tender.
  2. Once the water has evaporated, add the butter over high heat until the broccoli is toasted
  3. Lower the heat and add onions and other vegetables and whole grains (as you use) and stir until hot
  4. Sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan, cracked black pepper and salt to taste
  5. Enjoy!

My last version – I omitted the wheatberries and used a small potato I had knocking around in my fridge with the onion. I ate this with a little wedge of toasted bread.

Tick Tick Tick

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I like lists of all kinds…. mostly on post-its because they stick and come in fun colors.

Since it is the end of the semester, I have been making lists of things I need to do. Pages I need to read, outlines I need to make, classes I need to go to, the workouts I must do, and these little lists keep piling up. Sometimes I lose these lists. But the one list I never lose is the little one with neat lines of ingredients for my next kitchen project…. sometimes I have lots of little ideas. Like today…. beef stroganoff? beef wellington!? chicken pot pie?! almond butter croissants? Risotto with fragrant port wine mushrooms? Cabbage wrapped empanadas? gingersnap cheesecake? sour cherry hand pies? spinach feta triangles? roasted chicken? braised pork loin?

I’ll be back later tonight with my project.

Fleece, rain, and papers

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I’m sitting in my adorable boyfriend’s apartment attempting to write my final paper for my research class. You know what writing a research paper is like? 17 pages of explaining your topic, how you researched it, and what the answer to your research question is. 17 pages?! That’s not nearly enough… and I suffer from the almost fatal addiction to last minute paper writing. In high school I wrote my junior and senior thesis in two sittings separated by a 3 hour nap. Both were due on the same day and I waited until 2 days before to write the combined 60 pages.

So this weekend, instead of actually doing work I played with friends and went shopping.

Easy Tomato Sauce

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(Whole wheat pizza with Easy Tomato Sauce, mozzarella and artichokes)

A while back there was a recipe for tomato and butter sauce that everyone was raving about. It was simple – tomatoes, butter and an onion. The result was a velvety sauce with the richness of the butter just shining through. It is a good recipe. It’s easy and all you need to do is stir. As a law student, I like easy recipes that stay delicious through multiple meals and that store easily. So, this recipe was my go to for quite some time. I used it on pasta, pizza, eggs, whole wheat tortillas, you name it.

However, like anyone who spends a lot of time puttering around the kitchen, I believe that there is always room for improvement. So I changed the recipe, but I didn’t want to spend more time stirring or chopping so only added one ingredient and condensed the steps so that I could put this sauce up, study, and when I’m finished reading my sauce is done. I love things like this, the kind you can set up and leave alone while you do your work. It makes me feel like I’m doing more.

This sauce freezes beautifully and pairs well with just about anything. I freeze 1/2 cup portions and toss it with fresh pasta as needed. I noticed that full cup portions are a little too hefty for me, and the 1/2 cup keeps me in check. I might run a lot, but not enough to burn 2,000 calories of tomato and carb.

Easy Tomato Sauce

  • 2 cans of 28oz of whole tomatoes, try to find cans that are lined and BPA free
  • 2 medium sized yellow onions, peeled and halved root to tip
  • 7 tablespoons of salted butter, sliced in 1 tablespoon increments (I have a feeling you could get away with as few as 5 tablespoons of butter and still have a great sauce)
  • 1 1/2 cups of good red wine (I wouldn’t open a good bottle of wine just for this sauce, but if you have a cup or two left over from your last bottle – the kind that is too good to chuck but too aired to save – this is the place to use it right up)
  1. Begin to heat your pot and pour in the tomatoes. (I like using my Le Creuset for this project). With a pair of kitchen shears, cut each of the whole tomatoes into 3 or 4 pieces.  I find that by cutting apart the whole tomatoes you can skip the pureeing and the squishing of the tomatoes during the cooking process.
  2. Add the butter, wine and onion. Stir until the wine is incorporated well.
  3. Cover the pot and lower the heat to just below a simmer.
  4. Set your timer for 2 hours.
  5. Read, do homework, clean your bathroom. Periodically (say every 30 minutes) take a peek and stir your sauce so nothing sticks to the bottom of your pot
  6. After 2 hours has elapsed, stir your sauce thoroughly, mashing any large bits of tomato that haven’t broken down (or leave them if you like more texture).
  7. Remove the onion halves from the sauce. The original recipe tells you to discard this. But as a poor as a church mouse and gaining debt by the minute law student – I make use of every single thing I can. Put the onion in a glass dish and store for later. I served the onion sprinkled with a little balsamic vinegar, heated with slices of buttered, crusty baguette at a wine party. It was delicious.
  8. Taste, and add salt and pepper as needed. I found that with the delicious addition of red wine that no other seasoning was necessary.

Enjoy!