May 10 2010

Meet Karly

Posted by Erika (TK) in Meet the Member!

She’s an Illinois native who, in her profile, lists shopping as a hobby, sea salt as her favorite food, and this baker isn’t afraid to say that she loves to make brownies from a box mix. She’s funny, spirited, and she’s definitely come a long way from her early years of marriage when she considered frozen pizza a gourmet dinner. Let’s all say hello to Karly Campbell!

Karly is a sweetheart who married her high school sweetheart. Together they have two children, and she’s a homeschooling mom. (Do you see that beautiful photo of her above? Her ten-year-old took that.) She says that it’s taken her some years to get from Hamburger Helper to food that doesn’t come out of a box, and from the looks of the recipes below, it’s no wonder that her husband is quite thankful for that.

Clockwise from top left: Country Pasta with Mozzarella, Creamy Onion Garlic Bread, BLT Macaroni Salad, and Southwest Summer Pork Chops.

Karly also has some lovely snack recipes here, not just for parties but also for sitting on the couch watching a good show. Her children enjoy watching food shows with her, and it sounds like we might have two future Tasty Kitchen members there.

Clockwise from left: Sugar and Spice Roasted Nuts, Deviled Egg Dip, and Homemade Caramel Corn.

I said two future members because, despite what you think when you see her blog’s name—Buns In My Oven—Karly assures us that she means buns of the “yeasty kind.” She promises it’s not the other kind. She went with that name because the first recipe she made and shot for web posting was hamburger buns.

So Karly is, for the most part, a baker. Oh, what a baker she is. Most of the entries in her Tasty Kitchen recipe box are yummy baked goods, and since there were so many of them, I thought to myself, what better way to show them than to do a non-chocolate group:

Left: Cheesecake Cookies. Middle column, from top to bottom: Blackberry Cobbler, Blueberry Bread, and Pumpkin Streusel Muffins. Right column, from top to bottom: Raspberry Coffee Cake and Strawberry Crostada.

Followed by a chocolate group. (You’re welcome.)

Clockwise from top left: Triple Threat Brownies,Chocolate Chip and Bacon Cookies, Magic Peanut Butter Middles, Chocolate Peanut Butter Candy Bars, and Chocolate Chip Scones.

Don’t they look gorgeous?

Karly is more than just a yumminess-machine. She’s engaging, funny, and simply down-to-earth. Let’s ask her a bunch of questions so you can see what I mean!

Q: What do you enjoy most about cooking?
A: I won’t lie—I enjoy cooking, but honestly it’s the eating that’s my favorite part. I also like the planning. I have a great time imagining menus for dinner parties (that I’ll never host) and holiday dinners (that are always at my mama’s house). I really enjoy the creativity in cooking. There are so many different foods out there and you can mix and match and put them all together to create something completely different every time. That doesn’t mean my concoctions are always edible, but it’s always fun trying something new. I guess food is my form of art. Better than the cooking, though, is the eating. If I was one of those skinny girls who counted calories, I wouldn’t cook nearly as much. It’s no fun for me to cook something that I’m not passionate about eating, and unfortunately, I’m really passionate about bacon.

Q: If you had to eat something RIGHT NOW, and had only 3 minutes to get it ready, what would it be?
A: Oh, this is easy. I would eat a spoonful of peanut butter. Then I would stick my head in the fridge to see if there was something else in there, because surprisingly, the peanut butter didn’t stop the hunger. I’d probably grab a package of pepperoni and have a few slices of that. Maybe some green olives and a slice of cheese, if it had been a while since my last meal. Then I’d wash it all down with a big glass of sweet tea. What? You expected me to actually prepare a real meal in three minutes? I need to time to think things through, so if I’m strapped for time, I just snack. I’d never make it as an Iron Chef.

Q: Speaking Iron Chef and wild, unconventional recipes, what is the strangest food or food combo that you really, really enjoy?
A: Oh, I can’t believe I’m sharing this with you all. Let me begin by saying that this little recipe was concocted back in high school when I was clearly insane. Insanely awesome, but insane all the same. The recipe goes like this: a cup of Stove Top stuffing, enough water to wet the stuffing but not so much that it gets terribly soggy (1/4 to 1/2 cup maybe?), a slice of American processed cheese product (please don’t use fancy cheese for this), and a few shakes of Frank’s Red Hot sauce. Microwave it all for a minute or two and stir it all up. It’s amazing. Oh, and did I mention that this is a breakfast recipe? Seriously, it’s better than oatmeal, y’all. Don’t be scared. Every single person that I’ve convinced to try this (which is, admittedly, not many) has loved it and made it again and again!

Q: Is there something that you always make at home and never buy at the store anymore?
A: I’m a big fan of homemade biscuits lately. I used to buy the can of biscuit dough, but there are so many good biscuit recipes out there that I’ve had fun making my own. I keep going back and forth between these heavenly cream biscuits and tall, flaky buttermilk biscuits. One can never have too many biscuits. I also never buy cookies or cookie dough at the store anymore, which is something that I used to do pretty regularly. Baking seems so intimidating at first, but once you get into it, it all just clicks and it doesn’t take much time to bake from scratch once you know what you’re doing.

Q: Do you have a most memorable kitchen flop ever?
A: I’ve always heard that you should never test a new recipe on guests, but I generally don’t let that stop me. My biggest flop was for my daughter’s fourth birthday. I decided to make a seven layer rainbow cake (each layer was a different color of the rainbow). It was beautiful, bright, and colorful. I had it all stacked up with white fluffy (cloud-like) frosting between each layer and all around the outside and I couldn’t wait to see her face when I sliced that tall, colorful cake for her. I stuck the cake into the fridge to wait for the guests to arrive and a bit later, I opened up the fridge to find that my cake had split in half and slid down the side of my refrigerator. I sat on the kitchen floor and cried while my husband ran to the bakery for a generic store-bought cake. Lesson learned!

Q: What is your favorite kitchen tool?
A: My Wusthof Santoku knife is my most treasured possession. It was recommended by Ree and it has literally changed my life. I always used the cheap knives available at the local department store, but I’ll never go back to those again. A good knife is truly your best friend in the kitchen.

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What fun you are, Karly! Thanks for answering our silly questions.

Come take a look at Karly’s recipe box and plan your next baking project. Then, if you aren’t afraid of even more delicious sweets and treats that will make you gain weight (she does apologize for it in advance), head to her blog, Buns In My Oven. While you’re there, enjoy all the beautiful photographs she has. Go Karly!

May 7 2010

The Theme Is … Mama! (Nana, too!)

Posted by Erika (TK) in The Theme Is...

As we approach the weekend, many people are turning their thoughts to their dear mothers, either visiting them, having them over, taking them out for a special meal, or if none of those are feasible, calling them on the phone. This weekend is the weekend that typically sees the highest call volumes of the year, which is not to mean many of us don’t pick up the phone to call mom all those other times we need help with something, asking her how she makes her pie crust so flaky, telling her about what that mean person said to us this morning, or calling just to hear her voice and see how she’s doing.

I thought that for this week’s theme, we’d do something special and personal. We could have done a post about brunch ideas, and that would have been great too. We have tons of breakfast and brunch recipes here at Tasty Kitchen, and some of the suggestions we had in our recent Bridal Showers and Spring theme posts work beautifully for Sunday brunch as well. But today, let’s get all nostalgic and talk about the foods that remind us of our Mamas (and Nanas too!). And because there are as many possible answers to that as there are mothers and grandmothers, we’ll make it personal and poll the throngs of people behind the scenes here at Tasty Kitchen. (And by “throngs,” I mean all three of us.)

Let’s start with Ree. I asked her what foods remind her most of her mom and grandmother, and she quickly answered that for her grandmother, it’s biscuits and homemade jam. “Oh, dear. Best drop biscuits ever, and I’ll never be able to replicate them.” If it’s any consolation to you, Ree, Alton Brown said the same thing about his grandmother’s biscuits.

Clockwise from top left: Basic Buttermilk Biscuits from loveandbutter (Jamie), Grape Harvest Jam from italianfoodforever, Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits from madisonmayberry, Cinnamon Peach Jam from bertscannery, Easy Drop Biscuits from cookingfromscratch, Apple Pie Jam – Jelly from Mommy’s Kitchen, Biscuits, The Cheater Way from sarahhope, and Easy Homemade Plum Jam from nicoled.

For her mom, Ree’s reply was just as quick: Cinnamon Rolls. I’m sure many of you have become quite intimate with those luscious Cinnamon Rolls that Ree shared with us in one of her earliest cooking posts. It’s that sinful-looking dish you see in the top photo, and just for kicks, I thought I’d show you a couple of variations that we have here, including a gluten-free version.

Clockwise from left: Gluten-free Cinnamon Rolls from glutenfreegirl, Amazing Short Cut Cinnamon Rolls from sprucehill, Caramel Sticky Buns from Heather.

As for me, I seem to be an anomaly, because the dishes that remind me most of my mom are savory, main dish offerings. My all-time favorite is my mom’s spaghetti meat sauce, and it was always a treat when she made it. And the one, ultra-special once-in-a-while fancy meal that’s so memorable that I can clearly picture in my mind our old dining room and where I sat as my mom brought out the food was a steak dinner served with cream of mushroom soup and buttered corn. To this day, that combination always instantly brings me back to my childhood.

Clockwise from top left: Pepper Encrusted Steak from bell’alimento, Homemade Cream of Mushroom Soup from steamykitchen, Corn with Bacon and Green Onions, Oh My from Karly Campbell, and Pastor Ryan’s Bolognese Sauce.

As for Nanci, the lovely lady who answers your support questions and helps you with anything and everything, she says that her mom makes the greatest cobblers ever, using her great-grandmother’s crust. And her paternal grandmother? She was a master candy maker, and people would travel far and wide to purchase little bags of her peanut brittle every time she would make them for church bake sales.

Clockwise from top left: Old-Fashioned Microwave Peanut Brittle from bitesizebaker, Nectarine and Cream Cobbler from joythebaker, Spicy Peanut Brittle from uwharrie, Blackberry Cobbler from Karly Campbell, The McNally Pie Crust from Courtney.

She also shared that her grandmother always made a roast when they came over, and that for both her mom and grandmother, pie was a big thing. A really big thing. And as I looked through the pie recipes here, I realized something: pie is a big thing for many, many people. So many of you have shared family favorite pies that have been passed on from mom, or grandma. And it’s so lovely that many of you are determined to continue the tradition, or start one of your own.

Top row, from left to right: Cherry Cream Crumble Pie from sugarnspice, Southern Sweet Potato Pie from bsherrill, and MaMaw Burkett’s Chess Pie from ace75. Center row, from left to right: Old Fashioned Coconut Cream Pie from Mommy’s Kitchen, Super Healthy Banana Pie from rawmazing, and Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie from A Cozy Kitchen. Bottom row, from left to right: “Just In Case” Pie from jaymielo, Grandma Inez’s Pineapple Pie from Natalie (Perry’s Plate), Blackberry Wine Glaze Pie with Ginger Crust from gastronomicgold.

And those are all the special Mama and Nana dishes for us here at Tasty Kitchen!

We want to hear from you, too. Is there something that your mom makes that you think no one else in the world can replicate? Something special and soothing that she’d make for you when you were sick that made you feel all better? What did Nana make for you every time you came over for a visit? We’ve love to hear it all!

And now, if you’ll excuse me for a moment, I think I’ll go look at old photos and find some Jean Nate to sniff.

May 6 2010

Oy…Oy…Oysters!

Posted by steamykitchen in Kitchen Talk

My younger son, Nathan, who is 5 years old, absolutely loves oysters. Now honestly, I don’t know if he really enjoyed the taste of oysters or if it was the crowd of adults clapping and congratulating my little tot for being brave enough to down the oyster on his very first try a year ago. Brave little boy, he was, and it had nothing to do with me telling him that it tastes just like potato chips.

Most people have a preference for either raw, fried or grilled oysters. The people who love raw oysters will *sometimes* like them grilled, but the people who like grilled or fried oysters don’t enjoy it raw.

And I’m saying this as if I have such authority on the subject oysters, when in reality, I just merely questioned my neighborhood friends, i.e. 3 people.

My favorite is raw, super chilled, and served with a tangy, light mignonette. There’ll absolutely be no cocktail sauce nor horseradish touching my oysters (which serves to merely mask the oysters’ delicate seawater flavors). Sometimes, just really good sea salt and a squeeze of lemon is all I need.

I love playing with the mignonette … errr … vinaigrette for the oysters. I think technically, a mignonette is made of red wine vinegar and shallots. But I love using an Asian rice vinegar and adding some grated fresh ginger with a pinch of salt and a pinch of sugar.

For the perfect oyster “mignonette,” I think a mixture of tangy, salty, and slightly sweet works really well. In the above photo, I used tart green apples (finely minced), white wine vinegar, minced cilantro and minced jalapeno, a touch of salt and a touch of sugar.

But enough about raw oysters, let’s talk about fried! When I fry oysters, I love using Zatarain’s Fish Fry seasoning and using my cast iron pot to fry the oysters.

And grilled? Absolutely divine. I made these grilled oysters a few months ago, right after getting back from FoodBuzz Food Blogger Festival in San Francisco. The first night consisted of a festival of street cart food, and one of the vendors was Hog Island Oyster Company. The shucker must have gone through about 1000 oysters that night, poor thing, and I think I stood by his cart for about two hours straight, eating 100 or so myself.

He gave me a recipe for their famous Hog Island Grilled Oysters, and you’ll find the recipe on Elise’s Simply Recipes blog. And, yes the oysters are sitting on a bed of raw rice, only because I ran out of rock salt! The rice worked beautifully.

So I think I’m an anomaly; I love my oysters every which way—raw, fried and grilled—though my favorite is freshly shucked raw oysters that make feel as if I’m standing knee-deep in the crashing waves with my arms wide open and yelling “IIIII—–LOOOOVVVE—-TOOOO—-EAAAAAAT—OY-OY-OYYYYYSTERSSS!!!”

How about you? Raw, fried or grilled? (Or NOT?)

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Jaden Hair is a food writer, television personality, and food photographer based in Tampa Bay, Florida. Find more of her recipes in her blog, Steamy Kitchen, where you can also read more about Jaden’s new book, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook, and the rave reviews it’s received!

May 4 2010

Stuffed French Toast

Posted by savorysweetlife in Step-by-Step Recipes

Since Ree is somewhere in D.C. right now with her gushing armpits (sorry for that visual on a cooking blog), we’ve invited a very special guest to host the Tasty Recipe post this week. Quite coincidentally, this lovely lady was also our very first member featured here in the Tasty Kitchen blog. She’s fabulous in so many ways, and we’re so glad to have her here. And boy, has she picked a great recipe to share with us today. Take it away, Alice!

French toast is one of my most favorite foods to eat any time of the day. When I saw this Tasty Kitchen recipe posted by manda2177, it was love at first sight. It makes ordinary French toast extraordinary. May I introduce you to Stuffed French Toast?

Here’s a list of everything you need: a loaf of French or Italian bread, eggs, milk, butter, cream cheese, cinnamon, and jam or fresh fruit (if you’re like me, you’ll use both). I also added slivered almonds just for the fun of it, but you don’t have to … unless you want to. If you do, let me know when and where I can invite myself over for breakfast. Thanks.

Before you can invite me over for breakfast, you’ll need to know how to make this. Slice a loaf of bread in 2-inch pieces. You should get about six pieces all together, not including the end pieces. Using a paring knife, cut a deep slit across the top in the middle of each slice, approximately 4 inches long (as pictured above). This will form your “pocket.” Once you’re done, set the bread aside.

I decided to go with strawberries for the filling. They were almost too pretty to eat. You could use any fruit or no fruit at all, but I highly recommend strawberries.

Wash the strawberries, remove the stems, and cut slices in each one. Turn them a quarter turn and slice them again, adding them to a bowl.

Next, macerate the strawberries, which is fancy way of saying add a little sugar and mix it in. Set them aside and allow the sugar to release its magic.

Next, add jam to the cream cheese and mix both of them until well combined.

The cream cheese mixture now looks like strawberry yogurt. Yum!

Now comes the fun part! Grab a slice of bread and add about a tablespoon (or as much as you like) of cream cheese filling. Personally, I like about 2 tablespoons per slice. Do the same thing with the fresh fruit. Make sure to close the opening by gently pressing the bread together. This will make frying them easier and less messy. Set the filled slices aside.

Now it’s time to make the egg bath. Mix eggs, milk, and cinnamon together until well mixed. Turn the stove top on to medium-high to preheat the skillet. While your skillet is heating up, dip sliced bread in the egg wash for about 20 seconds on both sides. Only dip as many slices as you plan on frying. In other words, if your pan can only fry two pieces at a time, be sure to only coat two pieces of bread a time.

Add a little butter to the surface of skillet. This will help prevent the French toast from sticking. I heart butter.

Fry each slice for about 3 minutes per side or until golden brown. Remove from heat and serve.

If you’re interested in making your stuffed French toast a little more glamorous, sprinkle powdered sugar over the tops of the slices and garnish with fresh strawberries and almonds.

Look at how beautiful these babies are! Can you believe how easy that was, yet how fancy this looks by adding a little magic dust (a.k.a. powdered sugar)?

Final thoughts: although I loved this recipe, I would like to suggest a few things. For a whole loaf of bread, you may want to double the amount of cream cheese and jam the original recipe calls for. If you plan on using fresh strawberries for the filling like I did, I recommend using a 1/2 cup of chopped strawberries with 1 tablespoon of sugar mixed in. Also, because I found the stuffed French toast was plenty sweet on its own, I opted not to add maple syrup.

Many thanks to Amanda for this great recipe. It’s now in my regular Sunday morning rotation!

Printable Recipe

Stuffed French Toast

by manda2177, i am baker, i am mommy on September 8, 2009 in Breakfast

4.91 Mitt(s) 22 Rating(s) 22 votes, average: 4.91 out of 5

Description

A wonderful twist on a breakfast classic!

Ingredients

1 loaf French Bread
3 Tablespoons Any Flavor Fruit Spread (You Can Also Use Jelly, Jam, Or Fresh Fruit)
½ packages Cream Cheese (4 Oz), At Room Temperature
2 whole Eggs
1 Tablespoon Cinnamon
½ cups Skim Milk
2 Tablespoons Butter

Preparation Instructions

Heat skillet or electric griddle to 325 to 350 degrees.

Cut french bread into 2-3 inch wide slices. Then, with a paring knife, go back and cut halfway into each slice, in the center, creating a ‘pocket’ that your fruit mixture can be stuffed into.

In a bowl, place the room temperature cream cheese and three tablespoons of fruit spread of your choice. (I used all organic blueberry spread in the picture.) Combine well.

In a separate bowl, break 2 eggs; add cinnamon and milk and combine well.

Now, take fruit mixture and stuff into the ‘pockets’ of your french bread slices. Place on a baking sheet.

When done stuffing each piece of bread, completely coat each piece in egg mixture. Make sure all sides are covered. Do all pieces before starting to fry.

Put 2 tbsp (you can use less!) of butter into a hot skillet and melt completely. Add all of the bread to the skillet and cook roughly about 3-6 minutes on each side, until it reaches a nice golden brown. You want to make sure the cream cheese mixture heats through.

When done cooking, serve immediately with butter and syrup.

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Alice Currah is the force behind Sweet Savory Life and Everyday Alice. She and her husband Rob are the proud parents of three children: Abbi, Mimi, and Elli. Alice is the winner of Saveur’s Cover Contest and is on the Forbes.com list of Eight of The Very Best Food Bloggers. All we’ll say is that we knew she was a winner way before they did.

May 3 2010

Meet Dorothy

Posted by Erika (TK) in Meet the Member!

Our featured member this week is a Southern belle, through and through. She says that she’s almost always barefooted in the kitchen because of her Southern upbringing, where little girls in beautiful hand-sewn dresses walked around in bare feet. Everyone, say hello to barefootbelle! Barefootbelle is Dorothy Bradshaw, born and raised in Montgomery,…

Apr 29 2010

15-Minute Mussels

Posted by steamykitchen in Step-by-Step Recipes

Tomato sauce for pasta is one of the easiest things to make. Everything gets dumped into one pot, then you turn the heat to low and let it simmer to mellow out its tomato-y-ness (pucker!) and richen its flavor. I’ve yet to make a pot of tomato sauce without leftovers, and the remaining always […]

Apr 28 2010

The Theme Is … Snack Time!

Posted by Erika (TK) in The Theme Is...

It hits all of us at some point during our day. Sometimes more than once. It’s often the first thing kids want after school, or what grownups need in the afternoon to get them through those last few hours at the office. Even though we try our best to choose wisely when it comes […]

Apr 26 2010

Meet Katie

Posted by Erika (TK) in Meet the Member!

She’s shared with us her recipe for the delectable Molten Lava Muffin Cakes you see above, along with more than 60 other recipes in here. She’s also a generous soul who shares her love far beyond her family circle. Everybody, say hello to Katie, known to us here as dishinanddishes. Katie works in Information […]

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Meet Karly

The Theme Is … Mama! (Nana, too!)

Oy…Oy…Oysters!

Stuffed French Toast

Printable Recipe

Stuffed French Toast

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Description

Ingredients

Preparation Instructions

Meet Dorothy

15-Minute Mussels

The Theme Is … Snack Time!

Meet Katie

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