Gifts: DIY Food

The Easiest Cookies Ever at Blog Con Queso, courtesy of Design Mom - not very haute cuisine but apparently easy and tasty!

Grub: Breakfasts-To-Go

Crustless Mini Quiches at The Kitchn
Ham and Cheese Casserole at, again, The Kitchn - Aychihuahua recommends not cubing the bread.
Heidi Swanson's Cottage Cheese Muffins.

Vietnamese Coffee

Kiss My Spatula's meditation on, and instructions for, Vietnamese Coffee ... the most delicious beverage ever.

Shopping List:

sweetened condensed milk
medium-ground, dark roast coffee with chiory (e.g., Cafe du Monde)
ice cubes
Vietnamese drip coffee filter
small glass
tall glass
spoon

Grub: Oatmeal Cookies

Elizabeth's Oatmeal Cookies at Shelterrific

Shopping List:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 pound unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 2/1 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup of chocolate chips
3 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

Grub: For Big Boy

Vegetables
Smitten Kitten's Baked Spinach - BB loves sautéed spinach, always has.

Entrées
101 Cookbook's Quesadilla, Unda Style

Grub: Pizza

Must try these:

The Kitchn's Sausage Pizza, Topped with Crispy Kale

Peter Reinhart's Napoletana pizza dough, courtesy of 101 Cookbooks
Perhaps try it with 101 Cookbooks's Tomato Sauce?

Must try the Ilaria and Chinotto at Una Pizza Napoletana

Grub: Red Velvet

Red Velvet Ice Cream at Scoopalicious.

Red Velvet Strawberry Shortcake at I am Baker

Red Velvet Crêpes by Duhlicious - I don't care for crêpes but lots of people do

Craftzine's red velvet roundup

And a few of my own:
My go to recipe at Saveur.
Megan's Amped Up Red Velvet Cupcakes at Shelterrific

Battenberg Cake

History at Wikipedia
Recipe by Bron Marshall (prepare more apricot jam though!)

This turned out to be much tastier than I imagined it to be.
I wonder how a lemon-y cake would taste.

Also, I would recommend weighing the batter. I ended up with more pink than white cake!

Grub: Dumplings

Shanghainese xiao long bar at Serious Eats

Grub: Smörgåstårta

Must try a Smörgåstårta sometime!

Epicurious
Not Quite Nigella

Grub: Fish Tacos

One of the best discoveries, after moving to California, was fish tacos! It sounds so wrong but tastes so right.

It's much easier to just buy one but I really should hustle and make a compendium of recipes that look promising and/or have proved their mettle.

Firstly, one from Rebecca Firlik at Shelterrific (I like that it is baked, not fried).

Grub: Lassi

Cannot get enough Lassi ... ever.

My longstanding favourite is Saveur's recipe for a cardamom version:

2 cups plain whole-milk yogurt
3 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. ground cardamom

But I would never turn down trying a different recipe. Je t'aime lassi!

This is a living post, I think. Watch for updates.

Grub: Chowhound Cookbook Club

Revisit soon: Chowhound Cookbook Club

DIY Popsicles

Image from Stonewall Kitchen

All natiral homemade yogurt and fruit popsicles at Zupa
Cutest popsicle molds from Cuisipro and Tovolo.
Tidy push up molds by Cuisipro.
Popsicles in seven minutes or less with Zoku!

Momtastic does fresh fruit, layered popsicles.
Great ideas from Soule Mama about using popsicles for comfort and treatment.
Paletas and Savoury popsicles at Bitten.
How to make boozy popsicles at Savvy Housekeeping.
Lime/Watermelon popsicles at The Kitchn.
The Fairmont's Tea popsicles.
Rhubarb, Raspberry pops at La Tartine Gourmande.
Or if you prefer cake-sicles, use Norpro's pan.

01.xii.10 UPDATE: Sailboat Popsicle Molds were scored on the secondary market! For anyone else on the hunt, it appears that they were sold by Williams-Sonoma.

And there is a very intriguing recipe for Vietnamese Coffee Popsicles by David Lebovitz. We have been drinking loads of iced coffee lately and I love Vietnamese Coffee so these are definately something to be tried.

Vietnamese Coffee Popsicles

Makes about 8, depending on the size of your molds

If you don't have an espresso-maker, you can augment brewed coffee with instant espresso crystals, to taste. The coffee should be chest hair-raisingly strong, and you can certainly swap out decaf. I'm not much of a tea drinker, but I'll bet a version with Thai ice tea would be equally delectable and refreshing as well.
And if you don't have sweetened condensed milk, regular milk will work fine. And you can sweetened to taste.

2 cups (500ml) extra-strong coffee or espresso
2/3 cup (160ml) sweetened condensed milk

1. Mix the coffee with the sweetened condensed milk. Taste, and add a bit more milk, if desired. (A spoonful or two is fine, but any more and the popsicles won't freeze as hard.)
2. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze until sold.
Note: My favorite brand of sweetened condensed milk is Longevity Brand, which is available in most Asian markets.

Grub: Rainbow Cakes

Whisk Kid's recipe
For the Love of Cake's tips

Cannelés (de Bordeaux)

101 Cookbooks recipe with reference to the wonderful kitchenware store, Cookin', on Divisidero.
Chocolate & Zucchini's canelé recipe.

Cookin'
339 Divisadero St
(between Oak St & Page St)
San Francisco, CA 94117

Grub: Salted Caramels

MAKES ABOUT 50

1 3/4 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup glucose or light corn syrup
1 tsp. fine sea salt
1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise, seeds scraped and reserved
1 3/4 cups sugar
Fleur de sel, to garnish

Combine and heat cream, glucose, salt, and vanilla seeds in a 4-qt. saucepan over medium heat until mixture begins to simmer; remove from heat and let sit for 10 minutes. Line bottom and sides of an 8″ square baking pan with parchment paper; set aside.

Stir together sugar and 3/4 cups water in a 2-qt. saucepan. Heat over medium-high heat, without stirring, until the mixture turns a medium-dark amber color and a candy thermometer reads 370º. Remove pan from heat; slowly pour cream mixture into caramel. Return saucepan to medium heat; stir until caramel dissolves. Transfer mixture to a 4-qt. saucepan and cook, without stirring, until candy thermometer reads 246º. Pour mixture into prepared pan; smooth top. Let cool completely; then cut into 1″ squares. Sprinkle with fleur de sel and wrap individually in wax paper squares. Store at room temperature.

Recipe by Michael Laiskonis, Le Bernardin, in Saveur #135

UPDATE: Heed the candy thermometer! The recipe was delicious but I suspect that the caramel was not allowed to reach the correct temperature since it since prone to getting soft awfully quickly and easily. Maybe the thermometer needs replacing?

Grub: Eggs

Ni-tamago as done by Chubby Hubby - firm marinated whites and runny yolks. Yum.

01/30/11 UPDATE: Dee-lic-ious!!

Grub: Lemony Desserts

And it uses Meyer Lemons,
And it is a pudding,
And it is a cake,
And it came from The Traveler's Lunchbox.

Grub: Cabbage Rolls

Smitten Kitchen's recipe but with some adjustments:

• replaced 50% of beef with pork (but I might try 100% beef next time since everyone was so pleased)
• added ~ 2 cloves minced garlic to pan prior to onion, sautéed it just till fragrant (I cannot not put some garlic in a recipe)
• used an off the shelf marinara sauce

DH ate three, Big Boy ate a half, slurping the cabbage separately by the fistfuls, and I loved them. In the past, when I have made cabbage rolls, I always asked myself why I bothered since they always seemed so bland. Not this time! And I revisited her post and started to read the comments. Now I am thinking things like, "Sauerkraut! Pickled cabbage! Ham hocks!" Oy. For once, I cannot wait to try making cabbage rolls again.