Mother's Day

N and I couldn't be with our mothers today, but decided to make a special brunch anyway. Chocolate pancakes! We used pre-made pancake mix and cocoa powder, nothing fancy, and the first batch came out fine. But then I decided to add more chocolate (is anyone surprised?) and decided to add more water with it, which made the second batch kinda weird and flat, almost like cookies. N compensated by adding more mix to the third batch and they were okay, but we learned our lesson, which is to leave well enough alone! And also that we should probably start from scratch if we're going to experiment.











But, they were yummy anyway! We topped with low fat butter, powdered sugar and syrup and/or lemon juice


Happy Mother's Day to our faraway Moms! We're thinking of you today, and how your pancakes are always perfect.

Adventures with Butter

This weekend's recipe experiments were unintentionally butter-heavy, but that's almost never a bad thing in my book. First on the menu was a recipe shared by N.'s friend on Google Buzz for Egg-in-a-Hole Grilled Cheese Sandwiches. I was introduced to egg-in-a-hole by my classmate Michael while studying abroad in England, and I was instantly in love. The simplicity! The gratuitous butter! And the best part, cutting holes in bread with a drinking glass! But why oh why had I never thought of combining this masterpiece of breakfastry with a grilled cheese?? Below are photos of our toasty sandwich success. The only things I would change are toasting the bread a bit more before adding the egg, and peppering the egg while cooking. The little circles in the first photo are the bread circles which were made into tiny grilled cheese sandwiches for mid-cooking snacking. Yum.







My other attempted recipe did not go as well. Although it was edible, I'd like to try it again to see if what I think went wrong is what actually went wrong. I found a list of muffins, scones and biscuits on one of my favorite food blogs, The Kitchn, and one particular recipe jumped out at me because it had few ingredients and the steps seemed fairly straightforward. Unfortunately, I was trying to use up some leftover cake flour, and though I followed the box's directions for changing the measurement for use in non-cake flour recipes, something didn't quite work out. When it came time to move my biscuit strips into the pan, the batter was so wet and soupy that all I could was scoop it in as one big blob and try to re-cut strips before it went into the oven. The result was pretty much was I had been going for, basic buttery biscuits, but the texture was a little chewy. I'd like to try this one again with all-purpose flour and see if I can achieve true breadsticks.



Happy Sunday night! I hope you all had pleasant weekends and are ready to face another Monday.

Vegetarian Black Bean Espresso Chili

Now that I think of it, this recipe is actually vegan as long as you forgo the sour cream/cheese topping options...I'm not a vegan but if a recipe is tasty and avoids animal products, then why not?

Anyone that knows me knows that I complain about Chicago weather like it's my job, but one good thing about it is plenty of excuses to make chili, which is one of my all-time favorite foods. It's easy, makes your kitchen smell great, tastes awesome and can be healthy if you want it to be.

After rigorous searching through my gmail and google reader records, I still have no idea who shared this recipe or how I came across it, but for anyone who's interested in trying, it was published on Epicurious: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Black-Bean-and-Espresso-Chili-107639.

Whoever the sharer was, they recommended the recipe because it had the heartiness of meat-chili sans meat. I have to heartily agree, it was thick, filling and yummy. We paired with pretzel bread and a Sauvignon Blanc.

Snow Day!

I've heard some pretty good nicknames for our storm so far, Snowmageddon, Snowpocalypse, SNOMG (personal fave) and the local news front-runner, BLIZZARD 2011!!!! Personally I don't mind the snow, because I don't have to go to work today! And having grown up in California, this is my first snow day ever.

Here are some pics of my street:







In other news, our (my roommate and I) first foster kitty Eva


was adopted two weeks ago, and our new kitten Carnegie is settling in nicely.


Stay warm everyone!

A Belated Birthday Success

I finally got around to making N.'s birthday cake this weekend. It was supposed to be a surprise, but unforeseen circumstances prevented me from following through on my plans. Not to worry! It was worth the wait.

This was my first attempt making a cake from scratch and it turned out pretty darn good if I do say so myself. I used the recipe found here: http://www.joyofbaking.com/RedVelvetCake.html

This was the bottom of the cake after coming out of the oven. Swirly! I have no idea why.

love

Yum!

Is this a music blog or a food blog?

Last time my mom was in town, she generously purchased me a copy of The Fanny Farmer Cookbook. I flipped through the book on Sunday before my weekly grocery-shopping trip, completely intending to try something new and difficult, but I got hungry and lost my ambition and settled for her recommendations for making the skin of your baked potato extra crispy (mmm).

A baked potato makes for a wonderfully easy, cheap and hearty meal, especially if you already have yummy toppings on hand, which I did.

Per Ms. Farmer's suggestion, I pre-heated the oven to 450, and then baked my potato directly on the rack for 1.5 hours.

Just before it finished baking, (and just after my emergency run to the market for sour cream), I sauteed some frozen broccoli florets, as well as a bell pepper, and a small red onion I'd gotten at the farmer's market.

Just as Fanny had predicted, the skin was perfectly crisp while the inside was moist and fluffy.

I cut the potato in half, layered in some shredded cheese, vegetables, more cheese, and sour cream, and voile! Dinner!

I love the colors of these vegetables, especially set against my roommate's adorable black and white plates. I can't show you the picture with the sour cream for personal reasons. When you buy the lite kind it means you can use twice as much right?

7 Weeks

Hi faithful followers! I'm going to try really hard to not abandon this blog, so I apologize for the almost-two-month-delay. Because autumn is definitely upon us (so say my three Pumpkin Spice lattes and last Sunday's Pumpkin Turkey Chili), I will get on to the aforementioned summer festival reviews. Brace yourself, I predict a long wind.

Pitchfork Music Festival is held annually at Union Park in the near West neighborhood. It's known for being more "indie" than Lollapalooza, and as such you'll find a majority of plaid-clad hipster boys or girls with hideous high-waisted pants, but there's also lots of regular people too--and with only three stages and the chance to see some "small" acts before they get "big," it's definitely a highlight of my summer.

Some of the stand-out acts for me were:

1. The Tallest Man on Earth. By now everyone and their mom has heard of Swedish crooner Kristian Mattson, but as of line-up time I guess not, because he was stuck in the first slot on Friday afternoon. Still, he drew a modest crowd, and despite his repeated apologies for lack of energy due to jet-lag, his five songs were some of the most enjoyable moments of that day. He is a really strange person on-stage, and really fascinating to watch. He manages an intense wild-eyed persona, with an undercurrent of a quieter passion. Fans of bands like Neutral Milk Hotel and The Magnetic Fields will be attracted to him initially for his signature voice, but if you stick around a bit longer, you'll notice an obvious musical talent on the guitar as well.

2. Robyn. Also on Friday, and also Swedish, this former pop-princess turned euro punk rocker put on an AMAZING show. Friday afternoon was relentlessly hot, and even the shade provided little relief, yet she managed to get everyone dancing and singing along. In the States, she's best known for her 90's hit "Show Me Love," (which I was a little disappointed she didn't reprise for old-times sake) but she proved she's moved beyond the sappy into the super-happy. For such a small girl she commanded that stage, and kept moving for her entire set.

3. Local Natives. I had to skip St. Vincent for this one, which I was bummed about, but felt that Local Natives' style might be better suited to the festival environment, and they came through for me. I worried I might just be waiting for the hits I knew, and some more intense heat drained the energy from this crowd a bit, but they held their own and I was glad to have been there.

4. Sleigh Bells. Rounding out my Sunday afternoon, Sleigh Bells was a surprise hit as they were pitted against the main act, Pavement. Theirs isn't the type of music I usually gravitate to, but their electronic/rock/hip-hop style is so engaging I couldn't help myself. I started this set at the back, not feeling well, but even three days worth of dehydration and exhaustion couldn't keep this crowd (and this fan) from moving forward and dancing until the very last song--which actually didn't take all that long since their entire first album was only about a half an hour long. Looking forward to more from them.

Lollapalooza was kind of miserable last year. It rained on Friday and was sweltering the next two days, and I left without any plans to return. However, we were lucky to score some "golden tickets" and once we saw the line-up the idea of selling them for profit was out the window.

Here are some of my favorite Lolla 2010 moments:

I'm not too familiar with Cymbals Eat Guitars, but I really enjoyed their set, it was smooth, easy to listen to, and had a nice bouncy beat, plus their stage was off the beaten path and shaded. Not a bad way to start the weekend.

I was looking forward to seeing Frightened Rabbit and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, but found that neither act compared with the first time I saw them (FR at Pitchfork last year, and ES at Schubas). Although both sets were enjoyable, it's hard to replace the first time you see a great band live, especially if you were at the tiny Schubas stage, and particularly if you are now surrounded by high-schoolers who only know the hit from the Ford Fiesta commercial, and talk the rest of the time. I had also seen Yeasayer at P4K the previous year, and I was far from the stage and sweating this time, so again, not great.

Metric and Gogol Bordello were two acts who I was also pretty unfamiliar with, but who drew enormous crowds, and it was easy to see why. Metric's instrumentation is super tight, combined with an interesting and talented lead singer, no complaints there. Admittedly I only knew GB's "Start Wearing Purple" from the credits of the movie version of "Everything Is Illuminated," but sitting on the hill above the stage was very pleasant.

Easily one of my favorite acts of the weekend was The New Pornographers. I was surprised at how many of their songs I knew, and it was a treat to hear Neko Case live. They are such an interesting sound, it's very complex because of the combination of lots of different and interesting instruments, along with their off-beat lyrics, but the product is catchy, fun, and thoroughly entertaining.

Okay, almost done, time to mention the headliners:

Lady Gaga was pretty much exactly what I expected - crazy, over-the-top, flamboyant, loud, and a lot of fun. Despite being a self-proclaimed pop-hater, I really kind of like her music. However, her set quickly became obnoxious, as she stopped several times to go on mini-rants about how she had sung the same songs at Lolla four years ago and no one cared, and now she's a star, and how she was ugly in high school, but now she's hot (at one point screaming at the crowd while half-naked covered in blood, "DO YOU THINK I'M SEXY??!!!"). I wish she would have performed more and talked less.

Phoenix put on a great show, and I definitely had a lot of fun. They definitely did too, and it became especially apparent when the lead singer thanked us at the end of the set, you could tell he was overwhelmed by the enormity of what had just happened (the crowd was MASSIVE). I did feel however, that they weren't quite prepared for their sudden burst of fame. The songs sounded good, like they always do, but they didn't bring much new to the table. Still, a really solid performance. If you don't think you know them, you do, "1901" was the electro-pop background in that Cadillac commercial that played non-stop for about three months last Spring.

What can you say about Arcade Fire that hasn't been said a billion times? They're simply brilliant. I knew only a small amount of their music, and had, to be honest, kind of the wrong impression of them going in, only owning "Neon Bible" (their sophomore album) at the time. I hate to use the word, but it's hard to think of another adequate descriptor for their epic set. They are truly a rock band in the grand old tradition--they have great stage presence, know when to talk and when to sing, and are supremely talented musicians, lyricists, and performers. Even the order of songs in their set was impressive, it kept us guessing while pleasantly surprising us, and then rewarded us for our patience by false-ending with "Keep the Car Running," and giving us "Wake Up" in the encore. Simply put, they rocked.