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Chocolate & Cheesecake Bars

Chocolate & Cheesecake Bars

At school we do a weekly Friday Breakfast. Every Friday we have about a 1/2 dozen people scheduled to bring in goodies. These breakfast treats range from store-bought bakery items, cut fruits, & bagels to homemade treats ranging from award winning desserts to egg casseroles 

Cooking to Cope

Cooking to Cope

I’m sorry for the lack of posts this past week-ish, but this has been last priority! About 2 weeks ago my grandmother (on my mom’s side) told me that my grandfather had pneumonia and the doctors wanted to send him to the hospital, but his 

Classic Fondue Fun

Classic Fondue Fun

I’m not sure about anyone else, but fondue has been something that has not worked out so well for me. I LOVE cheese, and anything that involves cheese (and when its melty & warm too – yeah, its good stuff!) A few weeks ago I finally made a successful  beer & cheese fondue (attempt #3 of making fondue and the 1st time that it actually ever worked – see link at the bottom of this post). That was basically just beer & cheddar.

Fast forward a week (Halloween Night, 2 trick-or-treaters) and, I know, I’m a few days [weeks] late on posting this, but I figure I’ve been cooking and just keeping track of what needs to get posted, a good problem in my book. Anyway, I wanted to try to make the “typical” wine fondue this time!

🙂 Fondue Spread 🙂

I found this recipe (and trust me, they are all basically the same – I just like this description and the fact that she helped me through the whole process too), made the shopping list, chopped the veggies, had the boy & best friend there and crossed my fingers!

veggies!!

IT WORKED… the key to making fondue is a super slow addition of the cheese, good stirring technique, and the addition of the corn starch (dissolved) as needed [no cornstarch was needed with the beer fondue fyi]. It was YUMMY – below is the recipe (with the stuff that I did). Let me know how it works for you

take a dip

Ingredients:
1 clove garlic [crushed]
little over 1 cup white wine (dry?)
8 oz. gruyere, grated
8 oz. emmentaler (I used grated Swiss)
1 tbs. cornstarch dissolved in  a couple tbs. brandy [apple cider]
pepper

Directions:
1.  Rub the garlic all over the inside of your pot (then mince -we love garlic)
2. Add a little over a cup of wine to the pot and bring to a simmer slowly (medium.).  Handful by handful, stirring constantly in a figure-8 motion, gradually add in the cheeses.
3. Add some of the cornstarch/kirsch mixture.  Keep stirring until it all comes together in creamy deliciousness.  Season with pepper. Consistency not right?  Add a little more wine to thin, add a little more cheese to thicken.

Halloween Pumpkin Carving Party Fondue… I used this recipe (without the swiss, because I forgot it – so it was just beer & cheddar)

DIP ON!

One Can at a Time

One Can at a Time

Kids are AMAZING! Our staff (at DeFranco Elementary – Bangor Area School District) organized a canned food drive (“Pack the Pantry”) to help those in our community. We have an organization (Slater Family Network) that helps families in community with all sorts of things ranging 

World of Opera – meet Adrian Rosas!

World of Opera – meet Adrian Rosas!

Disclaimer: this is not a blog post about food! My dear friend Adrian Rosas has an amazing voice, started his career in college as a Jazz singer & then turned to Opera when people encouraged him to pursue that avenue. When Adrian first went into 

Fall Indian Curry

Fall Indian Curry

I know that we are well past Halloween, but before heading out for Halloween a few weeks ago we had friends over. I had seen a recipe for a Squash Soup in my November Food & Wine that I wanted to try, but then saw chicken on sale AND knew that I had lots of potatoes, so ended up falling in love with this recipe for Chicken Curry with Potatoes & Squash from Food & Wine instead.

The recipe called for basically making our own curry but Rich has a few different curry pastes that he had picked out at a little market by him (I need to start checking out the ‘ethnic markets’ in this area so I can experiment more)!

Halloween 2010

We had tons of things going on Halloween weekend (football games, neighbor’s party, haunted tours/hayrides, friends/parties, trick-or-treaters) and at about 4:30 finally got home on that Saturday. We had friends showing up at 6:30 and still had to cook dinner AND create our Halloween costumes……

Dinner was AMAZING! This dish was so easy to put together (the cutting of veggies & such was the hardest part). The house smelled great, the company was enjoyable, but unfortunately we decided that Indian Curry recipes are very hard to make look pretty. Try this out (I used a pre-made can of yellow curry instead of all the spices which I couldn’t even find in the market anyway!) and follow the recipe below [which I made my changes to – I left the spice directions in] from Food & Wine

Potato Squash Chicken Curry

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 tablespoons ground coriander
  • 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon pure chile powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
  • 3 tablespoons water
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 2-ish onions, sliced/chopped
  • 8 garlic cloves, sliced
  • One 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
  • [12 curry leaves]
  • [2 teaspoons garam masala]
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • One pkg boneless-skinless chicken thighs (I had about 8 thighs I think)
  • Kosher salt
  • 1 large baking potato, [peeled] and cut into 1-inch dice
  • 1/2 of a medium sized butternut squash, peeled, seeded, & cut into small cubes
  • One 14-ounce can unsweetened coconut milk
  • 1 cup(ish) chicken stock
  • [cilantro]

DIRECTIONS

  1. In a small skillet, toast the coriander, chile powder and turmeric over moderate heat until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in the water to form a paste. [OR this is from your can of curry paste[
  2. In a very large, deep skillet, heat the vegetable oil. Add the onions, garlic, ginger and curry leaves and cook over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, until the onions are translucent, about 5 minutes. Add in the spice paste, garam masala and black pepper and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until the oil separates from the paste, about 2 minutes.
  3. [Lightly season the chicken pieces with salt.] Add the chicken, diced potato and squash to the skillet and stir to coat with the seasonings. Stir in the coconut milk and chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook over moderately low heat until the chicken is cooked through and the potato and squash are tender, about 25 minutes [and add in some fresh cilantro to flavor while the dish is in the last few minutes of cooking]. Using a slotted spoon, (we like the sauce – no slotted spoon) transfer the chicken pieces to a bowl. [I skipped this & just served everything over the rice] Season the curry sauce with salt, pour it over the chicken and serve [sprinkle some fresh cilantro overtop].