Since Last Year: A Summary

This morning I am going to WOW you with my breakfast.

Boom.

Your jaw dropped, right? Almond butter and homemade blackberry jam AND peaches on a RICE CAKE?! STOP IT! KATE, YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR.

Ok, let's get real for a second. I've been away for awhile.  Babies have been conceived and born in the time I’ve been away from this blog.

Just to be clear: Exactly NONE of these babies were mine.

Everybody got that?

It’s not that I haven’t been making things. I have been. I just haven’t been writing about them. For some reason life just felt too busy.

And then, just like that, it didn’t.

Now here I am with three posts on three consecutive days like I've never even been gone. I don’t know what happened. Maybe it’s summer daylight lasting until 9pm.
Maybe it’s something else.

Whatever it is, herewith, some things I did when I wasn’t here.*

*Not in chronological order.

I gold leafed a bunny.

Isn't he cute? Also, I learned that gold leaf is messy. It is definitely a cousin of glitter, "the herpes of craft supplies."

I had an Oscars party.

We had a red carpet, too. Natch. The tape adhering the red carpet stuck to my floor. Still can't really get it off. Yes, I've tried Goo-Gone and scraping. Good thing this is a rental.

I made some necklaces.

And some bacon candy.

I bought some art and hung it up.

I made brownie sundaes.

Make your own hot fudge sauce and brownies; buy the ice cream.

And stuffed escarole.

This looks like a mess, but it's incredibly delicious. Lidia Bastianach is a genius.

And gluten-free, grain-free meyer lemon mug cakes.

Just replaced the weird sweetener with 1T +1t of granulated sugar. These make an amazing breakfast treat, too.

 
Ok, I made those a couple of times.

I made some ridiculously tasty Banana Bread with Coconut and Rum. Oh, and browned butter. Thank you, Joy the Baker, for that one.

And thank you, Blake, for your hunting skills.

This went into a "Goose Bourguignon" recipe. Which turned out gamy, but edible. I count it as a win.

Turns out making a wild goose edible requires a LOT of ingredients.

Britta was an amazing co-chef on this one. Turns out butchering a goose is a fairly nasty process.

On the lighter side, I made some appetizers.

These are purple rice crackers with avocado, a little greek yogurt mixed with a little lime juice, and garnished with my new favorite seasoning, shichimi togarashi. Virtuous, yet delicious.

And roasted some rhubarb.

Delicious over vanilla ice cream although also pretty good on its own or with yogurt.

And then there was this ham. This eight pound, big ass country Easter ham.

Three pounds of which is hacked up into large chunks in my freezer.
Where it will probably stay for a year until I no longer feel guilty about composting it because what am I going to do with huge chunks of frozen ham?

Any suggestions?

Is it Still Night if it Doesn't Get Dark Out?

This is what midnight looks like in early July when you're at the 62nd parallel:

 

I'm not exaggerating. I took that shot at 11:55pm last night. Or 23:55, if we want to be all European about it. With no tricks of lighting or flashes. It was actually light enough out that I was still reading in bed by the light of day. Or night, as it were.

I am really far north.

 

Here's Alesund. It's beautiful here and the weather has been perfect.

 

I wasn't really prepared for how stunning Norway would be. Flying into the tiny Alesund-Vigra airport, it looks like a sunny day on approach into the airport on the island of Myst. (Remember that computer game? It was like LOST. So confusing. I hated that game.)

Even from a dirty airplane window, you can kind of understand why that Norwegian Blue would have been pining for these fjords. They are breathtaking.

 

We had a lovely 4th of July celebration here. It was a real American picnic, with grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, and ice cream.

We had everything but the fireworks, and we even got to eat outside. It was perfect.

 

On a totally unrelated note, Norwegians have a strange sense of humor.

This poster was in the Oslo Airport, advertising a bar (duh.) I don't know why there is a naked, angry baby on it but what I do know is that everything about this creepy poster makes me want a drink. Immediately. A strong one.

 

It's another gorgeous day here today, so we're off to hike and picnic on the bird island of Runde.

Tomorrow we're off to Trondheim, a university city a few hours north of here. We tried to go to Tromso (above the Arctic Circle) but it turns out that flights are almost $600 per person. (As 4-year-old Josie said "OH MY GOD! SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS?!?!) So we scrapped that idea. Now we'll drive to Trondheim where we're staying in a hotel noted for its' massive, amazing breakfast buffet. The breakfast buffet is noted as #54 on Chrissy's list of 99 Things You Must Do In Norway.

There's also an Ikea in Trondheim. And a science museum. A little something for everyone.

Road trip!

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Easter Feasts

This past Easter weekend, we had a family mini-reunion at my Aunt and Uncle's home.

A lot of Vitullos in the same place at the same time can only mean one thing:

ABBONDANZA!

On Good Friday, we dined on a feast of many fishes...

Grilled shrimp that I briefly marinated in a bit of lemon, wine, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

Flounder Amandine. Aunt Margaret used corn flour instead of regular flour so I could eat this. And I'm so glad she did because it was unexpectedly my favorite of all the fishes. So good.

Pepper-crusted ahi. Perfectly cooked by the Uncles.

A giant bowl of mussels, Cousin Lucas' and my favorite. Also, two types of crab cakes. Because one type would never be enough.

We tried to make natural egg dyes...

It looked pretty, but the colors didn't really take...even after an overnight soak. So we resorted to the Paas.

The Paas worked.

Saturday, I made a Meyer Lemon Upside Down Cake.
It came from this recipe.

Prepping ingredients. The lemons I brought to DC from San Francisco. They came from the tree in my boss' backyard!

Prepping the pan.

Layering in the lemons. I love this picture. The lemons smell delicious.

Baked. Perhaps a little overbaked...

But at least the cake unmolded from the pan successfully.  That's always scary, flipping the pan and hoping the goods land in one piece.

Hmmm...

I've got to say, this is the first time Martha Stewart has failed me. The thinly sliced meyer lemons were positively bitter. I think this could be fixed by candying them first, so I'm going to try that, because I have high hopes in the future success of this recipe.

At least it came out pretty!
 

We made table decorations by stuffing jumbo cupcake wrappers with Easter grass and putting candied eggs in them. Cute and delicious!

We also introduced the cousins to the Easter Aardvark. The Easter Aardvark likes to sleep in on Easter Sunday, but when he does eventually show up, he brings candy and toys. Good deal.

Happy (belated) Easter!

Gobsmacked on Valentine's Day

OMG, you guys. The best thing ever happened to me on Valentine’s Day.  I know that was more than a month ago but bear with me. Ironically, this best-thing-ever had nothing to do with hearts, love, flowers, boys, diamonds, or anything like that. 

No. 

What happened was: I hacked a cupcake recipe and it WORKED.

Yeah. I’m totally, like, a rogue baker.

What. Up.

Maybe I should get a tattoo.

Ok, I’m being completely absurd but I’m not sure I can sufficiently express the feelings of accomplishment and joy that accompanied this particular endeavor. I want to put this on my resume.

I’m serious.

Here’s how it all went down.

Joy the Baker, one of my favorite cooking bloggers, posted a recipe for flourless Strawberry Cupcakes using coconut flour. Intrigued, I bought the cookbook featuring that very recipe.

I made the Strawberry Cupcakes, as directed. Only problem is the author of said cookbook is militantly anti-refined sugar and so uses agave nectar. Well, I’m not exactly pro-refined-anything but let me tell you something about agave: it is off the charts high in fructose. And guess whose belly doesn’t appreciate fructose?

That would be mine.

So first batch, I made by the book. Second batch, I subbed in granulated sugar and a little extra water.

You can see these specimens below. They were fine but a little odd-tasting and the strawberry flavor wasn't coming through as much as I'd hoped. 

Agave on the left, granulated cane sugar on the right.

Meh.

I felt I could do better.

I found a recipe on marthastewart.com (my go to for baking – her recipes always, always come out perfectly) for Strawberry Cupcakes that seemed to be popular among the commenters.

There were just a few problems:

The recipe made 34 cupcakes, which was about three times more than I needed.

The recipe used all-purpose flour and cake flour.

We’re still not totally clear on what my stomach issues are but one thing I know for sure is that common wheat is not my friend. I can’t eat it. Period. If I do, about an hour later, things get ugly. My stomach hurts something awful, my joints ache, and I become exhausted with this overwhelming feeling that I MUST go to bed IMMEDIATELY, at which point I literally cannot think of anything else.

The only thing I can liken this reaction to is:…

You know when you have a long day of day-drinking? You start at maybe 11am or so? And you’ve done a mediocre job drinking water in between? And around about 8 or 9pm, you just crash?

It’s kind of a little bit like that feeling. The feeling that you just HAVE TO go to bed. NOW. You stop talking to other people. You pass out face down with your clothes and makeup on.

Except, also, pretend someone is stabbing you in the gut. And that every movement of your limbs aches.

Those are just the immediate effects. The lingering gut effects sometimes last for a few days.  I’ll spare you the details.

Needless to say, I’m never willingly eating wheat again. The doc thinks it’s fair to say I have a wheat allergy.

Obviously, it’s been hard for me to admit to myself that I can’t eat wheat. Really hard. I’m sure this sounds petty, but I’m not lying when I say it’s been a bit of an emotional battle. I really love croissants. Always have. Always will. And there are times when all I want is a damn burrito. Just a normal, Chipotle burrito for lunch. Is that too much to ask?

Unfortunately, yes. I went through denial and I’m working on acceptance.  It’s getting better.

But it got a lot better on Valentine’s Day. February 14, 2012 will forever be the Day I Realized That All Was Not Lost in My Baking Future. That I could, and would continue to learn to, make delectable treats that even people with normal, non-angry digestive systems would enjoy.

So here’s what I did:

I took the Martha recipe, cut it in one-third, subbed weirdo flours (white spelt and coconut flour) for the normal all-purpose and cake business, tweaked the liquids and the leaveners, and guess what?

THE RESULT WAS DELICIOUS. I actually wish I had a better word than delicious because I say things are delicious all the time and even though I do eat a lot of delicious foods, these cupcakes…they were sublime.

I couldn’t believe it. I am still scarred by the time I was 12 and made a chocolate cake with olive oil because I didn’t understand the flavor the olive oil would impart vs. regular vegetable oil and my entire family refused to eat it. As much as I’d like to think I was being forward-thinking in my culinary ambitions, the truth was, I screwed up and learned that you can’t just substitute things in baking and expect it to work.

It was a good lesson.

And all the more reason why I was absolutely gobsmacked – GOBSMACKED! – by the result of these Strawberry Cupcakes.  

Let me be frank: I’m no cupcake expert. I don’t make cupcakes all the time. Cupcakes, while tasty, are not my “thing.” But I loved the idea of making cupcakes for my friends for the Valentine’s Party I was throwing, and Strawberry Cupcakes seemed just perfect.

And in the end, they were.

Kate's Perfect Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry "Ice Cream"  Frosting 

inspired by Martha Stewart Living and The Pastry Queen Christmas

1.  These cupcakes are not gluten-free, just wheat-free. I seem to be able to still tolerate spelt, and by God, I’m going to eat it for as long as I can. But spelt has gluten. Not a lot of gluten, but gluten nonetheless. So be warned.

and 2. It's called Strawberry "Ice Cream" frosting because - you guessed it - it tastes just like strawberry ice cream. Killer.

Makes and frosts 36 cupcakes 

(I'm giving you the full recipe and not the fuzzy-math version as I just made full batch last night for the people at work and the quantities are much, much more normal.)

Ingredients

Cupcakes:

2 3/4 cups white spelt flour (I used Bob’s Red Mill & measure using dip & sweep method)

3/4 cup coconut flour (same deal: used Bob’s and dip & sweep)
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 1/4 cups sugar

3 large eggs

2 large egg whites
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups very finely chopped strawberries

3-4 drops red food coloring, optional (you may want to add this as the fresh strawberries have the peculiar quality of turning the batter a bit blue-grayish)

Frosting:

2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

2 cups confectioner’s sugar

2 teaspoons Grand Marnier (or you can sub vanilla extract, in a pinch)

3-4 drops red food coloring (optional)

6-8 large strawberries, stemmed, hulled, and pureed

8 ounces mascarpone

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk the flours, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. 

 

2. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, followed by the egg yolk, beating after each addition. You may need to scrape down the bowl in between additions.
 

3. Reduce speed to low. Mix wet ingredients (milk and vanilla extract) in a bowl or pyrex liquid measurer. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in 3 additions, alternating with wet ingredients and ending with dry.
 

4. Add strawberries and food coloring and mix until just combined. Scrape sides of bowl to be sure. 
 

5. Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full.

 

 

6. Bake cupcakes until testers inserted into centers come out clean, about 20 minutes. Let cool in tins on wire racks.
 

7. Once the cupcakes are completely cooled, make the frosting.  Combine the butter, cream cheese, and confectioner's sugar with a hand mixer on high speed until fluffy. Blend in Grand Marnier. Add the strawberry puree and mascarpone and mix on low to medium speed until incorporated. Warning: if you overbeat the mascarpone, you'll cause it to curdle! If you are nervous about this, put the hand mixer down and use a wooden spoon to combine the mascarpone with the frosting mixture.
 

8. Frost the cupcakes using a table knife or pastry bag fitted with a wide tip. Add a strawberry bit on top of each cupcake if you want.
 

Frosted cupcakes will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. 

A Real Crowd Pleaser

Back when I was living in Boston, my friend Cara started dating this guy, Coley, whom she met at a wonderful below-street-level bar called "The Last Drop" while we were all out one night for post-work drinks. (Now they’re married and have a beautiful daughter, but I digress.) Coley wasn’t, like, a professional chef or anything, but he’d built a repertoire of a few recipes for football Sundays that impressively included a marinated brisket and what he called “Crowd Pleaser Dip” which was basically a Mexican 7-Layer Dip straight out of the 1980s. He was right - I have yet to meet someone who doesn't like this stuff.

Just in time for Super Bowl Sunday, here’s my own rendition of this classic dip. May your crowds be pleased and your Super Bowl squares be winners. 

Kate’s “Crowd Pleaser” Mexican 7-Layer Dip

Ingredients:

1 can of Amy’s Refried Black Beans (accept no substitutions)

2 cups (ish) shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1 cup sour cream

1 recipe Kate’s Guacamole

2 cups (ish) shredded pepper jack cheese (or regular Monterey jack if your guests can’t take the heat)

1 small (2.5 oz.) can sliced black olives – the cheap ones – drained and patted dry

2 cups (16 oz.) fresh salsa (heat level is your call), drained to remove most of the liquid

 extra chopped cilantro and cheese for garnish

For serving: A bag of sturdy tortilla chips (I like Mi Casa, if you can find them. Honestly, though, Tostitos are totally fine if you don't have a good local brand.)

Directions:

Locate a glass pan. I love when it’s glass because you can see the layers. This dip can be made in a pie plate, a glass baking pan, whatever. It doesn’t have to be glass. You can honestly just make it on top of a plate. I used a 11x7 glass baking dish.

Spread the refried beans in the pan with a table knife or metal spatula.

Sprinkle the cheddar on top, kind of evenly.

Spread the sour cream on top of the cheddar. This can be kind of tricky as you don’t want to disturb the cheese or end up with cheese on top of your sour cream. We’re trying to layer here. Channel your best circa-2006 Olsen twin and LAYER.

Spread the guacamole over the sour cream.

Homemade guac MAKES this dip what it is. Don't buy that citric-acid laden prepackaged stuff. Please. For me. Make your own.

Sprinkle the pepper jack over the guac.

Sprinkle the olives over the pepper jack.

Dollop the drained salsa over the olives and spread to cover the pan.

(Forgot to take a picture!)

Sprinkle additional cheese and cilantro on top.

Serve with chips.