KAF Giveaway Winner

Thanks to everyone who entered in my King Arthur Flour Giveaway. And now on to the winner. As always, I used Random.org to generate a random number.

It spit out #79 who is Nicole of Pure and Simple who loves Mexican food! I loved reading about all the different kinds of foods people enjoy.

Congratulations Nicole! Email me your address so I can get your goodies mailed out to you soon.

Multi-seed Crackerbread

Are you guys getting sick of hearing about the trip to King Arthur Flour yet? Well I've got two more posts detailing the recipes we learned and I'll be announcing the winner of the KAF giveaway tomorrow. If you haven't entered yet, be sure to do that before NOON today!



I was excited to learn that we'd be making crackers since I've never made my own. I had fun playing around with various seed/herb combinations. I think my favorite was the one with just sesame seeds and salt.



Hubby and I broke these into pieces and ate them with some hummus. We liked the crispy ones the best, which is obviously easier to control at home in your own kitchen. I would definitely make these again. They were very easy and how impressive is it to say you made your own crackers?!?

One Year Ago: Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Brownies
Two Years Ago: Pumpkin White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Pizza Dough

As I mentioned last week, one of the things we made during our Boston bloggers class at King Arthur Flour was pizza dough. Pizza dough is one of those things that I've never made at home and have been wanting to for some time now.



We topped these pizzas with a small amount of sauce and fresh mozzarella prior to baking. After they came out of the oven, we topped the pizza with parmesan and basil. I love these pizza boxes they had for us to transport our pizzas!



Two Years Ago: Tiramisu Cupcakes
Three Years Ago: Caramel Mocha Cupcakes and Mussels

Time to Vote for a Classic!

The time has come to vote for the second round of Project Food Blog!! 400 featured publishers made it in to Round 2 and only 200 will make it on to round 3.

Click HERE to vote. I would greatly appreciate your vote (here's the link to vote for me!)



Some details about voting:
Voting for Challenge 2 will be open from 9AM EST Monday September 27 until 9PM EST Thursday September 30. Winners from this challenge will be announced on Friday October 1.

General public voting: You are allowed to vote for the number of people who will be advancing to the next round. So for this challenge, each reader can vote for 200 entries. You can only vote once for each entry.

The entry with the most reader votes will advance to the next round.

If you are a Foodbuzz Featured Publisher: You are allowed to vote for the number of people who will be advancing to the next round. So for this challenge, each Featured Publisher can vote for 200 entries. You can only vote once for each entry.

The Featured Publisher votes will count for 50% of the score. The judges score will count for the other 50% of the score. FYI, judges will be scoring based on originality, creativity, quality of photo, composition of text, and expression of the challenge concept.

In case you missed it, I posted my classic dish - Chicken Tikka Masala yesterday. Be sure to check it out if you missed it.

Also be sure to come check out my Project Food Blog profile where I answer these questions:

• Why did you start your food blog?
• What is the most rewarding thing about blogging?
• What is the most memorable meal or foodie moment?

King Arthur Flour Giveaway

As you all know, Hubby and I have a small kitchen. We have a rule in our house. If we buy anything new (especially for the kitchen) we have to get rid of something of the similar size. This rule leads to tough decisions on a regular basis. I've decided that I'm going to pass on the majority of my free King Arthur Flour goodie bag to you!

I decided to offer up the following to one lucky reader: Lemon Bars Mix, a 5 lb bag of Whole Wheat Flour, a box of the unbleached cake flour, a plastic scraper, and the Whole Grain Baking Cookbook!



This is going to be a quick 48-hour giveaway, so enter now! A winner will be announced on Thursday.

Some rules:
- Enter by 12:00 NOON (EST) Wednesday, September 29
- One lucky winner will be chosen at random
- US mailing addresses only

To enter, in honor me making Chicken Tikka Masala for my Second Challenge for Project Food Buzz, leave a comment answering:
- What is your favorite ethnic food? Have you ever tried to make it at home?

Chicken Tikka Masala

First of all I'd like to say thanks SO much for everyone who voted for me in the Foodbuzz Project Food Blog. I made it through the first round and now it's time for Challenge #2. For the second challenge, we are all supposed to tackle an ethnic food that we aren't familiar with.

A little known fact about Hubby is that he lived in India for three months. A few years ago he had the opportunity to move there for a short term work assignment. He and two friends had a great time traveling the world while I held down the fort back in Ohio.


One of Hubby's friends got pick-pocketed by a monkey!

Prior to Hubby living in India, neither of us had ever eaten Indian food more than maybe once or twice. But after his three month trip, he hooked! His new love of Indian food meant we had it in the house more often. Then I started to fall in love with Indian food as well. We have always just relied on restaurants to provide our Indian food fix (btw, we have tried quite a few places since moving to Boston and have found two favorites in the area).



As you may remember, I did challenge myself to make Indian food during my 30-by-30 and when this challenge was posted, I just knew I had to tackle Indian food. Hubby's all time favorite Indian meal is Chicken Tikka Masala. He always gets it when we eat Indian (I always get chicken tikka saag).



I obviously don't have a tandoori oven to cook the chicken in, but I made do with the oven I do have. The one main ingredient that we didn't have in the house was Garam Masala. When you smell this spice, it takes you straight to India (that's what Hubby always says at least). We are fortunate enough to live near a small Indian convenience shop. We stopped in for the first time ever and enjoyed the sights and smells that hit us at the door.

This dish turned out amazingly. It does require a bit of work, but it's worth it in the end! If you haven't tried Indian food at home, this is a great place to start. Of course, it's great served with homemade Garlic Naan!

Garlic Naan

Mmmm.... Garlic....

I have to admit that before meeting Hubby, I had never cooked with garlic. I'm not sure that I had ever eaten food with fresh garlic used in it... I remember telling Hubby that I wasn't sure if I liked garlic shortly after we met. I think it would have been a dealbreaker for him if I hadn't changed my mind. Once he showed me how to use garlic appropriately in a recipe, I was hooked.



Granted, I don't like garlic quite as much as Hubby does, but I like it more than the average person out there. One of the best applications of garlic in food is garlic naan. Obviously, if you don't like the taste of nearly-raw garlic, you won't enjoy garlic naan. But if you do, this stuff is awesome.



I included making an Indian meal on my 30-by-30 because it's one of our favorite types of food out there. Making the naan was similar to making pitas, so I knew I could handle this part of the meal without too much difficulty. The hard part was to not just eat it all straight out of the oven!

Two Year Ago: Turkey and Zucchini Lasagna
Three Years Ago: Mussels and Salad with Steak

Ten Baking Tips from a Professional Baker

When I found out about the KAF field trip, I was very excited to be learning from a pro. I would definitely call myself comfortable with yeast but I still learned a TON in the class. I think that even the most novice bakers in the group walked away feeling more confident and knowledgeable about baking.



1. When measuring dry ingredients, make small piles around the perimeter of the bowl. Susan explained that this is useful in case something interupts you or you lose track of where you are... You can simply look down in your bowl and see what you've already measured out. I did this for the crackers as you can see below.



2. When topping a pizza, go light on the toppings, starting with the sauce. If you overload your pizza, it will be soggy on the bottom and won't rise up while baking. Susan said you should simply "annoint" the pizza dough with sauce and then sprinkle on your toppings.

3. Don't put raw veggies on a pizza. Since raw veggies release water as they cook, they will make your pizza soggy. Instead, if you are going to use vegetables, be sure to pre-cook them prior to topping your pizza.



4. When rolling dough of any kind, always start from the center and roll out. Most bakers know this, but it's always good to be reminded of the proper technique.

5. Sticky sticks to Sticky. Most bakers know to flour their kneading surface prior to beginning. Susan explained that you should never put flour onto the dough itself. If you do, that flour will encorporate into the dough and will give a tougher texture. Instead, place flour on the surface and your hands. If the counter gets sticky, add a dusting of more flour to the surface. Or use a bench scraper to scrape away the sticky parts.

6. To knead dough, simply Fold, Roll, Turn. These three little words just stuck in my head and convinced me that I was being way too tough with my dough when I kneaded it. You should be gentle but firm with the dough.



7. Keep the heat inside your oven. Check out this awesome KAF oven. Wouldn't it be nice to have one of those? Susan explained a variety of reasons why their oven can be so precise. For one, the doors are very small compared to the inside of the oven so very little air gets in when you open the oven door. At home, you have a very large opening for the door. Another thing she talked about was the thermostat in the oven. At KAF, their thermostat kicks in if the oven goes 2 degrees off. At home, an electric oven's thermostat will kick in when it is 10 degrees off and for a gas oven, it's more like 30 degrees.



8. The smell that most people associate with whole wheat flour is actually the smell of rancid whole wheat flour. Susan had us smell a bucket of rancid whole wheat flour, then a bucket with fresh whole wheat flour. She said most people don't like whole grain baked goods because they are using rancid flour. Your whole wheat flour shouldn't have a strong smell to it if it's fresh. To keep it fresh in your house, store it in the freezer, away from the door.



9. Measure flour correctly. Again, most bakers know that you don't want to pack flour into the measuring cup. Susan recommended lightly sprinkling the flour into your measuring cup using a spoon/scoop. Once it has filled to the top, use a straight edge to level it off. A cup of flour should be around 4 ounces.

10. Use a flour wash to get the gunk off your hands. When dealing with a dough, you're going to get messy. Susan recommended keeping your fingers together as a good starting point. When you do get all messy and sticky, don't wash your hands with water. No matter how dry you think you got them, they will still be damp and will put more moisture into your dough. Instead, pat your hands in the flour on your surface and rub them together. The sticky stuff will come off your hands and they'll be clean.

Raw Summer Vegetable “Pasta”

Fall is definitely starting to show signs of emerging here in Boston. I'm still trying to hold on to these last few days of summer eating before I fully embrace the pumpkin spice lattes and desserts that I associate with Fall.



This "pasta" salad is so easy to throw together and is very delicious. Hubby and I sat down at the table and plowed through half of it as an afternoon snack. If you can still get some end of summer zucchini and tomatoes, you should definitely try this!



Hubby and I both agreed that the amount of tomatoes/garlic/herbs/etc would be perfect for 1/2 the amount of squash. And since this salad doesn't keep very well, if you just cut the amount of squash in 1/2 then you'd get two servings. I have written the recipe below to reflect these changes.

One Year Ago: Steak Fajitas with Chimichurri and Drunken Peppers
Two Years Ago: Lime and Coconut Margarita Cupcakes

A Trip to King Arthur Flour

This weekend I got to spend an afternoon at the King Arthur Flour (check them out on their blog, Facebook, or Twitter) in Norwich VT with 9 other Boston Bloggers: Megan (definitely check out Megan's blog - she's the one who dreamed up this whole trip!), Kerstin, Meghan, Alicia, Bridget, Michelle, Elina, Kristen, and Katie.

Today I'm going to let you know how the trip went and on Thursday I'll be posting the Top Ten Baking Tips that I took away from learning from a pro - so be sure to check back then.



We started the day with lunch provided by King Arthur Flour. Their catering department whipped up some sandwiches on the most amazing bread ever. While we were eating, Allison talked about KAF's history and their outreach programs.



Allison explained that KAF is the oldest flour company in the US and was started in 1790. Their flours are grown and milled right here in the United States. They have the strickest regulations for their flour. What does that mean for you? It means that their flour will have a consistent protein content which means it will bake the same way today that it did two years ago.



King Arthur Flour does a great deal of work with the community. The first thing they do are they're Traveling Baking Demos - which are free demonstrations about pies and yeast breads. They are kicking off the 2010 season in the Midwest the first weekend in October. Be sure to check out their schedule!

They also do the Life Skills Bread Baking Program. This sounds like a GREAT program. The people at KAF will give a demonstration on bread baking to students in grades 4-7. Then the kids go home with recipes and ingredients to bake two loaves of bread. One of the loaves of bread is to be enjoyed with their families and the other is donated to a community organization of the school's choice. The best part? This is all provided FREE of charge by King Arthur Flour. So if you know anyone in grade 4-7 or any teachers, let them know about this awesome program.



The last thing Allison told us about is The Baking Circle, which is their online community. You can post recipes, ask for advice, or even just start up a discussion. In conjunction with the online community, KAF has a Baking Hotline. You can literally CALL a professional baker with your questions anytime between 8am and 9 pm during the week or 9am to 5pm on the weekend. How cool is that?!? If calling isn't your style, you can shoot them an email or even talk to someone online through their live chat!



Next we headed over the Baking Education Center for our class. They had compressed a couple classes into one for us! We made pizza dough, whole grain crackers, and whole grain brownies (recipes and photos will be posted within the next week so watch for each of those).



I think our instructor, Susan Miller (who is also the director of the Baking Education Center at KAF), was pretty shocked at the amount of pictures we all took!



The people at KAF were so generous to us all. They gave us a goodie bag filled to the top. Here's what we got: Dough Whisk (I forgot to include it in my picture!), a box of one of their mixes - we all got a different mix - I got Lemon Bars, a 5 lb bag of Whole Wheat Flour, a 5 lb bag of White Whole Wheat flour, a box of the unbleached cake flour, a plastic scraper, the Fall 2010 issue of their Baking Sheet, and the Whole Grain Baking Cookbook!



At the end of class, we had just enough time to browse the baking shop. Here's a picture of my booty and a list of the items I bought at the store: Baker's Special Dry Milk, Cappuccino Chips, Fiori di Sicilia, Unsweetened Coconut, Candy Thermometer, Muffin Pan Sponge, and two cute dish towels.



Once we piled all of our goodies into our cars, we headed over to the Norwich Bed and Breakfast. We had the whole place to ourselves! We shared a few bottles of wine before heading out for dinner.



Then Alicia organized an amazing meal at Carpenter and Main. They use local ingredients as much as possible and the service was spot on. Of course, the food was amazing!



The next morning, we all went outside to snap some pictures of the beautiful view. I also bought a dozen farm fresh eggs from the owner. She said they had been laid last week. I can't wait to use them!



Then we hit the road to come back to life in Boston. I had a blast getting to know the other bloggers who were there, some of whom I had never met!

Be sure to check back Thursday for the list of baking tips that I learned while I was in class.

Ready. Set. VOTE!

The time has come to vote for the Project Food Blog!!

Click HERE to vote. I would greatly appreciate your vote (here's the link to vote for me!)



Some details about voting:
Voting for Challenge 1 will be open from 9AM EST Monday September 20 until 9PM EST Thursday September 23. Winners from this challenge will be announced around 3PM EST on Friday September 24.

General public voting: You are allowed to vote for the number of people who will be advancing to the next round. So for this challenge, each reader can vote for 400 entries. You can only vote once for each entry.

The entry with the most reader votes will advance to the next round.

If you are a Foodbuzz Featured Publisher: You are allowed to vote for the number of people who will be advancing to the next round. So for this challenge, each Featured Publisher can vote for 400 entries. You can only vote once for each entry.

The Featured Publisher votes will count for 50% of the score. The judges score will count for the other 50% of the score. FYI, judges will be scoring based on originality, creativity, quality of photo, composition of text, and expression of the challenge concept.

In case you missed it, I posted yesterday about why I think you should vote for me. Be sure to check it out if you missed it.

Also be sure to come check out my Project Food Blog profile where I answer these questions:

• Why did you start your food blog?
• What is the most rewarding thing about blogging?
• What is the most memorable meal or foodie moment?

Ready. Set. Blog.

Have you guys heard about Project Food Blog? Think Next Food Network Star meets The Bloggies. FoodBuzz has set out to identify the next great food blogger through a series of challenges. What's in it for the winner? A special feature on Foodbuzz.com and a cool $10,000 in cash. Not bad, huh?

I've decided to throw my hat into the ring for this competition. Of the over 4,000 featured publishers on Foodbuzz, over 1,800 are participating. And only 400 will make it through this first round!

Food Buzz has challenged all of us who are participating to write a post that defines who you are as a food blogger and why you have what it takes to be a food blog star.

I started thinking about who I am as a food blogger. I think my blog name says it all. After Hubby and I moved from a 3-bedroom house in Ohio to a ~700 square foot one bedroom condo in Boston, I decided that I like to bake. A LOT. I honestly rarely baked when we lived in Ohio... I guess something about that tiny little Boston kitchen got me motivated.

I started out baking just once a week. But as I started to challenge myself more and more, my addiction grew and grew. These days when someone asks me how often I bake, I tell them anywhere from 2-5 times a week. I seriously start getting a twitch when it's been a few days since I was baking and it's always the first thing I want to do after vacation or a long day at work.

I love to bake for people. When someone comes to visit I always make sure that I find out what kind of desserts they like and whip something up for them. I even make exceptions to my strict no-repeats rule for guests. I think baking is one of the most thoughtful things you can do for someone.

As my blog started to grow, I started to improve on my photography skills. I wanted my photographs to fully represent the awesomeness of the recipes I was trying in my kitchen. I am continuing to learn more about lighting and exposure, but I've definitely come a long way.

Sometimes people ask me why I blog. And as cliche as it sounds, it really is because of you guys. Obviously, Hubby and I get to enjoy the food that comes out of our kitchen, but I really love hearing from you guys. Whether it's through a comment, an email, or a note on Facebook, it really does make me feel all warm and fuzzy to know that you guys trust me enough to try the recipes I post on here or to ask for advice.

Now on to the big question of this challenge. Do I have what it takes to be the next food blog star? I absolutely have what it takes. It's been 1118 days since I hit publish for the first time. In the begining, I used cake mixes from a box and took short cuts whenever I could. I was learning how to cook and bake. And I was bringing everyone along for the ride.

Because of this blog, I tackled my fear of yeast. After making some bread, pretzels, and cinnamon rolls, yeast doesn't even phase me anymore.


I've worked my way through 95 posts worth of cupcakes. That's a LOT of cupcakes.


I grew out of my cupcake phase and into my brownies and bars phase.


I tackled my first layer cake, then I tackled decorating a layer cake.


I've challenged myself to continue to try new foods and make things I've never made before.

I've tackled learning my way through some HTML code so that I can update my blog layout on my own.


At the end of the day, I have pushed myself through many challenges in the 1118 days since I started this blog. I am ready to face these 10 Project Food Blog Challenges head on. They can't be any more scary than yeast, right?

Voting for Project Food Blog will open to YOU on Monday, September 20th (don't worry, I'll be sure to remind you!)

Be sure to come check out my Project Food Blog profile where I answer these questions:

• Why did you start your food blog?
• What is the most rewarding thing about blogging?
• What is the most memorable meal or foodie moment?

Three Month Update - 30 by 30

Today I'm three months into my 30 by 30.

Hubby and I were able to catch the last movie of the season on the halfshell. It was a beautiful August evening and we walked the 4 miles from our place to the halfshell. We packed a picnic dinner and brought a blanket. It was a great date night and we both enjoyed the movie Up, which we had never seen. I can't wait to go again next summer and to take my nephew B too!

I also had a chance to cook with some new ingredients this month. The first new ingredient I tried was fresh figs. I made homemade fig newtons and this crostini with goat cheese, caramelized onions, and a fig reduction. I also made this massaged kale salad. I will definitely be using these ingredients more often from here on out!

Cooking/Baking:

• Bagels
• Marshmallows
• Molten Lava Cakes
• Baked Doughnuts
• Cheesecake
• Indian Meal (chicken tikka masala and naan)
• Sushi
• Continue to bake for a good cause
• Try Prepare three new foods (1: Kale in the Massaged Kale Salad, 2: Figs in the Fig, Goat Cheese and Caramelized Onion Crostini and Homemade Fig Newtons)

Health/Fitness:

• Get to my goal weight
• Work out on a regular basis
• Complete the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer (check out my recap here)

Boston/Travel:

• Visit at least 3 new cities (1: San Francisco)
• Pack a picnic dinner and see a movie on the Esplanade
• Go to the beach! (can you believe Hubby and I haven't had a beach day since we moved to Boston 3 years ago)
• Go to the Cranberry Festival in October - started - it's on the calendar and we're definitely going to make it happen!
• Take a spontanious trip with girlfriends

Relationships:

• Talk to younger siblings (A and L) on a regular basis
• Plan/host a girls night (in or out)
• Go visit my little brother's college dorm room
• Meet my friend's babies in the Midwest - started - I have travel plans in place to make this happen
• Babysit/Spoil my new nephew as much as I can - started - Hubby and I babysat him for the first time by ourselves in August! He was an angel the entire night and didn't fuss at all.
• Send birthday cards to my siblings, parents, and nephew
• Plan a date-day with Hubby

Other:

• Take a cooking class - started - I am taking a baking class tomorrow! I'll be sure to write about it next week.
• Read the photography books my dad got me
• Finish all the nearly-complete kitchen projects
• Fully de-clutter our place
• Volunteer for something at least four times (1: volunteered to take care of the ongoing can-recycling project at work)
• Plan a Boston area food blogger event

Baja Fish Tacos

As I mentioned the other day, Hubby and I love going to Dorado for our fish taco fix. While we were eating our tacos and elote, we were chatting about how we should try to make them at home sometime. I commented that the tortillas make a big difference.



I was apparently feeling bold that day because I just walked up to the counter and started up a conversation with the manager (which is so not like me!) I assumed they made their own tortillas, but in fact they buy them from a place just north of Boston. Then I asked if I could buy some from him. He gave me a whole bag for just a few bucks!! I was very excited and started planning out our meal on the walk home.



We decided to replicate our Dorado meal. I served these fish tacos with some delicious elote and black beans served over rice. We will definitely be having fish tacos at home more often!

One Year Ago: Lemon Blueberry Ice Cream Bars
Three Years Ago: Bruschetta