Author: Lauren

Fancy fare: Black Forest Ham Crostini

Adapted from a Weight Watchers recipe, this super yum appetizer was easy to make for our NYE party.  Plus, it has great visual impact, looks fancy, and is really delicious.

Black Forest Ham Crostini

Ingredients:

A fresh loaf of skinny french bread

1/3 C. sour cream (reduced-fat still tastes great)

3 TB minced red onion

1 TB horseradish

1/4 tsp. black pepper

Fresh arugula or other green (not too pungent), for garnish

1/4 – 1/2 lb. black forest ham, sliced thinly (I got mine already sliced at the deli counter)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 deg-F.  Thinly slice french bread (about 1″ thick) and place on sprayed baking sheet.  Toast bread in the oven about 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool

In a small bowl, combine the sour cream, onion, horseradish, and pepper.

Put bread on serving platter, and place one deli slice on each piece of bread.  Add a dollop of sour cream mixture and garnish with arugula or other greens.

Betty knows best: Deviled Eggs

One of my prized possessions is my first edition 1950 Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book.

It has amazing tips on how to be a good housewife and decorating a kitchen with polka dots… “Gayest, most colorful of all!”

Though perhaps slightly dated in its approach and it’s recipes (like: miniature pigs in blankets and pineapple marshmallow creme), every recipe I’ve tried out of this book has been amazingly successful.  It just goes to show that when it comes to classic American cooking…. Betty Crocker knows best.

This New Years Eve, I tried making Deviled Eggs for the fist time, much to the delight of my household and, I might add, me.  Simple. Creamy. Delicious.

Betty’s Deviled Eggs

Ingredients:

6 eggs (hard-boiled, see below*)

1/4 – 1/2 tsp. salt, depending on your taste (I like less salty)

1/2 tsp. dry mustard

About 3 TB mayonaise, vinegar, or cream (enough to moisten)

Directions:

Cut hard-boiled eggs in half, slip out the yolks into a small bowl and mash with a fork.  Add the other ingredients and mix until creamy.  Refill egg whites with yolk mixture (you can just spoon it in, or use a pastry bag if you want to be extra fancy).  I like to dust them lightly with Paprika.

There are about 1,000 variations of Deviled Eggs, and you can experiment yourself with curry powder, diced ham, pimentos and the like… but I like them just like this.

If you don’t have a fancy deviled egg tupperware as I do, you can lightly squeeze two halves back together and wrap them in wax paper like a salt water taffy (twisting the sides tightly) for transport.  That is, if you don’t eat all of them before you get to your party.

*Just in case you don’t know how to make hard-boiled eggs, a brief tutorial:

  • Boil water in a pot.  The pot should be large enough for the eggs to sit in a single layer, and fill with enough water to completely cover the eggs.  Add 1 TB vinegar to the pot.
  • Lower eggs into the water one at a time, using a ladle and gently resting them in the water.  Lower the heat to medium-ish.
  • 20 minutes later.
  • Use your ladle again to scoop out the eggs one at a time and place them in a colander.  Place the colander in an ice bath to prevent the eggs from continuing to cook, not to mention they are too hot to handle.

Ringing in 2012

Your RSS feeds will likely be clogged with a bunch of bloggers’ resolutions today.  Rather than bore you with the typical “lose weight, blog more” goals that I share with all my fellow Americans, I shall ease your hangover with a beautiful photo diary of what my New Year’s Eve looked like.

The theme:

A classy beer tasting party.

The setting:

The fabulously retro party basement that lies beneath my humble abode

The menu:

Classic hors d’oeuvres including a fruit and cheese tray, deviled eggs, creamy Mexican dip, black forest ham crostini, homemade peanut brittle, and Dragon’s Milk Stout brownies (recipes to follow for the rest of the week)

Paired with:

Stone Imperial Russian Stout, Unibroue Maudite (amber Belgian-style ale), New Glarus Moon Man, Stone IPA, and a special New Glarus Raspberry Tart for the midnight toast.

Aside: I’ve had many failures in the kitchen, but this shin-dig (I flatter myself) was a delicious success.

Contributing Crafty Lady Nancy took these photos, and selected and sourced the beer pairings….

Black Forest Ham Crostini
Creamy Mexican Dip
Deviled Eggs
Blue cheese, Camembert, Asian pear and a clementine blossom
Milk Stout Brownies

Merry, happy, and a shot of Kahlua

Nothing says Christmas like a hot cup of cocoa with a blanket, family gathered around the hearth, and an overflowing jigger of Kahlua.

Instant hot cocoa mix

recipe courtesy of Alton Brown

Ingredients:

2 – 1/2 C. dry, non-fat milk

2 C. confectioner’s sugar

1 C. cocoa powder

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. cornstarch

1 pinch cayenne (optional)

Directions:

Mix all ingredients until combined.  To prepare, mix 2 heaping tablespoons mix with 8 oz. hot water.  Add Kahlua (optional) and enjoy.

Delicioso.

Damn you, foam roller!

I have a secret to tell you.

I’m a fitness instructor who doesn’t go to the gym that often…. shhh!!

I hate to admit it, but I’ve been to my local Ballys (now LA Fitness) exactly once since I moved (last February).  I’m a prime example of a person that had a routine (we were going at least twice a week), and lost it as soon as something (or lots of things) changed in my life.

Ok, look, during the year I teach a grand total of 18 fitness classes a week, work 12 hour days, commute 20 miles a day on bike, and operate a small dance company.  So that’s my excuse.  But in the “off-season”, that is, the break between semesters, I decided it was time to make good on the $25 a month that is deducted from my account every month.

I’ve been wanting to grab some new tips for the workouts I give in class, and make sure I look ripped on the first day of the semester in January.  Determined to not wait for another “tomorrow”, or, God help us, until January 1 to go back to the gym, I boldly went where no Lauren (that’s me) has gone before: a Pilates class.

I hate Pilates.

It doesn’t make sense to me and just makes my neck hurt.  But, I recognize that people who do Pilates regularly look extremely buff.  I haven’t taken a Pilates class, in fact, since college, and after going I pretty much feel the same way about it that I did before.

Except, perhaps, for the foam roller.

This thing is awesome, and something I never knew could be incorporated into a Pilates workout.  Providing both cushion and support, and a wicked test of balance, that little log of foam kicked my ass.  And I like a good ass kicking now and again.

I love that feeling after you work out.  That soft pain developing in your muscles, adrenaline pumping through you.  And, Pilates aside, today I feel that, and I want to feel it again tomorrow.

Foam roller, I think I’m in love with you.

Long story short, the holidays are tough for me… primarily due to my loves for cheesy made-for-TV movies and pie.  I work really hard and when I get the chance to relax I often relax hard too.  However, when I squeeze back into those tiny stretch pants I wear every day at work, I want to feel confident.  I’d like to know that the students are looking at my face and not my butt.  Or, if they are looking at my butt, they’re thinking, “Man alive! She must work out”.

Because, you know, of course I do!

The 10 days of Christmas

Wait, what?

Well wouldn’t you know it, that big old holiday with the merriment and joy and stuff is creeping right up on me.  What have I done to prepare for it?

Nothing.

Well, I take that back.  I made 20 jars of pickles back in September, but apart from that… yeah, nothing.  In an effort to keep up my image as a domestic goddess, here’s how I plan to spend the next few days preparing for Christmas:

10 trips to the garage hauling in decorations

9 editions of the Nutcracker playing non-stop in the background

8 servings of soup a-freezing

7 times a-shoveling (assumedly… although it hasn’t snowed yet)

6 cranberry loaves a-baking

5  golden teeth

aside: I haven’t been to the dentist in awhile, and am anticipating a few cavities…

4 jars of homemade cocoa mix

3 quilts sewn

2 hands cramping from writing Christmas postcards

… and a big care package sent to my friend Erin in Benin, Africa

Starbucks Around the World: Lebanon, IN

The idea of Starbucks (at least when I was an employee there) was always to come, stay, let it be your “third place” to hang out and relax.  This is completely contrary to what much of America now understands Starbucks to be: just another drive-through fast food joint with really expensive, tasty coffee.  Such is the case with stores like this one in Lebanon, IN, and so many others like it that have giant Siren’s thrusting above the interstate next to the golden arches and the BP signs.

This is not necessarily a criticism, simply a response to what “America” seems to want… which is to have their cake and eat it to.  At 7:30pm, I found this Starbucks to be somewhat sub-par… they were completely out of sandwiches and salads, and the barista put whip on a no-whip hot chocolate that (by my palate) was obviously made with reheated milk.

“Long day?” I asked.

“You don’t even know…. I’ve made like 100 hot chocolates today.”

What I didn’t tell this Barista was that in my day I’d make 100 hot chocolates an hour…

In any case, the staff was pleasant, they fixed my drink – unbegrudgingly and apologetically – when I noticed it was made incorrectly, and the bathrooms were nice and clean.  Plus, if a Siren in the sky gets a truck driver off of bad gas station coffee every once in awhile, then I guess the bending of the business model a bit is totally worth it.