I heart Texas

Wow, I am such a food blogging bum. It's been what over a month or more. It's hard to blog when you are using your neighbors wireless connection. (Shhh, I didn't say that). I don't understand why it takes the internet guy 2 weeks to come out and flip a switch. That would be a good job for someone with OCD. You'd get your internet in no time flat!

Anyways, our move to Corpus Christi TX from Milton, FL went really smoothly. It was a 13 hour trip which is good timing for a fully loaded 30 foot truck. So we got to our new house at 11:30pm. Needless to say we werent thinking right and thinking our driveway was long enough, persuaded Brandon that it would fit and we wouldn't have to park half way on the curb. Well...let's just say I'm keeping my trap shut from now on. We had to back out of the driveway obviously and alas the trailer with our car could not turn that sharply backwards and we had to unhook the trailer with the car then drive the trailer with the trailer back on on the truck. We had to take the highway because it's a loop of somesort and would bring us back to our house without having to do a bunch of turns on our street and wake up our beloved brand new neighbors. Yeah, so on the highway, the trailer locked up. The cop came to help. We got home at 2am. No power in the house. Cold, dark shower. That's all of that I want to live through again.

On the lighter side of things we got to go on a three day weekend trip to San Antonio! I LOVED IT! Here's Brandon and I at one of the many missions for tourists like us to look at.
Here's a much nicer mission. I think the nicest mission out of all the ones that we went to. Well, we only went to 2 others besides the Alamo. It got a little repetitive and boring and it was hot! OH! P.S I scored those shorts for $12 at Pacsun. Sweet!

And then here is our self photography skills.

Our luck for finding willing photographers was running out on our last day in San Antonio but we managed to get a lady and her family to take this one for us.

We also thought we'd waste some money and go to Ripleys believe it or not museum and the wax museum. Believe it or not - it was a total waste of money. Can you spot the ghost in the above ivory sculpture? (It's me trapped in the glass but not really)
At least I got to meet David Lettermen. I starred in his late night show. He didn't talk to me much. Infact he didn't even move. What kind of a host is that?
Brandon visited Oprah. She had downgraded her huge set to this two seater set. I thought she was doing well for herself.
Ah, here's the riverwalk in San Antonio, just where our hotel is. It was convient and pretty but since we aren't much of the drinking type, we didn't really rock it out on the riverwalk. Plus, never eat along the riverwalk - not good food.
Just another picture to bore you guys some more of us at the mission.

Brandon surprised me with a beautiful hotel 'Hotel Valencia' but had insisted all week long that we were staying at La Quinta. I am a total bathroom snob and have been since I was like 3 years old, so this was definitely a plus.
The room itself was fantastic! The blinds were made of broad wood. So nice and the King size bed was so comfy. The added fur draped over the bed was a rather nice touch too.
Here's Brandon next to the tallest man in the world. Looks like he needs to grow a little more.
This is what I will become if I keep food bloggin and not not exercising. Only this is a man and I don't think food blogging will turn me into a man - right?

The first week we arrived in Corpus, Brandon volunteered himself to help with the annual Navy Regatta and hence I was volunteered. So on Saturday and Sunday we got to race on sailboats! We got hooked up with a Captain and his catamaran which goes superfast. Well the saturday trip was a 3 hour long sail course. At the end of the race we were bookin it. We went like 18 mph. It was sweet.
We totally won on Saturday and here is our trophy and we won on Sundays race also!
Here's Brandon. He had to be in charge of the steering (I think it meant he was the skipper) on Sundays race. That is the rules.
Then theres me above trying to help.
I started work on Wednesday at a French Bakery in town and I am LOVIN it! It doesn't get much better than creating things I love to do at home. It's hardly like a job but it is cause I feel so inadequate right now. I gotta step up on my pate a choux piping skills. I get up at 4am to be at work by 6:30am and then I leave at 3pm. It's nice to be home before it gets dark. Now I can hang out with people in the evenings instead of being a tired hermit like I was when I worked in the restaurant industry back in FL. Never again - I hope.

I will post more as I bake more. School starts up on the 28th and hopefully it won't be too stressful. I miss you guys and I miss blogging about food so I will try hard to get back into it. Till next time - eat what you bake, I know I will. ;-)

Where's Val?

Okay, okay before y'all (learning from the south pretty well now) beat me up and tell me I suck as a member of the Daring Bakers because I always post days after the "reveal," and that I just suck at updating my blog because it's been more than a month, I have a REALLY good excuse. Trust me. Before you panic, no I was not abducted by aliens and held hostage to bake them pastries and breads. Though if I were, I sure hope they pay well, better than what they do here.

Anyways, just so you know I did make the Daring Bakers challenge before the reveal date. 2 weeks before to be exact. It just happens that every reveal date happens to be on a day I have school or work or on a sunday when I am so tired from school and work that all I do is lay on my couch like a sac-o-potatoes. Lovely sight mind you. Well, it will not happen again (for another month and a half at least). Please hold your enthusiam while I tell you why.

I am now unemployeed (which is a good thing) because we are about to move to Corpus Christi, Texas. My husband Brandon selected P-3s about a month ago and since then life has been a rollercoaster. When I found out, I freaked out crying all over campus cause I still have 6 months of school left and that meant that I would be living with my husband for 6 months in this thing they call a town. That was not going to happen, so I did research and will be attending Del Mar College in Corpus and transferring the credits I still need back here to get my degree. Long story short, I would have to take 25% of Del Mars classes in order to get a degree from them and that would just be a waste of time and money. I only have 2 labs left, the rest of the classes I'm taking through Faulkner via distance Ed. Unfortunately for me Del Mar is only offering one of the labs I need in the Fall, so I won't be done completely till the Spring and I don't know the chances of them having the lab I need open in the Spring. So it's kinda still up in the air. Brandon was suppose to leave to report in Corpus early June and we are just so thankful for all the prayers because he was able to extend his leavage until the day after my finals.

So without further ado, I give to you Julys Daring Bakers challenge from Kelly of Sass & Veracity and Ben of What's Cooking?:

Above I made a chocoalte cream cheese filling and below a pear and brown sugar streusel filling.
DANISH DOUGH

Makes 2-1/2 pounds dough

Ingredients
For the dough (Detrempe)
1 ounce fresh yeast
½ cup whole milk (I used Plain Soy Milk)
1/3 cup sugar
Zest of 1 orange, finely grated (I opted out this cause Brandon does not like Orange zest)
¾ teaspoon ground cardamom (I used nutmeg)
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
½ vanilla bean, split and scraped (I can't find this here)
2 large eggs, chilled
¼ cup fresh orange juice (I omitted this)
3-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt

For the butter block (Beurrage)
½ pound (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter ( I used Earth Balance)
¼ cup all-purpose flour

DOUGH
Combine yeast and milk in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on low speed. Slowly add sugar, orange zest, cardamom, vanilla extract, vanilla seeds, eggs, and orange juice. Mix well. Change to the dough hook and add the salt with the flour, 1 cup at a time, increasing speed to medium as the flour is incorporated. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, or until smooth. You may need to add a little more flour if it is sticky. Transfer dough to a lightly floured baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

BUTTER BLOCK
Combine butter and flour in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat on medium speed for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and the paddle and then beat for 1 minute more, or until smooth and lump free. Set aside at room temperature.
After the detrempe has chilled 30 minutes, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough into a rectangle approximately 18 x 13 inches and ¼ inch thick. The dough may be sticky, so keep dusting it lightly with flour. Spread the butter evenly over the center and right thirds of the dough. Fold the left edge of the detrempe to the right, covering half of the butter. Fold the right third of the rectangle over the center third. The first turn has now been completed. Mark the dough by poking it with your finger to keep track of your turns, or use a sticky and keep a tally. Place the dough on a baking sheet, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes
Place the dough lengthwise on a floured work surface. The open ends should be to your right and left. Roll the dough into another approximately 13 x 18 inch, ¼-inch-thick rectangle. Again, fold the left third of the rectangle over the center third and the right third over the center third. No additional butter will be added as it is already in the dough. The second turn has now been completed. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.
Roll out, turn, and refrigerate the dough two more times, for a total of four single turns. Make sure you are keeping track of your turns. (In school I learnt that if you are fast with turns, you can make 2 turns before refrigerating so it decreases the waiting time). Refrigerate the dough after the final turn for at least 5 hours or overnight. The Danish dough is now ready to be used. If you will not be using the dough within 24 hours, freeze it. To do this, roll the dough out to about 1 inch in thickness, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and freeze. Defrost the dough slowly in the refrigerator for easiest handling. Danish dough will keep in the freezer for up to 1 month.

Proofing and Baking
Spray cooking oil (Pam…) onto a piece of plastic wrap, and place over the braid. Proof at room temperature or, if possible, in a controlled 90 degree F environment for about 2 hours, or until doubled in volume and light to the touch
Near the end of proofing, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Position a rack in the center of the oven.
Bake for 10 minutes, then rotate the pan so that the side of the braid previously in the back of the oven is now in the front. Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees F, and bake about 15-20 minutes more, or until golden brown. Cool and serve the braid either still warm from the oven or at room temperature. The cooled braid can be wrapped airtight and stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, or freeze for 1 month.

Last week in my 'Essentials of Breads' class we had our midterm practical. It was a restless night prior because we had always worked in groups to produce our breads so who is to say that one person had more of an effect on the outcome of the bread than someone else? I was doubting my abilities and the fact that there we had to share equipment made me THAT much more nervous. I am a very time-oriented person and to have to wait for equipment when I am ready for the next step would stress me out completely. So, I grabbed my own measuring Cups and digital scale. I got there early enough to put tabs on a mixing bowl and a good working oven. The race started and I was coming in in the middle time wise while we prepared the dough. I had a sponge so that took a little longer. We had to be prestine in our santitation, appearance, technique, mis en place, taste, uniformity and be able to answer questions about our bread. We were allowed to make any bread we had done in the class and I chose Challah. Mainly because I knew everyone would take the Italian breads route thinking that it would be the easiest but alas it is not. Plus I wanted to be able to consume my bread since it doesn't have butter or milk it was the choice to go with. I was third to scale and mould my dough. Each piece of dough had to be 1 # - 1# 4oz after baking and it usually loses 2 oz moisture in the oven. I was skeptical when I scaled my dough. Each only weight 1# 2 oz. If it lost more than 2 oz, I would down graded. I was first in the proof box and first in the oven. Thank goodness because after the 1st 3 people got out of the ovens, the ovens turned out us. We have deck ovens and the majority of the breads we made needed ice to be thrown in as we baked for a crispier crust. Well, one giant mistake, too much ice went in and leaked out of the oven, shutting down the pilots for the oven one by one all the way down and so most peoples breads did not bake right. My breads came out perfect. 1# 1 oz each. Chef loved it and said it was very well made and tasted great. Phew!
For our catering class we were divided into different catering groups and we had to have a theme. I came up with a cheese theme and my plate I presented was the dessert. It's a sweetened cream cheese filling wrapped in phyllo dough, baked and topped off with a blueberry sauce. I was REALLY surprised when several culinary students asked me "What's phyllo dough." I looked at them. They looked back. I thought 'are you serious?' The draining moment was when I realised that they were serious.
I also have a culinary sculpture class and we worked with chocolate sculpting and made this chocolate bunny. I tried to bring it home in 1 piece but after the 1 hour 30 minute drive, her ear had melted and she was humped over in her half chocolate egg shell.

I hope to update more regulary since I am happily unemployeed for a month. :-)

It ain't over till the fat lady sings!

This month, we had the pleasure of a challenge from the founders of The Daring Bakers Lis and Ivvone and co-hosts Apples Peaches Pumpkin Pie(http://applespeachespumpkinpie.blogspot.com/) and Shea of the blog Whiskful (http://whiskful.blogspot.com/).

Our mission: Opera Cake
Feelings immediately after reading the challenge: Exhaustion
Feelings after completing the challenge: Not as bad as when I did it in class
Feelings after 1st bite of challenge: *shudder*
Feelings after trying to make myself eat another piece: *shudder*

I am not sure why I do this to myself everytime I make something. Even if it's not to my liking or taste, I force myself to eat it. Possibly because we grew up not wasting what food was prepared for us. Afterall you know, all those starving children in China. *jokes*
Above is the Joconde sheet cakes separated by a vanilla buttercream. The joconde are moistened with simple syrup.
Now, here is the cake that has been covered by a white chocolate mousse and covered in a white chocolate glaze.
I also busted out some decorating skills, I also have nunchuck skills.
Surprisingly, it looks pretty good when cut and the buttercream actually worked for me this time, probably because I let it mix in the mixer till it was stiff. The other times, I was afraid I would curdle it for some reason so I always removed it before it was done and yeah...it was not good.
and there we have it folks, May challenge is complete. Here is the link to the recipe.

To be completely honest, if you couldn't tell by my entire entry, I did not much enjoy this Opera Cake, nor was it satisfying for the amount of calories I forced myself to eat. I can truly say that I hate buttercream, I'm not sure I like the joconde since I felt it was rather bland. The only part I did like was the white chocolate glaze, but that alone took me into a sugar coma. I have never been a fan of desserts such as this, no offense. It reminds me of petit fours and I just felt that the textures and the tastes were so different in each of the components to make up the Opera that it didn't quite blend together well for me. Perhaps I'm crazy, which is probably the case.

Carrot to try?

It's surprising how long it took for me to make ANYTHING baked containing carrots ever since I made 200 some carrot cakes back in December at work. I've wanted to but the thought of what I went through; the batter splattered chef coat, carrot stained hands, pastry shortening up to my ears and the annoyance of having to take turns on the mixer and ovens when I had a deadline; made me quite unwilling to bake carrot muffins which I had craved since before December until now.

Finally, I was able to bring myself to making these carrot muffins and these are IBS safe, so good for you and better for your tummy! Enjoy!

CARROT MUFFINS - Valerie Adams

3 Medium sized carrots, peeled and grated
1/4 C apple sauce, natural
3/4 C oil
1 1/2 ts Vanilla extract
3/4 C eggbeaters
Mix wet ingredients together until complete combined

2 C flour, All Purpose
1 C granulated sugar
3/4 ts Baking Soda
1 1/2 ts Baking Powder
1/2 ts salt
1 ts cinnamon
1/2 ts nutmeg
Mix the dry ingredients together

Then fold wet ingredients into the dry.

Finally add:

1 C shredded coconut
1/2 C chopped and toasted pecans

Spray muffins pan with olive oil spray and then divide batter evenly between muffin tins and bake at 350 degrees F for 20-25 minutes.

I hardly eat any "real" dinner, what most people would consider dinner cause sometimes I just can't stomach it with my IBS, but the other day I concocted something so yummy! Emmm! I had some leftover cooked penne pasta and here is my creation:

CHIPOTLE PORCINI PENNE - Valerie Adams

5-6 dried porcini mushrooms (hydrated in some warm water)
1/2 tomato cut into chunks
1/2 Vandalia onion, sliced thinnly
Chipotle pepper (dried, ground) to taste

Heat up some olive oil in a saute pan, and sautee onions till soft, then add in penne pasta, toss in tomatos and the porcini mushrooms (squeese out water).
Sautee and add some of the mushroom water for flavor and moisture. Add in the chipotle pepper to taste. Dish up!

Now, I just made myself hungry. I better make dinner - but what? Hmm....

Maybe it will fly?

So, as an admirer of Ace of Cakes, I could not say that I am fan until I had tried my hand at making a cake myself. I can't say that it is a cake worthy of posting, but I had to. It's my very first fondant covered, shaped cake. In a sad way I'm proud of it, so I couldn't not post it. Right?

Strawberry Chocolate Cake - Valerie Adams

4 containers of Yo-Digestive Strawberry yogurt
1 C oil
4 ts Vanilla extract
(Mix liquid together)

2 1/2 C All Purpose flour
4 ts Baking powder
1/2 C cocoa powder
2 C powdered sugar
(Mix dry ingredients together and add liquid to the dry and mix till combined)

Pour into greased pan and bake at 375 degrees F for 40 minutes.

I then cut the cake into three equal strips

and brushed simple syrup onto each layer then adhered the layers with chocolate icing.

This is the plane after cutting and frosting.
Here's the end product with the marshmellow fondant. Please forgive the nooks and crannies you can see, but I've never worked with fondant before.
The other side
and lastly the front of the plane.

I think it was a little small of a cake to really put enough detail on it, so next time I will make a bigger one.

The past 2 weeks in review

It is high time I had some time off. Spring semester has ended and now I have 2 weeks of nothing but work. Eh. I would rather have it the other way around. I don't know about anyone else but the work environment is SO important to me and well let's just say, my work environment is draining. None the less, I'm going to make myself enjoy the days that I do have off as wonderful as possible! So much has happened, yet what I have here is not anywhere near what I wish to show you all. Considering my absence since...well november when work and school got in the way of blogging. What has this world come to?????

I'll start this post off with a little humor. Can anyone tell me what this picture reminds you of?:

As Brandon puts it "It's like George from Seinfield when he posed on his velvet couch." Scary picture in my mind! Leben looks alot cuter though. He's now 5 months and weighing in at 52 lbs!

Here's a side that I made for dinner tonight (above). It's quite tasty and refreshing. I sliced up some cantaloupe and honeydew and sweet onions, tossed it with 2 TBS of simple syrup, about 1/4 C rice vinger (more or less depending on your tastes) and then tossed in some crumbled blue cheese. OOOHHH LALA! (I didn't really say that out loud, just in my head.)

Last monday was the last week of spring semester classes before finals, so we made bread sculptures out of salt dough and we were allowed to make anything we wanted, so I opted to go for the pig, then my friends said he needed an apple. So an apple I made. He got baked at 275 degrees F for ... forever till he dried out. Best class ever!

Oh, This is our collaboration. Kim made the hot dog and the bun, I made the weener dog head, hence hot dog. HAHAHAHA...okay it really wasn't that great of a joke, but it was late, and we had been there since 7:30am.

I also made some spanokopitas sometime ago. I love feta and spinach, so this was the perfect finger food. Emmm...cheesy. I used olive oil between the filo layers instead of the traditional butter and it crisped really well!

Ahhh...well sorry to say my dear dear readers. At least those who happened to stumble across my page, willingly or unwillingly. Never the less, the 80 degree weather here in Florida has caused the self destruction of my prized chocolate hat. It's life was taken away by the stabbage of the stand itself. Horrific! I fell on my hands and knees and cried "WHY? WHY OH WHY?"
Really though, I was just sad I didn't eat it before it melted and well...after weeks sitting there being free food to flies and what not, it didn't seem proper.

OH! The last day of class also revealed to us (the pastry students), that we were really ready for sugar work. As you can see, we cast sugar into this stainglass window. The boys made an evil angel but their manly hands caused the decapitation of the the angels head and the eventual collapse of her body onto the bench.

Well, that's a wrap! There's more to come. I made an olive oil rosemary bread the other day, but didn't copy the picture onto the computer and well...I'm just too lazy to do it right now. hahahahaha. So you'll have to wait! *suspense has been created*

Redneck Cheesecake lollipops!

You know you live in a redneck town when:

the only thing you can find as stems for the cheesecake lollipops are toothpicks! SWEET!

That's what I'm looking for. hehehe.

The only real problem I had was that the toothpicks came out of the cheesecake lollipops, probably cause toothpicks SUCK at doing anything besides picking out food from between your teeth.
Other than that everything went really well. I dipped them in caramel, chocolate and white chocolate then covered them in either sprinkles, crushed oreos or coconut.
Our neighbors gobbled up the ones we gave them and Brandon also gobbled up most of them. Which is good. I had my fair share but they are only good for 3 days max. Then they start to taste more like the food in your refrigerator than anything else. Ew!

It must be magic, because Brandon had annouced his "need" of cheesecake the week I had planned to make these so it came right in the nick of time.

So come ye, come all, Elle – Feeding My Enthusiasms and Deborah – Taste and Tell

has challeneged us, and we have prevailed! GO DARING BAKERS, GO!

Cheesecake Pops - Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Connor
Makes 30 – 40 Pops
5 8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature

2 cups sugar

¼ cup all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

5 large eggs

2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

¼ cup heavy cream

Boiling water as needed
Thirty to forty 8-inch lollipop sticks
1 pound chocolate, finely chopped – you can use all one kind or half and half of dark, milk, or white (Alternately, you can use 1 pound of flavored coatings, also known as summer coating, confectionary coating or wafer chocolate – candy supply stores carry colors, as well as the three kinds of chocolate.)
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening

(Note: White chocolate is harder to use this way, but not impossible)
Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees) - Optional

Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil.
In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.
Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes.

Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.
When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.

When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it’s shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety.
Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.

Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionary chocolate pieces) as needed.
Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.