Now that I have a technique for the recipe, I'll go ahead and share that, too. Yes, even though I've told many that my family's lebkuchen recipe is a guarded secret that must be obtained by becoming part of the family, by birth or marriage. (I've gotten proposals for these cookies.) In the meantime, you can have a closeup of the side and a look inside the box.


Lebkuchen Box - Side Closeup by ~auralie on deviantART


Lebkuchen Box - Top Inside by ~auralie on deviantART

I've been updating Kitchen Zen for over a year now!

*confettis!*

I don't think I've ever stayed with something that wasn't an RPG for this long. And there are still so many entries I want to write! Guess you guys are stuck with me for a bit longer, huh? XD

Happy Birthday & 5/12ths, Kitchen Zen!

And a super big THANK YOU to all of my readers, with special thanks to my teachers, classmates, and doppelganger (You know who you are! XD) over at Le Cordon Bleu for helping me to get better and better at this, my friends at milliways_bar and ways_back_room who give me some of my more unusual and interesting ideas, CoffeeFool.Com for their awesome robot juice (And the free coffee they sent me for reviewing them! Looking forward to my order of Mr. Sweet Potato and Secret Bean, guys!), and my crew back in Arkansas (Dad, Sis, Christine & her awesome family, and Saph even though she's out of state for school too!)

Keep it here for more yummy food goodness in the future! More recipes, more experiments, more reviews, and possibly a long-term project right here on LJ! So stay tuned, same Kitchen Zen time, same Kitchen Zen channel!

I know I did a picspam not too long ago, but these are just too gorgeous. I've got some pictures of my dad's lebkuchen box. Lebkuchens are srs biznes in Germany, after all. They've even got the League of Lebkuchen-Bakers, though I don't know if they're still assembled, to regulate lebkuchen production. The box says NVREMBERGA, which is Nuremberg, the city most famous for lebkuchens and the foundation for the League.


Lebkuchen Box - Side by ~auralie on deviantART


Lebkuchen Box - Top by ~auralie on deviantART

What Aura was saying a few moments ago:

Aura: Oh man!
Sister: What?
Aura: *%&#!
Sister: What?!
Aura: I forgot to take pictures of the crepes!

That's pretty much been my Black Friday Weekend. Due to car issues (which are being resolved today so I can get back to school), I wasn't able to go to my family's house to make bananas foster. But I did have a group of people over and I made bananas foster for them, who heartily approved.

My friend Christine stayed the night and when we got up this morning looking for breakfast in my sister's quite sparse apartment, I found almost all of the ingredients for Crepe Suzette. All we were lacking was oranges, but we had other fruits. The choice was bananas or apples, so we ended up making Crepe Suzette with apples instead. And it was awesome!

Crepes (Christine's Mom's Recipe)
2 eggs
2 tablespoons butter, melted (more is optional)
1 cup water
flour (as needed, about 1 cup)

Melt the butter in a big bowl and let it cool so it doesn't cook the eggs. The add your eggs and scramble them up with a whisk. Add the water and mix. Then add the flour gradually, whisking after each addition, until it forms a thin, smooth batter. Use either a crepe pan, a non-stick pan, or a greased pan, and pour the batter on away from the fire, turning the pan so that the batter thinly coats the whole thing. Cook until solid and colored on one side and flip, cooking until the other side has some color.

Apples in Sauce (All to taste)
white sugar
butter
orange juice
rum
cinnamon
Granny Smith apples, cored, peeled (if desired), and diced

Melt the sugar in the pan by itself. (Unlike the bananas foster, where the brown sugar and butter can go in together, white sugar should be melted on its own.) Once the sugar is melted, add your butter and mix. After they've combined, deglaze the pan with some orange juice. Let cook to boiling (or at least, that's what I did) and add your rum. I used my homemade rum vanilla extract in this. Add cinnamon as desired and then add your apples, stirring occasionally and letting it boil over. Cook apples until fork tender and serve in the crepes.

As an important note, I'd like to add: GET SOME REAL BUTTER! IF YOU USE MARGARINE OR OTHER BUTTER SUBSTITUTES, IT WILL TURN THE SUGAR INTO HARD CANDY AND YOU'LL HAVE TO WAIT FOR IT TO MELT AGAIN! Everybody got that? Real. Butter. I made mine with margarine today and, while it tasted wonderful, it was bothersome to wait for that candy sugar to melt again. This wasn't as big a deal with the bananas foster since the butter can go in with the sugar, but it matters here!

I just woke up after driving until nearly 1 am to get from Georgia to Arkansas so I can be home for Thanksgiving and I have a dirty house to clean up. But at least I have movies to watch until my sister's home and we go to Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow, I'm going to make bananas foster for my father's family, so here's the recipe for you guys. The really nice thing about this is that everything is to taste.

bananas
vanilla ice cream
brown sugar
butter
orange juice
banana liqueur
dark rum

Prepare the bananas and ice cream ahead of time so that it's ready for the sauce when it's done. Cut the bananas into quarters, first in half the short way and then again lengthwise. Plate the ice cream and have it sitting in the freezer ready.

To prepare the sauce, take a saucepan and heat it up on the stove. Add the brown sugar and butter and heat until both are melted together. Deglaze the pan with some of the orange juice. Once it's mixed, add the liquors one at a time, letting them flame up. (This is a flambe, after all. It makes for a really nice show, which is one of the reasons why I chose this for my family. =3) Once it has flamed up, all the alcohol will be cooked out and now you just have to wait until the sauce has thickened. After it's reached your desired thickness, carefully dip the bananas in to absorb some of the flavor and plate with the ice cream, pouring a little of the sauce on top.

Once I've got it made, I'll take some pictures for a new post. And I'll update you guys on the vanilla extract experiment.

Well guys, I've been behind on entries and I'm saving something for my annual Thanksgiving special (which will be going a little differently than my usual special), so it's time for a really fun entry. One with pure, unadulterated pleasure. Yes, the time has come for what you all want to see: hardcore amateur food porn!

( Picspam (but no Spam pics) under cut! )

And if anyone back in central Arkansas has any Coffee Fool, save me some for when I come back up there, 'kay? I need a fix.

The Friday before yesterday, I ran into a monk who was a member of the Hare Krishna movement. He gave me a neat little book and invited me to a program at their temple on Sunday. Not one to shy away from an invitation from a nice person to an interesting place, I decided to check it out.

Naturally, once I got there, talk of philosophy and general exchange of ideas ensued. I got to take a little tour of the place and eventually stayed in the kitchen to help clean up while the dinner was being cooked.

People in the Hare Krishna movement have a fairly strict diet: lacto-vegetarian, no alcohol, no caffeine, no anything addictive, no mushrooms, no onions, and no garlic. Still, these limitations are more or less not a bother to them and didn't change the fact that their food was delicious.

I'm rusty on names, my main source of Indian food up until now being Star of India back home in Arkansas, but I did recognize a number of ingredients. In the kitchen, I saw potatoes, garbanzo beans, eggplants, and cauliflour all being put to use. There were three savory dishes, two with potatoes and on with the beans, basmati rice to go on the side, a type of round, fried veggie dumpling, and Indian rice pudding for dessert. I'm typically a picky eater, especially when I don't know everything that's gone into a dish, but I tried everything on my plate and found that, while it was all pretty spicy, I liked everything they served.

I've been invited to come back and work in the kitchen with them. And while I'm not sure I would join, the idea of learning how to make such a tasty meal is tempting.

It dawned on me that not everyone out there will know what I mean by some of what I put in my last entry, as I wouldn't have known what I meant by it until just last week. So to help out, I'm giving you guys who might be new to the food scene an overview of the five flavors of food.

First up is Sweet. We all know our dear friend Sweet, possibly quite intimately by now since yesterday was Halloween. Sweet is traditionally thought of as a pleasant flavor sought out in desserts and typically drinks. Sweet things include candy, cake, and soda in the artificial category and some fruits, vegetables, and their juices such as apples, grapes, and carrots, nuts like cashews, and, of course, sugar in the natural category.

Next is Sour. This is also a good friend to many, though usually in balance with Sweet. Sour is not traditionally thought of as a pleasant flavor, but has become one in the modern day. Kids tend to like it a lot, if for no other reason than for dare purposes. Sour things tend to be acidic citrus fruits, such as lemons, limes, unripe pineapple, and sometimes oranges. Artificially sour candy, such as SweeTarts, Sour Skittles, and Warheads are popular. Sour is a good flavor in savory dishes as well, such as the famed veteran of most American-found Oriental restaurants, Sweet and Sour Chicken, Pork, Shrimp, etc.

Then there's Salty. Salty can be found in both savory dishes and desserts. It balances well with Sweet, but is a pleasant flavor on its own in moderation. Most everything has salt added to it in some way nowadays, but things traditionally thought of as Salty, though the salt is added, are nuts, popcorn, pretzels, chips, and crackers.

Next, we have Bitter. This is not usually a sought out flavor, but a lot of Bitter things are eagerly consumed when added to other foods. Bitter things include cocoa and baking chocolate, some herbs, and grapefruit. I run into a lot of people that don't know chocolate is naturally bitter, which can be frustrating sometimes. I need to start carrying baking chocolate with me and offering them pieces of it.

Last, and most certainly not least, we have Umami, the new darling of the flavor world. Umami is a word borrowed from Japan that is used to describe savory flavors and dishes. Umami things include meats, fermented soy, and smoked things.

This is my understanding of the five flavors, but taste varies from person to person. As I develop my own palate, I'll be able to better define these flavors and use them as I cook.

When it comes to things that have the words "Miracle" and "Tablets" in them, I'm a bit of a skeptic. So when I saw ThinkGeek selling an item called Miracle Berry Tablets, one of the first thoughts that ran across my mind was, "They can't possibly be as good as they say they are." Being obsessed with the weird science of food that I am, however, I was still intrigued enough to try. Hey, worst case scenario was I could hide them away in a container marked "Headache Medicine" and use them as placebos once I had forgotten their true purpose. So I ordered some, along with a couple of packages of coffee cookies.

Here's the gist of what the Miracle Berry Tablets do: you take one dose, which is half a tablet, let it dissolve on your tongue, and then, for the next 30 minutes-2 hours, everything you eat is sweet. The science, they say, isn't exact, but it somehow temporarily alters your tastebuds.

I've had a distinct lack of foods I'd like enhanced in the sweetness category, so the tablets were stowed away in a box under my bed for a while. Then I got a little bug from a suitemate and decided fluids were the answer. So while halfway through my first cup of grapefruit juice of the day, I decided, "Hey, what better time than now to try the Miracle Berry Tablets?"

Now, the grapefruit juice was already slightly sweetened, but only with other natural juices. Still, once I gave it a try after the tablet, it was incredibly sweet. Like, it reminded me of the sweetest orange juice I had, though with the distinct grapefruit kick.

Impressed, I decided to try other things on my "food trip". So far, I've tested smoked provolone cheese, unsweetened milky tea, water, and, as a dare from my roommate, a section of raw onion. I didn't taste much difference with the cheese, though it did seem like there was more of an umami flavor to it. The milky tea also seemed a bit umami, surprisingly, but I'm not sure I steeped it long enough. After adding a bit of grapefruit juice, it reminded me of sweet tea with milk and lemon. Water from the faucet had a noticeable natural sweetness. The onion was still onion, but when it had first hit my tongue, it reminded me of sweet Vidalia onion.

For me, the effects of half a tablet lasted around an hour. And what a crazyawesome hour it's been.

Miracle Berry Tablets can be found at ThinkGeek.Com, as well as many other awesomely nerdy things for your kitchen.

Today in class, Chef was telling us a basic technique to make our own vanilla extract. After asking for her advice on ratios, I decided to give it a try at home.

The only ingredients I use for this one are two vanilla beans from Madagascar and a pint of Bacardi Gold. I plan on using different alcohols and different amounts of vanilla to find the perfect blend, so this is Experiment #1.

The trick to this is to split the vanilla beans open and scrape the seeds out. I cut mine lengthwise so that I could scrape in the groove of the bean. I put the seeds into the rum and, once it was empty, the husk of the bean as well. Chef said, at this point, I let it sit for a month or two. So now it's time for the waiting game to begin!

Okay you guys! You finally get to see the fruits of my labors! This is an icebox cookie recipe that asks for a pound of butter, a pound of sugar (1/2 granulated, 1/2 powdered), 2 ounces melted and cooled baking chocolate, 4 ounces of eggs (Seriously, 4 ounces. Scramble & measure them.), 1/4 ounce vanilla, 1/4 ounce salt, and 1 1/2 pounds pastry flour (Go and find pastry flour.), all divided in half.

You may notice that I've got all of this in weight instead of volume. This is the way of the formula. Apparently. Weight does make everything easier, it seems. I need to buy a scale...

First, you want to cream your butter and your sugars together in two bowls. In one bowl, you're going to add your chocolate and continue to cream. Once everything is a uniform color, add the eggs and the vanilla a little at a time. After the egg is completely incorporated, you can add your sifted salt and flour a little at a time, keeping things smooth. Once both doughs are done, wrap them and chill in the fridge until they're hard.

Once the dough is hard like a rock, take the dough out and kneed it on a floured surface. Roll them into long rectangles and cut into strips. Do a layer of three strips, alternating colors, brush with egg whites, and add another layer. You can stop there or you can brush with egg whites again and add one more layer, like I did. This can be chilled again if the dough is getting too warm (that is, soft) or you can move on to the next step.

Take the excess dough (and there will be excess) and kneed it together to make a marble dough. Brush with egg whites and wrap around your checkerboard bar. Let this chill for about 15 minutes and cut. Once cut, bake in the oven at 350 degrees F about 20-25 minutes or until crisp, checking frequently and rotating halfway through.

So, after three-ish weeks of being in Georgia and going to culinary school, I actually got to cook something! =o

In our baking class, we're learning a variety of methods to use on our formulas. Because cooking=science. Today, we were looking at the creaming method and practiced this with cookies. Everyone made a batch of chocolate chip (mine had walnuts) and my group made peanut butter cookies and Russian tea cakes. It's really a thrill, weighing out the ingredients, creaming them in the bowl, and then popping them onto the cookie sheet. My partner was at least 7 metric tons of help and I hope I was able to stay just as helpful.

When using the creaming method, we used a bowl scrape. Ours kind of look and feel like the head of a rubber spatula.

In a recipe that calls for creaming, you cream your fats (in our case today, butter and peanut butter) and sugars (brown, white, or powdered) together with a kind of smearing motion. Once done with that step, the mixture should be a uniform color, light brown if it's just butter and white and brown sugars.

Next, you add your eggs and vanilla. Only add a little at a time and cream to keep things smooth. Smooth cookies equal happy cookies!

Once all of that has been incorporated, or mixed together so that no one ingredient stands out, you get to add your sifted dry ingredients. Make sure to add that a little at a time, too. And don't worry too much about incorporating all of the dry ingredients. I did and Chef said that my cookies were good but a little overmixed! After the flour 'n such is all in, you can add your dry garnishes, like chocolate chips, nuts, raisins, oats, bacon, etc. Then we scooped our cookies for uniform size. Makes cooking time easier.

Formulas are a bit different than recipes in our situation, one of the big differences being that, right now, we're weighing everything instead of measuring by volume. I so need to get a scale. >.> So lemme offer this as a cop-out since I was dumb and didn't write down the Russian tea cakes formula: Russian Tea Cakes Recipe from a Quick Internet Search. It uses the same technique and should yield some delicious cookies. (I'd cream my sugar before my vanilla just to be on the safe side, though.)

Greetings, everypeoples! It's about time for an update where food is cooked rather than eaten, isn't it? To cover the last thing I made, we're going to revisit one of my tried and true favorites, tiramisu.

Chef asked us to write an essay and, while walking around to get ideas, it hit me that I should write about tiramisu. I was struck so hard by this inspiration that I spent the weekend making one in preparation for my paper. This one, however, might be a little easier on your wallet, depending on what you already have lying around.

I didn't want to splurge on ladyfingers and didn't have the means to make them at my lovely apartment, so I went with the more everyday Chips Ahoy! cookies. Because who can resist chocolate chip? I also went lazy and got some Cool Whip instead of whipping my own cream. I kind of called this "The College Version" because of these steps. I did shell out the cash for the mascarpone and I picked up some hazelnut liquer, but if you wanted more everyday substitutes, whipped cream cheese and hazelnut coffee are both delicious and cheaper.

I will caution on this: there are only so many changes you can make to a recipe before it stops being that recipe. I used mascarpone because that's an essential part of tiramisu in my book. If I made the recipe above with every suggested change, I wouldn't call it a tiramisu. I would call it a no-bake cheesecake. Not that no-bake cheesecake is bad, it's just not always tiramisu.

I had an interesting suggestion on my tiramisu when I brought it down to the residents' club to try. Most people can't get enough of the creamy topping, but one gentleman thought it would be better if I make the cookie layers thicker. Since I have a soft spot for the cookie layer, too, I'm interested in the idea and plan to try it the next time I make a traditional (though possibly still with chocolate chip cookies) tiramisu.

I also made a potato soup that night, essentially my sweet potato soup but using Russet potatoes instead of sweet. My roommates liked it and so did I.

Now to more general business. I've got some other recipes I want to revisit, some for improvements and some for pictures to make my portfolio look nicer. Expect a look back at Too Chicken aka the Death of Marat sometime in the near future, as well as Chris's 'Misu.

Anyone got a good camera suggestion? I don't want to go out and get disposable ones for this and you've all seen the work of my current webcam.

You learn a lot of weird things when you're new to a place, and you learn even weirder ones at school.

I've been here for just over a week by now and have managed to successfully do a little exploring in the “Finally Find Our Flippin' Wal-Mart” category. The trick? You have to turn into the driveway holding the plaza, the first business seen from the road being Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Chef had mentioned the place during class and I knew I should give it a try.

I walk in and felt this place had a healthy blend of professional and friendly going on. The person who took my order didn't mind explaining the menu to me after I mentioned this was my first time in the establishment. I placed my order for a Little Bacon Cheeseburger (Little in their lingo means one patty; order without the Little and you get two) with the toppings of my choice, a regular fries, and a drink. I grabbed my usual blend of half sweet half unsweet tea, as I've come to expect most places having it too sweet for my liking, and took in my surroundings.

In food safety class, we were more or less covering proper hygiene, and I'm glad to say I saw it in practice at Five Guys. Everyone was wearing their uniform with hats and all of them looked clean. Everyone was at a different station preparing foods and I saw someone change gloves when switching. (He had ducked away for a moment as well, presumably washing his hands.) The stations in the kitchen, the drink and condiment stations, and the dining tables all looked clean.

The place is not peanut-allergic-customer friendly, but they at least make it a point to warn everyone on their doors that the establishment has peanuts out in the open in large, obvious boxes and the menu says, in large letters, that everything is fried in pure peanut oil. The only people allergic to peanuts that would continue into this place are the suicidally foolish and the unaccompanied blind and deaf.

It wasn't long before I got my burger and fries in its no-frills packaging. And you know what? That's how I like it! A wrapped up burger and a cup of fries in a brown bag. You don't really need anything else and, honestly, it might even make better advertising thanks to word of mouth. (Where in the world did you get that delicious looking burger?! That sure ain't a Checkers burger!) A word to the wise, be sure to eat your burger fresh. For one thing, who wants to reheat such a delicious burger? For another, foil wrapping creates an anaerobic (that is, air/oxygen free) environment around the burger. That's fine for the quick service they've got going on, not so fine if you, say, leave it sitting out overnight so icky things can grow in there. But then, you really shouldn't need me telling you that leaving a burger out overnight is a very bad idea.

So how did it taste? It was a mighty fine burger and I'll be glad to go back for another, though I'm going to try a different combination of toppings. My burger was wonderful and to order, but I did have some trouble with all of the lettuce that was falling out. The fries ended up surprising me. They were more like potato sticks than usual fries, which sounds weird but hear me out. The fries actually tasted like potatoes! You remember having fries like that before? It's rare, if ever, for me to get fries like that. And not only did they taste like potatoes, they actually have a little whiteboard near the counter where you order and you can actually see where the potatoes for your fries came from! Mine made their way here all the way from the great state of Washington. How cool is that?! They also loaded me up with a lot of fries, surely more than what the cup serving was actually supposed to be. I'll probably be eating fries for a while now, but at least they're really good fries.

With the exception of the peanut-allergy people, I definitely recommend going into the Five Guys Burgers and Fries. They've got their stuff together, they let you customize everything, they're in the medium to low price range (A fair warning: my meal did cost around $9, but I say it was well worth it.), and they treat their potatoes like actual potatoes and not grease and ketchup carriers.

Sorry for lack of updates, los dudes, even when I said there would be more. School is crazyawesome, heavy on both, and very consuming. (Pun, for once, not intended.) I'll essentially get to do what I do here for a grade, only in MLA format due Monday. Fuuuuuuuun. I've also got some new Le Cordon Bleu readers. Welcome, fellow foodie students!

Anyways, onto the review:

It's always nice to have a place within walking distance from your home that serves home-cooked meals. That way, you can get out of cooking without feeling lazy. XD

The Galaxy Diner caught my eye when first looking for my apartment, if for no other reason than the name. I knew I wanted to be a part of any place that had “Galaxy” out in big letters on their sign. Not to mention it's a diner that serves breakfast anytime. Those are always my favorites, because who knows when I'm going to want some scrambled eggs and orange juice?

On my first full day alone in the city, I walked over to the Galaxy Diner for a cup of coffee and decided I wanted breakfast as well. I went with a tried and true favorite, a Belgian waffle with a side of bacon. Unfortunately, when I went, there happened to be a customer seated in front of me that looked enough like my father for me to get a bit verklempt. Thankfully, he and his wife were very nice and weren't offended or weirded out by my strange request to have them switch spots. Emotional, yes?

The waffle I had was great. A true, thick Belgian waffle with deep syrup pockets. It was so big I had to split it in half and have the rest for breakfast the next day. I did the same with the generous four-strip serving of bacon. While the waffle was excellent, the bacon did come out chewier than I expected. (The waitress asked if I wanted it crispy and I readily agreed.) The coffee was so-so: okay, not great. Considering I was a bit out of sorts that day, I'd like to give them another try and see if perhaps I had just gotten an old or an unusually weak pot.

I'm also interested in trying some of their lunch and dinner fare, which includes Italian and Greek. I'm a big fan of gyros and like the idea of living within walking distance of good, hot, fresh gyros again. I lived close enough to Blackwoods Grill when I would stay at my dorm during my Hendrix days that it was a long, healthy walk to get there, and thus began my Unwind from Finals ritual. Hopefully I can keep that alive.

As a final note on the personal interest story, there were two ladies who saw what was going on and one of them came over to reassure me with some kind words and much-needed hugs and kisses. When I was leaving, the waitress told me that these lovely gals picked up my check! It was enough to bring tears to my eyes again. In the event of the crazy random happenstance that those two kind women who paid for my waffle, bacon, and coffee a week ago next Sunday are reading this, let's please do lunch sometime!

Some of you might have noticed a lack of updates in this blog. Most of you likely already know the reason, but here's the news for those who don't know: I finally got myself down to culinary school! Huzzahs and a multiple-entry special are in order!

I should be actually working in the kitchens soon. I got to go in one today where I'll have classes soon and even got to sample some pound cake. In the meantime, I've been trying out the food available in Atlanta. The first restaurant I went to on my first full day in the city was a Chinese place near my new apartment: Hunan Inn

The restaurant is somewhat small, but very nice without cramped seating. They also deliver, so finding a spot to eat shouldn't be a problem. The atmosphere was friendly and quick. It didn't take long before our party was seated and drink orders were taken. The sweet tea is a bit too sweet for my taste, but that's almost always the situation in restaurants in the south.

My entree of choice was chicken with black bean sauce. It was a meal I wasn't expecting on a Chinese menu but certainly a pleasant surprise. The last time I encountered a chicken with black bean sauce dish, I was at an Italian-Mexican restaurant and my plate was a delicious example of what happens when you blend the two. This chicken with black bean sauce was a great example of how the same ingredients can be tweaked just a little to make an entirely different meal. Just as the first dish was Italian with a Mexican twist, this was definitely a Chinese meal, suitable for eating with chopsticks. The dish was a hearty blend of chicken, black beans, onions, peppers, and a bowl of white rice on the side. It was a big enough meal that the leftovers lasted for two days afterward.

If my description is a little vague, then it's because it's been so long since I've had this particular dining experience that my tongue is having a difficult time remembering. I do remember, however, it being so good that I ate all of my leftovers. Anyone who knows me and my Chinese food eating habits well knows I usually leave the leftovers in the fridge for someone else to claim or otherwise make the place smell like a Chinese restaurant. This place is good enough for me to break that habit.

I foresee putting this place in my address book on my cell phone.

The other 33% is accounting for the pita bread, which I bought to save some time.

First, the tzatziki, which should be chilled before serving for the best effect.

4 cups plain Greek yogurt
Cucumber
Red onion (optional)
2 teaspoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Mint (optional)

Most people choose to peel and grate their cucumber. I'm lazier more efficient than that. My favorite Greek place does their cucumber in whole little cubes, so that's how I did it for my recipe and it turned out wonderful. Feel free to experiment on how you want your cucumber. I also like onions in my gyros, so I added it to the tzatziki for some bite and to save some time later.

I mixed the garlic, oil, and vinegar together before adding the vegetables to let that flavor set in longer. Be careful on the vinegar! I added too much to my first batch and had to compensate with more yogurt. Once all of it is blended together, add mint to taste. It's all a surprisingly refreshing yet shocking blend.

For the chicken, I kept things really simple. I used thinly sliced chicken breasts and a garlic pepper blend. I baked them in the oven at low heat, starting at 300 degrees F and getting lower as needed, about 200 degrees F, at the 20 minute mark. It took a total of 40 minutes to cook. All of my chicken was piled up together, so I had to turn it over and move it around to get everything cooked, but the end result was delicious. After cooking, I chopped it by stacking the thin slices, making strips, and then worrying about cubes after all of the chicken was sliced.

Oh who am I kidding? I would've rode my bike to Kroger and gotten all super sweaty icky for groceries anyway.

I was chattin' with one of my RP friends who has just been diagnosed with IBS, and that means a whole new diet that doesn't include mojitos. "Screw that noise!" was my first thought. Mojitos are too good to go without. If you're old enough, that is. So I remembered a while back when I made some lime fudge (Cornelius Fudge for you Harry Potter fans, and just like the former Minister of Magic, my first batch was unyielding and hard to swallow.) and figured that I could turn that into a mojito fudge easily enough.

Unfortunately, all of the recipes I've found include milk, so I'm not entirely sure if she could have mojito fudge, but I won't stop looking for a way for her to safely enjoy mojito goodness!

Fudge recipes are everywhere on the internet, but the way I've done it before is to get the powder from a key lime cheeseball package and use that in a chocolate fudge recipe as a substitute for cocoa powder. Tonight, I'm doing something a bit different and a whole lot simpler since I don't have my candy thermometer.

12 oz bag white chocolate chips
14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
Rum extract, to taste
Key Lime Cheeseball Mix, both packets
Mint leaves, crushed

Blend the chips with the milk in a microwave bowl, loosely cover, and microwave three minutes on high. When cooked, stir until smooth and mix in the rum extract, the lime powder from the cheeseball mix, and the mint leaves. Grease an 8 inch square pan, sprinkle the crusty crumble packet from the cheeseball mix on the bottom, and pour in the fudge. Chill in the refrigerator or let stand until firm. Once firm, turn it over on a cutting board so the crusty side is on top and serve.

Today I went to a birthday party to celebrate my niece's first birthday and I went over early to help with the party food. The main fare was eggrolls, but there were a lot of leftover wrappers. "Do you have any cream cheese?" I asked. "We can make wontons with that." So after I come back from the store with the cheese, we got to work on making them.

Wonton wrappers or egg roll wrappers (cut the egg roll wrappers in half diagonally)

16 ounces cream cheese per package of wrappers (this is a rough guess that half of the wrappers before went to egg rolls, but it never hurts to have extra cream cheese)

Oil

Water

Dip your fingers in the water and lightly wet the whole surface of the wrapper. Put a dollop of cream cheese in the middle and fold it in. For folding the egg roll wrappers, take the small corners (if cut properly, your wrapper should be a right triangle; the small corners are the acute angles created when the wrapper was cut in half) and bring them together above the cream cheese. Pinch the wrapper where they meet the cream cheese and then pull the corners down so that it looks like wings on top of your wonton. Fold in the cut edge (the flat edge opposite the right angle) and then finally pull the last corner (the right angle itself) over it to cover the seams. Wet the outside of the wrapper and set aside. Continue until you run out of wrappers or cream cheese and then fry in the oil until golden brown.