After catching a flick at the Spectrum with Seb (The Iceman, really good movie), I was left with a carrot cake craving something fierce. I made myself sick on buttered popcorn (real butter, the only way to do popcorn at the movies), but Seb was nice enough to give me a bite of his carrot cake (but smart enough not to give me the fork).

The carrot cake recipe from Averie Cooks totally scratches the carrot cake itch. It is moist, tender, and an excellent vehicle for gobs of cream cheese frosting. Because it’s totally normal to eat a bite of carrot cake one night, then make an entire carrot cake the next day. Right? Albany John went camping with friends that weekend, so I was left to my own obsessive devices. Besides, the husbear likes carrot cake.

It was so awesome, I even tried to decorate it a bit. Averie’s recipe is great because it’s so versatile – put it in a bundt, loaf pan – whatever you want. I went with two 8″ pans. However, I didn’t have 2 pans of the same material. :/

Metal springform pan, and yellow silicone pan. I used golden raisins & currants that I’d soaked in a bit of sugar syrup and cinnamon, plus tossed in some pecans for good measure.

Popped them in the oven, and then time for cleanup.

This is the only good part about cleanup. Licking the batter off of the spoons and bowl.

The silicone pan finished earlier than the metal springform. I kind of hate this thing, but it’s still in my kitchen, so I’ll use it in a pinch, like when I need 2 layer cakes of the same diameter.

This is why I hate this pan. It never really releases the cake fully. But it just meant I got cake scraps to nibble on.

I lined the springform pan with parchment paper so it would be easier to take out and so it wouldn’t leak.

Out and left to cool.

I iced and assembled the cakes the next day after they’d cooled. Holy moly, cream cheese frosting is my favorite kind of frosting.

I waited until the ol’ husbear came home before tucking into it.

He was happy with the cake. Super moist, and held together with the smallest amount of flour necessary. The melted butter lends a great rich flavor that’s miles better than just oil for all of your fat in carrot cake recipes.
I gave Seb about 1/4 of the cake partially as a Thanks-For-A-Good-Time, and partially as a You’ve-Got-To-Try-This, and he said it just might be better than the cake at the Spectrum.

This was also the only cake that Albany John and I had no problem polishing off in a week. In fact, husbear specifically requested that I NOT share this cake with anyone else.

ShrimpFest with Dad (From Fin)

June 7, 2013

cooking, seafood

3 Comments

After the Tour de Gelato‘s completion at Sage Bistro, I meandered over to Fin, Your Fish Monger, which is in the same strip mall. I don’t make it out to Guilderland as much as I used to, but I think Fin is worth the trip.

Chef Gio was outside grilling scallops. The grill was a little low/slow, but these were perfectly (barely) cooked. Kudos to a fellow tour member who caught my scallop as it bounced out of my mouth and on to my shoulder before it had the chance to hit the ground.

Fin was doing a swift amount of business that day, but the wait wasn’t too long. I was driving downstate to see my dad immediately after the tour, and I’d promised shrimp if they had any left. They did, both fresh & frozen.

I picked up some frozen Louisiana shrimp for $13.00/lb. Each bag was already weighed and priced – super easy to pick one up. I was hoping these would be something like the Royal Red shrimp I’d had in Mississippi the last time I went with my Dad.

Fresh North Carolina shrimp for $14.50/lb. These guys were big and firm.

We peeled and butterflied most of the shrimp, but my dad noticed that hardly any of the shrimp really needed to be deveined. Most of them were free of any shrimp leavings (i.e. no shrimp poop in the vein).

Some of the Louisiana shrimp were steamed because they were still a little bit frozen. Here they are pre-cooking.

Post steaming shrimpy goodness.

Peeled – so firm. And guess what? They tasted JUST like the Royal Reds tasted when we were in Mississippi. Briny with a sweet minerality.

My Dad’s partner got him this enormous wok for cooking outdoors. What a great setup! Some spinach in there to start.

Spinach done.

Butterflied & peeled shrimp tossed in the wok.

Sprinkled with some scallions.

Cooked just a bit more to get some wok hei on the outside.

Perfect! I want an outdoor wok rig when I have a backyard of my own. That baby cooked everything so quickly, and man, that char….

Later on my Dad added some chiffonaded basil on top of the shrimp – SO good!

Then it was time for the shrimp with the shell on. I wanted to see how they tasted with the shell on.

This was GREAT! I loved the wok hei on the shell-on shrimp. Crisp shell, and I wound up eating all of them, shell and all. The flavor was just. So. Good.

We managed to eat all of the fresh shrimp and one bag of the Louisiana shrimp, but were too full to eat the second, so Dad saved it for another day.

Happy Father’s Day a little early, Dad. Have fun in China.

Tour de Gelato

June 5, 2013

bloggers, dessert, local, quirky

2 Comments

The Tour de Gelato. I survived. Daniel B. tried to kill us all, one scoop at a time. It started off bright and early at Crisan at 10:30 AM. I know.

I was glad Albany John left me solo that weekend, because he would have immediately demanded I get a purse exactly like StanfordSteph’s.

Crisan had a dozen flavors stocked and ready for the hot weekend. The Profussor tried to corral us into making our own category of flavor, so being the great friend that I am, I labeled mine “whatever the hell I feel like”, which wound up being Mango/Tropical Fruit. You were encouraged to get 2 scoops/flavors at each place.

Crisan’s yogurt-based mango lassi gelato on top. So tart and mango-y. Loved it. Not too sweet at all. I’ve also been on a crazy yogurt kick for the past few months, so pretty much anything with yogurt in it wins for me.

The scoop on the bottom was Honey Pear, which was a unique flavor that many other Tour eaters were curious to try. I quite enjoyed it and thought it would go well with other desserts (cookies or pie). The honey and pear flavors were subtle, which I appreciated.

Cost: $2 per scoop, $4 total

Stop #2 was Eugenio’s in Saratoga Springs. We managed to find parking pretty easily on a sunny day in Saratoga.

Plenty of flavors here to choose from.

Mango on the bottom, salted caramel on the top for me. The salted caramel was on the unpleasant side. Initially it was fine, but there was a weird almost play-doh like aftertaste.

Mango was okay, but both of these reminded me more of ice cream than gelato. Still, fairly serviceable stuff.

This was a small, and was $4.99, or 10% off for Yelpers who checked in.

The Profussor went with strawberry, and was greeted with this neon-pink number.

Stop #3 was Villa Italia in Schenectady (man, this was so much driving!).

I think Villa Italia had the prettiest display. Piled high, and so clean and pretty!

No mango here, but I went with pineapple & coconut (so, basically gelato pina colada!). Holy moly, the pineapple was really good. I’m usually not a fan of fruity ice cream/gelato, but these weren’t too creamy – lots of fresh fruit flavor shone through.

Cost: $3.29 for a small

Civitello’s was stop #4 and a bit of a clunker.

By the time we arrived, the bakery section looked like it had done well earlier in the day (not much left in the cases).

They had mango and coconut here, and I split this one with a fellow Tour eater. Cost for a small: $3.50. It was very gummy, like a lot of sugar syrup was used. Kind of more like a creamy Italian ice than gelato.

Fruits of the forest got a thumbs down by another Tour eater. It was kind of like blue raspberry flavor, and also more like an Italian ice than gelato.

Sage Bistro was the final stop.

They had a lot to choose from.

Mango on the bottom, salted caramel on the top. $4.05 for this small.

The salted caramel was okay, tasted more like regular caramel to me.
Mango was fine, too.

I was surprised to see mango as gelato in so many places. It was a rather refreshing flavor, and made for eating about 2 lbs of gelato disturbingly easy.

Stuffed Chicken Breasts

June 5, 2013

cheese, Chicken, cooking, pork

1 Comment

Lately Albany John and I have been on the same page diet-wise. I feel like usually we have different dietary goals, but lately we’ve been syncing in what we’re craving, which is nice.

Basically, it’s eat the less crap and more good food diet. And by diet, I mean the stuff we are eating, not “I have to lose weight so I’m eating 1,200 calories per day” diet.

We’re mainly eating more protein and veggies, less dairy, and very few grains compared to how we previously ate. I think lifestyle has something to do with it. I do a decent amount of weight training, and the more weights I lift, the less my body seems to crave simple/refined carbs. As you might be able to tell from my posts, the past year has dropped significantly in how many baked goods I make. We just don’t eat a ton of bread or white carby type things any more. It’s weird, but in a good way. I never thought I’d NOT have a bread craving, you know? Don’t get me wrong, I still will mow the hell out of a baguette from the Placid Baker, but the days of having bread as a main component of dinner are few and far between.

We had some ricotta and mozzarella in the fridge. And I had been having this craving for stuffed chicken breasts for a while; so I picked up some chicken breasts, fatty capicola, and store-cured ham from Roma. We already had some ricotta and mozzarella in the fridge, so Albany John butterflied the breast and slathered away.

Things of beauty. The chicken breast at Roma aren’t exactly cheap at $6.99/lb, but they are Murray’s which taste miles better than the $1.99/lb stuff that goes on sale at the supermarket. Roma also has a discount/membership card, where if you put $50 or more on a pre-paid card, you get 20% more. so $50 = $60, $100 = $120. I’ve been doing this for a while, so it brings the breasts down closer to $5.59/lb. I figure if something is going to be a main part of my diet, it may as well be tasty. I don’t want to be one of those people sucking down tasteless chicken just because they want to eat meat, and lots of it.

Albany John rolled these up with some fresh basil leaves and trussed them before roasting. These were 2 breast pieces (or one whole chicken’s breast), and fairly large.

I like this rolled & stuffed poultry breast type meal lately. It keeps the breasts juicy, and adds even more flavor. A friend came over for dinner, and we still had enough for a light lunch the next day.

Memorial Day @ Ala Shanghai

June 4, 2013

Chinese, dumplings, local, pork, recommendations, restaurant, review, seafood, soup

How To Make Mustard

June 2, 2013

frugal, project, recipe

1 Comment

I am weird about condiments. I didn’t really grow up eating condiments as a kid. I still think mayo and ketchup are the devil (and combined… gah, don’t even), but mustard… oh, mustard. I have a special place in my fridge for mustard.

I got some coffee mustard a while back from Chris at one of the From Scratch Club‘s food swaps. She said it was really easy to make mustard, and boy, was her mustard good. I had run out of mustard and, well, wasn’t too keen on going out and buying another jar, so I looked it up, and it turns out making mustard is ridiculously easy.

How To Make Mustard (Basically):

Take mustard seeds. (Black has more kick than yellow)
Put them in a container.
Cover them with apple cider vinegar (so they are completely submerged).
Leave it on your counter for 2 days.
Blend with some water and a pinch of sweetener.
DONE.

Here are my soaked seeds. I kind of got sidetracked and left these on my counter for 2 days, then in the fridge for another 2 days. Still came out fine. I used about 1 C of mustard seeds, and a bit over a cup of Apple Cider Vinegar. The mustard seeds soaked up all of the vinegar after the first night, so I topped it off that morning. This is really easy.

So, if you want to do this on the cheap, you can pick up 1 lb/16 oz bags of mustard seeds at the Asian Supermarket or the Asian Food Market for, like, $1. Or you can forget that you already have several of these baggies at home, and buy 2-3 oz of mustard seeds from the Co-Op for like $3..

I whirred these seeds in my blender, and it made about 3 cups or so of mustard. Yowza! We are gonna be set for a while. This is quite zesty and spicy, so I’m one happy camper. Oh, and tip – put your mustard in a jar with a metal top, otherwise the heat can dissipate.

Happy Birthday to Albany John

June 1, 2013

Uncategorized

1 Comment

I don’t know what took me so long to give into Albany John’s “hinting” over the years that he wanted a pressure cooker. This has been the best birthday present I’ve given him in a while. (Which means that I am also highly benefiting from this gift.)

At the AoA 5th Birthday Party, Jon in Albany mentioned he has a Kuhn Rikon (I think maybe this 8 Qt model?) and loves it. I figured, okay, what the heck. Let’s get the bear a pressure cooker.

However, I didn’t go with a top-of-the-line Kuhn Rikon (what if we don’t use it that much? what if it turns out he just doesn’t like it as much as he thought he would?). I bought Albany John this 6 QT Fagor Duo Stainless Steel pressure cooker. And hey, if it didn’t do what he wanted, we can always return it to Amazon for a different one since we have Prime.

This is a good size for us. I think 4 quarts would have also probably been perfectly fine for him, to be honest, but 6 quarts isn’t a beastly size and we all know we can easily cook a lot of food. It’s easy to clean and isn’t too bulky (so it doesn’t need a “special” place in the kitchen). I think any larger would be a waste for us.

Albany John’s first dish he made in the pressure cooker was beef short ribs. In 20 minutes!!! They tasted just as good as ribs that are roasted for hours in the oven and the flavor wasn’t watered down or muddy. They were unbelievably tender. I am now a pressure cooker convert and will sing its praises. How can I not immediately love something that 1) cooks things quickly and efficiently without compromising flavor, and 2) MAKES ME RIBS.

Albany John browned them in the broiler to add a bit of char to the outside, which was tough because he had to swat me away from the ribs and trying to eat them.

—Albany Eats!

Documenting the foodings of a local. With a grain of salt.

Carrot Cake – The Best Ever

ShrimpFest with Dad (From Fin)

Tour de Gelato

Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Memorial Day @ Ala Shanghai

How To Make Mustard

Happy Birthday to Albany John

Follow “Albany Eats!”