Wilde Week #12

1. It's been six weeks since I decided to sign up for a half marathon.  Before this training program, my longest run was the Bolder Boulder 10K.  After finishing my 12 miles last weekend, I'm confidant I can do this half marathon tomorrow!  Here's hoping I finish it in under the four hour time limit.  My plan is to finish in under two hours.  Two laps around Central Park and I'll have finished my first half marathon!

2.  What was I reading this week?  Teen lit!  I love reading all these post-apocalyptic world stories.  They are such great commuting reads because they are fast moving and requires very little of me.  This is good because I generally fall asleep at some point on the train.  The book this week is Delirium by Lauren Oliver.  Set in an alternate timeline in our world, where love is seen as a disease, our heroine Lena learns that her world isn't quite what she thought.  A little silly, kinda sappy, yet another trilogy.  I wasn't sure I would even bother reading the next two books.  The last few chapters finally convinced me to read onto the next book.

3. Nails this week?  Okay, I painted them a few days ago, so don't mind the chips here and there.  This nail varnish from Illamasqua is called Purity.  It's actually a really nice peach, so perfect for spring.  I only have one complaint.  The coverage of this polish isn't that great.  I put on two coats and could have done with a third, but I was too lazy.

4. I want to be as daring and creative as this girl!  She heads to the thrift store and buys over sized, outdated and un-cute clothes and turns them into the cutest outfits ever!  For like a dollar each!  So jealous.  I have a sewing machine, I should buy some ugly clothes...

5. I was in Washington, DC this week!  I was attending the AACR (American Association of Cancer Research) annual meeting from Saturday to Wednesday, learning about what's happening right now in cancer research.  While I wasn't at the conference, I was wandering around DC (and logging my marathon training miles!) taking pictures with my phone.  So much fun, so many cherry blossom trees.

6. I know this is from last year, but I totally want to dust off my ice cream maker and make myself some strawberry-coconut ice cream!  It sounds delicious.  Maybe I'll wait until I can pick my own berries?

7. While I was away at the conference, Boyfriend was at home, cleaning up my mess!  Apparently he grew sick of all my cookbooks on top of the kitchen cabinets and bought me a bookshelf!  Now all I want to do is stand in front of it and look at my cookbooks.  There's a little open space up there on the top shelf, I'd better head to amazon and fill it up.

8. I'm inspired by my new bookshelf to making marshmallows and macarons.  Let's see if this inspiration carries me into the kitchen...

Wilde in Washington, DC

I spent this past week in Washington, DC for a work conference.  As luck would have it, as my train was pulling into Union station, the famous Japanese cherry blossoms were getting ready to bloom.  Over a million people travel to Washington every year to enjoy the Cherry Blossom festival.  Then there are those of us who just lucked out and were there at just the right time! 

Also, I was lucky enough to be training for a half marathon and had many miles to cover over my six days in the city.  Twenty-five miles to be precise!

I even got to test out my new macro lens for my iPhone.  That's right.  The photographs below were shot with my iPhone.  I want to wallpaper my house with these images.

 

I was so lucky to be in Washington this week.  I didn't want to leave the flowers, it was so beautiful.

Wilde Week #11

1. It took me months, but I have finally finished reading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell. This book was recommended to me by a friend about six months ago. I downloaded it to my kindle and started it one morning train ride. The problem? This book takes forever to get going. According to my friend "It has a lot of pipes to lay." I'll say. The book was setting up the story and the interesting bits for over 50% of the book. Which, when the book set in 19th century Dutch- Japan, is a lot of pages to slog through. I finally finished this book (along with about ten others when I needed a break). It ended up being pretty good, it just took a long time getting there.

2. I can't wait to own a house because I want nothing more than to paint the walls. I want to see something other than white on the walls of my bedroom. Here's hoping to a new Wilde house within the year!

3. Having worked at and been a member of many gyms, I've seen most of these guys. Dude is right on.

4. I just finished my last long run before my half marathon next weekend. 12 miles through DC. What a great way to complete a long run, there was so much to look at and distract me from the miles. Have a long run to make? Take a new route!

5. Nails this week? Since I'm away this week, I decided to go with OPI nail stickers! They are quick to put on and don't chip as quickly as polish. The ones I'm wearing have little birds sitting in trees.

6. I'm in Washington, DC this week for a work conference! It's been a few years since I've been in our nations capitol and I've never been here during the cherry blossom festival. It's like NYC on a warm summer day around here, so many people! The blooms haven't opened yet, hopefully before I leave on Wednesday.  Rather than recipes this week, there may just be pretty pictures of cherry blossoms!

Have a great week!

Wilde Taste Tester

What do you do for the man who has everything when his birthday rolls around?  Why, you make him Charlie and bring him to is own Chocolate Factory.  Or as it was in this case - Dad and the Perry's Ice Cream Factory!

That's right, I'm the best daughter in the world and I took my dad to his most favorite place in the world for his birthday - the Perry's Ice Cream Factory in Akron, NY. 

Now I can't take all the credit for thinking up this amazing birthday trip.  In reality, it was kismet, fate, destiny or just plain luck, that Perry's Ice Cream invited me (and a special guest) to come visit the factory for their first ever - Perry's Taste Testing event.  The tour and taste testing happened to land on my dads birthday weekend, so I flew home to celebrate (and eat lots of ice cream) with him at Perry's.

If you're not a local Western New Yorker, you might not be familiar with Perry's Ice Cream.  It's a local brand that fills the freezer cases at TOPS and Wegmans in my hometown.  It's the ice cream that our local schools carried when we were kids (get them hooked young!).  Perry's is what you find at local ice cream stands.  If you happen to live near a Wegmans grocery store (except that new one in Boston), you can buy Perry's Ice Cream.  If you are outside of their distribution region, you can come visit me.  I have lots in my freezer.

Perry's is still run by a Perry actually.  See that guy above?  That's Brian Perry, executive vice president and fourth generation Perry's ice cream worker.  During our trip to the factory, we actually got to look down on the factory floor and watch the ice cream being made (sorry, no pics allowed!).  Cartons of ice cream were zipping around all over the place.  Huge silver drums processed the ingredients and immediately distributed the product into containers and sent them to the freezer.  The front of the room was dominated by a machine dedicated to making ice cream sandwiches.  It was totally fascinating.

My dad and I weren't alone in our visit to Perry's.  A few other bloggers were there (Hello to Ashley and Brette!) as well as some local press and other businesses (Including a girl I totally graduated high school with.  But she either didn't recognize me, or is still too cool for school.).  There's me in my bright green pants, standing next to my dad, who is so excited to be there.

A quick group shot with Brian Perry (jammed in the back behind my bright green legs) and some questions from the press (did you know Perry's recycles/reuses/re-purposes just about everything that comes in their doors?) and we were finally off to the most important part - the taste testing!

Now this was going to be a big job.  We weren't there to just eat the ice cream.  We were there to taste test it and give our opinions.  The great ladies at Perry's gave us a presentation about how to taste test.  We had to think about the following things...

1. Texture
2. Flavor
3. Aroma


Lactose-Free Vanilla

Texture is pretty straightforward - Perry's pasteurizes their ice cream low and slow rather than a hot flash pasteurization.  This leads to a smoother, creamier ice cream.  It's devoid of large ice crystals, unless you leave it in the freezer for months, but who is going to do that!  Texture is also touched upon when the ice cream has inclusions - or little bits of something else.  Inclusions vary from nuts to chocolate to candies. 

Oh My, Cherry Pie!

Flavor is where it gets tricky.  First - dairy.  Someone from the South might not like Perry's because you can definitely taste the dairy in the ice cream.  Southerners tend to prefer a sweeter ice cream rather than one with a lot of dairy notes.  Us Northern ice cream eaters like to taste the dairy notes, then the flavors and sweetness.
 

Movie Time

 Flavor gets more complicated as you add extracts, fruits, chocolates and inclusions.  Did you know there are four different types of vanilla?  Or that you can describe the taste of chocolate in over 20 different ways?  From roasted to nutty, burnt to barny, chocolate is very complex. 


Sponge Candy

Finally comes aroma.  When you plan a taste testing event, be sure to avoid wearing perfumes, lighting scented candles or eating/drinking anything else for about 20 minutes.  You want a clean palate.  Drink plenty of water in between flavors and go from lightest to heaviest flavor (we went from vanilla to dark chocolate).  Be sure your ice cream has a few minutes to warm up from the freezer, other wise you'll just taste cold.  

Queen of Hearts

We taste tested seven different flavors.  Let me tell you, it was a hard task.  I know, I know.  "Eating all that ice cream must have been terrible!"  It was not terrible, I was just very full.  I was a little confused by the Movie Time flavor (Popcorn flavored ice cream with swirls of sea salt caramel and caramel truffles).  It smelled like movie theater popcorn, but tasted like caramel.  Yet it had the aftertaste of popcorn.  My dad loved it and finished mine.


All Natural Black Cherry

I fell in love with the Queen of Hearts flavor (Dark chocolate ice cream with a raspberry swirl and fudge filled hearts).  Most of the men in the room didn't like this one, while the ladies were more partial to it.  I think women tend to lean more toward dark chocolate than to men.  There was also a local flavor - Sponge candy!  Something to get the WNYers excited about summer and bring out the local aspect of Perry's. 


Party Sandwich!

We even got to try their newest novelty - the Party Sandwich.  This will be a bit hit with the under 12 crowd.  Cake batter ice cream, filled with rainbow sprinkles, sandwiched between two vanilla cookies.  They were fun, but sadly the last thing we had for the day.  I couldn't come anywhere near finishing it.

We wrote down all our comments, using our new flavor words like cultured, smoky, caramelized and buttery and handed our comment cards to the Perry's Team.  Hopefully our comments will help make more delicious flavors?  I'd totally be willing to come back and try some more flavors!

 

The only thing I'm bummed about?  We got to take home a few pints of our favorites, but since I flew to Buffalo, my dad took ownership of all my ice cream!  Plus, all the flavors we tried that day are ice cream stand flavors - not available in the stores!  I guess I'll just have to make another trip to WNY this summer and get a scoop or two by the river.

Before we left, the Perry's team offered to take us into their freezer.  This is not your traditional, basement freezer with a few half gallons of ice cream.  The Perry's freezer is a warehouse, kept at 25 degrees below zero, filled from floor to ceiling with pallets and pallets of ice cream.  My dad wanted to back the truck up to the loading dock and load up a few pallets for himself.

I took the picture on the left just after we got into the freezer.  My dad took a picture of me after spending about a minute in the freezer.  His hands were shaking so bad, all three images he took looked like this!  The freezer workers laughed at us when we came out to warm back up.  But at least I look awesome in a hard hat.  It matched my pants.

This summer I'll have to try to a few of these flavors in my little machine.  It will be a little hard in my home kitchen, but I'm up for the challenge!  I think sponge candy would make an amazing ice cream sandwich (hint hint!).

I there a local brand of ice cream in your part of the country?  Do you prefer it over the big guys?

Photo Credits - Photos 3-6, 15 & 16 are credited to Yuka Photo Art (all the rest are from my iPhone)

Note - While Perry's did provide samples for taste testing, there was no financial compensation for the trip or this post.  I like to write about Perry's because they are one of my local hometown businesses. 

Make Ahead Monday - Chicken & Rice

Sometimes you just want to come home to a meal on the table.  When you are the main meal prepared of the household, this is a rare occurrence.  It is with this desire in mind, that I decided to bring about Make Ahead Meals, or MAM Mondays (Oops, make that Tuesday this week!)!  Based on the traditional 1950's casserole dinner, but with a healthy 2010's twist.  MAMs are made on the weekend and cooked during the week in the oven or crockpot!

You all know I'm not really a fan of condensed soups and I love my dinners to be full of vegetables.  Most MAMs that I come across are either prepared with two cans of condensed soup, or are simply pasta with sauce covered in cheese.  I like to call these "comfort casseroles."  With springtime approaching (and bikini season around the corner), I'm looking to keep the MAMs light and healthy.

The best thing about the MAMs that I have prepared so far, I come home to Boyfriend in the kitchen, pulling a hot dish out of the oven.  His timing is usually pretty good as he stalks me with his phone to see when I'm coming home.  (Want to stalk your significant other?  Download the Find My Friends app to their iPhone and yours.  Authorize each phone to view the other.  Voila - you've just lo-jacked your SO.)

This weeks MAM is a creamy chicken and rice casserole.  I added way more mushrooms and peas than the original recipe called for, because mushrooms are delicious.  I threw this meal together on Sunday in about thirty minutes and BF tossed it in the oven Wednesday night for a quick heat through and crisp up.  I was enjoying dinner a mere minutes after I got home.  Which when your commute is two hours each way, sometimes it's nice to not worry about what is for dinner.

Have any favorite casseroles that you want to see lightened up and made into a MAM?  Drop me a comment below and I'll see what I can do for you!

Wilde Week #10

1. This week I have eaten a ridiculous amount of European-style butter.  I blame Milk bar.  Boyfriend and I went to a third baking class (technically class #2 - the crunch) in Brooklyn.  There we made more delicious cookies with a half pound of butter in them.  Then we took them home and I ate them for breakfast.  Cookies for breakfast is totally okay, especially cornflake-marshmallow-chocolate chip cookies.

2. BF and I emptied out our piggy bank this past week.  It weighed over thirty pounds!  Now someone won't let me take it to the coinstar because he likes looking at the jars of money. 

3. There was a Girls marathon on Sunday night.  I tried so hard to enjoy it.  It just didn't happen, maybe I'm too uncool.  Am I the only one who just doesn't get it?

4. I got new running shoes!  After spending time with a nice girl at Fleet Feet, I learned you should buy running shoes a half size larger than you usually wear.  Huh, who knew.  Now I'm going to be so much faster, can't wait.  Just wish they were in a more obnoxious color.

5. I totally kicked butt at my Crossfit workout this Thursday!  Finished first!  Mostly due to my awesome jump roping ability coupled with everyone else's inability to jump rope.  I jump rope like a rock star.

6. Ever have one of those weeks at work when nothing went right?  Yeah, that was my week.  Chemistry was plotting against me all week long.  I can't wait for next week, I have to redeem myself.

7. Easter is tomorrow!  What does that mean?  Easter candy is on sale on Monday!  Yeah half price Reese's peanut butter eggs.  It also means that everyone who gave up chocolate for Lent can stop being crazy and have some chocolate bunny!

8. For some reason my Crossfit gym is closed on Easter Sunday!  I had to sign up for the 7am class this morning.  Someone isn't happy about my alarm going off at 6:45 on a Saturday morning.  Okay, it's more than one person who isn't jazzed about getting up at that time.  Class better be awesome!

Coconut Key Lime Squares

I've never been so happy to see Thursday than I have this week!  Not that it has felt like a very long week, it's just been a very tiring one!  Coupled with the fact that I spent a long weekend in Buffalo, eating totally healthy food (aka - hot dogs, Buffalo wings and Perry's ice cream), I'm exhausted.  I even missed one of my scheduled runs for my half marathon training plan!  I'd make it up, but I'm tired.

This past weekend I headed to Buffalo for a few reasons.  1. It was my dad's birthday!  We enjoyed local hibachi at Shogun (ONION VOLCANO!) and ate Dessert Deli cake that was more chocolatey than just pouring chocolate syrup in your mouth.  2. Perry's Ice cream invited me to come visit them and eat ice cream!  And they told me I could bring someone.  I brought my dad, because it was his birthday and he loves their ice cream.  I'll talk more about our ice cream factory tour next week, what I want to talk about today is - my long run in Buffalo.

If you have been reading along, you'll know that I'm only three weeks out from my half marathon!  Each weekend I've been making longer and longer runs to help train for my eventual 13.1 miles in central park.  I've run 10K races in the past and never really trained for them.  BF and I ran a Spartan Super last year that wound up being 11 miles, we trained one day for that race and ate crossant sandwiches the morning of the race.  I decided that neither of these tactics would be a good idea for my upcoming half marathon, I wanted to do it right.

Knowing that it was still a little cold in Buffalo, I packed my new running hat and gloves and fuzzy running jacket.  The only thing I wasn't prepared for was snow.  Which it did on Friday, four inches worth of the white stuff.  I headed to my brothers house and used his treadmill for my 4 mile run.  But there was no way I was going to run 8 miles on a treadmill.  It's so boring!

Instead, I mapped my run online, trying to find the right route from my parents house that would give me an 8 mile loop.  It also had to avoid running up the highway overpass near their house.  I decided upon a route that was just longer than 8 miles and crossed only one 4-lane highway.  It was also on a series of roads that I grew up driving down.  I'm very familiar with the roads of my hometown and I know exactly when each road intersects.  This proved an amazing bonus when running.

Saturday morning, around 9:00am, I worked up the energy to go running.  I put on my layers, showed my mom how to track me with her phone, laced up my shoes and hit the road!  I ran past my High school best friends house, my first house that we moved out of when I was 5, my high school and first middle school.  At mile seven I ran past my brothers house and was on the home stretch!  I crossed the highway and my mile tracker called out the completion of my eighth mile.  Unfortunately, I was still a half mile from home.

After running 8.47 miles in 82 minutes and burning almost nine hundred calories, I had no qualms with eating a big slice of cake for dads birthday that night.

Momofuku Confetti Cookies

A few weeks ago, you may have read that Boyfriend and I spent the evening at Momofuku Milk bar making Crack pie and cereal milk.  Well, BF went out of town for a business trip the other day and I went back to the bakery for more!  And this time we were making crumbs.

I was so excited to be able to make it to this particular class because I have had no luck making Milk bar cookies yet.  I've made them twice before and I have come out with vastly different results.  First, I made the blueberries and cream cookies and wound up with thin, crispy, non-delicious cookies.  The second time, I made the compost cookies and wound up with high mounds of baked dough.  I was determined to make this work!

At the crumb class, Tosi and her team showed us how to take ordinary ingredients, like powdered skim milk, and turn them into tasty inclusions for our baked goods.  We made a white chocolate-coated milk crumb and a sprinkle-filled birthday cake crumb.  The reason I signed up for the class though is what we did with the crumbs - we made cookies.  Those blueberries and cream cookies that I originally had no luck with.  Second try is the charm?

I learned exactly what I ws doing wrong with the cookies.  It was a series of problems.  1. I wasn't using the correct ingredients.  2. I wasn't beating the butter high enough or long enough.  3. I was mixing the flour into the cookies for too long.  4. I had the wrong size cookie dough scoop.  After learning the correct tricks for each of these problems, you might be wondering if my blueberries and cream cookies came out all right.  Well, my bakery partner and I ate them too fast and I completely forgot to take a picture.  Yeah, they were perfect.  Let me pass on the secrets.

Let's start with the ingredients.  I labeled you a nice picture above and hit on the key ingredients.  Bread Flour - I used all-purpose flour the first time.  Because of the higher percentage of butter in these cookies, you want a higher protein flour that can support all that fat.  European butter - Tosi mentioned that regular unsalted butter would work fine, European butter is made with cultures and tastes richer.

Glucose syrup - I originally used corn syrup, as the cookbook said it would be fine.  I can say that the glucose lead to a crunchy/chewy cookie that was amazing.  If you can find it, use glucose.  Powdered milk - Okay, I did use this in the original recipe, but you might not know where to find it.  I bought private label powdered skim milk and it works just fine.  You will either find it in the baby or baking aisle.

Once you have the proper ingredients at hand, it's all about timing.  The Breville stand mixers that we used actually had a timer on the side of the machine.  I totally wanted to take that mixer home with me, it was awesome.  When combining the butter, sugar and eggs, you need to beat and beat until you see no more streaks of sugar crystals.  In the first image above, you'll see exactly how far you have to take the mixture.  It's just before the mixture turns into butter soup.  We started with fridge temperature butter and in ten minutes, on the highest setting, it turned into that fluffy buttery cream.

Adding the dry ingredients to the butter mixture is done quickly.  After pouring all of the dry ingredients into the bowl, you turn on the mixer to medium low and mix for less than 30 seconds.  The final inclusions (crumbs, dried fruits, chocolate chips) are added and mixed in for less than 15 seconds.

The final step is measuring out the dough.  I went to Amazon and bought the same measuring scoop that they use at Milk bar.  It's that blue handled cookie dough scoop you see resting on the baking sheet.  By portioning out the cookie dough with this scoop, the cookies bake perfectly in 18 minutes.

I spent a few hours with the Milk bar team and have finally mastered these amazing cookies.  It's a combination of the high butter to flour ratio, addition of glucose and secret powdered milk ingredient, that make these cookies chewy, crunchy and amazing.  They are also huge and a meal of their own.

Hopefully my previous failures and newfound knowledge will help you when making the Milk Bar cookies!  Let me know if you have any questions when baking, I learned quite a lot from the bakers at Milk!  And of course, if you are coming to NYC sometime soon, sign up for a class yourself!  It's a great way to spend a night!