Restaurant Wars 2013 - IHOP

It's about time I got back to my 2013 challenge!  With my summer of unemployment behind me, I feel like I need to get back to some sort of schedule.  While I look for my next job, I'm trying to put more of an effort toward WITK and all of you wonderful people!

Peach Melba Linzer Bars

I am totally in love with these bars.  

I've never made a Linzer bar before, but I will definitely be making them again.  They are so stinkin' good!  The reason why they are so delicious?  Toasted hazelnuts.  Amazing.

These bars were a lot of work to make.  Between roasting and skinning the hazelnuts, preparing the dough and rolling out and filling the pastry, it probably took half the day to complete this dessert.  It was so worth it.  I refused to share any of these bars with anyone else.  So. Good.

The major delicious part of this dessert is the hazelnut dough.  You can totally fill the pastry with your favorite jam.  I went with a combination of raspberry and peach, a little take on the peach melba.  Since this treat is filled with jam, rather than fresh fruit, you can make it at any time of the year.  I plan on making it again in the winter, with jam made from this summers farmers market fruits.

Bittersweet Celebration

I'm settling into my unemployment quite well.  Though I'm not technically unemployed, yet.  Due to Warn Act laws in New York State, companies of a certain size must give their employees 60 days notice before they can just shut down.  So technically, I'm still employed by my company.  They just don't want me to come to work.

If only I could get paid indefinitely to not come to work, I'm quite good at this not working thing.  The house is clean, the dishes are done and all the laundry is folded.  Yesterday I got to sleep in, I headed to my 9am Crossfit class and did some grocery shopping.  I even got a pedicure, something my running weary feet loved.

It's not all fun and games though.  As much as I want to imagine this will last, I realize I only have a few months before they won't be paying me to sit at home.  I've been dusting off my resume and contacting all my friends and former advisers.  I am so thankful for all my friends and colleagues that have reached out to me.  I have had the privledge to work with some amazing people over the years, including those that I have just parted with at OSI.

I know that all my friends will come out of these sad times even stronger.  While I don't want to say that it was a good thing, the site closure, but I'm sure there are opportunities out there for all of us.  The world of pharmaceuticals is strangely tiny, I know it isn't the last time I see my friends.

This is a celebration cake.  Not of the end, but of a new beginning in my life, a new chapter.  Full of sweet, early summer peaches, and covered in tangy, sharp ginger cream cheese frosting, this cake is a little bittersweet, just like this week.  Make it for yourself.  If you're having a rough week, it will totally cheer you up.

My Macaron Method!

Wednesday I left you with the question of whether I could reproduce my workshop macarons at home.  Today we have the answer.  Yes, I can! 

Sure, it was a little more difficult to do this on my own.  I was wishing that I hadn't gotten rid of my hand mixer while I was whisking the meringue.  All on my lonesome, my arm got pretty tired!  I had to keep switching between left and right arms.  I also learned that I am not ambidextrous when it comes to whisking things.  My left arm is terribly uncoordinated and not at all good at whipping egg whites.  I'll have to give it a bit more practice.

Boyfriend helped to style this particular photograph

The batter was flowing like lava, I think.  I'm still a fan of the disappearing line method for testing the batter consistency.  The batter piped well, forming nice round shells.  The shells dried up in thirty minutes and when I put them in the oven I was hoping for the best.  With my fingers crossed, I set the timer for seven minutes and walked away. 

When I came back to turn the pans I was thrilled to see round tops and pretty, frilled feet!  I can do this at home!  While this isn't simplest recipe, requiring you to heat the meringue over a water bath, I choose to go with a consistent recipe rather than an easy, unreliable one.

Haven't found a favorite macaron recipe yet?  Give this one a try!  I know that this is my go to recipe from now on.  Thank you DessertTruck!

Peaches and Cream Popsicles

I had major plans this weekend to make you lots of candy.  Then what happened?  It poured down rain all day Sunday.  And I'm not just talking a little rain, or a light drizzle all day.  I'm talking torrential downpours broken up by constant, driving rain.  High humidity is no time to be tempering chocolate and trying to pull taffy, so it will have to wait until next weekend.

What I did, instead of making candy, is make popsicles!  If you hadn't noticed, popsicles are the new cupcake, at least for summer.  I can't imagine this popsicle trend lasting through winter, maybe in the Souther hemisphere?  Why not join the trend, and cool off a little, in the hot, last weeks of summer.

Please excuse the photograph, I had to run this morning!  I'll fix it later!

Update: my train is ten minutes late, I totally had time to give you a better picture! Nuts... Oh well, have a great Wednesday everyone!

Raspberry-Peach Jam

Okay, so I went a little jam crazy. But can you blame me? Ripe summer peaches, bright raspberries, it had to be done. Now I need to find some more space in my freezer, or start eating toast for all my meals. Although, that’s not such a bad idea.

Toast is one of those perfect foods that can be eaten at any time. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner or even the middle of the night. Mmmm, it’s crunchy and warm, then slathered in jam… I’m hungry, time for some toast!

Peach and Blueberry Buckle

We are coming to those last precious days of summer. August is winding down and fall is right around the corner. As a kid, I always loved this time of year. As we have previously discussed, I’m a bit of a nerd. By the last week of August I was ready to go back to school. I loved getting my school supply shopping list in the mail. I would beg and plead my mom to go to the store and pick everything up right now!

We would go to Vix (in the days before Target in western New York) and I would look thru the aisles at all the new school supplies. Even though I already had two sets of colored pencils, they simply would not do. It was a new year, I needed new pencils! Same goes for folders and pens, binders and erasers. A new year meant a new beginning.

I was always a fairly simple shopper though. I was never one to get bright cartooned folders or Trapper Keepers (c’mon, you remember). I wanted plain colored binders and a matching folder to go along with it. I had that kind of OCD. The organizational OCD. I would write my name on all my new supplies and lay them out, ready for school to start.

In these last few days of August, there is something else to revel in. Stone fruits are at their best right now. I’m talking peaches, nectarines, plums. Those fruits that, when eaten by hand, make an enormous mess of everything in a five foot radius. I find myself in the grocery store or at the farmers market, fondling and smelling the peaches. Keep your peaches away from me, I just might accost them.

When I find some good ones I have a hard time deciding what to do with them. Do I eat them fresh? Do I slice them up and put them over breakfast? How about simmered on the stovetop with cinnamon and nutmeg and eaten warm with ice cream? No, today we make a buckle. There are so many different types of fruit cobbles that I have a slim understanding of how they differ from each other. I think it easiest to define each, as I make them. So for today…

Fruit Buckle – A single layer of cake, generally with berries added to the batter, topped with streusel. Also known as a crumble.

Now that you know what you are baking, head out to the store (or the farmers market) and get yourself some peaches. And some blueberries. There, now we’re ready to bake.