Jalapeno Cucumber Margarita

After about two straight months of rain, it finally feels like summer here in Jersey. It's hot out, the boardwalk is packed with New Yorkers, and I can't stop making tropical drinks. My go to is a classic margarita (a real one, no bottled mixes for me!), but during a recent backyard barbeque I decided to try this spicy twist on the classic.

The Jalapeno Cucumber margarita involves sugar muddled with jalapeno for heat and cucumber for a refreshing twist, topped off with tequila and orange liqueur. The taste is similar to a regular margarita, only with a bit of heat that lingers after you swallow. If you don't like it too hot, find a milder pepper, and if you're really into spiciness, well now's a great time to pull out the Scotch Bonnets.

Jalapeno Cucumber Margarita, adapted from Stephen Kittredge Cunningham's The Bartender's Black Book **

Makes 1 drink
2 tsp sugar
4 jalapeno slices, cut 1/8 in thick
4 cucumber slices, cut 1/8 in thick
1 1/2 oz tequila
1/2 oz orange liqueur (I used Triple Sec)
1/2 oz lime juice

Rim the edge of a margarita glass with a slice of lime and dip into kosher salt.
In a mixing glass, muddle the sugar, jalapeno, cucumber, and lime juice together.
Fill glass with ice.
Add tequila and orange liqueur.
Shake, and pour into margarita glass.
Garnish with additional cucumber and jalapeno slices, if desired.

If spice isn't your thing, for a great Classic Margarita mix 3 parts tequila with 2 parts lime juice and 1 part triple sec. Shake over ice and pour into salted glass!

**UPDATE***
I'm bringing this margarita to Louise's Online Picnic! What are you bringing?

**I highly, highly recommend this book!! It is packed with tons of drink recipes, categorized alphabetically and by spirit, along with information on mixing, wine, beer, and how to make common mix-ins like sour mix, grenadine, and syrups.

Hash Brown Skillet

Eggs are my specialty and one of my favorite things to make. I love coming up with ideas for new brunches, and I have perfected my eggs in all forms. My best friend Jenn always says I make the best scrambled eggs. This breakfast here is one of my favorites. It was inspired by the skillet, my favorite breakfast at a local breakfast restaurant. A skillet is hash browns, topped with eggs, and possibly cheese or vegetables.

My skillet today is the basics. I made my homemade hash browns, jazzed up with fresh chopped rosemary, bacon, and tomatoes, and topped with two fried eggs. It's great to add cheese too, although I didn't.

So I start with the potatoes. I find hash browns work best if you partially cook the potatoes before, otherwise when you try to fry them, if you haven't sliced or chopped them thinly enough,

they'll burn on the outside before cooking through. I use 2 red bliss or Yukon Gold potatoes, and I just steam them in the Reynolds steam bags for 3 minutes in the microwave. I let them cool for a minute or so, then I peel the skins off (very easy to do when they are hot, but don't burn yourself!) and then chop them up.

I then heat up a skillet and toss in about some red pepper flakes, 2 tbsp of butter and 2 tbsp of oil. You can use more or less, depending on taste and diet preferences. Also, the type of pan you use is critical for crispiness. If you prefer your hash browns softer, use a non-stick skillet. This kind of steams them, as the non-stick coating acts as a barrier to creating a real crust. If you like them crunchier, cast iron is the way to go.

Let the butter foam up a bit and toss them in (this is also where you could toss in other vegetables, like onions or peppers).

Leave the potatoes alone for about five minutes, then give the pan a good shake to crisp up the other sides. Add more oil/butter if needed, and season with salt and peper to taste, as well as any other herbs you like. Here I used fresh rosemary, since I had some extra hanging around.

I made some bacon as well. I could have thrown that in with the potatoes, but for calories' sake I put a wire rack on top of a baking sheet and cooked them in the oven, so the excess fat and grease could be thrown away, instead of absorbed into my potatoes (not that that's a bad thing!)

This will take about 10-15 minutes, but they are very forgiving. When they are done, just cover the pan. The residual heat will keep them warm.

While they cook, get your eggs ready. I like my eggs sunny side up, but I cook them in a pan with the cover on. That way, the top of the egg kind of steams to get cooked, but the yolk remains runny.

Here's what it will look like when finished. I chopped a tomato and added it in at the very end, just for a kind of fresh taste to break up the buttery starchiness.

Here's the finished dish! I mixed up the potato and bacon, then topped with my eggs and a little sprig of rosemary for a garnish. The runny yolk gets absorbed by the potatoes and it is soo delicious.

Here's a close up.

MMMM. So good.

Lemon Cream Tart

This was the dessert I made for a recent family event. I'd been dying to have a reason to try Dorie's Lemon Cream tart, and I thought it made a perfect springy dessert.

And I was right. Let me tell you, this is without a doubt the most delicious thing I've ever made. I suppose my love of lemon makes me slightly biased, but honestly, it was wonderful. My mom and I ate it two pieces at a time. (which I actually don't recommend because after we were both completely stuffed- it's very rich!)

Making the tart itself was fun. My shell came out a little imperfect as I have an 11" tart pan, and the recipe made a shell for an 9" pan. I managed to stretch it a bit, unfortunately it didn't have that perfect professional look on the sides, but we'll just call it rustic. And maybe next time I should check things before I rush into them.

Making the cream was unlike anything I've ever done for a dessert. It involved making a lemon curd over a double boiler and then mixing it up in a blender with TONS of butter. The result is an absolutely amazing, creamy, sweet lemon filling, that I could not stop spooning out of the bowl and eating.

I then candied slices of lemon to decorate the tart. This is an incredibly simple thing to do. I sliced lemon very, very thin, and boiled it with a cup of sugar and 1 and 1/2 cups of water until the lemon slices were translucent (that's how you know they're not bitter anymore). I laid them out on a paper towel, sprinkled with sugar for a sparklyish effect, and let them hang out until tart time.

In keeping with my "rustic" shell, I went for a rustic look on the filling. I spread it out into the shell, and used the back of a teaspoon to "lift" up the filling sporadically across the tart- that's those peaks you see. You use the back of the spoon to make a small circles all over the filling, and lift the spoon when you're done with each circle. I topped with my candied lemon, and then I ate a billion slices.

Sweet Tart Dough, from Dorie Greenspan, Baking From My Home to Yours

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup confectioner's sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 stick plus 1 tbsp very cold unsalted butter

1 large egg yolk

Put the flour, salt, confectioner's sugar in a food process and pulse to blend. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is coarsely cut in. You will have pieces in all different sizes. Stir the yolk and add it a little at a time, pulsing to blend for about 10 seconds after each addition. The dough will form clumps and curds, and as you continue processing, the sound of the machine will change, indicating that it's done. Turn the dough out, and knead it to incorporate any dry ingredients.

Butter a 9" tart pan. Press the dough evenly on the bottom and up the sides, being careful not to overwork it, lest the dough lose its crumbly texture. Freeze the crust for 30 minutes before baking. (Or, if not baking immediately, freeze for up to 2 months).

To bake, butter the shiny side of tin foil and fit it, buttered side down, on the crust. Bake it for 25 minutes, and if anything puffs (it shouldn't, as you froze it) just press it down with a spoon.

Lemon Cream Filling (also Dorie Greenspan)

1 cup sugar

Grated zest of 3 lemons

4 large eggs

3/4 cup fresh lemon juice

2 sticks plus 5 tbsp butter, cut into tbsp size pieces, at room temp

You will also need a blender, a pan of simmering water and bowl to set over it (ie a double boiler), and instant read thermometer. I suppose it's better to have a pastry or candy thermometer, but I just used the one we normally stick in a roast.

Rub the sugar and lemon zest together in your double boiler bowl until fragrant. Whisk in the four eggs and lemon juice.

Set the bowl over the pan of simmering water and place your thermometer in it. Begin whisking it when it feels tepid. Whisk constantly until the mixture reaches 180 degrees. It will be close to 180 when the whisk starts to leave track marks in the cream. Don't stop whisking yet, but be aware that you will be close to finishing.

As soon as it reaches 180, strain it into the blender. You can discard the zest. Let it stand until it reaches 140 degrees. You can stir it occasionally to let some air in and help speed the cooling process, but it will most likely take a good 10 minutes. (During this time feel free to enjoy licking the lemon/egg mix out of the sieve like I did).

Turn the blender on high and with the machine running, add the butter 5 pieces at a time. (If you're afraid of splattering lemon cream all over your kitchen it's okay to shut the machine off for a second to drop the butter in). Once all the butter is in, continue to let the machine run for 3 minutes. If your machine is as loud as mine, those 3 minutes will be excruciating, but deal with it.

Pour the cream into a container and press a piece of plastic wrap into the surface, then cover with container's lid and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. The cream will last in fridge for 4 days, or can be frozen for 2 months and thawed in fridge.

Assemble the tart shortly before you want to serve it. Just whisk the cream, pour it in, top with your candied lemon, and enjoy!! Everyone will LOVE it.

Mother's Day Brunch

The older I get, the more I realize how much my mom has done for me throughout my life. Sometimes I recognize the oddest things, like how she silently let me go through my “thug life” phase back in high school, even though she must have been totally cringing inside. Or sometimes it’s more obvious things, like how annoying it must be to be the one to organize and plan every holiday, event, do all the cooking, clean up every single time, with not enough help from the rest of us.
Anyway, so I started the day with a brunch. Originally I had planned eggs benedict with lump crab, but as I learned it’s really hard to find crab NOT in a can (and I find canned crab to be off putting). So I opted for toasted Italian bread with cheese, arugula, mushrooms, and fried eggs (I like to cook them in a covered pan so the yolk is slightly hard, that’s why they are white on top not yellow).

Recipe (adapted on the fly from a bunch of crap in the fridge)
Serves 2
2 slices of round Italian sesame loaf, toasted.
2 slices Swiss cheese
1/2 cup arugula (pretty much a big handful; enough to just cover the bread)
1/2 cup sliced white mushrooms
4 large eggs

Drizzle some olive oil in a skillet. Add in mushrooms and sprinkle with salt. Saute for about 5-7 minutes, until soft and browned. When done, add salt and pepper and set aside.

Meanwhile, top toast with slices of Swiss cheese and melt in oven under broiler. Top with arugula, then mushrooms.

Drizzle olive oil into skillet and crack four eggs. Cover pan and cook until desired doneness. (I like my yolks semi-set with a slightly runny center, so I flip them over at the end). Salt and pepper generously, and place two eggs on top of each piece of toast.

Serve with mimosas!

Villanova Cupcakes

Just a quick post here- I got together with some friends and fellow alumni of Villanova to watch the Final 4 game (read about it here, was a disaster) and I thought I'd make some cupcakes. I used a simple box white cake mix, and made cream cheese frosting. It was light and very good, but kind of a soft frosting and not great for any intense decorating. The V on top was made out of royal icing.

Cream Cheese Frosting, from Carole Walter's Great Cakes

2/3 cup unsalted butter, room temp

2 8 oz packages cream cheese, room temp

1/2 tsp orange zest

2 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar

2 tbsp sour cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine the butter and cream cheese together, beating with a wooden spoon. Cream until very smooth (otherwise you will taste lumps of butter when eating the cupcakes!) However, do not use an electric mixer- the frosting will thin out too much. Blend in the orange rind. Add the sugar alternately with the sour cream, using about 3 additions of sugar to 2 additions of sour cream. Stir in vanilla extract.

To decorate, I filled a Zip Loc bag, cut the tip off so you have an opening of about 1/2 inch, and just piped the frosting in spiral. I topped with blue sprinkles (although in hindsight, edging the cupcakes in sprinkles would have been nicer).

For the V's, combine 1/2 cup powdered sugar with about 1 tsp or less water, and add blue food coloring. Again, fill a Zip Loc and cut just the very tip so you have a much smaller opening than fo the frosting. Pipe V's onto wax paper, let harden, and use a spatula to scrape them off the wax paper and place gently onto cupcakes.

Trip Blogging: In the White House & Some Chocolate Chips

Recently, Brad and I went to DC for a weekend. It was a really fun and sort of insidery trip, so I thought I'd write about it. La Dolce Vita's the sweet life, right? Doesn't have to be just food! Anyway, we did some of the typical tourist stuff, and also visited my cousin for his 24th bday.

The trip started with a Friday night birthday party at my cousin Eric's house. A little background on Eric: he's been obsessed with politics basically since he was old enough to talk. He's been involved in countless groups, been a Senate page, and recently worked as the luggage coordinator on the Obama campaign. All the work's paid off, as he is now David Axelrod's assistant in the White House. Impressive, considering no one in my family has ever held a political job (actually, no one besides Eric's immediate family is even Democrat).

Anyway, the party. I must admit, it was a bit awkward for me; I'm really not very political, and the guests were basically a "whos who" of Capitol Hill up-and-comers: Obama's assistant, Gibb's assistant, Rahm Emanuel's assistant, etc, etc, plus plenty of other young kids working for boldfaced names. While it looked like any generic college party (40 kids taking shots in an 8x10 kitchen), I was kind of nervous someone would out me as not being informed enough. But it was very cool to be around people whose daily jobs directly affect our country.

I think my boyfriend, who's something of a politics nerd, was in heaven. I was nowhere near there until some girl showed up with Cakelove cupcakes. OMG. I usually hate those trendy bakery cupcakes, finding them far too dense and heavy. But Cakelove was soooo good. Light, sweet, amazing. I had a vanilla cupcake with peanut butter frosting, and I spent the entire weekend cursing out our schedule, which didn't leave time for a trip to get more.

Anyway, the real highlight came the next day, when Eric gave Brad and I private tour of the White House! I can't tell you how badass it felt to stand on the street and get buzzed in through the gate to the White House (well, badass until we realized the people behind us also knew someone there and got buzzed in too).

Taking a break from a busy Saturday at work (they never stop! I would hate that), Eric greeted us at the gate in his button down and jeans (ohh the casual Obama administration), and led us up the White House driveway to the West Wing. Inside, it was exactly as I'd expected: thick carpets, oil paintings in ornate frames, and security seated right at the door. Eric led us down a hallway, stopping in front of a roped-off office. I was about to ask "Why are we stopped in this tiny room?" until I realized it was the Oval Office! Whoops. It's admittedly a bit less impressive than it seems in pictures, apparently Obama hasn't gotten around to redecorating (it still features Bush's decor and the walls are plain white).

Then, Eric took us next door to his office, a small narrow space that served as a blockade between Axelrod's office and the hallway. And yes, by next door I mean his office shares a wall with Obama's! We also stopped in Biden's office, which was next door to Axelrod's. Neither man was around (damn!), though we did see Axelrod in a meeting. It was very cool to be able to glance around their offices; while the media allows us to constantly check in on their professional lives, it's rare to get a glimpse of these prominent men as normal people: Biden has pictures of family printed out on a crappy inkjet printer and stuck to a corkboard, while Axelrod has a framed family pics crowded onto a small bookshelf. And his office is painted navy, which I loved.

Next, he showed us around conference rooms, cabinet rooms, the situation room, the Rose Garden, and the press room. The picture at the top of this post is from the press room, though unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pics elsewhere (and, FYI, both of us were having a bad hair day and are not normally that gross!) What was really cool to see was the basement below the press room; it was once the Presidential pool but has since been converted into an electronics room where reporters get online and send their articles out post-press conference. The tile walls were signed by all the reporters and presidents, kind of the way you see in cheesy tourist pizza places.

While walking around the West Wing, it was really cool to see the photos of the Obamas that adorned all the walls. My favorite was a glam shot of the President and First Lady dancing at one of the inaugural balls, with everything blurred out but them. I also liked one of the President in a conference, with the table and attendees blurred out, and the focus on his hands, clasped together, displaying his wedding ring (even though, let's face it, the Obamas looove to market their relationship).

The rest of the trip included tours of the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, Arlington, and the Washington Monument. I won't go into it, as this post is long enough already! But what hit me was how far the country has come in only what, around 250 years? I mean it started off as a bunch of religious expats and look at us now, an enormous world power, despite current troubles. Thinking about it all sort of made me feel like a leech on society, even if I do work for the government (especially considering I'm writing this at work).

So what I took away from the whole trip was a sense of wanting to do more. I don't mean politically, I just mean sort of following dreams and doing more with my time. Except I'm not really sure what said dreams are. All I know is my days are spent obsessively reading about food or shopping online, and then I trudge home to chug cheap beers at Friday's (woo I'm cool) or watch marathon Friends reruns on TBS (side note though, they should REALLY make more shows like this. Is anyone else sick of "reality" TV?) So new personal goal, time to figure out my passions, see how to work them in with the job, experience life more, and enjoy it more. And also really try hard to understand more about Army budget appropriations since it's my job.

So right, where's the recipe? Well I wanted to make something for Brad after our trip to thank him. The trip was his idea, and he was so sweet- he showed up at my house to pick me up with a car stocked full of our favorite beer, a bottle of champagne, and snacks for the trip. I hadn't thought to do anything, and I thought it was so sweet of him. Plus, when I spent Saturday night in a hypochondriac fit after a very minor allergic reaction to crab, he was extremely patient and sweet (I would have wanted to punch me).

Anyway, Brad's not what you'd call an adventurous eater (would you believe the boy has never eaten a strawberry or raspberry b/c they are "weird looking"? AH I can't deal), so I felt this was the perfect opportunity to get around to the (ubiquitous) chocolate chip cookies from the NY Times. Look, we've all made them by this point, we know they're good, I won't go crazy about it. But let's just say I never understood quite so clearly why salt is so important. Just the tiniest sprinkling of fleur de sel on top of the cookies makes the chocolate flavor explode in your mouth. Delicious.

The recipe is here. I did use the feves (pictured below), and I did find them to be a really great addition to the recipe. So if you can find them, go for it.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
from NY Times

Rugelach

Soon I will be adding a post about the exciting weekend I just spent in DC, but until I have a chance to get it out, I'll post this recipe for rugelach. I've tried other rugelach recipes, but found this had the best results and was less tedious than others, which often involve multiple rounds of chilling, bringing to room temp, re-chilling, and on. It's a bit much. This recipe, while it does have an element of chill time, is much easier. The dough is quickly combined in a food processor, and chills for a mere two hours. It's something you can quickly put together in one night, with great results- flaky, delicious, and customizable. I love creating new types of filling for rugelach. My all-time favorite is chocolate, which I made here, though I also created a raspberry almond version.

Rugelach, adapted from Dorie Greenspan, Baking From My Home to Yours

For the Dough

4 oz cold cream cheese, cut into 4 pieces

1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces

1 cup all purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

For the Chocolate Fillling

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tbsp cocoa powder

1/4 cup mini chocolate chips

Handful finely chopped walnuts

For the Raspberry Filling

2/3 cup raspberry jam (warmed if not easily spreadable)

2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/3 cup sliced or chopped almonds

For the Glaze

1 egg, beaten

Sanding sugar

To Make the Dough:

Let the cream cheese and butter rest for 10 minutes before using. Put the flour and salt in the food processor, then scatter the butter and cream cheese pieces over them. Pulse the machine 6 to 10 times, then process, scraping down the sides until the dough forms large curds. Do not let it form a ball on the blade. Overworking will cause the dough to be significantly less flaky.

Turn the dough out, and gather into a ball. Divide it in half, shape each half into a disk, and wrap each half in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to one day. (The dough can also be frozen for 2 months).

To make the filling:

For raspberry, combine sugar, almonds, and cinnamon. Keep jam aside.

For chocolate, combine sugar, cocoa powder, cinnamon, walnuts, and chocolate chips

To make the cookies:

Pull the dough packets from the fridge. Lightly flour a surface, and roll each packet of dough into a 12 inch circle. For raspberry, spread the raspberry jam across the surface, in a layer thinner than you think you need. (If it's too thick to spread, zap it in the microwave for a few seconds). Then sprinkle with the cinnamon/sugar/almond mixture.

For the chocolate, simply sprinkle the tops with the cocoa powder and walnut mixture.

Using a pizza cutter, slice the dough in quarters, then slice each quarter into quarters. You'll wind up with 16 triangles. Starting at the base of a triangle, roll the it up so each cookie is crescent shaped. Repeat with each triangle. Refrigerate for 30 mins before baking, and preheat oven to 350.

When ready to bake, arrange the cookies on a baking sheet covered with nonstick foil. Brush the tops of the cookies with the beaten egg and sprinkle with sanding sugar. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until puffed and golden. Cool on wire racks. Store for a week in an airtight container.