Over the past month I’ve made a few fun additions to my kitchen and in the spirit of Pee-Wee Herman please meet “Shelfy!  Unfortunately this shelf doesn’t chat with me and give sage advice but it does help immensely with the serious kitchen cabinet overload I’d been experiencing. Initially I thought I wanted a more traditional baker’s rack, but after searching around I couldn’t find one that didn’t seen horribly old fashioned.  Then CK and I went to Ikea, or as my friend Julia refers to it “Disneyland for Grown-ups.”  At Ikea I wrote down and crossed out literally six different shelving units until we got to the very end of the store and I saw this system: The Omar.  For once in my life I found exactly what I wanted and it was *gasp* the cheapest one.  So I ended up happy, the cupboards are a little less cluttered, and CK didn’t have to take out a personal loan to buy me a baker’s rack.

Last week I was determined to win Jenny Frazier’s cryptic typography based contest that she hosted at her blog All Eyes on Jenny.  So I put my Nancy Drew thinking cap on and broke out my mad “googling” skills.  The first day of the contest honestly left me clueless, but than Jenny started to reveal little clues and I finally figured out what the answer was.  Last night my pretty pretty prize was waiting for me when I got home and it was promptly hung on the wall in my kitchen, just high enough above my pink KitchenAid so that it doesn’t end up covered in cake batter.   Obviously all of the blogging in this household happens in the kitchen, even Chris sits at the dining room table to work.  So much for that spare room we made into an office…

CK and I are really enjoying our weekly Boston Organics deliveries. We even purchased a cooler to leave in the lobby for the nice delivery man to transfer our yummy fruits and veggies into for safe keeping until one of us wanders home from work.  I had to revive my lettuce a few too many times before I realized…oh duh…maybe this stuff needs a better home than a green plastic tote for eight hours.

So all in all it’s going very well.  Except for the avocados.  Over the last five weeks I’ve thrown out five avocados.  How horrible is that!  I feel guilty every time I have to toss the poor guys into the trash, but I just haven’t been able to think of a anything to do with them other than possibly make guacamole.  The thing is…I sort of hate guacamole and until Sunday morning I sort of disliked avocados.  I’d eat it if you put it in front of me, or you wrapped it up in sushi, but I’d never go out of my way to buy or use them.  But then CK shared a post on Google Reader about making Avocado Toast, and our friend Anna chimed in with a resounding email response of, “This is totes my favorite snack!!!!”  It appeared imminent that avocado and I would be forced to meet once again, and meet we did — spread on warm toast with a simple concoction of spices. It was a phenomenally good time!  From now on I promise that CK and I will be fighting over the avocados in our house and I vow to never throw one out ever again.

Avocado Toast (Based on Dani’s original recipe at Messy Cookin via Projectionist)
Makes 3 slices of delicious avocado topped bread

1 avocado
3 slices of bread (Note: I used Arnold Country White.  When I’m “bad” I’m very very bad).
Red Pepper Flakes
Sea Salt
Freshly Ground Black Pepper
Olive Oil

Toast the bread.  Slice the avocado in half, remove the flesh and place into a small bowl.  Mash the avocado with a fork and spread onto the toasted bread.

Sprinkle the toast with Red Pepper Flakes, salt and pepper, and drizzle lightly with olive oil.

In some ways the above treats are reminiscent of a lot of gifts I’ve given my mother over the years on Mother’s Day.  I was always the kid in Sunday School who couldn’t get their Dixie cups packed with Marigold seeds to grow and I’d end up bringing home my mom a cup of dirt for Mother’s Day.

Teacher’s everywhere seem to think that plants are the way to go at this time of year, so in second grade, my teacher Mrs. Eastman, helped us take care of mini Spider Plants.  This time I thought I was home free.  My plant wasn’t growing from a seed, you simply placed your transplanted piece in the dirt, watered it, and kept your growing journal neat and tidy.  Well over the course of the lesson plan my plant got sicker and sicker until it resembled what I can only describe as burnt, limp, french fries.  To make matters worse, some punk in my class thought it would be cute to tie my sad little plant to another kid’s plant.  The next time my classmate went to collect his pot they both went tumbling to the ground.  I probably wanted to cry, or actually did cry.  I certainly hope the brat who committed “plant-icide” got his name on the board.  In a perfect world he would have been kept in for recess too which as I’m sure you’re all aware is the ultimate in childhood punishments.

These marshmallow treats complete with ragged edges and a slightly indecipherable shape are my virtual gift to my Mom today.  I hope that she appreciates the fact that I’m not actually going to make her eat them, and that she enjoys the real gifts that are currently hurtling their way to her in a big brown UPS truck.  I cross my heart and promise that the box does not contain a dead plant!

Happy Mother’s Day Wummy!  Thanks for always cleaning up after those crazy messes I made in the kitchen and for not yelling at me too much when I’d get into the spice cupboard and make “potions” with the oregano, mustard, and bouillon cubes.

Fruity Butterfly Treats (Based on the Fabulous Original Rice Krispie Treats recipe located at RiceKrispies.com)

3 tablespoons margarine or butter
1 (10 oz.) package regular marshmallows
6 cups Fruity Cheerios

Melt margarine in large saucepan over low heat. Add marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat.  Add the Fruity Cheerios. Stir until coated.

Using a buttered spatula or waxed paper, press mixture onto a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Note: It wont fill the whole pan. I spread mine out to about half the width of the pan. Allow the gooey mess to cool completely.

Using a cookie cutter (Butterfly or otherwise) cut the mixture into shapes. Feed the leftover edges to a dog, your husband, or other boy/man in your life. Butterfly treats are for “Girl’s Only!”

“Little Erin” as CK likes to refer to my pouty, adolescent, pigtailed self had quite a few interesting snacking habits.  When I was a kid I liked to make sneaky things that I wasn’t supposed to be eating.  Especially if I could utilize the microwave in the process.  Some of my more famous concoctions included taking 8 Ritz crackers, folding 2 Kraft Singles into quarters, placing a piece of cheese on each cracker and then topping them with a green olive.  I’d finish this “delectable” snack off with 30 seconds in the microwave.   I proudly referred to this processed cheese invention as an hors d’œuvre.

Another favorite after school “treat” involved placing spoonfuls of peanut butter and Nestle’s Quik into a coffee cup and also microwaving it.  Then I’d stir the two together and pretend I was eating a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.  I assure you, peanut butter and powdered drink mix do not taste anything at all like a candy bar.  My mother and grandmother would get really annoyed at me when they discovered these chocolate encrusted cups in the sink.

I also liked to sit down in front of the TV with my school books and the one and only Mr. Maury Povich (pre paternity test days) while eating Cheerios dipped in Chocolate milk.  Are you beginning to see a pattern here?

Finally, a far less revolting item in my repertoire was the standby Ritz smothered in Marshmallow Fluff.   I vividly remember the first time I ever ate these sticky crackers.  I was watching the movie Lisa.  If you haven’t had the honor, it stars Staci Keenan (Dana from Step by Step) and Cheryl Ladd.  Staci portrays the precocious “Lisa” who has a penchant for making prank phone calls and being a great big, although quite creative, boy stalker …until she starts chatting up an honest to goodness serial killer.   It’s total camp.  You should rent it.  So the other day I picked up a $3 single sleeve of Ritz at the sketchy market on my street, popped open a plastic jar of fluff and had a little nostalgic sugar high for a few minutes.  It felt…good.  In an artificial sweetener kind of way.

Please feel free to share your bizarre childhood junk food memories in the comments.  I can’t possibly be the only weirdo who snuck things like the above and really loved having birthday parties filled with Cheddar Cheese Jax, Shark Attack Fruit Snacks, Mountain Dew (ick…I seriously just gagged a little) and Circus Peanuts.

French Toast - The Haiku

What else can I say
To quote Heiress P. Hilton:
My French Toast is HOT

French Toast with Rum Bananas (originally published by Dave Lieberman)

4 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 pinches ground cinnamon
4 (1/2 to 3/4-inch-thick) slices brioche, challah, cinnamon raisin bread or any moist and fluffy bread you like
2 tablespoons butter
Orange-Rum Bananas, recipe follows

Beat the eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon together in a mixing bowl until well blended. Pour the egg mixture into a baking pan large enough to give you room to turn and soak the bread. (A 13 by 9-inch pan works well).  Lay the bread slices in the egg mixture and let them soak, turning them several times, until the bread has soaked up all the egg. Turn them gently so they don’t break apart on you.

Heat the butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. When it starts to bubble, lay the soaked bread in the pan. Cook, turning once, until the bread is nicely browned and the egg in the center of each slice is cooked through, about 12 minutes. Serve warm with the Orange-Rum Bananas.

Note: If your skillet isn’t large enough to hold all the bread slices at once, cook them in batches. Before you start your first batch, preheat your oven to 200 degrees F (or “Warm”). Keep the cooked slices warm on a baking sheet in the oven while you cook the rest.

Orange-Rum Bananas :
2 tablespoons rum
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons orange juice
2 large bananas sliced thinly on an angle

Heat rum, sugar, butter and orange juice in a large skillet until the butter is melted. Add the bananas. Bring to a boil over medium heat, then lower the heat so the sauce is bubbling gently. Cook until the bananas are softened, about 4 minutes.

Guess who’s back, back again!

Erin and I have a weekend morning tradition of starting off nice and slow with some sort of breakfast and a freshly pressed cup of coffee. As much as we’d like to take credit for starting this trend in our home, it really was something I “borrowed” from elsewhere.

I have a lot of family in Connecticut, and one of the places I love to visit while there is Uncle Bob and Aunt Leslie’s house near the shore. Occasionally I would stay over, and in the mornings, they would have a big pot of French press coffee off to the side in their kitchen all ready to go. I was always impressed by the flavor of the coffee, and this was just about the time that I became more interested in coffee and coffee drinks, thanks to the Starbucks near my work. It wouldn’t be long before I decided to start brewing my own.

When it came time to start really making coffee at home for Erin and myself, there was really no other choice but to get a French press.

The Press

In deciding to go the French press route, I was already partial to Bodum’s Chambord line, specifically the Chambord 8-Cup model. The 8-Cup model is 32 ounces, and makes 4 US Cups, or 2 CK and Erin “Weekend” Cups of coffee. While I haven’t tried too many other French Press variants, I am a huge fan of the glass models, as opposed to something like the all-metal variety, which I feel cools the coffee down too quickly for my tastes.

The Coffee

Once you’ve decided on a press, the next logical portion of the coffee brewing experience is, of course, the beans. Rule number one when it comes to coffee is to make sure your coffee is fresh. This can mean as little as buying freshly ground coffee beans from a shop like Starbucks or Peet’s to as much as roasting and grinding your own beans. I like to take the middle ground and buy freshly roasted beans from Peet’s (we’re currently enjoying their Anniversary Blend) and grind them up right before brewing.

The Grinder

I’ll admit I haven’t spent as much time in picking out a grinder as I probably should have - This will undoubtedly change once I start inevitably dabbling in espresso and espresso drinks. For now I am content with the Braun KSM2 grinder, which definitely gets the job done, and was even capable of doing a fine grind of espresso beans for Erin’s infamous Flourless Chocolate Cake.

The Process

After many rounds of trial and error, my basic process for making coffee in the 8-cup press is as follows:

1. Bring a kettle of cold water to a whistle, and then let it sit while preparing the rest.
2. Put 5 Bodum Scoops of coffee beans (translates roughly to 8 Tablespoons) into the grinder.
3. Grind for approximately 8 seconds, or a medium-coarse ground.
4. Take the grounds out and pour them into the press.
5. Pour the hot water from the kettle over the grounds, filling to the top (in the Chambord, you can pour to the metal ring near the top), Then stir in the grounds so they mix with the water.
6. Let sit for 4 minutes (I usually last about 2, so 2-4 minutes will definitely suffice).
7. Plunge the top in and pour into mugs.

Let us know what you think of the recipe and be sure to share your own coffee secrets!