Salty Pecan Brownies

Ok, so I've been on a baking kick recently, and I couldn't just let those pecans from this weekend go stale. So I took all things chocolate and buttery and just dove into the deep end. These brownies are wildly awesome and rich and made on this annual snow-day when we remember that the spring has not sprung quite yet. Salty pecans, gooey chunks of chocolate and a rich cake...hellzz yaaa.

Also, I wanted to write a post about how strange it is that I just decided to watch an Alicia Silverstone movie and then had to ask the question "what happened to her" and then stumbled upon this video which shows Cher Horowitz feeding her baby like a bird by regurgitating her food???????

A bird? I mean, I know in LA there is always some new food trend, and I'm sure for new celebrity mommies there are even more possible tricks to making your baby's organs perfect and squeaky clean, but this is just nasty. See the thing is that our stomachs are actually made to digest their own food. We have all the necessary enzymes and acids, so chewing up your child's food for them when they HAVE TEETH is totally not necessary. and yuck.

So please use those teeth and enzymes and acids and miles of intestinal tract to eat and personally digest these delicious brownies! I am serious y'all, these are pretty awesome.

Salty Pecan Brownies

• 10 Tablespoons (1 1/4 stick butter)
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 cold large eggs
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 2/3 cup pecans (chopped)
• 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chunks (Baker's choc is good)

Preheat the oven to 325. Line a baking pan with parchment paper. 

Take the cocoa, butter, sugar and salt and put it into a double boiler, heat until it's melted and smooth. Tak off the heat and add the vanilla. Then add each egg and beat vigorously, work fast here. Add in the flour and incorporate until all is combined and the mixture is glossy. Now add the chopped chocolate and pecans. Pour into the parchment and back for 20-25 minutes, until a stick comes out clean. Let the brownies chill because the chocolate is MAD hot. YUM-BO.

Pecan Sticky Buns

Oh ya. You know you want it. I know I want it. Again.

The first thing I say to people about this is "hey GUESS HOW MUCH BUTTER." I often like to start off conversations like this; "Guess how long it took me to get here" or "guess how much money I spent on this." Sometimes I think I was meant to be a game show host.

But come on. GUESS HOW MUCH BUTTER! so much. so much butter.

We had a brunch at my place and this was my contribution. These sparkly wonderful pecan sticky buns. And I'm saying, I haven't been this proud of a creation before. I made a good brioche! Last time I tried to make brioche the thing didn't rise, and I also used a weird pan that had holes in it to bake the rolls, so there was butter dripping all over the damn place. 

But these rolls, they rose. Many times. And the butter caramelized and made a sugary topping. Granted I almost broke my cuisineart because I decided to use it to pound my brioche into submission, and then it started SMOKING, but I got it right!!

Diz-amn. 

Mango Macarons and LA GREVE!!

So I don't know that I can rightly call these "macarons." 

In fact, I have been saying "mac-a-RONES" all night. But I feel something could be developing here, y'all. I have recently become enamoured with these perfect little pieces of sugar puffs that are called Macarons and in reading so many baker blogs I have become increasingly insecure about my first attempts at these seemingly small but truly monumental cake/cookie/sandwiches.

I would actually feel more comfortable saying these are sandwich cookies for now. Oh trust me, I will be doing this again. 

Next time I will get "feet" by avoiding a wet mixture. Next time I will make sure my meringue forms stiff peaks of insane proportions, behemoth peaks! Next time I will be sure not to overbake or underbake, and I will let them dry and harden BEFORE putting them in. In fact, next time I will be using the bible of macarons to guide me, and this other handy website where we learn all the fix-its.

But in the meantime, hey check it! I made them pink!

That was also kind of supposed to be red (solidarity with student strikers!! VIVE LA GREVE!!) but I didn't quite put it in at the right time, bla bla...

Kim Hand and les Puces

This past Saturday some friends and I decided to trek to the north of Montreal, up to the St. Michel flea market. In my brain, I imagined little old ladies sitting next to their piles of WW2 era jewelry, old hats and scarves. I imagined finding a usable typewriter for five bucks, or maybe even a whole liquor set with fifties style insignia. Instead I got this guy following me around...

Notice what looks like an injection needle in his hand, ready to pounce and incapacitate me in this maze of dusty old cell phones and curling irons.

My prediction about the little old ladies huddled around their wares was accurate, but everything was way too expensive or just plain useless (Do I really need a maroon cell phone from 1996, sans charger? Will that ever accrue value? Ever?)

Jeffrey's Roast Chicken

Right now I can hear a seagull outside. Is that possible? I am not aware of the flight patterns of these birds and don't understand why they would come North so early. Perhaps I am imagining their calls but it suddenly made me REALLY excited for the summer. This is the month when everyone begins making plans. Already my calendar is filling up with ideas for camping trips, kayaking, spring-time brunches and  gardening excursions. 

Sadly, the weather got ridiculously cold this week with no signs of breaking. Every year I forget just how brutal the month of March can be; a real blue-baller, if you will. At least I am able to treat this time like the final phase of indoor whiskey nights, of cooking with lots of bacon fat and binging on baked goods. Therefore I turn to a different bird, something I cherish in winter, a more domesticated and far over-eaten friend: the chicken.

I have what feels like a million posts to put up, but in my own food meritocracy I felt this meal definitely deserved to be posted first. Despite the fact that it was whipped up last night, no blog plotting involved, this was definitely the shining meal from my week. 

If you don't know who Jeffrey is, then you clearly haven't read as much of the Barefoot Contessa as me. Jeffrey is Ina's adorable and hard-working husband who she makes her simple and delicious meals for. His favorite meal is roast chicken, as she tends to say again and again, and in her book How Easy is That this is simply called Jeffrey's Roast Chicken.

Cashew Chicken Stir Fry

I may have just broken one of the cardinal rules. But I'll tell you something, the above picture was not taken in some fuzzy-artistic frenzy. It is legitimately blurry and I don't have any idea why.

I tried. I am telling you, I had lighting this time. I adjusted angles and stationed a lamp above the food and even repositioned some things on the plate. This was a step for me, not an enormous one but a step. But I have just realized why having a nice camera is important in food photography. Snapping pics on your iPhone may have been made solely for those drunken fb photos you regret, and not fine food photography. Which brings me to my next point...

Moussaka

The winter tends to bring on a rash of meat-heavy meals: sausage, meatballs, sausage, bacon. In some ways (for me) this is a paradise, but the old adage "too much can be a bad thing" (or whatever the hell it is) proves true even for a meat-lover like myself. That being said, this particular meal still has meat in it. But I believe Moussaka is traditionally a non-meat dish, and with these good intentions I have gained momentum towards a slightly less meat-full diet.

Perhaps I am also dreaming of Grecian isles during these winter months; a nostalgic dream of those years when debt figures were still being bluffed. Perhaps even farther back, when people still believed that a fleshy god was living just beyond the clouds and impregnating gorgeous virgins on earth. 

Ah, those were the days. 

Really my only knowledge of Greece comes from the film Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. In this film, we do not see Rorie Gilmore eating anything because she is too busy bathing her nubile young body in the Aegean Sea and flirting with a beautiful fish monger. From my perspective, if she wasn't stuffing her face with fish and cheese and motherfuckin' spanikopita all the time, bitch is crazy.

Ginger Apricot Scones

During Seafood Chowdown 2012, ginger syrup was made for cocktails and its byproduct (candied ginger) was left in my fridge for a number of weeks. I love me some candied ginger but I couldn't just snack on it. It was a little too sugary and maybe psychologically I couldn't bring myself to grab candies from the fridge. I'm stuck in my old fashioned, room-temperature-candy ways.

So the other morning I ran across a recipe in Bon Appetit magazine for ginger scones and WHAM-BO, magic. I didn't have cherries (which the magazine suggests) so I replaced with some dried apricots.

I like any morning that starts with Amy Goodman. I apologize, Amy, for the bad screen grab. I can't seem to catch you looking pensive, only midway between a sneeze and a snore. You can't help but look dignified though.

So anyway, we were just hanging out watching Democracy Now, with matching mug (no big deal guys)