a winner, an idea, and a question

a winner:

sometimes it's so cool to give away stuff, especially to readers like lennie who've been reading since almost the beginning. [and don't you hate bloggers that say they something along the lines of..."this reader has been there since the beginning" you know that's a fib because really no one, except for your family, has been there since the very first post... but i digress]



anyways... lennie was lucky 13.... and from her comment she needs a little pick me up. so lennie, i'm pretty sure you have my email but if not send me your deets to evilchefmom [@] aol.com and i will get this shipped off to you.

an idea:

i will be back on wednesday with a plan that should be hatched in all it's krazy krysta glory... it's really nothing special but hopefully it will be different and keep you on your toes.

also... i have a question for all you guys {but i really mean guys and gals}

how do you handle things like heath care and all of it's grand bureaucracy? any secrets or tips...



my 15 month old nephew has had two separate cases pneumonia twice now in a two month span. kaiser is being douchey, the doctor is wishy washy, won't or can't make a decision of treatment would rather pawn it off on a pediatric pulmonologist 50 miles away and wants the doctor to make a diagnosis on the phone and no one will give a straight answer to exactly why antibiotics are not working. (you'd be horrified at the amount he has had) i don't want medical advice per se but i'm sure my sister and brother in law would love to hear some tips. do you bring in someone else to be an advocate and bad guy to question the doctor. do you bring in baked goods to sweeten the deal? change doctors and start from scratch? scream, make a fuss? give them your advice...

thankful + a giveaway

so... when we bought our house, i didn't mention that we live about a 5 minute walk away from st. joe's hospital.... and that's if you walk slooooowly. it's the hospital that you want to go to if given a chance. also, the only hospital in town with a helicopter pad. i tell you this so i can tell this story.



this year has been a strange year for me and my family. i knew in my bones that 2009 was going to be a rough year... buying a house, my kids changing schools was going to be disruptive but i didn't know 2009 was going to knock me upside of my head and persistently mock me and my family. i could give you a laundry list of crap that has happened...

-serious talks of layoffs, for rich, my dad and step mom

-car problems, from a tree dropping branches on both of my cars, causing an amount of damage that makes me blush, to dead batteries and flat tires... and rich fastidiously maintains our cars... so you imagine how frustrated he is.

-a trip to the er

-health scare for me

-pneumonia twice for my little itty bitty nephew

-cancer (not me)

-school: to long term subs for my kids, plus no books or schedules for about the first week of school

-and let's not even get into plumbing and what a racket that is

-soccer equipment stolen, please explain to me who needs a backpack, a uniform, soccer ball, warm ups all embroidered in with nancy's initials and/or name

-a death of 2 beloved uncles

and that's only a taste of what has been going on this year...



so with all this crap going on lately i just try to get through the day with my head down. hoping that something doesn't break, explode, die... you get the picture. i mean wouldn't you do that too? it's that ostrich head in the sand deal.



then about a month after we moved in i started noticing the helicopters coming and going at st. joe's. they literally swoop in making that thump thump thump noise. it's kinda cool watching it from the second story of our house.

then the helicopter at three in the morning happened...

when a helicopter wakes you up at three in the morning it gives you pause, especially when it's landing at a hospital. nothing good happens at a hospital at three a.m. something really bad has happened if a helicopter has to come to take you somewhere else for medical care. i realized not even five minutes from my house someone's life has been put on hold. someone is getting bad news... someone doesn't care about my water heater, car problems, talk of layoffs. they are dealing with something far worse and suddenly my problems seem fairly easy to fix... that night and every time since then when i see a medical helicopter, i stop what i am doing and send good thoughts their way because compared to what they are going through my problems are small potatoes.



so i'm thankful... it took something as drastic as a medical helicopter to take notice but that's me.

tell me what you are thankful for... and on monday i'll announce a winner and send you a copy of pioneer woman's cookbook.

cranberry streusel shortbread bars

**** this post is going to take a little imagination on your part****



First, imagine William Shatner there on the bottom. I know Chris Pine is a fine piece of eye candy but he's just not mockable enough. So you need to hum the Star Trek theme with the dulcet voice over of The Original Captain Kirk...



Stardate: I think it's November 22, 2009. I have been stranded in ECM's kitchen for an awful long time. Let's call it a shortbread ecstasy trip.

Space the final frontier...

scratch that... rewind...

Baking the final frontier...

DAMN IT!!! That's not right either...

Shortbread the final frontier...

ah much better.

Well, anyways, spacelog... The shortbread has eluded me long enough. I have searched high and low (well, through space anyways) for a great shortbread recipe. But with no luck. The Enterprise happened upon a small dwelling on my home planet, the 3rd rock from the sun, EARTH.

The queen of this little dwelling went by the name Evil Chef Mom. Considering her name she was a benevolent ruler and she was kind enough to share her recipe with me in exchange for the new Scotty.



Who knew she had such a crush on a goofy looking Scotsman? Oh well, The Enterprise will run a little slower but well worth it for a good piece of shortbread.

cranberry streusel shortbread bars: fine cooking sweet cakes



































for the crust and streusel:

10-1/2 oz. (1 cup plus 5 Tbs.) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to just warm
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 tsp. table salt
2 large egg yolks
14-1/4 oz. (3 cups plus 3 Tbs.) unbleached all-purpose flour

for the cranberry topping:

12-oz. bag fresh or frozen cranberries, picked over, rinsed, and drained
1 cup granulated sugar

optional: 1/4- 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
juice and zest of one orange

make the crust:

Line a straight-sided 13x9-inch metal baking pan with foil, letting the ends create an overhanging edge for easy removal. In a medium bowl, stir together the butter, 3/4 cup of the sugar, and the salt. Whisk in the egg yolks. Stir in the flour to make a stiff dough. Transfer about 2 cups of the dough to the prepared pan, and press the mixture evenly into the bottom. Prick the dough all over with a fork. Refrigerate the pan for 30 minutes (or freeze for 5 to 7 minutes), until the dough is firm.

Meanwhile, position a rack near the center of the oven and another near the top. Heat the oven to 325°F.

Bake the dough until the crust begins to set but does not brown at all on the edges (the center will not be firm yet), about 20 minutes. While the crust bakes, prepare the streusel and the topping.

make the streusel:

With your fingers, combine the remaining 1/4 cup granulated sugar with the reserved dough until crumbly. The mixture should hold together when pressed, but readily break into smaller pieces.

make the cranberry topping:

In a medium saucepan, bring the cranberries, sugar, and 1/4 cup water (and optional ingredients) to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium high and continue to boil until the liquid is reduced to a thick syrup, 5 to 8 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and let the mixture cool 5 to 10 minutes—the syrup will continue to thicken as the mixture cools.

making the bars:

Spread the cranberry mixture evenly over the hot crust. Scatter the streusel over the cranberries (don’t crumble the streusel too much or the texture will be sandy). Increase the oven temperature to 350°F and bake the bars near the top of the oven until the streusel is golden and set, about 25 minutes. (Baking these bars at the top of the oven helps the streusel brown faster without overbrowning the crust.)

Place the pan on a metal rack to cool until the crust is completely firm, at least 1 hour. (For faster cooling, put the bars in the fridge once the pan is no longer piping hot, or even outside in winter.)

When the bottom of the pan is cool, carefully lift the bars from the pan using the foil sides and transfer them to a cutting board. Separate the foil from the bars by sliding a spatula between them. Cut the bars into 1-3/4-inch squares.

caramelized onion tart

no funny stories here today... sorry.

it's been one of those weekends and it seems i have been having more and more of them lately and unfortunately it's starting to really wear on me. while none of the problems are huge in scope, it tends to grind you down and you wonder if some higher being is just toying with you because they have a twisted sense of humor. sometimes i think someone up there who is suppose to be in charge is into torture or a little bdsm just for shits and giggles. {if you don't know what bdsm is, google it, just don't click on any pictures... you were warned}

anyways... before i decided to really screw up a post and start talking a little theology and torture {apparently, a nice way to spend your monday afternoon...also a good way to make friends and not alienate readers, score one for krysta!} i saw this recipe in real simple this weekend and it was one of those things where it was NOT going to go away until i made it.



caramelized onion tart with fennel and apples: adapted from real simple magazine dec. 2009

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, sliced
1 fennel bulb, sliced
2 granny smith apples, cut into thin slices
kosher salt and black pepper
2 sheets frozen puff pastry (from a 17.3-ounce package), thawed
1/2 cup sour cream or even better!!!! thin slices of a mild cheese like fontina or havarti

Heat oven to 400º F. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and fennel. Cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Stir in the apples, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper and cook until just tender, 2 minutes.

Place each sheet of pastry on a parchment-lined baking sheet and prick all over with a fork. Spread with the sour cream or place cheese onto puff pastry, leaving a ½-inch border. Top with the onion mixture and bake until the pastry is crisp and browned, 30 to 35 minutes. Cut into pieces before serving.

tasting notes: sweet, savory, flaky crust... a good excuse to ingest high amounts of puff pastry. good, cold or hot. i liked the one with cheese better. katie liked the one with sour cream better. good for a light simple dinner served with salad. real simple has it listed under hors d'oeuvres. either way... it's good.

eggnog spice bundt cake

I wish I had a good stereotypical gay blogging friend. You know one who says, 'Oh no honey you cannot do that!' and when I start to argue, 'But...' He cuts me off and says 'No.' and takes the whisk out of my hands.

I need that kind of discipline in my life

You need people around you that have huge set of titanium cajones who can tell you with authority and under no circumstances... NO, just no. I can think of a few people who needed that. Britney and Lindsay come to mind. And Michael definitely did not have anyone who told him no. Come to think of it half the famous people in Hollywood do not have any friends or plastic surgeons who can tell them no either.

Case in point...



This recipe intrigued me from the start. I should have known better. Someone should have stopped me. All the while I was dumping ingredients into the bowl, I kept thinking this is all sorts of wrong. Did I stop? No. Was anyone around to tell me to stop? No. Would I have listened? Probably not.



It was like good ol' Beelzebub himself was sitting on my shoulder chanting, 'DO IT! DO IT! You know you want to.' and good lord did I ever want to. I couldn't stop dumping ingredients into the bowl. At one point I was looking over my shoulder afraid the Food Blogging Swat Team was going to storm my kitchen, take me down with a taser and yell...



[you were supposed to press play]

I was frothing at the mouth crazy with lust, power and a little dash of secret shame. I was like a mad scientist cackling wildly, 'It's alive. It's alive I tell you. Look at my creation!'



I have sat down before you and told you my secret shame. How will you judge me?



eggnog spice bundt cake: relish november 2009 newspaper insert

1 (18 1/4 ounce) box of carrot cake or spice cake mix
1 (4-serving) box instant cheesecake pudding
1 cup nonfat vanilla yogurt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup light eggnog
3 eggs
1 1/3 cups toasted chopped pecans (optional)
Powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350F. Coat a nonstick Bundt pan with cooking spray. Combine cake mix, pudding mix, yogurt, oil, eggnog, and eggs in a large bowl. Mix until creamy. Stir in pecans. Pour into prepared pan. Bake 40 to 45 minutes, until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. When cool, dust with powdered sugar.



Tasting Notes: It was good... really good. So bad it was good. If loving it was wrong, I don't want to be right.

Hanging my head in shame as I hand over my food blogging license. I'll be headed to court soon. The crimes are too numerous to list here.

persimmon cake

this recipe originally appeared on evil chef mom 12/15/08

if you want a new post... here's some pictures i took of mavericks and the california coast on sunday.



I normally dislike/loathe/feel very uncomfortable rerunning a post/recipe. [please excuse the over abundance of slashes in that last sentence.] It feels a whole lot like cheating but with persimmons coming into season and certain people I know who feel like persimmons are a waste of a fruit...*cough cough you know who you are* I just want to say give persimmons and this cake a chance, it will blow your mind.



*check out the fork from the Air France's Concorde Air Craft. My Uncle Babe took a supersonic flight once and all he brought me was a lousy fork! Cool.

fuyu persimmon cake: (recipe courtesy of Katie's Great-Grandmother (on her fathers side) Doreen. Doreen is by far one of my most favorite people on this planet. When Katie's dad and I broke up, I mourned the loss of her more than I did my whole relationship with Katie's dad. She's so cool that she's does Buddhist chants at the dinner table and all my kids know her as Grandma Doreen. Told you she's awesome!)

3 cups fuyu persimmons, chopped fine
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cup butter
1 1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 cup walnuts, chopped finely

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a Bundt pan. Add chopped walnuts in an even layer to the bottom of Bundt pan. In a bowl, add baking soda and chopped persimmons and set aside. In a stand mixer, hand mixer, or another bowl, blend butter and sugar until creamy. Then add eggs, lemon juice, vanilla, flour, salt, baking powder, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Mix until well combined. Add persimmon mixture into the batter and mix together until blended. Pour mixture into the pan and bake for 55 to 60 until done. Cool in pan for 15 minutes then turn over and release cake from the pan.



Tasting Notes: This is a wonderfully moist cake and would make a great Christmas present. Spicy and sweet, almost like a carrot cake. You could add raisins if you wish to or bake it like a regular cake and add cream cheese frosting.

About persimmons:

Here and here.

learn how to pick out a good persimmon

Persimmon folklore:

Did you know that you can tell what this year's winter is going to be like by cutting a persimmon seed in half and looking at the seeds shape. If the seed is shaped like a knife it will be cutting cold. If the seed is shaped like a fork the winter will be easy and if it's shaped like a spoon the winter will be a heavy winter... lots of shoveling to be done.

pok pok chicken wings

Oh Pok Pok, I miss you. I'm sure that you really don't care, you go on your busy day like any popular restaurant would. I know that I have had only one meal there and I probably contribute to what the Portland hipsters complain about... that it's too busy, too popular, too expensive, too long of a wait...just too much of everything. They only complain because they now have to share their chicken wings with the rest of us, the uncool non hipster out-of-towners.



These wings are like crack, meth, coke, and heroin wrapped in fish sauce and fried until crispy. They are that good.

Disclaimer:

Except I really don't care for fish sauce, I mean it's good in recipes, in small doses, but when a recipe calls for a whole cup of that stuff I freak out. I mean fish sauce [to me] smells and tastes like something I can't repeat in good conscience on a food blog. Just think dead and rotting female corpse whose parts of the anatomy dealing with reproduction are mixed in with wet cat food and you get the idea. So I adapted this recipe... I know what I just wrote above sounds like a complete turn off but the wings are really that good and if you like fish sauce use a whole cup but I'll admit I am a wimp about fish sauce [it's my kryptonite] and toned it down alot.

pok pok chicken wings: adapted from here

sea salt and fresh ground pepper
1/2 cup fish sauce
1 cup maple syrup (added a smidgen more of this)
1/2 cup orange juice (also added a smidgen more of this)
8 garlic cloves, minced (divided)
3 pounds chicken wings, cut at joints
3 tablespoons butter
zest and juice of 1 orange
1/4 cup sambal oelek chili paste (more or less to taste)*
oil for frying
1 cup chopped cilantro, garnish

Season the wings with a pinch of sea salt and a crank of fresh ground pepper. In a large bowl whisk together the fish sauce, maple syrup, orange juice, and half of the garlic cloves. Add the wings and toss to coat. Transfer the wings and marinade to a plastic bag and refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight. Drain the wings over a medium bowl to reserve the marinade. Heat the butter over medium heat until melted and add the remaining garlic; cook until the garlic is golden brown, being careful not to allow it to burn. Turn the heat to medium-high and add the reserved marinade, orange zest and juice, and chili paste. Continue to cook the dressing until it reduces to a syrupy consistency, about 10 minutes, and then remove it from the heat. Place the warm sauce in a large bowl. Heat the oil to 350F. Working in batches, fry the wings until crispy, about 5 minutes per batch. Drain on a cooling rack set over paper towels, allowing the oil to drip off. When all of the wings have been fried, toss them in the dressing, you may need to work in batches. Garnish with cilantro and serve immediately.

Tasting Notes: I'm glad I toned it down. Katie said they tasted almost like the real thing, if only I had fried the chicken a little longer to make the skin a little crispier it would have been perfect. So maybe I was right to tone the sauce... maybe the recipe I adapted it from had a typo... maybe I bought the most stinkiest ferminty-iest fish sauce ever... maybe I'm just sensitive? Who knows. All I know that even with the fish sauce it was good.

* you can find sambal oelek chili paste in the Asian aisle of your grocery store or online at Amazon.

house tour: living room

Rich and I were standing in the kitchen a few nights ago. He was leaning back on the kitchen counters and I was chopping some vegetables for dinner, just a normal snapshot of any couple that have been married for years... comfortable with each other. Ordinary, calm, peaceful, maybe still very in love with each other.



"Krys, you know we've only been in this house for two months and it seems like years."

"Yeah, I know." and we were both silent for awhile letting that idea settle over us.



There really wasn't much to say. I know the saying is, 'where ever you go, you are home.' and while that's true I do have to say that this house is like your favorite pair of jeans. Comfortable, fits well, and makes you feel good. It enhances all the good parts about you, if that can be said about a house. The best way I can describe it is like this...



Do you know how when you were a child and it's cold outside, maybe a little chilly in the house and you climb into bed? How the sheets, blankets, and comforters settle on top of you not in that stifling, suffocating way but in that protective, comforting way that muffles the outside world... makes you warm instantly and relaxed because you have this shield around you? That's how this house feels to me.



I'm sure in a years time knickknacks and books will be rearranged but for now this is good enough.

And this isn't even half of my books. Wait for the next part of the tour.



One of my favorite parts of the house is the big windows and the stained glass above them. No one tells you that living in a house with wood trim is that at night it glows. It is a very 1920's gentleman clubish let's smoke cigars and have a snifter of cognac vibe.






If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.

Gaston Bachelard



I want a house that has got over all its troubles; I don't want to spend the rest of my life bringing up a young and inexperienced house.

Jerome K. Jerome



That last quote is my home in a nut shell. A very mature house that shelters you. Nothing fazes her too much because at almost a hundred years old she's seen it all. She reminds me in a way of my grandmother, how all you want to do is take care of her because she's taken care of you for so long. It's a wonderful feeling.