The Kari AnnAlysis

Archive for the ‘FOOD!’ Category

When we started gathering ideas of things to do while we were in New York City, our list quickly filled up with good restaurants and snack hot spots. There was no way we could get to all of them in less than 48 hours, but we made a very strong attempt. The ones we didn’t get to, well you better believe they are on the list for the next trip.

So here’s how our foodie trip to NYC went. We started at Ellen’s Stardust Diner at 1651 Broadway. It was breakfast time, and they had plenty to offer. I knew theat we had a long day ahead of us, so I started light. I had a couple of cups of coffee, a bagel, and a side of bacon.

Those are very easy to do, so they were great, but they weren’t what made the trip. The waiters and waitresses are all aspiring performers. They take turns singing and putting on a good little show to go well with your breakfast. It was so fun. And one of the waiters was actually from WV. He said we were the first group dof West Virginians that he has met while working there. I’m sure he’ll never forget us!

What a fun atmosphere right??  Definitely a place to go back to.

Our next stop was a vendor stand so we could get some roasted nuts. There were several different kinds of nuts, they also had roasted coconut. Yum! What a good little snack.

We got so caught up in taking in the city, we didn’t get lunch, but that was ok because we needed all the room we could get for dinner. Dinner Friday night was at a place right across the street from our hotel in Times Square called Juniors at 1515 Broadway. It took a while for us to get seated because there were 12 of us, but once we were there, we told the waiter we were in a major hurry because we had less than an hour until our show started. He was a peach and got us our food within 20 minutes. And it was soo good. We had coleslaw and pickled beets as a salad. I had a burger, the specialty, along with fries and HUGE onion rings. I was the only one who liked the onion rings. I’m more of a batter than an onion person. These were really thick and I think they were dipped in corn dog batter. Yummo!

 We may have done more sightseeing than eating on Friday, but Saturday was definitely a different story.

We started Saturday morning off at Serendipity 3, 225 East 60th Street. Yes, the place from the movie! This was one of my top choices of places to go. I absolutely love that movie and watch it every time it’s on. The movie itself has nothing to do with the eats…and drinks, but the novelty of saying I’ve been there, well that’s all I was looking for. But I found so much more.

We got to the restaurant about 11. On Saturday’s it doesn’t open until 11:30. There was a line by the time we got there and it started to snake after we fell in. Now one think we didn’t know is that you can make reservations. We didn’t have to wait too long, but being able to get straight in is definitely something to keep in mind for next time. And there will be a next time!

We were seated on the second floor. And yes, let me say that the tall, slender steps you see in the movies are very accurate. We had a table for the six of us girls and we all had one thing on our mind…. FRRROZEN HOT CHOCOLATES!

Doesn’t that look yummy? It is even yummier than it looks! And they were huge. I think I could have downed all of mine, but I had other snacks on the mind. And since I knew there were other snacks in the near future, my friend Melissa and I didn’t get brunch. The other girls did however. They had nachos, and black bean soup and the biggest cob salad I’ve ever seen.

Now the scrumtious hot cocoa wasn’t the only awesome thing to happen at Serendipity. We were all taking in the sights when a couple was seated behind us. We overheard the host tell them they were sitting at the table where…wait for it… Jonathan and Sara sat during the movie! WHAT?!? Of course I asked them if I could take a picture. They definitely thought I was kidding. They soon realized I wasn’t!

I will definitely go back to Serendipity, even if it’s only for a Frrrozen Hot Cocoa.

After the hot cocoa, it was only another block before he had our next snack. We knew from the time we got to NYC that we had to have a hotdog. So, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a vendor hotdog, topped with ketchup, mustard and kraut. I love me some WV hotdogs, but I think I could eat an NYC hotdog every day, if I had enough Tums

Our next stop was Central Park, which was conveniently close to our stop for lunch. Although we had hamburgers for dinner the night before, burgers were on the list again. You can never have too many burgers! Lunch Saturday was at a little hole in the wall called the Burger Joint. I had no idea what to expect and when I walked into the swanky Le Parker Meridien, (119 West 56th Street) I had no clue what kind of burger I was going to get. The hotel was gorgeous and there was a coffee shop with red velvet…then we got to the Burger Joint.

From the outside, it’s just a black square. They squared off a corner of the hotel with plywood and made one of the most popular little eateries in the city. Burgers, fries, sodas. That’s what’s on the menu. It took us about an hour to get in, order, eat and get out. And let me tell you we were only sitting for about 15 minutes. The line was snaked around the lobby of the hotel, but the wait was worth it.

Inside, there’s a bunch of low budget decorations, writing on the walls. It’s so down to earth and low key. Reminded me of a little place here at home called Hillbilly Hotdogs.

My friend Melissa and I split a burger. We decided the more we split, the more we could eat It was such a fun experience…other than the fact that while we were there, the cooks turned down the music and yelled that people needed to hurry up so that someone else could sit down. There were people breathing down our necks for our seats. Scary!!

You may think that by now we have to be stuffed by now but we were far from it! We did a lot of walking and shopping between lunch and time for dinner. We worked up our appetite and were soon ready for dinner….after walking 40 blocks before catching a cab.

Dinner was waiting on us when we finally got there. Nothing like a little brick oven from Lombardis, 32 Spring Street. The restaurant was originally opened just down the street in 1897. Now it’s double the size, but still uses the same old brick ovens to make awesome pizza. What a tradition.

We had three pizzas, with lots of different options. Half of one had cheese, there was a half with red peppers and pepperoni, there was a half with meatballs, and there was a whole white pizza, which is one of their specialties. It had ricotta cheese on it and was pretty dang good. I love me some pizza, but I’m a plain cheese kind of girl, so of course, in the end, that was my favorite.

By now, our time in the big city is running out. We have just enough time to take a limo ride to the places we didn’t make it to, spend a little bit just taking in the scene of Times Square, do last minute shopping, and of course grab a snack!

Our final stop on the “Eats of NYC” trip was Roxy Delicatessan.

Since we had made so many stops on the tour, we were just in the mood for a snack….again. Since we started the day with a sweet tooth, I thought I’d end it that way.

Look at these HUGE cookies I got. There were so many options, it was hard to decide. One of the girl’s that was with us got a cream stick, a guy got a piece of cheesecake, one woman got onion rings and one woman got the most awesome looking, and equally expensive, philly cheesesteak sandwich. I had a hard time eating even one of those cookies, so don’t think I was the cookie monster and ate both of them. I brought one of them home for my husband. It was a great way to end the trip.

As you can see, food was the biggest part of our trip and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Some of the places we didn’t get to was Magnolia, Crumbs, and Carmine’s. But don’t you worry, I have full intentions of making those top priorities for next trip. Does anyone have awesome places for me to add to the list??

For years I’ve had a shiny, red KitchenAid stand mixer in my sights. I first saw one of these beautiful creatures when we were shopping for wedding gifts. We registered for one, but they are pretty expensive, and we didn’t end up getting one. It wasn’t a necessity, so it never came back up….until this year.

Around my birthday, I asked my husband for a hand mixer. Mine broke and I had to have it to fulfill my baking love. That is a necessity. My husband mentioned at that time that he had thought about getting me a real nice mixer for Christmas. I told him that would be a great idea and that was that. Nothing else was said about it until Christmas morning, when I unwrapped this:

Ahhh isn’t she beautiful? Yes, I thought so too. I broke in this little gem recently. I didn’t do anything real crazy, just wanted to get my feet wet. So I made some chocolate “surprise” cookies. Just used a chocolate cookie mix and put little surprises of Rolos, Reese’s Cups and a couple of different kinds of Hershey Kisses. They were very yummy and I felt like I could taste a difference because of the mixer…who knows if that is really the truth or I am delusionally in love with this. Here’s my first KitchenAid baking experiment in pictures. Enjoy…I know I did!

Yummo! I have been uber busy since Christmas and have been neglecting my little loved one. But I plan on doing some baking this weekend. To make raspberry filled brownies or cranberry and chocolate chip cookies??? Oh I should probably make both!

What can you do with zucchini? That was my question last week when I returned to work, after an extended weekend, and was told there was zucchini in the newsroom. But then my question was quickly answered when one of our interns sent out a mass email saying her mom made zucchini bread! There it is! I can do that. I love to bake. But, do I like zucchini bread? So I had to taste it, and I toasted it, the way I like banana nut bread. Um, YUM! So I rushed back into the newsroom and there was one zucchini left. Well, I doubted that I could do anything with one zucchini, but it’s worth a try.

So, being the investigator I am, I Google’d “Zucchini bread recipe, one zucchini”. I found tons of recipes for two zucchinis and ended up just halving a recipe and bam, I am ready for baking.

And what makes it better, I had my zucchini and all I needed other than that was walnuts and cinnamon. That’s the perk of baking a lot!

So, here’s the recipe from Allrecipes.com:
Ingredients: For two zucchini (one in parenthesis)
3 cups all-purpose flower (1 1/2 cups)
1 teaspoon salt (1/2 teaspoon)
1 teaspoon baking soda (1/2 teaspoon)
1 teaspoon baking powder (1/2 teaspoon)
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon (1 1/2 teaspoon)
3 eggs (1 1/2 eggs)
1 cup vegetable oil (1/2 cup)
2 1/4 cups white sugar (1 cup 2 tablespoons)
3 teaspoons vanilla extract (1 1/2 teaspoons)
2 cups grated zucchini (1 cup)
1 cup chopped walnuts (2/3 cup and 1 tablespoon)

Directions:
Grease and flour two 8×4 inch pans (one pan for one zucchini)
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F
Sift flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon in bowl
Beat eggs, oil, vanilla and sugar together in large bowl
Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture and beat well
Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined
Pour batter into pans

Bake for 40-60 minutes or until tester inserted in the center (toothpick) comes out clean

I think I put in a little more cinnamon than the recipe required, but I think that made it better. I love cinnamon, so I will always add a tad, or spoonful extra.

I can always tell if my baking is a success depending on my husband. I like almost every baked good I make, so I’m not a good judge. I have a sweet tooth that is never tamed.  I had doubts that my husband would like the zucchini bread. He told me before I made it he wasn’t a big fan. But, he ended up loving it!!! (thanks to the extra cinnamon I am sure) So this is definitely a recipe that I know I can make in the future. I do kind of feel bad though because I told my parents I would bring them some bread, but it didn’t last long in our house. I had to have a piece after every meal, and for a snack. I wish there would have been two zucchinis.

If you have some variations that you like to add to your zucchini bread, please let me know. I heard about putting chocolate chips in it. Yum!

Like most women, Grace Mills craves to be perfect. She reluctantly hits the treadmill every morning, but treats herself to one of her homemade cranberry scones if she sees the man who is a treat to her eyes.

When Grace has an accident on the treadmill, somehow she ends up in another life. She has the man and an awesome job and people love her and she is perfect from head-to-toe. But when you mess fate, not everything stays the same. After a couple more accidents and hopping back and forth from Grace to perfect, she has to determine which life she wants to stay in for good before time runs out.

This book is a modern-day Babes in Toyland. Grace wakes up in a whole different world…although it may not be as real as she thinks.

In this book, Fichera found a very creative way for her main character to tackle her problems. There are many people who think the grass is always greener. And while you may have the nice car and the hot boyfriend, the hot boyfriend may be a douchebag and the car may just sit in the parking lot because someone always drive you around. There may be some things that are better, but it never fails that you always have to lose something in order to gain those one or two things. And it’s never something simple. It’s always big, like family or friends, or a crush that you haven’t gotten enough of just yet.

Now I got much more than a life lesson out of this book. I also got an amazing recipe. In this book, Grace is a baker who makes a mean cranberry scone. Within the first couple of chapters of this book, my mouth was watering. I love baking, but had never made scones before. I started looking up recipes and tweeted my plans and Liz Fichera herself tweeted me to make sure I saw Grace’s scone recipe in the back of the book. So of course, I had to use that recipe.

I actually made these scones one night while my husband was out of town… at like 10 p.m. If I lived by myself, I would have horrible time management and be up baking all night.

I was very nervous starting this recipe. It seemed simple enough, but it always makes me nervous trying something new. I have perfected a few cupcakes and am starting to branch out, but I’m nervous for baking failure. But…. although they weren’t beautiful to look at, these scones were AMAZING! Something completely different than I am used to making. I imagine the next time, I’ll do a few things different, like  not start at 10 p.m. and now I have a better idea of how the recipe works so I’m not flying blind.

Speaking of recipe, I want to share it with you, courtesy Liz Fichera.

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter, cold and cut into small squares
3/4 cup raspberries
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Generous amounts of jazz music

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375
Place rack in the middle of the over
Line baking sheet with parchment paper
In large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt
Blend the butter into the flour until it looks coarse
Stir in raspberries
In separate bowl, whisk together yogurt, vanilla extract and egg
Add this to flour mixture and stir until dough begins to form
Don’t overmix
Transfer to lightly floured surface and knead dough gently no more than 6 times
Pat or roll dough into a circle until it’s 7 inches around and 1.5 inches thick
Cut the dough into 8 triangles and place on baking sheet
Bake for 20 mins. or until golden brown
Sprinkle with powdered sugar and place under broiler for a few seconds
Cool and eat

After I made this recipe and am looking back on the directions, I’m not quite sure I did the mixing correctly. I don’t know if I overmixed or if I kneaded too much or enough. I think after making them a second time, I’ll be a better judge and they were definitely good enough to do again. Oh and I had a broiler issue. I thought I turned on my broiler, but I turned on the over as high as it will go and I couldn’t figure out what the deal was. Needless to say, the topping didn’t quite melt as it should. I would suggest that after you sprinkle the powdered sugar on the scones, change it to a clean piece of parchment. If you sprinkle extra and it gets all over the pan, it’ll burn quickly and stink up the kitchen.

Anywho, I give Craving Perfect AND the Scone Recipe both 5 bookmarks… or 5 baking pans if you will.

ISBN:  9781426891939
Released: July 25, 2011
Author Website
Kari got this book from NetGalley

I’ve been getting into the kitchen a lot more lately and I love it. My baking goal for the year was at least once a month. I didn’t follow it month-wise, but I’m almost caught up recipe-wise. One thing I want to be better at next year is cooking dinner.

My husband and I normally go our own way for dinner during the week. By the time we both get home and get settled, it’s nearly 8 p.m. and neither of us want to eat a huge meal, or cook one that late. So we normally throw something in the microwave or eat a sammich.

But Sunday is my cooking day. I wake up on Sunday mornings with a hankering for a good homemade meal. So I sit with my coffee and cookbooks looking for something that makes my mouth water.

One of my recent dinners was Fire Roasted Ziti with Sausage. I got the recipe out of one of my favorite cookbook/magazines. It’s the Taste of Home Comfort Food 2009 Edition. This was one of the first cookbooks I ever got. It has some great dishes in it, which I will pick off one-by-one

Ingredients:
1 package of ziti or small tube pasta (8oz)
1 can Italian diced tomatoes, undrained (28oz)
1 jar fire-roasted tomato and garlic spaghetti sauce (26oz)
1 package smoked sausage, sliced (16oz)
2 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese, divided (8oz)
1 cup 4% cottage cheese (18oz)

Now that I am looking at this, I see it says part-skim cheese – I used regular. I love cheese, but don’t know much about cooking with it. It may be the consistency and the melting potential of skim. Let me know if I am completely wrong. 

Directions:
In large saucepan, cook pasta according to package directions; drain and retun to the pan.
Stir in tomatoes, spaghetti sauce and sausage.
Heat through.
Stir in 1 cup mozzarella and cottage cheese
Top with remaining mozzarella.
Cover and heat over medium heat for 2-5 minutes or until mozzarella is melted.

This was a super simple recipe and it was DELICIOUS! I was a little skeptical of the cottage cheese because I am not a big fan. But once you get it in there and stir it around, you can’t tell it’s there.

This dish has that smoky taste because of the fire-roasted sauce and a bit of spice to it with the sausage and fire-roasted sauce, but it’s not too much. Speaking of the sauce, I had no idea how any different spaghetti sauces there were. I knew there were a few, but goodness, this one is very specific. I was afraid that Walmart wouldn’t have it. Then I was smited for disgracing Walmart’s integrity. And I’m not tomato connoisseur (because I was allergic growing up),  but isn’t a tomato a tomato? What is the difference between Italian and not Italian? Obviously I have a lot of learning to do before P.Diddy asks me to be the chef at his next restaurant, or the family even asks me to bring something more than ice to a gathering!

I am always nervous about cooking, just for the fact that my husband is the food critic in the house. I know I am bound to completely destroy something and I can always whip up a box of mac and cheese and make it through the night. I don’t want him to have to do that, so I always aim to impress with my lack of culinary skills. Plus, he’s the cook in the house. He can make anything and specializes in homemade biscuits and gravy. Mmmmm He can cook the main courses and I will make dessert. I am happy with that!

Let me know if you try this!