Brunch Time

The one thing I love about the holidays is the chance to get together with old friends and current friends who have just been too busy the rest of the year to see. Everyone slows down for a week or two at the end of December and just takes a short break from the hecticness of life. It was great to get together with some of my favorite girls and do a “girls brunnch”.

From Top: Whole Wheat Pancakes, Pillsbury spinach and cheese savorlings, Phyllo Quiches and “simple” Croissants

For the whole wheat pancakes I used the recipe from Whisk Kid but simply replaced the flour with whole-wheat as well as replaced the butter with vegetable oil. Unfortunantly, I forgot to bring along my almond extract to my friends house where the brunch was being held. They were still delicious but they are even better with almond extract – this recipe has become my new pancake go-to recipe!

I found the little Pillsbury “savorlings” in my freezer that morning and they were a great throw-in-at-the-last-minute sort of thing – tasty too!

For th Phyllo Quiches I loosely based my recipe off of this recipe from Planning with Kids. I emprovised with phyllo of course and threw in some parsley and pepper. They turned out great. The only thing I’d do dfferently would be to load up on more spices. Even with the addition of parsley and pepper they still lacked the strong sort of taste that I prefer, but were still very good.

As for the Croissants, I must admit, I was a little nervous. I’ve never made croissants before and was so afraid of messing up and not having them for the brunch (and afterall, what is a brunch without croissants?). But I followed this great recipe from Snippets and they turned out lovely. Not as flakey as some people like, but certainly buttery and soft!

Estia Restaurant

I love Estia.

Last year, when I was living in Philly and me and Frank were really begining to get into the Philadelphia restaurant scene we were constantly looking for new places to have a bite to eat. He takes pride in how well he picks out restaurants (sure, there have been a few duds, but for the most part he always picks a great place) and still mentions how he was the one to suggest Estia (apparently I’m expected to know where all things greek are in the city). He’s so funny.

Anyway, we made our way to Estia the other night, gliding past the snow covered fields of Jersey to find our place in the city. If you’re familiar with Philadelphia, than Estia is a cinch to get to. It’s right off of broad street on locust, going toward Rittenhouse. It’s a large restaurant with stone ceilings and heavy wooden beans hanging down. Even when it’s full, it’s never loud or overwhelming. Greek rembetika plays softly in the background. You feel as though you’re in Greece visiting family, it’s like a home away from home.

The three times we’ve dined there (not counting the one lunch I had with a friend) I’ve tried a different dish and they have all lived up to and exceeded expectations. So far I’ve tried Arni Piadakia (Lamb chops marinated for three days in olive oil, lemon and fresh herbs served with potato tiganites and tzatziki), Kotopoulo (Organic chicken roasted served over caramelized onion and yogurt orzo with a lemon chicken thyme jus), and Arni Trahana (Lamb shank braised and de-boned served over cracked wheat pasta with tomato kampama and shaved mizithra cheese). While they were all unique dishes as well as delicious, my favorite would deffinetely be the Arni Piadakia – the taste of it has stuck in my mind since I got it the firsttime we visted the restaurant, and the tzatziki was phenomenal.

Frank compares the Filet Mignon to “almost” that of the late Brasserie Perrier, saying that if it was just a tad less dry it would be just as good (although he gets it well-done so part of me wonders if that may be the culprit). The whipped potatoes are a story all their own. Even as a non-mashed potato fanatic as he is, I do enjoy a bite or two. They are deffinetely made with olive oil and some sort of spice that I can’t pinpoint, that gives them a completely unique taste all their own.

As for dessert, the last two times I’ve just gone with a little bowl of gelato, as I’m usually almost stuffed and can’t imagine eating anymore. But I did try once, the Galactobourico which is Semolina custard wrapped in filo with orange, lemon zest syrup. It was deffinetely worth make the extra space in my stomach for. Frank love their chocolate lava cake and gets it everytime. I can tell you from trying a bite of it that it is pure chocolate, so for all you “chocoholics” out there, this is for you.

Here are the photos I got from the first visit (I forgot my camera the other night). Sorry about how horrid they are, but the restaurant is very dark, which is nice to enjoy a dinner in, but horrible for photos.

(Arni Piadakia)

(Filet Mignon)

(Galactobourico & Greek Coffee)

(Chocolate Souffle)

Oh, and I must mention, that if you happen to go for lunch, get the Estia Chips. They are so amazing – me and my friend could have eaten them for meal!

End of Semester…

As classes come to an end and the whether takes a turn for the chillier, my small local college always puts together its student art shows.
I’ve been so much happier with all of my work this semester more than ever. People often ask me if I regret spending all the time and money at Drexel only to return to the college I started out, and I say no, not the tiniest bit. If anything, I learned that I have to do work to please myself and not the professors, and that if I’m not enjoying the process, then I shouldn’t be doing it.

One of my classes this semester was at the Clay College in Millville. It was a 3-D design class, and although we did work with clay a lot we also made things our of old shoes, paper tubes, and created our own “wearable art” which we showed at the opening of the student gallery show with our own little  runway show.

I just thought I would share some of my work with you…

You may remember my clay cupcake from a previous post. I nicknamed it my “Warhol Cupcake”. This actually wasn’t even for a project for class, but just something I started working on one day. I wanted to make 3 more and do them in other “pop” colors, but never have the time this semester, maybe next?

This is the two sides of the one piece I did. For the project we were given a brick of clay and told to make a cup out of it. It didn’t have to be functional, or a literal cup, but just a cup. I lovve working in black and white, I feel like it just breaks it down so that your mainly focused on good form which is so important.

This was my last clay project for this class. The project was to do a self portrait or a narrative of some sort. This was one of those projects that started off with one meaning and the more I worked on it the more things that I realized it symbolised and ways I related to it. The cross and orchids are all made of clay and painted with acrylics and the base is all dirt from my mothers garden :)

This is my “wearable art” piece. It’s a feather skirt with white lace around the top and a gold zipper down the back.
Any of you fashion nerds, like me, out there are welcome to point out how feather skirts are allll over the runways lately. But seriously, I have sketched to do this from like a year ago, and I was not basing it off of anyone else at the time, I promise!
oh and its modeled by my lovely friend Christa!

So there you have it, a little taste of what I’ve been working on. There were many more projects, but these were some of my favorites from this class – I love any feedback at all, even critisism, so feel free!

the true breakfast of champions

Last night I had to make my way to good ol’ downtown Vineland to pick up some things at the only sewing store basically within an hour of here to finish a project. While I don’t usually get down that way very often I’m always excited to because it means one thing to me….a stop at The Sweet Life! You may (or maybe not…) remember my rantings about them here.

It’s always great to stop in. For one thing, I hate supporting Starbucks, or any other monster chain that kills adorable little businesses, but I won’t lie that I always end up going there anyway just because theres one right next to where I work and go to school. Besides that, the coolest people own it and an incredibly talented future famous artist who I’ve had class with this semester also works there. oh yeah, and did I forget to mention everything they make is amazing. No, I’m not exaggerating – everything.

So Jill (one of the owners, and a pretty kick-butt cake baker and decorator) talked me into one of their little apricot triangle pastry things (yes, I am very knowledgable, I know) and ended up getting a few of those and a few other things to bring home to the family. While I could go on for a million years about everything there, I must adress these apricot triangle thingies. not suprisingly, AMAZING. the perfect pre-work snack and had me wanting to eat them all in one sitting, but I respect their delicious pastries too much to ruin them by doing so.

This morning started out so lovely with having one of those fantastic soft and just perfectly sweet enough little creations and a little bit of chocolate Chai. Maybe it was these delightful little things that helped me to stay happy even through a crazy day of rifling through clay pots and sculptures to find mine, and hours at work with severe christmas madness going on and then push through to finish both my wearable art project and my sculpture for the art show this weekend. So thank you, delicious little pastry, and thank you Sweet Life.

Tea and Cookies

This past week was finals, so naturally I’ve been baking a lot.

No matter how busy I am (or possibly rather, the bussier I get) I find time to bake. It’s absolutly a relaxing thing for me and helps me just to clear my mind for a little bit and focus all my energy into the process of making something delicious. My parents always thought I should become a chef or own a bakery, but I feel like that would totally kill it for me. I’ll stick to giving my treats for free to family and friends I think.

The morning after my math final, I knew it was time for cookies (I haaaaate math, I can’t even explain how much) so I pulled out one of my favorite christmas gifts from last year, my Martha Stewart Cookies Book. I decided to use her recipe for butter cookie sandwiches, but instead of filling them, to just dip them in chocolate.

They gave me a little trouble when rolling out. Maybe my kitchen gets too hot when the ovens on, because whenever I make cut-out cookies I always have to just cut a few out, put the dough back in the freezer or fridge, pull it out again in a few minutes and then rush to cut out a few more before it’s too mushy again and I have to throw it back into the icebox. anyhow, it makes my cookies a definite “labor of love”.

These ones were totally worth it though!

They were soft and crumbly and perfect with a little bit of chocolate. Me and my mom agreed that they would be really great if next time I put some almond extract or something like that in it. But regardless, they were still pretty kick butt!

Pop Art Cupcake

Sculpted from clay, painted with Acrylics

Spanakopita

To say I love Spanakopita would be a severe understatement.
Αγαπλώ η σπανακόπιτα
(yes I have greek on my computer and yes I know how to use it!)

My family goes crazy when I make it, I’m lucky to even get a piece most of the time.

Last night I was home all night for the first time in a while so I decided to make dinner. I just made grilled chicken with some whole wheat pasta, speghetti sauce and a salad. and as an appetizer (or “meze”) I made the spanakopita.
I always use frozen spinach, its easy and I really don’t taste a difference. Not realizing though, I made broccoli and threw half of my feta in the bowl with it before I noticed it was not spinach. SO! when life gives you broccoli and feta…make broccoli and feta triangles?
I made traditional triangles (which I was not able to get a photo of because they disappeared so quickly) with my broccoli version of spanakopita and made pie-spanakopita with the regular spinach and feta.

As far as a “recipe” goes, I really don’t have one. I’m very “old school” when it comes to cooking, I throw stuff in until it taste good basically. My spanakopita is very very basic, I got it from my great aunt and uncle who used to own a restaurant (of course they did – they’re greek aren’t they?).

My kinda-sorta recipe for Spanakopita

1 packages of frozen spinach
8oz of feta
garlic powder
sea salt
pepper
melted butter
Phyllo

Preheat oven to 350F. Follow microwave directions for spinach. Add feta and chop at the feta until its a broken up and evenly mixed throughout. Add garlic, salt and pepper to taste (I used TONS of garlic always).
If making triangles, simply fold into triangles (good folding instructions are at Judicial Peach) lay on parchment lined cookie sheet and brush each with melted butter. If making pie, lay 4-5 layers of phyllo on bottom of large casserole dish, brush with butter, top with even coating of spinach mixture and more phyllo. repeat until all mixture is gone and end with phyllo and brush with butter.
Bake triangles 7-10 minutes, bake pie for around 15 minutes.

I don’t want to hear any excuses about not trying spanakopita.
hate cooked spinach? guess what! I DESPISE cooked spinach with a passion
afraid phyllo is hard to deal with? don’t be, just take your time and you’ll be fine

I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t like this stuff, and I’ve made spanakopita for my entire family as well as all of the staff at the restaurant I used to work at and my bible study group – you have to be crazy to not like this stuff.

Butcher & Singer with a side of Zocalo

After a lovely afternoon of laying around at my grandparents house me and Frank decided to go up to Philly for some “grub.” So I tried to make myself presentable and threw on a dress and switched all my stuff over to a different purse. It wasn’t until half way there I realized I forgot my camera. tsk tsk. oh well.

We decided to re-visit one of our favorites from the past – Butcher & Singer

Whether you like stephen starr or not, you have to admit, the guy really does have a knack for making you feel like your somewhere else completely. You feel almost like you walk right into a 1920’s steakhouse and it successfully makes you want to have a glass of whisky and a big ol’ cigar (well, not really, but you know what I mean). The high ceilings, the decor and crazy chandiliers, even the all out black and white tailcoat waiters attire. The best though would have to be a tie between the painting of dogs having drinks at a bar or the incredibly quirky ladies’ and men’s rooms signs on the restroom doors. It’s a fun experience and the food is really quite good.

Like I said, this was actually our second time going so we already had some things in mind to try this time.
To start I got a french onion soup. Besides forgetting it was topped with cheese and having to screape it off to try to save myself from severe stomach pains later, it was very good soup. The broth was to die for – delicious
The first time around Frank had Filet Mignon with Mashed Potatoes (both very good), this time he switched the filet for the porterhouse. I actually tried a piece because of how good he said it was, and I have to agree. I’m not a huge steak fan in general, but it was so tender with a lot of flavor and almost perfect in my opinion (although I’m not steak-expert like Frank is).
I actually decided to go with the same entree as last time, which was the Butcher salad. It’s a fairly basic salad although it had strips of salami in it and little bits of cheese (which I forgot about). I remember be in love with it last time we went but it was fairly disapointing this time. I know! It’s just a salad – what could possibly go wrong? I have no idea what changed but it didn’t seem the same at all to me. I did have a side of mushrooms as well and they were good.

Last time we went we shared the chocoalte cake which was phenomenal, I remember. But this time we decided to wait to have dessert so Frank could get his favorite chocolate cake in the entire world (which is actually technically a torte) and I could see my old friends at the restaurant I used to work at when I was living in west Philly.

Zocalo is a really authentic mexican restaurant with some truly delicious food. Now you might think I’m just saying that because I used to work there and I still have friends there, but really – I do not like mexican food but I always enjoyed my meals in the back room or shoved in a corner of the kitchen at Zocalo. It’s been there for over 20 years now and the head chef/owner has worked there since it opened and just bought it over a few years back, and his wife is right from mexico so it’s stayed true both to it’s past as well as being just really authentic.

If you go during dinner please for goodness sakes do not ask for a taco. This is not taco bell, its a restaurant. I highly recommend one of the Molcajete Cuanajo or the Cochinita Pibil (really though, everything is great and I’m not just brainwashed to say that). As for desserts the chocolate torte is phenomenal and the Holjadre de Chocolate (or just “the chocolate puff pastry”) is also a favorite of everyone who tries it. My favorite drink there is definitely the Tamrind margarita and second favorite is a paloma. I gotta give it to their fabulous dinner bartender (who just happens to be a BFF lol) she’s been doing it a while now and is great at it (and I’m really not just saying that – I swear!).

in review – go. try it. love it. and say hi to gabby for me.

Wedding Weekend

I don’t think most people realize how draining weddings are even when it’s your job to plan them. Even with a couple of weddings under my belt and only assisting on the ceremony and reception (this particular wedding had an after-party as well) I was still completely exhausted with feet and back aching not just that night but the entire day following. Even Judy, who’d been coordinating weddings and huge events for years now with hundreds and hundreds on her resume, she says she feels the same way after afterwards:
completely drained.

Even with the sore feet and necessary 24hour nap following, I love helping coordinate everything. There’s a definite rush to it and seeing everything come together beautifully in the end is an amazing feeling.

I didn’t meet Lisa & Rob until their wedding on saturday but was involved in helping with the planning on their wedding for months and even designed their menus for the reception. They are such an amazing couple. Even with all of the things they went through during their planning process they are such great people and could not have been better people to help their wedding-day dreams come true.

I just wanted to share a few of the photos that the super talented Adrienne from Element Photography got.

The ceremony and recception were both held at Marsha Brown’s Restaurant in New Hope, PA. The restaurant used to be a church which made it so interesting and unique.

You’d never guess I was running around fixing tables as guests were coming up the stairs, huh?

I am becoming a semi-professional candy-bar designer from all these wedding recently.

Don’t you love this photo Adrienne got of the couple? so cute.

Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Apple Buttercream

I was sooooooooooo excited to find out this month’s cupcake hero ingredient – PEANUT BUTTER (or any kind of nut/soy butter). But I thought Peanut Butter?! Peanut butter is good with EVERYTHING! I automatically thought of some of the basic staples, PB&J (been done before – over and over again!), Peanut Butter and chocolate (also super delicious but constantly overdone as well). hmmmmmm.

So I got to thinking about my favorite ways to eat peanut butter and DUH! PEANUT BUTTER AND APPLES (the best snack EVER!).

It was so basic and so simple and after some thorough google-searching I found no recipes or anything like this done for a cupcake, so it was a no-brainer. I decided to go with a basic peanut butter cupcake recipe and try my hand at “inventing” an apple buttercream.

The end result was delicious. The actual cupcake held its shape and didn’t crumble all over the place as you bit into it, it was definitely peanut buttery-y but not over the top, it was just enough. I also made it with whole-wheat flour and all-natural PB, YUM!

The icing – there were a few problems. I am amerture-baker as they get and probably shouldn’t even attempt “inventing” things but I’m just that kind of girl :-) anywho, I LOVED the flavor of the icing, so good! but it was not as…stable? as I’d have liked it to be. You had to just kind of slap it on top – not much for looks, and I love pretty cupcakes so that was a little annoying.

all in all though, it was rockin’