Kevin and I just got back from spending some time during the holidays with our family in New York. We arrived in New York on Christmas Day, and returned back to Ohio today. Christmas time with my family is always a huge production organized by my parents. They would start preparing food early in the morning, continue making more as needed throughout the day, and then rally everyone together to enjoy the fruits of their labor in the evening. There is no set time for when dinner begins. Our family and friends arrive throughout the day starting at noon and ending late into the evening. There are constantly dishes of wings, spareribs, fresh fruit, vegetables, snacks, cookies, and holiday treats placed on a buffet style layout for family and friends to enjoy whenever they please. Each year, on Christmas morning, I would prepare the dough to make a pumpkin spice gingerbread house, chill the dough, cut out the shapes, and bake the components before preparing the royal icing, and assembling the house. This year, I was short on time, and did not get a chance to continue the pumpkin spice gingerbread house tradition. Instead, I was tasked with making tons of chocolate chip cookies and holiday bark. You can read more about my holiday adventures in New York here. Holiday bark is a treat I started making last year after my colleague brought in some simple white chocolate and pretzel bark to share with our office. Her version featured pieces of crunchy pretzels sprinkled throughout the melted white chocolate. I loved the idea and made my first batch for family during the holidays in New York last year. This year, I made holiday bark again featuring dried cranberries, pistachios, and crunchy pretzels. I saved half of the batch to serve during our holiday party and reserved the rest to gift to family and friends during home visits throughout the week. I brought some over during my visit to see Xin and her baby, gifted some to Ada and Colleen when we had our get together, and saved a few pieces for my dad to share with his colleagues. Holiday bark makes for a great simple homemade gift to give to others during the holiday season. Better yet, it can be packaged and given to guests as a take home treat at the end of the evening.
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Graduation, Holiday Activities, and Decorating Buttercream
It’s official. I graduated on Friday with my certificate in public and nonprofit leadership from OSU. Kevin took the day off from work and traveled to attend my graduation on campus. We arrived on campus shortly before 9:00 a.m. and proceeded up the stairs of Page Hall into the policy forum section of the building. Kevin took a seat near the back. I joined my classmates at the reserved rows near the front. We all chit chatted for a bit before the ceremony started. Once the ceremony began, each of us took turns going up to retrieve our certificate. The ceremony lasted for about an hour. Right after the ceremony, we all snapped photos and enjoyed some light refreshments before parting ways. Kevin and I did stick around campus for just a bit to explore some of the sites on campus. Kevin was more excited to go to lunch at Hot Chicken Takeover at North Market, so we headed down to North Market after a short stay on campus. Hot chicken at Hot Chicken Takeover is a dish Kevin orders whenever he is in Columbus. North Market has a lot of great food options, but we usually head straight up the stairs to wait in line for hot chicken. I always go for the warm spice level, while Kevin pushes boundaries to test a hotter spice level each time. Shortly after lunch, we made our way back home. I had to stop by the supermarket to pick up some groceries, and then head home to prepare for the upcoming holiday activities. Court had her annual holiday cookie decorating on Friday night. I stopped by for a bit to help decorate and bake some of Grandma Wetzel’s sand tarts. The recipe for the sand tart cookies was a family tradition in Court’s home. She makes the cookies every year and always invites a bunch of us over to help with the rolling, brushing, sprinkling, baking, and decorating of the cookies. I was exhausted by 9:00 p.m. after all of the festivities on Friday, and headed back home shortly after. The next day, I had to run some errands in the morning and prepare the cake I signed up to bring along for our friendgiving/Christmas party in the evening. I had baked up a chocolate cake with strawberry frosting earlier in the week in my final lab class of my professional baking class. I chilled the cake in the refrigerator until I was ready to start decorating the cake. Usually, when I make buttercream, the only fat I use is unsalted butter. However, after making buttercream in my professional baking class, I learned adding in shortening can help stabilize the buttercream, which makes it easier for the decorations to hold on the cake.
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Thanksgiving Festivities and Apple Medley Pie
Thanksgiving Day 2019 has come and gone, but the fantastic food is here to stay. My family arrived early on Thanksgiving Day in the midst of my early morning cooking. The madness in the kitchen ensued shortly thereafter. After almost the entire morning and afternoon cooking and baking, Thanksgiving dinner was ready to be served by early afternoon. Mom and aunt joined me in the kitchen with peeling and prepping vegetables the moment they stepped foot into our home. Dad got his phone camera ready to capture each and every moment of Thanksgiving chaos. Kevin spent most of the afternoon cheering on Michigan basketball after picking up my family from the airport. By the time my family arrived, the apple medley pie was already baking in the oven. I had prepared three batches of my pie dough recipe the evening before in anticipation of Thanksgiving Day. Two of the pie doughs were reserved for the apple medley pie. One batch of pie dough was reserved for a pumpkin pie (mom’s favorite holiday pie). Our order of operation in the kitchen for Thanksgiving usually starts with the pies, then biscuits, followed by the turkey, sides, and ending with the cranberry sauce and pan gravy. While we were waiting on the turkey and sides to finish up, we arranged the salad, plated the rolls my classmates and I had baked ahead of time in my professional baking class, and touched up the dining table to be camera ready for dad to snap photos of the finished dishes. Thanksgiving Day truly is a big production in our family. We celebrated this year over an oven roasted turkey with pan gravy, green bean casserole, cheesy hash brown potatoes, sausage dressing, apple medley pie, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, salad, and assorted rolls. Everyone was starving by the time all of the food was ready to be served. We all nibbled on some biscuits and rolls as we waited for all of the dishes to finish cooking. The plates came out around 3:00 p.m. and the feast began promptly. The first 20 minutes of dinner was just pure silence, a rare occurrence in our family. You can tell the food is good when no one is speaking a word during the meal. After seven hours of chaos, it’s a welcome change to have some silence. Once the bellies were full, it was time to get to work on the turkey soup for a couple hours before heading out to do some early holiday shopping. Heading out early for shopping also forced us to squeeze in some exercise. With one meal behind us, it was time to start tomorrow’s meals. Typically, I would repurpose some of the leftovers by putting new spins on those dishes, but because we barely had leftovers actually left over, I decided to make some pizza, as a alternative, for my family to enjoy. I prepared a quadruple batch of pizza dough and left it to rise on the cold counter before heading to bed. Since we didn’t have a lot of turkey left, I browned some chicken breasts to use for two BBQ chicken pizzas, spins on my BBQ turkey pizza. I also made a pear, blue cheese, and onion BBQ pizza for the third pie, and a simple chicken with fruit and vegetable pizza for the final pie. The pizza was served with the turkey soup to complete the morning meal. With breakfast done and everyone full, we headed out for a day trip to explore Northern Kentucky.
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Pumpkin Spice Blondies and BLINK Cincinnati 2019
We are in the midst of fall in Ohio. Fall is my favorite season of the year. I love the chill in the air, creative fall fashion, and the warming spices featured in many fall dishes. Pumpkin pie spice is one of my favorite spice blends to use in baked goods. I love sprinkling the spice blend into desserts and drinks. Most of the time, when I’m using pumpkin pie spice in my desserts, I like to pair it with pumpkin puree. Pumpkin puree works wonders as a replacement for eggs in baked goods or as an additional ingredient helping keep desserts moist. Whether it’s a crumb cake, gingerbread house, pancakes, or rolls, I absolutely love finding ways to incorporate pumpkin spice into as many treats as possible around this time of year. Over the weekend, I combined both pumpkin puree and pumpkin spice into yet another one of my favorite treats – blondies. I only make blondies occasionally because they are very indulgent. Out of all of the baked goods I make, blondies are one of Kevin’s favorite baked desserts. He isn’t a huge fan of baked goods, but definitely loves an occasional blondie, cookie, or pastry. Over the years, I put a lot of spins on my traditional brown sugar blondies including a chai tea version. This weekend, I made a vegan version featuring pumpkin spice blend and some pumpkin puree. It’s the perfect long weekend dessert to bake and snack on throughout the weekend. My version of blondies has a fudge like texture and is beyond addicting. I like to pair a piece of blondie with a cup of black tea for an afternoon treat. The tea helps offset the sweetness of the blondie. Kevin snacked on two pieces before I packed the rest away and stored them in the refrigerator. If I left the blondies on the table, I can’t guarantee the blondies would still be there an hour later. Keeping them out of sight at least temporarily keep them out of our minds. We relaxed for the rest of the afternoon before heading to check out BLINK in downtown Cincinnati later in the evening.
Read MoreJuly Celebrations and Candied Bacon
Happy Fourth of July!
My family arrived in Ohio on Tuesday evening. I convinced them to visit me during the week of July 4th because of the festivities in downtown Columbus. I was especially excited to take them to see Red, White & Boom in downtown Columbus. Red, White & Boom is touted as the biggest display of fireworks in the Midwest. I went to see the fireworks last year and had a great time. This year, I wanted to show my family what Ohio has to offer. I ended up having to go to work on July 3rd, so I printed out a map of downtown Columbus, circled a few spots, and let my family wander through the city. When I got off work, I met up with my family at Columbus Commons park. We made a quick stop at Tiger + Lily for dinner before heading to the river walk. My parents and aunt ordered some ramen. I had a vermicelli bowl. After dinner, we dodged the rain, made our way through all of the food stands by the river walk, looped around Cosi, snapped a few pictures along the way, and found our spot right on Front street. Like clockwork, once it was 10:00 p.m., the show began. The fireworks started right on time and did not stop until about 10:26 p.m. My mom, dad, aunt, and I watched the fireworks in awe. After about 5 minutes, the smoke did begin to fill the air. Our eyes remained glued to the fireworks most of the time. My parents’ eyes did alternate between the live fireworks and their phones. They had their phones ready to capture videos and photos of the fireworks display. Once the show ended, my parents headed back to their hotel. I headed back home. Dad kept reliving the moment and watching videos of the fireworks on his phone. Mom sent a few updates to my older brother to let him know what a blast she had. Aunt was just tired and was ready to sleep off her exhaustion. As we parted ways for the evening, my family already started asking what we had planned for July 4th. Well, let’s start with my simple recipe for candied bacon made with just three ingredients – brown sugar, black pepper, and (of course) bacon.
My friend, Paul, introduced me to the joy of candied bacon a few years ago when he brought the most splendid candied bacon to a potluck. He used a combination of maple syrup, brown sugar, Dijon mustard, kosher salt, and cayenne pepper in his version. I just had to share the ingredients for Paul’s wonderful candied bacon with the world because it really was that good. My simplified version only has brown sugar and freshly cracked black pepper, but let me assure you my candied bacon still has all of the amazing flavors you would expect in candied bacon. My candied bacon is sweet, smoky, crispy, salty, and has just a little kick of spice from the freshly cracked black pepper. The bacon was so good, I could not stop myself from eating more. As a warning, the candied bacon is irresistible. If you make too many, you will eat them all in one sitting. I cooked my bacon on a metal rack placed over a large sheet pan. I find this method of cooking bacon to yield the most evenly cooked bacon. The time it takes to cook the bacon depends on the thickness of the bacon, and the temperature of your oven. I cooked my candied bacon in a 350°F oven for 30-45 minutes. I used thick cut bacon and started checking on the bacon after 30 minutes of cooking time. For me, 45 minutes worked best as it yielded extra crispy bacon that had just the right amount of browning. Once the bacon was done cooking in the oven, I let it rest for 15 minutes on the metal rack before serving up the candied bacon in a glass cup. The candied bacon made for such a simple, yummy, and satisfying snack. Now, I need to get started on a red, white, and blue treat to celebrate Independence Day. Wishing you all a happy fourth!
For the Candied Bacon:
· 9 slices of thick cut applewood or hardwood smoked bacon (or as many as you can fit on your metal rack and sheet pan)
· 1-2 tablespoons brown sugar
· 25-30 turns of freshly cracked black pepper, or about a teaspoon
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350°F. Place a metal rack on top of a large sheet pan.
2) Begin laying the thick cut strips of bacon on the metal rack right next to one another. It’s okay to place them right next to each other. Once the bacon starts to cook, it will shrink.
3) Sprinkle on the brown sugar and freshly cracked black pepper on both sides of the bacon strips.
4) Place the sheet pan in the oven and let it cook for 30-45 minutes. Around the 30-minute mark, begin checking on the bacon strips every two minutes. Remove the candied bacon once it reaches your desired doneness.
Takeaways: Candied bacon is a very customizable recipe. You can add some paprika or cayenne pepper to the bacon strips to up the spice factor. If you prefer, you can try Paul’s recipe and coat the thick cut bacon with maple syrup, brown sugar, Dijon mustard, kosher salt, and cayenne pepper before cooking the bacon in the oven. If you stick with some element of sweetness and spice, you can’t go wrong.