The Croque-Madame

I had heard of the croque-monsieur sandwich often in the past year or so.. apparently it's making the rounds in the foodie-blog world, since that's where I discover many foods I'd never heard of before. It sounded intriguing, something I might want to try one day, but nothing to add to the MUST MAKE list. I mean seriously, it's a grilled ham & cheese sammie. No big whoop. And then I was going through some magazine last week - for the life of me I can't remember what it was called - and saw this photo of the most awesome looking sandwich I'd ever seen. It had a fried egg on top! I don't think I've ever spoke of my obsession? fascination? complete and utter GLEE when it comes to the fried egg, specifically the yolk. But there's a twist. Yes, I love fried eggs for breakfast (or dinner) with the usual accoutrements - buttered toast, sausage or bacon, hashbrowns, you know.. heart attack on a plate? :) But this obsession - fascination - complete and utter glee that I feel when I see something topped with a friend egg, that normally wouldn't be topped with an egg.. I just.. can't find the words without sounding gross. Salivate upon seeing oozing yolk is what it is, but frankly, I just grossed myself out by saying that. Salivate and oozing really shouldn't be in the same sentence. Hopefully you yolk lovers out there will get where I'm coming from.. if not.. maybe try to block out what you've just read by closing your eyes tightly and singing LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU MISS GROSS-Y MCGROSSTER extremely loudly until the images go away. :P It was the mental vision of a crispy baked sammie loaded with cheese and that broken yolk oozing (I can't stop with the fakkin oozing! Someone give me a better word for crissakes - and don't say "runny" cuz that squicks me out too!) down the side of it that had me in such a tizz.. hell it could have been a rabbit turd & peat moss sandwich and I would have been drooling all because of that egg. I once saw a salad made of greens, roasted sweet potato chunks and a big old fried egg on top and although I haven't made it YET, I still drool over the thought of it. A salad with roasted chunks of sweet potato for crissakes? All because of that ooz glorious fried egg. Anyhoo... As I read the intro to the recipe and realized it was a croque-monsieur with a fried egg thrown on top, the sandwich jettisoned to the MUST MAKE list tout de suite. So I ripped the pages out, brought it home to show hubbs and he agreed, we needed to have this for dinner ASAP. Basically, if ya'll haven't heard of the croque-monsieur, it's ham & cheese (usually gruyère or emmental) between two slices of bread that have been slathered with a bechamel sauce, and then more cheese on top. It's baked until the edges are lightly browned and the cheese is melty and bubbly. Once it comes out of the oven, you slap a fried egg on top to create the croque-madame, throw a nice salad next to it and call it heaven on a plate. I made a few changes to the recipe. I couldn't find the jambon de Paris ham it called for, so I used prosciutto. I'm not a big bechamel sauce by itself kinda gal, so I decided to doctor it up by tossing in a couple generous handfuls of gruyère (I still had quite a bit left over from the bread) and just the barest peench of ground mustard. I used a loaf of French miche, which I bought at Panera - miche, I assume, means fakking huge. It's a very large square loaf of French bread just perfect for grilling, baking, toasting and of course, making a croque-madame. :) Hubbs made a cucumber, tomato, olive & red onion salad in balsamic vinaigrette to go with and I think that's really a must. At least for us.. this sammie is rich, kids. It definitely needs a salad or other light side with it. I had considered frying potatoes & onions, making our dinner more breakfast-like, but am glad that I didn't. So who doesn't like a ham & cheese sammie, eh? I like them, they are O.K., not my favorite but I've eaten many in my day. Who hasn't? Feel about the same way? Kinda meh? Yeah well.. make this kicked up hot ham & cheese sandwich and I doubt you'll ever go back to the usual. We were both amazed at how good this was. Admittedly, the prosciutto wasn't the right ham. It was too salty, but that still didn't take away much from the sandwich in whole. And it was fun to eat a "gourmet" hot ham & cheese with a fork & knife! I suppose you could pick it up and eat it as you would any other sammie, but it'd be kinda messy.. but hey, if that's your thing, go for it. ;) I urge you all to go out and buy a good ham that's not too salty, a big chunk of gruyère or emmental (I'm sure Swiss would be just fine) and a dozen eggs and get to making this for your dinner this week - and then throw it into your rotation every once in a while. It's a bit of a splurge both in price and calories, but you won't be sorry after you take that first bite. Trust me. SO. FAKKIN. GOOD. Croque Monsieur or Madame Serves 4 For Bechamel sauce: 3 TBS. butter 1/4 c. all-purpose flour 3 c. whole milk (I used fat-free and it came out just fine) Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg Salt & white ground pepper to taste For the sandwiches: 8 slices high-quality bread. (the recipe called for "Pullman" loaf, I used French) sliced 1/3 to 1/2 inch thick. 12 oz. thinly sliced jambon de Paris (high quality wet-cured ham, not too salty) 10 oz. Gruyère cheese, coarsely grated 4 whole eggs (for the madame) Over low heat, in a small saucepan, melt butter then whisk in flour until blended. Continue to whisk while pouring in milk to avoid lumps. Continue to cook, stirring constantly until thickened. This should take about 10 minutes. (If you are only making enough for 2 the sauce thickened within 2 minutes) Once thickened, season with nutmeg, salt & pepper. (This is where I added a couple handfuls of grated gruyère and the smallest pinch of ground mustard) Take off heat, set aside. The recipe says you can make the bechamel sauce up to 24 hours early. Place plastic wrap directly on the sauce so it won't form a skin, then refrigerate. Gently reheat a few minutes before you are going to use it. Preheat the oven to 400º F. Place the 8 slices of bread in a single layer on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Spread the bechamel sauce evenly to the edges of all the slices (you may not need all of the bechamel). Divide ham between only 4 slices covered with bechamel, keeping the ham within 1/4 inch of the edges. Top all 8 slices with equal amounts of grated gruyère cheese, again spreading it evenly within 1/4 inch of the edges. Place the 4 slices with bechamel and cheese (cheese side up!) on top of the slices layered with ham. Bake until cheese topping is melted and golden brown about 10 to 15 minutes (it took about 20 minutes in my oven) To make the croque-madame, fry 4 eggs sunny-side up (I went with over easy, because egg slime is A VERY BAD THING) and place one on top of each sandwich. Sprinkle with salt & pepper and serve immediately. xoxo

OHMYGOD - Where's The Flaccid Sea Creature??

Kids! I don't know what the hell has possessed me, but I've baked. And not for a Daring Baker's challenge, either. I baked on my own. WTF? Here's what I'm thinking.. ya'll should run out and buy lots of bottled water, saltine crackers, canned goods and toilet paper (never be without toilet paper!!). Dig yourself an underground shelter in the back yard and prepare yourself for some kind of natural disaster. I don’t bake unless it’s a DB challenge! Something bad is surely going to happen! And bread! Lord almighty I NEVER bake bread on a whim or on my own - NEVER. This disaster is going to be a doozy – I’m tellin’ yas! Wait.. don’t go getting all panic stricken just yet. I still have my usually long ass story to tell. Come back. Sit down. Join me in a glass (or twelve) of your favorite alcoholic beverage.. believe me, it’ll calm those shaking hands. Or is it just my hands that are shaking? Whatev. Anyhoo, something made me finally bake THIS RECIPE again. Go look. Because if you don't go look you won't understand what a wonderment this baking adventure was. Seriously. GO. LOOK. Did I lie? Is that not the most frightening things you've ever seen? It's like science fiction and pornography combined. And I ate those bad boys. All 4 of them. In like a week. If even. It was the best damn cheesy bread I've ever had and at that juncture in my life I didn't think anything could be as good as Panera's Asiago bread. But those 4 cheesy baked monstrosities were phenomenal. I kept saying that I would make them again.. but baking is sooooooooo fakking stressful for me. The Baking Gods hate my ever-livin guts. They laugh at me at every occasion. They mock me at the drop of a hat. They sneer and point at me while whispering behind my back. I don't know what the fakk I ever did to piss them off, but I obviously did. And now, what? 2 years later? Something possesses me to make them again. I made the starter last Thursday night. I was unsure how far ahead you can make a starter, so I enlisted the advice of my bread baking guru, Mary. She told me I can make it a few days ahead, which eased some pressure as I knew I wanted to make it this weekend, but was unsure of the exact day. HAR! Yeah.. in other words - how long could I procrastinate before my started died and I chickened out? Gah. Well.. come to find out the Baking Gods were watching - AS PER FUCKING USUAL. You see, the recipe calls for instant yeast. I didn't even comprehend that.. I used active yeast. So after 15+ hours (I had to work on Friday), it hadn't gotten very bubbly and pretty much looked just like a wad of dough. Not good. So I got on the King Arthur website and with an expert. It was immediately pointed out that I used the wrong yeast. Duh. I thanked her and then realized… Baking Gods – 1 / Lisa – BIGFATFUCKINGZERO. I didn't have instant yeast, so I sweet talked my beloved Hubbs into running out to get me some. Bless his cotton socks. Soon I had the correct yeast and more bread flour. I started again - this time around 6 a.m. Saturday morning. I figured it’d be good to go around 2ish that afternoon, then I’d make the dough and allow it to rise until Sunday morning. Way longer than what’s called for, but I’ve read that if you let your dough rise for a long time, the better the flavor of the bread.. and hell, any excuse to actually put off baking it. Yeah, the memory of the smoke detector going off and black billowy smoke spewing from my oven the last time I made this bread was pretty damn strong. Well my powers of procrastination are pretty damn.. uhmm.. powerful. I managed to conveniently “forget” the starter on Saturday afternoon. And Saturday night. On Sunday morning I remembered it and said to myself, “Hey dipshit, you need to make the bread today.” And then I blocked it out again. I had plans with my girlie friends to go shopping at Trader Joe’s.. and I’ve been out of Tejava tea for a month. Nectar of the (non-baking) Gods, I tell ya! So my mind was conveniently “elsewhere”. :P When I got home Sunday afternoon, I put away the groceries, poured myself a big glass of tea and got the flour out. I was going to make the dough! Go me! Making the dough took roughly 5 minutes. Mmmm hmm… 5 whole fakking minutes of my time. A spare 5 minutes that I just couldn’t seem to find all day Saturday and most of Sunday. You see this is how my mind works. And believe me, I know I ain’t right. Knowing full well how delicious the bread would end up, I still did everything I could to drag my big fat feet in making it. It’s like I’m a glutton for my own punishment. What. The. Freeg? Before I went to bed Sunday night, I punched the dough down because obviously I wasn’t going to make the bread. Today was a rare morning.. I actually woke up after my husband. That happens maybe twice a year? And I’m usually sick.. but whatev, I woke up later and the first thing out of his mouth wasn’t the usual grumble-speak “mrn’ng” or even “is the princess FINALLY up?” it was, “My goodness, doesn’t that freshly baked bread smell delicious?” What an ass. This was his way of telling me that the dough had been sitting out far too long and if I was going to bake bread then I better shit or get off the pot. Visual there.. sorry. Moving along.. A lovely collage of basically the same photo of the mini loaves/buns.. *slurp* I finally made my bread today. FOUR days after making the first batch of starter. FOUR. I had made two batches of dough so that I could make the mini “loaves” and a couple regular sized loaves. This time I cut the mini loaves much thinner.. and they came out more like bun size, which was perfect. Smaller means that the insides can’t rise out from the base reminiscent of the alien bursting out of that guy’s chest. I didn’t make flaccid geoduck/penis this time. They turned out bakery beautiful! I was AMAZED. I know today is a holiday for us in the US, but uhmm.. is this also a holiday for the Baking Gods? Or did I just take so damn long that I fooled them into believing that I’d never actually bake the dough?? Either way.. it all turned out great! Even the regular sized loaves, which I was unsure of because I hadn’t attempted that last time. Today is a day to mark on the books. Today I BEAT THE SHITE out of the Baking Gods. Today I made myself proud. Today something horrible is going to happen.. so really now.. get off your asses and start digging up your back yard. You can thank me for the head’s up after it’s all over. ;) xoxo

What Happens When a Bakeanista Crosses a Geoduck and a Flaccid uhh..

penis? Well she gets the best damn cheesy bread she's ever had.. YES you heard me, PANERA. It blows your Asiago bread right outta the water! Last weekend, in between our monthly trip to the West Side Market and Trader Joe's, plus a jaunt to the local greenhouse for the biggest basket of purple & white petunias we could find for Mommie's Day.. was a late blooming starter, lots of flour and even more CHEESE. The newly named "Bakeanistas" got together again for a day of baking and chit chatting on Skype. Wondering who the Bakeanistas are? Just a fantabulous group of sexy women including Mary, Sara, Ivonne, Helene, Laura Rebecca, Kelly and Stephanie - oh and me! Wondering what cheesy bread it was that we baked? Check out this step by step tutorial for Gruyère-Stuffed Crusty Loaves and the recipe can be found here. Knowing full well that this recipe called for a starter that was to be made the night before, I sent out a call for help from my other Bakeanista sisters - "SOMEONE PLEASE REMIND ME TO MAKE MY STARTER ON FRIDAY NIGHT!!" I knew damn well that without a reminder, I'd completely forget to make it. And because these ladies are AWESOME, I received, not one but TWO reminders on Friday to make my starter that night. PHEW! Thank goodness for reminders! Have I ever told ya'll about the two month period last year that I left Nigel at home on his grooming days? If I did tell ya'll that story - do you remember how I stuck post-it notes on the front door, the door to the kennel that Nigel and his sister, Chloe, sleep in during the mornings AND the post-it I stuck on the inside of my car windshield? Okay well, admittedly, I didn't stick the post it on the windshield until the 2nd month, since I had forgotten him the prior month. And do ya'll remember how I got 3/4's of the way to work when I realized that my goreous son was still sitting at home wondering WTF? Mmm hmm.. I woke up Saturday morning - BAKING MORNING - like I normally do (at the butt-crack of dawn), made my coffee, let the kids out for their morning constitutional, filled up assorted doggie and kitty food & water bowls, sat down at the PC with lists upon lists of things that needed to be taken care of.. and promptly blowing said lists off so I could read new email.. when at six bells this shudder of terror crept down my spine. HOLY SHIT I FORGOT TO MAKE THE STARTER LAST NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank God, Thank God, Thank God, and Hail Mary, I knew I couldn't start baking until later than the rest of the gals because of the monthly grocery shopping extravaganza. So I bound down the hallway, bouncing off walls, to the kitchen and slapped that shite together. I noticed how dry it was and was kinda taken aback, as every starter I've had to make (hehe every.. like I've made TWO now and one of those died a horrible death that I try not to think about) has been spongy and wet. But oh well.. no time to dwell! I put her in a warm place and went about my usual morning routine and then left for shopping with Hubbs. I didn't get to participate in much chit chat this month, which was a bummer because I missed all talk of vajayjays, exploding mammories and other unsavory topics that usually trip my trigger. Dammit. So in between TJ's and the greenhouse, we stopped home to unload the car and I made the dough. Left it to rise while we visited my mommie and when I got home I rolled it out and filled it with cheese, then rolled it up into a considerably long log. Another hour or so later, I cut the log up into 4 "mini" loaves (so not mini!) and pulled apart the outer layers so the cheesy goodness would have plenty of room to bubble up and out like the most delicious lava from a volcano I've ever seen. Into the oven they went and back to the office I went to chat with Kelly and Mary for a bit.. I was also doing something else, but I can't recall what it was at this moment. Regardless of what it was, it wasn't too long after my cheesy volcanos went into the oven that I started to smell an all too familiar scent when I'm baking bread.. smoke. Dear sweet jebus the smoke alarm went off next. Gah. I ran to the kitchen to find puffs of billowy black smoke emerging from the back of my oven - WHAT THE FUCK, BAKING GODS??? CAN YOU GIVE ME A BREAK JUST ONCE???? I took the loaves out and was more than alarmed to see that they had morphed into what can only be explained as a cross between a geoduck and a man's flaccid hoo-haw. I KID YOU NOT, kids. The Baking Gods were having another belly bustin laugh spree at my expense ONCE AGAIN. Helene's vajayjay-looking bread had nothing on these pornographic sea monsters. Oh hells no. I ran back down the hallway in a frightened panic (you always know when I've been baking - that frightened panic takes over) and pounded out the words on my keyboard to Mary.. "OHMYGOD THERE'S SMOKE EVERYWHERE AND MY BREAD LOOKS LIKES LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF DEBBIE DOES DALLAS - HELP!!!" Mary calmly asked how high my oven was (425º as per instructions) and then recalled that I had a hot spot in my oven from when she was here back in October of 2007 - so she advised me to turn down the oven to 375º, and put them back in. They might take longer to bake, but at least they'd stop smoking. And the funny thing was.. the loaves, other than their embarrassing appearance, weren't burning.. nor was the cheese erupting from them like.. well.. GAH we will not discuss what the oozing cheese looked like - but the oven itself was smoking. So I did as she said and by the time I got back to the office, she and Kelly and I think Helene was there at that point, came up with a couple conclusions.. I had sprayed cooking spray on the parchment paper (no, didn't do that) - my oven was smoking because it might have just been cleaned and the heat was causing the residual cleaner to smoke (BINGO!). These gals are so smuckin' fart! :D Hubbs had cleaned the oven out with soap and water a couple days before and it looked as if a lil soap residue was still there. PHEW. The rest of the baking process went beautifully - it did take an extra 10 minutes for them to bake through, but I was rewarded with the most AWESOME tasting cheesy bread that I've ever had. The outside had just the right crispiness, the inside was soft and gooey and the flavor.. ohhhh the flavor! Gruyère is the BEST cheese to bake with, in my humble opinion. This is one of those recipes that I can not recommend enough. The dough was a snap to make and very easy to work with.. not sticky at all and it rolled out beautifully. Now it might not be the prettiest loaf of cheesy bread ever, but that just adds to the rustic charm of it. We (and by "we" I mean ME) inhaled the first loaf that afternoon.. I shared the 2nd loaf with him the following day and froze the other two.. they did not last longer than a week as I just toasted up the last of it this past Monday. My only advice to you would be to either double - nay triple - this recipe so you've got plenty in the freezer to get you through until next cheesy bread baking day. ;) Thanks so much to my sexy bread bakin' mamas - I can't wait for the next Bakeanistas adventure! Love you all SO MUCH! :) xoxo PS - Sorry that my post is a couple days late.. but the good news is I can sit for almost an hour now without having to request help to get outta my chair! hahahaa! Fakkin' sciatica. Gah. xoxo

Everything is Better on a Stick!

So I'm on this diet lifestyle change.. I recently hit 40 and well.. I think it's starting to hit me that I'm no longer on the uphill climb, but rather on my way downhill. Not that it's a bad thing, just makes me realize that if I don't really get serious, the next 40 years are going to be miserable. I don't like miserable. Yanno? The diet lifestyle change has been going okay.. lil iffy in spots, but rather well - surprisingly well in other areas. Such as cutting out all sugar. I KNOW. I can't believe I'm saying this let alone living it. But it's a true story.. no sugar, no chocolate.. and.. okay well.. some of you might want to look away for a minute, what I'm about to say next is not going to be pretty.       No butter. ***crickets***     Tell me. I've most assuredly lost my everfluffin' mind. I'm now all about low-fat cheeses and reduced fat mayo, olive and canola oil in place of my beloved butter.. fish and ground turkey - salads and fresh fruit.. dear sweet jebus somebody hold me. So knowing myself as well as I do, I knew there'd be no fakkin way I could make this challenge without inhaling half of it. I mean c'mon.. it's cheesecake on a freakin' stick. Covered in chocolate. It's Brilliance in the form of a lollipop is what it is. I'm weak and only human.. and as a co-founder of this amazing group, well I knew I had to take one for the team and get all of my cream cheese bricks and chopped chocolates in a row, if yanno what I mean. And I think that you do. I threw on an apron so that my thighs, hips and ass wouldn't see what I was about to do and got to it. This started as a New York style cheesecake.. no crust. It's just creamy heavenly cheesecake baked until just set - frankly, one of THE BEST cheesecakes I've ever had. And the recipe was really easy.. this is a time consuming and kinda messy recipe, but all in all, no problems and I really enjoyed making them. I kept 90% of them at 2 ounces.. but after counting 35 of them and still having a boatload of cheesecake left, I took out my big star cookie cutter and made a few big whammer jammers.. those I used for quality control. Because our Daring Bakers mean the world to me and I'd do anything to protect them, including eating a giant star shaped cheesecake lollipop double dipped in first peanut butter coating and then dark chocolate to make sure they were NOT poisonous. Well I am here today to tell my story, so I guess we can all assume the cheesecake is safe for consumption! (Actually, they are more than just safe... they are BIG DEE - lil licious) :D These cute lollies were brought to our attention by two of the sweetest and most kind hearted women that I've had the pleasure of meeting, Elle from Feeding My Enthusiasms and Deborah of Taste and Tell. Excellent choice, gals! Thank you so much! Elle and Deborah found the recipe in Jill O'Connor's Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey: Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth. By this recipe alone, this book has got to be good! Ya'll must give the blogroll a good clickin' this month, the creativity used in making these pops - both in flavoring and decorating - is going to blow ya'll away! Bake on Daring Bakers! Bake on! :D xoxo

What Makes our Toes Curl?

The Kitchen of Love in this household is open 24/7.. 99% of the time the foods both myself and Hubbs prepare are foods that the other loves, and we're thinking about each other when we cook. True story. (awwwwwww) I keep him pretty informed of the goings on in my blogging life, because he likes to help out when he can and he loves to give suggestions on what I should make for certain events. He also enjoys mocking me when it comes to the food I want to highlight on my blog. For instance, he's just tickled - to the point of giggling - when he cooks something, uhmm.. mundane. You know.. a pb&j sammich, a bowl of cereal, or when he opens up a can of his favorite corned beef hash - he'll plate it up and then ask where my camera is so he can take pictures. He'll search through the veggie crisper of the fridge until he finds the perfect twig of parsley to lay on top of his peanut butter & blueberry jam sammich. And then to top the mockery off.. after he's finished eating his "creation" he'll jump up and exclaim, "I need to go blog about this!" Yeah I know.. you'd think I fell in love with a stand up comedian, eh? (this is where I'm rolling my eyes) But mostly he's very supportive of my blogging and really does love to get involved. So when I told him about "Peaches'" aphrodisiac-ally wonderful event called Kitchen of Love he decided to do a lil research to find some foods labeled as aphrodisiacs so he could choose which tripped his trigger, so to speak. Ohh if you're wondering who Peaches is - well that's the simply gorgeous and incredibly sweet Chris of Mele Cotte. She's known as Peaches in this house due to the fact that she came to my aid a few months ago when I was craving a good peach and sent me a big box of the most delicious peaches I've ever had. So Hubbs dubbed her "Peaches". :) Anyhoo.. when he came to me with the foods he thought we should make, I wasn't surprised to see he chose vegetables. The man loves his veggies. He chose sweet potatoes and asparagus - which just happen to be two of my most favorite veggies as well, so this worked out nicely. Since he's a "meat and potatoes" kinda guy, we decided to pan fry a couple beef tenderloin steaks while we roasted the veggies. There is no recipe in this post, kids. It's a pretty simple preparation - and in my opinion simple preparations for veggies are always so much better than long, involved recipes. Here's what you do.. pick a nice bunch of asparagus - try to buy the thinnest you can find. Seriously. There is nothing better IN THIS WORLD than roasted thin asparagus - it gets crunchy and nutty.. it's like eating the best "good for you" French fries in alla world. If asparagus wasn't so expensive throughout most of the year, we'd probably eat it more than potatoes. It's that good. Okay so you've got your bunch of asparagus. Trim off the woody ends, although you don't need to trim a lot off for roasting because they will get really tender. Now arrange them on a cookie sheet in a single layer and then drizzle some good olive oil over them. Add a generous sprinkling of either kosher or sea salt (we love sea salt) over them and then give them a lil shuzz to coat them well and pop 'em into a preheated 425º F oven for about 18 minutes. When the timer goes off, flip 'em over and roast for another 10-15 minutes. *swoon* The stalks get melt in your mouth tender and the tips crunch up.. OH MY GOD they are SO GOOD - and from the reaction that he and I have every time we eat our asparagus this way, completely defines why this vegetable is known as an aphrodisiac. 'kay well not in the way it was meant to be defined.. but we get all melty, shuddery, toe curling-ly happy when we get to indulge in these babies. ;) Now the sweet potatoes.. same prep exactly although they don't need quite as long in the oven - you can give these a flip after about 10-15 minutes and then take them out after an additional 5 to 10. I guess it really depends on how big you chunk them. Less time in the oven for the smaller chunks. He eats his plain, but the lily gilder over here likes to drizzle a little honey over her sweet spuds and sometimes a sprinkle of Vietnamese cinnamon knocks her socks off too. ;) The steaks were prepared simply as well. Seasoned with sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper only, they were pan fried in a little olive oil and butter combo until they were a buttery tender medium rare. We could almost cut these steaks with our forks.. and talk about flavorful. A good tenderloin, with a nice marble of fat throughout, was just the perfect accompaniment to our roasted veggies. After dinner last night there was definitely some purring going on in our living room.. we were both very happy campers to say the very least. ;) And by happy campers, I mean we both passed out in a fuzzy fog of satisfaction about 20 minutes after we ate.. what the hell were you expecting? We're an old married couple. :P What a great idea for a foodie event, Chris - thank you so much for hosting, my love! And I apologize for being late, but am very happy you agreed to sneak me in. You rock, Peaches! :D xoxo

OH NO!!

Okay.. Right now, Ivonne and I are going over the submissions to La Festa al Fresco 2007 (thanks everyone!) And she's sending me the submissions that were sent to just her and I'm looking at these and noticing that quite a few were originally also sent to my lamiacucina67@gmail.com account - BUT I NEVER GOT THEM! So.. for shits and giggles, I decide to go check out the gmail.com website (I have my lamiacucina67 email forwarded to another email address so I can get my mail in the email program I use) and I click on the SPAM box which holds over 1,000 emails.. to my HORROR not only do I find all these wonderful submissions - plus other's that were sent only to me.. but TONS of requests to join the Daring Bakers!! I AM SO SORRY!!! Holy crap all I can think about is all of you wonderful people who I never responded to, getting together and forming a posse to come beat my ass while calling me all kinds of bad names for being so rude to you!! Okay so yeah, I know no one is out there forming a posse.. you wouldn't do that would you?? :P But honestly, I am so very, very sorry I never got these e-mails. I ALWAYS reply - it might take a bit, but I always do reply. And I will reply to each and every one of you who sent something to me. Although it's going to take a bit to get through them all. Now, here's what's even worse.. until today, every month or so (sometimes 2 or more months - eek!) I'd go check the spam box on that website and simply hit the DELETE ALL without going through them because I had such high regard for Gmail and it's filters. I rarely get any spam from that account but I never stopped to think, "What else am I not getting?" UGH. I feel horrible.. I've had my lamiacucina67@gmail.com now for well over a year.. so if any of you who wrote me before uhh.. July? and didn't get a reply, I'm really not rude! I swear! Write me again! Or leave me a comment and I promise to get back to you! I will be checking the spam account EVERY DAY FROM HERE ON OUT. I promise! To those who had requested to be in the Daring Bakers.. we'll get you all in October, okay? I'll be writing to you shortly. =) Again, I'm so sorry this has happened. xoxo