One time my mom was making mashed potatoes for dinner with my stepfather and discovered that she didn’t have any milk.  Instead, she grabbed a bottle of Silk Very Vanilla soy milk and used that as a substitute.  The result: creamy potato goodness that both she and my stepfather loved.  She raved about it when she came to visit this summer and I decided to try it out for myself.  I’ve also been reading from many sources lately about using coffee to bring bigger, bolder flavor to grilled steak.  I took it a step further and added some cocoa powder to the spice rub to enhance the flavor even more.  The end result was this fun dish of Mocha Steak and Vanilla Mashed Potatoes.

I’ve used vanilla extract on sweet potatoes before with amazing results, but never on standard golden potatoes.  I can’t attest to how well my mom’s recipe tastes, as I couldn’t find Silk Very Vanilla and used regular milk with vanilla extract instead.  The result was pretty interesting.  The small amount of vanilla used really pulls through the starchy potatoes, and makes them just taste creamier.  I’m going to call this the vanilla ice cream effect.  It was definitely something I would make again, but the star of this dish were my Mocha Steaks.  In fact, Katrina says they were the best I’ve ever made.  One time a best friend of hers came to visit for the weekend, and I pulled off the juiciest most flavorful steaks any of us had ever eaten.  They were New York strip steaks with my typical garlic, salt, and pepper rub that were smoked over the grill and cooked to absolute perfection.  I’ve come close, but I’ve never replicated those amazing steaks until this meal.  The Mocha Steak was phenomenal.  The coffee and cocoa brought a bold flavor and warm aroma to the meat, and the brown sugar gave it a caramelized sweetness that helped pull all of the flavors together.

This is probably one of the most boring recipes I’ve ever had to write up, since it’s just steak and potatoes, but one of the most exciting meals I’ve had in a while.  I’ve been looking forward to trying both of these dishes, and got the genius idea over the weekend to try them both together.  If you’re feeling daring, try substituting a 1/2 cup of Silk Very Vanilla soy milk into the recipe above like my mom does.  The vanilla flavor was mild but noticeable using my recipe.  I bet the Silk has a much more pronounced flavor.  The steak was unbelievable, and I’m probably going to start adding coffee into a lot of my spice rubs.  Maybe Starbucks will make Via packets for steak after they read this.

Related posts:

1. Mocha-Walnut Chip Muffins
2. Brown Sugar Meatloaf and Fingerling Potatoes with Shallots and Garlic
3. French Silk Chocolate Pie

Ladies and gentlemen, this is my famous Turtle Cheesecake.  What makes it so famous, you ask?  Not much really, but it’s absolutely delicious.  The only negative comment I get when I serve it is that it’s too rich.  It’s a standard cheesecake with a solo chocolate layer that is topped with chocolate ganache, caramel, and pecans.  The cheesecake recipe I refined myself, by doing tons of research on cream cheese based cakes and through trial and error.  I almost don’t want to share the recipe, but there is a lot of finesse and familiarity on my part to get it to come out just perfect.  Keep on reading past the break for more information on this delicious Turtle Cheesecake.

I first made this cheesecake about 3 years ago as a birthday cake for myself.  My mother drove up to Chicago for my 24th birthday this past August (mark your calendars for August 13th).  It was the first time she saw my condo that I purchased two years ago, so we wanted to cook a meal since we hyped our cooking skills up with this blog.  This cake is a two day process for me, so she got to see the cake made one day and then finished up the next day.  Katrina’s family came to visit the next day (so we could have a “meeting of the moms”) and we ate this as dessert after a lunch of shredded beef sandwiches.  It was essentially the same recipe as our Pulled Pork Tacos, obviously with beef, and the addition of beef stock so we could dip the french bread sandwiches Chicago style.  Everything turned out awesome and the cheesecake was a big hit.  I was a little afraid of how it would turn out because I accidentally had it cooking about 75 degrees higher than it should have been.  Luckily it turned out just fine.  Some of it caramelized too much and stuck to the side of the springform pan, so it didn’t come out as cleanly as I’d like.  The biggest disappointment was the giant cracks that formed on top of the cake.  I was able to just cover them up with all of the toppings.  Usually my cakes turn out flawless, and I’ll show you how to keep cracks from forming in the recipe below!

The first time I made this Turtle Cheesecake I tried making my own caramel sauce.  I didn’t have a candy thermometer so I brought the heat a little too high and I ended up with a grainy caramel that was still delicious.  I had no desire to make my own caramel again so I started using the store bought variety in a jar.  I used the Hershey’s Classic Caramel Sundae Syrup (in a squeeze bottle) for the first time on this particular cake and was very satisfied with the results.  It’s easy to use and isn’t as sticky as other caramels.  I used the chocolate ganache and whole pecans to cover up the giant crater which formed around the cake after cooking it at too high of a temperature.  We ate about half of the cake at our six person luncheon, and then Katrina and I split the rest.  It is so rich you can easily get 12-14 slices out of this cake.  Yummmmmmm.  I think this cake could give Eli’s Totally Turtle Cheesecake a run for its money. It might be time to make a Pumpkin Cheesecake for Halloween

And, I thought it would be funny to take a picture of Katrina’s brother, Keenan, and the cheesecake…

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1. Pumpkin Cheesecake
2. Raspberry Chocolate Gateau
3. Faux Samoas

I’m not going to lie, I’ve really missed blogging about our culinary adventures.  My puppy Kinley, who is now nearly a year old, managed to take up all of the free time I had set aside to keep this page updated.  However, I’ve been inspired recently to jump back into the food-o-sphere.  Katrina is thinking about switching from library science to culinary school, and it’s very exciting to think about how much delicious food I might be eating in the future.  I’ve also started doing the Beach Body P90x workout program, so you guys will be able to see how you can still eat delicious foods while maintaining a healthy weight.  I’ve had a few recipes sitting around on my computer for awhile.  One of them is this fantastic Sweet and Tangy Grilled Eggplant which is a great side for a big juicy steak.

This recipe is a solid go-to side dish whenever I am grilling something on the Weber.  It’s quick and easy to prepare, and requires ingredients you should already have in your pantry: honey, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and salt.  The vinegar really enhances the flavor of the eggplant, and the honey gives it a light sweetness which caramelizes  wonderfully on a hot grill.  If you’re feeling extra bold, saute a garlic clove or two and add it to your marinade.  This recipe makes enough marinade for about one medium sized eggplant.  It doesn’t look like enough when you’re mixing it up, but trust me when you toss it around and let it sit in the fridge you’ll be surprised at how perfectly coated the eggplant slices turn out.

This eggplant is delicious enough to eat by itself.  I might try making a small batch with homemade vanilla extract in addition to the other ingredients.  Note that the 4-6 minutes is just a suggestion.  I cooked these over a hot charcoal flame next to some huge steaks, so the cooking time will vary.

Related posts:

1. Smoked Baby Back Ribs and Barbecue Sauce
2. Mocha Steak and Vanilla Mashed Potatoes
3. Hearty Leftover Turkey Soup

I come from a very meat-and-potatoes family.  My mom still has Fried Chicken Mondays and makes mashed potatoes just about every night with dinner.  She also buys a side of beef (that’s half a cow!) every year for just the four people still living in the house.  When I was a vegetarian in high school, I ate a salad for every meal because my mom didn’t know what else to make without meat in it.  Moral of the story: We eat a lot of meat.  And we eat a lot of potatoes.  With Mothers’ Day coming up, what better way to celebrate my mom and the childhood she gave me than to make my wonderful boyfriend a Brown Sugar Meatloaf and Fingerling Potatoes with Shallots and Garlic?

Kieran and I have been very busy lately taking care of our newest puppy, Kinley.  She’s just a little bundle of energy and so much fun to be around.  She has the best personality of any dog I’ve ever met (don’t tell Simon!!), and is so calm and loving when you’re ready to relax or super playful and active when we’re going on walks.  I can’t say enough good things about her.  However, she has made it really difficult to cook a lot since we have to constantly watch her to make sure she’s not bullying her big brother!  She’s getting more and more settled into her new life everyday, so we’re slowly getting back into the swing of cooking again.  In fact, she and Simon sat in the kitchen with me while I cooked this meal!  I’m sure it was my company that kept them there and not the fact that I was feeding them apples…

Anyway, this recipe is for a very simple, hearty dinner.  Meatloaf isn’t something that comes to mind when you think of spicing up dinner, but this isn’t a recipe for just any meatloaf!  The ground ginger, dried mustard and garlic powder really compliment the sweetness from the brown sugar.  I made this meatloaf for my mom the very first time she came to visit me in Chicago, and she absolutely loved it!  And then I made it again for my sister around Christmastime and we made an entire meal of it!  This is the type of meal that I can’t wait to someday make for my kids in hopes that they’ll think I’m God’s Gift to Meatloaf.  It’s really that good.  And did I mention the potatoes!! Delicious.  I couldn’t quit eating them while Kieran was on a beer run (don’t tell Kieran!!).  It’s not a decadent meal by any means, but if you want something a little out of the ordinary that will really hit the spot and remind you of your childhood, this meat and potatoes combo is perfect for you!  The Brown Sugar Meatloaf is adapted from Allrecipes.com.

Kieran and I should have a few more recipes being posted here soon! We’re so glad to be back!!

Related posts:

1. Mocha Steak and Vanilla Mashed Potatoes
2. Venison Meatballs
3. Hearty Leftover Turkey Soup

In case you’re wondering, I have never met Laura from Willow Spice Co, and buying the pepper was my first transaction with her. Kieran and I won’t receive anything if you buy from her. I just wanted to let everyone know about an awesome discount on fresh, high-quality spices!

Birthday Dog would really like you to buy some

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1. Spices!
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The weather in Chicago was amazing this past week.  We were hit by several 80 degree plus days and people started swarming outside to eat and play.  The first thing that came to my mind was barbecue.  We’ve already used the Weber a few times this season to cook steaks, but I wanted to go all out and smoke a few racks of baby back ribs, and it was finally warm enough to set up the charcoal grill for it.  Katrina loves ribs (I sometimes make fun of her rib cravings) and it gave her the opportunity to make a batch of homemade barbecue sauce.  The ribs were already fantastic after being smoked with a dry rub, but the messy barbecue sauce brought them up to perfection.

I bought about 3 pounds of beautiful ribs from Whole Foods.  It was fairly expensive, about $30 total, but well worth it because you could recognize the freshness and quality after smoking them.  I feared that something from Jewel Osco (local grocery chain) wouldn’t have tasted as good.  I used a simple dry rub from a concoction of spices that I pulled from the cabinet, and let it sit on the meat at room temperature while I set the grill up for smoking.  You never want to cook cold ribs!  The charcoal grill I use is a Weber 22.5-Inch One-Touch Gold Kettle Grill (in green).  I really love this grill and my Weber Rapidfire Chimney Starter, and feel like a charcoal elitist because everybody else in my building complex uses gas.  Their loss!  There are lots of different ways you can set up an ordinary grill for smoking.  My setup uses two aluminum roasting pans filled with water.  I wish I would have taken some pictures of the cooking process to illustrate it better.  But in a nutshell, the bottom grate of the grill has a roasting pan with water on one half and charcoal on the other half.  The top cooking grate has the other roasting pan above the hot charcoals and the meat to be smoked goes above the bottom roasting pan.  The purpose of the water pans is to control the temperature of the smoke and to catch the drippings from the meat to prevent flareups.  The steam created will draw the smokey flavor and spices up into the meat, and keep it moist during the 4 to 6 hour cooking process.  The top grate of my grill is hinged, so this made it easy to add additional charcoal and wood throughout the smoking process.  I used Alder planks, and they made a nice sweet smoke that complimented the pork ribs well.  Don’t use cedar or any other type of evergreen to smoke pork.  They have lots of resin in them that will give your meat a chemical-like flavor.  The barbecue sauce that Katrina slow-simmered inside was adapted from Neely’s BBQ Sauce.  They seem like a couple that knows their barbecue.  We added some honey and paprika to their recipe to enhance the flavor for the ribs.  It was so good that Katrina and I fought over who got to lick the spatula after stirring the sauce.  As a side to this meal, we topped some fresh in-season asparagus with cheddar cheese!  Apparently Katrina’s entire family cooks asparagus this way, and it was really good.

These ribs were so amazing!  I can’t wait to gnaw on the leftovers.  The homemade barbecue sauce was a nice touch.  We washed everything down with an ice cold lavender lemonade.

Related posts:

1. Sweet and Tangy Grilled Eggplant
2. Pulled Pork Tacos
3. Mocha Steak and Vanilla Mashed Potatoes

Kieran has had a pepper mill for a while, but he’s never bought peppercorns for it. We keep using powdered pepper, and, while it’s not bad in a pinch, I’d rather have freshly ground pepper. So, I did some research and found some for pretty cheap on Etsy. Laura at Willow Spice Co. was so wonderful and my order came 3 days after ordering! It was $3 + $1.85 s/h for 2 oz, and the peppercorn looks so great. I can’t wait to use it! For my next purchase, I’m thinking the cardamom pods and lavender buds. If you’re in the market for spices, I definitely recommend Willow Spice Co!

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1. Discount at Willow Spice Co!
2. Pulled Pork Tacos
3. Mocha Steak and Vanilla Mashed Potatoes

And, because I know you want to see them, here are some cute pictures of the animals (from left: Kinley, Simon, Timus):

Hope you’re having a great day!

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1. Lentil Soup with Sausage
2. Two Cheese Macaroni
3. Brown Sugar Meatloaf and Fingerling Potatoes with Shallots and Garlic

The area of Chicago that we live in is called Uptown, in the heart of the north side of Chicago just a mile north of Wrigley Field.  It’s a gentrifying neighborhood, or “up-and-coming” as some put it, and as such has a very diverse population in a small area ranging from the homeless to the working class to young professionals to insanely wealthy mansion owners.  Many business have come and go, trying to fulfill the needs of this wide clientele.  One newcomer to the game filling up an empty storefront along a stretch of Wilson Avenue is The Cupcake Gallery.  Everybody, both rich and poor, loves cupcakes so it’s a welcome and refreshing addition to the neighborhood!

Katrina and I first visited The Cupcake Gallery back in November of 2009 when it had its grand opening celebration.  One of the first flavors we had was the Vanilla Creme, a free mini cupcake sample while we were out walking our dog Simon, and it was enticing enough to bring us back for more.  Its owner, Darius Williams, started the shop out fairly underfunded in pursuit of a dream.  While the interior space was lacking, really just a counter and cash register, the cupcakes were pretty amazing.  It was really unfortunate that during this early period the building facade was being worked on, and scaffolding was covering this little bakery up.  Since these early days the shop has really come along.  At first I had never seen more than two flavors on a back shelf, but now there is full stock of six to eight flavors sitting up in the front display case. 

This past weekend Katrina’s little brothers were visiting from Northwest Indiana, and I picked up some Double Chocolate and Cookies and Cream flavors after dropping off our Zipcar.  The Double Chocolate was moist and had a wonderful thick mousse-like frosting with chocolate chips and the Cookies and Cream had a simple vanilla frosting that was enhanced by a bit of crumbled Oreo cookie.  Check out the other Flavors on the website.  Some of them sound amazing, but I haven’t seen them in the display case yet.  I really want to try the Arnold Palmer, a lemonade cake with sweet tea frosting, and the Green Apple Martini, a green apple cake and frosting enhanced with brandy.  Most people grab a cupcake and go and feast on it at Starbucks or nibble on it after a meal at Fontana Grill. For people that want to stay, there’s a comfortable area with couches and music to enjoy their snack. The site has an online ordering system where you can prepay for a pickup order, or you can even have them shipped to you (downside is $25 for overnight shipping).  I’d highly recommend stopping by for a treat if you happen to be in this area on the north side of Chicago.

Regular cupcakes are currently $2.50 each or $28 per dozen. Vegan and gluten free versions are available upon request.

The Cupcake Gallery is located at 1319 W. Wilson Ave., Chicago, IL 60640

You can follow the shop on Twitter @WeBakeCupcakes or Darius directly @everydaycookin

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Katrina and I can’t quite remember how this drink came to be.  We had talked about making this Chipotle Cream Sauce, and somehow leftover peas led to our leftover lemons which led to the creation of this sweet and spicy lemonade.  We couldn’t find dried chipotle, so we ended up using ancho chiles.  I think we really lucked out from this last minute decision at a local grocer, and created an Ancho Chili Lemonade which starts sweet and earthy, lightens up with some sour citrus notes, and then finishes with a mild heat that creeps up on the palette.

I’m really hoping that we start a new trend with this lemonade.  The mild heat from the ancho chili is a great enhancement to a classic summertime drink, and would fit in well at any barbecue or summertime event.  We use a basic 1-part water, 1-part sugar, 1-part lemon juice for our usual lemonade mix, and all this recipe adds is one chopped ancho chili during the simple syrup creation.  My first sip of this drink was an awakening experience.  It was just like my first bite of a chili-infused chunk of dark chocolate.  Try this recipe out!!!

Add another chili to the simple syrup if you would like to up the flavor a bit.  I thought one chili was the perfect amount of heat. Katrina hates spicy things but loved this lemonade. That’s how mild and refreshing the flavor really is. Maybe one day you’ll see this in stores

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