'Tis that time of year again... when I take a weekend out of my so busy life and dedicate a few days to creating edible gifts to express my love and appreciation for those close to me. This year made a set of four flavored salts:

- Pomogranete
- Vanilla
- Sriricha
- Lemon Lavendar

I also handmade cards to send with these small tokens of affection. Unfortunately, I was so busy drying salt that I forgot to take pictures of the process. I am out of practice on the food blogging front. I've been a busy bee outside of the kitschen! However, the whole thing is pretty simple. Take some salt, add the flavor you want into it and (if needed) dry it out in the oven. The times when you need to dry out the salt mixture is when you add a liquid (duh!!!). Making vanilla salt is similar to making vanilla sugar... take a bean, split, scrape and mix. No drying required. When drying the other salts I pre-heated the oven to 350, spread the mixture on a baking sheet and then turned off the oven once I placed the salt inside. It usually takes less than 10 minutes in the oven but, be sure to check because you don't want your salt mixture to burn!

On the home front I tried to keep things simple. I decided to make the no knead sticky buns I made a year or so ago. I am happy to report my continued attempts to use yeast has resulted in improvement in making bread! Also, this basic dough is a gift that keeps on giving! You can find the recipe here.

First up... sticky buns! I pre-made the dough and let it sit in the fridge for a day. Then the afternoon before Christmas day I rolled out the dough and prepped the buns into a pan. This way on Christmas morning I could pull them out of the fridge to rise while we opened presents.

To bring some balance to this decadent treat I pulled out my inherited cast iron skillet and made a frittata!






I had some left over dough so I took it and made some mini-loaves of cinnamon swirl bread.





Next up for me is using my new spherical cake pan to make a pinata cake stuffed with candy! My prior attempt failed b/c I over filled the pans. Also, on my wish list is this message cookie cutter set. Happy new year and happy cooking!

Wow. It's been a while guys. I have been spending a lot of time away from my official home front and kitchen. Instead I've been keeping my gramps company on the West side of the Mitten. While I have no aversion to small kitchens I do like to remain on good terms with my PaPa. One way I do that is by not making a "mess" in his kitchen. So my baking and kitschen adventures haven't been as frequent as of late. But, being in the city of rapids has allowed me to do some foodie exploring! So without further chitter chatter here's a little bit of what I've been up to this past month-ish.

Back in February I planned on sending Valentine's packages to people. I did... for the most part. But two of my favorite ladies didn't get their packages due to life (it's a biotch sometimes). I was able to make it up to them by sending some spring sweets.

I have gotten over me fear of yeast but sometimes a lady just wants some bread... quick like. So I looked through my bookmarks and found a recipe for a mocha swirl quick bread. Then I pulled out my favorite peanut butter cookie recipe and made a batch of those too. I have been really into giant cookies lately so I made those suckers BIG. I portioned them out with a 1/4 measuring cup!

After mailing out those goodies I hopped into the car and drove to Beer City! No. I do not have any pictures of breweries- although I have gone to a few. But I did find a nice coffee and tea place where I can use wifi and get my daily dose of fancy caffeine.



Another day I used my handy dandy Yelp app to find a place that sold pho. Have I told you how much I like a good soup? Pho is harty! And it's a party in my mouth. I am not a fan of beef tendons and tripe so I played it safe and got pho ga. I know! All the foodie purist are booing me right now. But I know what I will and won't eat. So that leaves more for you!


Over the weekend I took some time to head back to the Deuce for some quality time with friends. I also had some bizness to take of. A lady be busy ya'll! While in A2 I made my usual stop for some supplies at Trader Joe's. While there I scored a new favorite....



When I got back to GR it was right around Easter... this meant a big family dinner. Luckily I was only in charge of bringing a side. I ended up making a dessert and some cornbread. Who doesn't like cornbread?
 

It's that time of year when we begin to reflect on the days past and look toward the new year. It's also the time when family comes to visit. Or you go to visit family. Usually around this time I am also in the kitschen werking to create some goodies to send to my friends. This year, it didn't happen. What had happened was.... First, I couldn't find a DIY card design I liked. So I conceded and bought cards. Second, I took that kinda last minute trip to Florida with my sister. So I wasn't in the kitchen early enough to get my baking/concoction making done in good time. Thirdly, I got home and tried to speed through the process. But, once I was done the packages wouldn't have reach people before the holiday mail blackout. In the end... I had a lot of goodies on my hands and not enough people to give them to. Also, I will be trying to get out "Happy New Year, So Glad the World Didn't End," packages after the 2nd. So if you usually get something in the mail from my kitschen in December, just look for it in January. I might remake these things or do something new... again. Prefences/request... in box me.

Smitten Kitchen Brioche Pretzels

I have linked to and used multiple recipes from the Smitten Kitchen blog. I love it. I find that her recipes never steer me wrong. It's where I got my favorite chocolate cookie recipe from (that is until I get my hands on some chocolate discs and make that fancy Frenchman's recipe). Well, Deb (the writer), has recently published her book! And most of the recipe's in the book are new ones not found on the website!!! I didn't buy the book (too rich for my blood) but I did squee and snatch it up off the library shelf. On a related note, The Kitchen (another fav blog of mine) has this particular recipe posted as a sneak peek online.

Homemade Beer Marshmallows Covered w/ Chocolate & Pretzels

Once the sugar bloom is at the correct temperature add it to the gleatine bloom. Whip that shizz on high for a bit. Add in vanilla. Continue whipping until it forms soft peaks.

Gobble gobble.... It was Thanksgiving ya'll! Yes, as someone who wants to fight the cultural hegemony and legacy of cololinalism (deep thoughts yo!) I understand how difficult the history of Thanksgiving is. While I don't like that the holiday in some ways could be interpreted as a way to commemorate the forthcoming genocide of a people I do like to think I can take it and make it into something more positive on a personal level. The funny thing is... I'm not that big of a turkey fan. All those "Thanksgiving" foods? Not necessarily my favorites. Except for the mash potatoes, and I could eat those any day! I do love that the holiday gives my family a time to come together. I do love that the meal represents an abundance of all the wonderful things in our lives. I do love that Thanksgiving dinner represents a lot of what I love about food in general... a way to share culture and socialize. So let's talk about what I made!

As you may know I have a bit of a phobia of yeast. Last year I made sweet potato yeast dinner rolls for Thanksgiving and they turned out lovely. Then for Christmas I used a no-knead dough recipe to make sticky buns.... Slowly but surely yeast and I are starting to get along. So this year I want to make a roll but I also wanted to make biscuits. In the end I found a recipe that was a compromise. Lemon-y Angel Biscuits have baking soda, baking powder, AND yeast in them. The recipe claims they've got a biscuit texture with the light and fluffiness of a bread. I was curious enough to find out.

Due to the lemon essence of this bread product I wanted to make something tasty to accompany it. And you all should know I love a compound butter! In the spirit of the season I made a cranberry butter. I took about a tablespoon of the cranberry sauce my mom made and blended it into some softened butter. Then I plopped the mix onto some wax paper and rolled into a log. Set it in the fridge to set... then we spread it onto the warm biscuits during dinner.



I know you're probably wonder what we had for dessert... we had pie and cake. I made a bundt cake. I tweaked a recipe for a bourbon pecan cake. Instead of bourbon I added pumpkin. Then I added maple syrup for to the glaze in lieu of bourbon. Be forewarned... this is a pound cake and it's not healthy.





I'ma skip a few steps here. But just know I then whipped the egg whites to stiff peaks. Then I folded them in. 




When putting the cake into the pan I did alternate layers of pecans and batter. I forgot how long it takes for these things to cook. A little under 2 hrs later I pulled the cake out and let it cool. After about 10 min. I inverted it out of the pan and onto a cooling rack. While the cake cooled I whisked up the glaze: 2 cups powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon maple syrup, a little milk.






What are some of the must haves at your Thanksgiving day table? Do you like to experiment? How do you celebrate?