An exquisite evening with the girls

I can’t take responsibility for all this deliciousness you see on the plate. On Saturday, a few of my girlfriends and I decided to pull together a communal meal. I brought the coleslaw and corn bread. The coleslaw was your basic pre-cut slaw mix from Wegmans. I just added some mayonnaise, vinegar, celery salt, white onions, and fennel seeds, which is something new I decided to add to the mix. It was a hit! The corn bread was something my friend Jen taught me how to make. You just add a box of Jiffy corn bread mix with a can of cream of corn and bake it at 350 or 400 degrees until it is cooked all the way through.

Melissa made the delicious spare ribs by cooking them for a little over an hour in a pan of water, mango puree and onions, covered in foil. For the sauce, she cooked up regular store-bought barbecue sauce and mango chunks and then she pureed the mango into the sauce. After coating the ribs, she put them on a small grill for a little while to give them grill marks.

Kate brought potatoes, which we cut in half, tossed in oil, herbs and garlic, and cooked in the oven until they were done. Katie brought macaroni and cheese. And voila, there you have it, an exquisite meal!

Lasagna, a labor of love

Last weekend I decided to make veggie lasagna. It turned out to be much more than pasta, veggies and cheese.

It was a Saturday afternoon, the night before Halloween and I had the house to myself for the weekend, so I figured it was a perfect time to do some entertaining. Since I wasn't in any rush, I decided to walk to the grocery store to shop for the ingredients. Following through on my "green-lasagna" project, I even remember to bring my reusable Envirosax grocery bags (which by the way are adorable and very convenient).

Walking down Winton Road on the way market (Wegman's) and feeling very European, I observed a few other people walking by me going the opposite direction. Both were middle-aged women. One had her groceries in bags; the other in one of those carts with wheels you often see at the market. It made me reflect on a time when women spent their entire day collecting the ingredients for and preparing a meal. I am sure my grandmother spent many a day in her lifetime making lasagna noodles from scratch. Despite the fact that my grandmother and I grew up decades apart, the labor of lovethat goes into making big homemade meals and the joy of sharing them remains unchanged.

I will try to explain how I made this lasagna, but I never follow a recipe when I cook it. I check out a few recipes online and rely on my past experiences. This time I included carrots, yellow squash, red and green peppers, mushrooms, onions, spinach, broccoli and some stewed tomatoes I had leftover. I cut all the veggies up to about the same size, using the food processor to chop the zucchini and carrots. Then I cooked the ingredients all together, starting with the vegetables that take the longest to cook and gradually adding the others based on their required cooking time. The key is to get all the liquid out of the veggie mixture.

My wet cheese mixture included ricotta, California-style cottage cheese, Bertolli® Vineyard Premium Collections Marinara with Burgandy Wine Sauce, a little four-cheese alfredo sauce, and fresh oregano, parsley, basil and thyme. My dry cheese was just a combination of a bunch of different Italian cheeses.

Some may call me lazy (and wouldn't my grandma be appalled), but I use the no-boil lasagna noodles. I actually like the way they bake up, with a little more crisp and firmness to them than the kind you have to boil first.

Once I have the veggies and cheese mixtures ready to go, it's time to layer them. I decided against using my own baking pan because lasagna can really make a mess of it. I suppose this goes against my concept of a "green lasagna," but then again, I saved water with one less dish to wash! Back to the layering. You start with some of the veggie mix, then a layer of noodles, then veggies again, followed by a layer of the wet cheese, the dry cheese, and then noodles. Keep going until you run out. You typically want the top layer to be just wet and dry cheese.

I would recommend putting foil over the lasagna to keep the moisture in as it bakes. I forgot to do this and my top layer kind of dried out. I pretty much cooked it at 350 degrees until it looked done. I admit, this was not one of the best lasagnas I have ever eaten, but then again, they say lasagna is best left-over. I've heard reports that it was great the second and third time around. I hate leftovers, so I'll take those people's word for it.

Knowing the amount of leftovers I usually have when I make lasagna, I invited a half-dozen people to help me eat it all. What a wonderful surprise it was when Frank and Nancy Sinatra dropped in, along with a few other friends. In the end, it wasn't the hours of work I put into making the lasagna or the few missteps I took while making it that stands out in my head. It was the great company and conversation which flowed like the wine which I will remember.

I wanna Wok with you

One of the best parts about cooking is doing it with a friend. Especially if that friend owns a Wok. Of course, I don't need an excuse to hang out with my best gal and cookie partner Nicole, but last Friday when she invited me over for dinner, I immediately said sure, as long as we can use your Wok. She got the Wok a while ago and we've only used it less than a handful of times, but there's just something about the way it cooks the food that makes it better than any take-out Chinese food around.

According to eHow.com...A wok is shaped like a large bowl and usually made out of carbon steel, with some alternatives being aluminum and cast iron. The stove top wok's rounded bottom nestles into the grates of a gas range. This projects the flames' heat into a hot spot on the wok's bottom. A wok's main advantage is that you can create healthy meals in a relatively short amount of time. Little oil is used in preparing vegetables, meats or seafood. Due to the concentrated heat, food cooks quickly and vegetables retain a crisp, crunchy texture, while the meats and seafood do not absorb large amounts of oil.

We've cooked several different meals in the Wok. This time we did a tangerine/orange beef. We didn't really follow a recipe, instead using several recipes Nicole had researched to come up with the basis for our sauce. In addition to orange peels, we added broccoli, water chestnuts and scallions. We served it over brown rice.

The finished dish was so delicious we forgot to take a picture.

Kitty Litter Surprise

On Friday, everyone at work brought in their spookiest, scariest, goriest treats to share. Wanting to impress, I racked my brain before remember this fun recipe my friend Stacy once brought to my Halloween party. I called it Kitty Litter Surprise.

It is just no-bake chocolate, peanut butter, oatmeal cookies served in a kitty litter box (a new one of course). The recipe is super easy. The only trick is making sure you boil the mixture at just the right temperature and for just the right amount of time, stirring constantly. The recipe says to bring it to a rolling boil for a minute-and-a-half. If you don't boil the mixture for just the right amount of time the cookies will turn out dry, or they won't harden at all. I thought I had done that, but my cookies still threatened not to solidify, so I retaliated by putting them in the fridge overnight.

Kitty Litter Surprise was a hit. I guess I should have eaten the left over Grape Nuts, but I just threw them out. And I forgot, when Stacy brought this dish to the party, she included a litter scooper for easier serving.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Time to bake the cookies

For those of you that don't know, my best friend Nicole and I have been baking cookies and selling them for about a year now. It started last Halloween when we baked a bunch of sugar cookies for our friends. Then we realized, not only was it fun to do, but we actually were pretty good at it. We like to think our cookies are a step above the rest. We put a lot of care into baking them, decorating them and packaging them and so far, we've had a pretty good run with it. We try to make our sugar cut-out cookies like the ones you might remember when you were a kid...nice and thick and chewy with colorful frosting and decorations.

Last year we baked for Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter and Mother's Day. This year we figured we would just take orders for Christmas, but lo-and-behold, one of Nicole's good friends asked if we were interested in selling our goodies at the Haunted House of Rochester. They get something like a few thousand people coming through there every weekend in October. Of course, Nicole and I had to jump at that opportunity. That means we'll be spending much of our spare time this month whipping up bats, pumpkins, ghosts and "BOO!" shaped cookies. If you are looking for something spooky to do this month, stop into the Haunted House of Rochester at 1592 Qualtrough Road in Penfield and be sure to pick up some Sugar Mama Confections!!

We appreciate your support. What started as something fun to do is slowly turning into a potential business for us in the future. This year, we have so much demand, we had to order our own rubber stamp. And we also have very professional looking ingredients labels. Keep an eye out for our Christmas cookies which we will begin taking orders for in mid-November. I don't think we'll be selling cookies to the public for Halloween as we'll have our hands full with this Haunted House gig. Please don't let that discourage you from emailing us with any orders. We can make cookies for all occasions. Contact us at sugarmamaconfections@gmail.com.

Don't attempt this at home without a partner!

This summer, my best friend Nicole couldn't stop raving about grilled pizza...that's pizza made on the grill. She made it sound so delicious and easy. I'm finding it to be a bit of a challenge and I don't recommend you try it unless you have a cooperative partner to help.



I'll try to explain how I've done it, but let me tell you, I feel like I'm far from perfecting this. Tonight, I made a pepperoni, onion, mushroom and sausage pizza. First things first, you'll want to get the grill going well in advance since you want to have the coals hot, but not too hot or else you'll burn the crust. This is where I'm still perfecting my technique. We do have a grill with an adjustable charcoal rack, but I still haven't mastered just the right temperature.


I started out by pre-cooking the mushrooms and onions in a little bit of olive oil, keeping it on low heat to give me time to prep the rest of the ingredients. For the sauce, I just used a can of pizza sauce mixed with half a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes and a bit of fresh garlic. I also added some thyme and parsley from the garden. In addition, I prepared an aioli using olive oil, some butter, fresh garlic, parsley and thyme. Once the sauce and ingredients were heated thoroughly, I spread out my pizza dough using a good amount of flour.

I've been stretching my dough to a rectangular shape. Handling the dough can prove to be quite difficult. I usually put mine on a cookie sheet to transport it to the grill. Now here's the tricky part...you have to have all your ingredients on-hand at the grill before you even start the dough. That includes your toppings, sauce, cheese, and dough. You'll also want an arsenal of tools on-hand, including something to slide under the pizza to flip it, and an oven mitt.


Once you think your charcoals are the right temperature (like I said, I'm not much help on this), spread them out evenly across the area of the grill that your dough is going to cover. Then you can put the dough on the grill. I actually put a little of the aioli on the side of the dough I put on the grill first, but you have to be careful about doing that because the oil can drip onto the charcoal and cause it to flame up. Watch the dough closely and you'll start to see bubbles forming, kind of like when you make pancakes. You'll want to kind of lift up the dough to peak at what it's doing. You want it to get grill marks, but not get too black. You may have to kind of spin it around to get it to cook evenly.

Once you flip the dough, the action begins and you's better be ready. I put the sauce on the pizza, then the cheese, then the toppings, all of which should already be heated up and cooked. The cheese is really the only thing left to melt. You want to top fast because as you are working, the dough is cooking.

Once you're done topping the pizza, you have to watch it closely while it grills for no more than 2-4 minutes, depending on how hot your fire is. Getting the pizza off the grill can be a challenge depending on what shape you made your dough. I use two metal spatulas, or my round, flat round metal pizza tray, which I slide under the pizza and try to slowly slide it off the grill onto an awaiting rectangluar cookie tray. This time I actually left the pizza on the grill for a bit longer after I got it onto the cookie sheet to give the cheese more time to melt.

I'm not sure if this is the best technique, but I do know the results are scrumptious and the closest I've ever had to a brick-fired pizza.

Good places to eat (yes we have those in Rochester)

Okay, so this week I kinda slacked off on cooking and relied on some other people to cook for me (and to do the dishes). I know how hard it is to think of good places to eat, so I figured I could blog about the places I visited this week and weekend to inspire you.

First off, one of my favorite Mexican places just reopened. Formerly located next to Mr. Shoes in the Southwedge, Paola's Burrito Place is now open at 1011 Culver Road in a bigger, newer and much more promising location. My friend Tracy and I stopped in on their opening day. Despite the rain, the place was pretty filled up, especially considering we went at 2 p.m. The owner was so excited to see us and gave us a grand tour. He's got a HUGE kitchen now, space for a bakery, at least three times more seating that he used to have, and he hopes to start up a breakfast service soon.

The food is the same which is a good thing...huge burritoes, with cheese sauce if you want it, enchiladas, tacos, and other typical Mexican fare. The menu seemed a bit smaller, but the prices were still very affordable. Instead of helping yourself to the salsa and chips, they give you a portioned out size, but the salsa is still as delicious as ever. I got a chalupa, which was a fried tortilla shell topped with lettuce, tomatoes, guacamole, sour cream, steak and cheese sauce. It was sinfully filling and delicious. If you haven't already had Paola's before, you must go try it out.

On Friday Sean and I went out to our favorite Asian restaurant in the city, Flavor's of Asia. You can't beat this place when it comes to variety, freshness, quality, quantity, price and service. It's a five-star place at a one-star price. The fare includes Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese. I've never actually eaten Vietnamese until Flavors. Now I'm hooked. Sometimes I am daring and try new things, but lately I'm hooked on their Vermicelli noodle bowls. They include lemongrass, pasta, sprouts, pickled carrots, cucumbers and onions (I think), lettuce, crushed peanuts and fish sauce. You have the choice of chicken, beef, seafood, or my favorite, fried tofu. It comes with fish sauce, which now that I looked up how it is made, I'm not sure I'm so crazy about it, but it's good anyways. I always put a bit of Hoisin sauce on my noodle bowl just to add another dimension of flavor. It's so filling and delicious. Sean got his good old stand-by...beef and veggies topped with curry sauce.

For apps we got Crab Ragoon, which is so creamy and undoubtedly the best I've ever had, and steamed shrimp and pork dumplings, which we don't normally get but certainly will in the future because they were amazing.

As if the food wasn't enough to keep us coming back again and again, the service is spot-on. There's usually one asian fellow that serves the entire place. I adore him. Just watching him is enough to make you dizzy the way he can handle so many tables at once, and parties of all sizes. As soon as you sit down he brings you a complimentary pot of hot tea and fresh spring rolls. I'm not sure if they typically give you free spring rolls or if that's just on the weekends. Sean and I always order spring rolls when we go and the waiter knows this, so he may just be anticipating our needs and bringing them for us, knowing that's what we want. He's just that good. I could go on and on about the service here. They are fast, but not so fast you don't get a chance to enjoy your dining experience. And they remember us every time we go in there. If you haven't tried this place yet, it's a must. We paid $26 for two entrees, two orders of Dim Sum, and the spring rolls. Unbelievable.

Lastly, my friend Kelli and I went out to eat at a new restaurant last night, The Owl's House. It's located on Marshall Street in the former Atomic Eggplant location. I read some review about the new chef/owner in the City Newspaper and also heard from a friend that they make some amazing drinks. The Atomic Eggplant was best known for it's creative vegetarian/vegan fare and the fact that you could BYOB or Wine. I remember countless dinners there in the past that turned into three hour affairs, so The Owl's House had a lot to live up to. It not only surpassed my expectations, it had me saying "Atomic what?"

My friend got the roasted vegetable and hummus sandwich on multi-grain bread, which she raved about. I got the barbecue tempeh, which was coated with a delicious buffalo spicy sauce combined with creamy blue cheese, topped with pickled onions and arugula lettuce on a baguette. It was incredible. It isn't easy to cook tempeh, but the chefs' here knew what they were doing. The tempeh was tender and not dry at all, and there was just enough sauce to make the bun a little juicy and not too crusty and hard to chew.

The juice from my sandwich kept dripping on the side of hand-cut french-fries seasoned with rosemary and fresh cracked pepper. There was something really yummy about the katsup I couldn't quite put my finger on.

And as if this wasn't enough, the drinks were, as rumored, so delicious and unique. Kelli got an IPA..the Great Divide or something that reminded her of a Phish song. I settled on a Mint Ginger Jullip. I can't remember what liquor was in that..maybe whiskey. Then there was a bunch of other yummy stuff and mint. OMG! I could have died at the bar. Our neighbor got something I was thinking of getting...a Velvet Bicycle, which was about three parts scotch beer and one part champagne. I guess I'll have to get that next time I'm there, which better be soon.

All-in-all Kelli and I probably spent $45 between the two of us. The best news, The Owl's nest has a bunch of meat-inclusive dishes, so you can bring both vegetarian and non-vegetarian friends with no qualms. I would reccomend making reservations. We got there at 6:30 and were told we'd have to wait about 45 min. for a table. Thankfully there were two seats at the bar, and we made a ton of friends there!

I hate paying to go out to eat, but this week was worth writing about.

Food for thought

We heard a few cool food stories on NPR's The Splendid Table on our drive to Chili's Weidner Park for disc golf this afternoon.

The first story we heard was about making food with Stout beer. You can't go wrong there. In addition to suggesting adding it to brownies or chocolate cake, they shared this recipe for a glaze that goes great with pork. Sounds like something some of my home brewing friends might like to try.

Stout-Citrus Glaze

September 25, 2010

(Makes about 1/4 cup)

This glaze is great on grilled or sauted lamb or pork chops, pork tenderloin, or even leg of lamb. Simply brush the meat lightly with the glaze once it's browned, brush the meat again when you turn it, then pass the remaining glaze along with the meat. This recipe is easily doubled, and will keep, covered and refrigerated, for at least 2 weeks.

1 cup stout of your choice
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Pinch salt

Combine all ingredients in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to medium and simmer vigorously until reduced to about 1/4 cup, 20 to 25 minutes. The liquid will be very syrupy.

There was another story about a bakery that grows its own wheat...Waves of Grain in Cannon Beach Oregon. The bakery was one of the places mentioned in Jane and Michael Stern's book 500 Things to Eat Before It's Too Late: and the very best places to eat them. It seemed like something I should add to my book list.

Market-inspired cooking

This is a great dish for the weekend, and especially if you are paying a visit to the Rochester Public Market tomorrow morning. I created this for Valentine's Day, hence the heart shaped raviolis. While you won't be able to score those delicious four-cheese ravs tomorrow, the heart of this dish (pun intended) is the homemade ravioli's you can get for $8-9 per dozen at the Public Market inside the fish building. There are tons of variety flavors to chose from.

Once you pick out your pasta, then stop by one of the oh-so-great smelling fish stands and pick up some of the biggest shrimp they have...a dozen should suffice if you're feeding two people. When you get them home, you'll have to peel and de-vein them. When I cook the shrimp, I coat them in blackening season which I get from The Spice Guy at the market.

For the sauce I buy a jar of store-bought sun-dried tomato alfredo sauce. I doctor it up by adding some shallots, garlic, a can of fire-roasted tomatoes (they aren't hot...fire roasted just means they have been roasted over a fire), some heavy cream, and shredded asiago or any kind of Italian cheese. You can add some pepper as well.

Hope this inspires you at the market tomorrow.

Where's the beef?

Tonight I made one of my favorites, Taco Salad. My favorite part of it is making it with Bocca Soy Crumbles, which are vegetarian, fat free, and almost guaranteed to fool any meat-eater when made this way. I cook the crumbles with corn, cut fresh off the cob, and a can of black beans drained. I add a packet of taco seasoning, which for this recipe I used Chipotle flavored seasoning plus a pinch of Dinosaur BBQ Cajun Seasoning.

You can buy the same crispy tortilla shells you would get in a restaurant in the ethnic section at Wegmans. I fill the bowls with a mixture of Wegmans' brand mixed greens with herbs and chopped romaine, and then I top the salads with fresh chopped tomatoes, chives, shredded pepperjack cheese, and fresh sliced avocado. For dressing, I used spicy Hidden Valley ranch dressing. It's quick, easy, healthy, as I said, you can fool any meat-eater out of wondering "Where's the Beef?"

Too much mayonnaise in the tuna?

Welcome to my newest blog about something near and dear to my heart....cooking! As many of you already know, I've been cooking in restaurants for close to 15 years now and I'm just as passionate about whipping up culinary creations in my own kitchen at home. I am hoping this blog will help to educate, inspire, and get people talking about food. I hope you'll join as a follower of the blog and interact frequently.



I will start off with something simple. For lunch today I made the good old stand-by, a tuna melt. Coming fresh off a Niche show this weekend, I had the song "There's too much mayonnaise in the tuna" stuck in my head. So my question is, how much mayonnaise is too much mayonnaise when it comes to tuna. As far as I'm concerned (and my old roommate Maggie is concerned), the more mayo the better. Of course, you don't want there to be more mayo than tuna. I'd say I put a little less than two tablespoons of mayo in with my 6 oz. can of Wegmans brand Solid White Albacore Tuna in water. I don't know about you, but I never really got into tuna soaked in oil. I could never figure out how to drain all the oil out of it. But anyways, at first it may seem like a big too much mayo, but once you really start mashing the chunks up, it really soaks up the mayo.


I usually put one and a half slices of white american cheese on the sandwich before I grill it. Today I used Wegmans Honey Apple Oat Bread with apple bits and honey and cinnamon in it. You might thing this is a strange combination, but it's actually quite good and helps take away the fishiness of the tuna. Things can get a little sloppy once the tuna and cheese start heating up and getting all melty, but that's just how I like it. What's your preference? And have you ever tried the mayonnaise made with olive oil? What's your opinion? Can you really taste the difference?

On another note, I have to say, one of my favorite cooking accessories is my bright orange Le Creuset dutch oven. I just checked out Le Creuset's website and wasn't I surprised to see the exact same one I have is the first image on the page. It's enamled cast iron, and as pretty as it is functional. I don't use it as often as I'd like to, which may be a sign I'm not cooking as much as I used to, but when I do use it, I am reminded that sometimes it's worth it to spend the extra money on cooking gadgets because you get what you pay for. I'm actually lucky that it was a gift seeing as though it costs around $250. I'm not sure why the photo only uploads sideways but you get the picture. What's the one cooking gadget you couldn't live without?