Lentil Soup and Kansas City

I am so excited because I am heading to Kansas City, MO later today. I hate leaving my hubby but he needs to study this weekend and I need to see my family and attend a luncheon with the young lawyers of KCMO. I am super excited because not only do I get to attend the yummy lunch, but I am speaking at the luncheon about my job as an entertainment lawyer. Should be a lot of fun.

When I have to leave Greg alone for a few days, I like to make a couple meals and leave them in the freezer so he can have yummy food while away. My little way of not being too far for long. This time I made him lentil soup and enchalada casserole. Here is a photograph of the soup. Doesn't this photo look amazing? We just bought a new camera and Greg is practicing and learning how to use it. I think he is doing a great job, he is the official blog photographer and editor. Love you Honey.

Hard Boiled Eggs--HELP!!!!

Can we just have an honest conversation about hard boiled eggs? I feel like I am a pretty good cook, but hard boiled eggs give me problems-lots and lots of problems. In my opinion, there is nothing more frustrating than peeling the shell off of an egg when it sticks to the egg white. Just ask my husband. He has witnessed more than one of my rage black outs because of this. If you have never had this problem, lady luck must hang around your kitchen.

I bring this up because on Saturday we had a dinner party-an "Anna Pump" dinner party to be exact. Ok, I need to explain who she is and that means...MAJOR TANGENT ALERT! Ina Garten is probably my favorite celebrity chef on the food network. I love her. I adore her. I tivo the Barefoot Contessa everyday. Her food in amazing. Everytime I make one of her recipes, I am blown away. So, my friend Jason (also major Ina fan) and I decided that we should have Barefoot Contessa potluck dinner parties. The main crew includes Greg and me, and our friends Ben, Sylvia, and Jason. As there are five of us and six seats at our dinner table, the sixth spot is a wild card of sorts that typically rotates between our friends (whom we met through the dinners) Judy and Stacey. Everyone makes a dish from one of Ina's cookbooks and brings it to the dinner. Sometimes we divide the courses and sometimes it is a free-for-all (Be thankful you don't get to see the email chains leading up to the event!). The parties have been so much fun and Ina's recipes are consistently delicious. My favorite Ina recipes are her springtime risotto, roasted chicken with lemon and garlic, brownies, pesto and pea pasta, gravlax, filet of beef with gorgonzola cream sauce, and chicken chili. I know that hardly seems to narrow it down, but given the myriad of choices from her several books, one could literally go on and on. Anyhoo, if you watch Barefoot Contessa you know that Ina has her friends drop by and participate in the show. Miguel, often handles table settings and floral arrangements, Barbara stops by to mix things up, and Ina often talks about her friend Anna Pump, who owns a specialty food store called "Loaves and Fishes," which Ina often visits. Sorry, this is a LONG tangent. For the Christmas party I gifted the regular crew with copies of Anna's cookbook, Summer on a Plate. How great is that??--(Ina reference) I believe it was Ben who suggested an Anna Pump party to change things up while still honoring our love of Ina. So we did it on Saturday. I prepared the panko parmesan encrusted chicken with avocado mango salsa and the stuffed eggs--hence, the problem with hard boiled eggs.

Interestingly enough, last week Ina had an episode devoted to eggs and she showed her "tricks" for hardboiled eggs, which I tried...with the same disastrous outcome!!!!!!

This time I followed Anna's directions to a "T" and I still had the sticky shell problem. However, the show must go on and I salvaged the eggs and just dealt with the problems. Regardless of the minor aesthetic issues, they were the most delicious deviled eggs I have ever had in my life--and I have had many in my day. Everyone at the party went nuts over them and I believe the consenus was that they indeed are, the best deviled eggs in the history of deviled eggs. It is still summer and lots more pool days and picnics to be had so I definitely recommend making these for whatever event you'd like. They really are unbelievable, truly addicting. Make them!!! You won't be sorry.




Stuffed Eggs
from Summer on a Plate by Anna Pump

12 eggs
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 cup minced shallots
2 tablespoons minced curly parsley, plus extra for garnish
1/8 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (I used tabasco)

Place the eggs in a saucepan, cover with cold water, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 8 to 10 minutes. Drain and cool the eggs under cold running water. Peel the eggs and cut each in half horizontally* through its equator (*not lengthwise as is typically the case with deviled eggs). Place the yolks in a food processor. Cut a thin slice off the bottom of each egg white so it is able to stand upright and place the whites on a platter.

Add the mayonnaise, mustard, salt, and pepper to the yolks and puree until just smooth.

Combine the garlic, shallots, parsley, and hot pepper sauce in a small bowl. Divide the garlic-shallot mixture equally among the wells of each egg white.

Pipe or spoon the pureed yolk on top of the mixture, mounding a little on top of each. Garnish with a sprinkling of minced parsely.

Anna also suggests folding minced cornichons into the egg mixture.

FYI...If you pipe on the yolk mixture, not only are the eggs delicious, they are GORGEOUS!!!!!

P.S. I emailed Anna on her website to figure out what could be causing the sticky egg problem and she promptly responded saying that the fresher the egg, the more likely shell problems become. Who knew? (that would have been a helpful tip in the recipe, Anna my dear!)

I guess I needed the DeLorean and Doc Brown to come and take me back in time a few weeks to get eggs and put them in my fridge for this very occassion. Sheez!

Dim Sum

This past weekend my dear friend, Lindsey, was in LA visiting Greg and I. I love having house guests, it is my favorite! That is a hint to all of you friends and family reading this, come visit us!! Anyway, having Lindsey here gave us a chance to step out of our routine and play tourists in LA, which we rarely do. I have been wanting to go and get Dim Sum in Chinatown for quite some time and, as Lindsey is one of my most adventurous friends, I figured what better time. I asked around and got a recommendation for a good place for us to try. I think you can get Dim Sum anytime, but I have heard that it's a great Sunday morning activity. (Yes, I know, don't look now...It's ANOTHER breakfast post!!! I swear I DO eat more than once a day, but somehow my posts just keep drifting back to breakfast!!) Rumor has it that you have to get to your Dim Sum location of choice early to avoid lines. I hate lines, especially when it comes to waiting for food--so we got there super early. Upon our 9:30AM arrival, there was no line at all and we walked right in and were seated without hesitation. It was literally as if they were waiting for us!

The best thing that I can say about Dim Sum is that we did it. In its defense, it was the most efficient distribution of the largest amount of widely-varied foods we've ever seen outside of a Vegas buffet. No sooner were we seated, giving a quick glance around the room to take in the ambience that is Sunday morning dim sum, before we were inundated by a barrage of carts loaded with foods, which required numerous repetition by the wait staff before we could decipher the actual name of the dish as "pork bun," or "shrimp and vegetable dumpling."



The BBQ pork dumplings (not sure if that's the actual name, though it should have been) were DELICIOUS! Getting back to the expeditious nature of the service, there is a clear method to it--hit you fast and hit you hard! In just under five minutes, our table was laden with dishes from one end to the other--none of which were duplicates! Somehow in the mix, my husband (fresh from the diversity course in his doctoral program) accepted a dish of chicken hearts! He took the first bite and after explaining the need to be open-minded and culturally sensitive, he then demonstrated the need to be open-mouthed, as he promptly ejected the bite onto the table as soon as he bit into it and it "resisted." Apparently, his American palate missed the diversity course. Fortunately for the rest of us, he decided to waive off the chicken feet...yes, feet.

Dim Sum turned out to be quite the educational experience, as we discovered a fact that has been carefully omitted from texts for far too long. Pork and shrimp have apparently been locked in an perennially losing battle with the Chinese. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 75% of the dishes contained either pork or shrimp, or some marriage of the two in some type of rice-based textile.

Here is what our table looked like once we had all the food.



Basically, I am glad we went to get Dim Sum but I don' think I will be craving this anytime soon. Most of it was just weird, not the breakfast food that I would want.

More Breakfast

I have a sneaking suspicion that a great number of my posts will center around breakfast foods. I love breakfast, I can't help it. I am known for ordering omelets for dinner. My sister Christina had a great post recently about "Brinner"-- check it out at luciandme.blogspot.com. I had never heard the term Brinner before, she is younger and cooler than me. I just call it Breakfast for Dinner. Anyways, I love breakfast and I love breakfast food. Am I getting this message across?

This morning I made these yummy blueberry lemon scones.



Yes Connie, I made these THIS morning. They only take about 10 minutes to mix and I threw them in the oven while I was in the shower! I actually took the timer into the bathroom so I wouldn't miss the beep! If you want to make them in the morning don't forget to throw your stick of butter (don't worry, you only need half of it) in the freezer the night before because you need it frozen for the recipe.


I adapted the recipe from a strawberry scone recipe on skinnytaste.com (one of my all time favorite websites, if you haven't been there, go NOW). I have made the strawberry scones a few times and they are always a big hit. Over the weekend while in Santa Ynez for the 4th, we came across a roadside fruit stand and they had some gorgeous blueberries so we bought a ton and I thought I would try the recipe with blueberries instead. It worked really well. We also have a lemon tree in our backyard and I thought, hey, when are blueberries and lemons bad together????

Here is the recipe:

Blueberry/Lemon Scones

Adapted from Skinnytaste.com

1 cup fresh blueberries
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
¼ sugar + 1 tbsp for blueberries
1 tbsp coarse sugar for topping
2 tsp baking powder
¼ cup frozen butter ( I use unsalted)
1 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract ( I love vanilla bean paste as opposed to extract)
1 tbsp lemon zest


Pre-heat the oven to 400°.

Mix blueberries with 1 tbsp of sugar and set aside.

In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients.

Using the large holes of a cheese grater, grate the frozen butter into the flour. Mix well with flour.

In a medium bowl, mix the buttermilk, vanilla bean paste and lemon zest.

Using a fork, slowly stir in the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, until all the mixture is moistened. Do not over work the dough. I end up haveing to use my hands a litte on this. Fold in the blueberries. It usually takes me a little extra buttermilk to get these mixed but again, try not to overwork.

Line a cookie sheet with a Silpat(best invention ever), or parchment paper. Drop 8 equal large spoonfuls onto the cookie sheet (to avoid tough scones, do not press or compact). Sprinkle with coarse sugar. Bake in the center rack 18 minutes. Remove and let them cool about 5 minutes before eating.

Serve with blueberry or mixed berry jam. The jam really takes it up a few knotches.

Have a great weekend.

Breakfast

I will post something about our fabulous July 4th weekend but I need to organize the pictures we took. My husband was kind enough to download the photos today but I am missing some very important ones that I want to share, one of which is of a very cute cow. So, until then I want to talk about breakfast. I really do believe that it is the most important meal of the day and I never understand people who say things like "I am just not a breakfast person" or "I am just not hungry in the mornings." That is just crazy talk to me, after 12 hours of "fasting" I wake up ready for a good breakfast. I would eat breakfast for every meal if I could. I love eggs and bacon and muffins and pancakes.

While I am on the topic of a good breakfast, I don't consider cereal as a good breakfast for one reason and one reason only....the serving sizes. Are cereal companies flipping kidding me with their 3/4 cups or 1 cup serving? Do you know what 3/4 of a cup is? It is like 3 bites. SERIOUSLY. I love my cereal as much as the next person but there are literally 13 servings in one box and I can't remember the last time a box of cerael lasted me 13 servings. Maybe I should be embarrassed about that?? No, I think cereal companies need to be embarrassed. LOL

Anyway, I love me a good breakfast and this morning I was very happy with my breakfast. I made an eggwhite frittata with spinach, shallots, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, basil and asiago cheese. It was adapted from a recipe that I got from an EATZ cooking class in LA, which if you are in LA you must take a cooking class with Nikki at Eatz. She is amazing and the classes are to die for.
Here are my pretty little frittatas in their own ramekins! Aren't they adorable? I really think they are so darn precious.



I told someone at work about them, and they asked, "How do you have time in the morning for that?" Well, I am all about getting up early and making it happen, but for my breakfasts I like to have them prepped the night before. I sauteed my shallots, spinach and mushrooms in a little extra virgin olive oil, and then mixed it in a separate bowl with raw egg whites and cheese. Then the mixture sat in the fridge overnight. This morning all I had to do was pre-heat the oven and pour the mixture into the ramekins. 425 degrees for about 25 minutes and you can use whatever veggies or cheeses you want. I recommend turkey-bacon, onion and peppers with cheddar cheese, but really you can do it with anything at all! I always try to prep breakfast the night before and then prep dinner in the morning or at lunch, but more about that in later posts.

My husband also makes a great breakfast. I will share some of his specialties soon.

Have a great day! Talk soon!

Getting out of Town

One of my favorite parts about living in Los Angeles (the LA part of my blog title, clever huh?)are the places you can get to in a short amount of time for special weekend trips. At least, I hope it will be a short amount of time as we are driving in holiday traffic today with one million of our closest friends! The list of places to take long weekends from LA is sort of endless, for example--Big Sur, Palm Springs, Vegas, San Diego...so many great things to do but our favorite place to visit is the Santa Ynez Valley. In fact, we got married there last year! It is a beautiful area and is known as sort of the Santa Barbara version of wine country. We try to spend as much time up there as we can as LA can be a little crazy and we need breaks from the people, smog and traffic! Here is a picture from our wedding at the Gainey Vineyard



I need to give credit where credit is due. We had the most amazing wedding photographer EVER. If you are getting married in California you need to hire her and if you are getting married somewhere else, fly her to wherever you are and HIRE HER. She is the best and she and her husband Casey not only take the most gorgeous photos, they make you feel happy and comfortable on your special day. Her name is Amanda Bevington and you need to go check her out. www.amandabevington.com

I miss my wedding. I think that happens to a lot of brides. You plan and plan and then have the best day ever but it goes by so fast and then it is over! We are quickly approaching the 1 year mark and I just can't believe it.

To keep on with the Santa Ynez theme, here is another photo from Gainey



Doesn't it make you want to just hop on a plane or in a car or whatever and just get to Santa Ynez!? We we are headed there in t-minus 2 hours. It can't come soon enough, we haven't been since Easter weekend!

The purpose of this blog isn't to make you jealous! I just wanted to share my weekend plans of wine tasting, cycling and laying by the pool. I also wanted an excuse to show off that wedding photo.

The only thing missing from my weekend (besides my family and my angel niece Luci) is my mom's strawberry yogurt pie. She would make a ton of them every 4th while I was growing up and that may account for my entry into weight watchers years later! I would share the recipe but isn't really mine to share, hopefully she will post it on her nonna bella blog!!! Love you mom.


Well, that is it from me today, I will post this weekend or Monday with fun photos and stories from this weekend.

Hope you all have a safe and Happy Fourth of July!!!