Summery Sangria

What better way to cool off in this ridiculous Maryland heat than with a summer-fruit-loaded white wine sangria?

I guess I didn't quite get my sangria fill in Barcelona, because I made this drink three days after my return for a Friday grill-night. This recipe uses a magnum of wine and makes 6-8 glasses of sangria but you could easily halve it. I used strawberries and peaches from my CSA but any variety of seasonal fruits would work.

Summer Peach Sangria

1 1.5 liter bottle Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio

1/2 cup Cointreau

1 quart strawberries, washed, stemmed, and sliced thin

4 peaches, pitted and sliced thin

2 oranges, wedged (one of the recipes I found says to slice into thin rounds which I'm sure looks nicer, but is much more difficult to eat)

Ice and club soda, for serving

Combine all ingredients but the ice and club soda into a big pitcher; refrigerate overnight.

To serve, place some ice cubes and a bunch of fruit from the pitcher into a glass. Fill about halfway or more with sangria, depending on your taste, then top off with cold club soda. Make sure you give your guests a spoon or fork for the fruit -- or don't and laugh at their attempts to reach the fruit with their tongues/fingers.

For a sweeter twist, use champagne in place of the club soda. For an even awesomer twist, eliminate the club soda and instead add about 2 cups of St. Germain elderflower liquor into the mix before refrigerating. I definitely would have done this if the liquor store on Connecticut had any clue what St. Germain was. Alas, they looked at me like I had two heads and I walked out empty-handed (if you consider 5 bottles of wine "empty-handed").

In case you were curious, we grilled fresh Kielbasa from a market in Jefferson, MD then made sandwiches with peppers and onions.

Eating Our Way Across Barcelona

I spent 4 days in Barcelona earlier this month in a quick jaunt to paradise. Of course Don and I spent most of our time eating and drinking our way across the city, stopping at all the sights on the way. Barcelona is known for several things: Gaudi's amazing architecture, its nightlife that doesn't even start til after midnight, and it's delicious food and drink. Pretty much every meal we ate consisted of pig in some form or another, not something I'd ever complain about but I never thought I'd be missing a turkey sandwich so much! Before I get back to posting recipes, I thought I'd share a few of the food-related pictures with ya'll.

Bunnies at the Mercat de La Boqueria

These goats are judging you

Breakfast fit for kings: ham croquetas, truita (potato/egg frittata), and sunny-side up eggs on the front plate, a veggie omelette on the back left plate, and fresh bread rubbed with a tomato/olive oil spread. YUM!

Clams, calamari, and sangria by the sea!

Chicken Cutlet Sandwich

Breaded chicken cutlet, roasted red pepper, baby arugula, and hummus on a toasted sesame bagel

No Such Thing As Too Much Chocolate

Last year I wanted to make a chocolate cake that was going to be melt-in-your-mouth moist and over-the-top chocolatey. Enter "Too Much Chocolate" Cake from allrecipes.com. A simple search allowed me to discover its beauty. So easy! SO good! I am now required to make it for my sister's fiancé every year for his birthday. No skin off my back, that means I have an excuse to eat it every year! While it's certainly not healthy, I try to use the less-fat version of each ingredient where possible and no one can taste the difference, it's so rich.

Usually I make it as a rectangle pan cake (because I don't have a bundt pan which is suggested for it), but with the success of my first layer cake I decided to step it up a bit this time.

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Sleepy in Seattle

You didn't really think I'd go through my trip to Seattle without a restaurant review, did you?? Of course not.

I apologize it's not more entertaining, but I am still on east coast time and am quite tired. Rather than go to the famous sushi joint recommended by a coworker, I hopped across the street from my hotel to Bahn Thai, a restaurant recommended by the front desk lady. It did have decent yelp reviews, though.

I ordered Vegetarian Spring Rolls to start which, incidentally, contain prawns. I get the sense that prawns are pretty big at this restaurant considering everything on the menu can be made with them. The spring rolls were made with lettuce, bean sprouts, some other good crunchy stuff, and (minimal) prawns in a rice wrapper, served with a spicy peanut sauce. Down the hatch!

For my meal I ordered the Tom Kah Pug, which is a spicy coconut soup with mixed veggies and tofu. I ordered it with 3 stars of spice (the scale went from 1 to 5 so I decided to play it safe in the middle). It had the perfect level of heat: just enough to made your nose run but not so much that you are interrupting other diners with your sniffles (ahem, dude at the table next to me). Is it gross that I measure spiciness by how much I need a tissue? Anyway... the soup also had a great flavor beyond the spice but the tanginess got to be a bit much for me; I didn't finish all the broth but I did fish all the veggies out. Somewhere between bites 10 and 15 I karate chopped my water directly onto my phone. So far, it still works! Score.

Overall Bahn Thai was enjoyable but not as good as the Thai I've had in Wheaton. If you're in Seattle near the Space Needle and have a hankerin' for some curry, check it out. Sorry about the lack of pictures but it was a dark and intimate space with several cute couples enjoying a quiet meal. I didn't want to be that girl.

Bahn Thai

409 Roy Street

Seattle, WA 98109

Spatchcock (I Swear It's Clean)

Spatchcock (noun): describes a chicken (or other game bird) that has been prepared for roasting/grilling by the removal of its backbone. Can also be a verb (e.g., "I spatchcocked the crap out of that chicken last night"). Which is exactly what I did a few weeks ago to celebrate the arrival of our friend Clyde, who is spending the summer with us in Wheaton.

The issue with roasting a chicken is that the thigh meat is perfectly cooked at 170°, while the breast meat is perfectly cooked at 150° (any higher will dry it out and no one likes dry breast meat). Conundrum. The idea of spatchcocking is so that the chicken lays flat against the roasting pan, pushing the breasts together to make them thicker. This will keep the breasts from cooking too quickly. Now, spatchcocking a chicken isn't for the faint-hearted of cooks. If you're not used to mangling a chicken carcass, you may want to ease into it. I didn't bother "easing;" instead, I grabbed a pair of kitchen shears and tore through the chicken's ribs, thus removing its entire backbone. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Once spatchcocked, I roasted to make Chipotle Chicken Tacos and served with red rice. For the zesty recipes, read on!

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Egg In A Bell Pepper Hole

One of the first breakfasts Don ever cooked for me was his childhood favorite: egg-in-a-hole. I had never heard of it, but once I tried it I was certainly won over. Didn't hurt Don's cause either. Recently I got the idea to get creative with this classic breakfast by cooking the egg in sliced red bell peppers instead of bread. What a great and tasty twist (thanks, Food Mag)!

There is no real recipe, so take a look at the pics below for a visual how-to:

Artistic "before" shot - isn't it glam?

Eggs cookin' in the skillet: note sunny-side egg at the top; that's Don's. I like my yolk broken and cooked.

Finished product! The eggs were served over sliced, toasted bagels (straight from Brooklyn, thanks to our summer squatter, Clydesdale!)