Finger Food!

Hey Everyone. It seems I am up to my ears in applications. Trying to get some work for my new stint in the “real world.” And thanks so much to HG, by the way.

But anyway. I made lots of good food this week. I’ll start you off with this amazing cupcake! The recipe is from an old Joy of Cooking cookbook and is really special. It has sort of an angel-food texture, making it light, airy, and melt-in-your-mouth delicious. The trick is the whipped egg whites that are folded in to the batter. This time around, I actually over cooked them by about two minutes, so they weren’t as moist as they usually are, but they were definitely passable. CDR even said they the “best cupcakes [he] ever had.” 

And last night, we decided to nom on some wings (courtesy of me) and some…well it’s hard to name. We’ll call them “Bun-less Sliders” (courtesy of CDR). Now, I’m not one to brag…but these wings (or drumettes) were off the wow charts. And I wasn’t even expecting them to be. First, I trimmed up the little chicken pieces and threw them in a BBQ marinade (honey, Worcestershire sauce, 5-spice, smoked Spanish paprika, cayenne, brown sugar, a little olive oil, ketchup, chipotle powder and oregano) for two or three hours. Then I just coated them lightly in a flour, salt, and chili powder mixture. Bake those babies at 425 for about 30 minutes, turning and basting once. And put the marinade into a saucepan and bring to a boil to create a delicious sauce. Garnish with parsley and basil.

Also Boyfriend-Approved.

Now, CDR’s bun-less sliders were just as delicious. He just seared some hamburger patties on the grill (seasoned with 5-spice, salt, and pepper) and then skewered them with some frizzled hard chorizo and cherry tomato. He baked them in a bed of red onion and tomato sauce. Out came perfection!

I am a very lucky lady, because he also made a fennel and red onion slaw. See his step-by-step guide here, but basically he just threw some fennel on the grill then chopped it up with some thinly sliced red onion and dressed it with lemon juice, honey, salt and pepper and served over mixed greens.

And here was the dinner plate.

You know you want it!

We topped it all of with a new red wine I found at Trader Joe’s. It’s called Dearly Beloved. It was actually pretty perfect for our dinner. It had notes of cinnamon and a hint of pepper. Warm, sweet, and jam-y (or “jammy” to appease CDR, who is obnoxiously reading over my shoulder as I type this…love you). At first taste, I wasn’t in love. It was delicious on the sip, but it didn’t finish very nicely. But when paired with the meal…damn good wine. And it was even better today.

Dearly Beloved, we gather to say our goodbyes…

Dessert? Ice cream sandwiches!! I took some cookies that I made earlier and spread the bottoms with a bit of nutella and put a scoop of ice cream (or in this case–soy ice cream) between the cookies. Um. So good. Probably had something to do with the fact that these cookies were chocolate with mint chips. Holler.

open wide…

That’s all folks! Food you can eat with your hands (mostly) never tasted so good! See you back here tomorrow.