When will we get a new oven?

look! this is Mia. She is my roommate, your and my friend, the sole employee (and therefore awesome titled employee) of a cool non-profit, an aspiring lawyer, daughter, sister, girlfriend, and the temperature regulator for our Hot point oven. Check out the precise science she uses to bring the temperature down from "holy-crap-burny" to "I-will-bake-your-tarts". Your chocolate tarts that is... look!


Anyhow you might be thinking, "Emblies that seems an awfully silly thing for such an accomplished young lady to do, why don't you just put a brick in there or something?"

well dear reader we are far far beyond the point of a brick helping us. This oven can only be turned off by denying it power, and will turn itself back on when power is re-introduced, even if all the knobs are to the off position. Great! fantastic! there is nothing better than a fire-death-trap in your apartment, I mean it's like I'm living on the edge each and every day, and we all know that I love the edge. However I have to admit my desire to not die in my sleep due to a gas oven related fire far superceeds my desire to be hardcore. plus there is nothing particularly hard core about living with a broken oven. There is however something hard core about successfully baking with a broken oven, something both Mia and I have been doing! There have been the aforementioned tarts, cookies, a key lime pie...I'm pretty impressed with our perseverance. That all said:

It's time for a new oven. It has been promised to us, now all we want is that promise to be followed through on! please!

Purcell-Kirschner-Robinson Thanksgiving!

I have to admit that I have very few pictures of thanksgiving day proper because I wasn't there for most of the time and then my camera was left in the basement of my house. We had thanksgiving at my aunt and Uncle's house (father's side). My mother's side cousin's and aunt and uncle were all out too. So I walked into quite the noisy family gathering! I love it! Everyone is telling everyone else what to do and how to do it...in detail. Frankie to tom...you're bruising my martini, mom and Joyce to Regan, you're tables have to be set up differently....all the men, you think that's carving a turkey? Everyone to grandma GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN!!!!!! Evan to Dylan, you think that's enough food? you have to eat 3 more bites of that before you get any more Martinelli's sparkeling cider, James to Dylan, I'm hardcore because I eat my food...etc!

not a silent moment. There were 13 of us all (the big party was Friday for grandma's 85th, but that will be another post)
So: food.
Hors d'oeuvres: Ashtrays (Regan) little filo dough things full of sausage olives ranch dressing(?)
cumin shrimp.
spinach artichoke dip
bread with Hummus, roasted red peppers and mozzarella
celery with blue cheese stuffing
salami, provolone w/ hummus on bread

Dinner
There was clearly turkey...one normal and one small portion "small portion" that Tom smoked, and gravy. Sausage stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans, cranberry-orange relish, marshmallow sweet potatoes for Frank, mashed potatoes with bacon and a huge salad with pear, cranberries, apple, blueberry, cashews, and you know lettuce.

molto vino...mommy had a blutini ha! and was coherent after it; we don't give her enough credit about her tolerance.

Then there was pie. Apple, with a beautiful cornucopia decoration, pumpkin pie with orange zest and pumpkin pie with out orange zest for Regan, all served if desired with whipped cream!

anyhow my family is amazingly feisty all of them, and incredibly opinionated, but it's ok they'll charm the pants off of you!

Thanksgiving at the Fioritto's

This was the first year in a while that the house wasn't full of college students on Thanksgiving. When I was a kid, my parents invited international students for the holiday and for the past four years my friends and I trekked down to Indiana for the good food and company.

This year it was just the four of us and my uncle, Mark (pictured below opening the wine we had with dinner).

Uncle Mark brought salmon that had been 'pickled', for lack of a better word, in a vodka, dill marinade. We ate it on pita chips with a bit of sour cream. It was great and just added to the dilemma of how much to eat before dinner to optimize the consumption of tasties. This year we had guacamole, jalapeño-artichoke dip, and the salmon for our pre-meal, football snacks.

In my opinion, Thanksgiving is not a visually appealing meal, but boy is it tasty. My mom's traditional menu includes turkey, mashed potatoes, candied yams, crock pot stuffing, orange-cranberry relish, and a vegetable of some sort--this year it was green beans (made ridiculously delicious with bacon drippings).

American Ap-pie-rel

Emily and I agree that Thanksgiving is totally about the stuffing, but pie definitely makes an important and regular appearance each year at my house. While dessert often seems like an afterthought to the spread of savory delights my mom whips up, the pumpkin and pecan pies are always delicious.

This year, my dad found a recipe for sweet potato pie in the Wall Street Journal and knowing of our shared affinity for this particular pastry he requested it for Turkey Day. I took him up on the offer, excited as always to try out a new recipe.

Alas, due to the shenanigans of our treacherous oven, what might have been a beautiful addition to my mother's cooking turned out less than tasty. The oven's temperature spiked within the first ten minutes of baking and in another ten minutes the pie was burned. In a moment of mock drama, Emily collapsed to the floor in what I can only describe as the 'American Apparel' pose--you know the one.

Thankfully, I have enough sweet potatoes left over to try this again. I am hopeful that with a few tweaks to the recipe and the cooperation of the oven the second attempt will be more inspiring than the first.

making chicken not chicken

I have to say that there has been little exciting cooking in the apartment. With the exception of a delicious apple cake that I made from a New York Times recipe that my mother recommended to me.

Mostly I've been trying to cook chicken such that it doesn't taste like chicken...because chicken is boring. My most recent exploits involved lots of paprika and cream! Regarding chicken though it's rather sad to me that Thanksgiving is all about Turkey...'cause it's just like chicken.

Actually Thanksgiving is all about stuffing...mmm delicious sausage stuffing! I'm going to try to remember to bring my camera home so we can have some cooking at the K-R abode photos!


That is all.

Cookies and Craftiness

At some point on Sunday, after spending the afternoon playing Spades with my brother Aaron and our sister-in-law Beth, I felt markedly crafty. And by crafty I mean "feeling the need to make something" not "inspired to make mischief." So Beth and I made cookies! We made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with no raisins much to my father's chagrin. We both agreed that one or the other was really the way to go with oatmeal cookies and acted on the 'chef's prerogative.''

Another day, Dad. Another day.

The cookies turned out a little flatter than they normally do, but the chewiness that resulted was actually very tasty. I think Beth and I make a fine team in the kitchen and it was great to have someone to share the heavy lifting with--what with both of us having such wimpy arms it can be difficult stirring in that last cup of oatmeal!

I can do most anything....

can you bake a pie? no...
neither can I.....

Well actually I can, and I think that I've made a really lovely crust...that's what it's all about yes? making the perfect flaky but not crumbly crust, that is heaven help us, not tough.

Now I haven't gotten the chance to eat the pie yet but I have eaten about half of the goodie and it seems that this might be the best pie crust that I've ever made.

I made it outside, on the porch, such that it would stay colder, yes I know, clever!


also as a side note: trader joe's Gorgonzola walnut tortellini are quite tasty!

This just in...

Lightning strikes twice in one day! Inspiration lightning of course. While this meal wasn't particularly complicated or unique, it did taste absolutely delicious and turned yucky chicken (and by that I mean boring, not rancid) into a delectable treat.

Yellow Curry

We put apples and raisins and other choice vegetables into this Indian style curry. We also used fresh ginger which we picked up in our weekly run to Stanley's. In addition to chicken stock, we also used yoghurt which aptly paired with these spices.

After dinner we made hot chocolate with Ghiradelli's Ground Chocolate and a bit of Orange Essence. Alas, even the sweetness of this dessert could not counter the bitterness of the TV episode we watched in which everyone seemed to be failing at life.

Thankfully, we are doing well by ourselves--much better than those folks. Emily's dad concurs and even went so far as to call us "Young Urban Sophisticates." We thought that was pretty funny.

On Lunch: A Stroke of Brilliance

Today Emily had a stroke of brilliance. After a week of very sad food (except for Thursday's tasty asparagus-leek soup) she had plenty of food mojo saved up and it resulted in this meal of perfection:

Baked Apples with Brie and Honey

Indeed. It was fantastic. We used the honey Emily brought back from Pickford, Michigan after spending a week with her family in the UP. It is particularly floral and we reserve it for occasions such as these since it has no business being eaten on our cheerios. (Side note--we might have a bit of a problem with honey...we have three different types currently each of which is reserved for specific purposes.)

Emily also baked some crispy biscuits to eat this delicious spread on. They ended up a little flatter than expected, but it actually turned out for the better in my opinion. They stood up to the sweetness of the apples which in turn offset the richness of the brie. The texture was perfect. Each of the layers melded into the next--soft with crisp, salty with sweet.

It was an excellent lunch.

And we ate it all.

Breakfast is great!

it's yummy in my tummy I can't wait!
There's cereal, French toast, eggs and ham,
pancakes and syrup, bagels and jam,
I wish it were breakfast so I could see,
breakfast for me!

So after a late night watching too much light makes the baby go blind I had a whole cohort of peoples at the house, so of course breakfast abounded! I will admit, it was slightly less impressive than when Mia and I rolled out of bed ten minutes before Ted arrived to make pancakes, banana muffins, bacon and poached eggs, but it was epic in an appropriately Embly style.
You may not know this but I'm a breakfast fiend!
And yes I know how to do it best so back the heck off!
I mean....if I'm in my home I prefer to have breakfast in the manner that I choose....any breakfast is of course delightfully welcome, honestly you're talking to a girl who eats cheerios most mornings.

Anyhow we had cinnamon buns that we bought and Alex prepared

cornbread,

and eggs and bacon...this is Alex's plate!

Hooray breakfast...also Ross loves cornbread!

Emily Cooks Stir Fry?

"Oh my goodness gracious what happened to my stir fry?" Embly asked irritably of her bean sprouts.

"It wasn't us!" they clamored.

Yes it was. The stir fry went from delicious to funky and it was all your fault bean sprouts. All your fault.

But we have moved on.

Emily also made banana muffin-cookies with our last remaining banana which had begun to brown. She didn't necessarily intend for them to be muffiny, but they are and they are delicious. And fluffy.

We will give some of the cookies to Ross who demanded them and Shane'sie who deserves them.

A Very Cozy Kitchen

Last night before we went to bed, Emily commented that she loves our apartment. It really has been the perfect place for us.

In particular, our kitchen has turned out much better than expected. My parents gave us a free standing counter top which has made the space much easier to use than when we first moved in and with a few finishing touches we made it quite cozy. We put a chair that my brother painted in the kitchen so people can visit with us when we cook and there is an absolutely thriving basil plant on one of the window sills.

This morning I saw a pair of cardinals eating from our bird feeder through the kitchen window so I stopped washing dishes for a bit to just sit and listen to them chit chat with each other.

I'm glad to finally have the comfort and familiarity of my very own kitchen.

Midnight French Toast and Fried Apples

The title says it all really. Emily and I had a late start on dinner, but it turned out delicious. We had French Toast with fried apples and home-made whipped cream. It was beautiful and quite tasty, but you can really only eat a little bit of something so sweet and rich. The best part is, the meal was completely inspired by our keen sense of thrift. Our apples had begun to brown and their texture was a bit off. Rather than throwing them away we turned them into exactly the meal we were in the mood for.

Right now I'm in the process of making fried rice to have in the refrigerator for later. It's always good for me to have food on hand because, as much as I enjoyed last night's dinner, it certainly doesn't factor in well with my eating healthy plan. If I have food prepared, I can always grab it in a moment of hunger rather than eating unhealthy, albeit delicious, snacks.

Today Was a Sad Food Day

Not sure what happened to all of that marvelous food we've been eating. Today's culinary rating was maybe a 4 out of 10 if I'm generous. I had a banana for breakfast and cheerios and applesauce for lunch. Dinner was certainly tastier since my mom took me out to the Beer Bistro. I had a chopped salad, which was exactly what I was in the mood for, but did not leave me satisfied for long. Alas, I have nothing wonderful to write about.

Emily had a bowl of cheerios with honey for breakfast, a tasty falafel sandwich from the Nile and a fizzy root beer. She had a $1 chocolate milkshake snack from the C-shop on campus and for dinner a microwaveable bowl o' dinner which turns out involved shrimp. Yuck. currently she is eating applesauce with cinnamon (and cloves!).

Didn't you want to know all of that? We felt guilty for not posting and figured we should develop good habits even if we don't have exciting foods to talk about. Perhaps tomorrow Emily will post on one of the many delicious meals we've had recently, if only to remind us that we are capable of such things.

Stanley's Fruits and Vegetables

"Stanley, we love your fruits and vegetables!" or says the mural that so happily greets you at Stanley's Fruits and Vegetables--the best most wonderful loving yummy place in the world...or at least on the west side of Chicago.

Mrs. Shin, the mother of the little girl I tutor, took it upon herself to make sure that Emily and I knew where to shop for our produce. She shuttled me off to Stanley's and I've never looked back. Now Emily and I make a weekly trip on the #9 bus and come back with bags full of groceries and minds full of ideas for delicious recipes to attempt in the week to come.

We've decided that we'd like to share our food adventures with you, since so far they have been so delicious and beautiful. We hope to post pictures as well as verbally enticing descriptions of our concoctions. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do and are inspired by our vivacious kitchen exploits.