phillyfoodie.com

February 4, 2010

Philly Cupcake

After a particularly ill-fated trip to Betty’s Speakeasy last October, where the only cupcakes on offer included stout, chipotle and zucchini, I wrote my own personal rules for

How to Be a Good Cupcake Purveyor

Have chocolate-chocolate and vanilla-vanilla, every day.
Cupcakes are all about the cake-to-frosting ratio. Don’t screw it up.
Don’t refrigerate. It makes your cakes dry.
If you are going to have crazy flavors, they better be good.
If your cupcakes are worse than the ones I bake at home, get out of the cupcake biz.

Philly Cupcake must be creepin’ around my windows, because they nailed all 5. They even have a sign on their wall that reads, “We don’t refrigerate our cupcakes, and neither should you.” And they got the secret rule of how to be a good anything in my book… Be convenient. While I love the cupcake truck and Whipped Bakeshop, their locations and hours make them less than ideal.

My favorite and general crowd-pleaser on their standard menu (sorry, facebook link) is the red velvet. (The one shown above is a new offering — chocolate red velvet! Also very good.) When making your pick, be wary of one thing. Standard cupcakes are $3. Those marked special don’t just mean “daily special”. They also mean “costs $4”, which is a little pricey for my taste. Maybe if they had a nice thick chocolate ganache… but I haven’t really felt like the $4 were worth the extra buck so far.

Philly Cupcake
1132 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
(215) 625-4888‎
Philly Cupcake is cash-only.

January 31, 2010

I've been otherwise engaged.

I know I’ve been a bit blogging delinquent for the last few weeks. I hope you can forgive me; I’ve been otherwise engaged… literally! And since there’s nothing my sweetie and I like better than a good challenge, we’ve set the date less than 3 months away. So, that’s been eating most of my time. (Argh, engagement clearly brings out my inner punster.)

Which brings me to call on you, my fair foodie friends! I’m looking for a cake, or a creative melange of all things sweet. I’m not really much for a tower of painted fondant (not that I actually hate fondant — I find its texture weirdly appealing.) Let someone else get something that looks beautiful and photo-ready; I’m looking for something that tastes good. Do they make cream-cheese-frosted wedding cakes?

I’d love to hear your suggestions for the tastiest wedding sweet in the Philadelphia area. There are 37 items on my to-do list, so I need to knock one off every two days… eek! Help a girl out, and tell me where to go to get my sweet on!

Hopefully, we’ll also be adding a new member to team Philly Foodie soon! Keep your eye out for his first post in the next couple of weeks. Mike is not only a great cook, but a home beer brewer and a lover of all things challenging (which I most certainly am not!) I think he’s going to be a great addition.

And now, we return to our regularly scheduled no-excuses blogging. :)

Comments (View) so far. Add your comment! | Filed under Helen wedding at 2:22pm
URL: http://phillyfoodie.com/post/363599332/ive-been-otherwise-engaged

January 24, 2010

Q.T. Vietnamese Sandwiches

For many years, I denied myself bánh mi, because I have a simple rule regarding changes to a dish.

If you want one thing changed, that’s ok; if you want more than one thing changed, order something else.

In addition to the meat, shredded carrots, jalapeño and paté, banh mi is served with two of my traditional food enemies, cilantro and cucumber. Yes, I know you love them and think they both taste delicious. Cilantro tastes like soap to me and supposedly many others. Cucumber, I just dislike. Don’t tell me that it doesn’t taste like anything. It tastes… bad.

But, as anyone who has worked in the same location for a long time knows, some days, you just cannot eat one more chicken red curry/molé burrito/ turkey sandwich/<insert the thing you actually get multiple times a week here>, and you wander out into the lunch wilderness to find something, anything, different. And so, in December, I found myself entering QT Vietnamese Sandwiches, and ordering an unmodified bánh mi.

And since then, I have found myself at their door at least twice a week. They have 9 varieties of bánh mi (including 2 veg options), and all nine cost less than $5. Lemongrass chicken is featured above, but my current fave is the grilled pork (#7). They cook the meat fresh to order, so it’s always warm and tasty on these cold winter days. Yet I always feel like I’m back out the door less than 5 minutes later, possibly because of their back issues of In Style to flip through while you wait.

They have non-sandwich dishes, too, including breakfast, but I haven’t been able to tear myself away from the bánh mi just yet. If you have, give us a report!

They also include the cilantro as one long sprig, instead of a sprinkling of chopped cilantro. So, it can be easily removed if you’re also a hater. And, who knows? I may just come around on this cucumber issue.

Q.T. Vietnamese Sandwiches
48 N. 10th St.
Philadelphia, PA 19107
267-639-4520

Comments (View) so far. Add your comment! | Filed under Helen eat at 10:45am
URL: http://phillyfoodie.com/post/350880716/q-t-vietnamese-sandwiches

January 18, 2010

Stocking up: chocolate chip cookies!

Come winter, stocking homemade cookie dough in your freezer is a game-changer for folks with a sweet tooth. Those times when you were craving something sweet, but the thought of schlepping down to Wawa was giving you frostbite? In the past! A hot, fresh chocolate chip cookie straight out of the oven is basically the best thing you can ask for on a cold wintry night.

There’s just one teensy thing that makes it hard. Instead of doing this:

You have to do this:

Take a whole sheet of cookies, that could be plate of warm, gooey cookies in just 10 minutes, and stick them in your freezer instead. I won’t lie. It is hard. Consider making a double batch. Or you may end up with a mutiny on your hands.

The sad face of someone who knows that sometimes he has to sacrifice today’s cookies for tomorrow’s? Or the devious look of a hardened cookie dough poacher? You’ll find out which one you live with if that bag of frozen dough balls runs out in 3 days or less.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is a slightly oversalted variant of the Toll House recipe. Most any cookie recipe will freeze, though, so use the one you like best! (and … tell me what it is!)

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Beat butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla together until creamy. Beat in eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt in a second bowl, then gradually incorporate the mixture into the first bowl. When fully combined, stir in chocolate chips.

Prepare a level spot for a baking sheet in your freezer. I use the top of my ice maker to hold up one side, and just stack to the same level on the other side. (This is much easier to do without your dough balls on the sheet.) Then cover the baking sheet with parchment or wax paper, because the frozen dough will stick a bit without it. Scoop out your dough balls. Remember, you’re not going to bake these, so you can cram your dough balls really tightly on the sheet. Freeze for at least an hour, then dump the frozen balls into a ziploc bag or airtight container.

When you’re ready to eat them, preheat the oven to 375 degrees, then put the dough balls on a baking sheet and into the oven. You can bake them straight from the freezer; they should be done in about 15 minutes.

Comments (View) so far. Add your comment! | Filed under Helen cook stockingup at 11:50pm
URL: http://phillyfoodie.com/post/342128064/stocking-up-chocolate-chip-cookies

January 12, 2010

Aloe vera bubble tea

I have a well-known fondness for bubble tea. When I first discovered it on a trip to Singapore many years ago, I was drinking multiple teas a day, and there was a brief, brave moment when my sister and I considered opening a bubble tea business. So, when I arrived in Australia, Jane said we had to go to EasyWay and get a passion fruit bubble tea with aloe, which had been recommended to her by one of her students.

Post-tea, she said that she should have made all her students write down three things she had to eat before leaving Australia on the first day of school. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t discovered this until the week before leaving.

For those of you who may not have had bubble tea (or if you’re troubled by beverages with bits in them), it is usually served with tapioca balls or flavored coconut jellies, both of which are fairly chewy. The aloe was totally different. It was crisp. Jane said it was like eating a soft, sweet ice cube. I loved it. We had one every day until we left Australia. According to the Internet, it might also be incredibly good for you, but take that with a grain of salt.

Luckily for all of us who don’t have a trip to Australia planned, Rising Tide also has several tasty drinks in their “Nutritious Natural Series” with aloe vera chunks. And at $3 each, you can try them all, and discover your own favorite!

Rising Tide
937 Race St
Philadelphia, PA 19107
(215) 925-0266
Beverages are cash only.

Comments (View) so far. Add your comment! | Filed under eat Helen at 11:01pm
URL: http://phillyfoodie.com/post/331725748/aloe-vera-bubble-tea

January 6, 2010

Resolutions for 2010

Happy New Year, my dears! It’s resolution time, and a great many resolutions have to do with food. I’m taking the advice of two of my favorite bloggers, and making sure my resolutions are concrete — things that can be clearly separated into done or not done.

I have a generic resolution to eat local. To transform that into concrete plans, I will: join a CSA, shop at Fair Food once a week, and remember local pastas, cheeses and other prepared foods (hello, Green Aisle!) when buying.

If you are thinking that 2010 will be the year you join a CSA (what is a csa, anyway?), now is actually a great time to start your research. Most CSAs start accepting signups in March, and they can fill up fast. If you wait until the first strawberries hit the stands in May to think CSA, you may find yourself out of luck for the year.

Local blogs are a great resource for potential first time CSA members. I documented my own experience with Greensgrow’s CSA at length. Farm to Philly tracked Blooming Glen Farm, Lancaster Farm Fresh, Red Earth Farm and Dancing Hen Farm. Shana Lee photographed Keystone Farm’s 2009 offerings, though not for her blog. Metro farming documented Pennypack Farm’s 2009 CSA. Someone out there is taking pictures of nearly any CSA you might want to join.

Back to the resolutions! I also want to keep better track of food I try. I have a terrible habit of trying a wine, cheese or beer, but remembering nothing about it except that I have tried it. It ends with me either re-buying something it turns out I didn’t like, or just sticking with my old standards, because I can remember I do like them.

Concrete plan: photograph everything with my iPhone, stick it in Evernote, tag it “like”, “dislike” or “neutral”. If I’m feeling really ambitious, I might even write my thoughts, but let’s not push it. I’m using Evernote just because I’ve used it in the past. If you’re tracking wines, etc. in some handy way, share it in the comments!

And, because I love a good secret resolution, here is mine: improve my photo composition. (What’s a secret resolution? One I don’t feel guilty about not keeping, which usually means it has a higher success rate than my “real” resolutions.) I probably take 50 shots for every one I post here. In Japan, I didn’t have a way to offload the photos on my SD card, so I had to shoot more mindfully.

In 2010, I shall channel the spirit of Henri Cartier-Bresson, and focus on the decisive moment. Or something. Take fewer pictures. Make more of them good ones. That is, spend more time thinking, less time clicking. I’d love some tips on making this concrete, though. I’ve been looking for a photography class without a darkroom component for a while now. Let me know if you’re aware of a good one!

Will you be making any food resolutions this year? Cook at home more? Eat more colorful foods? (I thought about that one.) Cook your way through a cookbook? (hee….) Stop eating so many g-d burgers you keep reading about on the Internet? Tell us in the comments!

Comments (View) so far. Add your comment! | Filed under Helen resolutions csa photography at 10:09am
URL: http://phillyfoodie.com/post/319891121/resolutions-for-2010

December 28, 2009

Best of 2009

We’re coming up on a full year together! After registering phillyfoodie.com almost 5 years ago, I finally dusted it off and did something with it in 2009. In commemoration of my first 12 months, here are your favorite posts of the year.

And then my own personal picks for the articles I wish more of you read (actually, read, don’t read…. just go eat the stuff in them!)

Shop: Best Candy: Sea Salt Caramels @ Capogiro
Dine: XIX: Oysters at my ultimate lunch spot
Cook: The world’s simplest carnitas
My favorite pic: Clementines, the ideal fruit

Got some favorites of your own? Tell me in the comments! (especially pics… I’d love to know which ones strike your fancy.)

Thanks to all of you for reading over the last year. I’ve enjoyed meeting you, emailing you, seeing your comments and interacting with you on Twitter, and I look forward to more of all it in the coming year. Thanks to Jenn, my co-blogger when baby allows, and my blogtator, editor and sounding board all the rest of the time. And thank you especially to Art at Foobooz, who is certainly the reason at least half of you even know I exist, and the rest of the Philly food blogging community, who have uniformly been delightful, supportive, interesting and totally inspiring to me. I can’t wait for 2010!

Comments (View) so far. Add your comment! | Filed under Helen best at 3:14pm
URL: http://phillyfoodie.com/post/304851200/best-of-2009

December 22, 2009

Harry & David pears

Certain foods always taste like a holiday. (Like this cake = my birthday) Harry and David pears will always taste like Christmas to me.

My grandparents would send us a case of them every Christmas. If they hadn’t arrived by the second week of December, I would start staking out the mail, and checking the crisper drawers to make sure thay I hadn’t missed their arrival. They are the “Royal Riviera” pears, and I’ve never seen them anywhere else. They are, without a doubt, the most spectacular pears I’ve ever had. And they should be, because Harry and David seems to stake their entire brand on them.

For years, Harry and David was mail-order only. Today, all you procrastinators are in luck — they have local shops at King of Prussia, the Shops at Sagemore and the Willow Grove Mall. If you need a last-minute gift for fruit-loving friends and family, a case of Royal Riviera pears could start a new holiday tradition.

Comments (View) so far. Add your comment! | Filed under Helen shop holiday at 8:00am
URL: http://phillyfoodie.com/post/295014785/harry-david-pears

December 21, 2009

Meringue Cookies

When Helen first mentioned that she would be leaving for several weeks and then asked if I’d mind posting several entries, I was thrilled. I decided, immediately, that I wanted to blog several different types of cookies, combining my love of baking with my loves of Christmas and blogging! This would be my opportunity to leave the safe world of chocolate chip cookies and snickerdoodles.

My first choice was the meringue cookie, as part of my plan to only blog about apple or egg white desserts! Plus, they seemed so adorable. White little clouds that crunch, then taste like sugar before dissolving on your tongue… what wasn’t to like? However, the whole recipe seemed a little too easy. Sure, they were time intensive for the actual baking/drying part, but I was easily able to whip up a batch right before Nathan went to sleep, and then leave them in the oven to dry overnight.

As it turns out, these cookies were a complete success. My son and I finished off quite a few of them in only one day, and I gifted the remainder to our next door neighbors. They’re delicious, gorgeous, and great at using up extra egg whites. If you don’t have egg whites stored in your freezer, like I do, consider making some ice cream, pots de creme, or gâteau breton first to get those yolks out of the way!

My only ahead-of-the-recipe advice for these cookies is to really mind the drying out in the oven stage. I ate several before they completely dried out and they almost tore my fillings out. I was worried that I had messed up the recipe, but the ones I had the next day were perfect. Simply make these cookies at night, and leave them in your oven overnight after you’ve finished baking.

Recipe: Meringue Cookies

From: Baking Illustrated

Ingredients:

4 egg whites
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1. Set oven to 200 degrees and set your racks to the upper and lower middle positions. Line 2 baking sheets with either parchment paper or Silpat.

2. Beat the egg whites at a slow speed until they are frothy. I stopped when I thought to myself, “That’s a lot of bubbles.” As a side note, I used my Kitchen Aid stand mixer for this recipe, but I think it’d be doable with a hand mixer.

3. Add the cream of tartar and take it up to medium-fast now, for about 90 seconds. I didn’t count seconds, but looked for a ‘texture much like shaving cream’. Sprinkle in about half the sugar, and beat for another 60 seconds or so.

4. Add the vanilla and reduce the speed to the lowest setting. Sprinkle in the remaining sugar, and mix until that sugar is incorporated into the ‘dough’.

5. Dollop out the meringues about one inch apart. I followed the instructions to do 3 rows of 5 each and got enough for nearly two trays.

6. Bake for 1 and 1/2 hours. Touch the cookies to see if they feel dry. If they don’t feel firm and dry (or if they seem sticky still), go for another half hour. If they are done, just turn off the oven and let them dry out for several hours. Do not skimp on this step.

Supposedly these cookies will keep in an airtight container for weeks. I wouldn’t know, and I suspect that you won’t either.

Comments (View) so far. Add your comment! | Filed under Jennifer cookies cook meringue at 10:00am
URL: http://phillyfoodie.com/post/293431473/meringue-cookies

December 17, 2009

marcie blaine chocolates @ Verde

Since my first visit shortly after Verde opened, marcie blaine chocolates has been experimenting the pants off chocolate! The flavors very widely almost every time I buy them, and the downright strangest chocolate I’ve had in recent memory came from their kitchen. They have also hit upon some of my new most favorite flavors. For you, dear readers, I made the sacrifice of tasting all their recent flavors, so you may buy gift boxes with confidence.

Must-buys:

the gingerbread was spectacular, warm and buttery, with a kick of spice at the end. Just like the real deal.
the classic is a 70% cacao ganache, and just super tasty.
the hazelnut praline is a little denser than most pralines, which just makes it feel richer. It also had a very defined nut flavor, not the Nutella taste you get in a lot of hazelnut chocolates.
the rose tattoo claims to be a rosewater caramel, but tastes more like butterscotch to me. Delicious and pretty-looking to boot!

I liked:

The mint is kind of dry, but a it’s a light, fluffy taste that doesn’t make you feel like your tastebuds have been obliterated by toothpaste.
dry chocolate pecan w/ pecan brittle had a warm, salty flavor, with a roasted aroma and taste. A good one for people who don’t like sweets.
the spicy peanut was another praline, with heavy peanut butter flavor. I didn’t tasty any spice, but I still liked it.
the green tea was a very mildly flavored ganache.
the rosemary pinenut fleur de sel caramel, while not very caramelly, was still interesting, as you could really taste all the flavors. The salt brought out the rosemary.

Not for me:

the Bindi madras has a white chocolate ganache, which isn’t my thing. You can really taste the curry; the coconut, not so much.
the cacao nibs tasted like just plain chocolate to me. Get the classic instead.
blood orange and olive oil is novel, but I still don’t like citrus in my chocolate.
the lavender vanilla was very lavendery, which makes me feel like I’m eating a sachet.
the bacon caramel may appeal to sweets haters. It made me feel like my brain was shutting down from weird overload, and shoved me back from the edge of bacon madness.

Their flavors change regularly, so all of these may not be available when you visit. I really hope they have gingerbread, though. It’s SO good! They also sell chunks of chocolate bark, for which I am very grateful. It can be painful to go to buy someone a box of nice chocolates, because then you would like a box of nice chocolates. Their bark gives you a nice way to get your chocolate fix without feeling guilty about spending a fortune on a second box of chocolates!

marcie blaine chocolates @ Verde
108 S 13th St
Philadelphia, PA 19107-4532
(215) 546-8700

Comments (View) so far. Add your comment! | Filed under Helen shop at 10:00am
URL: http://phillyfoodie.com/post/287564263/marcie-blaine-chocolates-verde

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