phillyfoodie.com

March 8, 2010

Caramels … by the pound!

I confess… I have a thing for caramels. And I also have a thing for packages. Like, I’m obsessed with knowing when things I order will arrive, and I track them endlessly. So, when an unexpected package arrived, I was delighted. When it was filled with caramels and marshmallows, I swooned. Jenn, you rock.

Deidre Wood is not is Philadelphia, but she is in the Etsy-verse, and you all have Internet access, so… close enough, right? She will ship you ONE POUND of caramels for the low, low price of $11.50. They come in “cut your own” sticks, and it is a shocking amount of caramel (at least 40 pieces worth.) They are incredibly soft and gooey, though, so you might need to refrigerate before cutting if you live in a very warm home.

How delicious are they? I wanted to share some with Jenn, even though it had come up to room temperature. We were in Barnes and Noble, with no napkins and no knives, so we bit right off the stick. The oozy pulls were stringing off with every bite. Face caramel be damned… the whole thing was gone before I got home.

Deidre Wood
http://deidrewood.etsy.com

February 23, 2010

Delancey Street Bagels

Regional specialties can be so cruel. How can New York have at least 3 reasonable bagel options per block, yet Philly is such a bagel wasteland?

Here are the places I know of that sell bagels in Center City: South Street Philly Bagels (which I always thought was just called Hot Bagels), Manhattan Bagels and Breugger’s Bagels. There’s also the Bagel Factory on Walnut Steet, but they aren’t open on weekends, which makes them nothing but a cruel tease. Hot Bagels is my go-to Center City option, but they only have 3 seats, and it’s far enough from my home that, at best, they’re Lukewarm Bagels by the time I get to eat them.

And so, though it is vaguely embarrassing to admit it, my actual bagel place of choice is in the suburbs, land of plenty. Delancey Street Bagels has it all in spades — plenty of seating, plenty of parking, and plenty of everything on my everything bagel. And they virtually never run out of my chosen flavors, even when I get there an hour before closing.

And it’s more than just bagels and cream cheese, folks. Want a sandwich? Just look for the words “melted marinated string cheese” on their menu. I prefer the white pizza bagel (shown above), but Meng would trek out there multiple times a week for the tuna melt. The bacon, egg, and cheese on a croissant is so tasty, you won’t even notice it’s turkey bacon. They even have a nice selection of muffins and cookies, in case you walk in half-starved, and you cannot wait another 3 minutes for your bagel (not that I would know anything about that.) I also hear that they have very good coffee (which I really would not know anything about, but I trust that Jenn is not trying to trick you or me.)

If Delancey Street opened a Center City location, it would change my whole weekend structure. Do you have a favorite bagel place in Philly? You can tell me. I promise I won’t buy the last everything bagel out from under you.

Delancey Street Bagels
50 East Wynnewood Road
Wynnewood, PA 19096-2013
(610) 896-8837

Comments (View) so far. Add your comment! | Filed under Helen burbs dine best at 1:04am
URL: http://phillyfoodie.com/post/406496953/delancey-street-bagels

February 16, 2010

Dulce de leche, can to pan

If you would like to draw me to a recipe, here is the phrase that pays: “It only has one ingredient!” (In my world, salt is not an ingredient. It is a fact of life.) It takes almost no prompting to get me to whip up a batch of butter. So, the idea of boiling a can and getting out a tasty treat had immediate, obvious appeal to me.

Traditional dulce de leche requires you to spend one to two hours tending a pot of sweetened milk, until it has reduced down to a yummy goo. Quick ‘n easy dulce de leche has you simmer a can of sweetened condensed milk for a few hours until it’s gone from a can of milk to a can of deliciousness. What could be easier?

I paid attention in chemistry class, though, and I have a bad track record with sugar products. (See: the time I set the roof of my oven on fire making baked apples.) With Bryan out of town, the vision of dragging myself to the hospital covered with super-heated sugar globules after the can exploded ran rampant through my head. That is, I chickened out. After 3 hours of simmering, this is my can contents.

A change had happened. Just not much of one.

It’s ok, though. In the 3 hours it had been simmering, I had been looking at recipes. I could add cinnamon! I could add SALT. Suddenly, the idea of finishing it off in a pot seemed very appealing.

I simmered it on a stovetop at medium (to medium-low; my stove was a little too hot, and I did get some browned bits as you can see) for about 10 minutes. I added about a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon and kosher salt. It reduced by about 25%.

I can see why people talk about eating jars in one sitting. Yum!

Dulce de Leche

1 can sweetened condensed milk
cinnamon, nutmeg and/or salt, to taste

Place can in a pot of simmering water. Make sure there is enough water to keep the can covered at all times. Simmer for 3 hours.

If it’s still too thin, take it out of the can, season as desired, and simmer for another 5 to 15 minutes, until it reaches the desired consistency. Place in a container, and eat!

Comments (View) so far. Add your comment! | Filed under Helen cook sugar at 9:41pm
URL: http://phillyfoodie.com/post/393874034/dulce-de-leche-can-to-pan

(No. OF NOTES: 1)

February 11, 2010

Mmmm, mushroom soup!

I grew up a vegetable hater. Mushrooms were my first love of the vegetable world. (Fungus world… whatever. They were not a meat, fruit, grain, starch or fat, and you find them in salads. Thus, they are vegetables.) Why? Because mushrooms have the delightful property of taking on a lot of the flavor of their environment.

So, for my Saturday snowday, I made a pot of stock, and then, mushroom soup. Normally when I make a big pot of soup, I have a couple of bowls, then freeze the rest because I’m sick of eating it. Maybe it was the extra snowfall, but this pot of soup got eaten by Tuesday! I hear there is more snow coming. Unless you are a mushroom hater, you may want to get the supplies for this soup, and spend your next snowday savoring this soup.

Mushroom Soup

(Based on Kalyn’s Kitchen double mushroom soup)

1 lb crimini or button mushrooms, plus 6 mushrooms for garnish
1/2 lb shitake mushrooms (or 1/4 lb dried shitakes)
6 cups stock, or mix of stock, mushroom soaking liquid and water
1/2 onion (or to taste)
3 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
heavy cream to finish

Slice your onion into thin half slices. Melt 2 tbsp butter and the olive oil in a pot deep enough for the whole soup. Sautée onions over medium heat until translucent, about 5 minutes.

Clean mushrooms, and remove stems. Rough chop the mushrooms.

Add the mushrooms to the pot, browning them until they release their liquid and the liquid has evaporated, about 10 minutes. Add the stock/water/soaking liquid, and simmer for 60 minutes.

Add salt and pepper to taste, and puree with an immersion blender to your desired consistency. I like some mushroom bits, so I didn’t puree all the way. If you aren’t going to eat your soup right away, stop here and stick it in the fridge. I didn’t try freezing it, so let me know how it turns out if you do!

Cut 6 garnish mushrooms into thin slices. Heat 1 tbsp butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Brown slices until liquid is released.

To finish, add heavy cream to taste, and simmer for a minute or two to bring the cream up to temperature. Stir in slices, and serve immediately.

Comments (View) so far. Add your comment! | Filed under Helen cook soup at 10:17am
URL: http://phillyfoodie.com/post/383834429/mmmm-mushroom-soup

(No. OF NOTES: 1)

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.

Comments (View) so far. Add your comment! | Filed under Helen shop at 11:25am
URL: http://phillyfoodie.com/post/370733871/philly-cupcake

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

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