Once Upon a Saturday (at Eli's Cheesecake factory store)

I really did have these plans, and they really did get broken for that reason:

Totally worth it, too.



Did somebody say samples?


A few minutes later, after sampling the cheesecake on the tray next to the one pictured above, I sent out this tweet:

It happened again after I got it home, too. I am shameless.



We had lots of people to buy cheesecakes for.



Trunkload o'cheescake!

****

Flavor of the day

Swiss chocolate almond chicken salad?

Congratulations, Culvers! You've finally created a flavor we will never try!


©HouseofJulesPhotography (photo taken by nephew J, with my camera, on a family road trip)

35 Funkalow Street, also known as what I ate for breakfast

Mmmmmm..... cake

My sister rocks. Check it HERE.

It actually took me a few minutes to realize why she chose "35" as the street address. Is that funny or sad?

Presenti: Il festival favoloso delle cinque pizze...

("Presenting: The Fab Five Pizza Fest!")
...or at least how to make one of the tastiest toppings ever!

I'm not going to start posting everything delicious I've ever put in my mouth on here, so no worries! However, there are some things I think everyone should know how to make (or at least get the chance to eat after someone else makes them!), and roasted tomatoes are one of those things. They're so easy that it would be sad if you look at the recipe and think you can't handle it.

Last week, my 13-year-old nephew J assisted me with making a ton of them since tomatoes are really cheap right now. We loaded up on 12 Roma tomatoes and 4 huge Heirloom (true, a little pricier, but they're so funky looking we couldn't resist. Also? Delicious!) tomatoes-- yellow, purple, green and red/green striped-- then headed back to the house and set up an assembly line.

While I washed & sliced the tomatoes, J covered 4 cookie sheets with foil and spread a very light layer of olive oil on top of the foil. Then he started laying out the tomatoes like a pro. After that, we lined the cookie sheets up in assembly line fashion. He started us rolling by sprinkling our pre-measured kosher salt over each tray:


Tomatoes, salted.


I followed behind him with the balsamic vinegar, pouring an equal amount over each tray:


Tomatoes salted and balsamic vinegar'd.


Then J went over each tray with cracked black pepper, and I finished everything off with a very light drizzle of olive oil.


Tomatoes salted, vinegar'd, peppered and oiled.



Roma & Heirloom tomato heaven!



Shot from the other end of the counter. Still Drool-worthy.


I previously posted the recipe (which I had to quadruple for the amount of tomatoes J and I roasted) HERE.

Like always, they came out after roasting deliciously sweet and tangy, with an unmistakable ZING! I used them for several different things that week, the main thing as a topping on homemade pizzas! This is what my roasted tomato, black olive, red onion, mushroom, fresh basil & turkey-pepperoni (spicier than regular pepperoni, you should try it!) pizza turned out like:


Our cousin Eric's famous dough recipe, as well as some organic tomato sauce & cheese helped to make this the Best Pizza Ever. For real.


You can read all about that & see more photos of our Fab Five Labor Day Pizza Fest (including what everyone else's pizzas looked like!) on my sister's blog by clicking HERE!

  It's a lot more fun, when making your own homemade pizzas, if you have everyone speak with Italian accents, and occasionally belt out lyrics from That's Amore! Itsa nice!

All photos taken by J, my trusty kitchen and camera sidekick... except the gratuitous pizza shot, taken by my sister (who is also trusty).

The 2nd Best Thing I've Ever Put In My Mouth*

One night several years ago, my sister happened to call around dinner time and this is how the conversation went:

Her: Whatcha doin'?

Me: Making dinner. Can I call you back later though, because I'm right in the middle of things.

Her: Sure, but what are you making?

Me: Tacos!

Her: Really? Tacos? {pause} For... ONE?

Me (feigning insult): YES, "TACOS FOR ONE"! What are you saying? Single people aren't allowed to make themselves tacos? GOOD DAY, SIR! {click}

In her defense, I think my answer caught her off guard, not that I was cooking something for myself. She'll be the first to admit that I love cooking--whether or not Jeremy is here to cook for-- and that I'm even pretty good at it. Her momentary shock at the idea of "tacos for one" and my immediate cobra-like strike back response was classic.

Whether it's "tacos for one" or something more elaborate and challenging, I never need an excuse to cook for myself or my loved ones. When I find something I want to make, I do it as soon as possible, which is why it's out of character that for 2 years I've been looking for a reason to make a certain recipe. This straight forward, moderately simple-sounding recipe intrigued me so much that after I did online research and came up with my own adaptation using different versions of it, I kept even the idea of making it to myself.

This was something that demanded the perfect opportunity to bake. Luckily--and without her realizing it-- my sister came up with a dinner party theme (is it just our family that does this?) that fit the bill. She decided to have a "Goodbye Beijing, Hello London 2012" dinner party on the night of the Olympics closing ceremonies, featuring traditional London eats.

My contribution (in a nod to all the pubs I enjoyed in London), and the reason for this post, was to be the famed Chocolate Guinness Cake, otherwise known as The 2nd best thing I've ever put in my mouth*.


The view, if I were an Olympic high diver on my way towards the most delicious pool in the world.

This recipe is not difficult, so don't be intimidated by the number of steps I've broken it down into. As the name suggests, you can make this cake with Guinness or any stout of your choosing. As mentioned above, I did a lot of research because there are so many iterations of this recipe online. The chocolate stout cake recipe listed on Epicurious has 300 reviews alone, many with helpful tweaks and nearly all with strongly-worded advice to cut the recipe down by half unless you plan to serve it to an army; advice that I took to heart and we still had a bigger cake than anticipated. There are a handful of ways you can frost this cake, or you can dust it with powdered sugar and call it a day. I went with my go-to ganache, which is super easy.


The reason why you're licking your screen.


For some ingredients, I specified which brand I used, in case you're anything like my friend--and great cook--Scooter (of "Half-n-Falf" fame) who wants to make sure if she follows someone else's recipe exactly and it doesn't turn out, she can blame them. Just kidding, she doesn't really do that, but that woman likes me to get specific, so I'm doing the same thing for you to use as a recipe guide, not recipe law.

One final thing in this all-too-long preamble (I edited it down 3 times, I swear!): I realize that Scharffen Berger unsweetened cocoa powder is ridiculously expensive compared to what you'd usually have on hand. My grocery store had it marked down from $10 to less than $3, so because it's supposedly the best and because I'm not an idiot, I snapped it up immediately**. But that's just me.


Now calm down & get ahold of yourself (oh, please click that hotlink, you won't be sorry!) so you can get to baking!

The 2nd Best Thing I've Ever Put In My Mouth* Cake
If you're sharing this recipe with your mother, I suggest calling it "Chocolate Guinness Cake". It requires less awkward explanation, and you can trust me on that.

For the Cake:

• Three 9" pans or 1 bundt pan
  
• 1 cup stout (Young's Double Chocolate Stout); You'll need to pour closer to 2 cups FOAM INCLUDED from the bottle to the measuring cup to equal the 1 cup needed for this recipe.
  
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
  
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (Scharffen Berger natural unsweetened)
  
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 cups CAKE flour (Swan's Down)
  
• 2 cups superfine sugar (Domino's)
  
• 1/2 Tablespoon baking soda
  
• 3/4 tsp salt
  
• 2 large eggs
  
• 3/4 cup sour cream (I used light sour cream, as kind of a joke, because have you read this recipe?)

For the Ganache:

• 2 cups heavy cream
  
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 18 oz. Semi-sweet chocolate chips (Guittard) Don't cheap out now! Use anything less than Nestle & you'll be sorry.

Note: If you bake this cake in a bundt pan, you can cut the ganache recipe down by one-third or in half since you won't have the layers to fill.

--

Cake instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. 
2. Butter three 8-inch round cake pans with 2-inch-high sides. Line with parchment paper. Butter paper. You may be tempted to forego the parchment paper and buttering, but DO IT ANYWAY. Alternately, you could probably use a non-stick spray on the pans and parchment, but you're in this far already.
3. Sprinkle about 1 Tablespoon of cocoa powder (totally separate from what recipe calls for) in each pan, and shake around to coat buttered pan & parchment with a thin layer of cocoa. Tap out any extra. Set pans aside. The butter will help ensure this notoriously sticky batter doesn't stick, and the addition of cocoa powder dusting to the buttered coating helps the cakes release from the pans without breaking. I recommend doing this cocoa-powdering step over the sink or you'll have a big mess to deal with after you put the cakes in the oven, when you could instead be relaxing with your feet up while drinking the remaining chocolate stout out of a frosty mug.
4. Bring stout & butter to simmer in heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and cinnamon; whisk until mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and cool slightly.
5. Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in separate large bowl to blend.
   
6. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. 
7. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. 
8. Divide batter equally among 3 prepared pans, filling halfway or less. Do not fill more than that because this recipe will rise more than you think. 
9. Bake until tester inserted into center of cakes comes out clean, about 35 minutes. 
10. Transfer cake pans to rack; cool at least 30 minutes. 
11. Turn cakes out onto rack, remove parchment and cool completely.

Ganache instructions:

1. Put chocolate chips in pyrex bowl, set aside. Bring cream and vanilla up to a slow boil in saucepan, then remove from heat. 
2. Immediately pour over chocolate chips and let sit for 5 minutes. 
3. Whisk until smooth. 
4. Refrigerate for up to an hour (or however long you can stand it), then whip for 2-5 minutes with hand mixer.
5. Place 1 cake layer on plate. Spread 1/4 of ganache over. Repeat with 2nd cake layer. Top with third cake layer, spreading remaining 1/2 of ganache over top & sides of entire cake. 
6. Optional: In addition to the ganache, add raspberries, strawberries, blackberries or maybe even snozzberries in between each layer and on the top.

--

After that, you should:

1. Serve immediately or refrigerate until serving
   
2. Unleash the motherf**king moonwalk!

--


*I know what you thought after reading that title, but you should give me a little more credit than that and get your mind out of the gutter. The first best thing I ever put in my mouth was THIS, though I realize you know me well enough to not be surprised at all if I said that I wish it was THIS. Drool.

**Come this winter, I'll use it in a 3:1 ratio with sugar to make Spammon's recipe for crazy-good hot cocoa, which along with one song in particular are nearly the only things that got me through the endless snowstorms of last winter.

Deviled eggs anyone?

Tomatoes for roasting? $4. Getting hounded into coming home with 36 eggs when 18 is more than enough? Priceless.

I typically have very little in my refrigerator because things tend to spoil faster than I can get to them, and I usually just buy what I'm actually going to use over the course of a week. This totally freaks my mom out whenever she comes up for a visit. She doesn't understand what life is on the daily without having to spend 25 minutes trying to cram that 7th package of cream cheese in somewhere. Maybe if I stack the milk on top of that casserole, or if I can shove the 5 pound block of cheddar in the freezer... Yeah, that's not how it is at my place.

Something I make a lot of is oven-roasted tomatoes, because they're easy and delicious with practically everything, especially my favorite panino sandwich. I hit the grocery store over the weekend and found hothouse tomatoes on sale: $1/pound. I got about 4 pounds because at that price, you can roast up a ton and then freeze what you won't use in the short term. Another thing on my list was a carton of eggs. Instead of a dozen, I got a carton of 18 because I needed several for a recipe I was making for a friend's party.

So, I was going through the checkout line when the older woman behind me asks, "Whatcha gonna make with all those tomatoes?", to which I recounted the simple roasting recipe. She gave me an approving little nod just about the time the checker ran the eggs through the scanner and told me that the cartons of 18 eggs were buy one, get one free; and did I want to go ahead and get the 2nd (free) carton. I didn't realize they were on sale, but regardless I have no need for 36 eggs. Even if I decided to make multiple cakes for friends and neighbors, that is just too many to have on hand. I could see myself late one night, thinking of the extra eggs going to waste, and would probably end up boiling them all and eating way too many deviled eggs over a very short time span and then never wanting to see another deviled egg as long as I lived; which brought me to the conclusion that if I ever felt that way about deviled eggs there would be no point to go on living.

I politely declined the checker's offer to get the additional 18 eggs and immediately felt the weight of disapproval coming from the tomato lady behind me. Then I heard someone further back in the line yell, "Girl, you better get those eggs! They're FREE! What's the matter with you? You're spending all that money on tomatoes and then go and turn down FREE eggs? Girl, you're a foodist." 

I think she meant that in a bad way.


House of Jules Roasted Tomatoes:
4 tomatoes, sliced 1/4" thick
1/2 teaspoon sea or kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 275 degrees F. Line a baking tray with foil and very lightly coat with olive oil before placing sliced tomatoes down. Keep in mind that overlapped tomatoes will take longer to roast, so spread them out as much as you can. Season with salt and pepper, then drizzle or spoon 1/2 of the balsamic vinegar over tomatoes. It won't seem like enough, but you want the tomatoes to roast, so don't use more vinegar than the recipe calls for. Bake for 30 minutes, then drizzle the remaining vinegar over tomatoes, cooking for an additional 30-45 minutes, checking on them several times along the way. Transfer to a bowl and keep covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. These are great on salads, in omelets, by themselves and especially on my favorite panini (see below), though to be honest you could probably put them on an old leather shoe and it would taste great (I have not actually tried that, though). This recipe, which makes approximately 2 cups of roasted tomatoes, can be doubled (tripled even!) and you can freeze what you won't use in the short term.

Cafe Ino's Americano Panini:

Makes 4.
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
salt
freshly ground black pepper
4 ciabatta rolls
16 slices oven-roasted tomatoes
1 cup baby arugula leaves, roughly chopped into 1/2" strips
1/2 lemon
4 oz. asiago cheese, (usually found at the specialty cheese counter) thinly sliced with a vegetable peeler (that's my little trick!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Wash and pat dry (that step is really important!) chicken breasts. Place on a foil-lined baking tray. Rub each with a teaspoon of olive oil and season with salt & pepper. Bake for 15-18 minutes until opaque and firm to the touch. Slicing across the breast, cut chicken into 1/8" slices. Preheat panini grill (if you don't have a panini grill, you can use whatever pan you make grilled cheeses in, with an additional plate or pan weighed down with a couple of heavy cans for the top part of your home-rigged 'press'). Slice off the rounded part of the tops of the ciabatta rolls. Rolls should now be about 1" thick. Split horizontally. Cover the bottom halves of the rolls with an even layer of sliced chicken. Follow with a layer of oven-roasted tomatoes. Season with salt & pepper before adding the chopped arugula. Give each a squeeze of lemon juice and top with a layer of thin asiago slices. Cover with the top of the ciabatta roll and place, two at a time, in the preheated grill with the lid on top. They are done when you can smell the cheese, about 3 minutes.

I do not recommend putting deviled eggs on this sandwich.