The Happiest of New Years to You!

Well, darling readers, I've done it.  And with an hour and a half to spare.

My blog is entirely up-to-date.  There's nothing else I have to add except for a New Year's Eve greeting.  Be safe and enjoy your family and friends this holiday.  Have a glass of bubbly for me; I'll be raising a glass of Welch's for you (three more years, my friends...just three more years).

Love and happiness to you,

~Amateur Foodie

I Love Food with Funny Names

Bangers and mash.  Go ahead and get out the obligatory giggles.  That's Irish for sausages and mashed potatoes.

My favorite Irish restaurant is a one-of-a-kind: Shannon's Irish Pub in Glen Ellyn.  They have a great reuben sandwich, and their shepherd's pie is fab.  I love my traditional fare, but I had never tried the bangers and mash (yes, I'm going to call it that as many times as possible to prolong the giggle-fest).

I've had bangers and mash before at a different Irish place, but the sausages weren't substantial enough, and the mashed potatoes were dry and underseasoned, even with a hefty ladle of well-salted brown gravy.  This was a meal.  The four sausages were enough for a dinner and leftovers for lunch the next day, and it came with well-seasoned mashed potatoes (thank you!), baked beans (odd, but forgivable), and broccoli.

The mashed potatoes at Shannon's are what is called champ, which means the potatoes are blended with chopped scallions, giving them a mildly oniony flavor.  This goes so well with the sausages, and complements the little pile of sauteed white onion that comes alongside.

The sausages will likely strike most people as odd.  They're not overly porky, and the grind of the meat is extremely fine.  The flavor of the meat is not smoky, salty, or sage-y.  It's very fatty tasting, but not in a way that is unpleasant.  The overall impression of the flavor is acidic; it probably tastes beery, but I wouldn't know.

The real beauty of the dish is the marriage of the hearty flavors on the plate.  The beans and mash and gravy go perfectly with the sausage and onions.  To really "get it," you need to take a bite of everything at once.

The only thing that doesn't work is the broccoli.  Now, I'm not opposed to a good green, cruciferous veggie on my dinner plate.  But if you're going to feed me broccoli, it had better be something amazing, not just a butter-roasted floret.  Sorry, Shannon's, but if I want something healthy to go with my bangers and mash, then I'll order a side salad.

Oh, and the key lime pie is to die for.

Before I forget, one final giggle: bangers and mash.

Cheers,

~Amateur Foodie

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for...Soupy Cream?

We got an ice cream maker!!!!

That's right, our own creamy, dreamy frozen confections!  I was so excited to use it.  I popped the freezing drum in the freezer for 24 hours, and as soon as that 24 hours had passed, I made the base for a simple vanilla ice cream.  I poured it into the ice cream machine and started it churning.

I went into the living room to watch a hockey game (Blackhawks, my dear).  I checked on the ice cream about every five minutes.  The recipe book said it should take about 20-25 minutes for the ice cream to set.  After the second period of the hockey game started, the consistency of the ice cream was the same as it was when I started the machine.

I didn't get it.  I had let the drum freeze, and for a good long time at that.  I followed the recipe to the letter.  But when I pored over the instructions for using the ice cream maker itself, I discovered that I had taken the freezing drum out of the freezer far too soon, and I forgot to shake it to make sure that the liquid inside the drum had frozen entirely.

And so today, on New Year's Eve, I took the drum from the freezer once more, filled it with the ice cream mixture, and put it in the machine to churn.  Twenty minutes later, I had a drum of ice cream the consistency of soft serve, and after putting it in a bowl in the freezer for a couple of hours, I must say, it probably rivals Edy's.  Just perfect for an ice cream sundae.

Bella, Bella, Bella Means Beautiful...Food that is

It's carefully hidden in Oakbrook Center.  Or at least that's what it says on the menu.  Almost a next-door-neighbor to ma cherie, Mon Ami Gabi, the restaurant Antico Posto is like Gabi's quiet Italian cousin.  It's a "Lettuce Entertain You" restaurant just like Gabi and another restaurant I love, Wildfire.

Ever since the first moment I stepped inside this restaurant through its revolving door, I loved it.  There's a bar at the front and a couple bar tables, but the majority of the restaurant is dimly-lit, white-tablecloth dining.  And it's usually packed.

The first thing placed on the table is crusty, fresh-baked bread with coarse salt on the crust and a dish of add-ons: fruity olive oil with garlic, parmesan, and balsamic and a dynamite giardiniera with green olives, onion, celery, cauliflower, and eggplant.  If the entrees themselves weren't quite so phenomenal, I could just eat the bread.

But the thing is, the entrees are phenomenal.  So don't do too much carbo-loading at the outset of your meal.

They make these really great brick oven pizzas with a chewy crust that tastes a little pretzel-like to me.  They hardly use any sauce, which allows the flavorful toppings to shine, whether it's oven-roasted tomatoes and basil on their goat cheese pizza or sweet fennel sausage and fire-roasted peppers.  The goat cheese pizza is my sister's favorite, and it's the food item that taught her to embrace the roasted tomato.

I happen to be rather partial to the pasta dishes, and I've sampled quite a few.  The pasta is made fresh in-house, and this really makes a difference in their plates.  I love the gnocchi (both bolognese and pomodoro), and the spaghetti bolognese.  While not necessarily authentically Italian (according to Food Network's Alton Brown), this combo of thin, delicate pasta and rich meaty sauce is undeniably delicious.

My all-time favorite pasta at Antico is the cavatelli, which in Italian means "little worms"...delicious, right?  But in all seriousness, it's a hearty yet delicate pasta with a pleasant chew to it.  At Antico, they make it with ricotta, and they pair it with assertive toppings.

I've tried the cavatelli special with vodka-cream sauce, tossed with sweet fennel sausage  and lots of fresh parsley (shown right).  It was a great deviation from my usual, a plate only available once a week.

Behold, ladies, gentlemen, and others: Cavatelli with Sunday Meat Sauce.  It is a heaping plate of pasta tossed in a light cream and topped with a great big ol' dollop of braised meat.  On my last visit, our waiter gave up the names of the meats they use, five in all: pepperoni, sausage, sopressata, roast beef, and roast pork.  All of this is cooked down in garlic and tomato until it's a soft, sumptuous sauce full of meat that is fall-apart tender.  I can think of nothing to improve upon it.

And don't even get me started on the desserts.  They have these great little mini-desserts, from a velvety panna cotta with brandied cherries (my favorite, right) to a creamy lemon cheesecake, topped with whipped cream and lemon curd (my sister's favorite, already half eaten before I got a chance to snap a pic...though I don't blame her).  All you need to cap it off is a LaVazza cappuccino, and you're in business.  Bella, bella, bella.

A Recipe I'm Stealing: Comfort-Food Breakfast...in a Croissant Crust

Panera has lots of good food at a great price point.  It's not exactly five-star dining, but it's great on a Saturday afternoon if you just want some soup or a sandwich...or on a Monday morning in December while you're waiting for Lacey the Kitchen Dog (pictures to come) to finish getting her hair cut.

The breakfast selection at Panera has always been expansive.  They have bagels, muffins, scones, cookies, brownies, bear claws...the list goes on and on.  But an item that showed up sometime within the past couple of years has blown every other breakfast item out of the water.

The breakfast egg souffle is hands-down one of my favorite breakfasty things ever.  It's creamy and fluffy in the middle, and the crust of the souffle is essentially made of buttery, flaky croissant dough.  There are a couple different varieties, like four cheese and spinach-bacon.  I tried the spinach-bacon for the first time a couple weeks ago, and I think it may have just beat out the four cheese as my favorite flavor.

Hmm...suddenly I have a taste for coffee.

C'est Magnifique: Macaroni Gratin that Wows

Mon Ami Gabi is one of those restaurants with a few locations: one in Vegas, one in Chicago, and one conveniently close to me in Oakbrook, Illinois.  It's a French bistro-style restaurant that has a wide range of items to pick from, a quality that almost guarantees that no one will go without finding something they will love.

I've tried some great stuff there before, from savory crepes filled with chicken stew to a Burger au Poivre, crusted in pepper and served with au jus and green peppercorn aioli.  Anything you order is delicious, and if it's served with pommes frittes (French-style crispy-fried potato strips) it is downright amazing.  They always bring out crusty French baguette with raspberry jam and whipped butter at the start of the meal (pictured right...superb!).

I've been stuck in a rut lately, alternating between the Burger au Poivre and a special that seemed to pop up a lot, a succulent lamb burger.  But on my last visit to the restaurant, I decided to try a dish that has been calling out to me since the first time I stepped inside: Macaroni Gratin.

Now, this ain't your mama's mac 'n' cheese.  Instead of elbow macaroni, they use teeny-tiny shells that really grab onto the luxurious, silky bechamel sauce.  They add crisped, salty cured ham to the mix and top it all off with a substantial layer of Gruyere cheese.  And then they bake it.  Wow, oh, wow.  It is so creamy, so rich, that you're probably only going to polish off a third of it (just a third!) and that's if you're really hungry.  Isn't it pretty?

Readers!  In my haste (and my excitement about my macaroni) I neglected to mention the tasty soup that I tried as a starter.  At Gabi, they present you with a bowl of garnish and pour the soup into the bowl at the table.  The soup I tried during this visit was a mushroom soup.  It wasn't necessarily a cream soup, but it was creamy.  My only complaint about it was the garnish they used. 

Most of the time the garnish is a perfect complement to the soup, like a paprika-scented creme fraiche atop a velvety butternut squash soup.  But the garnish for the mushroom soup was a few pieces of fresh wild mushroom and croutons.  The wild mushroom was entirely raw and completely unseasoned.  It was begging for salt, or maybe even garlic.  And the poor, pitiful little croutons (also painfully underseasoned) were not quite crispy enough, and they became extremely soggy when the soup was poured over them.

Now that the soup is out of the way, I digress.  Let us proceed to dessert!

French desserts are, to put it quite simply, exceptional.  My aunt, my sister, and I tried desserts that weren't necessarily French, but they were rather exceptional.

When it comes to food, we first eat with our eyes.  Presentation is paramount.  The white chocolate bread pudding (below) that my aunt and I shared was plated beautifully, topped with ice cream and caramel sauce.  And the chocolate-pecan tart my sister ate (at right) featured a cannelle of fresh whipped cream and a decorative smear of caramel.

I'll speak first about that tart.  My oh-so-generous sister let me try it, and it was delicious.  The crust was sweet, more like a graham cracker crust, and the pecans were like pralines, embedded in chocolate.  If you have a sweet tooth, then this is the dessert for you, and it's always on the menu.

The bread pudding...OMG.  It's really all I can say.  It was custardy and warm...if it weren't so rich I could have eaten three.  I'm pretty sure it was on special that day, but if you ever see it featured, get it.  You will not have any regrets (just don't ask to see the calorie count).

Before the Year Ends...

Hello, readers.  My end-of-2011 resolution is to finish all the blogging I have left to do.

I'm so sorry I've been behind on my blogging duties, and before midnight tonight, you shall be up to date on everything.  If not, feel free to complain!  Someone needs to keep me accountable, after all.

Coming your way right now: One more French restaurant, a super-cool breakfast item at a popular chain restaurant, my fave Italian place, and a little more fun in the kitchen.

Happy reading!

~Amateur Foodie

Writing to You from the Amateur Foodie Kitchen...

I come to you this afternoon, dear readers, reporting from within a cloud of all-purpose flour.  That's right, kids, the Amateur Foodie is baking!

Cookies are the item du jour, and the recipe is......Tollhouse!  Sure, perhaps not gourmet, but tasty all the same.

I only use the Tollhouse recipe when I make chocolate chip cookies, and they always turn out tasting great, even though they rarely look delicious.  I believe I've isolated the issue I have in making these scrumptious morsels, but I seem to forget it every time I go to make a batch.

I use my standing mixer to prepare the dough, and I will readily admit that I have way too much fun creaming the butter and sugar.  I have so much fun, in fact, that I crank the machine up too high and run it for too long.  This overturning of the butter leads to flat cookies that spread out to the size of tea saucers and crisp up to a cracker-like consistency.

But cry about it?  I shan't.  It's the way I've always had my cookies, and I love it.  Plus, when there's chocolate inside, there's not too much you can do to mess it up.

A Fun Little Bistro, Hidden in Plain Sight

In Wheaton, Illinois, there are many places to eat.  One of my favorites is definitely Suzette's Creperie.  It's unassuming in both location and facade.  You could almost miss seeing it if you weren't looking carefully.  But once you get inside, you feel as though you've been transported to a cafe along the Champs-Elysées.

The restaurant itself is not just small...it's teeny-tiny.  They've managed to cram enough tables into the cramped space that a patron could quite literally rub elbows with his or her neighbor.  But this is one of the things that makes it unique.  It's bustling and serene all at once.

During my last visit to the creperie, I had a butternut squash-apple cider soup, pictured right, topped with a delicate, flower-patterned drizzle of creme fraiche.  It was just sweet. Not cloyingly so, but sweet all the same.  While it was tasty and innovative (cider was a great complement to the squash), I would have loved something more acidic in it than just the cider or the creme. 

My entree was a quiche with goat cheese, spinach, and tomato (shown left.  The crust was flaky and muted in flavor.  It wasn't there so much as a carb-laden star of the dish, but rather as a little something to hold the structure of the quiche together.  And I liked that idea.  When it comes to crust, I am a decided minimalist.

Each entree is served with a small green salad, a mesclun mix with a touch of red onion, dressed in a balsamic vinaigrette.  Believe me, this is probably the tastiest garnish you will ever consume.  Maybe it looks blah...but eat it.  Just stop complaining and eat it.  You'll like it.

The true food epiphany for me occurred at the very end of the meal.  I had heard of French macarons, but had never tried them.  For those who may not know, they are essentially sandwich cookies, usually light wafers with some sort of glaze-like frosting in between.  And as I found out, they are delicious.

Suzette's macarons are not necessarily the most authentic ones in town.  The cookies are a little cakier and chewier than a so-called "proper" macaron.  But this is hardly a pitfall.  It gives them a little more substance. 

The featured flavors were chocolate, pistachio, and raspberry.  The chocolate cookie was most macaron-like in nature; the cookie was almost crumbly, and the frosting was a ganache.  The pistachio was cakey, the filling was fluffy and light, and the flavor was spot on. 

Both were tasty, but my absolute favorite was the raspberry (that's the one with a bite out of it).  The cookie was chewy, and, though I don't know why, this made it totally awesome.  It also allowed the cookie to stand up better to the (hold your applause) raspberry jam that the baker smeared inside, along with the fluffy, creamy, almost marshmallowy frosting.

And so my first bistro post draws to a close.  Enjoy the pictures of pretty food, and check out Suzette's if you're so inclined.  C'est magnifique.

So Sorry for the Delay...

Not to worry, dear readers, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth.

After a stressful week of school (what with finals and such), I have made my triumphant return! (Cue the fanfare!) And I've got a great little Italian place to show you, in addition to some baked yummies to share.

So sit back and relax as we journey to the land of palmiers and croissants. It's go time (I could have gratuitously called it escargot time...alas, I've never tried the creepy-crawlies...thought you'd like to know)

~The Amateur Foodie

Supreming: Too Frou-frou, or Worth the Trouble?

Ah, supreming.  French for taking twenty minutes to slice up an orange or grapefruit.  As you may know, it involves the cutting off of the citrus peel and the bitter, tasteless pith and membrane located next to the flesh of the fruit.  The process continues with slicing each individual segment of the citrus out of the fruit, cutting carefully along each sheet of membrane.

It's laborious.  It's meticulous.  And quite frankly, it can be downright dangerous if you have a dull enough knife or a slippery enough fruit.

But honestly, I have discovered a case in which it always (read: always) is worth the effort.

I love grapefruit.  It is delicious.  But it is just annoying to eat.  You have to use a spoon to gouge out the little pyramid-shaped chunks that result when you slice it in half across the equator, like most people tend to do.  And if your spoon isn't sharp-edged, all you really end up doing is eating spoonfuls of grapefruit juice and some tiny floating pieces of broken pulp.

This evening, as a matter of fact, I decided to deviate from the traditional and take a cue from the French.  I got my sharp paring knife ready and tried out my supreming skills.  And the results? Pretty amazing.

Did you know that grapefruit actually has texture?  I didn't before this little endeavor.  The fruit actually has a little chew to it when it hasn't been completely pulverized.

Now, I may not go all-out and supreme every piece of citrus fruit I come across from now on.  But I'll probably keep prepping my grapefruit in the style of the French.  They know what they're talking about when it comes to food...plus they love butter.  Just like me.

Ooh, La La! (The French Are Coming!)

I'm back, dear readers, and this weekend is going to be spotlighting the cuisine and cooking techniques of France.  I've been to two really great French restaurants recently, and I just can't wait to tell you about them!

For now I'm going to keep it brief: the article to come discusses technique.  Stay tuned!  Mon Ami Gabi and Suzette's are also soon to follow.

Bon Appetit!

~The Amateur Foodie

Hot Mustard on a Burger...So Wrong, Yet So Right

I am a person who likes mustard.  Not the fluorescent-yellow stuff (unless it's on a Chicago-style 'dog)...I'm talking coarse-ground brown mustard or tangy Dijon, like Maille or Grey Poupon.  I eat it on turkey sandwiches and blend it into quick oil-and-vinegar salad dressings.  It perks up the flavor of just about anything you put it on.

But just the other night, I tried something totally new (and something that seemed so sacrilegious to me).  I ate a burger with mustard on it.  I have always considered myself to be decidedly against such a thing, and here I am ordering it, just for the heck of it.

But we're not talking a McDonald's or Burger King-type burger.  This was a crispy griddled patty topped with cheddar.  The meat was fresh.  And for me, the only reason the mustard actually worked on the burger was the fact that the burger was served on a pretzel roll.

And suddenly the heavens opened up, the angels started singing, and it all made sense.  Pretzels and mustard.  That's it right there, folks.  It's the German in me that made me love it so much, I just know it.

The roll was soft and fresh, with just a kiss of coarse salt on top, and you could taste the tang of the mustard, but it didn't overwhelm the burger as a whole.  I was amazed at how much I loved it.

Now I know it's something I just have to try.  Check it: fine-ground beef, flattened out and pressed into the cooking surface, lightly seasoned with salt and pepper; sharp cheddar cheese, sliced thin so it melts down onto the meat; coarse ground, spicy mustard (maybe even a horseradish brown variety); and a soft, luxurious pretzel roll.  Now that, my friends, is what I'm talkin' about.

Why I Have a Serious Issue with Pepper Shakers

In my family, it's not uncommon to use copious amounts of black pepper on...well, just about anything.  We just love the stuff (with the exception of my sister and my grandma, but that's totally okay).  I'm convinced that, at least on my mom's side of the family, this affinity for pepper stems from my grandpa.  He could be eating green beans, salad, mashed potatoes, chicken...pretty much every item on his plate for as long as I can remember has been covered in a healthy coating of black pepper.

I had always wondered why he used so much...it seemed rather excessive.  But now I understand: the pepper was not freshly ground (cue dramatic gasp).  What would the Cuisine Queen herself, Julia Child, say?

Pepper that's already been ground is...suspicious.  You don't know who ground it or when.  For all you know, it could have been sitting in its pulverized state on a shelf for weeks.  And that causes it to lose its flavor.

When pepper is ground fresh, it releases oils that create a sharp, pungent, peppery flavor.  You don't need to use much of it because you can actually taste it.

I'm always happy to see pepper grinders on the table at restaurants, and this isn't simply due to the fact that I prefer to grind my own.  Have you ever noticed how restaurant pepper shakers rarely dispense pepper? 

Somehow, every restaurant I've visited has managed to find pepper shakers with shaker slots that are about one size too small for the grind of pepper they use.  I know I always end up looking like a complete idiot trying to pepper my soup, simply because I have to shake the pepper shaker for ten minutes just to get enough into the bowl.  And then when I get enough into the bowl, I can't even taste it because it isn't fresh.

So listen up, restaurants: Pepper grinders are the only way.  Do what you have to do to make it work.  Assign a fleet of people to walk around and grind pepper for your patrons.  Buy teeny-tiny pepper grinders for each table.  But do not use stale, unshakable, pre-ground pepper.  There's no two ways about it.

Sincerely,

~The Amateur Foodie

Who I am and What I'm Writing About

Greetings, reader.  Welcome to my blog.  This is my first stab at blog-posting, and if you like food, this is the place for you.

I love to try new food...there aren't many dishes that I would refuse to taste.  My purpose in writing this blog is really to share my gastronomical endeavors, both cooking and eating, whether good or bad.  In addition to this, I may sprinkle in some commentary about photography, fashion trends, things that really annoy me, and so on and so forth.

Bear with me, dear reader.  If you expect a daily post, you'll probably end up really disappointed.  You have to understand, my schedule doesn't really allow for ample blogging time, especially during the week.  And I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so each blog post is carefully checked and re-checked to make sure I haven't made any glaring spelling or grammatical errors.  On the weekends, though, I will try my best to regale you with tales of my culinary adventures.

I plan to study journalism in college (I haven't decided where yet), mainly because I love to write and am obsessed with grammar and spelling.  Any feedback you might have about my articles and my writing would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for checking out my blog.  Feel free to share it with all of your food-loving friends!

~The Amateur Foodie