Satisfying a Craving from Halfway Around the World

It's Oktoberfest time and that has me thinking of the delicious food I consumed the last time I was in Munich. I have never been to Munich during Oktoberfest, but I did spend a good amount of time in Munich's beer halls. And while all of the beer halls were fun in their own right, there was one that had the tastiest food hands down - the Ratskeller. This restaurant is located in the bottom story of the Rathaus (which is the town hall) in the middle of the Marienplatz (which is the old town square). This building is amazing and if you ever go to Munich you should check it out (I would put up a photo, but the computer that my pictures from this trip were on got stolen - sigh).

At the Ratskeller, my favorite thing on the menu were the delicious German style potato pancakes. I have searched high and low and nothing has compared to these pancakes. The closest I have come stateside are the potato pancakes with smoked salmon at MacCool's in Salt Lake City, but seeing as I am now 600 miles away from Salt Lake that isn't really an option either. So I decided to do the next best thing to traveling halfway around the world in the pursuit of food - I decided to try and make them myself.

I started out with 2 pounds of russet potatoes, which I peeled:

I then put the grater attachment on my food processor:

And they came out looking like hash browns:

I placed the potatoes in a dish towel and attempted to wring out most of the moisture from them. Then, I mixed them with one egg, 1 Tbsp flour, and 1 tsp baking powder to bind the potatoes together and dropped them into hot vegetable oil on the stovetop, like so:

I cooked the pancakes for about 4 minutes (until they started to brown), and then flipped them over and cooked them for another 4 minutes on the other side:

Then I transferred them to a cookie sheet and baked them in the oven at 425 F for 3 minutes per side to get them extra crispy (if you prefer them less crispy, you could skip this step) and they came out looking like this:

I topped them with a dollop of sour cream, smoked salmon, and chopped fresh chives:

Serve these with your favorite Oktoberfest lager - prost!

Ladies Who Brunch

***REMINDER: If you haven't had a chance to yet, please hop on over to YouTube, log in/create an account (you have to have an account or your vote will not be registered), and "like" my video - I really want to win those cooking lessons! And of course, if you have already voted - thank you! I really appreciate the support.***

Wow, September 21st already. It's crazy how time flies.

I had another moment of the realization that time goes by while you are too busy to notice the other day when I had my friend Darlene over for brunch. Darlene is turning 30 this week. The fact that we are both turning 30 this year got me thinking about the fact that we have been friends since we were 10 years old. Which means (of course) that we have been friends for 20 years now. It's hard for me to wrap my head around all of the experiences we have shared in the 20 years that we have known one another, or how we suddenly got to this point without even realizing it. But most importantly, I feel so incredibly blessed to have a friend that I have shared 2/3 of my life with!

When I used to live in San Diego prior to graduate school, Darlene and I used to get together once a week and make dinner at one another's houses. Now that we are a older and have a bit more money, we tend to get together over drinks at happy hour or going out for dinner. But I thought it would be a nice change of pace to get together over a homemade meal and decided to switch it up by making brunch.

For our brunch, I decided to try making a frittata. I had never made one before, but it appealed to me because it's the type of dish where you can throw whatever you have on hand into it, pop it in the oven for 20 minutes, and come back to a complete meal. What's not to love about that? I kept my recipe very simple with only 4 ingredients, but as I say, the beauty of this recipe is that you can glam it up anyway you like by changing the type of cheese (a sharp cheddar or smoked gouda would be amazing) or adding more veggies (peppers or white onions come to mind).

I started my frittata by chopping up a bunch of green onions:


I added the chopped onions to 2 cups of hashbrowns in a skillet over medium-high heat:

Then I whisked together 8 eggs and seasoned them with salt and pepper:

After the hashrbown had crisped and started to brown (about 8 minutes later), I poured the eggs into the pan:

Then I crumbled a package of garlic and herb goat cheese:

And added it to the egg, potato, and green onion mixture:

And mixed everything together:

Then put it in the oven at 375 F for 20 minutes:

After 20 minutes, take the pan out of the oven, place a plate on top of it, and invert wearing oven mitts ON BOTH HANDS (this is key - I burnt the bejeezus out of myself when I held the plate without an oven mitt on). It came out looking like this (not perfect looking, but delicious tasting):


I served it with smoked salmon and Laughing Cow cheese on ciabatta toast.

I Need Your Support!

Dear Blog Readers,

I hate to be a pest, but I need a favor from you. My apartment complex is holding a competition called A Taste of Archstone. The resident with the cooking video that gets the most "thumbs ups" will win a trip to Napa to take cooking classes at the Culinary Institute of America. I really, really, REALLY want to win! But I can't do it without your support!

Here is what I need you to do:

1. Log into or create a YouTube account.

2. Click on my video and give it a Thumbs Up - you can do this once per day now through Sep. 25th.

Thank you so much friends - you know that it would mean the world to me to get the chance to learn some new cooking skills. And I promise I will share all of the fabulous recipes and new techniques I learn with all of you if I win!

Thanks for your support and for continuing to read my blog - I love you all!

For the Love of Pasta

If you frequent this blog then you have probably noticed a trend around here - pasta. I really do love pasta in all iterations - fresh, dried, stuffed, it really does not matter to me.

Please allow me to go off on a bit of tangent about running for a moment (I promise that it will all make sense later if you are patient enough to bear with me). The other day I had this crazy idea to register for a half marathon. I say this is crazy because I have not run in almost 3 years. At all.

I used to be a fairly avid runner. I ran The Other Half Marathon in Moab, UT two years in a row back in 2005 and 2006. (As a side note, if you happen to be looking for a half marathon to run, I highly recommend this one. It is a mostly flat course interspersed with just a few gently rolling hills and it winds its way along the Colorado river through red rock country. Absolutely beautiful and truly the perfect weather in October.)

In training for this race for the third year in 2007, I broke my foot. It was one of those super lame bone breakages where you can still kind of limp around but your foot is swollen and in mild (but not excruciating) pain. It actually took me a month to go in and get an x ray because I was convinced (and naively hopeful) that I just had a bad strain. Not so. I had broken the middle bone in my foot, just below the toe. I was not so comfortingly informed by the student health nurses that a cast will not help such a bone heal, and so I was relegated to wearing a mini-boot and put on crutches for 3 months - not so fun when you have a hyper little 2 month old puppy running around.

In the years that followed I swam for exercise and avoided running like the plague. But recently I started to get the itch to run again. It's like a bad addiction creeping up for a relapse. At first you think about it once or twice and then shrug it off, but the more you try to push it out of your mind, the more it tends to creep back in slowly. Maybe it was watching my sister get so excited for her race. Maybe it was all the years that my runner friends in Utah and I talked about running the Big Sur Half Marathon but never followed through with it. Perhaps it was driven by the fact that I am turning 30 in a little over a month (gasp) and feel like I couldn't run to the mailbox if I needed to. Or maybe it was a combination of all of the above. Whatever the impetus, dear readers, the itch to run came back and it came on strong.

So I took the plunge. I registered for the Big Sur Half Marathon. It is 10 weeks away. I am pretty sure that I may be insane. But damn it, I'm going to do it anyway!

I got off to a great start by skipping my first scheduled run (it was on Labor Day and I was on a road trip - excuses, excuses, I know). But yesterday I drug myself out of bed and I ran 3 miles. And while this is really no big accomplishment for any seasoned runner, the fact that I can still walk today (although I am a little sore) after not having run in 3 years feels like a victory in and of itself to me. And to be perfectly honest, it really wasn't all that bad (see, I told you - I am officially going crazy).

But now back to the pasta. Sweet, delicious pasta. As I was looking over my training guide, I came across this little gem of a statement, "Carbohydrates provide the fuel runners need. During half marathon training, 65% of your total calories should come from carbohydrates." HALLE-freakin'-LLUJAH my friends! I just got a license to make 65% of my diet be composed of carbs (not that I really needed an excuse, but hey, they gave me one). Don't mind if I do! And while the following recipe is probably not what that running guide had in mind, I decided to take a few liberties because I just ran 3 miles and I wanted to celebrate with some cheesy cheese-filled pasta (and really, is there any other way to celebrate such a victory?).

Baked Tortellini (Adapted from a recipe by Giada De Laurentiis)

2 cups store bought marinara sauce
1/3 cup mascarpone cheese
1 pound cheese tortellini (you can also substitute penne or rigatoni if you think the tortellini make the dish too heavy)
2.5 ounces grated smoked gouda
1/2 cup grated mozzarella
1/4 cup grated parmesan

Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a 2 quart round pyrex baking dish with non-stick cooking spray (if you lack a round pyrex, a brownie pan will also work). Mix sauce and mascarpone in a large bowl. Cook tortellini in large pot of boiling water for 2 minutes. Drain and add tortellini to sauce, stirring to coat evenly. Transfer to baking dish and top with grated gouda, mozzarella, and parmesan. Cover with foil and bake for about 30 minutes, or until cheese melts.

The deliciously cheesy pasta mixture prior to baking.

The finished product - served with garlic bread to ensure complete carb overload.