Stress Soothing Comfort Food

The past month has been a whirlwind, filled with highs and lows.  It all started with my 30th birthday.  In honor of the big day, my sister and I flew to Hawaii.  We had such a great time (I'll write more about that in a later post).  After the Hawaii trip, I came home and almost immediately headed off to Scottsdale for a wedding.  These were the highs. 

While I was at the wedding, I found out that my grandfather, who I had not seen since before I moved to Utah for grad school, passed away.  Although the wedding was lovely, the news that he had passed put a damper on the whole experience.  Two days later, I had to make the 9 hour drive up to Sonora for the funeral.   This was the first time I had seen most of my family in about 8 years.  It was so nice to see my grandmother, my 6 aunts and uncles, and my 19 cousins, but it was of course exhausting at the same time, driving 18 out of 48 hours to get up there and back here in time.

After all of this traveling and this emotionally draining experience, I have been craving the comfort of home and a hearty homemade meal.  Although I was far too tired to tackle making gnocchi from scratch this time, I promise I will attempt it one day and document it here.  Until then, I hope you will enjoy my store bought gnocchi with brown butter sage sauce.  

Potato Gnocchi with Brown Butter Sage Sauce

1 lb store bought potato gnocchi
1 stick unsalted butter
1 3.5 oz. package sage leaves
juice from 1/2 lemon (about 1/4 cup)

The gnocchi I used.

Cook gnocchi according to package directions.  Melt butter over medium heat:

Once the butter has melted, cook until it begins to brown.  Add the sage and lemon juice and cook for approximately 5 minutes:

Pour over gnocchi and serve:

Let Them Eat Cake

Last Saturday was my 30th birthday.  If you know me, then you know that I absolutely love birthdays.  I make a huge deal out of other people's birthdays, and I love a celebration.

This year, in honor of the big 3-0, I spent 3 days making myself a birthday cake.  I had made this cake once before (I got the recipe from a Thanksgiving issue of Bon Appetit), so I knew it was no small undertaking.  I mean, it involves not only making the batter and frosting from scratch, but also making your own caramel from scratch.  (A process which I have documented below and prior to this recipe would never have considered attempting.)  But if you are ever going to spend your precious spare time making yourself (or someone you love) a cake this involved, I would say that a milestone birthday is probably the proper occasion.  Here are some highlights from the process:

I started out by buttering and flouring my cakepans to make sure the batter wouldn't stick:

The finished pumpkin spice cakes came out looking golden and delicious:

After letting the cakes cool overnight, I started on the frosting.  The first step is to make the caramel.  You start with 1/2 cup of powdered sugar in a pan over medium heat:

The sugar starts to melt:

And take on a golden brown color:

Once it has all melted, you continue to cook it until it turns amber:

At which point, you add 1/2 cup cream, 1 tsp vanilla extract, and 1/4 tsp salt and the mixture begins to bubble like crazy:

 You'll want to stir the mixture until any grainy bits dissolve:

And then strain it:

Once the strained caramel has cooled to room temperature, you can add it to the cream cheese frosting:

Then after frosting the cake and letting it set overnight it will look something like this:

I ate this slice for breakfast (because one nice thing about being 30 is not having to wait until after you finish all of your dinner before you get to eat your cake):

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

After a few weeks where temperatures hit 107 here in San Diego, this past week something amazing happened. It rained for three days straight. Highs were in the 60s. Pumpkin beer showed up at the grocery store. And I realized that before I had even had the time to stop and notice, it had once again become not only my favorite season of the year (fall), but also my favorite month (October).

Now I realize that I might be the tiniest bit biased in making the previous statement (seeing as my birthday is in a week and all), but even for those of you out there who are not lucky enough to be Libras, what's not to love about fall? And of all of the many things that I love about this glorious season, I think my favorite part has to be the return of hearty comfort foods.

When I think of comfort food, one of the first things that I think of is soup. All week I have been having a serious craving for egg drop soup. If you come to this blog often, then you'll know that I tend towards Italian style dishes. It is extremely rare that I branch out into more exotic cuisines. But with the initiation of student loan repayments looming in less than a month (eek!) and a trip to Hawaii coming up in a few days for my birthday, I decided that grabbing take-out was not an option and so I decided to make some egg drop soup for myself.

I found a highly rated recipe on epicurious and was all set to copy it step by step, only to get home from work and realize that I lacked some of the most vital ingredients (no ginger? REALLY?) Since I am on a strict budget, going to the store for the lacking supplies was not an option, so I had to improvise. They say necessity is the mother of all invention, right?

Readers, in addition to the missing ingredients, I messed up this recipe in almost every way possible (I added too much of one ingredient, too little of another, etc.). I know that anyone who actually knows anything about Chinese cuisine will probably look at this recipe and shake their head at how wrong it is, but you know what? It actually turned out pretty darn tasty for a first attempt.

Although it's not traditional, the recipe I found suggested adding egg noodles to add some texture (this is just about the only part of the recipe that I got right). This package contained 4 "nests" of noodles - I used one nest in my soup:

Mish-Mashed Improvised Egg Drop Soup

5 cups low salt vegetable broth
1 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp cooking sherry
1 tsp dried allspice
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 "nest" of dried egg noodles (or about 1/4 box)
2 eggs, beaten
1 bunch of green onions, chopped
1 tsp sesame oil

Combine broth, soy sauce, sherry, allspice, and garlic and bring to a boil over medium heat in a large pot. Add noodles and cook for the time listed on the package. Slowly pour beaten eggs into soup while stirring in a circular motion. Cook undisturbed until egg strands start to form (approx. 1 to 2 minutes). Remove from heat and stir in green onions and sesame oil. Serve immediately.