Commander's Palace Brunch

Justin took me out to Commander's Palace to celebrate that I passed Step 2. It's one of my favorite places to go for brunch and it definitely didn't disappoint. I had the turtle soup as an appetizer, huckleberry pancakes with candied pecans, white chocolate, and syrup, and then the bread pudding soufflé as dessert. The waitress even wrote "Congratulations" around the soufflé! It made me feel really special.


Justin ended up having a crab quiche as an appetizer, the "sportsman's breakfast" which was duck topped with an egg on top of a sweet potato griddle cake, and then a creole cheesecake for dessert. He wasn't a big fan of the sportsman's breakfast because he felt like there was too little duck and too much egg. The crab quiche was so delicious though. I would definitely get that again. Anyway here are the pictures!

Red wine chocolate cake

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated! About three weeks ago I found out I passed step 2 of my medical boards and it's been super busy since then. I was also presenting for journal club last week so I was busy preparing for that.
After I found out that I passed I had some people over to sample a red wine chocolate cake. I also made a buttermilk version, but I think the red wine one was much better. It had much more flavor to it and had just the right level of chocolate flavor. I've been toying with the idea of making it for my relatives over Christmas but since we have a lot of younger cousins I'm not sure how well it would work. It really is a lovely cake but definitely too potent for children.
Justin also took me out to Commander's palace to celebrate! I took lots of pictures so the next blog post will be about that. I also just got a gift card to Melting Pot from my god-mother so I'll post pictures after we go there! I'm super excited to go back to Melting Pot since we haven't been in forever (and Justin proposed to me at one!). Anyway, on to the recipe:

Red Wine Chocolate Cake
Taken from Smitten Kitchen

For the cake:
6 tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg and 1 large egg yolk at room temperature
3/4 cup red wine (I used cabernet)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup + 1 tbsp flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp table salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon

For the topping:
1/2 cup mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 325˚F.
Line the bottom of a 8-inch round cake pan with parchment and butter and flour the rest of the pan.
In a large bowl, cream the butter until smooth. Add in the sugars and beat until they are fluffy. Add in the egg mixture and beat well.
Add in the red wine and vanilla and combine. The batter will look a little weird- this is normal.
Sift in the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt into the wet ingredient bowl. Mix until it is just combined and then use a rubber spatula to fold it until it is all combined.
Pour batter into baking pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes (or 25-30 minutes if using a 9-inch pan).
Cool in the pan on a baking rack for 10 minutes. Flip it out of the pan onto the baking rack. Cool until it is room temperature.
Optional: sift some powdered sugar over the cake.

For the topping: Whip the mascarpone, cream, sugar, and vanilla together until soft peaks form. Serve on the side of each cake slice.

Pumpkin muffins!

One of the things I miss about living in St. Louis is that we don't really have seasons here. We just have hot and less hot. Part of the fun of the changing seasons was the different foods and flavors that came with it. Pumpkin is probably hands down my favorite fall flavor. When I was little I used to be able to eat an entire pumpkin pie by myself and it wouldn't really be a Thanksgiving if I didn't.
Another of my favorite things from St. Louis was the Bread Company (Panera). Their pumpkin muffins were always something I loved to eat every fall. Sadly I haven't been able to have a good pumpkin muffin for a long time. I was really excited when one of my friends suggested a pumpkin muffin recipe from Smitten Kitchen. I decided to give it a try this weekend when my craving for pumpkin had reached its peak this weekend. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it tasted really close to the Panera pumpkin muffins. I think next time I make it I'll try topping it with a little bit of sifted powdered sugar to make it that much closer to the real thing.


Pumpkin Muffins


Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1 1/2 cup flour
1 15 oz can of pumpkin
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp all spice
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
For topping: 1 tbsp sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon


Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Put muffin cups into the muffin pan.
Place the pumpkin, oil, eggs, spices, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Whisk until combined. Add in the flour and whisk until it is just combined.
In a small bowl mix together the cinnamon and sugar.
Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.
Sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar mixture on top of the muffins.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a knife/skewer comes out clean.
Cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then transfer the muffins to a cooling rack.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Justin started nightfloat on Labor and Delivery last night which has left me pretty bored during the nights. This weekend I was trying to figure out what I could make that he could take with him, not need to be refrigerated, and could be eaten quickly. I decided on some muffins because those seem to hold up well and are less prone to being squished in a lunch box.

I've been craving lemons lately so I decided to try my hand at lemon poppy seed muffins. They've always been my favorite muffin, but I've never actually made them before. A while back I found a recipe for them from a cookbook my mom got me for either my birthday or Christmas. I had all the ingredients so I figured I might as well make them for breakfast!

I did a little twist on the lemon poppyseed muffins and added jam in the middle. Justin has been craving blueberry jam all week and this was the easiest/non-messy way of incorporating jam into his nightfloat lunch box. Since I was experimenting I decided to only make some of the muffins this way. It turned out to be amazing and I'd recommend filling all of the muffins with jam. We used raspberry jam (for mine) and blueberry jam (for Justin's). I used the different colored muffin cups to help me remember which ones had which jams in them.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
Adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

2/3 cup sugar

grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 stick butter melted and cooled
2 Tbsp poppy seeds
Raspberry or blueberry jam/preserves

For the lemon glaze: 1 cup powdered sugar and 2-3 Tbsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 400 ˚F. Line a 12 mold muffin tray with muffin cups (color coding if you are using different types of jam).
In a small bowl mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar and lemon zest with your fingers. Make sure all of the lemon zest is incorporated and the sugar smells like lemons. Mix in the flour mixture.
In a medium bowl whisk together the eggs, sour cream, vanilla, butter, and lemon juice. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients bowl and fold together quickly. Mix in the poppy seeds.
Fill the muffin cups halfway with batter. Then put 1-2 tsp of jam in the middle of the muffins. Cover them with more batter.
Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a knife/toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Let them cool in the pan for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack. Make sure they are cool before topping them with glaze.

To make the glaze: Sift the powdered sugar into a small bowl. Mix in 1 1/2 Tbsp of lemon juice. Then keep adding small amounts of lemon juice until the glaze can drizzle off the edge of the spoon. Pour glaze over the muffins.

Guilty Pleasures

It was another rainy day in New Orleans. I was super productive this morning so I figured it was okay for me to veg out on TV for the rest of the afternoon. I ended up spending a huge amount of time watching Mad Men on Netflix. It's probably one of my guiltiest pleasures (next to watching Frasier marathons on Hallmark). It makes me want to channel my own inner Joan and dress in fantastic outfits that highlight my curves. Unfortunately we don't have the funds for me to revamp my entire wardrobe so I guess I'll have to wait until I become an amazing Pathologist.
Of course I had to pair it with another one of my guilty pleasures- baking chocolate chip cookies. I found a recipe last week for what seemed like the best cookie idea ever. The recipe was for chocolate chip stuffed cookies by What's Gaby Cooking. You basically take chocolate chip cookie dough and make a small little pocket. You fill the pocket with chocolate chips and then cover it with another piece of dough. It ends up melting a small little pocket of chocolate chips in the middle of the cookie. My husband described it as a "chocolate surprise". It is probably one of the best chocolate cookie recipes I've made in a while!

Chocolate Chip Surprise Cookies
Adapted from What's Gaby Cooking
2 sticks of unsalted butter
1 1/2 cup of light brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups of flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 cups plus 4 tbsp of chocolate chips

Combine the flour, baking soda, salt, and baking powder in a small bowl.
In a large bowl combine the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping the bowl after each addition. Mix in the vanilla. Gradually add in the flour. Stir in the chocolate chips. Refrigerate the mixture for 1 hour.
Pre-heat oven to 350˚F.
Using a tablespoon scoop out the cookies onto the baking sheet. Using your thumb or the back of the tablespoon indent the ball of cookie. Fill the ball of cookie with chocolate chips and then cover it with a second piece of cookie dough. Make sure to seal the edges so that the chocolate chips can't escape.

Bake for 10-12 minutes until the edges of the cookies are golden brown. Transfer the cookies to the cooling rack.

Eat warm with a cold glass of milk.

Tropical Storm Lee

Well it looks like Justin and I will be spending this Labor Day weekend indoors. Tropical storm Lee decided to put a damper on our weekend by sitting on top of New Orleans for a couple of days. Thankfully we haven't had too much flooding yet. We're just waiting for it all to pass at this point. Hopefully the power won't go out, but we're prepared for pretty much anything.

Of course I did what any normal person would do when faced with the impending doom of a tropical storm. I made M&M cookies. I had plenty of M&Ms on hand and a hungry husband. Normally my experiments in the realm of sugar cookies goes horribly awry. They end up too dry, too under-baked, or too sweet. This time I was pleasantly surprised with the results. Justin was also very pleased with them. He rarely enjoys sweets, but this time he ate 4 cookies before I had even put the second batch in the oven! (Please excuse the super saturated photo- we have no natural lighting at this time).

Tropical Storm M&M Cookies
Adapted from What's Gaby Cooking

2 sticks unsalted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
Half a bag of M&Ms

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Mix flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder in a small bowl.
Cream together butter and both sugars. Next add the egg and vanilla extract. Beat until combined. Turn mixer down to low and gradually mix in the flour mixture. Stir in the M&Ms.
Chill the dough in the refrigerator for about 2 hours.
Using a tablespoon scrape out the dough and form into balls. Place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Only put 6 balls per baking sheet because they will spread out a lot while baking.
Bake for 12-14 minutes. Take the cookies out when the edges are golden brown and the middle looks slightly undercooked. Leave them on the baking sheet for about 8-10 minutes until they have cooled slightly. Transfer them to a cooling rack or plate.

Zucchini and Pea Risotto

One thing I miss the most about my Dad is his cooking. He always had a knack for making the most amazing Italian dishes. Some of my most favorite memories were sitting in the kitchen with him watching him cook. One of my Dad's favorite dishes to make was risotto. Without fail, he would always make it with pancetta and peas. He knew I hated peas so he'd always serve me mine before he added the peas.
Risotto itself isn't a very healthy dish, especially with pancetta in it so I was excited to find a delicious healthier alternative. Zucchini has just the right texture to pair with the soft arborio rice. I found that this dish went well with a fresh salad and a nice glass of Chardonnay.

Zucchini and Pea Risotto
Adapted from Everyday Food and my Dad's recipe
1 can of low-sodium chicken broth
1 Tbsp butter
1 Zucchini
1/2 white onion chopped finely
3/4 cup Arborio rice
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 cup of peas
1/4 cup of Parmigiano Reggiano

Peal and chop the zucchini into small cubes.
Heat up broth with 1 cup of water in a saucepan on low heat.
Heat up a medium size saucepan on medium heat. Melt the butter. Add the zucchini and season with salt and pepper. Stir the zucchini until it is golden brown. After the zucchini is cooked, transfer to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm.
Reduce the heat to medium-low and add the onion. Cook until translucent and soft. Raise the heat back to medium. Add rice. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until the rice is translucent around the edges. Add the wine and stir until it is absorbed.
Add a ladle of broth to the rice and stir until it is absorbed. Repeat this step until the rice is soft and tender (about 15-20 minutes).

Add the zucchini. Turn off heat. Stir in parmesan. Then mix in some of the remaining broth to help thicken the rice. Serve up the risotto to anyone who doesn't like peas. Add the peas and cook for about 2 minutes. Serve hot with a bit of parmesan on top.