I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…there’s nowhere like New Orleans.

From its Jazz-infused culture.

I’m not really sure why there’s a Christmas tree up in the airport, though.

To its food, that’s uniquely Southern, Cajun, French, Italian, African and Spanish all at once.

Grilled cheese, topped with an egg at Ye Old College Inn. Followed by their award-winnig shrimp po’ boy and their award-winning fried bread pudding. And then I died of happiness.

Just a giant loaf of French bread at the grocery.

Shrimp po’ boy at Parkway. For those of you not in the know, a po’ boy is basically a sub sandwich served on French bread. The bread at Parkway pretty much makes the sandwich.

Crab stuffed two ways at Crescent City Brewhouse.

Muffuletta at New Orleans Food and Spirits.

Crawfish Banditos at the Velvet Cactus. Guys, I don’t know what banditos are, but this was astounding.

It’s hard for me to pass up shrimp when I’m in New Orleans. Clearly.

My uncle’s gumbo. Perfect rainy day comfort food.

And let’s not forget the grits. There’s a little coffee shop down the street from my uncle’s house that we love going to every morning, for coffee and breakfast. Colorado is in serious need of a place like Nola Beans that serves a good breakfast, but isn’t quite a sit down restaurant.

To its sites and celebrations.

Mr. Bingle is kind of an old New Orleans mascot, which my family has grown to know and love because my aunt sends my mom a stuffed Mr. Bingle every year for Christmas. It was nice to see him hanging next to us at dinner.

If you know me in real life, you know how much I adore Harry Connick Jr. Turns out his dad literally lives across the street from my uncle. Which made it really convenient to stalk the house and keep an eye out for HCJ, who as it turns out, made a neighborhood appearance while we were out to lunch.

Nooooooooooo.

My uncle seems to know all the right people, so we had passes to a fully catered, open-bar balcony party, with all the beads you could throw all night. I felt like a real VIP dangling those beads over the desperate people in the crowd. Fact: throwing beads > catching beads.

I’ve been on lots of great vacations, all fun and memorable in their own right, but this one will definitely stand out in my mind as one of my favorites. Maybe it was the fact that it was just my sister and I, or that my uncle is the best tour guide, or that we got to spend a week in a city where everyone was celebrating and no one seemed to be taking life too seriously, but it was an experience I’ll never forget.

I flew back in to Colorado last night and although I should be cleaning the mud off the rain boots I wore during the rainy parade on Saturday or doing the laundry I have strewn about my living room because I needed to find my sweatpants after eating too much King Cake last night or at least unpacking the suitcase I have open on the floor, instead I find myself watching live footage of the parades back in New Orleans and trying to untangle the bag of beads I brought home with me.  You know, so I can wear them to the grocery store like any other normal Coloradan is doing today.

And maybe I should be apologizing for having disappeared for the past 7 days and making up for it by posting a lengthy vacation recap in which I show you countless pictures of me eating grits for breakfast, or parade floats that put any float I’ve seen in Colorado to shame or maybe even the video I took from the balcony on Bourbon Street Friday night, BUT…

It’s Mardi Gras and I’m going to continue pretending I’m on vacation for at least one more day.  Because if I don’t, I’m surely going to fall prey to the “vacation blues.”  You know, when you come home from a truly great vacation and your life suddenly feels a lot quieter, lonelier and, uh, snowier.  And also because if you’ve ever been to New Orleans for any length of time, you know that it’s a city that is so unique and full of sights, sounds, tastes and smells that you just can’t find anywhere else.  And when you leave a place like that, you’re left feeling mystified.  That behind all the tourism, is a place that is so different, you almost feel like you’ve been transported to another time and place.  One where houses built during the turn of the century line the streets, with their elaborate iron work and big balconies.  Where everything moves a little slower and everyone seems to enjoy themselves a little more.

I always find it extremely difficult to convey just how amazing New Orleans is, or how much I treasure each and every trip I take there.  So I’m going to leave that daunting task for another day.  And probably go eat some more King Cake.

Enjoy your Fat Tuesday!

Okay, I totally get the whole “food coloring is bad” argument.

I mean what is it even made of??  It certainly can’t be natural.  So you probably shouldn’t be putting it in your body.  Right?  Err, right.

Except that I just can’t give up red velvet.  I’d be willing to bet a few drops of food coloring a few times a year, won’t kill you.  In fact, I’m living proof that it won’t.

I’ve been eating red velvet since I was little and I’m still quite alive.

And now that we’re all on the same page, let’s make some red velvet cupcakes, okay?  It’s all in the name of Valentine’s Day I tell you.  And even if you don’t have a Valentine, you should make these for yourself.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

My mom has been making red velvet cake for as long as I can remember.  The pictures of me as a toddler with uneven bangs, licking red batter of the beaters are classic.  And every child who’s been raised eating red velvet knows it’s a combination of cocoa powder, buttermilk, red food coloring and just a bit of vinegar that really makes the recipe.

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 T cocoa powder
• 2 oz. red food coloring
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 t salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 T vanilla
• 2 oz. (1/4 cup) water
• 1 t baking soda
• 1 t vinegar

1. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add eggs and beat well.
2. Make paste of cocoa and red food coloring.  Add to butter mixture.
3. Sift flour and salt.  In a measuring cup, mix buttermilk, vanilla and water, then add alternately with flour to the butter/food coloring mixture.
4. Add soda and blend well.
5. Add vinegar last, but do not beat, just stir in gently.
6. Bake in lined muffins pan (or in 2 greased and lightly floured cake pans) for 25-30 minutes.
7. Cool and frost with Fluffy Butter Frosting.

Fluffy Butter Frosting

• 4 T flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Mix flour and milk, cook until thick, stirring constantly.  Keep stirring until cool.
2. Add butter, sugar and vanilla.  Beat for 10 minutes.
3. Frost generously and refrigerate.

Let’s talk about something serious for a second.  I hate cream cheese frosting.  Like hate it.  Which is why out of all the red velvety things I’ve ever had, my mom’s always wins.

See that?  It’s buttercream frosting.

Buttercream frosting > cream cheese frosting.  It’s a proven fact.

This recipe is so near and dear to my heart.  If you want someone to feel how much you love them, always, always bake them red velvet.  Mom taught me that much.

Red Velvet = Love.

I deserved a comforting dinner of spaghetti pie.

2. The second interview was a grueling two hours long.

Which means I more than deserved a froyo treat.  Plus it was National Frozen Yogurt Day so we had to.

Okay, fine.  I got froyo twice this week.  Froyo makes me happy.

3. I finished Loving Frank by Nancy Hovan on Tuesday night and it totally moved me.

The book is a historical fiction about Mamah Borthwick Cheney, the longtime companion of famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright.  The author’s characterization of Mamah felt so believable and intimate.  

If you know anything about FLW, then you probably know how tragically his relationship with Mamah ended.  Even though I knew what was coming, I was still so emotional about the ending of the novel.  It was heartbreaking, but incredibly well done.  

I may or may not have already bought another book about FLW…

4. I spent the past two days working next to this guy.

I’m not sure if the calls from my desk to his every other minute to ask dumb questions really counts as being helpful, but I’m always happy to spend more time with someone who makes me laugh.

And that picture totally makes me laugh.

5. I just bought a plane ticket to New Orleans for Mardi Gras weekend with my sister.

We’re.so.fricken.excited.

Despite the fact that we have family living in NO and have been there a million times, we’ve never been during Mardi Gras.  I have no idea what to expect, but I’m thinking it will be slightly crazy.

Happy Friday!

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Do you have any exciting news to share?

How long was your longest interview?

Are you reading anything good right now? I’m always up for book recommendations!

You see, 1) someone asked me if I would share the recipe for this cream of broccoli soup and 2) my mom told me she likes reading posts where I “really get into it,” which she clarified by saying “you know, like when you write about me!”

This soup recipe is hers, so I can’t rightly share it without talking about her. See, two birds.

Truth be told, I’m not so sure I really like cooked broccoli.

Actually, I’m pretty positive I hate cooked broccoli. Raw is fine, cooked into something cheesy, creamy, and saucy is totally fine, but something about steamed, roasted or sautéed broccoli just kind of rubs me to wrong way. Lucky for me (and for Mom!) I’ve always loved this soup.

Like since I was a little girl. And when you think about how kids growing up in the early 90′s probably felt about vegetables (ew!), only then do you realize how grand of a statement that is.

I totally forgot about this soup for years. Those were dark days, my friends. Filled with lots of steamed broccoli hatred and a yearning to find a way to constitute broccoli into my life in an enjoyable way. I mean, it’s so cheap and I just really wanted to like it. Then it finally dawned on me, that my mother had the solution and I’d been eating it all my life. Duh.

This is literally the oldest recipe I have in my “Recipe” folder. That means it’s a classic. And it’s stood the test of time.

Cream of Broccoli Soup

• 5-6 broccoli crowns, stems chopped off (or 2 bags of frozen broccoli)
• 1/4 cup chopped green onions
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups broth (my mom uses chicken, but I sub vegetable and it works just fine)
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 2 cups 2% milk

1. To a pot, add broccoli, onions, salt and broth and cook until broccoli is soft.
2. Use a blender or an immersion blender to puree the broccoli mixture.
3. In a separate pot, melt butter. Whisk in flour, then slowly pour in the milk and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and allow mixture to thicken (~1-2 minutes).
4. Add butter/milk mixture to pureed broccoli mixture, stir to combine, and heat thoroughly.

Pay attention now. I’m about to show you a very unattractive soup picture.

Actually don’t pay attention.

Okay, I know it doesn’t look too promising, but I assure you, this is one of the simplest, quickest, tastiest and most comforting soups. It reminds me of my childhood. And you should know that I had a very fun and fulfilling childhood.

Plus you could go crazy and do this.

Which is totally not what my mom does, but I bet she and her “I’m-lactose-intolerant-but-I-love-cheese-so-much-I-can’t-stop-eating-it” attitude would totally approve.

And then you should probably dunk some good bread in there. I prefer a good hunk of crusty french bread, but there was a blizzard outside and I had half a pan of cornbread starring me in the face.

And you should totally wash all that green down with something deliciously sweet.

Like maybe a Bailey’s Irish Cream Walnut Brownie.

Mom would want you to.

Happy Thursday, friends. We’re almost there!

Chocolate chunks, walnuts and Bailey’s Irish Cream.

This recipe is like a combination of the things I can’t stop sneaking out of the cubboard.  Except then I went and added Bailey’s to the mix.  Please.  I was talking about sneaking chocolate and walnuts.  I may have a Pinterest problem and a job problem, but I don’t have a drinking problem.

Yet.

On Friday we had quite the snowstorm.  My car wasn’t going anywhere.  Joey, two maintenance men and spinning tires told me so.  I had a cancelled interview and the satellite on the TV was out, so I threw my hands up and went to the kitchen.

That’s where this delicious brownie Frankenstein was created.

Bailey’s Irish Cream Walnut Brownies

Inspired by Cooking Light.

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 T brown sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup chocolate chunks, divided
• 1/4 cup Bailey’s Irish Cream
• 2 T milk (I used 2%)
• 4 T butter, melted
• 1 t vanilla
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, divided (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine flour, sugars, cocoa, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
3. In a bowl, melt 1/2 cup chocolate chunks and Bailey’s in the microwave, stirring after 30 seconds.  Add melted butter, vanilla and eggs.
4. Add milk mixture, remaining chocolate chunks and 1/4 cup nuts to the flour mixture and stir to combine.  Batter will be thick.
5. Pour batter into a coated 9-inch pan, sprinkle with remaining walnuts and cook for 25-35 minutes.  **Mine took longer, but I’m at a high altitude.
6. Cool, slice, enjoy!

These came out better than I could ever have expected.  To be honest, I’m not a real huge brownie fan, but the flavor of the Irish cream tones down the chocolate a bit, leaving it perfect for both brownie lovers and ambivalent brownie-eaters alike.

And in case you aren’t quite convinced that these need to be in your life, I’ll tell you that I just set one aside to eat once my tea was ready seeping, then ate two while I waited, then devoured the third one like someone had been dangling it in front of my face for hours.

Whether that’s an indication that I have zero self control or that these are extra delicious is still up in the air.

This was the best snack of the week.

Apple slices, peanut butter, granola and chocolate chips.

The grocery store is the last place I want to go for the rest of the week.

One trip Friday night and two trips on Saturday for party food and one trip today for food for the rest of the week.  I think I’ve seen enough of the grocery store for a while.

I need all of this for Valentine’s Day.

I swear it took 15 minutes to make my sandwich at the Whole Foods deli and that pile of chocolate and candy was looking better and better by the minute. 

I was hungry.

Whole Foods is kind of overrated.

Don’t get me wrong, I love what Whole Foods is all about, but sometimes when I grab a quick lunch there I feel like I’m paying a lot for food that isn’t that good.  And for the record, that baguette destroyed my mouth.

Fancy jello shots are a party necessity.

And they need to follow the party theme.  Which was 3 hours of expensive commercials, right?  I don’t recall watching any football yesterday.

Good thing the Patriots and the Giants have the same team colors, jello gets expensive.  Oh wait, it doesn’t.

And I won’t lie, this recipe was a little confusing and Joey had to rush to the store for more gelatin, but in the end it was worth it — everyone loved them!

Football is ….

Sorry but the whole football thing is kind of lost on me.  I don’t quite understand it and I’m fairly sure I don’t want to try.  I’m in it for the jello shots (see above).

The pizza I made was the best looking one at our Super Bowl party yesterday.

Want proof?

Foodie football art?  Yes please!

Madonna put on a great half time show.

Okay, say what you will about her, but everyone at our party seemed pretty entertained.  I thought her song selection was awesome and I was so excited when she shuffled with LMFAO.  

Just because it’s the Super Bowl and you’ll probably consume mass amounts of chips, dip, pizza, guacamole and may or may not take the bowl of puppy chow home with you when you leave the party, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still celebrate Pancake Sunday.

Peanut butter pancakes, oh yes.

The commercials were pretty good.

Except that I only heard a few because our party was male dominated and they didn’t seem to care about the commercials so they talked over most of them.  Unless, of course, there was a hot woman in the commercial, then they all shut right up.  Typical.

Being left with a bunch of empty bowls and plates at the end of the night means it was a successful party.

Everything, from the mini corn bread muffins to the puppy chow turned out great! 

Overall,  it was a great weekend.  Here’s to a productive week!

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Did you watch the Super Bowl?

What was your favorite commercial?

What’s your favorite party snack?

I’m not about to go all caveman on you, and I would still rather eat a veggie dog than a real one, but I’m coming to realize that you don’t have to approach anything with an all or nothing attitude, meat included.  So what if I’m craving some good quality steak (good quality being the key words here)?  I think there’s definitely a way to appease both my desire to eat ethically and my need to eat deliciously.  And call me crazy but I’m pretty sure that if you look up the word “delicious” in the dictionary, you’ll see a picture of a giant burger, heavily doused in cheese and ketchup.

Notice how my meat preferences lean towards beef products.  That’s because I have and probably always will think chicken and turkey suck.  You can find pictures of those two under “boring,” “dry,” and “bland.”  Which is why when I bought a “vegetarian” empanada at Whole Foods last week and found myself eating chicken, I was not happy, to say the least.

Let’s be very clear that I’ve never been a vegetarian.  I refuse to ever give up shrimp and I would ask someone to commit me if I ever said no to my  mom’s sausage and ham-filled red beans and rice.  Plus I always feel obligated to at least see if someone has finally figured out the answer to the age old question, “How do I make this turkey not dry?” every Thanksgiving.

This week I asked Joey to “name 5 things he would have us cook, if price and meat were not a consideration.”  I won’t even tell you what my response was when he yelled “KRAFT MAC AND CHEESE!”  After additional prompting, he finally responded with “spaghetti and meatballs!”  Now that’s more like it.

We made the Pioneer Woman’s classic spaghetti and meatballs recipe on Tuesday night and it was everything I had imagined.  This isn’t about meat eating or not, there’s something honestly comforting about a big warm bowl of saucy pasta.  Especially if there’s also garlic bread and a glass of wine.

Happy Friday

I keep hoping on days like yesterday (when it was upper 50′s and I was trouncing around in short sleeves… okay, it was three-quarter sleeves, but still!) that we’ll just be done with cold weather, but the fact that it snowed not once, but twice last week is a harsh harsh reminder that it’s still very much winter.

2. It’s perfectly normal to have two laptops open and be working on them at the same time.

I kind of give up on thinking writing a post will be a simple process.  I keep jumping between computers, one that has Windows Live Writer on it and the other that moves about 100% faster and makes uploading pictures from my phone so easy.  And by easy, I mean they just wind up there without me lifting a finger.

3. I don’t actually like alcohol.

I just like things that taste like juice and make me feel like dancing.

Case in point, Riesling — and not just any Riesling, it has to be sweet Riesling — is my favorite wine.

4. When you’re having a bad day, a Chipotle lunch break will always make you feel better.

I could pretend writing a resume when you have little work experience and applying for dozens of jobs and barely hearing back isn’t discouraging, but I like to keep it real on the blog.  It’s pretty exhausting.  So I went to lunch, got what I was craving (a steak bowl!) and felt re-energized.  Or just full.  Same thing, right?

5. How many times in one week can someone eat fish?  At least 3!

I very rarely cook fish, but we made tilapia this week, I ate leftovers yesterday and we went out to Bonefish on Saturday.  Guys, how good is Bang Bang Shrimp?!

6. Saturday can sometimes feel like the longest.day.ever.

If you don’t have a job, spent all week “hanging out,” and can’t exactly afford to o spend money all day, Saturday can be pretty boring.  I won’t even tell you how much TV I watched.

7.  Roasting your own almonds is totally easy.

Why do almonds only come in roasted and salted or raw?  I don’t want to have to make a separate trip to Whole Foods just to get roasted and unsalted.  Solution: buy raw and roast them yourself! Ten minutes at 350*, cool for an hour and you’re good to go.

8. There are just some things you’ll never understand.

Things I’ll never understand: 

• Why Footloose is a classic.  I was so bored.  Is that bad?

• How I manage to let milk boil over every.single.time. I cook with it.

• How many groceries I can buy while staying within my budget.  I need to stop worrying already!

• What “bearded barley” is!  

9.  Arthur is, in fact, an aardvark.

Apparently this is common knowledge and I now know exactly how to spell aardvark, thanks to this lovely video.

10.  Sunday is the best.

If Saturday was a long, slow uneventful day, Sunday was the exact opposite.  Run with Joey, Starbucks, grocery, yoga, homemade dinner.  Oh, and did I mention our new Sunday morning pancake ritual?  It totally reminds me of when I was little and my mom would make pancakes that we  would use cookie cutters to shape into a bear and a pig, or used food coloring to make blue or green pancakes.

Aaaand, now I have a “Pancakes!” board on Pinterest for future “Pancake Sundays.”

Snow + gloom + not wanting to work on my resume = baking day.

Simple math, folks.  And let’s not mention that that happens to be the only math I’m capable of doing.  I was an English major after all.  We don’t do well with math and science.  Which is why I won’t be going into the medical field, thankyouverymuch, Mother.

Anyways.  I think it had something to do with the giant poppy seed muffin an ex-co-worker (how’s that for hyphenation?) was eating the other day, but I was struck with the strong need to bake up a batch.  Let it be known that you can find poppy seeds on the baking aisle with all the other spices.  It will cost you $3 and you will probably never use it again, but like I said, it was a strong need to bake up a batch.

I halved the recipe.  Because I can’t trust myself around baked goods?  Absolutely not.  Because when you live in a two-person household where only one of you is helping eat baked goods and the other is going out at 9 PM on a Thursday to get a pint of Ben and Jerry’s that they will finish in one sitting, you risk the chance of having those baked goods around for too long and getting a distinct whiff of mold when you go to put a piece of zucchini bread in your mouth.  Not that I would know anything about that.

I used sour cream instead of buttermilk because it’s what I had on hand.  And if you have to ask why I keep sour cream on hand, you clearly don’t eat enough sour cream.

I think that’s why the texture of mine is more biscuit-like than muffin-like, but those imperfect little muffin tops are what we like to call character.  Or what I like to call delicious.  And these really are.  Especially when you wait the full 18 minutes it takes them to bake stalking to oven, switching the light on every 2 minutes and eating one right out of the oven without waiting for it to properly cool.  Even though I’m pretty sure I only have half the amount of taste buds a normal person has (read: a person who doesn’t burn their tongue on daily basis), I can tell these are good.

 Craving satisfied.  And just in time for the sun to come out

Have a happy weekend, friends and make these muffins.  And you know what?  Go ahead and make all 12.  You’ll thank me later.