IT"S CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

THIS IS THE EATING SEASON! This may seem completely random, but do you know why people go on diets? I DO! Because of Christmas. Because everybody wants to eat, and that is certainly what I plan on doing! And who could pass up al of the....
Peanut Brittle
Hot Cocoa
Cookies
Chocolate Cookies
Chocolate
Chocolate- Peanut Butter candy (Buckeyes my family calls them)
fudge (my personal favorite)
more cookies
cake
lattes
Buche de Noel (a classic French Christmas yule log cake, but we get it in chocolate mint from Child's Bakery on CO blvd.)
marshmallows
chocolate dipped Oreos
candy canes
gingerbread cookies
AND-  even more cookies!!!!

I hope you all have a good rest of winter break and eat lots more good food! Meeeeeerry Christmas!

Grilled Artichokes and Elway's

My obsession lately, as it has always been, is steak! However, as I grow up I am becoming more and more aware of the nutrition of my favorite foods, and unfortunately, steak is not always a good choice! Because of this my focus has recently shifted to those sides that no one ever seems to have room for after finishing the  main course. Elway's, a local restaurant where John Elway began the football-high quality steakhouse trend, has been one of my favorite weekend dinner places for a couple years now. But my most recent enthusiasm for this destination has sparked from having a lighter lunch there. I know it might sound crazy, and a few months ago if someone had suggested this to me I would have thought it was weird, but having artichoke, fries, and a key lime tart at 2:00 in the afternoon has become a favorite thing of mine to do. And because, unfortunately, I can’t eat at Elway’s everyday, I worked to master their AMAZING artichoke recipe! Here it is:

1. Prep the artichokes. This means cutting down the stem if it is longer than necessary. Also, at Elway’s they don’t cut off the spines that you will find at the end of each leaf. Depending on just how pointy they are I don’t always because it can be easier to hold onto the leaf with them still there. 

2. Steam the artichokes. I find that it is easiest to do this for one or two artichokes in the microwave, but any other method will probably work just fine. Basically, you take the prepped artichokes, put them in a microwavable bowl, fill it with a small amount of water, put plastic wrap over the top, and microwave for anywhere from 4-8 minutes depending on the amount of artichoke in your bowl.

3. WARNING! CAUTION! EXTREMELY HOT FOOD! Now you have to prepare yourself to get the artichokes out of the microwave. THEY WILL BE EXTREMELY HOT! Put oven gloves on, do whatever you have to do, because if you grab that bowl with out preparation you will burn yourself.

4. Now, Check. To make sure that you have fully cooked the artichokes, first make sure they are hot. If you microwaved them for a minute and the water is still barely warm, they aren't finished. Repeat step two. If they are hot and you can smell something kind of like you imagine artichoke tea would smell like, continue. Stick a fork, knife, or even spoon into the very bottom of the artichoke. I prefer not to use a knife because if they are sharp enough they won't tell you whether the artichoke is cooked well enough at all, it could be sliding through a completely raw artichoke, and we don't want that now do we? If the utensil of your choosing sleds easily into the artichoke, continue.

5. Now comes the hard part. This step can vary depending on the size, shape, and ripeness of your vegetable, but this is the basic process. Take a kitchen knife and cut your artichoke in half. This doesn't have to be perfect, but you want the halves to be as even as possible for the sake of the next step. Now, take a paring knife, the smallest one you have, and make a fairly deep cut into the artichoke below the green hairy stuff in the middle. This is the choke. This is the part that you will need to interpret based upon your artichoke. Really, you just want to cut out all of the hair. I like to take out the smaller leaves that you will see once the hair is gone, just because there isn't much meat on them anyway. 

6. Seasoning. The seasoning that I used is the Elway's Steak Seasoning. My grandmother bought this for me simply so that I could recreate this dish, and I'm so glad she did! There really is nothing else, that I have seen, quite like this blend. I could go on and on about the ingredients, but basically, if you live in Denver you need to buy this and if you live elsewhere.....well, I suppose that salt pepper, garlic salt, and your other favorite spices will do. What you're going to do is brush olive oil all over the front, back, and insides of the artichoke and put on top of that as much seasoning as you would like. 

7. Finishing touches. The rest is really simple. Turn on your oven to broil. That is when your oven has a fire coming out of the top of it. If you'd like this is also the time to grill your artichokes. If you're using your oven, first preheat and decide how well you want to cook them. I like my really charred but that's personal preference. then put your artichokes in for about 3-5 minutes on each side, but it's a good idea to keep an eye on them so they don't burn.

8. Enjoy! 

Side note: There are lots of different toppings for lemon juice. Some that I have found work well with this recipe are yes, melted butter, lemon juice(b/c I'm obsessed with lemon), or an aioli the recipe for which I will be posting tomorrow! Look out for that! Bye!

My Favorite Gelato

Hi! I know that I haven't posted in a while, but I thought that this might be a good way to get back into a rhythm of writing every once and a while.

I wanted to let all you guys know that I am currently eating chocolate bunt cake from whole foods which I microwaved until it was hot. I also wanted to talk about a new favorite thing of mine. Many of you are familiar with the chain of super markets that are organic and healthier etc. that is Whole Foods.

The main subject of this, though, is that I truly believe that I have found the best gelato outside of Italy! The brand name is Talenti gelato and I tried the Sea Salt Caramel flavor last night which will be a regular on my shopping list from now on!

I will have another post up tomorrow, hopefully, so look out for that as well and have a goodnight!

Help

Hey guys! I was just wondering if any of you know how to upload photos onto a blogspot blog like mine, because I'd love to upload some of the photos of things that I cook, and even more importantly, the food that I eat!

--thanks!

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!(or it was......a while ago)

So I know I haven't posted in a while, but I thought I might as well post about my absolutely FOOD FILLED birthday!

March 4-My birthday
For breakfast, I made crepe batter the night before and my mom cooked them for me the next morning(by the way, thank you, Mom!) They were delicious! And at some point I'm going to get around to posting the recipe on here so you can try it yourself....
Anyway, I got to school and I was ecstatic to find that the majority of my friends were waiting outside my locker, some with chocolate! I also realized the day before that there was going to be a half day at school on my birthday, HOW LUCKY IS THAT?!?!?!?! And I though t I was going to lunch at one of my favorite french restaurants in Littleton.........Instead of getting that delicious goat cheese and marinated tomato sandwich I was craving, I was kidnapped by my sister, dad, and my sister's friend Sadie. After a nerve- racking drive and terrible attempt to walk across what I'm pretty sure was a parking lot, thank you for my new scabs, Bella and Sadie, I found myself inside a yet-to-be-named-building. That building was the Kitchen Table, a cooking school that I had tried to take classes at the previous Summer, but they wouldn't let me because of my age. So, long story short, I made an awesome meal at this place with all of my friends and it was a complete surprise! We made chocolate mousse, roasted chicken, and Caesar salad(the real stuff). Delish, Delish, Delish(I'll post those recipes as well)! Then, that night, for my birthday dinner, my grandparents hosted a dinner where I chose all of the menu! We had brie en croute, goat cheese rounds, broccoli, twice baked potatoes, and tenderloin. You might be thinking, NO CAKE?!?!?! But not to worry, a few days before I had gone to one of my most favorite restaurants in the world- D Bar(you might remember my most recent post about it, that was the night that I ordered my cake). To order my cake, I just answered a series of questions and volia! a cake that might have been the most beautiful thing I could have ever imagined. It was a round cake, the chocolate cake with manjari frosting that I love so much, covered completely in pink fondant.The decorations were a strand of pearls(fondant), a bunch of purple flowers, scattered throughout the cake(fondant), my name and a great big "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"(icing), and finally, the grand finale, an eiffel tower propped up by a ball of black fondant(incase you were wondering, the eiffel tower was made of fondant too).
That was my birthday! In a paragraph.
OH! I almost forgot, the other foodalicious part of my birthday is that I am going to Santa Fe this summer to EAT! Almost all of my favorite restaurants are in Denver and Santa Fe, and I live in Denver, so I thought, why not go to the other place that is home to awesome restaurants that I can't go to all the time!
That's about it! I'll post the recipes for you later!

d bar- restaurant review

Hi guys! So tonight I went to d bar restaurant on 17th street, Denver! Here are my thoughts on the restaurant:
Crue Fries: My appetizer of choice at d bar is the crue fries. They are d bar's classic garlic parm fries drenched in homemade ranch dressing, melted cheese, chives, and bacon. I like these a lot, but, like many things on the d bar menu, they are heavy in calories. When ordering this, remember that it's FILLING! My family of four and I had one order and it was more than enough! Also, this is EXTREMELY SALTY, if you don't love salt as much as I do, I wouldn't recommend this. Overall, this is a good choice if you are a lover of all things cheesy, creamy, and salty!

For the entree, the meals that we had between the four of us were steak frites, sliders, baked mac&cheese, and the soup(tomato) and sandwich(grilled cheese). I had the steak frites and it was great! The steak was really tender and perfectly cooked. The only thing I didn't like about it was that the fries were the same ones used for the base of the crue fries, so after that, the fries tasted pretty plain, but they were still pretty good. The kobe sliders were ok. The meat and buns were perfectly cooked/toasted, but the cheese on them was too mild for me and I couldn't really taste it. Overall, they were good but a little bland. The soup and sandwich would have to be my least favorite entree that we got. The sandwich was good, but, again, the cheese was very creamy and somewhat tasteless. The soup was okay, but it was supposed to be tomato soup and it was cream based, which didn't give it the strong tomato flavor that I was looking for. The mac&cheese, on the other hand, was AMAZING! The bechamel was perfectly cooked, the breadcrumbs were delicious, and the cheese was fabulous. There was literally nothing that I could find bad about this dish.

Incase you were wondering, yes, the "D" in d bar does stand for "dessert." And that is exactly what it is, a dessert bar. There is no place better for a dosage of sugar than this restaurant! The four desserts we tried were a lemon merengue tart, the famous "Cake and Shake," the molten cake, and a brownie sundae. I had the molten cake and it was definitely my favorite! The whole thing was soft and it had raspberry ice cream, tart raspberry sauce, and actual raspberries that came along with it. On the description in the menu, it says that the cake is also steamed with a truffle inside which is probably why it is so good! One of the other desserts was d bar's famous "Cake and Shake." This is just what it sounds like, a delicious piece of chocolate cake and either a vanilla or bittersweet chocolate shake. The cake is always great, but the shake really surprised me as being particularly outstanding tonight. There are also little chocolate covered espresso beans in it which very well may make all the difference. We also had a brownie sundae that was pretty good, but, above all else, it was beautiful. It was similar to your average brownie sundae, but the ice cream was strange. It looked like vanilla ice cream, but tasted like a cross between warm ice cream and whipped cream. I didn't get to taste the lemon merengue tart, but I am told that it was fabulous! It was, apparently, so great because it wasn't overly sweet. It was a tart tart! The merengue was also perfectly toasted and delicious!
So there's my review of d bar and I hope that me description of the food was enticing enough to make you go!
Side note: This restaurant is fantastic, but it is very small. They also don't take reservations, which makes it hard to get a table if you wait until 6 or 7 to go. During the week, I normally aim to get there around 5:30 to ensure that the wait won't be over 15 minutes.
Talk to you tomorrow!

2/25/11- Dinner!

Hey guys! So the on the menu today is FAJITAS! I don't always love mexican food, but this is adaptable and easily reinvented. The traditional fajita has slightly spicy meat and the standard sour cream- tomato-onion-and-cheese topping. But, because we don't have sour cream tonight, I've decided to try something different. I spread goat cheese on a flour tortilla and then piled on the goodies. Steak, tomatos, sauteed onions, and guacamole with extra extra lime!
For dessert, my sister has decided to make chocolate chip cookies. Although we love them, nestle cookies are not what she wants to try tonight. She is using a recipe from a child's cookbook, titled "Snack Attack:Return of the Munchies." This book entails many recipes for quick, easy, and healthy recipes that kids, with the help of their parents, can make. The recipe that she is using is for cherry chocolate chip cookies, but, being her age, she has decided to leave the cherries out. This recipe is very similar to the nestle recipe, but it is much smaller, with a larger ratio of cherries, which is supposed to give it the appeal of being healthy. One thing I found interesting about the batter is that it is slightly eggier than the nestle version. The finished project is pretty good. They seem to be flatter than traditional nestle cookies. and the cook time was slightly over what it needs to be. They are basically the same as nestle cookies, but the base of the  cookie has a stranger texture than the nestles. Overall, I would say these are a good alternative to the nestle recipe, but, if you can, I'd go with the nestle.
Tonight's dinner was an easy, delicious meal and I hope you try it!

First Post

Hi! I'm sooo excited about having this blog and being able to share all of my restaurant and cooking experiences with all of you! So keep reading, food lovers, and let's explore all of the restaurants we can in Denver, the US, and THE WORLD!