Vanilla Bean Pound Cake

Today, June 30th, I celebrate my 27th birthday. The picture above was taken on my 3rd birthday and that pile of fruit and biscuits you see in the middle of the table was the birthday cake we were eating to celebrate. Growing up, we always had homemade biscuits and strawberries for dessert - and that was considered normal - just like I thought turkey bacon was 'real bacon'. My Great Grandma also made a frosted angel food cake with strawberry sauce on the side for many of our special occasions. I recently asked my mom if she had the recipe for that angel food cake. She laughed and said "Emily - that angel food cake was always made from a box".

As I got older, I moved on from biscuits and strawberries to frozen turtle pie from Baskin Robbins. Just thinking about that chocolate crust, lined with candied pecans, filled with a vanilla ice cream center, topped with a thin layer of caramel sauce, and a rich fudge ribbon lining the perimeter of the pie brings back wonderful memories of celebrating with friends and family throughout the years. I think of my birthday and I think of that turtle pie.

For my 21st birthday, most people my age spend the night out at the bar with friends, but I was in the hospital at Rush. The nurses made a banner for me that said "Happy 21st Birthday Emily". All of the nurses signed the banner and wrote down their favorite alcoholic drink. One of my favorite nurses on the floor was Mike. That day, Mike hadn't been my nurse but he had worked a 7am-7pm shift just like everyone else. He left the floor at 7pm and came back into my room at 8pm. I wasn't quite sure what he was doing in my room, but he arrived with a biggie french fry from McDonald's. At that time, if you knew me, you knew the way to my heart was through my stomach, especially McDonald's french fries. I'll never forget what Mike did for me on my 21st birthday.

I am starting a new tradition this year, I am making homemade birthday cakes for my friends and family. The inaugural cake baking tradition starts today for my own birthday. I can honestly say that I have not really made many cakes before. I don't enjoy store bought cakes - they are too sweet for me and have more icing than I care to ingest in a day. The homemade version not only creates new traditions and memories, but is also a unique way to remember your birthday each year. Tonight I am starting off with Smitten Kitchen's Vanilla Bean Pound Cake. This is definitely a far stretch from my 3rd birthday dessert which contained no sugar, hardly any fat, and healthy strawberries. This pound cake recipe calls for 4 sticks of butter (gasp), 9 eggs (holy chickens) and 2 cups of sugar. I made a quick strawberry/blueberry sauce to go with the cake. Absolutely delicious. With this new tradition, I am also instating a new rule that you just go big or go home . I'm not going to worry about how much butter or sugar is in the cake or how unhealthy it might be. Make the cake, as is, and make it well.

If you would like me to make you a birthday cake to honor your very special day, just let me know. My list of cake recipes to try is getting quite long!

That's right - 4 sticks of butter.

Vanilla Bean Pound Cake

adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1 pound butter, softened

2 cups sugar

1 vanilla bean

9 large eggs

4 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla

Preheat oven to 325. In a food processor, grind vanilla bean and sugar until the vanilla is as finely chopped as the sugar.

In a large bowl, cream the butter. Add the vanilla sugar, continuing to beat until well creamed and smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually add the flour and salt, beating constantly. Add the vanilla extract and continue beating until well blended.

Grease and flour a 10-inch tube or bundt pan. Pour in the batter and tap on the counter to distribute the batter evenly. Bake 1 hour and 15 minutes. Do not over cook. Turn onto a rack to cool.

Blueberry Muffins

I am addicted to Edy's Slow Churned Ice Cream, particularly the Vanilla Bean flavor (not French Vanilla or plain Vanilla) as I'm sure you all know by now. There is rarely an instance where ice cream is not in my freezer. I was at Jewel the other day, stocking up on my ice cream supply and I happened to notice a new product in the Edy's section - Edy's Cups. That's right, individual serving sizes of Edy's ice cream. What a genius idea. The cups come in 3 different flavors - Vanilla Bean, Chocolate, and Mint Chocolate Chip. They were 10 for $10, and I of course bought 10 of them. This is a slightly less environmentally friendly way to eat my nightly dessert, but now I can have various flavors in the fridge, and they are packed and ready to go for me. Check them out next time you are at the store.

There are many perks to having a Mom who is a school teacher. Let's be honest, a teacher has a great yearly schedule, which is probably why every May, I think to myself - I should have really been a teacher. Who wouldn't want a 3 month summer break, 2 weeks at Christmas, a week for spring break and every single weekend off? I loved having my Mom home in the summer. While other kids went to day camp or to the babysitter, I was able to be at home. One summer, my Mom decided we were going to read an article from the National Geographic magazine each morning. There I was on a gorgeous summer morning, sitting in the living room, listening to Mom read about the Colorado River, from the world's driest magazine. It is ironic though that we only read one article that summer, and to this day, I still remember what the topic was.

My mom used to always do a little baking in the morning before Ben and I went to school. Sometimes it was apple cinnamon muffins, sometimes cinnamon scones, sometimes banana bread, but more times than not it was blueberry muffins. They were never overly sweet but were always the perfect breakfast treat, eaten straight out of the oven, with a slab of butter on top. I have no idea how she would wake up in the morning and have muffins for us fresh out of the oven, but I loved it. I can hardly wake up in the morning with enough time to get to work at 9, let alone whip up a baked good for breakfast.

This recipe is from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. She gives a basic buttermilk muffin recipe and then provides you with about 10 different variations that you can make. There were fresh blueberries in the refrigerator, so I naturally went with what was available. These muffins don't taste exactly like Mom's used to make, but they sure do hit the spot. Topped with a little jam or butter and you have the perfect afternoon snack with a cup of coffee.

Blueberry Muffins

2 1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 1//3 cup buttermilk

1/3 cup canola oil

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup fresh blueberries

1 tablespoon flour

1 tablespoon orange zest

Preheat oven to 375. Spray muffin tins with cooking spray. Mix the flour, powder, soda, salt and sugar into a bowl. Add wet ingredients to the dry mixture, stirring just a few times with a spoon to combine. In a separate bowl combine the blueberries, flour and orange zest. The flour helps keep the blueberries from clumping together. Add the fruit to the muffin mixture. Scoop the batter into the muffin tins, going just nearly to the top. Bake 25 minutes. This recipe made 12 nice sized muffins.

Shish Kabobs

Cookbooks have come along way. I look at my bookshelf and notice my 'go-to' cookbooks can all be purchased online at Amazon.com, found at your local Barnes & Noble and are published later than the year 1996. The picture above is a cookbook that has been on our shelf at home in the kitchen for as long as I can remember. I love this book because all of the recipes in it are handwritten by my Mom. You can tell the recipes are dated because they call for ingredients that just aren't as common in the kitchen today as they used to be. The recipe for the shish kabob marinade here calls for a bottle of 'fresh lemon' (you know the little plastic yellow bottle that looks like a lemon and sits in the side shelf of your refrigerator for months, possibly even years at a time) instead of the juice of 3 fresh lemons. It ceases to amaze me at the amount of processed soup and mayonnaise that used to go into recipes, but I guess you work with what you have. I'm sure my parents didn't have a local Whole Foods market right down the street to shop for fresh, local produce.

For being very simple words, food and cooking are very multi-faceted topics. It's interesting because food brings people together at the table, creates traditions within the family and has the ability to conjure up very specific memories. When growing, up we almost always ate meals cooked at home. There are very specific dinners that will always make me think of my childhood, sitting at the table with my family, eating dinner and talking about the days activities. The standout - cook them at anytime for me - comforting - brings me back to my younger years meals include: beef stew, chili, chicken and rice casserole, mystic pretzel jello salad, strawberry shortcake, goulash, and the shish kabob recipe that I am posting below.

I know there is nothing special about shish kabobs. Brazilian steakhouses have capitalized on the shish kabob concept, magnifying it to the point where you carry large slabs of meat around on skewers, serving large amounts of meat to hungry diners. I don't really care for this sort of dining experience, but apparently others do. When I bite into the meat for this recipe, I close my eyes, and I can taste home. It tastes familiar and I like that. For Father's Day, we grilled both chicken and beef shish kabobs. We skewered green pepper, pearl onions, pineapple chunks, small potatoes, button mushrooms, and zucchini rounds to accompany the meat. I like skewering each ingredient separately. They cook at various times, so keeping the continuity makes for easier cooking. The worcesteshire sauce in the beef marinade is simply irresistible; it gives the meat a distinct flavor profile that just goes so well with grilled vegetables. The soy sauce in the chicken marinade gets accented by the sweet pineapple chunks. You can serve the meat and vegetables, family style, letting each eater pick what they want to serve on their plate. Try this family recipe of ours next time you are grilling meat and I hope it becomes one of your favorites.

Shish Kabobs

recipe from my Aunt Barb

Beef Marinade

Sirloin steak, cubed

1 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup lemon juice

1 1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

1 onion, chopped

1/2 teaspoon pepper

Chicken Marinade

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed

1 cup pineapple juice

3/4 cup soy sauce

1/3 cup vegetable oil

Additional Ingredients to Skewer

Pearl onions, left whole

Pineapple chunks

Small red potatoes

Green Pepper, cut into small wedges

Small mushrooms, left whole

Zucchini, cut into rounds

Combine all ingredients for both marinades. Cut up meat and put it into a plastic Ziploc bag. Add marinade to appropriate bag and let sit overnight. Every time you open the fridge, squish the bag around to make sure each piece of meat gets evenly marinated. Drain marinade from bags. Cut up veggies and put each on a skewer. I designate 3-4 skewers per ingredient; I don't mix ingredients because they all have different cooking times. Skewer the meat. Brush veggies with a touch of oil, salt and pepper. Grill meat and veggies until cooked through.

Remove meat and veggies from skewers and place on 1 big platter. Serve with toasted bread and quinoa salad.

Slow Roasted Oven Tomatoes

I'm slightly new to Twitter (find me @ecphillips365) and I'm nowhere near aware of all the bells and whistles that go along with it, but I will admit that I like the concept. I've started following many food bloggers, Food Network Stars, local chefs and non-profit organizations. I sometimes wonder what we did before Facebook, email, Twitter and Tivo. What did people do when they got home from work - sit around the dinner table and talk to each other?

In Chicago we have a small specialty food store called Fox & Obel. Not only are they a supporter of the American Cancer Society, as they sell daffodils for Daffodil Days, but they also have a wonderful tuna salad at the deli counter, cheese and wine selection and an in-house cafe where the homemade potato chips are pretty much unbeatable. I follow Fox & Obel on Twitter and the other day they asked people to submit their favorite cooking memory for a chance to win a free cooking lesson at their store

I have many favorite cooking recipes but the example I gave to the contest might be one of my top 3 of all time. When we lived at the 4603 house, I was in the kitchen making a beef roast with carrots and potatoes. The beef had been cooking all afternoon in the roasting pan and I had just taken it out of the oven. I moved the beef to a cutting board to begin slicing it. Mind you - no one was in the kitchen at this point. I turned my back for just a second - famous last words- to wash up a few dishes as the meat rested. I turned around and the roast was gone. I looked down and was completely stunned to see Chloe, my golden retriever, with the whole beef roast in her mouth. Chloe has these unmistakable eyes and I like to think I know exactly what she is thinking by looking into her eyes. She had her head hung, big eyes looking right up at me; she knew she shouldn't have the roast in her mouth, yet she just couldn't resist. She didn't attempt to destroy the roast or eat it up, instead just hung her head wondering what to do next. I didn't know whether to yell at her or laugh, but it is a true story and is one of my favorites.

On a side note - Chloe's hobbies include: watching people shuck corn, sitting in the grass panting and drinking water out of a grande Starbucks cup.

I've recommended Orangette's book entitled A Homemade Life before, but I am giving it another plug tonight because I think it is a must read for any food lover. She has a recipe for oven roasted tomatoes that sounds too good to pass up. A simple recipe of tomatoes, olive oil, salt and pepper. They tomatoes roast in the oven for 6 hours on a very low heat. Am I the only one that gets a feeling of being all 'Little House on the Prairie' when you have something cooking in the oven for 6 hours. The tomatoes can go with just about anything. I put half the batch in freezer bags to pullout whenever I might need them and put the rest in jars to have in the fridge. To date, I have chopped them up in a salad, served them over pasta with a touch of oil and Parmesan, slathered on toasted bread with a piece of basil, and eaten the cold with a slice of brie on a Triscuit. This is an ideal recipe because you can use tomatoes that are in season or out. They get soft, juicy and sweet. The hint of red pepper flake adds that little spice that enhances whatever you might be adding it to.

Do you have a favorite cooking memory? If so, I'd love to hear it.

Slow Roasted Oven Tomatoes

adapted from Orangette's A Homemade Life

Roma tomatoes (as many as you can fit on your baking sheet)

Olive Oil

Salt

Red Pepper Flake

Preheat oven to 250. Slice the tomatoes in half, length wise. Lay tomatoes on a baking sheet, skin side down. You can place the tomatoes as close together as possible. Brush the tomatoes with a little bit of olive oil, a sprinkle of salt, and a touch of red pepper flake. You won't need much olive oil; only a tablespoon or two. Roast for at least 6 hours. The tomatoes will shrink and they will be come extremely soft and juicy, but will still retain their shape. Cool tomatoes completely. Put them into jars or into freezer bags to use for a later date.

Banana Cinnamon Scones

Father's Day 2009

If you know me pretty well, you might say that I'm not afraid to tell it like it is. Growing up, I had this 'wonder if' sort of question that I used to ask my Dad. It went something like this: "Dad - if Ben and I were both drowning and you could only save one of us, who would you save?" I look back at that question and think - did I really used to ask my Dad that? Unfortunately, the answer is yes, and to be quite honest, I would actually pitch that scenario to him quite often. My Dad would always reply "I'd find a way to save you both". You think that answer would suffice and I would move onto another topic of conversation, but no. I would take that question a step further and say "but if you had only one pinkie finger that could save just one of us, then who would you save"? The answer was always the same, "I'd find a way to save you both." And that is the truth - he would. Happy Father's Day Dad.

When reading Orangette's book entitled A Homemade Life, she devoted an entire chapter to a scone recipe that her sister is famous for. The family waits all year for the Christmas holiday when they can bring the prized scones from the freezer, enjoying the many varieties throughout the day. Their family makes scones like our family might make Christmas cookies. In my mind, within a family, it is good to be famous for something in the kitchen. In our family my brother is famous for his Bourbon Pecan Pie at Thanksgiving, my Mom is famous for her coffee brewed jet- fuel style and my Dad is famous for being the go-to griller. Orangette describes these scones as if it would be a sin not to try them, so to not let her down, I felt it necessary to give the recipe a go.

I can't think of a better way to kickoff the morning of Father's Day, than whipping up a batch of homemade scones for my Dad. My Dad will eat just about any baked good that comes out of the oven and I am happy to try out a few new recipes on him. I had made the commute home from the city yesterday with 2 very ripe bananas, hoping to put them to good use at some point this weekend. They actually got even more ripe as I sat in the car on the way home, in traffic, with the windows down, enjoying the first very warm day of the summer. Orangette's recipe does not call for bananas, but the recipe is a good base for just about anything you might have lying around the house. I added bananas, cinnamon and pecans to her basic recipe and they were a hit. You could serve these with a honey butter, fruit jam, or even a homemade pecan or apple butter. Either way, they are a hit.

Banana Cinnamon Scones

recipe adapted from 'A Homemade Life'

2 1/2 cups flour

1/4 cup wheat germ

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

4 tablespoons butter, cold, cut into cubes

3 tablespoons brown sugar

2 very ripe bananas, mashed

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

2/3 cup chopped pecans, toasted

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon sugar

Preheat oven to 425.

Combine flour, wheat germ, salt, sugar and cinnamon into a large bowl. Add butter and use your fingertips to mix the butter with the dry ingredients. Butter should form very small pebbles. In a separate bowl combine mashed bananas, egg and milk. Stir to combine wet ingredients. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir just to combine. Add chopped pecans.

Turn out onto a floured surface. Knead 12 times. Pat into a circle about 1 inch thick. Cut into 8 triangles. Place scones on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar topping.

Bake for 18 minutes. Scones will be golden on top and brown on the bottom. Serve warm with butter or honey.

Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Coffeecake

Last weekend I was able to get fresh strawberries from the farmer's market on the corner of my block. Aren't they beautiful? Fresh strawberries always make me think of strawberry shortcake. In our family, we make our own, not so conventional, version of strawberry shortcake. Our recipe contains no sugar or whipped cream and it honestly doesn't need it. Growing up if we made dessert, this is what we made, and it was the highlight of many warm summer nights. I'll have to make the shortcake and post the recipe sometime soon. This week, I didn't cook these strawberries or fancy them up in anyway. I simply ate them straight out of the carton, as is, throughout the week.

I'm still in search of a name for my routine of bringing a homemade treat into work on Mondays. Nothing too creative has come to my mind yet, but I honestly haven't taken the time to ponder the possibilities. My friend Kristen and I have come to the conclusion that we are addicted to the Smitten Kitchen blog. We don't need AA, instead we need SKRA (Smitten Kitchen Readers Anonymous). Instead of saying hello via email to one another, we now say...."did you see Smitten's post about strawberries and dumplings today?". Surely there is something wrong with that.

I think the ideal work treat is a product that does not need to be refrigerated, can be set out in the morning for maximum eating exposure time, and something that can be eaten without much difficulty. I came across Smitten's Cinnamon-Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake over the weekend, and after reading her post and the reader reviews, I knew I had to make it.

The coffeecake does not disappoint. The cake is moist and the cinnamon/chip flavor with the slight sweetness of sugar makes for the perfect combination. I substituted plain yogurt for half of the sour cream and it still turned out perfectly moist. This would not only make a great work treat or Saturday morning breakfast, but it would also be a great treat for Dad on Father's Day morning. I somehow didn't get a picture of the final product but I think it was because I cut them the night before and had them packed for work before I realized the lack of proof of a final product. I guess you will just have to trust me.

Cinnamon-Chocolate Chip Coffeecake

1 stick butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

3 eggs, separated

1 tablespoon vanilla

8 oz. sour cream

8 oz. plain yogurt

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Dash of salt

1 tablespoon cinnamon

8 oz. chocolate chips

1/2 cup sugar

3 tablespoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350. Cream butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl until pale yellow, about 2 minutes. Add egg yolks and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients: flour, powder, soda, salt, cinnamon. Add sour cream and yogurt mixture. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff. Fold egg whites into the dough. Mix cinnamon and sugar together in a separate dish.

Butter a 9x13 dish. Take 1/3 of dough and cover the bottom of the dish. Sprinkle half of the chocolate chip mixture over the first dough layer. Sprinkle with half of the cinnamon/sugar mixture. Top with the remaining dough. Add the remaining chocolate chips and cinnamon sugar mixture. Bake for 50 minutes. Cut into squares once cool.