Halloween and Homemade Candy

I know it's been a while. I've been slacking on my posting but sometimes I just don't have anything to say, or I do and then I don't have time. Between work and travel, family and friends, and a minor self-induced health panic life has been mildly bananas the last few weeks.

It's no secret that Fall is one of my favorite seasons, and Halloween plays a big role. The fun-filled holiday always creeps up on me and reminds me of days dressed in homemade costumes as an M&M, Hershey Kiss, or box of Corn Flakes- see a theme? Clearly I was obsessed with dressing up as giant versions of food. Normal.

This year, when planning a costume, Josh shockingly agreed to get on board. Last year I tried to have him wear a giant money sign and was met with what I'll kindly down play for the sake of this blog as resistance. So, in planning this year, I knew it had to be something easy and something we could make from our own closets. As any costume planning process goes, we had a few plans before we landed on the winner. First we were going to go as robbers and have Josh's nephew dress up as a bag of money. Next, once our bag of money declined to be a bag of money, we decided to build our costumes around his (a dalmatian)  with me going as cruella deville and josh as a dognapper. Well, the trick with kids is that they grow and as our luck would have it, our dalmatian grew out of his dalmatian costume and decided to be an elephant. But since our wigs and masks were already purchased- cruella and a dog napper we shall be, minus one adorable dog.

Our costumes came out really well and everyone seemed to dig my red lips and black & white 'do.

And here's a few of our elephant, because let's face it, he's the cutest and I'm a ridicuously biased pseudo-aunt.

                         

Now, onto the candy...

In preparation for our night of trick or treating, I tackled a baking feat that I've been staring up at for a while: homemade candy. I've always wanted to try it but have been mildly afraid of melted chocolate, molds and failure. With the perfect excuse, I took the plunge. Since my favorite candy combination is chocolate and peanut butter, I opted for homemade peanut butter cups.

It took two attempts to get them just right but the final product was out of this world. If anyone is thinking about trying them I highly encourage it. I've included some tips I learned along the way and hopefully, armed with this guide- you won't need two attempts to get them right.

Sari's Homemade Peanut Butter Cup's

Ingredients
1/2 cup JIF peanut butter (do not use the natural kind, this was discovered in attempt 1)
1/2 cup powdered sugar (or more to taste)
1/3 cup light brown sugar
2 tbsp butter (very soft but not melted)
1 tsp salt
12 ounces (or 1 bag) milk chocolate (I used semisweet the first time around and they just didn't have the real peanut butter cup taste)

Directions
Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners. I used a standard muffin tin but a mini muffin tin would work as well. This recipe yielded 12 full size cups.

In a microwave safe bowl melt half of your chocolate (half a bag or 6 ounces). I melted mine in the microwave and put the chocolate in for 30 second increments, stirring after each 30 seconds. It took me 3 rounds to get the chocolate fully melted.

Spoon about 2 teaspoons of chocolate into each cup and using the back of a spoon or a paint brush, spread the chocolate up the sides of the paper liner. I used my finger because it gave me the best control and allowed me to ensure the chocolate was even. You want a thin layer of chocolate but not so thin that it will break. The idea is to create the base for which the peanut butter filling will sit so the chocolate should be about midway up the sides of the cups. Once all of your cups are filled, place the tray in the freezer to set.

While your chocolate sets, make the peanut butter filling. Combine the peanut butter, powdered sugar, brown sugar, and butter in a small bowl. With the paddle of an electric mixer, mix well until incorporated. Add salt and mix again.

Check on your chocolate (mine was hardened in about 5 minutes) once ready, remove from the refrigerator and fill with peanut butter filling. I found the most effective way of doing this was to make little balls of peanut butter filling and flatten them out with my hand. Then i placed them inside the chocolate cups. Once all cups are filled with peanut butter, melt the remainder of your chocolate the same way you did last time.

Fill each cup with 1-2 teaspoons of chocolate ensuring that you smooth the chocolate out so that it fills the space between the side of the cup and the peanut butter filling (you want to create a chocolate seal so you get that authentic peanut butter cup). Once all of the cups have a chocolate top, place back in the fridge for about 30-40 minutes and voila!

I didn't get the chance to snap a photo and in truth I didn't even get to eat one, that's how popular they were but this is what they looked like (picture from pinterest). I'll definitely be trying these again in the near future!

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Fall Flavors...Chili!

Josh and I are on a big money saving kick. I know, I know- NYC living and money saving- an oxymoron.  While we're not packing our things and leaving the big city just yet, we've been trying to pinch pennies wherever possible in an effort to grow our little nest egg (insert aww here).

One easy place we identified big savings was: lunch. Both working at Ogilvy, we easily racked up big (and unnecessary) lunch bills. At $8-$10 a day the Ogilvy slopateria just wasn't cutting it. Lunch was not only expensive, but we didn't even enjoy what we were eating- hello, that's the whole point of eating! So a few weeks ago we decided to try cooking on Sundays, and packing lunch for the week. The first weeks have been great, and I even got us matching lunch boxes (double aww).

Now that we're packing lunch we try to think of cost effective recipes that will travel well and also make a decent number of servings. Yesterday, we were craving something epically Fall, and decided to try our hand at chili. I don't have a chili recipe in my arsenal so I called my mom. She always makes a big batch around the Super Bowl, and there is never enough to go around. I substituted beef for turkey and halved the recipe (which my mom had already halved before giving me the measurements so in essence, I quartered it!) and ingredient list in hand we headed for Trader Joes. $29 later, were headed home; $29 for canned tomatoes, tomato paste, 2 packages of turkey meat, chicken sausage, parsley, scallions, olives and kidney beans...Trader Joes for the WIN.

At first we were skeptical about how much chili our quartered recipe would yield, but about an hour later, we were skeptics no more!  For our $29 investment we will likely get around 10-11 lunches, do the math folks that amounts to less than $3 a pop.

If you're looking for a chili recipe for your football crowd, roommate, boyfriend, family or just you-yourself-and-I, give this one a whirl, I highly recommend it! It's hearty, spicy and full of my favorite thing- OLIVES. Next time I would add less chili powder (I went a bit overboard) and would try it with real beef, but for our first time, I think we did great! Try it out and let me know what you think, I'm interested to hear your thoughts!

Indredients (I halved this recipe)
1 tbsp olive oil.
1 bunch scallions
1 pound sausage removed from casing (I used chicken sausage)
4 pounds ground chuck (I used turkey meat)
1 12ounce can tomato paste (I used 1 6 ounce can)
1.5 tbsp garlic
1 tbsp ground pepper
2 ounce cumin
1 ounce chili powder (do this to taste, mine was a bit heavy handed)
1 tbsp oregano
1 tbsp basil
1 tbsp salt
1/4 cup dijon mustard (I didn't half this)
1/4 cup burgundy, or any dry red wine (I didn't half this)
1/8 cup lemon juice
3 cans plum tomatoes (28 ounce cans)
2 15 ounce cans of dark red kidney beans
2 12 ounce cans pitted large black olives
1/4 cup parsley

Instructions

In a large pot, heat olive oil and saute scallions until soft. Add sausage and ground chuck and cook until browned. Spoon off any excess fat/oil and discard. Once the meat is browned, add tomato paste, garlic, pepper, cumin, chili powder, oregano, basil and salt. Stir until combined. Add in tomatoes, dijon mustard, burgundy, lemon juice, kidney beans and parsley.  Stir well and simmer, covered for 15 minutes. Stir, add black olives, let simmer for another 5 minutes.

Enjoy!

PS. This turkey version comes in under 220 calories per serving and is packed with protein and fiber!

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Gates A to E and Everything in Between

What's it like to be in multiple airports a week? Let me tell you.

It looks a little bit like the beginning of Home Alone when the whole family runs through the terminal to the theme song "runna runna ruda". When you finally sit down, you have that nagging feeling that you forgot something; And while I've yet to forget something as monumental as my son...I've definitely left little bits of sanity along my way.

This week I was in: JFK, Charlotte, Charlottesville and LGA airports all within a span of 24 hours or less. I became an expert at sleeping sitting up, walking on conveyor belts, eating CIBO express and packing and unpacking a bag in under 10 minutes. Rental car agents looked at me like I was insane (mishearing their questions, handing them my AAA card instead of my credit card- nope that won't work, and leaning slightly to one side as a result of permanent laptop heavage). I touched down in New York yesterday afternoon, have a few days at home and then I'm back on the road.

While life is a pint sized version of MADNESS, this past trip brought me to my all time favorite collegetown- UVA. While I had less than a day to explore I made my way around and managed to enjoy a stay at the Boars Head Inn, dinner at the downtown mall, coffee on the corner, and breakfast at hidden gem Cafe Cubano. I saw family, Josh's family, students and a former intern. It was a jam packed day but one that reminded me of my major #collegecrush on the orange and blue alma matter. Charlottesville- i'll be back.

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Holiday Hiatus

Apologies for my MIAness. With labor day and the first of the Jewish holidays both hitting this week, I've been running a bit ragged. So, in lieu of my 3 weekly posts i'm going to give you the abridged version: reciperoundup-trending-lifemusing all wrapped in 1.

Recipe Roundup

Challah....duh.

Rosh hashannah means a few things but to me, most importantly a fresh start. But who are we kidding it also means no fasting, apples dipped in honey, and doughey bready goodness.

This year, Josh and I decided to bake the challah for our Rosh hashannah celebration. We have made challah before but were not quite ecstatic with the results, so in an effort to improve, I decided to look for a new recipe. After an evening at temple with his parents in Queens (which started with my car being dead, yay for cars from last decade) we made our way to Westchester and at 11pm set out to try the new recipe. I found the recipe on a challah baking forum #holllllla and after mixing, whisking and kneading we let it rise, punched it down and put it in the fridge to rise again over night. In the morning it had risen so much that it was pushing the top shelf of the fridge up and off (yeast SUCCESS). We once again punched it down, put it back in the fridge and when we came back from temple set to work shaping it. We researched how to create a traditional woven shape and twisted and pinched our dough to perfection. We included golden raises and finished with an egg wash (with a dash of sugar). Now, given our last challah I wasn't sure what to expect so when I say we were wowed, I'm not exaggerating. We were WOWed... this challah was moist, sweet, salty, doughey- AMAZING. Turns out we made 4x the amount needed (that's what happens when you begin bread making at 11pm) so we froze half and made two loaves. I think what made it so killer was the rise over night. From my challah research (because i'm an expert now) this long, slow rise gives the dough a chance to truly develop its flavor. Either way- I'm a convert. I will never again attempt another challah recipe and I will always let my dough rise over night. Get kneading people, it's worth it! And for those who are just dying to try, the recipe is at the bottom of the post! Keep in mind this makes 4 CHALLAHS, yes 4. So divide accordingly, or plan to make a lot and freeze half.

Trending...or lack there of

Patterns are in. Plaid, stripes, checks you name it people are wearing it. Unfortunately for me, I'm not a pattern person. I've never felt truly comfortable decked out in something as loud and distracting as a pattern. If you look in my closet, almost everything I own is a solid. A true solid, a color block, and occasionally a solid with piping (now we're really getting crazy). While I'm all for adopting trends and stepping out of your comfort zone, patterns are just not something I can get behind. Peplum? Sure. Leather? Oh hell yes. Booties? The more the merrier. But patterns? sorry Vogue, you're on your own with this one.

Musings

I love my car. I've had her since I was 16. I learned how to drive with her, hit my first garbage pail with her, went to countless first dates, football games, road trips, and crew races with her. I've even slept in my car when other options seemed less appealing. She's been a getaway car, an air conditioned retreat and even the scene of a few crimes (cue: running over the animal, halloween 2003). My car and I are a team. She is old, often doesn't work "right" and has countless quirks that only I understand. I.e. at the valet when I have to say "oh she wouldn't start...that's ok i'll do it" and 9 times out of 10 i'm able to get it started while the guys who work with cars all day stare at me in disbelief. Lay off me people- she's special. She's a 99 jeep grand cherokee with 120,000 miles on her. Many people don't understand how she's still running- let alone accompanying me on 300 mile road trips. But she is. Every few months something happens. Something that makes me question if I'll have her around for much longer or if our run together has finally come to an end. Yet after every trip to the mechanic, she's patched up and ready to roll. 

It's hard to explain the relationship I have with my car to other people (other than my 3 high school friends who'v been with us from the beginning and truly understand it). Many people think she's unreliable, rickety, a headache and simply not worth the trouble.  It's just a car they say, it's time to get rid of it. And maybe they're right- but to me, she represents so much more than a car. She's been a symbol of freedom and stability for the last 10 years of my life. 10 years. At age 26, that's not insignificant. She's been there for every major milestone from my teenage years to adulthood. She's been there when I've had my heart broken (and cried so hard that I thought the steering wheel would disintegrate), she's been there on first days of school, last days of school, funerals, weddings, multiple moves, meltdowns (and there have been many), 4am crew practices, state line crossings, and even my first job.

So why am I telling you all of this? This week she gave me a hard time. She wasn't reliable. She didn't start either of the times I needed her to without a jump and because of that I felt guilty, responsible, defensive even. She may not be perfect, but I'm not going to give up on her just because she's going through a rough time. She's never given up on me. So yes, to many people she's just a car- a money pit, a gas guzzler, an unreliable mode of transportation, a collection of metal and most definitely not "a she". But to me, she's so much more than that.

*And yes- I do realize I just wrote a love letter to my car- deal with it.




Challah Recipe

Ingredients

3 Cups water
8 teaspoons yeast
1 1/3 Cups sugar
1 1/3 Cups oil
8 eggs
6 teaspoons salt
5 lb flour

Egg Wash

2 eggs
2 teaspoons sugar

Directions (altered based on how we did it)

• Combine lukewarm water, yeast, sugar, oil, eggs, and half the flour in the mixing bowl. (If you mix it with the regular cake beater (at this point) it kneads much better)
• Add the salt.
• Switch to your hands and continue working the flour into the mixture. Once it gets too tough to manage in the bowl, move onto a floured surface and continue to work the flour in until you have a soft ball of dough.
• Transfer the dough to a well oiled bowl, cover with seran wrap.
• Let the dough rise for one hour. 
• Punch down
• Place bowl of dough into the refrigerator and let rise overnight.
• Remove from fridge, punch down. Return to fridge. (*If you want to bake your challah in the morning- you do not need to return it to the fridge. If so, simply remove from fridge, punch down and let it come to room temperature).
• Remove from fridge and let come to room temperature
• Divide the dough into 4 equal sized pieces. Each piece is 1 challah. If you halve the recipe, you should only have 2 pieces at this step, if you quarter it- only 1- you get the idea.
• Braid the challah and then let it rise for 1/2 an hour in it's shaped form. 
• Spread egg wash onto all areas of the challah.
• Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes
• When you take it out, tap the bottom. If you hear a hollow sound- it's done!

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Labor Day Bucket Listing

Last year, as Summer drew to a close I shared my bucket list of activities I wanted to tackle before the weather turned cold. In honor of Labor Day in just a few days (tear) I'm bringing you my 2013 list. This version is based off of last year's but only includes the things I really enoyed and/or didn't have time do accomplish. I know it's often hard to make time for summer fun with work, family and life responsibilities but with summer dwindling down, I'm making it a priority. So without further adieu...

Bucket List 2.0

• Have a beach bonfire (a long shot)
• Annual Lewis family trip to Rye Playland
• Eat chocolate italian ices, the real kind
• Go kayaking 
• Spend a day on the high line
• Ride a city bike along the hudson path
• Watch a movie outside
• Have a picnic in the park
• Swim in a lake

What have you done this Summer? Do you feel like there are still Summer activities left undone? It's not too late! Get out there while the weather is still warm and knock those items off your list!

Because you're all dying to see my summer in snapshots, here are a few that make me smile:

  

Hope everyone has a safe and happy Labor Day Weekend, see you on the other side!

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#trending

As I prepared to write this post I got to thinking...what is considered a trend outside of the fashion world? That's typically where my mind goes whenever anyone mentions, tweets, or hashtags anything to do with trends, trending and the like. To answer the question I turned to my trusty advisor, also known as google, and came up with the following: Trend- The general direction in which something tends to move. Ah, that narrows it down... not! 

So, with ambiguity looming large, here are 3 trends I'm happily moving with this season.

1.  Pumpkin flavored everything. Yes, everything. From latte's (Starbucks' seasonal version can't hit stores soon enough), to candles, to muffins to pies I'm seriously lusting over this Fall Super Spice. 

            

 




2. Nail polish galore. For those in the know, cue anyone with eyes, nail polish has been a hit for the last few years. With Fall, comes new hues, new must haves and new no-no's. One Fall nail color I absolutely love (and wear almost weekly from September through November) is one that goes, dare I say, beyond the confines of a trend and into "classic" territory; Wine, Marroon, Burgundy (po-tay-toh, po-ta-toe). A few of my favorite shades? Wicked, Material Girl, Carry On (all by Essie of course)-  do it, it's necessary.

3.  Large frame glasses. I must say I was a skeptic. I always liked how these statement eye pieces looked on others but when it came to myself, I was jussssst fine sticking with my minimalistic banana republic specs. That is until our dog Lia had herself a little glasses snack. Lia 1; Sari 0. Needles to say, on my glasses replacement trip when it came time to check out I had a rather large frame in my hand. 

Good hair days beg to be documented

Enjoy, and remember: be a pumpkin, wear dark nails and get huge glasses. Life lessons from yours truly.

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Monday Blues

After a long week, the weekend is a welcomed respite from powerpoint decks, travel budgets, event planning and timesheets. But all too often, the 2 days fly by giving way to a Monday morning that beings with one too many snooze buttons and the mumbling of "I don't wanna go".

This cliche was all too true for me this morning. Last week crawled by like a turtle with no where to go and this weekend, while wonderful and filled with family, went by much too quickly.

So, with that said, I'm rounding up a recipe for Oatmeal Cream Pies that I plan to make this coming weekend (wishful thinking much?) when Josh and I head up to the Berkshires to hang with his parents. 

This recipe comes from a fantastic blog, Kitchen Belleicious, where I often find inspiration for homemade desserts that rival their store bought counterparts. The author has recently gone gluten free, which tugs at my heart strings and makes me love her recipes even more. This Oatmeal Cream Pie recipe is pretty straightforward using classic ingredients such as rolled oats, butter, and brown sugar but when combined, are out of this world. This recipe calls for wheat flour, so to alter it and make it Sari-tummy friendly I'm going to substitute with Oat flour (fingers crossed).

Old Fashioned Oatmeal Cream Pies (adapted from Kitchen Belleicious)

Ingredients

For the Cookies

• 1/2 cup oat flour plus 2 tbsp
• 1 cup all purpose gluten free flour plus 2 tbsp
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 3 cups old fashioned cooking oats
• 1 1/2 sticks of butter, unsalted, at room temperature
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

For the Cream Filling

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups confectioners sugar
• 2 tbsp heavy cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 375°.
• Line baking sheets with parchment paper
• Whisk together flours, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Stir in oats. Set aside
• Using an electric mixer, beat butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until creamy. Add egg and vanilla, and mix well. Gradually add in the flour mixture, stirring until well combined.
• Drop dough by rounded spoonfuls onto prepared baking sheets (about 2 inches apart so they have room to spread)
• While the cookies are baking, prepare the filling. Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl. Using an electric mixer on low speed, beat until combined. Then, increase mixer to high speed and beat until light and fluffy.
• Bake for 8 minutes. Cool on pan for 2-3 minutes, then remove to wire racks to cool completely.
• Once cool, spread about 1 tablespoon of filling over the bottom side of half of the cookies. 
• Top with remaining cookies so that they form sandwiches and the bottoms are facing each other (and the filling).

Labor day is definitely bittersweet for me. As I previously mentioned, I LOVE summer, and while labor day brings new adventures, the promise of pumpkin spiced lattes, leather jackets and scarves it also marks the close of the official summer season. As we bid adieu to white pants, prosecco, cheap raspberries, and longer days some will be celebrating, I'll be sobbing in the corner eating one of these:

Photo courtesy of: Kitchen Bellecious 

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