Cooking with Color!

As many of you know, because most of you reading are my friends and family, I recently finished up working on the 5th season of the Food Network's "Dinner Impossible." 

Check out this webisode about an episode we produced with the great folks over at The Crayola Factory.  We challenged the incredible Michael Symon to create an 8 course meal using 8 colors from Crayola's 64 box.  I make a few cameos!

Donuts & the World Series!

Hey guys - remember me?  Don't worry it looks like unemployment is right around the corner for me AGAIN and I'll be back to more frequent blogging.  I've been working for a company doing political ads and after the election they'll be no ads for me to work on!  So as of this coming Friday I'll be out of work again, know anyone searching for a TV producer?  Or maybe someone that needs a caterer?  

Luckily I've had the Phillies to keep me distracted from my upcoming unemployment.  There have been a whole lot of late night Phillies love fests.  I think we'll all need to recover for several weeks after the season is over - our livers and our wallets need a break!  I mean really how many nights can end like this and still leave you able to function in the morning?

Ron and a couple friends were lucky enough to get tickets to the game yesterday - he got to the parking lot to set up the tailgate at 4pm and the game didn't finish until 2am!  There was a rain delay so they ended up being out in the rain and cold for 10 hours - but I don't think they minded!  

I've been wanting to make these donuts that I got from Joy the Baker's site for a while but I was afraid that I would eat them all if they stayed in the house.  When I found out Ron was going to the game and that the weather was going to be crappy I figured that fresh, warm donuts would be a great treat for the boys.  Donuts can be tailgate food too!   

Go to Joy's site to get the recipe and instructions along with tons of other great recipes.  Her recipes and photos are awesome - especially for a novice bakers that could use some helpful visuals like me.

Here are the progress photos - I  made whole donuts and donut holes.  I'm warning you - if you make donut holes you won't be able to resist eating them, several of them, probably at least a half dozen.   

Some donut holes were tossed in cinnamon sugar and some in plain old powdered sugar.  The whole donuts were dipped in chocolate or vanilla glaze.  Joy has lots of donut topping options here.

Here's Ron on the way to the game with a whole bag of donuts! 

GO PHILLIES!!!!  

   

Check it out!

Remember the food styling gig I had a little while back?  Well the videos are finally posted!  Check them out here: Paige Davis How to.  Just click on the "backyard picnic with friends" link.  Cool right?  I'm hoping to do this again!  It was such a great learning experience.

I'll try to post something more exciting soon!  

Free Stuff!

I got an email the other day about a promotion for "Pushing Daisies" the super colorful and quirky show on ABC.  I've only seen a few episode but friends of mine rave about it and say that it's completely different from everything else on TV. That's a good review huh?  Anyway, to promote their second season they're touring the country with their mobile Pie Hole.  

The Pie Hole will be in Philly on Friday, September 26^th, at The Shops at Liberty Place from 10am-2pm serving up free pie, pie-cutters, spatulas and more.  I don't know about you, but I like free stuff.  Stop by if you're in the neighborhood! 

For more info on the tour check out: Pushingdaisiestour.com

Cutchogue Chicken BBQ! (Finally)

I've been neglecting my blog - I know.  I have a new job and it's keeping me busy.  Every time I cook or bake Ron asks "Did you take pictures?" and I must admit that I've been saying "Um, no" way too often.  But after reading Smitten Kitchen's blog about the North Fork of Long Island, my home turf, I knew I had to get to my Chicken BBQ blog!

Now this is no backyard BBQ - this is serious stuff.  This annual Fire Department Fundraiser sells 3000 tickets and they're actually pretty hard to come by, luckily my parents have some new Firemen neighbors and they were able to score Ron and I two tickets.  You can smell BBQ starting early in the morning coming from massive BBQ grills.  Look at all that bird!  These dudes are chicken kings!

The Cutchogue Chicken BBQ tradition is that you bring a cooler full of beer and/or a purse full of wine (local North Fork wine of course!), hang out with old friends in the parking lot, and finally get in line when the Firemen threaten that they're about to stop serving chicken.  Then you grab your plate and you're served a half chicken, potato salad and corn all out of big plastic trash cans.  Grab your plasticware and you're on your way to your table where there are rolls, cucumber tomato salad, sodas, waters and pitchers of all the budweiser you can drink waiting for you.  Yum...

The corn, tomatoes, cucumbers and peaches that come on top of vanilla ice cream for dessert are all local.  The chicken is perfect and the potato salad is mayonnaisey and good, the fruits and vegetables are as fresh as they get.  The lovely volunteers come around offering seconds of everything but the chicken.  It's packed and loud and delicious and so very townie and I love it!

Ron and I are heading home again this weekend.  This time we're bringing our bikes, the best way to get to the beach and wineries from my house.  Oh I can't wait - it's always such a nice little getaway!

Daring Bakers Challenge - Eclairs!

So I skipped out on last months DB Challenge for several reasons but when I saw this months challenge I was definitely in - Chocolate Eclairs from Pierre Herme.  I've never made pate a choux, pastry cream or chocolate glaze so this was all new territory for me.  

The pate a choux (cream puff dough) came together really easily but once I put it in the oven it just didn't seem to want to cook all the way through - I took them out after 20 minutes (12 of them with a wooden spoon propping open the oven door) and they fell flat right away.  I tried to save them by putting them back in the oven and they stayed in there probably another 20 minutes or so before I gave up!  Some were perfect, some were still doughy - I don't know why!  But they all tasted great.  See how nice the ones on the upper left look?  The other tray (upper right) was all flat and didn't rise right - maybe it had to do with the tin foil instead of parchment?

The original recipes called for chocolate pastry cream but I made vanilla using this recipe from epicurious.  It was easy to make and tasty! 

To make the chocolate topping you also had to make a chocolate sauce.  Mine didn't come together right - it was too thin and didn't coat the eclairs like I would have liked.  The whole process was messy and I just made a big batch thinking they'd be great for a party tomorrow and realized that they're best served right after they're filled and will probably be soggy and gross tomorrow.  We'll just have to wait and see I guess!  

Here's the mess I made and the finished product. 

And no, celery salt and tomato aren't in the ingredient list.  I'm cooking a bunch of stuff for a friends party tomorrow and I just hadn't gotten around to putting those things away yet.  I think next time I make pate a choux it'll be savory.  Anyway - back to the kitchen I still have cookies and cheesecake to make!

I'm behind on my blogs and I still have to tell you all about the awesome Cutchogue chicken BBQ.  I'm hoping to get to it this week.

I'm Ready for my Close Up!

I just got home from LA yesterday - Ron and I were working out there and decided to spend a few extra days vacationing.  What was I working on?  Oh just a little food styling and catering for a webisode.  That's right - my food is going to be famous!  I am very lucky that Ron's good friend and boss gave me the opportunity to do this.  I worked in an amazing kitchen in a beautiful home in Pacific Palisades with lots of borrowed kitchen supplies!  This picture isn't so great - but it gives you a good look at the kitchen.  

Double oven, six burners, two sinks (one with a garbage disposal), tons of counter space, and a microwave drawer.  The only problem was that there was nothing in the kitchen!  The cabinets were staged with dishware so all of my supplies ended up on the counters - I managed to make quite the mess.  I didn't realize how much I'd miss little things like a drying rack!  See that orange thing on the counter?  That's my new knife bag - hopefully I'll have more uses for it in the future.  I got good use out of my pretty apron that my good friend Marybeth made me for my birthday last year - see her blog about it here.  

For the cast and crew I did a store bought/homemade breakfast combo.  Store bought fruit, yogurt, coffee, muffins and bagels with assorted cream cheeses, butter and jelly.  

As for the homemade portion of breakfast we had a couple of Vegans in the house so I made a vegan crumb cake from scratch using a recipe from Vegan Yum Yum.  It turned out okay but I didn't have cornstarch so I left it out - I'm curious to see what this would have tasted like if I had added it.  Either way I think the Vegans appreciated that I made a coffee cake just for them - whether they ate it or not!  I also made a frittata with ham, roasted red peppers and goat cheese that everyone really liked and some roasted potatoes. 

Lunch was just sandwiches and salads.  

Sandwiches 

Vegan Tofu Vietnamese hoagies

Roasted Vegetables and Herbed Goat Cheese 

Turkey, Coleslaw and Russian dressing  

Roast Beef, Cheddar, Lettuce & Tomato 

Chicken, Roasted Red Pepper and Artichoke Puree, Lettuce & Tomato

Salads

White bean and Israeli Couscous with radishes, arugala, lemon and olive oil (you can see it in the lower right hand corner of the photo above!)

Romaine Salad with Black beans, Corn, Chayote and chile vinaigrette 

Crudite with hummus

The prop food was fancy BBQ so I made a potato salad with tomatoes and green beans and a pasta salad inspired by this pasta primavera salad from Smitten Kitchen.  I can't wait to make Deb's recipe with the fettucine, procuitto and parm - but for this shoot I wanted to keep it meat and dairy free and thought that the fettucine wouldn't really look like a cold BBQ salad.  There was also a fixin's plate, corn, fruit salad, crudite and Sangria.  On the grill there was burgers, hot dogs, chicken and grilled vegetables.  

Here are pictures of the table in the beautiful Southern California sun and then soon after in a little sun shower!  

It only rained for a few minutes during the shoot but the crew was nice enough to rig up a cover for the food.  I love this picture!  Such a fuss over my spread!

Overall I'd say it was a success.  I have several things to work on and learn in the styling department but hopefully I'll be getting more practice soon!  I'll post a link to the webisode when it's up.  

After the shoot was over Ron and I had a few days to relax - and of course our time in CA included some great food and drink!  I'll post about that later this week. 

I'm starting a new job tomorrow so I won't have quite as much time on my hands to blog - but I'll try my best to post a couple of times a week.  Wish me luck on my new job!