The four-toed statue. Rice krispie treat sculpture, covered in fondant.
The finished tribute: Yellow cake with cherry filling, covered in fondant.
Monday, May 24, 2010
The Giddy Gourmand's Tribute to LOST
Hello foodie fans! Many of you might not know this, but your resident gourmand blogger is a huge LOST fan. Like, really huge fan. Like, spent the better part of one afternoon paying tribute to such an amazing television contribution in the only way she knew how: through food! Whether you've watched the finale or not, there's no denying that LOST gave us a solid six years of amazing, cerebral, emotional and just downright awesome storytelling. Words escape me (for once!) as we deal with the finale and life after LOST, but here are a few pics of how this giddy LOST geek decided to celebrate the final episode. Namaste.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Kabob Kreations
Yes, it's that time of year again -- get the grills ready because summer is just around the corner!! After a recent bout of lovely warm weather, I had a hankering for a fun, warm-weather kind of dinner. With just my trusty grill pan, I decided it was seasonably appropriate to make my sausage and veggie kabobs! Tried this one out on the boyfriend (again -- he's the best test subject for all my culinary creations!) and was very happy with the results! I used a mild Italian chicken sausage for my kabobs, but you can substitute with any kind of sausage that suits your fancy. So round up some veggies, whip up a quick balsamic marinade, and before you know it, your taste buds will swear they've instantly been transported to a lazy summer day! This is a relatively easy dinner that is very budget friendly and fun to make too! I never follow recipes for most of my creations, so here's the basic rundown of what I did. Enjoy!!
1. Give yourself an extra day to prepare! This marinade is best when given at least 8 hours to work, so keep that in mind as you start assembling your ingredients for these yummy kabobs!
2. To make the marinade, I mix two parts balsamic vinegar with one part extra virgin olive oil, then mix in dried oregano and basil, salt and fresh ground pepper. I eyeball these measurements while I'm cooking, but I'd say about 1 teaspoon each of oregano and basil, with 1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper. Again, use whatever works for your individual tastes! :)
3. Assemble sausage, white mushrooms, green pepper, red onion and grape tomatoes. Cut sausage and green pepper into 1-inch pieces, remove stems from mushrooms (leave whole,) cut red onion into small wedges (about 1 inch) and slice grape tomatoes in half. Add all ingredients into balsamic vinegar marinade and refrigerate, covered, overnight or for a minimum of 8 hours.
4. On day of cooking, soak bamboo skewers in water for at least 30 minutes. Soaking saturates the wood with water and prevents the skewers from burning while the kabobs are grilling -- very important if you are using a stovetop grill pan indoors and don't want your smoke alarm going off! :)
5. Remove marinade mix from fridge and arrange ingredients on skewers in whatever order you like, starting and ending with the cherry tomato halves. (For my kabobs, I used a repeated pattern of tomato, pepper, sausage, onion, pepper, etc.)
6. Spray grill pan with non-stick cooking spray. Grill kabobs over a medium-high heat, turning every 5 minutes. Total cooking time should be around 12-15 minutes.
I served my kabobs over a bed of brown rice -- and just so happened to take a picture before digging in! (This was taken right after they were fresh off the grill -- you can actually see the steam rising from the kabobs here!)
This is a really fun and tasty meal that's great for all of the lovely summer evenings ahead! Kabobs are a wonderful way to jazz up an everyday weeknight dinner too, so let your inner cook go wild -- the sky's the limit for what you can grill up in kabob form! The Giddy Gourmand would recommend this particular kabob with a lovely glass of homemade red sangria -- more to come on that soon, as that was another recipe I recently tackled with positive results! Here's to the warm weather just around the corner, and all of the yummy creations inspired by summer!
1. Give yourself an extra day to prepare! This marinade is best when given at least 8 hours to work, so keep that in mind as you start assembling your ingredients for these yummy kabobs!
2. To make the marinade, I mix two parts balsamic vinegar with one part extra virgin olive oil, then mix in dried oregano and basil, salt and fresh ground pepper. I eyeball these measurements while I'm cooking, but I'd say about 1 teaspoon each of oregano and basil, with 1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper. Again, use whatever works for your individual tastes! :)
3. Assemble sausage, white mushrooms, green pepper, red onion and grape tomatoes. Cut sausage and green pepper into 1-inch pieces, remove stems from mushrooms (leave whole,) cut red onion into small wedges (about 1 inch) and slice grape tomatoes in half. Add all ingredients into balsamic vinegar marinade and refrigerate, covered, overnight or for a minimum of 8 hours.
4. On day of cooking, soak bamboo skewers in water for at least 30 minutes. Soaking saturates the wood with water and prevents the skewers from burning while the kabobs are grilling -- very important if you are using a stovetop grill pan indoors and don't want your smoke alarm going off! :)
5. Remove marinade mix from fridge and arrange ingredients on skewers in whatever order you like, starting and ending with the cherry tomato halves. (For my kabobs, I used a repeated pattern of tomato, pepper, sausage, onion, pepper, etc.)
6. Spray grill pan with non-stick cooking spray. Grill kabobs over a medium-high heat, turning every 5 minutes. Total cooking time should be around 12-15 minutes.
I served my kabobs over a bed of brown rice -- and just so happened to take a picture before digging in! (This was taken right after they were fresh off the grill -- you can actually see the steam rising from the kabobs here!)
This is a really fun and tasty meal that's great for all of the lovely summer evenings ahead! Kabobs are a wonderful way to jazz up an everyday weeknight dinner too, so let your inner cook go wild -- the sky's the limit for what you can grill up in kabob form! The Giddy Gourmand would recommend this particular kabob with a lovely glass of homemade red sangria -- more to come on that soon, as that was another recipe I recently tackled with positive results! Here's to the warm weather just around the corner, and all of the yummy creations inspired by summer!
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