The word on the street is....

Oh boy, time has flew. I promise dear friends that I did NOT forget about you. I simply have been busy in this last year. VERY busy. Remember how we'd talked about this adventure I was embarking on? The secret adventure? Well I am ready to tell you!My secret adventure was of the culinary nature... surprised?

No I didn't imagine you would be. I set out to start my own catering company and that is precisely what I did. Now, we haven't had the sort of wild success that I was fantasizing we would, but I have kept busy none the less.

Right out the gate I catered a bridal shower and a corporate event, both for my former boss Rachel. I would call each event a success. The feedback I received was very positive and the menus I used for one of those dinners has become a customer favorite. I know you probably want to see some pictures, believe me I wish I had taken some. What as I thinking, right? I wasn't I was planning, and doing mise en place and sweating over open grills and making peti fours OK?

Ok, then.

Now after those two events things slowed down quite a bit and I had a few baking gigs here and there and also over in that area. I baked a dozen cute little cupcakes for my friends at City Hall and at the Safety center and in December my usual Christmas cookie extravaganza. This year it was bigger than ever with over 25 dozen cookies.

I will give you a little background. A few years ago I started making gingerbread men and sugar cookie trees and other seasonal treats around Christmas time. I posted them on facebook ( I am such a shameless bragger) and a few friends asked if they could purchase some from me. I said sure, I loved making them so much what would a few extra dozen hurt? Well each year since then the number of orders goes up and up with this year being the craziest! I still enjoyed myself but, "Note to Self," I must start earlier this year if I will every be able to keep up.

What else, oh I have completely skipped October of last year. How very exciting that was, catering my very first wedding! Yep! The menu was chicken mole with cumin scented rice. I was up to my elbows in mole sauce the night before the wedding. And yes, I made the sauce %100 from scratch. It was a very proud moment for me.

Now along that last year there were certainly some missteps and some disasters. In May my dear friends mother asked me to cater her daughters birthday party. I was more than happy to show off my "skills" to our mutual friends. What I didn't take into consideration was time management.... Not my strong point at all. I was late to the event and I do remember some particularly dry pieces of roast beef. My friend and her mother (the sweet, loving, graceful women that they are) said not a word about my shortcomings but to me they were all I could see that night.

This year has been fairly good. I have gotten steady work both on the catering side and as a private chef. I have enjoyed the private chef side of things more and more as time goes on, and I think this is something I will be exploring in the future. Our website launched last year in May, but I wasn't thrilled with it so when it came time to renew, I started from scratch and put the a new website up myself. Take a look see HERE and tell me what you think.

Strawberry Cupcakes!

Oh, my. Today was a bad day for the waist line. Hot dogs and cheesy mac, and cupcakes galore!

How did this feasting of junk food occur you might ask? Well, I hosted a play date with my client (the child I nanny for) and her schoolmate. We swam for an hour ran around the house which left me famished, I made their two favorites for lunch and then while my client napped I made cupcakes.

Lemon ones with custard filling, topped with whipped cream and strawberries. The custard/pastry cream was thrown together last night as part of an expiriment to duplicate my all time favorite custard filling from Beard Papa's in San Francsico. It came out damn close according to my hubband and I had to agree. I prepared a traditional custard with egg yolks, cream and sugar and folded that into whipped cream a little at a time until WHAM, magic happened. I was very impressed with myself which is not usually how my little midnight expiriments go (yes I really did work on it till midnight).

Naturally when the custard/pastry cream was finished I had to find an appropriate place to STUFF the cream. I happened to have some cupcakes already made on the counter for a friends baby shower. The rest is history. I made over a dozen today to take to my girlfriend at the fire department and while frosting them I may have snuck one or two into my belly! They were NUMS. No doubt about that.

You know what is doubtful? That this website I have been tirelessly working on will be ready by tomorrow. I am all tongue tied and unable to get across to the site designer, what it is I want my site to say. Then we had some communication problem where none of my emails have been getting to him. Here I am sending him page after page of work and getting no response.

I figured he was too busy throwing the site together to respond. Wrong. He didn't get a single one. Now he has to do days worth of work in ONE day and I just know, I know, it wont get done.

I am annoyed but trying not to let it bother me. On the bright side I have some prospects. Some people who appear to be interested in my work and would like to pay me to work for them. That would be tops.

The very tops.

Wish me luck and wish this cursed site some luck too, it needs it.

Be back soon.

Please, come again.

Network THIS

So, this new business I am not telling you about....well, I wanna tell you something about it.

1. It is going well, so far. There has been an increase of interest but no money coming in. It is both encouraging and then not encouraging at the same time!

2. It is very tiring. I am networking at the moment to get myself as "out there", as I can. Pushing my mission statement and the name of this new company is exhausting me. I stayed up last night working on some material for a certain part of another certain part. Yeah, I get that the vagueness is annoying but bare with me, k?

3. I am terrified. I am walking away from a job I have done for nearly 5 years, I have medical and dental through this job, I have an expense account for crying out loud. And I am leaving that, to own my business. It makes my stomach turn. What if...I am doing this all wrong. What if this new web page that I am funneling hundreds of dollars into...what if it tanks? What if no one ever finds it while googling for me? What if I spend a few months doing this, putting my financial status (and marital status for that matter) on the line, just to find out that it isn't going to work? I can't very well go back to what I was doing before this. I can't.

So then what? I am throwing caution to the wind and whats done is done...so I have to ride this till the end. Just pray for me that the end isn't the end at all....

Let's pray it's the beginning then, yeah?

OK, deal!

See ya.

Please, Come again.

Dear Hypothetical Readers

Let's say that there is someone out there reading this horrible excuse for a blog, what do you think of me by now? Three posts in. Full of sarcasm and poor punctuation? Do you have an idea of me in mind already? Have you pictured how I look or what I enjoy doing in my free time?

Because I would really hate to leave you wondering. I suppose if I would like you to come again, which I would, I should let you know something about myself? No?

Well...My name is Ed. OK, That isn't

true. Those are my initials and I am trying to be somewhat anonymous. My real name is private, like many things. I just can't share, we just aren't in that place yet. Be patient. I am slow to warm.

My name is Ed and I am married. Have been for two years, exactly. I love being married.

My name is Ed and I enjoy, very much, baking & cooking. I foresee a lot of posts about my favorite recipes and various eating adventures. I love eating out, especially ethnic foods. Where I live, which is a smallish town in Central California, there is very little in the way of ethnic food. And what we do have is not of the greatest quality.

I make many trips to nearby San Francisco to pick up the necessary ingredients for my favorite ethnic foods.

My name is Ed and I recently gave notice at my place of work so that I may pursue some this wild dream of running my own business.

I will reveal more of that in due time.

My name is Ed and I think we've shared enough.

I do believe I will be doing away with this whole "My name is Ed" business in my next posts. I just cannot see myself keeping this up. I am just not clever enough.

Night out there.

F-TGIF & A Lazy BBQ Pizza Recipe

My name is Ed and I hate Fridays. Fridays are fun when you are the center of some close knit social circle. Maybe you have a group of friends who all stay in touch via the newest of social networking sites, and you all get together on the weekends and get "sloshed" or "hammered" or "arrested". But I don't have that here.

My name is Ed and I have dogs. And on Fridays we do nothing. Nothing at all. My dogs and I eat breakfast and we watch reruns of Law and Order SVU on TIVO. We watch the sun rise and set from the L shaped couch facing the leaf littered backyard. We do not move from this spot. Our phone does not ring and even if it does we are too smelly and depressed to go out into the world. So we make up excuses about laundry that needs to be done or how we are trying out a new recipe. We are so pathetic on Fridays that we can hardly believe ourselves.

My name is Ed and you can remove WE from the last paragraph. Because in that context the word WE is very misleading. Those dogs do not watch TV. So it's really just me. Me here

making excuses and forgetting to shower until five pm each and every Friday. Without fail. It is not fair to bring my dogs into this. Because truth be told. They would like a walk. Today has been an especially lazy Friday and I am ok with that because sometimes lazy days are ok. Lazy dinners can be ok too, if you utilize your leftovers correctly. I peaked into our fridge today and started to panic.

Will I actually have to go OUT? Into the world and buy stuff to make dinner? Fret not, I said to myself. I took out some left over pulled pork from 2 nights ago and whipped up....Pizza.

Uh, yes. PIZZA. Cheesy and gooey and fantastic. Magic, really. Who does not like pizza? I met ONE person in my whole life who didn't like pizza and it was because she was allergic to nearly everything you'd ever want to put on a pizza. I felt bad for her. I cried a little...it was awkward.

Anyhow, be inspired by my lazy dinner. If you're grumpy and lonely on a Friday night at least know that you can pull together a decent meal.

So... Have you heard of BBQ Pizza? Do you find it delicious? Me too. And that's why I found this "random act of pizza" so phenomenal. First that I had everything on hand to put it together and secondly because it actually tasted amazing. The balance of sweet and savory with the smokey flavors of the pulled pork and bbq sauce...OH and the cheese...so much delicious melted cheese. This is a recipe you will want to make after a big bbq when you have lot's of leftover pork or even chicken. I was feeling especially lazy tonight and happened to have whole wheat pizza dough on hand, if you don't go here for a quickie pizza dough that won't make you break a sweat.

Lazy BBQ Pizza

1 cup (more or less) of leftover bbq pork/chicken or even beef

1 cup of your favorite bbq sauce

3/4 to 1 cups shredded cheese, mozarella and Parmesan or "mexican style"

2-3 scallions

1 bunch of cilantro

1/4 of an onion sliced

prepared pizza dough

Preheat your oven to 400 degree's. Lightly oil a medium size pizza pan or use the flat, underside of a cookie sheet.

Roll out your pizza dough till it just fits inside your pan (depending on what brand/recipe you're using the target size is about 10-12 inches). Sh-mear your dough with the bbq sauce.

Add your shredded cheese, I like to spread it pretty thick all the way to the crusts.

Next you'll add the leftover pulled pork and onion slices.

Place in the oven and bake for about 15 minutes before checking the bottom by gently lifting at the edges of the pizza with a long spatula.

You're looking for a light brown crust that is dry, not drooping or doughy. Continue cooking for an additional 10-15 minutes checking often. When the pizza is done the crust will be browned nicely, cheese bubbling and melted and the pork will be warmed through. Right out of the oven, add the cilantro and scallions. Serve piping hot with a mixed green salad or...if you're having THAT kind of Friday...A Budlight.

This is the kind of lazy meal that you will remember. And if it's any consolation, you will feel WAY less lazy making this pizza rather than ordering one. AND you will have avoided that nosy pizza boy judging you (in your pajamas with your Budlight in one hand). I hope you enjoy this recipe, it is late and my eyes are drooping the dogs are already asleep and we have ran out of Law and Order episodes, so I bid you adieu!

California Eggs Benedict & An Awkward Introduction

My name is ED (well, not exactly, those are my initials). I am also known as Eva and this is my blog. Welcome, pull up a chair and grab some freshly popped popcorn. Take a look see. Don't gawk though, that's rude. And do not judge. Don't judge my poor grammar and horribly dry sense of humor. Don't judge my use of butter or bacon fat or profanity.

My name is Ed and today I am going on a road trip to save myself from countless hours on the couch eating chocolate covered snacks from Trader Joes. Have you notice that Trader Joes can market anything by covering it in chocolate and a generous sprinkling of chili powder. I was there yesterday and they had chocolate covered dried edamame (soy beans). Why? Because they can. Because you'll buy it. You will. There you will be, waiting in a line that has been cleverly named after a local landmark, and you'll see the chocolate covered edamame sitting high atop a mound of other chocolate covered somethings. You'll pick it up out of curiosity and before you know it, BAM! the package is in your basket. Once you get it home you'll try it and and one of two things will happen, either you'll love it and consume the entire package before dinner or you'll hate it. Then it will take it's place on the lower shelf of your pantry with all the rejected, strange snacks from TJ's. Like vacuum fried bananas, or blackberry and pickle jam. I made the last one up but I wouldn't put it passed them. My name is Ed and I am supposed to be getting ready for a road trip to San Francisco but it is now 11am and I am still in my underwear watching Magic Bullet commercials.

My name is Ed and I need breakfast. And So this brings us to our first recipe (insert cheers and applaud) here. I am sharing with you a recipe for my all time favorite breakfast. Eggs benedict!

I love eggs benedict, I always have. Over the years I have played around with the ingredients using sausage instead of ham, fried eggs instead of poached and different kinds of flavored hollandaise. I usually like the little concoctions I come up with, I mean hey... as long as it includes some crusty bread type component and some lemon butter sauce type component I am in! But no eggs benedict recipe I've tried come close to this. I actually feel guilty calling this a recipe, because only the sauce truly requires a recipe at all.

I am calling this California Eggs Benedict, it is made with a fairly traditional (but EASY) hollandaise, fried eggs, fresh vegetables and thick cut bacon all on sourdough bread. Mmm, I am cleaning the plate as we speak...

The hollandaise will go together much easier if you get all the ingredients ready ahead of time (but keep the butter cold in the fridge until you need it).

California Eggs Benedict

Ingredients

For the sauce:

3 egg yolks

1/2 cup cold butter in 2-3 chunks

1 lemon juiced

s&p

paprika

4 eggs

2-4 slices sourdough bread

1 cup wilted spinach

1 large tomato, sliced thick

1 avocado, sliced thick

4 strips of bacon

This first part is done OFF the heat: In a large sauce pan add egg yolks and lemon juice and mix with a wisk. Turn the heat on low and add one of the chunks of cold butter. Continually mix the butter into the egg yolk mixture. The sauce should start to slowly thicken as the butter melts, add the remainder chunks of butter and keep mixing with a whisk until the butter has all melted and the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Taste and add salt, pepper and paprika to taste. Smoked paprika is especially good in this sauce, you can also add some sliced green onions to your hollandaise if that is your kind of thing.

Next you toast your sourdough bread and set aside. Cook your eggs to your liking (over easy for me please) and cook the bacon. Set up an assembly line of the ingredients and stack 'em like THIS: toast, handful of wilted spinach, avocado, tomato, fried egg and bacon. Smother...and I DO mean smother, with your hollandaise. Eat up. Quickly, before I find you and steal your breakfast. Ask my husband, I'll do it. If you're a light eater than this will make 4 servings, it's a lot of stuff piled on toast after all. If you're like us chubby's over here, this will make only 2 servings and then you'll feel guilty and hit the gym for an hour...erh...I mean 25 minutes...

In the photo you will notice some deliciously crispy fried potatoes. Want them?

SIMPLE: boil a few teeny tiny red potatoes. Poke 'em.... are they tender? No? Keep boiling....

Poke 'em again. Are they tender? Yep? Put them in a hot hot pan with some oil...sizzle sizzle. Smash then with a smasher or the back of your spatula, just once. Sizzle sizzle. Flip. Sizzle Sizzle. Salt and pepper.

Stop looking at me like that I am NOT giving you a "recipe" for fried potatoes. C'mon!