Break 'n Bread Food & Wine Festival 2012

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This weekend marks one of the top food events in the state of Alabama - The Break 'n Bread Food & Wine Festival, and I am super duper excited to go this year.  The Birmingham Originals is an organization of our city's finest restaurants, and they are going big this year by hosting what promises to be the best BNB festival yet.

For those of you that live close to Birmingham, AL and are interested in attending, here are the details:

WHAT:  Break 'n Bread Food & Wine Festival
WHEN:  Sunday, October 14th
TIME:  1:00PM - 5:00PM
WHERE:  Railroad Park
TICKETS:   $35 forregular, $75 for VIP and children under 12 years old get in free

Break 'n Bread happens to be the signature experience for the Alabama Tourism Board's Year of Alabama Food campaign, and will feature an array of amazing food from nearly 40 Birmingham Originals restaurants.  A sampling of the restaurants include:

Ocean
Ted’s Restaurant
Slice
The FishMarket
Little Savannah
Daniel George
Mafiaoza’s
Nabeel’s
Hot and Hot FishClub
Satterfield’s

A wide selection of wine and beer will also be available from Birmingham's own Good People Brewery, International Wines, Pinnacle Imports, Royal Cup and more.





Here's some additional information about the event, straight from the source:


Since 2003, the BirminghamOriginals have organized this grand fundraising event to not only celebrate theSouth’s talented chefs and local farmers, but to give back to the communitythat has supported them over the years. In an effort to continue pushing theenvelope and delighting the crowds, Break ’n Bread will once again play host tofour multi-award-winning chefs from out of the state. Chef Adolfo Garcia ofRioMar, La Boca and a Mano; Executive Chef Brian Landry of Borgne Restaurant;and Chefs Alison and Slade Rushing of MiLa will helm the VIP area, serving upBig Easy-inspired dishes with Big Easy attitude.
While food enthusiasts gatherat the tasting tents, just a few steps away will be a dedicated children’s areafeaturing face painting with clowns from the Children’s Hospital of Alabama,petting corner and entertainment from the Birmingham Zoo, healthy kids cookingdemonstrations, Desert Island Supply Company writing workshop and a pumpkindecorating station. Local farmer’s market vendors will also be stationed in andaround the park, offering a variety of fresh produce and artisan products.
Tickets for Break ’n Breadand additional information are available at www.birminghamoriginals.organd on the Birmingham Originals Facebook page.  Prices are $35 forregular, $75 for VIP and children under 12 years old get in free.  Aportion of the proceeds will be donated to Make-a-Wish Foundation, CampSmile-a-Mile and United Way’sHealthy Communities.
I hope to see you there!!  :)


***All photos are courtesy of Birmingham Originals***

Spring Cleaning Inspiration

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Isn't this cupboard with a window into the pantry adorable?  It belongs Ruth Ann who blogs over at Warm Pie Happy Home.  If you are in need of a little inspiration to get motivated, a visit to Aunt Ruthie might be what will do the trick.
Warm Pie Happy Home
She is not right out there with pictures of her fabulous farm house but if you poke around her posts that are listed on the right side of her blog and down a ways from the top you will come across some great inspiration for your house, your tummy, and your soul.  The posts are kind of arranged according to the season.  I just went back today, after seeing her pantry posted on Pintrest, and look for some of her spring posts and was richly rewarded by the wisdom, industriousness, and humor of Aunt Ruthie....that is what she calls herself....
So, if you are not familiar with Aunt Ruthie or have not been over there in a while, like me, then you might want to stop by and look around.  Tell her I sent you...then come back here and tell me what you think ;)  

50 classics for your closet

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Via Matchbook ezine, page 38, matchbook's february issue.
This list has been pinned and repinned all over Pintrest.  The first time I saw it I glanced through it and thought to myself that I am pretty well covered in the classics department.  I thought I would post it on here to help with my spring cleaning and to record what I have and where I need to fill in.  Starting with footwear, I pulled out all the ballet flats I could find from around the house.  Seems like I have quite a few ballet flats....Above is the curated version.Here they are lined up on the top two shelves of my shoe rack in our closet.  The next item on the footwear list is loafers....hummmm, a couple of shelves of loafers also made it back in the closet.  Most of my sandals are at the cottage and the few I have here are lined up around the perimiter of the closet on John's side.....He loves that of course.  The next two selves are sandals and black pumps...The tall boots are in another section of the closet but I have not gone through them yet.  Here in Michigan we generally wear boots only in the winter.  This winter has been the exception and my boots have gotten very little wear.  I need to keep that in mind when I begin to go through them to make sure I don't get rid of too many pair.

Estate of Grace

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 Tory Burch's new Southampton House.  Have you seen it yet?  I believe these photographs of it are from Vogue Magazine.  Come on in and look around. The house with an avenue of sugar maples leading to the main entrance.  Isn't this just gorgeous???? The solarium which I think was coordinated by Bunny Williams husband John Rosselli.  Gorg Hummmm, I think I just learned about a new blogger feature.  Something popped up under this picture and showed a number of sizing options.  I clicked on ex large and this is what I got.  Cool.  Anyway, it also deleted the picture of a table in the pool house, but moving forward.....The huge picture above is the formal approach to the wood paneled library. Here is Tory in her dining room with custom designed panels.   One end of the formal ball room enlivened by Tory for her modern lifestyle. A bedroom featuring two of my favorite things, Imari ironstone, and floral wallpaper and upholstery from Colefax & Fowler.Finally a relaxing picture of the trellis pool house and the swimming pool.
I went back up in this post and found out that if you click on a picture that bar will appear for you to enlarge your blog pictures.  Very nice feature blogger!  Thank you.

Inspiration From Tina

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Oh I love this photograph enlargement feature on blogger......Are there any other neat features that I missed out on while I was away from blogging that you can think of?  Do share if you get a minute...
Well, do you all know Tina at The Enchanted Home?  She has a dream house that she has been building and she has shared the journey with her blog readers.  She is more than generous with sources for all kinds of construction items including right down to cabinet hardware.  She has broadened my base of reference in decor.  For example, before Tina I would have been more than happy to have a cute bathroom with maybe a little wallpaper.  Post Tina, all I can think of while doing the bathroom up north is floor to ceiling marble...You should see the beautiful marble variations Tina shares on her blog that she is using in her house.....Well, my little place up north is getting a very scaled down version of http://theenchantedhome.blogspot.com/2012/02/random-musings-on-saturday-afternoon.htmlbut I am loving the wallpaper that she is thinking about using in her kitchen powder room and may use that as inspiration for our guest bathroom.  
So, this morning I go to The Enchanted Home blog for my morning dose of gorgeous and was inspired to change thing up a little bit here at our house.  Tina put some big blue and white urns on her island that I thought looked great so I went around the house and found a pair of urns to put on our island too.  What do you thing?

Hum,,,not sure what is going on with the link feature here but I hope you can find your way to Tina's from this long underlined link that inserted itself into this post.????  

Kerala Beans Stirfry/ Payar Mezhukkupuratti

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When ever our large clan gets together in Kerala, all the women folk converge at the kitchen table and you will hear them laughing and talking as their fingers fly splitting open long pods of beans into neat little piles of shiny plump little beans. We kids used to run around the group of aunties who didn't seem to mind or even notice us as they peeled and chopped onions, pounded spices, sizzled mustard seeds, stirred curries and efficiently cooked enough food to feed an army or one hungry brood!




This time when I visited Kerala, I very eagerly joined my aunts in the kitchen. They were very patient with how slow I was compared to them and they overlooked the fact my pile comprised of more pod bits. I still don't have the patience to carefully pry open even the stubborn tender parts of the bean pod which house the tiniest of beans so I break off that part of the pod with the skin though my aunts can coax a bean out of even the narrowest parts of the pods.





This simple garlicy and spicy stir fry of beans is made very often and it's one of my favourites. I could eat a bowlful and it is very easy to make, if you can get past the pesky shelling or do what I do and simply break up the pods into little sticks if you don't mind the skin like me.


I was very happy to see these long beans at the farmer's market here. I think they are called Red Chinese long beans here and are available all year round. As soon as I saw the bunch I immediately wanted to make them into this beans stir fry which is all I can imagine making with them! You can use any variety, even french beans which you wouldn't be able to shell but simply break up. 


This type of preparation using just oil and spice sometimes onion and garlic is called "Mezhukkupuratti" in most parts of Kerala, meaning smeared with oil. It is often used to cook a variety of vegetables and is one of the most basic and popular ways to cook vegetables in South India. Thoran is a similar vegetable preparation but with the addition of shredded coconut and often tempered mustard seeds as well.


I know I post a lot of cake on this blog. I enjoy baking and I do love cake. But what we eat most of the time are simple vegetable or lentil dishes like this that get cooked in a hurry, usually about an hour before  dinner time and it's too late and too dark to take pictures. This year I hope to share more of these delicious and healthy dishes which very unfairly didn't get the attention that they deserve. Hopefully this will motivate me to also start cooking earlier, not scramble around in the evening trying to throw a meal together. Thankfully quick, healthy meals like this can also be super delicious!




Kerala Beans Stirfry - Payar Mezhukkupuratti 


Ingredients

• 1 bunch red Chinese long beans  - (about 3 cups partly shelled and the narrow ones broken up )
• 2 tsp red chilli flakes
• 1 small sprig curry leaves
• 1 tbsp coconut oil or canola/other oil
• salt as required
• 1 small onion chopped or 3-4 shallots crushed
• 3-4 cloves of garlic crushed with a motar and pestle or flat of the knife

Method

• Wash and then shell the beans after snapping off the ends of the bean, preferably with a group of talkative women to share this work with! 
• Break up the narrower beans into small sticks
• Heat the oil in a skillet or wok and add the onions/shallots and salt stirring very occasionally until brown
• Add the garlic and stir till turning brown
• Add the curry leaves and red chilly flakes and stir 
• Add the beans and  stir so it is well coated in the masala 
• Sprinkle about 1/4 cup of water, cover the skillet with a lid and let cook till tender.
• Serve with a mound of rice, yogurt/curd and pickle. Enjoy a healthy and delicious meal! 

This post was supposed to be up yesterday for Meatless Monday and I am also sending it off to My Legume Love Affair hosted at Chez Cayenne and to Kerala Kitchen being hosted this month by Kaveri of Palakkad Chamayal
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nutella swirl steamed cupcakes in 15 minutes

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This is what I made for World Nutella Day yesterday. I've been excited about it for weeks. Sooo many ideas for nutella oozing desserts to make kept buzzing around my brain. I have been happily digging into my jar of nutella all week in anticipation. Finally I was jolted out of my daydreams to realize that I had better make something or it would be too late to post even by today. It was quite late in the evening and the sun had already set so the pics were going to be quite terrible to begin with. I reached into the cabinet for that little jar to see that we were nearly out. Of nutella. There was probably a few tablespoons left in the jar. Great, just great. I had to make a nutella dessert for world nutella day  with a couple of tablespoons of nutella.

That's when I chanced upon a recipe for these steamed cakes. I loved that the recipe calls for very little amounts of ingredients so that it yields only 4 cup cakes- perfect for my current obsession for portion control and small batch baking. And all I had to do was swirl a spoonful of nutella into the batter to make a perfectly delicious nutella dessert. They take about 15 mins to make, use basic ingredients and all you need is a saucepan or skillet with a lid and a stove. No oven required. But best of all is the texture! oh the texture!- its  moist but not dense, fluffy and airy without being dry! I did find the basic cake to be a little less sweeter than I like but that spoonful of nutella will take care of that :)


This is a nutella-tised version of Mushi-pan a Japanese steamed cake. Steaming is a common alternative for baking in Asian cuisine. In Kerala we have a variety of steamed rice flour appams as part of our traditional cuisine. A lot of western style sponge cakes are also made in steamer baskets or pressure cookers in Asia because not many people have ovens. Growing up some of my birthday cakes were cooker cakes since most ovens in India run on electricity and we are plagued by frequent power cuts and voltage problems. Even during my last visit to India in December I had rotten luck with the power cuts seemingly scheduled for the exact moment that I put a pan full of batter into the oven!
Brands like Pillsbury even make cake mixes especially meant for pressure cookers in India and those were some of the first cakes I made, often for roommates birthdays when we had a stove but not even our dinky little toaster oven yet.
These little cakes brought back a lot of memories of those birthdays and they are quick and easy enough that I will be making them in other variations soon. Stay tuned.






Nutella swirled steamed cupcakes
Recipe Source: From Just one cook book here


Yield: Makes 4 cupcakes


Ingredients:

½ cup (75g) all purpose flour ( I used unbleached)
1 tsp. baking powder
1 egg
2 Tbsp. milk
2 Tbsp. sugar ( Will be trying to increase the sugar the next time I make this since they were not as sweet as I'd like)
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 Heaped Tbsp of nutella

Instructions:

• Fill a large frying pan with water to 2/3 full and bring it to a boil (and turn off the heat if you are not ready yet)
• Put a cupcake liner in glass/ corning-ware ramekins ( make sure these are heatproof and won't crack) 
• In a medium bowl, sift or whisk together the flour and baking powder combining well.
• In a small bowl, combine egg, milk, sugar, and vegetable oil and whisk them all together- I did this in a coffee mug. With a fork.
• Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture and mix with a fork until smooth.
• Add in the tablespoon of nutella and stir to creale a swirl in the batter. Don't mix too well else you won't be able to see the swirly effect.
• Pour the mixture into the cupcake liners trying to make sure that the batter does not spill over the edges of the liners.
• You may think that there is too little batter but these cakes rise terrifically!So don't worry that your liners are only about 1/4 full.
• Place the ramekins directly in the skillet with the boiling water and cover to cook about 8-15 mins. If you want you could use steamer inserts or stands but you don't need to- I didn't.
• Stick a wooden toothpick or skewer into the cake. When a skewer comes out clean (without wet batter), remove them from the pan and place on a rack to cool. If not leave to cook for 5 minute increments until done. 
• If you undercook they will be dense and gummy and if you overcook they will become rubbery so do check.
• When cool, the cakes in the liners should pop out of the ramekins pretty easily. If they are stuck to the pan, use a blunt knife or your fingers to pull the cake away from the sides of the ramekins.

My notes: While the texture on these babies is perfect I found them to be a little less sweet than cup cakes I am used to although with the nutella they should be sweet enough. If you try this recipe with a little more sugar before I do , let me know how that works out. Off these fluffies go, a little late, to join in all the nutella madness! 

They are also going to the #chocolatelove blog hop at Junia's 
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