homemade espresso barbecue sauce

Hannah + Time @Home = Lots o' Cooking.  Hahaha it's true, I get up at 6:15AM with my hubby.  I roll out of bed to make his lunch for the day and coffee for the road.  He's out the door by 6:45AM.  After that I'm pretty much left on my own to fill my day with productiveness.  Hee hee

This week one of the things I made is homemade barbecue sauce.  I've used this Michael Chiarello recipe before to make barbecue ribs and Mark and I both really like it.  Originally I got it from the Food Network Favorites cookbook that I have.  However you can get it online on foodnetwork.com, here.  The full recipe as is makes about 4 cups of sauce so I usually make half the recipe.  The sauce is awesome BUT unless you plan on using it within the next 2 weeks there's a good chance that it'll go bad.  Remember it's homemade so there are no preservatives.  Part of what makes this sauce so good is found in its name: espresso.  The espresso coffee gives the barbecue rich deep flavor.  

To make the espresso I used a Cilio porcelain coffe maker.  It was a gift from one of Mark's groomsmen and it's pretty cool!  Not practical for making 12 cups but it was great for making a couple of shots of espresso.

We didn't have any ribs at home but this awesome sauce doesn't just have to be on ribs.  Being rib-less but being hungry for lunch I broke out a burger!  Who doesn't love a barbecue burger for lunch?  Unfortunately this is what I had for lunch and not Mark.  :D  Hahaha, sorry honey!

baby sister

What can I say, my parents are neurotic to the core.  They adopted my brother's Yorkshire Terrier, named Sesame, as their dog number of years back and have completely rearranged their lives for her.

Don't be so dramatic, Hannah.  I'm sure you're just exaggerating.

No, I'm being quite serious.  They don't go out of the house late at night because they think she'll be 'afraid' to be home alone in the dark.  They feed her specially prepared food and feed her by chopsticks special table scraps (not leftovers but the best pieces of meat from dinner).  When they come home they announce, "Baby I'm home!" and begin to hold and kiss her (and no, they're not calling out to me....the REAL baby of the family.  LOL).

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  I've been summoned in the past, nay demanded, to come home early in order to BABYSIT the DOG.  She's just a dog!!  I'd scream at my parents to no avail because in their minds she's my baby sister.  No, I'm serious, they CALL her my 'baby sister' in Korean.  See what I mean by neurotic?!

It's been almost a month since moving to IL and I'm finding that I miss the small comforts of home in CA.  And I guess that would include my baby sister.  

unsolicited wedding advice wednesdays : where to register

As stated in the previous post I certainly am no wedding expert and I can only share what I have personally gone through so here's what I can tell you:

My experience was as a traveling bride, meaning I moved from CA to IL after the wedding so naturally this impacted where and how Mark and I decided to register.  Our criteria was simple: 1. Be easily available for guests in multiple states around the country 2. Have the option to order online and ship to IL  3. Be able to refund gifts for cash  3. Easily add items to the registry online (since I was in CA and Mark in IL).  4.  Have stuff we want.  

For better or worse we decided to register (although in hindsight we probably should not have) with Bed Bath & Beyond (BBB) and Amazon.com.  BBB was a chosen because we were told that we would be able to refund any of our received wedding gifts for cash and we felt that guests that were coming from CA and IL would be able to find a BBB in their respective areas.  Amazon.com was chosen because we wanted to register for specific items that would not be at the same store (such as Apple products and specific kitchenware) and we knew that refunding items would be relatively easy.  

In addition we registered with Crate and Barrel (CB) but kept the registry private because we wanted to only have a maximum of 2 registries public for simplicity sake.  In our price comparisons between BBB and CB we found that CB was actually slightly cheaper and we liked the designs much more however we couldn't get a clear answer whether we could refund received gifts for cash as easily as BBB.  So the private registry served as a list of things we'd probably want to get after the wedding. 

Now that the wedding has come and gone I would have to say that Amazon.com was the easiest to work with.  Keeping track of gift givers was the easiest with Amazon because a convenient list of the gift giver and gift is recorded online.  This was not the case with BBB gifts and we had to hang on to every packing slip from each BBB shipment in order to figure out who had given what to us.  This was annoying because we had several boxes from BBB coming to the new house and each packing slip had to be saved.

We did decide to return some gifts to BBB and we ran in to some issues when we wanted to get cash back.  We eventually did get cash back however we discovered that they were reluctant to do so.  We're not sure if the issue was that the items were purchased online or if it was because we were making the return to a store location that was different from our primary location selection.  The point is that the cash back guarantee didn't exactly go the way it was described.  My advice would be to contact the store you think you may make returns at before you start your registry and talk to the store manager about returns.

One last thing to remember is that after your wedding you will receive discount coupons in the mail from your registry locations (except for Amazon) so wait for these coupons before purchasing items off your registry that you didn't receive.  This was another mistake we made hahaha, we made our purchases (and of course the stores said nothing about the discount) and then a few days later the coupon came in the mail.  FAIL. :P 

what i'm watching on hulu

The Glee Project. The show seems somewhat forced...trying to make a reality show that is pretty much like the TV show with similar personalities but I like how it gives the audience a behind-the-scenes look at how the TV show is made.

Barefoot Contessa. Gotta love Ina and her food.  It's a great show with simple and inspiring recipes and I love her mellow personality, no over the top butter content or bleached hair.

Castle.  Seriously, one of my favorite TV shows right now.  It's on hiatus for the summer like all the other shows but I still like to re-watch the old episodes and keep it playing on the background when I'm working.

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.  I LOVE what Jamie is all about for this show.  It kind of works me up because this season he's dealing with a lot of red tape but it inspires me to eat better and feed my hubby better food.

The Voice.  I was pleasantly surprised by this show.  I thought it was going to be a total joke but the star judges actually are pretty intelligent with their guidance and it's a fresh take on the stale American Idol idea to finding new stars.

So You Think You Can Dance.  I really don't know anything about dancing but I am just so amazed that the human body can move like it does on the show and I really like the comradery between dancers.

anna shea chocolates & lounge

This past friday the hubby and I had a date night and we started the night off with dessert at Anna Shea Chocolates & Lounge in The Arboretum in South Barrington (a bourgey suburb of Chicago, think Newport Beach if you're from CA).  Anna Shea sells jewel-like chocolates that are made on site, gelato, chocolate based hot and cold drinks (including martinis) and has a lounge that is attached to their store for people to hang out or rent for bigger parties.  We were told that a lot of bridal showers were held here...I could see why.  

We had a free sample of "Heart of the Ocean" which is a dark chocolate ganache with sea salt.  It was actually pretty good.  But we were there for the drinks because we had heard that the hot chocolate was really good.  Mark had the English Toffee Coffee and I had the Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate.  Holy cow, after the first sip we were both sold.  Keep in mind that neither of us are chocolate people but this place had come highly recommended.  We also enjoyed a small piece of pistachio and cranberry bark which was really good too.  

After the third or fourth sip of chocolate we were feeling kind of sick...too much chocolate!  We saw some women sharing a tray of fruit and cheese with a bottle of wine which seemed tempting but we wanted something else to cut through the constant sweetness.  Something like a steak or ribs....lol!  But alas there was nothing to save us and we just had to push through the chocolate.  I'd recommend Anna Shea but it's definitely an occasional guilty pleasure.  

healthy chocolate chip cookie?!

Ok, so it's not "healthy" as in "good for you" but healthier than your usual chocolate chip cookie.  Thanks to Mark's wonderful cousin and her fiancé (thank you!) we received the ATK's Healthy Cookbook as a wedding gift.  I know, I know, I'm like a broken record with the America's Test Kitchen bit.  And yes,  I DO own other cookbooks....

Here are the numbers:
Original ATK choco chip cookie:
Calories: 190, Fat 15g, Sat Fat 10g, Cholesterol 55 mg
"Healthy" ATK choco chip cookie:
Calories, 120, Fat 5g, Sat Fat 3.5g, Cholesterol 20mg


They were able to achieve the lower numbers by making a more modestly sized cookie (not a same-size-as-your-face size cookie) and cutting the butter and chocolate content without cutting the taste.  For me personally I totally didn't mind the smaller amount of chocolate because I'm not much of a chocoholic myself.

Healthier Chocolate Chip Cookie (ATK Healthy Cookbook)
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
5 Tb unsalted butter
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Adjust oven rack to middle position.  Heat oven to 375 degrees.
1. Whisk flour, salt, baking soda together in a bowl.

2. Melt 3 Tb of butter in a skillet over med-high heat until butter is dark golden brown, 3-5 minutes.  Transfer to a large bowl and stir in remaining 2 Tb of butter until completely melted.

3. Whisk brown sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla into melted butter until incorporated.  Whisk egg until the mixture is smooth with no lumps, about 30 seconds.  Le the mixture stand for 3 min, then whisk vigorously for 30 seconds.  Repeat process of resting and whisking twice more until mixtures is thick, smooth, and shiny.  Stir in flour mixture and 6 Tb of chips until combined

4. Working with 1 heaping Tb of dough at a time, roll the dough into balls and lay them on the parchment lined baking sheets, spaced 2 1/2 inches apart.  Press the remaining 2 Tb of chips into the tops of the cookies.

5. Bake cookies, one sheet at a time until the edges are set and centers are soft and underdone, 8-11 min, rotating the baking sheet halfway through baking.

6. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 10 min, then serve warm or transfer to wire rack and let cool completely.

**Freeze unbaked dough balls for future use.  To bake, arrange frozen cookies on baking sheet and bake as directed, increasing the baking time to 13-16 min.

rolled egg omelette

Here's another comfort food for me: rolled egge omelette.  I have no idea if any other Koreans grew up with this dish but I sure did.  Finely diced carrots, scallions, onions, and cheddar cheese rolled into a sleeping bag of egg is oh so delicious.  Love the melted cheese that oozes out of the eggy goodness.  Sorry, I forgot to take pictures while it was cooking...blasted, what a rookie mistake.


Rolled Egg Omelette
2 eggs beaten
1 small carrot, finely diced
1/4 small onion, finely diced
1 stalk of scallion, finely diced
(you could add any kind of veggies actually, but dice it finely so it'll roll well)
shredded or thin slices of cheddar cheese, optional
salt and pepper to taste

1. Combine everything in a bowl except the cheese.  Heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat.

2. Pour a small amount of the egg mixture into the skillet (imagine a crepe) and let it set on the edges but still be a little undone in the center.  Using a spatula roll the thin egg omelette into itself, like you're were rolling a sleeping bag.  Keep in the skillet.

3. Pour another thin layer of the egg mixture making sure it is touching the long edge of the previously rolled egg.  We're connecting the new egg and the old egg so when we roll it again it'll all be like one long piece that was rolled.  Once the edges of the newly pour egg is set and the middle is still a little undone place the cheese inside the middle leaving plenty of room around the edges otherwise the cheese will just ooze out of the omelette.  Begin rolling again in the same fashion as before.  Repeat process until there is no more egg mixture.

4. Place rolled omelette on a cutting board and let it cool for 3 min.  Cut into 1" slices and serve!