The Daily V

The Daily V has a new home!

Greetings, to the 3 people who read my blog :)

My husband and I have bought the domain name, “www.thedailyv.com.”

From now on, you can find all of my blog posts at: http://www.thedailyv.com

I hope to see you there!

-Vanessa

I want the truth! You can’t handle the truth!

I have a multitude of personality flaws, but there is one in particular that has been plaguing me since childhood: I get a sick pleasure out of proving people wrong. Everything from spelling errors, to driving directions, to movie trivia. If I’m not right, it bugs me.

So when I heard people say that Costco’s prices weren’t much better than a regular grocery store, I had to find out for myself. During my most recent shopping trip, I wrote down the prices of some items that I buy regularly.

I would like to start this post with a few disclaimers:

1) I do not enjoy making spreadsheets. But for the sake of this project, I was willing to open Excel on my home computer. If you’d like to see the entire spreadsheet, including unit prices for each item, just leave me a note and I’ll e-mail it to you.

2) I do not work for Costco. (Although, when I was standing in front of the cereal aisle with a pad of paper and a pencil, a few people did ask me…)

So, without further ado, here it is - the true difference between Costco prices and Jewel prices.

Paper/Plastic Products:

Non-Perishable Food:

Soap and Cleaning Products

Other - Miscellaneous

There you have it, folks. Costco is the clear winner. But before I go wallow in smugness, I would like to point out that my experiment has its share of flaws. I didn’t compare prices of produce, meat, alcohol, etc. I didn’t factor in coupons, or the price of a Costco membership. Although Costco serves my purposes very well, it might not work for everyone. Only people of a certain disposition enjoy stacking 36 rolls of toilet paper in their bathroom closet. :)

Coming Soon: Tips for making ice cream cake from scratch.

Summer is just Autumn’s opening act

If you could grade how people spend their summers, I would get an F.

You know those people who get an A+ in summer : catching fireflies, sitting on the porch at dusk, going to the beach, wearing flip-flops, etc. I regard these folks with equal parts bewilderment and jealousy. I truly don’t understand what they love about summer, yet I wish I could enjoy it like they do.

The reason I fail summer so miserably is because I don’t particularly like it. Don’t get me wrong, I love things associated with summer - long sunny days, fresh vegetables, etc. But the reality of summer (for me, at least) is more like this:

• sit in a freezing cold office
• burn myself with the seatbelt in my 100-degree car
• go jogging on the lakefront and dodge slow-moving tourists
• get an ice cream cone at Oberweis, only to have it look like this 5 minutes later:

It’s these things that send me running home to inhale the scent of my pumpkin candle, turn on my Home Alone DVD, and pretend it’s November.

Those of you who live in Chicago know that our summers can be brutal. I’m usually counting the days until I see Back to School sales. That’s how I know the worst is behind me.

But until then, I’ll appreciate Summer for the good things it has to offer… like watermelon. Check out this great recipe for Watermelon Italian Ice, courtesy of The Perfect Scoop:

Ingredients:

• 4 1/2 c. watermelon juice/pulp (about half of a regular-sized watermelon)
• 1/4 c. sugar
• Big pinch of salt
• 2 tbsp. freshly squeezed lime juice

Heat 1/2 cup watermelon juice with sugar and salt until fully dissolved. Mix in with remaining watermelon juice/pulp. Pour directly into freezer-safe pan or flat plastic container, and place in the freezer. After one hour, start scraping the sides and pushing the crystals to the middle of the pan. Continue this for several hours, if you have the patience! Enjoy!

Coming soon: Costco vs. Jewel. The price breakdown you’ve always wanted to see.

Where’s the Beef? Apparently, it’s on Nagle Ave.

I have a confession, which you might find a little strange: I have never eaten a hot dog outside of the Chicago metropolitan area.

In order to qualify as Chicago-style, a hot dog must include:

• A poppy seed bun
• Yellow mustard
• Chopped white onion
• Neon green relish
• Sport peppers
• Tomato wedges
• A dash of celery salt

So, in honor of the little bubble I grew up in, here it is – the best hot dog on Chicago’s Northwest Side:

Let’s start at Devon and work our way south, shall we?

Superdawg – corner of Nagle, Devon, and Milwaukee Ave.:

Everyone knows Superdawg. We’ve all seen this as we pass by the intersection:

(Little known fact: Those giant hot dogs on the roof actually have names: Maurie and Flaurie, named after the owners)

Superdawg is teetering on the edge of becoming touristy, so I debated even including it on this list. But the hot dogs really are that good. This is what you get for $4.95:

Part of the Superdawg experience is pulling into the drive-in area, and having your order brought out to the car. This is the only drive-in restaurant I’ve ever been to, and it’s one of the few left in Chicago.

If you head further south down Nagle, you’ll arrive at our next destination:

Elliott’s Dairy and Deli – corner of Gunnison and Nagle

Okay, okay… I’ll admit it. Technically, Elliott’s is not in Chicago. It’s in Harwood Heights. But it sits right on the city limits, so I’ll make an exception.

Obviously, Elliott’s is not a hot dog stand. It’s a mom and pop grocery store – a true relic from the 1950’s.

Elliott’s is famous for their deli products – particularly their corned beef, and their hot dogs (or as they call them, “wieners.”)

Whenever I have a hot dog from Elliott’s, I am reminded of what a real hot dog looks like – the kind that are big, with real sausage casing, made on-site. And what goes better with hot dogs, than pickles? In keeping with it’s old-school image, Elliott’s makes their own dill pickles, and sells them out of a barrel. It’s the greatest.

As you continue south down Nagle, the street changes names, to Narragansett. We have arrived at our final stop.

Yo-Joe’s Red Hots: Addison and Narragansett.

Yo-Joes is a little wooden shack, and I’m convinced the only thing that keeps it from collapsing are the 100 coats of paint on the outside.

Everything at Yo-Joes is served with a huge side of Cubs pride, and fries of course. In addition to hot dogs, they’ve got a great Char Polish.

Yo-Joes deserves recognition solely based on the fact that they’re still around. They’ve occupied the corner of Addison and Narragansett since 1969. I can’t imagine how many condo developers have offered the family a pretty penny to sell the property. But that, my friends, is the beauty of Chicago’s Northwest Side. We can’t be bought or sold.

Coming Soon: Why I totally and completely fail Summer.

I’m only here for the cake!

When you’re my age, it’s not uncommon to spend most of your summer weekends at weddings.

While most people are scrutinizing the bride and her dress, I usually direct my attention to the cake – or whatever is being served for dessert.

And if you’ve ever been to a wedding, you know that wedding cake is… well, it’s a gamble. You never quite know how it’s going to taste, and whether the filling is real fruit, or that dreaded fruit-flavored gel.

I spent the last two weekends at weddings - both of which had creative alternatives to your typical wedding cake. Check it out:

Wedding #1: In addition to a regular wedding cake, this wedding had a cake in the shape of Wrigley Field. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a picture of the cake, but the cake below is very similar.

The beauty here is in the fondant – or as I like to call it, “Sugared Play-Dough.” If you take away the fondant, it’s just a sheet cake cut in a diamond shape.

When it comes to wedding cakes, most pastry chefs fall into one of two camps: the buttercream camp, or the fondant camp.

Observe the difference:

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Both cakes are incredible. The buttercream camp might say that the cake on the right looks tacky and cartoonish, while the cake on the left has a classic, timeless beauty.

But it can also be argued that fondant enables a chef to take creative risks that could never be done with buttercream. If the cake on the right was made with buttercream, it would melt within an hour. As you can see, each kind of wedding cake has pros and cons.

Wedding #2: This wedding decided to forego cake altogether, in favor of a fun alterative that was popular with every wedding guest, from the 5 year olds to the 80-year olds: cupcakes!

Are these adorable or what! The couple provided three flavors for the guests to choose from: chocolate, vanilla, or lemon. In addition to being the perfect serving size, the cupcake tower created a really cool centerpiece for the room.

A quick side note:

• The Scrapers: these are the people who scrape off the frosting and just focus on the cupcake itself.
• The Inhalers: these are the people who don’t even bother with taking bites – they just put the whole thing in their mouth.
• The Face-Smushers: this technique is favored by the 5-to-10-year-old crowd. And me. The goal here is to get the cake and frosting all in one bite. It usually involves getting frosting all over your face. But us Face-Smushers don’t care.
• The Utensil-Users: Think Mr. Pitt on Seinfeld, when he ate his Snickers bar with a knife and fork. These people cut into their cupcake with utensils, and usually have a napkin on their lap. Naturally, they are the sworn enemies of the Face-Smushers.

Coming Soon: Finding the best hot dog on Chicago’s Northwest Side.

Just Peachy!

When it comes to baking (and music), sometimes I feel like I was born a generation too late.

If you click through my iPod, you might assume that it belongs to a 50-year-old man. It’s full of relics such as The Police, Squeeze, and the Rolling Stones.

As for baking: Most girls my age are under the impression that baking involves going to the store and buying box mix. As a result, I only have a handfull of friends who understand why spending three hours in the kitchen is my idea of a perfect Saturday afternoon.

Enter Katie Lee Joel.

Aside from being ridiculously beautiful, she’s married to the Piano Man himself - Billy Joel. As if that wasn’t awesome enough, she has her own cookbook - which increases her coolness exponentially. She’s basically living my fantasy life.

But I’m not here to talk about Katie’s cookbook (which is supposed to be good), or her marriage to Billy Joel (which is allegedly ending in divorce).

I’m here to talk about her now-defunct website: Olive and Peach.

From 2004 - 2006, Katie Lee Joel ran a website with her friend Aleishall Girard Maxon. It’s simplicity is what makes it so wonderful. It’s not drowning in HTML, and there is nothing pretentious about it. It’s just two girls who love to cook.

The website is laid out like a magazine: There was an “issue” for each month, and each issue contained new recipes, product reviews, and restaurant experiences. The best part is that Katie and Aleishall created all of the content themselves - there were no other contributing writers.

Sadly, the website has not been updated since 2006. But thanks to the magic of cyberspace, you can still view the website and all of the archived articles.

Make sure to check out my favorite recipes from Olive and Peach : Watermelon Greek Salad, and Sweet Potato Casserole.

Now that Katie Lee Joel’s marriage is over, only time will tell if she can hold her own as a chef. We’ll have to wait and see!

Coming Soon: Two weddings in two weekends - a crash course in wedding food.

Rhubarb - your reputation preceds you!!

Those of you who live in Chicago are probably wondering where Spring has been hiding lately. It has been unseasonably cool around here. But no matter how much the weather report will have us believe otherwise, Spring really is here.

Evidence:

1) I’ve bought my Chicago City Sticker. Ever since I was 17, this has been a rite of passage of spring.

2) I’ve had my annual bout of spring allergies

3) Grocery stores are so full of rhubarb, they’re practically giving it away!

There is something special about rhubarb. Something that evokes nostalgic memories in people. Seriously. When people saw me with a few stalks of rhubarb, this was the response I got:

- The elderly man bagging my groceries asked if I was making pie. When I said yes, his face broke into a smile, and the checkout line was held up as he stopped to tell me about the last time his wife made him rhubarb pie.

- My dad went on and on about how my grandparents used to grow rhubarb in their backyard, and how he hasn’t had rhubarb pie in decades.

At this point, I began to get suspicious. Whenever anything is hyped up in this manner, my typical response is, “Yeah okay. I’ll be the judge of that.” But rhubarb put me in my place. I was thoroughly impressed, and I have to admit that rhubarb lived up to it’s great reputation .

To the casual observer, it would seem that rhubarb suffers from an identity crisis. It’s clearly a vegetable - but the culinary world treats it like a fruit. It has fibrous and woody stalks - like celery. But the surface of the flesh bleeds dark pink - like beets. And the taste of raw rhubarb… the only thing I can compare it to is lemon, or Sour Patch Kids.

But after thinly slicing rhubarb and baking it in a simpe pie crust, rhubarb does a total 180. It goes from being fibrous and bitter to sweet and yielding.

This may be the easiest pie I’ve ever made. Give it a try, before rhubarb goes out of season!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 lbs of rhubarb, cleaned and sliced thin
• 2 cups of sliced strawberries
• 1 cup of sugar
• A top and bottom pie crust of your choice.

Directions:

• Mix the sliced rhubarb and strawberries in a large bowl
• Stir in the sugar until it covers the fruit evenly
• Pour it into your pie shell, and apply the top crust
• Bake at 375 for 40 minutes
• Share with family and friends, and try not to laugh when people ask if you slaved over this pie for hours

Abracadabra! Creating two cookies from one dough

Flour, sugar, and butter. These are truly magical ingredients. The types of cookies you can create from these ingredients are only limited by your own imagination.

“Well duh, Vanessa” you might be thinking. “Flour, sugar and butter are the building blocks for any cookie recipe.”

That is absolutely correct. But it is the manipulation of these ingredients that spell the difference between a thin, crisp cookie and a soft, chewy cookie (my personal favorite).

The recipe that I’m sharing with you is genius in its simplicity. Baking is an art, and this dough is the equivalent of a blank sheet of paper. You’ll get a different result, depending on what you add to it.

But for the purposes of this blog post, the cookies we’ll be creating are the classic crowd-pleasers: Oatmeal Raisin, and Chocolate Chip. And since soft, chewy cookies are my favorite, we’ll be making these - you guessed it - soft and chewy! Let’s roll!

Wet Ingredients

• 2 sticks of butter - melted
• 1/4 cup of white sugar
• 1 and 1/4 cups of brown sugar
• 1 egg and 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Dry Ingredients

• 2 and 1/4 cups of bread flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda

A quick note on Bread Flour: you might be wondering why it’s so important to this recipe. One word - gluten. Bread flour contains more gluten than plain old AP flour. The gluten makes the dough stickier and thicker, which results in a thick, chewy cookie.

Back to the cookie dough - combine the wet ingredients and dry ingredients in separate bowls, and slowly pour the wet bowl into the dry bowl. You’ll notice that eventually, the dough will be the consistency of wet cement. But fear not! This just means that the Bread Flour is doing it’s job.

Once all of the ingredients are combined, the dough will be thick, and a medium brown color, thanks to the brown sugar. And that’s all she wrote! You now have your basic dough, and you can add any ingredient you’d like. Let’s continue by turning this dough into Chocolate Chip cookies, and Oatmeal Raisin cookies.

To turn this dough into Chocolate Chip Cookies, just add:

• 2 cups of chocolate chips (or whatever chips you prefer - white chocolate, perhaps)
• 1 cup of chopped nuts (optional)

To turn this dough into Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, just add:

• 2 cups of dry oatmeal
• 1 cup of raisins
• 1 and 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• a dash of nutmeg

Drop by the spoonful onto a prepared cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees, for 9-11 minutes. When you take them out of the oven, they may not look “done,” but they are. Once they cool, they’ll retain their soft and chewy texture.

Coming Soon: Rhubarb - bitter vegetable or unsung hero of pies?

The Daily V Review: 30 Minute Meals, by Rachael Ray

Before I begin, I want to clarify that the following critique is for the 30 Minute Meals cookbook, not the TV show.

Background: Contrary to popular belief, Rachael Ray’s career was not developed by The Food Network. 30 Minute Meals was published in 1998, in response to the cult following she developed in New York. It was published by Lake Isle Press, which was a young company at the time - 30 Minute Meals was among the first cookbooks they ever published. You might wonder why this matters - I’ll explain later in the review.

The Good:

For the most part, trends rub me the wrong way. It makes me sad to see how cooking is marketed as something trendy - something that can’t be done unless you have a lot of money or fancy equipment.. Nothing could be further from the truth. Cooking is for everyone. I believe that in order to cook (or bake) well, you only need three things: desire, patience, and confidence.

Rachael seems to share my philosophy:

“Cooking quick and easy recipes will build you a pantry and the confidence to learn to live on your own recipes. By tasting and sniffing your way through many different types of recipes… you will learn how to associate flavors and textures that complement one another.”

(Side note: Props to the editor, for knowing the difference between complement and compliment )

Speaking of side notes, Rachael Ray makes an effective use of side notes throughout this cookbook. Most recipes include a side note, with useful information such as where to buy quality olives, or what fresh fennel tastes like. It’s a creative way to include useful information.

The Bad:

Rachael Ray’s arsenal of catch phrases gets old - quickly. And it will only hurt the readers in the long run - especially those who are new to cooking . Saying “EVOO” a thousand times will not help her readers learn. She could be using her time more effectively by explaining what makes extra virgin olive oil different from regular olive oil.

The Ugly:

I won’t beat around the bush here - this cookbook does not have an index. An index is essential. Even the most experienced cooks refer to an index fairly often.

Still not convinced of how important an index is? Open a few cookbooks in your house - I challenge you to find even ONE cookbook that doesn’t have an index.

Now, this is not Rachel Ray’s fault. Her job is to write recipes, not create the layout for her books. The fault for this lies mostly with Ellen Swandiak. Swandiak was hired by Lake Isle Press to develop the layout and design of 30 Minute Meals. Swandiak made a fatal error by not including an index in this book. How did Lake Isle Press not catch this mistake? Thankfully, they learned quickly. Every Rachael Ray cookbook published thereafter has included an index.

The Daily V Bottom Line: This book has well-written recipes that anyone can make! But without an index, it may be difficult for some people to use.

Coming Soon: Turning one dough into two different cookies!

Imitation - the sincerest form of flattery

I’m the first to admit that when I think something is a good idea, I copy it.

Typically, when I try to imitate the things I find interesting, it doesn’t work out. There is a mile long list of things that seemed awesome when I saw other people doing it.. but upon trying it myself, just turned into a mess. This list includes: dying my hair black, wearing light colored pants, smoking cigarettes, practicing yoga, etc)

But in the case of my chocolate fruit cups, it worked. About two weeks ago, one of my friends made little cups out of parmesan cheese, that looked like this:

Cool, isn’t it? Since I love chocolate, my first thought was “There has got to be a way to re-create this with chocolate. I must figure it out.”

Of course, where there’s a will, there’s a way. By using silicone cupcake liners lined with foil, I was able to turn this appetizer into a dessert.

Here’s the lowdown:

Step 1: Pipe melted chocolate into your cupcake liners. The piping requires ZERO skill. I basically dragged my piping bag back and forth, several times over the bottom, the side, and along the rim. Let them harden in the fridge overnight.

Step 1a: This is the part that requires patience and skill. When you’re ready to serve the dessert, carefully peel away the liner, so you’re left with the chocolate shell. A lot of them will break, so I recommend making more shells than you’ll actually need.

Step 2: Cut up some fruit, like so:

Step 3: Put whipped cream into your chocolate shells. I made my own whipped cream, but I think the canned stuff will work fine:

Step 4: Put your fruit on top of the whipped cream, and voila!

It’s a great recipe for special occasions - the chocolate shells add a certain faciness to it. A “fancy factor,” if you will. :)

Coming soon: My love-hate relationship with the 30 Minute Meals cookbook.