Homemade Cupcakes

As much as I love cupcake bakeries, (which is a lot) I am equally fond of making cupcakes myself. I haven't baked very much recently so I decided to play it safe and make chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate frosting.

I used this recipe to make the cakes and they turned out really well. The cupcakes themselves were moist, chocolatey and slightly denser than traditional cupcakes. I used a basic white chocolate frosting recipe to top the cakes and found it to be a perfect compliment to the cake without being too sweet. Enjoy!

The Tamale Man!

There is a lot of great food in the city of Chicago but some of the best that I've discovered thus far comes from the Tamale Guy, or the Tamale Man, depending on what you choose to refer to him as - it is a bit confusing considering his Yelp page is "The Tamale Guy" but his MySpace page is listed as "The Tamale Man".

For anyone that doesn't know, Mexican tamales are packets of corn dough with a savory or sweet filling and typically wrapped in corn husks or banana leaves. The packets are then steamed and ready to eat! The traditional fillings include cheese, pork or cheese but there are many other variations out there.

The Tamale Man sticks pretty close to tradition with his tamales but the unique aspect is that he doesn't actually have a restaurant or even a food vendor cart. He travels around to bars in the Ukrainian Village and other Chicago neighborhoods (I've seen him in Bucktown) selling tamales out of a cooler! This may not sound like the ideal dining option to everyone reading but the tamales he serves really are great. If you don't believe me, just check out his Yelp rating and see what other people have been saying. I'll give you a preview:

The most recent Yelp review is from Katherine in Chicago where she writes...

"Some people see heroes as knights in shining armor.  Mine is a guy pulling a red cooler behind him at 1am. God bless you, tamale guy."

Seriously, make a point of hanging out in the Ukrainian Village just to try to get a hold of some of Tamale Man/Guy's tamales. :)

Pork tamales from the Tamale Man 

(Photo courtesy of Yelp)

Hot Doug's

I have a confession to make. Being from Chicago, people have often asked me where to get the best hot dog in the city and I undoubtedly tell them to go to Hot Doug's - they offer an eclectic selection of hot dogs and sausages that have been praised by most all Chicago food critics. The only problem with my recommendation is...gulp...that I'd never actually been to Hot Doug's. I'd planned to go a bunch of times, but getting there was always pretty inconvenient for me. It's only accessible by the blue line or a bus and lets face it...I'm terrible with bus schedules. Every time I tried to take a bus in college I would end up on the opposite side of town which would result in either a 30 minute walk home or excessive, border-line stalking phone calls to my roommates trying to convince them to come pick me up.

But anyway, excuses aside, I finally bit the bullet and made my first trip to Hot Doug's so that I actually had first-hand experience when recommending Hot Doug's to others. A word to the wise, plan on waiting a longgg time if you do decide to trek it out there. I ended up waiting an hour just to order with a majority of that time spent in the cold in a huge line outside of the restaurant (see photo below as a reference for the line). 

Even though the wait was a bit excessive, the food was just as incredible as I had imagined. I ordered a Chicago-Style Dog, the Sun-Dried Tomato and Basil Pork Sausage with Vodka-Cream Marinara and Burrata Cheese and the Swedish Potato Sausage with Dill-Garlic Mustard and Caraway Havarti Cheese (pictured below). In addition to my embarrassing display of encased meats, I also added a order of duck fat fries to my platter - yes, those are fries that have been cooked in duck fat and yes, they are delicious. 

I can now confidently say that I would recommend Hot Doug's to anyone that wants to get a taste of the best dogs that the city has to offer - just be prepared to wait awhile, and be surprised by a menu that mixes high-end foods like foie gras with your hot dog or sausage.  

 

 

Rent the Runway

A friend referred me to a site called Rent the Runway a couple of months back and although I usually hate getting referral emails from sites I'll never use, I found this one to be quite intriguing.

Rent the Runway is a consumer purchasing site dedicated to high-end fashion, but rather than purchasing a dress for that next great event, you rent it. According to their website, "Rent the Runway lets you access your dream wardrobe for all of life's special occasions at 90% off retail prices". You simply choose from their bank of dresses/designers to find the dress/accessory that suits your special occasion needs, pick the date of the event,  your size and the zip code you would like your dress shipped to.

I think RTR is a really great concept, especially for someone at my age/income level who's interested in fashion - I have more events/weddings than ever before, and seemingly less and less disposable income. So, if you have a special occasion coming up and are hoping to make a statement in a new dress rather than retreating to your go-to LBD, I highly recommend checking this site out. :)

Potato Pancakes with Avocado & Egg Mash

I've always been a big fan of having breakfast for dinner. This is due, in part, to the fact that I've never been much of a morning person - I almost always choose to sleep-in, get ready in a panic and rush out the door rather than get up and have breakfast like a sensible person. So since I never manage to eat breakfast, but love breakfast food, having it for dinner has become a staple in my diet.

The other night I decided to experiment a bit with my breakfast food when making this recipe for Potato Pancakes with Avocado Mash & Eggs. I typically steer towards the standard scrambled eggs or omelet options when cooking breakfast for myself but I found this recipe to be surprisingly delightful, filling and beautiful in presentation. I hope you think to include it in your next breakfast (or dinner) menu. Enjoy!

Sprinkles Chicago

Over the holiday break I was lucky enough to get to spend a good chunk of time in Chicago catching up on all of my must-try restaurants. I started my quest at the newly-opened Sprinkles Cupcakes on Walton Street. For anyone that hasn't heard of Sprinkles Cupcakes they are dubbed the original cupcake bakery. They started in Beverly Hills and have since expanded to many of major cities around the country with the latest addition being Chicago. So of course, be a cupcake fanatic, I had to try it.

I went with a friend and we ordered a chocolate-vanilla cupcake and a chocolate-marshmallow cupcake. The cupcakes were very good and I was impressed by the flavor offerings that the menu displayed. The decor was also really neat, although it was hard to appreciate due to buzz of the new opening creating quite a crowd.

I tried my best to document my trip with my new Flip camera (see below) but I have to admit that the camera-work may make you feel a bit sea-sick : / So bare with me as I learn to improve my film skills and I hope you enjoy!

Eat Pray Love

I know this movie didn't exactly do as well as expected in the theaters, but being a Julia Roberts fan, and seeing that it was on sale for $8.00 at the Redbox at the grocery store last night, I decided to purchase it. I took the movie home, and after making what I found to be a delicious meal, (unfortunately, I have to thank Rachel Ray even though I find her show to be increasingly annoying every time I watch it) I decided to pop it in.

Even though the film did have a few weak points, (i.e. character relationship development) I still found myself very connected to the main character, played by Julia. The movie opens with the main character (Julia) living in New York ending her marriage. In order to cope, she throws herself into a relationship with a struggling, guru-obsessed yogi played by James Franco. Obviously, that relationship suffers quickly and Julia finds herself in a state of turmoil. In order to find a way to feel again and learn about herself she decides to take a trip around the world for one year. She travels to Italy to eat, India to pray and Bali to unintentionally fall in love again.

Now, anyone that knows me could guess that this is not exactly a parallel to my own life but there are parts that I felt very connected to when watching. I admired Julia for taking that leap of faith - being a highly-independent control-freak myself I can appreciate the magnitude of picking up her life and moving across the world without a plan. I also sympathized with the need to find oneself in a world that constantly strips us of our balance. But mostly, I connected with the need to feel again - to feel full and satisfied. I think it's something that we all struggle with at times, or perhaps most of the time. Maybe that yearning to feel is what drives us to kill ourselves at jobs we don't love, force relationships that aren't meant to be and try every new Hollywood craze that Us Weekly chirps about. Or, maybe it's just me narcissistically trying to connect to Julia Roberts on some level since I did hear that she really enjoyed making the film :) Whatever it is, it got me thinking of my next step to feeling full and since I can't exactly afford to fly to Italy right now (or India, or Bali) perhaps spaghetti for dinner will serve as a good start. :)