Traveling

Hi Everyone! My business travel was extended for a couple more works, so this week marks the fifth week that I am up in Massachusetts.  I have not had the time to post on this blog nor keep up with reading other blogs. :(
Depending on the schedule, I literally have been working 12-18 hour days and my spare time is spent showering, eating, and sleeping and the occasional run on the treadmill.  But luckily I get to go home on some weekends and get to see Mike and friends. 

I arrived back home in Dallas around midnight on Friday.  Then this morning (Sunday 5/15) while I was catching the parking lot shuttle, another passenger the shuttle asked me, "Weren't you on this shuttle on Friday night?" 

"Yes sir.   Yes I was."

Texas Restaurants~Whiskey Cake Kitchen and Restaurant

We initially were planning on eating at Nazar Turkish Restaurant in Addison, but about an hour before we were supposed to meet, I realized that the restaurant had closed. If a restaurant's website does not work, and their listed number results in a call to a disconnected phone number, there is a good chance that the restaurant is no longer in service.
We quickly changed our plans and met for dinner at the Whiskey Cafe, which is a fairly new restaurant that opened in late 2010.

Fried Green Tomatoes with remoulade dipping sauce

Hand Cut French Fries

BBQ Banh MI Wood smoked pulled pork, sweet and tangy veggies, arugula, cilantro, WC BBQ, crispy baguette

 Smoked Turkey StackSmoked turkey breast, mayo, frisee, tomato, cranberry chutney, and muenster cheese. I guess it's like Thankgiving foods in a sandwich. 

 Hot Pastrami Melt-House rubbed and smoked, pickled cabbage,  gruyere cheese, whole grain mustard, crisp baguette (they served it on marbled rye).

Holmes Farm Bird: Half spit-roasted chicken, sweet potato fennel hash, roasted shallot herb jus.  This is what I ordered. I thought that the chicken was moist and tasty, but I did not like the weird sweet flavor combination of the hash and the herb jus. 

We shared one serving of the whiskey cake (toffee torte, Bookers Anglaise, spiced pecans, and whipped cream) and the pie of the day which was a blackberry ice cream cake on an oreo cookie crust. The ice cream pie sounds good too, right, but it had an artificial "Fruity Pebbles" cereal to it. 
We regret not ordering two (or even three) orders of whiskey cake to share. The whiskey cake was definitely the highlight of the meal and I'm now going to search for a whiskey cake recipe so I can attempt to make something similar at home!

Whiskey Cake
3601 Dallas Parkway
Plano, TX 75093
(972) 993-2253

Sweet Experiments~ Ricotta Cheesecake and Butterscotch Pot de Creme

The other week, I bought a 3 lb tub of ricotta cheese and made lasagna. Initially, I was planning on just using cottage cheese in my lasagna, but Mike said, "What?  Lasagna with ricotta cheese tastes so much better than lasagna with cottage cheese."
I had a lot of ricotta cheese left, so I decided to attempt to make a cheesecake.  My mom had bought me a set of spring form pans a while back, and this was the first time I put them to use.  I decided to try Giada DeLaurentis' ricotta cheesecake recipe.

The flavor of the cheesecake was delicious. There was a hint of honey in the smooth creamy cheesecake. Unfortunately, that's what my final product ended up looking like (and I served it anyways).  I was taking a nap at home and I instructed a friend to take the cheesecake out of the oven when the timer buzzed.  Well the pan and the waterbath was too hot for my friend to handle, and she ended up dropping the pan into the sink.  We were able to salvage some of the cheesecake.  Oh well, I guess that means that I just have to try to make it again 


Pot de Crème

I’ve been obsessed with pot de crème after I had a butterscotch pot de crème at Neighborhood Services earlier this year. It was served in a cute little glass jar, which I now refer to as “the pot of goodness.” The serving size was too rich and large to be a single portion, but perfect for sharing.

Pot de crème is basically a heavy cream custard consisting of egg yolks, heavy cream, milk, and sugar. Man, rattling off all the ingredients just made me gain a couple of pounds.
So I decided to test out a pot de crème recipe. I surfed the Internet and found a butterscotch pot de crème recipe.

The final result was a really sweet slight burnt caramel flavored pot de crème. It made me start thinking, “What is butterscotch flavor?” Can you actually make a butterscotch flavor? I feel that butterscotch falls into the “caramel” flavor camp. What do you think?
At the moment, pot de crèmes are one of my favorite desserts. If I owned a small cute-sy dessert shop, I would serve small portions of pot de crème so people could have a small indulgence.