Late Night Treat at Fenton's

My friend, Liz, has told me for the past three years how delicious this place called Fenton's is.  Apparently they are well-known for their homemade ice cream.  People come from near and far for the experience and their creamy treats.  In addition, if you recall in the Pixar/Walt Disney movie, "Up", Carl and Russell are seated outside a creamery, named Fenton's, eating an ice cream cone together.  A coincidence? I think not.  The movie wasn't exactly based in Northern California, but director Pete Docter and producer Jonas Rivera, both live in Oakland and take their children and families to Fenton's.

So I asked her in the morning, when could we make a trip up to the oh-so-popular shop and she responded with, "why not tonight?" It made for a wonderful spur-of-the-moment adventure.

Located in Oakland, California, we originally planned to arrive for dinner, but time seemed to slip away and after about a forty minute drive, we actually didn't arrive at the creamery until 10:30, where there was STILL a wait.  Can you believe that?  Of course, on a Friday night, it would be a popular venture, but I was amazed how many people were packed into the historic diner and soda shop.  They claim to be the original birthplace of rocky road ice cream (chocolate ice cream, marshmallows, and nuts).  Some of the best inventions happen by mistake.  Fentons candy marker, George Farren, made a rocky road candy bar and decided to blend it into an ice cream flavor.  His friends, William Dryer and Joseph Edy started making their own version, but substituting almonds for walnuts.  

The creamery was first created in 1894 and has been serving its wonderful creations ever since.  It was sadly destroyed in 2001 and was rebuilt to include a grill, more tables, and a larger menu.  

Inside the creamery - Tables and kitchen in the background with the to-go ice cream line in the front

Look at all those flavors!

I particularly enjoyed the uniforms and get-ups the waiters and servers had to wear.  This guy wore a Fenton's apron and fun little hat as he handed us our samples and scooped up people's late-night orders. 

When we first arrived, I was so excited to sample the flavors, and not to mention starving, so I eyed my options and tasted the following: Coffee Cookie Dream and Cherry Vanilla (seasonal flavor).  My first sample was delicious.  I recently picked up a liking for coffee ice cream and the cookies (basically Oreos, but homemade) were not too soggy.  This might have been an option for dinner or dessert, but consuming coffee at 10:45 probably wouldn't be the smartest idea.  As for my second option, I was slightly disappointed, which I thought would be made with the really fresh Bing cherries, but instead they appeared and tasted like maraschino. 

Here's DOUG from the movie "Up." The stuffed, lovable dog, sits among the various shirts and souvenirs as he watches over his customers. Squirrel?

Recognize this scene?  They have a picture of the scene framed in the restaurant.  Such an adorable film, I can't wait to watch it again.

Fenton's Creations, ready to be served, or ordered to go. A sugar overload indeed, but certainly makes your mouth water.

Liz and Eddie both ordered chili cheese dogs, which came with a side of fries.  The fries weren't anything to write home about, but it went well with the chili and would have been great with the ice cream.  A little salty/sweet combination.

I decided to go with the ever popular grilled cheese with cheddar and monterey jack, of course topped with some ketchup and mustard. It usually is served with potato chips, but I had shared some of the fries, so I asked for them to leave the chips out.  Plus, ice cream was in my future, so I had to make some choices.  Normally I'm not a huge fan of bread, but this buttered and grilled sourdough combination was absolute heaven.  

For dessert (the main reason we made the trip) we all agreed to split the sundae of the day.  Fenton's has a long list of classic sundae combinations as well as the option to individualize your own.  This particular treat fit our list of picky eaters - those who don't like much chocolate (notice the caramel and vanilla selections) and those who do not enjoy berries (that counts flavors like the seasonal strawberry out) 

If it is tough to read the fine print, our wonderful sundae consisted of a special "Tin Roof" Sundae flavor - Salted Spanish Peanuts in a Vanilla ice cream with a fudge swirl topped with fudge (but wait...there's more) alongside Vanilla ice cream with a Caramel swirl and topped with homemade caramel corn and hot caramel.  

Quite a long list of ingredients, but boy, between the five of us, it was WELL worth it. In fact, it was even a better price breakdown (~$2/each versus $5+ individual sundaes, and we were all completely satisfied!)

This is definitely a destination I would happily travel to again.  It would even be neat to for for a future birthday where alongside your special treat, they get the entire restaurant to serenade you.  Now that's a celebration.

So many combinations and flavors to sample, make some time to try out your sweet tooth.

Fenton's Creamery

4226 Piedmont Ave

Oakland, CA 94611

Armadillo Willy's

In a rut for where to eat out?  We have started to create a list of restaurants and of course it pairs perfectly with my desire to test out the best diners, drive-ins, and dives.  I might as well sign up to accompany Guy Fieri on his cross-country road-trips. 

Tonight's trip was down Homestead to Armadillo Willy's, a BBQ joint I had been introduced to last year.  It's more of a casual sit-down restaurant where you walk in, order, find a table and wait to pick-up your food.  Overall, lots of good choices with a relatively reasonable price range.  They even offer large party platters, good for catering or large get-togethers.

Sean was probably the most adventurous with his decisions.  It also helps he has a very fast metabolism, but that's beside the point.  Starting off with the root beer float and BBQ melt with brisket and a side corn muffin with honey butter. 

The highly advertised and recommended root beer float.  Always a classic.

Hallie's BBQ Brisket Sliders - An order of 3 served with a side of your choice.  There is also an option of ordering sliders individually.  

I had debated ordering the kid's ribs, but my desire to sample a different part of the menu won out.  I too selected the BBQ melt - a selection of meat (chicken, brisket, or pulled pork), a mix of cheddar and jack cheese, bacon on Texas Toast, with a choice of side - I obviously went with a side salad. It was unanimously decided that the BBQ pulled pork was a better decision than the brisket.  Both tasted great with BBQ sauce (Willie's own mild and spicy varieties).

I still got to see what the kid's ribs looked like.  Little Katie was satisfied with the two BBQ ribs (lacking adequate sauce in my opinion...anything BBQ-oriented needs to be doused in sauce)

Sean treated us to a "Texas Size" cookie, a relatively large, doughy chocolate chip pie, because everything in Texas has to be super-sized.  There were some quality choices made, but always room for improvement.  If your in the mood for a more casual outing, check it out!

Santa Clara

2624 Homestead Road, CA 95051

Lucky Lemon Cake

Everyone loves a little luck, so I thought "Why not try mine with a new recipe on Friday the 13th?"  Our house still has a lovely lemon tree in the backyard and the crop of lemons only seems to get better by the week.  I haven't gotten around to making lemonade (that's a bit of an undertaking), but since my last lemon product, lemon bars, turned out well, I decided to try a Lemon Cake (more like a dessert bread) based off of one of my favorite chefs, Ina Garten, and her Barefoot Contessa series of cookbooks.

I have a habit of not only using what I can find in my pantry and fridge, but also reducing the recipe in half.  Part of this is due to the fact I only am allotted a small space in the fridge.  I share the fridge with 7 other girls, so we are a little tight on space and my little vegetable drawer can't seem to handle my many experiments.  The following list of ingredients reflects the original recipe with some of my side notes as to how I prepared the cake.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 1/2 cups granulated sugar, divided (again, I went with Splenda but according to Livestrong, it is possible to also substitute the required sugar with Agave) 
• 4 extra-large eggs, at room temperature (my EggBeaters came to the rescue...I'll get around to purchasing real eggs) 
• 1/3 cup grated lemon zest (6 to 8 large lemons - I ended up using the fresh lemon juice)
• 3 cups flour (~mixed ration of wheat:white)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 3/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice, divided
• 3/4 cup buttermilk, at room temperature (see below)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

I always flip-flop on whether to test a recipe that requires buttermilk.  Stores seem to only carry the larger sizes and honestly, I don't plan on using the leftover buttermilk for my cereal or evening treat.  So, I took to the oh-so-inspiring internet and looked for a decent substitute. For a quite inventive buttermilk substitute check out this method by Joy the Baker:

Lemon and Milk 

In a 1-cup measuring cup, add 1 TBSP of fresh lemon juice.  Add in the required serving of milk (skim, lowfat, or whole!) Stir and let it sit for ~2 minutes.  Viola, your milk is now "acidic and curdled."


Optional Serving Additions:
- Berries (mmmmm RASPBERRIES)
- Whipped Cream
- Glazed Topping: Combine the following ingredients and pour over the tops of the cakes, allowing the glaze to drizzle down the sides

• 2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
• 3 1/2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Put a little grease and flour in the 2 loaf pans (8 1/2 by 4 1/4 by 2 1/2-inch).  If you are new to this, you simply spray the pan with a little pam or butter, spoon some flour inside and shake it around so all the sides are covered.  There is also the option of lining the bottom with parchment paper, but I didn't have too many problems with just the flour.

2. Instead of purchasing lemon juice (which is completely respectable) I had to take the time to pick and roll out the lemons, then juicing them.

Watch out for those seeds :) That would make dessert more interesting, but not so appetizing.

3. Cream the butter and 2 cups sugar in the bowl, using an electric mixer, until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes).  If you have an mixer with a stand, keep it on medium speed, or otherwise add the following ingredients one at a time: eggs & lemon zest lemon zest.

4. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. 

5. In another bowl, combine 1/4 cup lemon juice, the buttermilk, and vanilla. 

6. Add the flour and buttermilk mixtures alternately to the batter, beginning and ending with the flour. 

7. Divide the batter evenly between the pans, smooth the tops, and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until a knife comes out clean.

For some reason, the cake didn't seem to rise properly.  At least it didn't look what I thought it would look like or what Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa recipe did.  Potential issues that may have caused this dilemma: the fact I divided the ingredients in half, my use of EggBeaters instead of real eggs, or I might have messed up measurements somewhere.

But, overall, it was a success, so a lucky day indeed.

"Seize the moment.  Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart."

  ~Erma Bombeck

Meghan's Braided Egg Bread

This Easter weekend, I had the lovely chance to travel south to Santa Barbara and visit my grandparents and meet up with my sister, Meghan.  Between running, shopping, browsing, and swimming at the pool, we also had abundance of food selections: traveling out to eat, picking up a snack from the Nordstrom’s Café, and visiting the local downtown farmer’s market.  Boy was that place packed!  But one of the highlights of the weekend was being able to make our own dinner.

What a good-looking dog with her Easter duckie :)

Out of the millions of complicated cookbooks in the world, I love the ones that have pictures accompanying the recipes and really love the two kid’s cookbooks that Meghan received for Christmas a few years ago.  Out of the Williams-Sonoma Kid’s Baking book, we have found some really tasty finds like sugar cookies, gingerbread, s’mores bars, chocolate chip cookie cake, cherry crisp, popovers, focaccia, and most recently, braided egg bread. 

This bread tastes absolutely wonderful warm out of the oven with a little butter on top and would probably taste excellent in French toast.  We decided to make a meal out of it, but of course there had to be some greens and protein alongside.  Bob grilled up some chicken (marinated in a Paul Newman’s Herb & Roasted Garlic sauce), we added in some spring asparagus, and I whipped up a salad with ingredients from Nancy’s garden and the farmer’s market.

M sitting down to our lovely spread

BUNNIES and Yellow Chickie Wickies with Purple Eyesie Wisies (Inside family joke...thanks Uncle Tom)

For dessert, we were spoiled with a selection of Haagen-Dazs ice cream, topped with some farmer’s market berries.

Now onto the absolutely delicious bread…

Adapted from William Sonoma’s Kids Baking

Makes 1 Loaf

Baking Time: 28 minutes, Total Time: ~2+ hours (includes prep, dough rising & baking)

Ingredients:

Dough

All-purpose flour      3 ½ cups +

Rapid-rise yeast      1 package

Sugar      ¼ cup

Salt      ¾ tsp

Milk     1 cup (asks for whole milk, which might give it a fuller texture)

Butter      7 tablespoons, cut into chunks

Large Egg      1

Vegetable Oil      2 tsp

Topping

Large Egg      1

Water      1 tbsp

(Optional) Poppy Seeds or Sesame Seeds     1tbsp

1.     Make the Dough

-       In a large bowl, using the wooden spoon, stir together the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt.

-       Heat the milk and butter in the small saucepan over medium heat, stirring with the wooden spoon until the butter melts.  Move the pan over to a heatproof surface.

-       Meghan used a thermometer to make sure that the liquid was between 115˚ and 125˚

Pour the warm liquid into the flour mixture.  Add the egg and stir with a spoon until a rough, shaggy dough forms.

2.     Knead the Dough

-       sprinkle a work service with some flour. Dump the dough onto the surface and knead for about 10 minutes. 

Knead it until it is smooth and no longer sticky.  You can flour your hands every now and then, as well as the surface to prevent sticking.

3.     Let the Dough Rise

-       gather the dough into a ball. Wipe out the bowl and oil it with about 1 tsp of vegetable oil

Put the dough into the bowl and turn the ball to coat it with oil.  Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and set it in a warm spot to rise.  Let the dough rise for about 45 minutes until it is doubled in size.  (You can poke the dough with your finger to see if it is ready)

-       Dump out the risen dough onto a clean work surface and press gently to deflate.

4.     Form the Ropes

Cut the dough into 3 equal pieces with a sharp knife

-       Work with one piece of dough at a time and keep the remaining pieces loosely covered with plastic wrap. Roll the dough into a rope about 20 inches long, only adding flour if needed to prevent sticking.  Repeat with the remaining 2 pieces.

5.     Braid the Dough

-       Arrange the 3 ropes side by side and pinch the tops together.  Starting at the top, braid the ropes until you reach the end.  Pinch the bottom ends of the ropes together and tuck them under the loaf.

-       Oil the baking sheet with the remaining 1 tsp oil.

-       Move the braid to the baking sheet and cover loosely with plastic wrap.  Set the baking sheet in a warm spot and let it rise for about 30 minutes, until puffed and doubled in size.

6.     Bake the Bread

-       About 15 minutes before the dough is ready, preheat the oven to 400˚F.  In a small bowl, beat together the egg and water with the fork.

-       When the dough is ready, remove the plastic warp and using a pastry brush, gently brush the braid with the egg mixture.  OPTIONAL: Sprinkle the bread with seeds.

-       Put the pan in the oven and bake the bread for about 28 minutes, until it is brown.  When finished, remove the baking sheet from the oven and set it on the cooling rack to cool completely.

ALL FINISHED! Enjoy :)

Kale Chips

These chips and all sorts of other vegetable chips have been on the rage these days and every author swears that they taste like regular chips.  Now, I was a little skeptical of this, but thought I would give it a shot. 

Kale is a form of cabbage and can be found in the regular green varieties, as well as purple.  Wouldn't that make dinner a bit more interesting?

I have started to buy most of my fruits and vegetables at the local "Farmer's Market" stand.  The stand is really more of a permanent outside market that sells fresh products daily and for amazing prices.  You can also pick up a bundle on the weekend at the normal farmer's markets or even at the grocery store.  Just today I saw that Trader Joe's offers kale in a bag, washed and ready to go. 

KALE CHIPS

1. Take your bundle of kale (make sure to wash it) and break the strands into smaller pieces.  You can easily break it apart to eat after the baking process is finished, but it can end up being messier. 

2. Place the kale bits on a baking sheet and shake some sea salt over the tops of the greens.  You can add some EVOO (extra virgin olive oil), but the chips tend to come out too greasy.

3. Set the oven to 350 degrees and set the baking sheet in the oven for about 15 minutes.  OPTION: For a kale side dish option, take the baking sheet out after about 10-12 minutes, which leaves the greens a little less crispy and pairs better with a meal.

The FINAL PRODUCT. Yum, yum, yum.

Delicious to munch on by itself as an afternoon snack or alongside dinner.

I also experimented and used it as a bed for my broiled salmon, asparagus, and brown rice. 

Now that you have found a new wonderful vegetable to munch on, read about some of its benefits.  If you didn't like the taste or texture too much, maybe the following will convince you otherwise. :)

Some of the healthy vitamins included in these fabulous greens include: beta carotene, vitamin K (), vitamin C, and is reasonably rich in calcium.  Kale, along with broccoli, has sulforaphane (large word, I know...don't be scared), which is a chemical with potent anti-cancer properties.  Surprisingly, I found with some research that boiling the greens decrease the level of sulforaphane, but if you choose to steam, microwave (strange...usually the opposite), or stir-frying, you are good to go.  Another plus is kate has a source of indole-3-carbinol, a chemical that boosts DNA repair in cells and appears to block the growth of cancer cells. 

So mull over that the next time you are deciding what to make for dinner.