Maple Walnut Blondies with Maple Butter Glaze

Autumn snow!

Happy Tuesday! I hope everyone had a fantastic start to the week. I don't know about you, but I am soooo not able to concentrate on anything work-related this week; between a packed weekend that included a burlesque show and a clothing swap, the transition to winter weather, and the upcoming holidays, my brain is off in a million different directions. Thankfully, today is actually my last day and then I'm off for a lovely five day stretch (if only every week could be like this!). ;-)

As with many of you, I also already have Thanksgiving food on the brain. I've never been in charge of a full dinner and honestly, I prefer it that way. I'm mostly interested in making various side dishes and desserts (aka the best parts of the meal!). The recipe I'm highlighting today is not only one of my new favorites, but also one that would be a perfect addition to the T-giving dessert bar (especially for those of you who may not be big fans of pie): Maple Walnut Blondies with Maple Butter Glaze. While my love of pumpkin has been well recorded on this blog, I've sadly neglected to mention my almost equivalent love for maple. I'm one of those people who has at least six different types of maple syrup in the refrigerator at all times - not only is my kitchen flooded with syrup options, but I also always have at least three varieties of maple sugar on hand (this is the best). Bottom line: I love maple! These Maple Walnut Blondies are straight up full of maple-ly deliciousness. I gave some to two of my maple-lovin' friends and they proclaimed them to be super fantastic (in their totally unbiased opinions, of course). If you love maple, I promise these blondies will make you very, very happy... and I bet they would go swell with this fabulous pumpkin pie martini!

As always, Mario and I will be spending the holiday with our friends and will enjoy a day filled with awesome food, video games, movies, and board games. I hope you all have a wonderful (and delicious) Thanksgiving... I'll see you back here next week! :-)

Maple Walnut Brownies with Maple Butter Glaze

INGREDIENTS
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup packed light brown sugar (I also sprinkled in a bit of maple sugar)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup chopped toasted walnuts
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (melted)
1/2 cup grade B maple syrup (I used this)
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste (I used this)

Maple Butter Glaze:
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup grade B maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Prepare an 8-inch square baking pan by lightly greasing the bottom and sides with butter or baking spray.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, salt, baking soda, and walnuts.

3. In a small bowl, whisk together the melted butter, maple syrup, eggs, and vanilla bean paste. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients, and gently fold together (be careful not to overmix!).

4. Spread the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 18-20 minutes (until the edges just begin to pull away from the sides and the center is set, but still soft).

5. Cool the pan on a rack and make Maple Brown Butter Drizzle: melt the butter in a small saucepan, then stir in maple syrup, brown sugar, and vanilla bean paste. Bring to a boil over medium heat and cook at a full boil for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

6. Drizzle warm glaze over blondies and set aside for an hour to cool.

Monday Foodie Porn: Andersonville Dessert Crawl

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend. :-) This was the first weekend since August in which I had nothing on the calendar, no homework to complete, and no papers to grade. *whew* It felt like such a luxury to finally have three days of downtime after a whirlwind October (the heaviest part of the semester + birthday excitement + Halloween excitement). I ran a few errands, made a much-needed visit to my chiropractor, spent some time with friends, baked, and read for pleasure. I also finally sorted through the many photos from the Andersonville Dessert Crawl (all while catching up on the last two episodes of Top Chef and American Horror Story: Coven).

As I mentioned last year, the Dessert Crawl is one of my favorite foodie events of the year. It always seems to fall on one of those perfect autumn days (slightly chilly and sunny) and is filled with miles of deliciousness. Really, what's there not to love about strolling through one of the coolest neighborhoods in the city with friends and eating yourself into a sugar coma? ;-) After much evaluation and the weighing of options, Diana and I decided to go with the Caramel Apple route this year, as we were both enamored with the idea of banana pot de crème. Ultimately, I think we made a fantastic choice - there were so many delicious desserts on our route that we actually couldn't even finish the crawl!

Kicking off the eight annual dessert crawl! We were joined this year by one of Diana's friends from the 'burbs (and yes, we broke her food crawl cherry). :-)

Stop #1: Marshmallow-filled chocolate cupcakes at The Wooden Spoon. This first stop really set the bar high! I have to admit that I am not a big fan of chocolate cupcakes (I don't care for plain chocolate cake or ice cream), but I *loved* this cupcake. Being at TWS also reminded me of how much I miss taking Sunday morning cooking classes (message to Diana: um, we need to get on that!).

Stop #2: Swedish rice pudding topped with lingonberry sauce from Svea Restaurant at Simon's Tavern. Swedish rice pudding isn't your typical mushy pudding; it's dense and slightly chewy (similar to a baked cheesecake). The tart lingonberry sauce was the perfect complement to the sweet pudding. 

Stop #3: Dessert assembly line (Big Shoulders Coffee, Éclair Bakery, Defloured, and Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream) at Urban Orchard

Double chocolate and pumpkin pastries from Éclair Bakery. They were both delicious, but the chocolate actually won out over the pumpkin for me (there's a first for everything!).

Root beer floats from Jeni's. I was first introduced to Jeni's at the Luxury Ice Cream Festival a few years ago and haven't looked back since. Jeni's = pure ice cream awesomeness!

Gluten-free carrot cake and What Dreams May Come Bar (oat caramel chocolate bar) from Defloured. I usually find gluten-free desserts to be too dry and/or they have a weird texture; however, the deserts from Defloured were so good (especially the bar!), I wouldn't have guessed they were gluten-free.

Stop #4: Baklava from Taste of Lebanon at The Landmark. Flaky crust + crunchy pistachios + just a drizzle of honey = the perfect baklava.

A quick break from the indulging to visit one of my favorite parts of the neighborhood: the always adorable Puppet Bike!

Stop #5: Cheesecake bar at Renalli's. I chose the brownie cheesecake and topped it with raspberry sauce, whipped cream, and chopped nuts.

Stop #6: Banana pot de crème with butterscotch shortbread at Vincent. This was the dessert I was looking forward to the most and the one that ultimately was my favorite of the entire crawl. The pot de crème was the perfect consistency and the butterscotch shortbread... oh, there are no words to describe this amazing little piece of heaven. Seriously. Best shortbread EVER!

Hanging out with Vincent's special guest chef du jour. ;-)

Stop #7: Fried Twinkies and blueberry cobbler at Hamburger Mary's. The Twinkie was substantially less greasy that the last few times I've tried fried desserts (especially compared to the deep-friend cookie dough), so I actually kind of enjoyed it this time (plus, it helped that it was such a small piece!).

Stop #8: Apple cranberry streusel pie bites from First Slice Pie Cafe. This was a perfect place for us to end the crawl - we parked ourselves at an outdoor table, nibbled on the delicious pie, and tried not to think about how many calories we just consumed. :-P

Chicago Gourmet 2013

The sixth annual Chicago Gourmet festival, aka the culinary event of the year (and the festival I had been eagerly anticipating since purchasing the tickets last November, i.e. EONS ago!), took place in Millennium Park the last weekend of September. There were 175 Chicago-area chefs, more than 100 wine and spirit producers, and just over 12,000 attendees. Yes, you read that right. A little over twelve thousand foodies made their way down to the coolest park in the city in order to rub elbows with celebrity chefs, stuff themselves with gourmet food, and drink themselves into a stupor (really, considering the amount of delicious drinks flowing through the festival, it was impossible *not* to!).   

This was my first year at Chicago Gourmet and it is now officially my new favorite festival. It had almost everything I love about a good food event: an all-exclusive ticket price, tasting portions (large portions = less room to try more food), a wide variety of fun/unique food offerings, outdoor day drinking, the opportunity to actually chat with chefs, entertaining cooking demos & panel discussions, and a well-organized layout & schedule (take note, Taste of Chicago!). The only thing missing was food trucks, but I'd say my sweet encounter with Graham Elliot more than made up for the lack of trucks. ;-)

Here's a bit of what we did/ate/drank during our whirlwind five hours of fabulous foodie fun...

 Moroccan inspired chicken & squash from Target

 Cold duck and orange salad on a crostini from Market Bar

Absolut Chicago! Coolest bottle ever.

We spent quite a bit of time in the Absolute tent. There were some really fantastic drinks - Diana and I both agreed that the Key Party Punch was our favorite (The Professor and Mary Ann wasn't far behind). We may have gone back for seconds (or even thirds). ;-)

Chef Hubert Keller: yes, he is totally adorable in person!

Polish Zephyr from Belvedere Vodka: grapefruit juice, almond syrup, lemon juice, tonic & Belvedere

Pork belly with peanut butter sauce

Lobster ceviche

Carrot cake pops

Raspberry Peach Cocktail from Grand Marnier: GM Raspberry Peach, lemon juice & ginger zest

Roasted pork belly with watermelon & eel sauce from Saigon Sisters (my top food pick of the entire day!)

The many faces of the totally hilarious Graham Elliot

Red neck tacos from Real Urban Barbecue: hoe cake topped with bbq pork

Lavender Collins with rock candy

Monday Foodie Porn: Chicago Food Social

As I've mentioned numerous times since the inception of this blog, I love a good food truck. In fact, I have been known to plan an entire outing around a Twitter food truck stalking session. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that the trend is a fairly recent phenomenon in Chicago (thanks to some strict legislation that for years made it difficult for them to operate in the city); however, there's also the fact that there is some damn good food coming out of many of those trucks! I love the whole concept of a mini restaurant on wheels - ever since I visited my first bona fide food truck in Austin back in 2010 (Hey Cupcake!), I have been obsessed with tracking down various trucks and sampling all of their awesome offerings.

The third annual Chicago Food Social took place the weekend before last and of course, Diana (aka my food truck stalking buddy) and I were all over it! I have to admit that I was slightly apprehensive about the redesign of the festival (previously known as the Food Truck Social), as there was not only a change of location, but also the addition of non-food truck restaurant booths; however, the moment we stepped foot onto the festival's grounds, all of my worries were squashed. To put it simply: it was *amazing*! There were rows and rows of food trucks (twice as many as last year!), many of which were new to us and/or impossible to track down. Seriously, it was food truck heaven!

The only downfall was that because there were so many fantastic food trucks, we ending up eating way too much (even though we did share each item & we spread it out over five hours). While we did managed to narrow down our choices to a list of absolute must-visits (that was hard for me because now that I work in the 'burbs, I miss out on most weekday food truck opportunities), we still ended up skipping quite a few because we were soooo stuffed. We've already made a plan for next year that involves visiting in shifts in order to allow for maximum digestion/calorie burn time in between the lunch and dinner sessions. :-)

(click on photos for maximum food porn!)
 

The Tamale Spaceship: This was at the top of my must-visit list, as I was starting to feel like I was the last foodie in the city to never sample their delicious tamales. The Spaceship was first stop of the day and ultimately, one of my top picks from the entire festival.

Zapatista Tamales from The Tamale Spaceship: Chiapas-style Adobo slow-roasted pork with chileajo sauce.

As I mentioned on Twitter:

Tamale awesomeness + Lucha Libra awesomeness = a major food truck win!

The Slide Ride

Ribeye Slider from The Slide Ride: thin sliced ribeye, Guinness onions, and horseradish sauce, served on a pretzel roll.

Taco Al Pastor from Big Star (one of the non-food trucks): split roasted pork shoulder, pineapple, onions, and cilantro.

Pecan Smoked Chicken Wings from Pork Chop. I'm not a big fan of wings (they're so freakin' messy!), but these wings were so perfect, I would not hesitate to order them again. They had just the right balance of sweet/sour/heat - another overall favorite of the day!

Jerk. Modern Jamaican Grill

Jerk Fries from Jerk.: Yukon potatoes fried in corn oil and tossed in a blend of Caribbean spices. 

Tart Cherry Lime Cooler: I cannot remember where we found this (I'm blaming it on all the carbs), but let me just say that it was one of the best cherry drinks I've ever had! Does anyone out there know where it came from??

Husky Hog BBQ

Baked Mac 'n' Cheese & Sliced Beef Brisket from Husky Hog BBQ: This was one of the new-to-me trucks and yet another one of the highlights. Fantastic BBQ!







Loaded Sumo Fries from The Wagyu Wagon: avocado mash, Asian slaw, and Sriracha sesame aioli.

Chicago Cupcake
(more about the anatomy of a Chicago cupcake here)

Cake Batter Cupcake from Chicago Cupcake: Hands down, this was one of the best cupcakes I've ever tried. Its consistency was more like that of a cheesecake than of a cake and the graham cracker crust was moist & buttery. So damn delicious!