Coconut Cake for a 1st Birthday

It has been one full year since the first ever O&O Eats post went live. And guys, it has been one helluva ride. I am constantly amazed there is this incredible community of people (I'm talking about you guys, yeah you) who come together over our shared love of food. Making it, eating it, getting into long winded conversations about it. So much has happened in this short time, can we just talk about how wonderful and sometimes terrible the past year has been? I won't say it was easy by any means, this space was originally created to catalogue recipes and be a place where I could productively channel my energies while unemployed, and that's what it was for a while. But when I realized other people who weren't my mom or boyfriend were reading this blog, I slowly started to lose my mind. Rather than being a productive outlet, it became an unhealthy obsession precisely because I had nothing else to focus on. There were more than a few occasions where I surprised even myself with the depths at which my obsession ran, mostly with my photography than anything else. Weeks and weeks of nitpicking over tiny, insignificant details: a rogue scallion in a photo, a piece of bread not toasty enough, shoots, re-shoots, re-shoots of re-shoots, to say nothing of the unimaginable hours spent in photoshop. Food is imperfect, and I couldn't figure out how to use that imperfection to my advantage instead of fighting it. Hours, days, wasted away, only worsening the pressure I put on myself to get x number of posts out per week. And unfortunately, due to my unwillingness to reach out to other bloggers for fear of rejection or whatever other bullshit excuse I could come up with, there was no one to snap me out of my funk, no kindred spirits to commiserate with. Had I known how warm and inviting the community was back then, believe you me, I would have done things differently.

Then, back in October of last year, I went to a food photography workshop hosted by the amazing duo behind First We Eat, Eva and Carey, and finally had my very first conversations with other people doing the same thing. I couldn't believe how nice and friendly everyone was. I left the workshop with some wonderful new friends and the much needed perspective which had been missing from my life for the better part of six months and things only went up from there. I got a job shortly after, which made time for blogging scarce. It became a treasure, a weekend activity where only positive energy was allowed. I learned to let go if a recipe or a photo didn't turn out as planned, to start over instead of obsess, the newly found perspective freed my mind from those miniscule details and allowed me to focus on bigger things like finding a writing and photography style, developing creative recipes, interacting with people, and actually enjoying myself again. This blog has been slowly plugging away since then, and though circumstances surrounding my life have changed, the one thing that remains constant is how much I love this space and everything it has become: a creative outlet, a cooking laboratory, an opportunity for friendships that would have never occurred otherwise. The words I want to write to express my gratitude for all of you elude me, and I don't want to get too sentimental, but suffice it to say, this little corner of the internet would be nothing without you, my dear readers and friends.

Lemon Bars and Finding Inspiration

The light is changing, the days are longer, I just left my job. I am unburdened, and somehow, by some cruel plot twist, I am uninspired like I have never been before. I don't know what to cook. Not for this space here, not for dinner, not for breakfast, I don't even know what I want to eat most days. I fumble around behind the lens like it is my first time picking up a camera, though it has been nearly a year since my food photography journey began. As I sit here typing, the backspace key is my best friend. I can't seem to coherently jot down my thoughts; the words I desperately want to find escape me. Like all things, this will pass, but goddamn, it sucks right now.

Self pity aside, let's talk about these lemon bars, which by some miracle, made it out of the fray. They are a last nod to the departing winter before saying an enthusiastic "goodbye!" to winter citrus/squash/roots and "hello!" to all the greens spring has to offer. They are tart, bright, and not weighed down by too much sugar. Just the way lemon bars should be.

Chocolate Hazelnut Long Johns: The Great Donut Experiment of 2015 & why I will not be eating donuts for the next 365 days

This. This was one of those recipes. You know, the kind that takes weeks and weeks of testing, where there's always something just a little off. Where the thought of giving up seems so enticing, but you've put so much effort into it already that defeat is not an option.

Let's dive right in, shall we? First was the filling. How do you make a chocolate hazelnut filling? In my first two tries, the custard was cooked with finely ground hazelnuts then strained over and over and over again. It was impossible to strain out the super fine hazelnut meal through a mesh sieve, and the custard was far too thick to strain through a cheesecloth. Third time around, I thought up a brilliant idea of using hazelnut milk instead of whole milk. Unfortunately, nut milk does not have the same properties and chemical composition of real milk. The custard never set with the same amount of egg yolks and cornstarch. The fourth time I added an extra egg yolk and doubled the cornstarch, and while thicker, it still never set. I gathered it had something to do with either the absence of milk proteins or milk fat, but there is a surprising lack of information about the chemistry behind cooking on the internet (if you have a scientific explanation, please message me I'd love to know). Hesitant to add even more thickening agents to the mixture, I then made another version of hazelnut milk, using real milk instead of water, simmering it with ground hazelnuts, and letting the mixture steep before straining. So I guess you could call it a hazelnut milk milk. Ta-da! Success.

Ahem, then there was the whole after-30-minutes-the-donuts-were-greasy problem. Fortunately the internet did have a solution for that: frying in vegetable shortening instead of oil. The short explanation is because vegetable shortening is solid at room temperature, the grease doesn't seep out after frying as it does with liquid oil. One more kink to work through, the dough wasn't quite as soft as I would have liked. The solution: more sugar, more egg, and we finally have a donut I'm proud to share. Cue the sigh of relief, here.

Carrot Cake

Now is around the time I start getting really tired of winter. January and February are probably the two most mediocre months out of the year if you ask me. The holidays are over, discarded pine trees line the sidewalks—simply thrown away like yesterday's news, and it's always cold cold cold. Every year I toy with the idea of moving back to Texas, and as fleeting as those thoughts are, I do miss the 40 degree "winters" we had there.

April, on the other hand, is a month I like. April marks the beginning of a cascade of happy events. Game of Thrones comes back (!!!), wonderful items such as garlic scapes and squash blossoms hit the market, the sun will still be out when I leave work, and I can buy peonies without paying $15 a stem. But until then, I might as well make use of the ridiculous amounts of root and cruciferous vegetables that beg their way into my shopping cart. I've already made these beet burgers twice this month, I've made cauliflower pasta every single week for the past six weeks, and of course I couldn't go without making a carrot cake...or two...or three. I've been going absolutely cuckoo for old ass (some would say "vintage") bundt pans, and it would have been irresponsible of me to not test them all.