There's nothing like getting into work and finding two giant cinnamon rolls on your desk ... especially when they weigh 1 pound each. It's gonna be a good day.
These 1 pounders came from Chip Nutty Cookies, a bakery that just opened this past week on South Boulevard.
The bakery features their giant cinnamon rolls, each 6 inches in diameter by 2 inches tall, with your choice of cream cheese topping (regular, strawberry, blueberry, pineapple, caramel, or chocolate), and also a variety of cookies.
Chip Nutty Cookies
5920 South Blvd.
Charlotte, NC 28217
Curious as to what all the buzz was about, I went to check out T1 Tapas in Birkdale Village for dinner the other night. The connection booth where we sat was high-tech to the max. We ordered our tapas, watched music videos on our private TV/monitor screen, listened to local music through the built-in speakers in the booth chairs, and even doodled some artwork with our fingers all through using their T1 technology touch-screen tables.
Exploring the touch-screen table's capabilities made for a fun, interactive meal. By clicking on a menu item, you could read a full description, see a picture of the dish, and add it to your order. With jacks for your laptop, iPod, or whatever else you might have, you can hook anything up to their system.
The food is tapas-style with small plates of international-inspired fare. We tried the roasted beet salad, P.E.I. mussels, Spanish tortilla, Blue crab crepes, noodles, and flatbreads. Take a look:
Nope, they aren't moldy. These vanilla cupcakes have got their green on to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.
For the cake batter, I used my go-to vanilla cupcake recipe from Billy's Bakery in NYC. I then dyed the white vanilla cake batter with two shades of green for a festive surprise layers of green on the insides of these cupcakes.
To achieve this affect, I dropped a blob of white batter on the bottom of the cupcake liners, then piped in a few tablespoons of dark green batter in the middle of each, and then piped in the light green batter. I did a shabby job filling each cupcake with the green batters so you can see the green peeking out underneath the frosting of the baked cupcakes. Darn. Surprise ruined!
To finish them off, I topped the cupcakes with a simple buttercream frosting made of powdered sugar, butter, vanilla and milk. To get the green swirls through the frosting, I painted a few stripes of gel food coloring on the inside of my piping bag before loading it up with frosting. But hey, if you want to go full-on green, just drop some food coloring into the entire batch of frosting.
Looking for an alternative happy hour? Stop by Earth Fare in South Park for their Grapes and Hops event from 5:30 to 7:30 pm, Tuesday, March 16.
Wine and beer specialists will be pouring their favorite drinks, and the free event will feature Jazz music and hors d'oeuvres.
Earth Fare South Park
721 Governor Morrison Street Ste 110
Charlotte, NC 28211
ph. 704-749-5042
Featuring a variety of fresh seafood dishes, The Deck opened on East Boulevard in Dilworth a few weeks ago. With the large open roof-top patio, The Deck is the perfect name for the restaurant (which used to be Rock 'n' Lobster and before that, Plan B). With blue ocean waves painted along a wall, weathered wood, big windows, and light colors, the restaurant has a casual, beach feel.
The menu features options like Achiote seared Rare Tuna Tacos, oysters, Key West Chicken and Fruit Salad, Lobster Rolls, Peel and Eat Shrimp, healthy "Fish in a Bag" and their daily specials featured on the blackboards change for lunch and dinner.
I tried the the Mahi Mahi Tacos and the Rare Tuna Tacos, which were accompanied with green rice and black beans a funky contrast of colors on the royal blue plates. Though both were good, I preferred the tuna tacos with the mango salsa. The mahi tacos were a tad fishy and a bit too salty for my liking.
Drinks at The Deck are tasty too -- they press their own sugar cane, make their own sour mix, and juice fresh fruit for all their cocktails. I'd recommend trying the Strawberry Basil Mojito (freshly muddled strawberries and basil mixed with Cachaça, a Brazilian Rum.)
Take a view of what they have to offer:
Sambel Oelek is a ground chili paste and one of the more popular condiments of Indonesia. This condiment uses all parts of the chile including the seeds, but doesnt have that lip searing heat many of the chili sauces have from this part of the world. I add Sambal Oelek to sauces like homemade peanut dipping sauce, and stir fries.
Huy Fong Foods, an American company based in California (their most famous product s Sriracha hot chili sauce) makes their Sambal Oelek with red jalapeños, salt and vinegar. As with other Huy Fong products, their Sambal Oelek is packaged in a clear container.
Some of the imported Indonesian Sambal Oelek have large labels occluding the product. There are a dozen or more types of Sambals - Sambal bajak, Sambal terasi imported from Indonesian, Malaysia., Philippines, and Singapore available in local Asian markets.
If you want to try something different from the usual Uptown happy hour scene, check out The Wine Shop at Foxcroft down in South Park. The store not only sells wines by the bottle at wholesale prices, but they serve a multitude of wines by the glass, along with cheese, small plates, and desserts.
The Wine Shop is relaxing and comfortable with soft brown chairs around high-top tables and a little bar area serving up wines on tap. When I stopped by on a Wednesday after work, it was relatively quiet, so it was easy to carry on a conversation, which was nice. Service was attentive without being overbearing and the staff knew a lot about the wines. For $18, you can pick a sampling of three cheeses to enjoy with your wine check out these photos:
Adapted from a recipe in the Baked cookbook Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, these Monster Cookies, are well, monster. (Baked is the well-known bakery with locations in Charleston, SC and New York.)
Be afraid. These cookies are monsterous in size. They are downright beastly they are so big. Each drop cookie contains over 3 tablespoons of dough and is scooped out and plopped down with an ice cream scoop. Post baking, the balls of dough spread out to become a cookie larger than my palm and thicker than a finger.
With the entire recipe only containing 1/2 cup of flour, these cookies consist mainly of a lot of oatmeal and peanut butter, with some tidbit goodies like chocolate chips and Reese's Pieces mixed in. Mmmmm. Party in my mouth.
I brought a heaping plate of these cookies to the Creative Loafing office, and they were all gone before the day was over. Even the sales rep who claims he doesn't like peanut butter was chowing down on cookies. So, if you enjoy cookies that are both chewy and crunchy, and love the combination of chocolate and peanut butter, you just might have to make these right now.
Monster Cookies
adapted from Baked
Makes about 30 cookies
Ingredients:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
5 ¾ cups rolled oats
¾ cups (1 ½ sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 ½ cups firmly packed light brown sugar
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
5 large eggs
¼ tsp light corn syrup
¼ tsp vanilla extract
2 cups chunky peanut butter
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup Reeses Pieces
In a large bowl whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together. Add the oats and stir until combined.
In the bowl of electric mixer with paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth and pale in color. Add the sugars and mix on low speed until just incorporated. Do not overmix.
Scrape down bowl and add eggs one at a time, beating until smooth (about 20 seconds) and scraping down bowl after each edition. Add the corn syrup and vanilla and beat until incorporated.
Scrape down bowl and add peanut butter. Mix on low speed until just combined, add the oat mixture in three additions, mixing on low speed until just incorporated.
Use a spatula or wooden spoon and fold in the chocolate chips and Reese's Pieces. Cover bowl tightly and refrigerate for 5 hours.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats.
Use ice cream scoop to scoop out dough into 3- tablespoon size balls on two baking sheets 2 inches apart. Bake for 12-15 minutes, rotating pans halfway through baking time. Let cool on pans for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.
It's scone crazy in my house. After last week's Pumpkin Scones, I wanted more.
I found this recipe for Cinnamon Bun Scones floating around the food blogosphere recently. The scones looked pretty tasty, so I decided to give them a test run.
These scones are formed by dropping 1/4-cups of dough on a cookie sheet, which beats patting the dough down and using a cutter to form each scone. Cinnamon, sugar, and chopped toasted pecans are swirled into the dough, which makes them similar to cinnamon buns.
So, how were they? High-five fellow bloggers! These were good. I like how the oats in the recipe gave the scones some heft, and the crunchy bits of toasted pecans were amazing.
These babies are best straight out of the oven and freshly drizzled with glaze.
Cinnamon Bun Scones
Scone ingredients:
2 C all purpose flour
1 C oats
1/4 C plus 2Tbs sugar
1 Tbs baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
8 Tbs butter chilled and cut into pieces
3/4 C milk
1 egg lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 C toasted pecans
2 tsp ground cinnamon
Glaze ingredients:
3/4 C powdered sugar
3 to 4 tsp milk
Heat oven to 425°F. Spray cookie sheet with cooking spray or use a silicone mat.
In large bowl, combine flour, oats, 1/4 cup granulated sugar, baking powder and salt; mix well. Cut in butter with pastry blender or two knives until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. In small bowl, combine milk, egg and vanilla; blend well. Add to dry ingredients all at once; stir with fork or rubber spatula until dry ingredients are moistened. In small bowl, combine remaining 2 tablespoons granulated sugar with the pecans and cinnamon; mix well. Sprinkle evenly over dough in bowl; gently stir batter to swirl in cinnamon mixture (Do not blend completely.) Drop dough by 1/4 cupfuls 2 inches apart on cookie sheet.
Bake 11 to 13 minutes or until golden brown. Remove to wire rack; cool 5 minutes. In small bowl, combine powdered sugar and enough milk for desired consistency; mix until smooth. Drizzle over top of warm scones. Serve warm.
Saucy-smelling fingers and spicy lips. That's what we all came away with after Creative Loafing's Eat My Charlotte Wing Tour on Saturday, March 6.
Our readers and staff hit the road in a big ol' party bus to taste 10 flavors of the best wings in town. We ate (and drank) our way through Charlotte, hitting up Lebowski's, Wing King, D.D. Peckers, and Moosehead Grill.
Thanks to all who joined us for our tour! I hope you had fun. If you weren't on the Wing Tour, check out all the fun you missed: