Loins of Fire!

Crikey. I took the Red Eye Virtual Kitchen Stadium Cook-off down to the wire last night. After spending all day at work thinking about cooking with tamarind, after 5pm I actually got to do it. I grabbed some pods from the New Whole Foods on Kingsbury, which I totally wanted to explore more, but I was a woman on a mission and in a hurry, so I paid for my pods and biked like a mad woman home. From then on it was non-stop cooking until about 7:20pm. I simmered rice, I made a marinade and sat my pork loin in it, I chopped, I picked cilantro from my herb garden, I diced, and I seared. My phone was buzzing with people wanting to know when they could come over to eat, and I ignored it.

After 8pm I got to breathe for a few minutes before friends arrived to devour the goodness. I spooned up more black bean cakes, and I put the other pork loin in the oven. I've got to admit, it got so down to the wire that I wish my presentation was a bit better, but, it is what it is. The way I cook is very fluid,

I would say, in the fact that I look at a recipe, get the overall idea, and then go from there. So writing down exactly what I did was way more painstaking that I imagined. I think I even left out several ingredients. Oops. I have awesome dishes and baked goods that I've made once or twice and STILL haven't written out the recipe. I'll have a 1/2 sheet of paper with a title on it and some basic brush strokes about what goes in it, but the rest is up to my memory and maybe my tongue, to adjust things accordingly. So basically, time crunch, and I think I may suffer for it. We'll see tomorrow. If I DO advance to the next cook-off round, I am definitely taking a half day at work, that is for certain.

But I had a great time doing it and it was fun getting all my friends involved in the eating and the voting. Too bad I couldn't have paired one of my Contest Winning Cupcakes from the night previous at Iron Cupcakes Chicago. Alas, no tamarind in there.

Check back for contest details! Rick Bayless (Mr. Bayless? Would I call him Rick if I met him face-to-face?) will announce his winners at 11am tomorrow on twitter.

I'll have 4ths

Woooo-ee, it's been a busy weekend! Sure the 4th is great and should be relaxing, filled with tanning, etc., but mine certainly wasn't. Well, it could have been, if the weather was nice and I wasn't running around to the meat market, the supermarket, and trying to make a pie, test out several cupcake recipes, and grill multiple times. But I like being busy, and the weekend was a gigantic success.

I have to say again that I love Paulina St. Market for all things meat. Going into that shop is the only time my mind will ever see encased meats and think, "how can I get several of those in my belly?" Seriously. And the dudes are so old school and prompt and good at what they do. We actually saw a lady behind there and my

bf was almost aghast that they let that happen, until he heard he talk in her thick German accent, and then he was ok with it.

On Saturday I literally stuffed my family with cupcakes. I made 14 cupcakes of all different cake and frosting combinations and made them give me their opinion on them for which to chose for the cupcake challenge. 4 people. 14 cupcakes. They were troopers.

Sunday was pie baking day for the Pie Fest with Hugh Amano, chef and creator of foodonthedole.blogspot.com that I check religiously. Hugh had organized a pot luck at his home a few months back and now it was pie at the beach. Things kept on getting better and better. I had to have my pie in the oven by noon to be mostly cool at 5pm and the bf was making his own pie, too. I gave him shit because he was making a chocolate chip cookie crust with a pudding-y filling, which in my opinion is barely a pie. But to be fair, he made everything from scratch and his custard was quite good. And people loved it, which is the most important part.

Pie at the beach was great; there were some dudes with steel drums and

maracas near us getting down, and there was so much pie. So much pie. I sampled 50-60% of the pies, which were savory, sweet, tarts, and 'deconstructed pies' (read: berries in a bag). I left really full but happy, and I had had some great conversations with interesting new people I can only hope to see at the next event, which just may be a bbq blitz.

The cupcake competition was tonight and I won, which I am thrilled about! I was hoping, like you do when you enter a competition, and so happy to win. All the cupcakes were unique and tropical and creative. I can't wait for the August competition.

So now that I'm home and (temporarily) done with cupcakes, it's time to narrow in on the RedEye Virtual Kitchen Cook-Off that goes down tomorrow! I'll know the secret ingredient at 10am tomorrow, and you can, too, @redeyemunchtime, or at chicagonow.com/blogs/redeye/munchtime for the latest info on the competition. I love cooking as much as baking, so I'm ready to get my creative juices flowing for this one! Check back for those pictures tomorrow!