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[xoxo-cooks]

Bread Machine Cinnamon Buns

I’ve been wanting to make these for months, and finally got around to it this morning. Adapted from Heidi Swanson’s Favorite, Homemade Cinnamon Rolls, I simplified the early process by using the bread machine.

Cinnamon Buns Recipe

4 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp cardamom

1/2 melted butter

1 egg, beaten

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp molasses

1 cup warm milk

4 tsp active dry yeast

Throw all of this into a bread machine on the dough setting. It’s ok that it’ll end up a looser dough than you would usually see in bread.

Filling:

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons cinnamon

1 tsp cardamom

1/2 cup softened butter

Stir the sugar and cinnamon together in a small bowl, and keep the butter to the side to spread.

Divide the ball of dough into two parts, and one at a time, roll out on a floured surface. Get it into a 12″ long rectangle, about 1/2″ thick. Spread half of the butter all over it, and sprinkle with half of the cinnamon sugar (this is much easier than the technique of spreading cinnamon/sugar/cinnamon on the dough like I usually do with Swedish cinnamon buns). 

Roll it up, and cut into slices, about 1″ thick.

Each half of dough makes about 12 slices, and can be put into a buttered cake pan about 1/2″ apart from each other. 

Do the same with the other half, and after slicing up, put into the freezer for a treat next time.

Let rise for 1 hour with a cloth over them, then bake at 400 degrees fahrenheit for 15-18 minutes, making sure not to overcook.

Icing

1/2 cup powdered sugar

2 tbsp heavy cream

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

pinch of salt

Whisk up in a mixer or by hand, then use a brush to put all over the buns once they come out.

[xoxo-cooks]

Tomato-free Kale & Beef Apocalypse Chili Recipe

It’s been a VERY long time. Hi, how are you? Remember when I made a cooking show? Seems like a lifetime a go (looks like it’s been about 3 years!).

We are a few days into having to stay at home all day due to worldwide pandemic (nbd), so it’s given me a chance to do a bit more cooking with minimal ingredients than I have been in recent years.

A friend said, “Everyone is hoarding beans, but what do you even cook with beans?” 

I wanted to make some chili, but Christian has been avoiding tomatoes lately for acid-reflux health reasons, and most good chilis seem to include canned tomatoes.

So, here’s how I interpreted Mark Bittman’s recipe from How to Cook Everything, which continues to be the best cookbook for all of the basics.

(I’m mostly blogging about this so I can remember it myself for next time; it was really good.)

1/2 lb ground beef (or whatever meat you have, or leave it out)

2 medium onions, diced

2 cans beans, 15.5 oz (black & great northern; or whatever you have)

1 cup vegetable stock

1 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1 tbsp chili powder / 1 tsp chili powder for the meat

1 pinch hot pepper flakes

1 clove garlic, pressed

several handfuls of kale or other greens, chopped into small pieces

Cook up the beef first: Put in a big pot over medium heat with some oil and 1 tsp chili powder for a few minutes until it browns up. Dump into a bowl with paper towels to get off the excess oil and set aside. Wipe out the big pot to get it ready for the next steps.

Cook up the onions on low/medium heat in oil for ~10 minutes until they become more transparent and nice. Add in the meat, beans, vegetable stock, cumin, oregano, chili powder, hot pepper, and garlic, and bring to a simmer. If it doesn’t seem watery enough, add another 1/2 cup or so of water. Simmer for 10-15 minutes until it become nicely fragrant, then throw in the kale, cover, and let simmer for another 5-10 minutes until the kale becomes wilty and just past its bright green phase.

I served it with this Paula Deen cornbread recipe, which I only made half of, since we had just 1/2 cup of cornmeal and fear for our lives and the lives of others too much to walk across the street to the grocery store. It was nice.

[xoxo-cooks]

A bit of a hiatus

If you are a longtime viewer of this channel, you may have noticed that I haven’t been around for the past month or so, which is an unusual thing for me to do.

My only goal when I started this channel in July 2013 was to post a video every single week no matter what else was happening in my life. After almost 4 years of pretty consistently posting a new video every week, I’ve single-handedly made nearly 200 videos, and I’m feeling the need for a break.

So, I’m laying low, not posting much to social media, and enjoying Friday nights that are not filled with editing after work until 4 AM.

I’m already starting to feel recharged and having ideas for new videos, so I’ll be back soon enough.

In the meantime, a lot of my focus has been on my new job back in NYC, which is at Juilliard. I’m really proud of the work we’re doing there to promote a series of fantastic new online courses that are designed for beginner musicians. Here’s a promo I came up with the concept for:

If you want to learn more, I’d love it if you checked them out at open.juilliard.edu.

See you guys soon. You’re great.

[xoxo-cooks]

How to Get Your First Tattoo, ft. Andrew Stortz

I think that one of the best things in life is when someone else takes your advice and it makes their life better. For years I've been telling practically everyone I know to make a YouTube channel, and recently, my cute brother actually did it. Even better, he drove down to visit a couple of weekends ago so I could help him film a video that was too big for him to tackle himself (my dream come true!).

We ran out of time to make a video for my channel while he was here, but still wanted to collaborate, so today's video is a split screen with him in Maine and me in Brooklyn. He's a professional tattoo artist and very good at what he does, so I picked his brain to get his best advice for how to get your first (or second or third) tattoo. It's useful info if you want to be sure to get a tattoo that's not terrible, and shows off some of his beautiful work, too--

[xoxo-cooks]

Argentine Baked Empanadas, ft. Daniela Mack, mezzo-soprano

One of the best things about creating this show is the people I get to meet.

This week, opera star Daniela Mack came over to make her grandma’s baked empanada recipe. Daniela is currently appearing in the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Dvořák's Rusalka.

These are fun to make, and great to heat up all week for lunch.

Empanadas de carne - Beef Empanadas Recipe

24 frozen empanadas discs

1lb ground sirloin

1 bunch scallions, chopped

2 medium yellow onions, chopped

1 large red pepper, chopped

1 cup pitted green olives, chopped

3 hard boiled eggs, yolks removed and chopped

1 tsp sugar

4 tbsp olive oil

Salt, pepper, oregano, cumin, red pepper (to taste)

1/2 cup white wine or white wine vinegar

1 egg, beaten

For sauce: 

3 tbsp butter

2-3 tbsp corn starch

2 cups milk

Salt, pepper, nutmeg to taste

Chop onions, pepper, scallions.Heat olive oil in large non stick pan. Place onions, red pepper and salt to taste in pan and sautée on medium heat until soft.

Add ground beef, sugar, and wine to pan and mix well. Mix in scallions. Season to taste. Cook until meat is browned. Remove from heat and transfer to a large bowl to cool. Set aside.

Melt butter in a small bowl in the microwave. Set aside to cool.

In medium saucepan, heat milk on medium heat. Add cornstarch while still cold and stir constantly until sauce reaches desired thickness (about 10-15 minutes). Pour in melted butter and stir in well. Add salt, pepper, nutmeg to taste and stir well. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Add room temperature sauce to beef mixture and mix well. Place mixture in fridge to cool for 2 hours (or overnight)

Chop hard boiled eggs and olives. Remove beef mixture from fridge and add hard boiled egg whites and olives. Mix well.

Place empanada discs on lightly greased cookie sheets. Add 1 tbsp beef mixture to center of each disc (or more depending on size of shells). Trace outer edges of discs with a little water, fold over into empanada shapes and fold/fork edges to seal. Brush each empanada with egg. Pierce a couple of times with a fork. Place in preheated oven (350 degrees) for 25-30 minutes or until golden.

[xoxo-cooks]

DIY Crunchy Glitter Slime ft. Just Eat Life

Some of my biggest sources of joy are the wonderful people in my life, including you. After living in Denver for a year and having a much smaller social network than I was used to, I especially appreciate the warmth of my friends in NYC and beyond. Friends are the people you can get silly with and forget any insecurities you may have out in the normal world. We got silly last weekend while visiting our friends Jen and Leo, who have been brought into our lives through YouTube. They create the channel Just Eat Life, and are just some of the kindest souls on the planet. Jen shared her love of crunchy slime with me, which turned out to be harder than we thought to come by.

Sign up for my email list for a dose of sunshine in your inbox every week.

[xoxo-cooks]

How to Quit Facebook (without quitting Facebook)

There's a lot of stuff on Facebook that's truly infuriating these days. I choose to just cut much of it out of my life. Unfriending, unfollowing---these are things we've all tried, but what if you could completely filter out things on certain topics? Find out how to do just that, along with some other Facebook productivity hacks in today's video. 

Here are our favorite tools for fighting the urge to check Facebook so you can stay more productive.

F.B. Purity

Stay Focused

[xoxo-cooks]

Wedding Planning Tips ft. QKatie

What's your feeling about weddings? A lot of people have a lot of opinions about them, and the industry built around it makes me a little crazy. My friend Katie is in the midst of planning her wedding, so I found myself sharing wedding and marriage tips over a recent lunch. I don't like any of the usual talk about wedding binders and $100,000 budgets and planning for the "best day of your life", so the conversation took a different path. It was an interesting chat, so we thought you might enjoy hearing what we talked about. AND we made the cutest tea sandwiches ever that are great for Valentine's Day.

Even if you aren't planning a wedding yourself anytime soon, I think it's helpful to remember some of these tips to be supportive of the people in your life who are (and comment to let me know what your best wedding/marriage tips are!).

Also, we made the most adorable heart-shaped tea sandwiches! Heart cookie cutters make everything cuter.

[xoxo-cooks]

Baklava Recipe ft. Greek in the City

Baklava is a sweet dessert with layered phyllo dough, nuts, and drizzled in honey. Featuring Chris from Greek in the City!

[xoxo-cooks]

How to Save Money in 2017

Saving money. Ugh, right? We all want to do it more and probably have some guilt about not doing it better. I was very lucky to build some airtight money habits while in my first job as an assistant working with a woman who is a personal finance beast. I learned that building a savings is not something just reserved for rich people I can't relate to. It's actually doable, even on your first salary right out of college with NYC expenses and student loans. And once you have savings, you have more flexibility to lead the kind of life that makes you happy. So if you want to save more this year, it all starts with one tip that you can do today (and it's not budgeting). I share it in today's video:

[xoxo-cooks]

International Travel Tips & Essentials

As you read this message, I'll be in flight on my way back from Vienna to NYC (yayyayayay!!!). I hope you have had a relaxing week, during what our Swedish family calls the "continuation"--continuation of holiday celebration between Christmas and New Years. Happy Continuation! Or I suppose we can actually just go with "Happy New Year" today ("Gott nytt ’r!" in Swedish; roughly pronounced goat-neat-oar). With our recent stint of travel coming to an end, I realized that Christian and I have accumulated quite a few travel habits to make living out of a suitcase in an Airbnb more comfortable. We compiled some of our top tips into today's video, and I hope it's helpful to you for any of your 2017 adventures!

[xoxo-cooks]

Vienna Christmas Market Adventures

Merry Christmas (if you do that...if not, I hope you are just having a rad non-Christmas weekend!)! Have you seen any perfectly curated photos of holiday cookies or lighted trees or family hugs on social media this week that made you feel jealous of someone else's holiday experience? I definitely have. I've been feeling pretty uprooted in the past couple of months with our cross-country move, so travelling this week has been extra draining. We had wonderful times with family in Maine and are now exploring Vienna with more wonderful family, but I'm mostly looking forward to getting back to our new apartment for some alone time. What the heck? So let's just stop for a second, put the phone down, look around, and appreciate all of the awesome that is each of our particular lives right now. You did some amazing things this year. You've had ups and downs and have learned a lot. Amazing people have come in and out of your life. You're more experienced and accomplished than ever. You have family and friends who love you and are better because they know you. There are probably some cookies in your general vicinity right now. Life is good. :) On the topic of enjoying wherever you are this holiday, today's video is our adventure yesterday checking out one of Vienna's famous Christmas markets. It was one of the shortest days of sunshine, so we had to get out early to find XXL donuts and hot chocolate out of a boot while it was still daylight.

[xoxo-cooks]

Maine Christmas Drone Fail & Christmas Cookies

As I write this, I'm at my brother's new log cabin home where it is literally 2 degrees fahrenheit outside. Luckily, I just got some brand new L.L. Bean slippers today from their flagship store, so my feet are nice and cozy! (Side note, did you know that you can return things to L.L. Bean for any reason? It's pretty incredible--buy something once, and swap it out every few years forever. "100% satisfaction guaranteed" and they really mean it.) Anyway, we have fully transitioned into holiday mode and are celebrating Christmas with my family this weekend in Maine before heading to Vienna to celebrate with Christian's family.   My brother is the best. To kick off some brother sister holiday bonding, we baked some elaborate late-night cookie quilts, and he showed off what his new drone could do. Things didn't go as planned on either project, but it's always nice to spend time with family even when things aren't perfect.

[xoxo-cooks]

Rainbow Bagels, Bone Broth, and Crazy Milkshakes in NYC

When you live in NYC for a while, you start to talk smack about tourists. They walk slowly, they look around with wonder, they think that Times Square is "downtown", they get up way too early to wait in line for Saturday Night Live. But when you live away from NYC for a while, it's nice to come back and embrace some of this wide-eyed tourist joy and wonder before it wears off. Last weekend we ventured out to taste-test three NYC foods that got trendy within the past year and feel a little touristy.

How does it feel the day after eating a rainbow bagel with funfetti cream cheese? 

What about that place where Casey Neistat had over the top milkshakes that one time?

Find out in today’s vlog--

[xoxo-cooks]

For me, I feel a power boost from my glasses. I put them on in the morning to bring my life into focus (literally...my vision is terrible), and look through some brightness and sparkle as I attack my day. 

Our lives require us to make a lot of decisions—studies have shown it’s about 35,000 every single day. When stressed about how to make the right choices, I like to remember that there are ultimately no right answers for the big and small decisions on life’s journey. 

It’s scary to try new things, but just going for them anyway and being brave through the fear and discomfort is how we grow. Just one step at a time. 

So I collaborated with my tattoo artist brother to create some limited edition enamel pins with brightness and badassery that we can wear every day to remember to tap into our inner bravery and keep moving forward. I hope you like them! You’re great! 

Check out the store.

[xoxo-cooks]

Thanksgiving in NYC! <3

I hope you had a chance to relax a bit over the past few days, whether or not you were celebrating Thanksgiving. We have had a whirlwind first week back in NYC, sleeping on an air mattress in an empty apartment while our stuff is still on a truck, saying yes to everything, and staying out late to catch up with friends a few nights in a row. It's so good to be back. Our move is still very much in process, so it was especially nice to have a familiar and love-filled place to enjoy Thanksgiving with friends in New Jersey. But as much as I look forward to the tradition of giving thanks and coming together each year, it is becoming more clear to me that I haven't been taught the whole story about the history of this holiday. Some thoughts on the topic in today's vlog--

[xoxo-cooks]

xoxo cooks 2016 Holiday Gift Guide

With the right tools, you can help your friends and family feel more inspired in the kitchen and beyond this year. I’ve compiled some of my favorite items that your favorite people will be very excited to receive as a gift. 

And they’re all under $30.

Check out the three lists over on my Kit page: