Around the Neighborhood- Bang Bang Pie Shop

(peep their adorable video below!)

So, basically anybody who knows where I live knows how much 

I am in love with it.

I talk it up like it is my over-achieving 5th grade son. 

I'd totally get an annoying bumper sticker about it if I could. 

Endless amounts of child-like love and excitement over here. 

Since Logan Square and I are still in the honeymoon phase, I thought

I'd take advantage of it and share some of my neighborhood food explorations.

The husband and wife owned pie shop Bang Bang Pies specializes in 

things that i'd trade my first born child for.

Biscuits. House-roasted coffee. PIE. 

At a place where "coffee is the new cupcake and pie is the new pie"

you are bound to have the best experience of your life.

I am a firm believer that it is always 

in your best interest to trust any restaurant with 

less than 5 items on its menu. 

My intuition was correct. Holy biscuits. 

Cuter than words should ever be able to describe, 

packed with soul, 

and some of the best

biscuits and pie i've had in my life. 

PS. If you have over 500 followers on instagram, you get a free biscuit.  

I will never be popular enough for free biscuits, but you might be! 

If you are, head on over and collect your biscuit popularity trophy.

Chorizo & Potato Hand Pies

The second it reaches a palatable 50 degrees,

 I barter away my tights and boots for shorts and skirts and jelly shoes

and never look back. 

It may be 50 degrees with the overcast skies stashing the sun behind

big breaths of wind and rain, I care not. 

It counts. 

The warmer months are always an amazing time for me. 

I'm like a weird round-faced Swede butterfly wrapped in a metaphorical

cocoon all year until the ground defrosts and green things start happening again. 

It's had me taking the long way home, daydreaming of summer and all

that it's going to bring.

I've been enjoying morning walks- exploring my new neighborhood,

people watching, and letting excitement for the

 months to come tickle in my guts.

So here's to you, rusty mailboxes and uneven sidewalks. 

To the dog tied up outside the bake shop waiting for his human

and lady in the striped shirt hugging her warm baguette to her chest as she bikes away.

To the old brick appartments, the sultry smell of coffee and toast, 

the tiny gardens popping up between the streets, and the gentle rustling of a

neighborhood waking up. 

We have months of mornings together ahead of us. 

I can tell that we are going to be friends.

These chorizo & potato hand pies are perfect company on morning strolls.
They are neat little pouches of meat and vegetables that take kindly to being
wrapped in napkins and stuffed in pockets to be whisked away
on morning adventures. 

This is a play on the traditional pasty, 
which are pie doughs stuffed with meat, potatoes and onions.
This is precisely that, but with a little more spunk than ground beef and russets.
Instead of being a hunk of beige stuffed with beige, these
hand pies are full of flavor and color and all kinds of latina spunk, naturally. 

Enjoy, ladies and gentlemen

Until the next!

Easter Brunch

Spittin' a little lifestyle-blog action at you guys.

No recipe here today.

Sorry folks, some recipes are meant to be kept between

me and my ham.

You understand.

This was my second Easter away from my family

and our long-lived holiday traditions of eating and then waiting

around until it's time to eat more.

 Last year I was left alone with boxed wine, tulips that I cut from

the planters in the middle of the city streets, and a quiche.

While that may sound strangely appealing, it was mostly just a little pathetic.

This year, we decided to have a sort of lonely-hearts club brunch

for all of us celebration-less Easter celebrators in the city.

I put on my best homemaker apron and churned out whipped honey butter,

a brown sugar glazed ham, honey dijon garlic herb potatoes, and a tacky kool whip

covered fruit salad to end all tacky kool whip covered fruit salads.

The weather was surprisingly lovely, 
which turned our brunch into a back porch picnic.

Salty meats, spring breezes,
who could ask for anything more?

 It was a lovely little time, kids.

I hope your easters were > than most things.

I really mean it.

Pinky swear.

Maple Bacon Mug Cake

Maple Bacon Mug Cake from Hattie Kotz on Vimeo.


7 years and one cheesecake ago, gold was struck.  

A sad friend was in the dumps, having recently been dumped by her high school boyfriend 

over the telephone. 

I, being shy and strange and awkward, extended consolation. 

In the ever-radient form of a Wonka Bar cheesecake, topped with 

Alanis Morrosette's head on a toothpick and words of girlpower and wisdom

ripped right out of a Spice Girls CD lyrics leaflet. 

This was the dawning of the best relationship both of us have ever been in. 

A best-friendship built to withstand harsh winds, the fiery depths of high school, 

tropical storms and copious amounts of teen angst.

7 years later, Mary and I are still going strong. 

Needless to say, this is the most successful rebound situation of all time. 

7 year itch, you say?

Nah. 

We still eat off each others plates. 

We still have synchronized taco cravings and 

appreciate each others abundant Full House references. 

We can still pick it back up like nothing has changed even if we haven't seen 

each other in months. 

Power couple, you say?
I say, yes. 

To make merry of our day together, we decided to fill my empty house with 

season 2 of GIRLS, bubbly breakfast beverages, blanket forts and

mugs full of maple bacon coffee cake. 

Perfect for those "Oh, they added a new Auschwitz documentary to Netflix?

 Good luck getting me to put pants on today!" kind of days,

this recipe is built for two..

or one person with two mugs...

or four people that particularly like sharing small portions of cake..

whichever strikes your fancy. 

I won't judge you. 

Here's a little flavor to keep your ears happy while you
 laze around with mugs of carbs and good friends.

Enjoy, lasses and lads!

                                             

Smoked Sea Salt Caramel & Chocolate Porter Float

I come bearing bad news. 

My cactus plant has committed suicide. 

He fell right off of his spot on the shelf in the kitchen all by himself.

I tried moving his companion cactus in with a few succulents 

to keep her company in these hard times, 

but she must have been too torn apart from her loss, 

for she too has now passed. 

But in the dark passing of two near and dear cactus friends 

some light has entered the dark plant atmosphere 

that currently exists in my kitchen. 

Tiny sprouts have started to lift their tiny sprout heads from the soil

where I have planted seeds in attempts to start an herb garden. 

They are teeny bundles of joy. 

I have named them all my tinies. 

I talk to them in high pitched voices 

and remind them how adorable and small they are.

Tiny plants have a lot going on, I surely wouldn't want them to forget. 

So, in fond memory of cacti come and gone and celebration of 

these new tinies, I give you these

 Smoked Sea Salt Caramel & Chocolate Porter floats. 

What better menial occasion to celebrate with the 
merging of two of my favorite things,

beer and ice cream?

The smoked sea salt caramel sauce brings out the smokey roasted notes in the Porter 

and compliments the rich coffee and chocolate flavors. 

Paired with a few scoops of vanilla ice cream, this float is the perfect way 

to make beer, well, dessert, which as always been a dream fo mine. 

For this float, I have chosen to use 

Edmund Fitzgerald by Great Lakes Brewery to represent my Cleveland-ness, 

but any chocolate porter or stout should come out on top. 

To represent my roomate's Colorado-ness, we also tried a vanilla porter

from Breckenridge Brewery in Colorado, 

which was inferior to the glory of the Edmund Fitzgerald, but still quite tasty.

Enjoy folks!

Lush Convert

So, in my experience attending college in this day in age,

 I have learned a new four letter word. 

That word is LUSH. 

If you mention the LUSH brand to any woman between the age of 14 and 40

they will get these big doe-y eyes on and melt into a puddle of 

rainbows right before your eyes. 

Like, you'd think someone just told them 

"Hey! We are remaking the old titanic and we are going to photoshop your face over Kate Winslet's for the whole movie!"

or

"Bambie's mom didn't die! It was an illusion!"

That kind of all-encompassing whole-body type reaction of the purest happiness possible. 

That happens. 

Every time.

Being one who is more apt to the $2 family sized bottle of shampoo and wouldn't 

know what to do with eyeshadow if I had to try, I was not

really jumping at the chance to climb aboard the LUSH love train.

However, this semester in my commercial photo studies, I was looking to step outside of my ever-comfortable food box.

I wanted to have an intent, a specific client, a brand to represent. 

I wanted to try something new. 

Of course, the first word out of everyones mouth was LUSH. 

So it happened. 

And I gotta say I am now on team LUSH. It's kind of like team Edward 

except for more expensive and less sparkly, probably. 

So, there is a little taste of what my school work looks like. 

As far as the actual products go, i'll give you a little 2 cents. 

The Shampoo Bars (pictured with the macaroons)-

They kick ass. That tiny little thing is going to wash my hair and make me

smell nice until September. Longevity is key when shopping for

cookie-looking shampoo related products. Hattie approved.

The Latte Lip Tint-

While i'm sure the only time that i'll ever use it is when I had to put it on to make those

lip marks on that mug, it is probably still a quality product.

 It was a little flossy for my personal taste (Shiny things and my face are not really on speaking terms)

but i'm sure it would make the right face really happy. 

It tasted good. 

That counts for things. 

The Cupcake Face Mask-

It made my oily teenage girl-esque skin feel very adult-like and not oily for a nice while. 

Always a good thing. 

Also, it smells delicious. I'm pretty sure that it probably also tastes delicious. 

I'll let you know. 

And a special thanks to my girl Bailey at Fritz Pastry for being an awesome assistant. 

Not just anybody will fluff and re-fluff your latte, and kiss a napkin for you,

and let your make a huge mess in the corner of their coffee shop. 

Nope, that is a special kind of love. 

So thanks, doll :)

Until the next, lovlies!