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Showing posts with label Cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cooking. Show all posts

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Roasted Vegetable Sandwich

Today I was craving the roasted vegetable sandwich from Nordstrom's Sixth & Pine restaurant but I have sooooo much housework to do so I decided to try and recreate it at home. Hitting two birds with one stone Titan got his exercise for the day by jogging up to Liberty Heights Fresh for my sammy ingredients. I adore this store they always have the most amazing bread their rosemary focaccia is worth every carb but I digress. 
I was able to grab all of the goods and spy on my puppy through their windows. We then trotted back and my exhausted boy sacked out on his new bed while I made this yummy treat.


1 red onion
2 bell peppers
pesto
bread (I used Ciabatta)
1 garlic clove
1/4 C olive oil
1 teaspoon basil oil
1 teaspoon roasted garlic oil
3 Tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar


Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Chop your veggies up and toss with a blend of the oils. Lay them all out on a foil lined baking sheet and place in the oven for ~25 minutes. 


Slice the loaf horizontally and place on another baking sheet in the oven to lightly toast.  I did a legit full crunch toast and just trust me you want it barely there, just a hint of crunch.  Your bread will be done before your veggies so pull it out and rub the garlic clove all over the loaf to infuse the bread with that garlicky goodness. I then slathered both sides with goat cheese followed by pesto.


 At this point the onions were soft so I knew the veggies were ready. Crank on the broiler and do NOT move! You want it charred but it does this SUPER quickly and you don't want your mushrooms to dehydrate. Load em up on your sammy and you are good to go.



Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Unfortunately I had to work Valentine's evening but when I got home my sweet hubby had an uber romantic evening planned. We started it off by making chocolate covered strawberries together.


We melted 3 squares of white chocolate with a Tablespoon of crisco to thin the chocolate for coating. If you had one of these handy dandy tiny tupperware containers that are useless for storing anything but happens to be perfect for dipping strawberries. It is important to lay the dipped on wax paper because if the chocolate hardens directly on the plate it will crack when you try to pick it up.

Leave a 1/4 C of the white chocolate in the pan throw in some dark chocolate chips and voila milk chocolate for drizzling purposes. Once melted together pour the chocolate into your average ziploc sandwich bag twist closed snip off the corner and drizzle away.


So Scrumptcious!!

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Pan Seared Rosemary Chicken in Balsamic Reduction with Carmelized Onions and Mushrooms

 This dish is one of the most amazing things I have ever made. I have no words. 


2 lb Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast
1 large yellow onion
2 sprigs of rosemary
1 1/2 C of mushrooms (your choice)
1 C of Chicken Broth
6 T butter
1 C Heavy Cream
1/2 C Parmesan Cheese
2 T Balsamic Vinegar
Salt and Pepper

Melt 3 T of butter in a cast iron skillet and sear the chicken. Set chicken aside reduce heat to medium and add the last of the butter in the pan and caramelize the sliced onion. Add 1/2 C of chicken stock and deglaze the pan. Pour in the heavy cream, chicken broth, balsamic vinegar, and the sprigs of rosemary. Toss the mushrooms in (I quartered portabellos) and let simmer for ten minutes. Slowly add the cheese stirring constantly. When completely combined slice the chicken and add it back into the sauce. Simmer ten to fifteen minutes more until sauce is reduced. Plate and devour my friends.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Garlic and Rosemary Roasted Salmon and Asparagus

I saw this recipe on the fabulous Meredith Steele's In Sock Monkey Slippers blog and just had to try it. This dish is delicious and incredibly healthy.



Ingredients:

  • 1 lb salmon fillet
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • 2 sprigs of rosemary leaves
  • salt (I used kosher)
  • pepper
  • olive oil
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Chop garlic and rosemary. Drizzle lightly with olive oil and season salmon then gently press garlic and rosemary into the fillet. Bake for ~11 minutes.

Asparagus:

Chop off the last half inch of the asparagus stalks. Toss with olive oil and minced garlic spread on a baking sheet and place in the oven under broiler on high. Keep an eye on it I like mine on the crispier side so I leave it in there for ~9 minutes and flip it half way through. Cooking time can vary with the thickness of the stalk as well so when in doubt remove a stalk and take a bite.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

The $250 "Neiman" Cookie Recipe

So urban legend says that this amazing chocolate chip oat cookie recipe was sold by "Neiman Marcus" to a customer for a whopping $250. Obviously when the customer realized her misinterpretation of "two fifty" she tried to have the charge removed and the department store refused so as a woman scorned she  gave the recipe away! 

In reality I have no idea where this recipe came from but word on the Internet is "Neiman Marcus" and what source is more reliable than the web?
**Please note the sarcasm dripping from my text**


Yes, I may have bit the cookie before I snapped a shot. 
Don't judge me. I have no self control.

Ingredients:
  • 2 C butter
  • 2 C sugar
  • 2 C brown sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 t vanilla
  • 4 C flour
  • 5 C blended oatmeal (quaker oats work great)
  • 1 t salt
  • 2 t baking powder
  • 2 t baking soda
  • 24 oz bag of chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream the butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla. Combine with the rest of the dry ingredients. Roll into balls on cookie sheet and bake ~8 minutes until the edges are golden brown.



****The story regarding Neiman Marcus was an urban legend I found on the internet= NOT true****

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Guacamole

Growing up in Texas guacamole was a staple in our household. I may no longer live in the greatest state ever formed but I can still make a mean bowl of guacamole.


Ha and he said he didn't like guacamole when we were dating.
Ingredients:
  • 6 ripe avocados
  • 1 small/medium purple onion
  • 1 jalapeño 
  • 1 red bell pepper
  • 1 yellow pepper
  • 1-2 limes
  • cilantro
  • kosher salt
Instructions:
**Check out this Easy Trick to Cutting Bell Peppers**

Cut avocados in half and remove pit. take a knife and carefully score the avocado diagonally without piercing the outer skin. Rotate the avocado 90 degrees and carefully score diagonally until you have diamond shaped cuts in the avocado. Scoop the avocado meat out with spoon into a bowl and mash with a fork. Go slowly with this part as everyone prefers the guac a little different I like mine on the chunky side while my hubby like it a little creamier. You can always mash more but you cannot go back. 

Dice the onion, bell peppers, and jalapeño and mix in. Again I caution you to do this slowly as I love lots of veggies in mine but you may prefer less. Roll the lime on a hard surface to soften the membranes and release the juice. Cut in half and and squeeze one half at a time and taste as you go. add a pinch of salt. A little goes a long way.**Remember you will be eating this with SALTY tortilla chips** 

Chop as much or little cilantro as you'd like. I love it and have been known to put in the whole bunch!

Easy Trick to Cutting a Bell Pepper

Anyone watch Chuck Hughes' show Chuck's Day Off?! It is amazeballz! I recently watched an episode where he diced up a bell pepper. Big whoop right? Well it turns out I have been doing it all wrong! 


Lop off the top and bottom


Cut down a side


Slice through all the membranes and completely remove all the guts of the bell pepper in one whole chunk. Pretty slick, huh?!


Slice and dice as you see fit

For those of you smarty pants that already figured this method out...quit laughing!

For the rest of you, try this ASAP soooo much easier than cleaning up all those pesky seeds.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Hot Apple Cinnamon Cider

My Brother-in-Law made this cider at a family get together at my Aunt's cabin in Ruidoso, NM. The hubby immediately fell in love with it as it contained a powerful kick of his favorite spice CINNAMON! I swear he is obsessed check out a list of his favorite goodies on this post if you don't believe me. As every good wifey knows when your honey expresses interests in someone else's dish you better get that recipe!




Ingredients:
  • 1 gallon of your favorite apple juice
  • 1 lb bag of Brach's cinnamon hard candy (you can use another cinnamon hard candy like red hots)
  • ~3 cinnamon sticks
  • pinch of cloves
Instructions:

Add all of your ingredients to a large pot over medium-med high heat. Make sure to stir frequently to keep the candies from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Once the candy has dissolved you are ready to serve. Be aware the cinnamon flavor deepens as it sits so if you love cinnamon leave it in if not remove the sticks and cloves.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Lemon Bundt Cake

"There is a hole in this cake". Every time I see a bundt cake I think of the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. My latest bundt sighting occurred at the in-laws. I then proceeded to recite the scene from MBFGW to my Mother-in-Law. Chick flicks didn't really make it to movie night with raising a boy so I have taken it upon myself to catch her up. Real selfless of me to veg on the couch watching girly feel good movies dontchya think?!

This lemon bundt cake was such a delightful treat and the citrus glaze has such a bright amazing tang to it. 



Cake Ingredients:
  • 1 pkg yellow cake mix
  • 2/3 C vegetable oil
  • zest of 1/4 of a lemon
  • 2/3 C hot water
  • 4 eggs
Cake Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bundt pan and then lightly dust with flour. Mix all of the ingredients until well blended. Place in center of oven and bake for ~ 40 minutes until lightly browned.
Let cool 10 minutes.

Glaze Ingredients:
  • 1 C sifted confectioners' sugar 
  • 4 T fresh lemon juice 
  • 3 t lemon zest
Glaze Instructions:

Combine ingredients until smooth. Remove cake from pan and drizzle glaze on top. Slice and enjoy! 

**This recipe is adapted from the “The Cake Mix Doctor” by Anne Byrn.**

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

Matt has graduated! Woo Hoo!! My hubby officially has Bachelor degrees in Political Science and Psychology. He is currently applying to Clinical Psychology Doctoral Programs (PsyD) all over the U.S., it will be a fun adventure. In the meantime my new semester has started and Hubby has gone a little stir crazy. The other night I came home to these magnificent chocolate chip pumpkin cookies.



He used his Momma's recipe and man oh man are they good!
Ingredients:
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1 C vegetable oil
  • 1 (16 oz) can pumpkin
  • 2 tsp milk
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 2 C sugar
  • 4 C flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 4 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 (12 oz) pkg chocolate chips (we prefer the larger chips)
Instructions:

Combine sugar and oil. Stir in pumpkin, milk, vanilla, and eggs. Blend well. Sift flour with dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture. Fold in chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoon or small ice cream scoop onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 375 degrees for ten minutes or until done. Makes ~ 6 dozen cookies.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Game Day Chili

My dad came in town from AZ to give my baby brother ("baby" meaning gigantic younger brother that towers over me) a new car!

Whenever he is in UT we have family bonding time over good food at his buddy Yaz's house. They became friends flying F-16s in the Air Force and have remained so ever since. 

Usually my dad is the cook but Yaz whipped out the big guns for this visit and hit a home run with Cooks Illustrated's Our Favorite Chili.
Doesn't that look AMAZING?! 
You remember a fore mentioned "baby" brother?
 
Yeah he thought it was pretty dang good too.
This was his fourth bowl...
I only had one.
Next time I vote he gets his own pot.

Monday, December 31, 2012

Guest Blogger: Lisa from Letting It All Hangout


 Hey everyone! My friend Lisa from Letting It All Hangout has graciously agreed to share one of her yummy recipes with us. She is a fellow wife and momma to not only two puppydawgs but also two of the cutest lil munchkins you could ever meet!

Psole Recipe:
I have to say my husband (who is Mexican) is pretty picky when it comes to Mexican food because he grew up on his grandma's cooking and she's an excellent cook! So when I was given this amazing recipe for the yummy soup, Psole, I jumped at the opportunity to see how good it was. Turns out this is such an easy recipe and tastes amazing!!! The best part is that it makes enough for leftovers!

What you'll need:

Serving 4-6 people

Prep Time: 30-45 mins             Cook Time: 1-2 hours

1 family pack of porkchops (bone in or boneless both work)/ if you don't like pork chicken also works with this recipe
1 15oz or 8oz can of tomato sauce
2 chicken bullion cubes
2 garlic cloves minced or garlic powder works great too
6-8 anahiem peppers
1 dried red pepper
1 medium can of Hominy
1 Bay leaf


1. Brown your meat, then cube your meat and put into crock pot or a big pan. Add a little bit of water enough to cook the meat until tender. Add 1 chicken bullion cube, the bay leaf and 1 clove of garlic into the pan to help flavor the meat.

2. While the meat is cooking, roast your peppers. I don't have a grill or a special pan I just turn on my oven to a low broil and put the peppers on the top rack until they the skin starts to look brown, then I rotate to get that affect over the entire pepper. It doesn't have to be 100% brown but roasted. Once I get the look I want I take the peppers out and put them in cold water and remove the top lay of the pepper. I just use my fingers and runthem over the peppers you'll notice the skin will start to peel off a little bit.

3. Once the peppers are skinned then cut the top off and de-seed it if you don't want it too spicy. Keep the seeds for a little more kick. Put all the peppers into a blender. Next add in the tomato sauce, other garlic, and chicken bullion cube. Add the dried red pepper and blend all together. (The dried red pepper also adds a kick to the soup if you need it a little less spicy I wouldn't add it in.)

4. Once the meat is cooked add the sauce you made in the blender to the pan. Then add the can of hominy. Mix and cook on low-medium heat for about an hour-2 hours depending on how long you want to wait.

That's it!  This is really one of the easiest meals I have ever made.

To really make it good you'll also want to add the toppings.

It's traditionally served with chopped up cabbage or lettuce and a combination of diced onions and cilantro. Add both of those on top of the soup and it tastes even better!

The best part about Mexican cooking is that the spiciness is really in your hands. This recipe above gives it just enough of a kick that you're not sweating as you eat it.  So I encourage you to really play with it and fine tune it to your liking.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Do you like your bacon crispy?

I love Love LOVE bacon. Who doesn't?

Growing up bacon was a bit of a bone of contention in our house. 
 Crispy vs Soft.
 I am Team Crispy all the way none of that limp fatty stuff for me!

An unfortunate side effect of being Team Crispy is shrinkage. I have never been able to get a crispy strip of bacon without it coming out half the size of the piece I started with. 
Until, I met my father-in-law who introduced me to this lil beauty.

As you can see Titan knows that the Power Crisp means bacon.

 He is so sweet to selflessly give up his free time to come supervise my bacon making skills.

I really did have every intention of taking a shot of the crispy bacon on a plate so you could clearly see the lack of shrinkage but between the Power Crisp and the plate the pieces disappeared. 
Hubby or Puppy?

Friday, December 14, 2012

Green Smoothie

To make this bad boy I revved up my Breville and juiced:
  • 2 green apples
  • 1 C spinach
  • 1C pineapple
Then I  poured the juice into my blender and added...
 It is my favorite breakfast!


Sunday, December 2, 2012

Veni, vidi, vici! Kicked Juice Fast Bootay!!

Annalyn and I did it! 
We went four days on juiced fruits and vegetables.

In hindsight it wasn't all that hard.  I had myself prepped for these terrible cravings but to be honest the juices filled me up. However I craved chewing. I know it sounds weird but stick with me here. My thought process is chewing is a habit and I think mentally ingesting food goes hand in hand with chewing but when juicing there is no need but you feel like you should...am I making any sense?

My husband was positively hilarious throughout this challenge.

When we were drinking this
and this

He was Sending my sister and I pictures of this

 and this
 and this
He even left me this
Thats right this lil beauty was sitting right next to my juicer!

I know the big question will be did we cheat.

The answer...

Chelsea: Yes. Day 2 my professor passed around a bag of Werther's Originals and I popped one in my mouth without even thinking about it.
Annalyn: Yes. Day 3 I did Insanity and felt light headed so I had some cheese.

The important thing: we did NOT quit!

Some of our favorite juices are:
Wiwi Juice
Healthy Smoothie for Juicers
Pink Bliss Juice 

Wiwi Juice


This cute video is of my nephew, Aiden, introducing the ingredients of my sissy Annalyn's favorite juice.

Juice
            • 2 "wiwis" a.k.a kiwis 
            •  2 green apples
            • 1/2 C blackberries 
            • 1/2 C pineapple
            • 1/2 cucumber

Healthy Smoothie for Juicers


Juice
              • 2 green apples
              • 1 pear
              • 1 kiwi
              • 1 1/2 C pineapple
              • 1 C spinach/kale
Blend

Put your juice in the blender with one or two bananas (I freeze my bananas beforehand) and blend. Add ice two cubes at a time and once you reach desired consistency drink up.

Pink Bliss Juice


Juice
            • ~8 strawberries
            • 2 green apples
            • 1/2 pomegranate
            • 1 pear 
            • 1 kiwi
            • 1/2 C pineapple
            • 1 C spinach/kale


Monday, November 26, 2012

Juicing Challenge

My sissy, Annalyn, and I have decided to do a four day juice fast starting 11/27/12. We have been discussing how we are going to keep each other on track and I decided to make a blog post to keep me honest. 

We both have Breville Juicers and blenders
which will really make this challenge a lot easier while at home but it is a little hard to juice at work and school and lugging around a blender is not an option.

Annalyn will be drinking V8s when all else fails. 
I am lucky enough to work within walking distance of a Roxberry that sells great smoothies and juices.

We both are looking for good recipes. 
So far I have found...





We will post updates as we go and let y'all know how it turns out!

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Overnight Caramel French Toast

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, I know that we did. As semi newlyweds (We have been married over a year but I can still call us newlyweds right?!) we still get to double up on the holidays trying to spend time with each family which translates to TWO family thanksgiving dinners. 

My mom hosted an early Thanksgiving and is really big into family games so after dinner she brought out a game called HedBanz. I wish I had taken a picture of everyone playing but I was too into the game! It is a fun guessing game that I would highly recommend to anyone. 

On the actual Turkey day my Hubby had to work at the hospital for a good chunk of it so my MIL ended up cooking the entire meal herself. This turned up to be a stressful task as she had done a self clean on her ovens the night before and now one of them wont unlock so she was down to one oven with multiple dishes to bake and only two hands to do it with. Everything turned out amazing but as you can imagine cooking breakfast the next morning was the last thing she wanted to do after a day of slaving in the kitchen. So when she ran across a recipe for overnight french toast she decided to give it a shot. 

And this heavenly treat is what we got.