patticake

pretzel bottomed brownies

2011-09-07T21:22:00.000-04:00

You know how some recipes just kinda reach out and grab ya? Yeah, that's what happened when I saw this recipe. It got me spinnin' round and round.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Here we got a pretzel bottom crust and then the brownie layer with chocolate chips and butterscotch chips mixed in.

The salty and sweet combination is just so delicious. And addicting.

cake batter cashew butter

2011-09-07T20:46:00.000-04:00

So I had never heard of cashew butter before I found this recipe. Cake batter? Yes, I've heard of that one. But cashew butter, no. However, I suppose there is almond and peanut butter so how should cashew butter be any different?

It really isn't, folks. And this recipe uses almond and vanilla extract to give it a cake batter-y aroma.

So away I went, mashin' up cashews in the food processor. So word of the wise: use a real sized food processor, as in not a mini one, like I did. You will burn out your mini food processor. Like I did.

Once the cashews are ground up and smooth-ish (I had to add a tablespoon or two of olive oil to smooth it out), add your vanilla and almond extracts. Another word of the wise, do not add the sprinkles in WITH the extracts. Or else your sprinks will start to melt away, like you can see in the bottom picture. Whoops. So I just added extra sprinkles to compensate for my losses :)

End result: delicious cashew butter. I'll have to admit, it's a big different taste than peanut butter, and for some reason, I was not expecting that. I've just eaten it as a dip for pretzels, but I'm sure it'd be great on a sandwich!

baking with janine

2011-09-07T20:29:00.000-04:00

I'm going to start calling my friends "from my nutrition program" "my dietitian friends" :) 'Cause you know, we're soon to be young professionals taking the world by storm with our vast knowledge of food and the body.

Young dietitian professionals who.....ermm.....bake obscene desserts in their spare time.

And devour them with gusto.

Okay, so what was in these puppies? The kitchen sink? The world? Everything your heart could desire? Yes, yes, and yes.

But hopefully it won't give you a heart attack.

These guys were chocolate cupcakes with chocolate chunks filled with ganache, frosted with peanut butter frosting, drizzled with ganache, and topped with a brownie chunk.

Phew.

I already feel my glucose levels rising. But they sure were delicious :)

cupcake extravaganza!

2011-07-07T16:34:00.001-04:00

So once upon a time this summer, I had an urge. A cupcake urge. They demanded to be maked, baked, and eated.

Actually, a trip to the mall inspired these cupcakes! We have a new cupcake shop called Just Baked, where they serve up an obscene number of cupcake flavors. Think flavors like Banana Split, Drumstick (yes, after the ice cream), Snocap, and Cinnamon Donut. So off I went in my own kitchen to devise some flavors of my own.

These three ingredients were the inspiration behind my creations:

Peppermint Patties!

Trail mix!

Graham crackers!

Basically, I raided the cupboards to find some delicious things to fill and top the cupcakes with. I settled on three different flavors: Peppermint Pattie, Trail Mix, and S'Mores. I baked up chocolate cupcakes (yeah, yeah, okay, I used a box mix), and baked in graham crackers for the S'more cupcakes.

Then I proceeded to make the most sugary concoction of frosting ever. I took out a third of the frosting from the batch and stirred in chopped up marshmallows and chocolate chunks to top the S'More cupcake. It ended up looking like a messy mass of goodness. Super sweet, but super delicious! Trail Mix cupcakes were frosted with plain frosting and then dipped in a mix of granola, chocolate chips, and raisins. Yummm!!! Peppermint Pattie cupcakes were dipped in, you guessed it, chopped Peppermint Patties!

Let's just say that they came out very, very goooooood. And basically, store-bought cupcakes may be delicious, but it's super easy to create your own at home :)

yummy snack

2011-04-11T15:13:00.001-04:00

Oatmeal + brown suga + raisins + almonds + cinnamon = yummy snack

Lately I've been putting cinnamon and raisins in a lot of random things. Vanilla yogurt it also a good one to try! I think it's probably because of the AMAZING Cinn-A-Stack pancakes Matt and I had at IHOP the other day. If you haven't tried these puppies yet, you NEED TO. It's like....cinnamon roll-deliciousness in pancake form. Go to IHOP. Get the pancakes. You won't be sorry.

But for now, I suppose cinnamon-y oatmeal will have to do until my next encounter with these pancakes.

Again....anyone know how to rotate pics on Blogger??

rainy banana scones

2011-04-06T14:41:00.001-04:00

I haven't blogged a legit recipe blog in forever! So here goes. It's nearing the end of the semester, and full-blown procrastination methods have swooped in. This baking episode was inspired by the four lonely, sad-looking brown bananas that were sitting on my shelf and did not want to go into the freezer to be used for later. Enter: BANANA SCONES.

Okay, now these guys are GOOD. And by that, I mean I could eat the entire batch, no prob. They're soft and fluffy, could be a little flakier, but that's okay, and full of banana flavor. The only downside is that the batter gets reallllly wet from the bananas, so you might have to add a bit (or a lot) more flour to make it pliable. But yeah. Really. Good.

Oh, and we're calling them Rainy Banana Scones because....it's raining! And all it makes me want to do is crawl back into bed and be lazy. Alas, my next class is in a half hour, so that can't happen, unfortunately.

Oh! And more exciting things! Pictured below (with the delicious scones) is a photo that I framed and matted for an art auction on campus! The money from the auction will go to some charity - I don't remember which one, whoops - and it was open for anyone to submit art! So here's to hoping mine goes for a ton of cash ;)

Ps: How do I flip pics in this new Blogger set-up???

Rainy Banana Scones
Adapted from Banana Scones

1 stick butter, cold and cut into cubes
1/2 cup milk (I used almond milk - adds good sweetness)
1/2 tsp. vanilla (oops! I just realized I forgot this! But they came out delicious anyway, so omit if you're feeling adventurous)
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. sugar, plus more for dusting
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
2 bananas, cut into cubes

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the butter and cut with a pastry cutter (or fork) until the chunks of butter are roughly pea-sized. Add the milk and cut a few more times til it starts to come together. Add in the bananas and cut until the dough comes together, adding a little more flour if your dough is too wet from the bananas.

Remove the dough onto a cooking sheet sprayed with nonstick cooking spray and pat into an 8-inch circle. Cut into eighths, sprinkle with sugar, and bake for 20-25 minutes (I had to bake mine for 30 min). Serve warm or at room temperature. Really good with butter! Or peanut butter! Or....spray butter.

honeypie

2011-03-12T17:37:00.000-05:00

I love love and seeing people in love. The end :)

I feel like eating the world today :)

2011-03-12T17:32:00.000-05:00

why can't I sleep?

2011-03-08T02:22:00.002-05:00

See above. Maybe it was the cup of coffee I had promptly at 6pm in order for it to help me stay awake to finish up my paper due Wednesday. Well, cup of coffee, here I am. Awake. Yet exhausted. And not motivated to write this paper and not yet in paper-writing groove even after a day of staring at my computer screen.

Thanks, cup of coffee. Gee thanks.

It's like my mind is....blank. I have nothing to write about for once. How can that be? When I try to write my paper? Blank. When I try to sleep? Blank sleeplessness.

Also. This blog is slowly transforming into a non-cooking blog. Hmmm. I don't know how I feel about that. But I'm liking just posting random thoughts and musings and posts on here.

TOMORROW (errr.....today) IS FAT TUESDAY! BREAK OUT THE CHOCOLATE, COOKIES, PIE, CAKE, AND ICE CREAM!

Also. Isn't life funny? We go on, day after day after day. Some days are not so hot, some are fantabulous, some are piece of shit days, and some are what we would call the best days of our life.

Year after year, growing, changing, moving, staying, learning, creating, talking, eating, sleeping, loving, teaching. The end.

And I still can't sleep. I am kind of hungry, actually. And it is Fat Tuesday. It's a good day to be hungry.

waltz to our 3/4, cause you put the art in my heart

2011-02-21T18:13:00.000-05:00

This is probably one of the best things I've ever seen. I've been singing it in my head all day, and it makes me want it to be summer and wear a sundress and eat ice cream and play on a playground :)

it's beautiful, and I want you to realize it.

2011-02-21T01:12:00.005-05:00

About a week or so ago, a girl from my high school died in a car accident. Her name was Erica. She was 19. She was a sophomore at Grand Valley. I never knew Erica, but a lot of my friends from high school knew her, loved her, and were friends with her.

Yes, people in my life have died over the years. I've often heard people say that it was unfair for someone to die, yet I never seemed to grasp the full meaning of that: the unfairness of death. Maybe it was wrong of me to say that, but it is how I always felt. I felt people died for a reason or it was simply their time to leave Earth.

How is it, then, that this one beautiful girl whom I have never met, never talked to, never even knew of before her death has made me realize this? The week after she died, I couldn't help but think about her everyday, to wonder how her family, friends, and everyone she touched was able to go on without her. I thought a lot that week, about how precious life is, how important it is to love one another, be kind to one another, and how easily our lives can be taken away.

I never knew Erica. But I've heard a lot about her in the past two weeks: she was happy. She was funny, clever, a good friend, a good listener. She was beautiful. She was smart, full of life, and lit up the room when she walked in it.

This whole thing has made me wonder about people and get angry at a few of them. Life is so precious, why would you ever put it at risk and intentionally hurt your body? Why are people so hurtful towards others sometimes, or argue about things that don't even matter? Why do people judge others, worry about their looks, their weight, their image, and what other people think about them? Why can't we all just openly love and appreciate each other without reservation?

Yes, I know this all sounds very hippie-esque or even naive, but it's true. And it's sad that it takes an innocent life to realize all of these things. We waste a lot of our time with inconsequential worries and preoccupations. It is sad that these things weigh us down and sometimes keep us from truly living.

I never met Erica, but from knowing her through others, I'm going to try to live a little more, to let go of things that bother me. Because there is no point to it. At all. I'm pretty big fan of life as it is, but there is always room for improvement.

And everyone. Life is beautiful, and I want you to realize it.

dance with me, darling

2011-02-01T01:14:00.000-05:00

"I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind."
- neil gaiman

pseudo finals

2011-01-27T04:54:00.000-05:00

It feels like it's finals week, and it's only the last week in January.

God help us.

The end.

sensuous oasis

2011-01-26T02:47:00.000-05:00

This weekend, I went to visit my friend, Namira, up at that school called MSU. While I will always be partial to UM's campus (for obvious reasons), Namira did have quite the sensuous oasis of an apartment. Thanks to her sheer canopy over her Tempur-Pedic bed.

Oh, and there is Nishat studying her life away in her cute lil hat :)

I seriously can't sleep. I drank PepsiMAX for the first time today (because I was falling on my face circa 6:30pm even after a nap), and boy, did it do its job. A little too well. But I did get a ton of work done like I wanted to, phew.

P.S. Time is going by way to fast, semester-wise. What the heck, life, what the heck.

P.P.S. I really need to get back on the food-blogging train.

P.P.P.S. Thanks to PepsiMAX, now I am just hyper at 3am and can't fall asleep. Thank goodness my trusty roommate is up, too, so we can be ridiculous together and laugh at water-gulping, crazy people, and (highly) unlikely dating scenarios for our friend.

P.P.P.P.S. GOODNIGHT, WORLD.

a bushel and a peck, and a hug around the neck

2011-01-25T01:59:00.002-05:00

live your life with arms wide open

2011-01-16T23:54:00.000-05:00

Hiiiii all :) Have not posted in awhile. Not that I haven't been baking! I have! Just haven't posted. So sorry :(

Anyway, here is a short 'lil update on the things that have been on my mind lately:

1. Sledding is awesome. And currently have an extremely sore tail bone.

2. I rediscover this song over and over again, and every time I do, I fall in love with it all over again. It's just so happy! And optimistic! And empowering! And.....happy!

3. I have so many great friends. I am so lucky to have so many people in my life who I can go to for guidance and to share great experiences with.

4. My fam's pretty sweet, too :)

5. I have the most wonderful person in my life right now.

6. I love four day weekends.

7. Andddd Starbuck's is closing, so that means I, too, must go.

you were strong and you believed

2010-12-08T15:28:00.002-05:00

Yes, my friends, it is finals season. Which makes me want to eat things like what is pictured above :) I shotty the M&M one. And the green frosting-Oreo cookie-topped one for that matter.

I want to go to there instead of this library.

I want to stand in awe in front of a magnificent scenery rather than a magnificent colored-coded 4-page study guide.

And this is a good finals song to get you motivated.

Be strong, believe.

lucky

2010-11-29T01:08:00.003-05:00

Rawr. Can't sleep. Again. This time I am blaming it on the 2.5 hour nap I promptly took at 6pm today. However, I am thankful that this does not happen on a nightly basis like it does with some people. So I consider myself lucky.

In other news, yesterday was my good friend's bachelorette party. It was a ridiculously great time with some girls I am lucky to call my closest friends for over half of my life. Half of my life. Isn't that crazy? What also is crazy, however, is how much older my friends and I are all getting. No, we're not sportin' the walker yet, but just the fact that one of us in our group is getting married. Married! That's forever! And forever is a very, very long time. It feels like yesterday when we were that group of high school girlfriends who sustained themselves on scrapbook parties, Disney movies, laughing so hard it hurt, and downing insane amounts of food. Now, we talk about college, new jobs, boyfriends, our friend's wedding, someone's crazy weekday night at the bar. And we still laugh so hard that it hurts.

Oh. Yeah. And down insane amounts of food.

I look back to the high school days and reflect on our friendship today. While we have all slightly changed since the day we first met, we really are the same people, the same personalities as we were in the past, only older. The main change is confidence, and that confidence has interwoven itself into molding our young adult personalities. It's a cool thing, really.

And I am lucky to have these fabulous young women in my life.

happy birthday to you

2010-11-29T00:49:00.002-05:00

About a month ago, I made this for Matt's 22nd birthday:

WOW WEEEE SUGAR OVERLOAD! Where did this concoction come out of my brain? I just don't know.

So what exactly is in this puppy? Oh, let me tell you. In list form, because it is just that complicated.

Bottom to top....

Chocolate chip cookie

M&Ms

Peanut butter swirled into cookies and cream ice cream

Crushed Baby Ruths

Pumpkin Peep border

My greatest fear for this ice cream thing was that it just wasn't going to taste good. Just by the fact that everything under the sun was in it. BUT LO AND BEHOLD it was delicious. Served in small portions, of course, unless you are like Matt and have the world's greatest sugar tolerance. Make it for that special someone today and watch a grin spread across their face.

it's wonderful, and I want you to realize it.

2010-11-18T01:50:00.001-05:00

I can't sleep. Why why why am I sleepy in the day time and awake when I'm supposed to be going to bed? Was it the iced green tea I promptly downed circa 8pm? Was it the cool fall breeze that snapped my senses into full throttle gear as I walked home? Who knows.

This is one of my favorite things. And this.

Not gonna lie, I think this all the time. Even as I was walking home tonight, all I could see was the beauty of the night, the moon, the stars, the shadows of life scurrying through the cold to their warm beds. Does any one else ever feel that they want to shout things to the world at the top of their lungs and just feel their insides smiling? And are just happy to "be"? And are just amazed that they are a part of this huge ginormus world? Of which we are part of this even more ginormus galaxy? Yeah. Simple things like that blow my mind far too often.

I suppose it is life that blows my mind. How certain people come and go, in and out and sometimes even back again into our lives. Over and over again. And how some of those people will be there forever, watching you age, and grow, and learn, and fail, and succeed, and live. Over and over again.

I think sometimes about the people who have came and left. What did I learn from them? Did I learn anything from all of those comers and goers? I hope so. I think so.

And all while this coming and going and staying happens, the world stays the same. The seasons, the days, the months, the holidays, one after another, over and over again. And it really does go by quicker as you grow older. And it continues to blow my mind.

I don't know what I'm getting at. But possibly, maybe, you know what I mean. I know what I mean. And it's wonderful, and I want you to realize it.

shitballs

2010-11-08T23:37:00.000-05:00

I don't usually have a crude sense of humor, really.

But c'mon, you have to admit....they really do look like shitballs. And I also call them this because I just threw a bunch of....errrr, shit....(but delicious things, mind you) together to make a ball o' sugar deliciousness that held it's shape. Kinda.

So yeah, they are hanging out in my freezer right now in hopes of them keeping their shape better. We'll see how the housemates like 'em.

mmc

2010-10-11T03:05:00.001-04:00

While I have baked something delicious lately, I will post about the chocolate-peanut-butter-Resee's-cupcakes-of-deliciousness later. By the way....happy birthday SHOUT OUT to Raluca, Emily, Edgybeth, and Jen. There have been on obscene number of birthdays in the fast few days. Am I complaining? Not at all.

So this post isn't about cupcakes, nor yummy bread, nor chocolate, nor turkey a la king - bear with me on the a la king, I've felt spaced out for the past few days, people.

This post is about my cousin. It's about how awesome she is, funny she is, level-headed yet teenage-y, down to earth she is, truthful she is, and how proud I am of her. It's about how she's the closest thing I have to a sister and how much I love her. Even though she is six years younger than me, she is wise. And though she is wise, she speaks her mind with frankness and fervor. And she has a wonderful mind that can think pretty damn well. She is motivating, inspiring, and a hard-worker. Actually, she is one of the hardest workers I have ever known. She lives and loves with a passion and has this infectious zest for life.

So, Marianne, I am honored to be your cousin, confidante, fellow giggly-gossiper, pseudo-sistah, and friend. I love learning from you, and I hope I have taught you some important things, as well. You rock, girlfriend.

:)

sprinkles + chocolate cupcake = a happy mouth

2010-09-28T21:45:00.004-04:00

Yes, hold on to your hats, it is time for a Midnight Baking Session.

GET EXCITED

Eye-in' up that delicious vanilla-y goodness. All ready to be schmeared onto a chocolate chip cupcake.

Ohhhhhh, ahhhhhh, oh me, oh my.

And there they are. All I did was bake chocolate cupcakes, poured in some chocolate chips in the mix before dividing the batter up into muffin tins, and frosted and sprinkled them with happiness.

Nom nom nom.

you think it's a pizza....

2010-09-07T14:31:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time not so long ago, there was a guy named Matt.

He was a sweetie and helped a girl named Patti set up for a farmers market one rainy Thursday. She decided to bake a GIANT chocolate chip cookie to thank him.

It turned out fabulously.

Matt loved the chocolate chip cookie pizza, and even tore a huge chunk of it off and devoured it with a grin on his face. However....little did Matt know that his suspicious-looking housemates were lurking around the corner, waiting to snatch up his delicious cookie pizza when he least expected it.

In the morning, when Matt wanted another chunk of cookie pizza, to his dismay, it had VANISHED!!! His housemates had devoured it behind his back!

Matt was sad, but Patti promised to bake him more delicious things. And the housemates were very full of delicious cookie pizza.

The end.

good corn

2010-09-07T14:15:00.001-04:00

Bahhhh, I'm realizing that I haven't blogged in about forever and a day. Okay, more like a month. And I don't even have a good excuse for not blogging. Is laziness a good excuse? I suppose not.

However, I did manage to eat the best ear of corn in my twenty-three years about a month ago that I've been meaning to post.

It melted in my mouth.

strawberry swing

2010-08-14T17:31:00.000-04:00

Yes. I have stolen song lyrics from Coldplay. Sorry, Coldplay, but it just goes oh so well.

And aren't these strawberries just oh so pretty? They make me smile for some reason :)

cake mix brownies

2010-08-14T17:25:00.003-04:00

So today, I was in a pickle. I had a brownie-making request from The Madre, and there was not a brownie mix in sight! Yes, yes, I could have concocted my own delicious creation, but alas, I was feeling quite lazy today.

So a-Googling I went, and looked up "cake mix brownies". And lo and behold, I found them! And they were delicious! Okay, not better than ooey, gooey homemade brownies or these Brownies of Amazingness from a month or so ago, but for a quick fix, they were pretty darn good. I kicked the recipe up a notch and added a generous portion of chocolate chips into the batter. I'm sure other things like M&Ms, peanut butter chips, peanut butter, cream cheese, walnuts, and coconut would be delicious in them, too. Use your imaggot-nation.

Lazy Girl [or Guy] Cake Mix Brownies

1 chocolate cake mix

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/3 cup water

1 egg

3/4 cup chocolate chips

Mix up all of the above, after preheating the oven to 350 degrees, of course. Spray a 13x9-inch pan with cooking spray, plop the batter in, and cook 'em up for about 20-25 minutes, or until top is set and a toothpick comes out clean.

Frost, if desired. Devour.

AH. there is a lack of baking in my life.

2010-08-13T07:57:00.000-04:00

See above. This needs to change. And stat.

happy things

2010-08-08T01:01:00.000-04:00

I want to be here. Eating these. Yes, one of each might be nice.

And this is cool. :)

Oh, and it's my birthday on Monday!!

creamy crab biscuits

2010-07-10T17:56:00.001-04:00

So a few weekends ago, a few of my girl friends and I got together for one of our (many) bake-dates we've been having this summer. We made these ah-mazzzzing "sausage biscuit things" that were just plain epic. Seriously? Words fail 'em. And they're super super easy, but look quite nice even as an appetizer for a fancy smancy dinner party or even just a potluck with friends.

I decided to change 'em up a bit, though, and used crab instead of the sausage. All you do is slap that slab on cream cheese in a bowl and mix it with a spoon to make it soft. Then, dump in your bag of crab (yeah, yeah, I'm lame and cheap and used imitation...) and stir it all up.

Then, place the biscuit rounds (from a package...mmm, saturated fat) into cupcake tins, and form them to the pan to make a well in the middle. Fill with the cream cheese and crab mixture, and then set it in the oven (350 degrees, please) for about 15 minutes or so, or until the edges of the biscuit are slightly browned.

I'm actually about to take these over to my friends' house this very instant for a girls night of girly drinks, desserts, appetizer-y foods, and swimming. Nothin' like girl friends who you've known for nearly half of your life :)

sunny days sweeping the clouds away

2010-07-10T02:21:00.001-04:00

Hi all. Just saying hello via non-food blog post from my little corner of the world. All is good; still baking, still happy, still loving life....yes, like that cute little fur-ball :)

The summer's definitely in full-swing, even though I am still knee-deep in biochem and microbio-lovin' and my internship. As busy as it all is, I'm strangely happy with it all and enjoying every minute....especially my internship, and especially when I get to work with the kiddies. They are just so so fun, and they make me so happy without fail every time I visit them at their YMCA camp to pass around lunch-y things and play games afterward. I love talking with these little people and they just put a gigantic grin on my face when I leave them for the day. Favorite quotes so far?

Cutie-pie girl: "I like your face. I think it's cute."

Boy: "Are you two sisters?"

Me: "Ummm, no...do we look like sisters?"

Boy: [shakes head] "No. But you both have the same skin color!"

Another girl kept calling popcorn "pop-pop-pop". Another boy with wildly curly hair is nicknamed X-Man. Another boy is a pain in the ass and asks me to give him too much food.

Sorry, pain in the ass-boy....

I've also got a vacation or two coming up and visits from fun people! Can't wait, can't wait.

Also...isn't this beautiful? And this is crazy to think about. And most importantly, these days are beautiful days to be alive. :)

dinner. yes, believe.

2010-07-03T15:45:00.000-04:00

I fear for my future nutrition clients, I really do....

Do I warn them that their dietitian ate grilled peanut butter and M&M sandwiches during her grad school days?

It was quite the epic sandwich. The creamy peanut butter, the crispy bread, the crunchy M&Ms.

Nahhhh....they don't need to know. :)

nutella cupcakes

2010-06-24T00:08:00.012-04:00

So a few weeks ago, I discovered a (quite large) jar of Nutella hanging out in the depths of the kitchen cabinets of home-home. Lately when I'm there, I've been eating it by the spoonful for dessert or putting a spoonful in a little bowl along with a spoonful of peanut butter. And yes, just eating the two of them together. Straight up.

And, yes, it is quite delicious. :)

However, I decided to get a little more creative this time. So off to foodgawker.com I went, typed in "Nutella", and feasted my eyes upon delicious Nutella-y things that I wished were right there in front of me so I could devour them without shame.

Have I mentioned that I've been in a ten year love affair with desserts?

Now the strange things about these cuppy cakes is that there is zero frosting. Yes, you heard me right. Zero, zip! Usually, I would be strongly against this, but the Nutella actually bakes right into the cupcake and kind of makes its own frosting. However....I am fairly confident that if you chose to frost these puppies, that you would make friends for life with whomever ate them.

And by fairly confident I mean very confident.

Mmmmmm, so here is the recipe. They're actually not too sweet. And...I'm feeling an epiphany coming...I have a sneaking feeling that these would be downright delicious with some peanut butter chips stirred into the batter. Note to self: Must try this next time.

Make them! You'll love them! I promise. :)

Nutella Cupcakes

Taken from daily doses of sugar, who took it from Baking Bites

1 stick butter

3/4 cup white sugar

3 eggs

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour (sifted)

1/4 salt

2 tsp. baking powder

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spray 12 muffin tins with non-stick cooking spray, or line then with paper liners.

With mixer, cream together butter and sugar until light. Add in eggs one at a time. Beat the mixture after each egg until fully incorporated. Add vanilla.

Mix in flour, salt, and baking powder until batter is uniformly mixed. Divide batter evenly among 12 tins.

Now...this is the fun part. Top each cake with a spoonful of Nutella. The original says 1 tsp, but I think that is ridiculously ungenerous, but I heaped my Nutella up and slathered it on. Swirl Nutella in with a toothpick, and be sure to fold a bit of batter over the Nutella.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool and devour.

Nutella

chocolate cake adventure

2010-06-21T23:03:00.005-04:00

Let's just say that this was my first adventure cooking in my new subletted apartment for the summer. When I moved in, did I remember to bring the essentials? The toothpaste, the clothes, the laptop, the fuzzy fleece blanket...just in case it decided to get cold in the middle of summer? (hey, it is Michigan, you know, it could totally happen) Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

But did I remember essential kitchen utensils? Oh, of course not. I figured the kitchen would come supplied with, you know, things like...spatulas and mixing bowls.

WRONG.

And let's just say it was quite the adventure.

So the purpose of this adventure was to make a cake for a girls night with two of my girl friends.

WAHOOO GIRLS NIGHT! HELLZ YEAH!

We were hitting up my place before hand to create and drink girly drinks and eat cake. So I scavenged around in my cupboard, found a cake mix, a jar of frosting, and this marshmallow bunny...who I decided was going to go into the cake batter...and starting whipping things up.

But first, I had to play with my food. :)

Hmmmm, someone has eated a bite out of his ear....

Ahhhh, Marshmallow Bunny MASSACRE. Poor, baby.

So before we start here, let's take a quick tour of the new kitchen. Hello, stove, nice to meet you. And how nice that your insides hold the pots and pans while you are off since there is limited room in the cupboards.

Hello, burner, that looks like it is falling off. BUT! It still works great. If I've learned anything from living in Ann Arbor student housing, it is that appearances can be deceiving.

Side note: However, let me note that while the kitchen utensils are slightly lowly, the person (Totten's Tunes) who is currently on my shared iTunes is absolutely making my night. They have 8021 songs! That's insane! I'm currently going through their collection of John Williams songs. There's nothing like the Olympic Fanfare to make you feel on top of the world. Even if you are just in your PJs, lying on your bed, blogging. I CAN DO ANYTHING, RAWR.

Dear Totten's Tunes,

Whoever you are, I LOVE YOU.

XOXO, Patti

And, ah yes, my pseudo mixing bowl! It's actually kind of fun to get creative in the kitchen. However, things took a turn when I realized that....

....NO SPATULA was to be found! As you can see, I was quite sad about this fact. Now, pot as a mixing bowl? I can handle that. Taking all the pots and pans out of the oven before turning it on? Sure, bring it. But no spatula??? What about all of that batter that stays on the side of the pot when you go to scrape it out with a spoon? It was quite sad. However, I made it work.

And, TA-DA! A bea-you-tiful cake! Complete with M&M topping and cream cheese icing. And it was quite delicious.

But......a week and a half later, I realized I hadn't eaten all of the cake leftovers. Whoops.

BEHOLD: SCIENCE EXPERIMENT. For some reason, I've always gotten a kick out of moldy food that's been unearthed from the depths of the fridge. Maybe the fuzzies on it make my first instinct to want to reach out and cuddle with it, but then the stench stops me dead in my tracks. Well, whatever the reason, it cracked me up tonight. :)

BAKE DATE

2010-06-21T21:52:00.000-04:00

A week or so ago, three friends and I got together to.....BAKE! And cook. We each contributed ingredients to make two pizza and one tray of WICKEDLY RICH brownies. Oh gawd. I start hyperventilating just starting to think of them.

So we made two pizzas....onion-pepperoni and olive-pepperoni. My friend, Sheila, had sauteed onions before we came over and they were just so so good. And this pepperoni she bought was just so THICK and delicious. And the bread dough Katie brought was just SO LIGHT AND FLUFFY.

Can you tell that I like to eat?

Here are the finished products!! Gawwd, I love cheese. And bread. And pizza, in general.

And we didn't stop there. Then we made this outrageous brownie...yes, using a mix. What you do: make the brownie batter, and then when you pour it in an 8x8-inch pan, pour in HALF, then layer Heath bars over the batter, and then top with the remaining batter. And because we just didn't think that there was enough chocolate in the brownies, we made a chocolate ganache to go on top.

And then we topped the night off with not one, but TWO chick flicks! It was a good and delicious night :)

lately

2010-06-07T22:56:00.003-04:00

I've felt ridiculously happy and loving life. In fact, I wake up every morning feeling happy, and that hasn't happened in a while :)

Thank you to the people in my life who are making me this happy lately. I am the luckiest girl there is.

granola me crazy

2010-06-04T00:28:00.003-04:00

She's got the urge.....no, not for herbal, but for baking. My mom is not quite used to my nocturnal spontaneity when I am at home. However, driving out to the store at 10pm for an ingredient (peanut butter) is definitely not out of the ordinary for me. So off to our local Busch's I went, yes, in my PJs because I have no shame. $1.85 later, a jar of creamy, Spartan brand peanut butter had been purchased. Because I am cheap. And a poor college student.

I've made this granola before, but I like to think of granola as a spontaneous extravaganza....throw in what you have in your cupboards, and call it a day. Or night. This batch had raisins and chocolate chips in it. Yum. I was slightly concerned that the chocolate chips would burn, but they did not. Behold: chocolaty granola greatness.

Basically with granola, you have a Wet Team and a Dry Team. Wet Team consists of sweet things like honey, peanut butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. Dry Team? Oatmeal, chocolate chips, and raisins. Once Wet Team has boiled a bit, you pour 'em into Dry Team, mix 'em up, and then toss it all on a baking pan sprayed with cooking spray. Toss it for a few turns while in the oven (about 20 or so minutes), and VOILA! GRANOLA DELICIOUSNESS.

'Scuse me, granola...are you ready for you close-up?

Time for some serious nom-age.

pork chop tostada! ole, ole, ole!

2010-05-24T16:51:00.000-04:00

So in addition to no bread, I had no veggies in my apartment. So I stopped at a local market to pick up a few (limited) supplies since it can run a tad expensive there.

Oh, and by the way, these tomatoes? TO DIE FOR, OH GAWWWWD. You have got to believe me. I haven't tasted a tomato like this in years! I think I could have eaten the entire container. Nom nom nom.

Next on the menu? Avocados! I just love the look of an avocado right after you open it up. Gets me every time. :)

Then I mashed 'er up, threw in some leftover salsa that had been camping out in the fridge, chopped up a few of the grape tomatoes, sprinkled some garlic pepper, and guacamole was born.

Have I told you lately, guacamole, that I love you? Fill my heart with gladness, take away all my sadness....

Okay, okay, you get the picture. ;)

Mmmm, before and after pics. So I had a leftover pork chop, and I chopped that puppy up and layered it like this:

Tortilla

Guac

Pork chop

Cucs and tomato deliciousness

Cheeeeeese

And then heated it up until the cheese had melted.

And the result was quite delicious. :)

the quest for bread

2010-05-24T16:35:00.004-04:00

Yes, my friends, it is a sad, sad kitchen here.

But behold, this is when wicked creativity is born.

Do not fear.

Enter: bread. There is none of it in my apartment! And I've been feeling extremely cheap lately, thanks to my unpaid (yet amazing, might I add!) internship. Oh well. The problem with bread-making at 11pm with limited ingredients? No yeast. No milk. Which means that no tortilla, nor English muffins, nor a normal bread loaf could be made.

What do I say? The hell with yeast! Who needs it?! I made up my own "tortilla" recipe using olive oil, and a little sugar, salt, and water. Voila! You has dough!

Ohhhh, see that rolling action? Now, no yeast means that these puppies won't rise. But that's alright. So what did we do? Fry 'em in a pan!

They were lifted from the plate....

And put in a pan. :) Now, I thought they would need a decent amount of oil to cook, so I proceeded to put a decent amount of oil in the pan, thinking I'd use it for multiple tortillas. Wrong. The one tortilla ended up soaking up allllll the oil I had put in the pan. Yum. Artery-cloggin' yum.

Needless to say, that tortilla was a little more delicious than the others.

Actually, the tortillas need very little oil to cook, and if I had cooking spray here, that would've been just fine to use. You can literally watch the tortilla go from a dark to light color, which means it's getting cooked-up.

And there they are! They are definitely more tough than tortillas and are not so soft, but they have a pretty good wheat, nutty taste.

And what will happen with them will come in the very near future....

brunch for my mom!

2010-05-10T01:00:00.005-04:00

I love my mom!! Aren't we cute? A lot of people say we look like sisters.....I mean, I guess we do a bit. My mom certainly likes hearing that from people. Hmm, I wonder whyyy? :)

When I was little, I started a tradition of making my mom breakfast in bed for Mother's Day. No gifts, just breakfast. Needless to say, my breakfast-making abilities have definitely gotten much much better over the years. I'm pretty sure the first breakfast I made her was your basic scrambled eggs, toast, and fruit placed in a parfait glass because it looks fancier that way, of course. :) Not exactly sure how old I was when these breakfast traditions began, but it was somewhere around age 10-12.

About 10 years later, now my mom gets....

Eggs benedict! With crab!

I now have much more respect for those chefs who make eggs benedict because it is slightly complicated, It was a bit hard to time everything...the English muffin being toasted, the crab meat and hollandaise sauce being heated, and the egg being poached.

However, it was definitely well worth the work. And it was my first time making both hollandaise sauce AND a poached egg! I was kinda afraid of the poaching part, and I imagined that the whites of the egg would just float away or something in the water and end up to be a big blob of grossness. But...look how pretty the egg looked while it was cooking!

A good hint on poaching your first egg....try to get the whites that are escaping to land near the yolk. You can do this once the egg is in the (near) boiling water with a slotted spoon...just kind of spoon the white over the top of the yolk. I promise you poaching is really not that hard. :)

Along with the eggs benedict, we also had...MIMOSAS! I got the idea for this from my trip to California to visit my Dad and Lisa. We went to this AMAZING hotel for a brunch with a bunch of the firemen that my dad works with. Not only was the food absolutely out of this world, but there were bottomless mimosas. Yes. BOTTOMLESS. The champagne and OJ was kept a-flowin' all morning long!

So I rassled up some pink champagne and OJ. 50% less-sugar-and-calories-OJ for mom...I knew she'd like that. ;)

And look how cute the top of the OJ carton is! It's an itty-bitty orange!

And then...I thought it'd look pretty to float some of the blackberries in the mimosa. Pretty AND delicious.

One word. Yum.

And thank you mom for EVERYTHING! You're the best. :)

cookie dough monstrosity cheesecake

2010-05-10T00:29:00.003-04:00

Look at this beautiful monstrosity. Damnnnnnnn.

Just look at it. Oh, dear God, I think I get heart palpitations just gazing lovingly into its cookie dough goodness.

Are you sucked into a trance by its beauty? Its symmetric chocolate swirly lovelyness? Its layered yummines?

Yes, yes, and yes.

Let's just say that this puppy was a hit at tonight's Mom's Day dinner. Even my uncle loved it, and he isn't exactly the sweets-lover! I'd say that means that this cheesecake was a success. :)

The recipe came from here, but I made a few alterations...a few on purpose and a few by accident. I actually forgot that there was supposed to be chocolate ganche under the cheesecake layer, but I seriously think my entire fam and I would be in a diabetic coma if I would've included that. I intentionally left out the coffee, but I'm sure that would've been a super delicious addition. I also didn't do the whole frilly icing thing...I'm more of a rustic baker, so anything that involves piping frosting makes me a tad anxious. ;)

You must make this cheesecake. It's just that good.

now ain't he a cutie?

2010-05-08T17:34:00.008-04:00

Isn't he a cutie?? Marianne got my mom assorted pastries from this Japanese bakery for her birthday, and this guy was one of 'em. I don't know if there's something delicious in him yet...to be determined after dinner.

However. I did eat one of his ears. Whoops. Sorry, panda.

AHHHHhhhh! I ate his other ear. And now he can't hear...poor dude.

Current song obsession? I'm sad to admit that it's Kesha's Your Love Is My Drug. Oh. Sorry, I mean KE$HA. Clearly, the dollar sign makes all the difference. Anyway, the lyrics are a bit obnoxious, but I'm in love with the beat. It's just super addicting....proven by the fact that it's been in my head on and off for the past week, haha.

I can't stand her giggling at the end. Also, what is with the "I like your beard" part?! Way confusing people, but then again, she does: 1. Include a dollar sign in her name, and 2. Look like a starving child on the front of her album. Soooo, that being said, I suppose the beard comment isn't all that out of character. Someone commented on YouTube that she's a hot mess. Umm, seriously? She looks like she just rolled out of a grave!

Tomorrow is Mother's Day! Which means a delicious post is on its way. :)

because I'm feeling introspective thanks to urban meditation pandora station

2010-05-06T01:56:00.009-04:00

Let's just say it's been a roller coaster of a few weeks and leave it at that. Actually, a roller coaster of a school year...of both not so good and good things, mind you. It's been a rough eight months emotionally, mentally, and academically in a number of different circumstances....but I made it out alive. :) I've recently discovered this great site. It combines two of my loves: pictures and quotes....what more could I need :) I'm linking some of my recent favorites to this post.
I've finished one year of grad school! Do you know how much that excites me?! And do you know how much that scares the bejeebers out of me??? It's hard to believe that I only have one more year left at UM. I've been there for six years....that's a big chunk of a critical part of my life, and it's wild to think that it is all going to come to an end.

This school year, I am so thankful for the people I have met, gotten closer to, and those who have pulled me up to get through it all...school and non-school related things. Where would we be without those that we love in our lives? I just don't know. But I can tell you one thing, we're so much better off with them than without them. :) I've learned a lot this year, and thank you to all of you who have helped me along the way.

And just remember this. It's so so true. :)

chicken adventure 1.0

2010-05-06T01:45:00.008-04:00

I tried, people, I really did. You have got to believe me.

I really did try to make chicken myself.

I got out my cookbook. I found a decent recipe that seemed doable and not to hard. Too bad I started following the recipe after I realized that I didn't have about half the ingredients on hand. Whoops. Enter recipe interpretations. However, baking interpretations are much different than cooking interpretations, and I realized that I have yet to master this technique. But they say that wisdom comes with age, so I'm not gonna get too down on myself just yet.

Ummm. If that container hadn't been positioned there, one might think that someone was peeing on my chicken.....HOW DARE THEY!

Anyway. :) I threw together some spices, rubbed it on the (raw....ew ew ew) chicken, and tossed it in the oven and hoped that it would turn out.

And surprisingly, it did! However, for some reason, I didn't eat my prepared chicken once I made it. Sure, I ate about half of it, but here I am, I have a FULLY COOKED PROTEIN SOURCE at my very hands, and then I suddenly get cravings for cereal for dinner.

I really don't understand it, either. But...I will try meat-cooking again, no worries. Please don't lose faith in me just yet.

AHHHHHhhhhhhhh.

2010-04-25T13:09:00.005-04:00

I am really. Sick. Of. Studying.

I'm sick of learning about vitamin A, C, selenium, iodine, zinc, and vitamin E. Also sick of major food cravings late at night like....M&Ms, black beans (since I can't remember the last time I ate a decent protein source), Insomnia Cookies, and barley.

I want to be done.

Oh, did I mention that I want to be done?

Speaking of weird things, I'm by a row of computers, and someone left a HUGE canister of yogurt as well as a banana next to an un-logged off computer. Strange. Who brings a 32 oz. yogurt container to the Union? They must be pretty hungry.

Anyway. Here I go. Back up to the study room. Where doom awaits.

Love, Patti

P.S. This is cute. This is inspiring. And this is so, so true.

easter shenanigans

2010-04-14T02:05:00.007-04:00

It came. The day where you eat as much dessert as you possible desire came. Oh....and the day JC rose from the dead! Hehe.....c'mon, you know he probably loved desserts, too. ;)

But look at that pretty spread. We had crab dip, pistachios, Italian coffee-cake-like bread (with hard-boiled eggs baked into it), and CHOCOLATE. Yay for unhealthy appetizers. Oh, and Marianne's infamous Mountain Holler, aka the Yooper version of Mountain Dew.

Marianne and my aunt, showing off the bread that they didn't make.....

The madre....showing off the cheesy, eggy, Easter pie. That she, also, didn't make. Looks like they like to take credit for these baked goods, huh?

There's my Papa!!! :) He likes his red wine.

Ahem, excuse me, sprinkles. It's time for your close-up. Marianne just discovered the macro setting on her camera when I was taking this picture since she asked me how I get close-up pictures so clear. She was in awe. And I really don't know how she lived without knowing a macro setting even existed! I think....I would have died if I had never met mine.

My Easter basket!! Everyone got one at their table setting.

FOOD.

Green beans almondine and sweet potatoes and carrots and tortellini alfredo and ham and cheesy potatoes.

Phew.

HEY, UNCLE GARY!!

How brave of him to pose in a picture with the Cake of Death: Heart Attack Edition.

And my slice was entirely consumed. I got no shame. I fear no heart attack. Muah ha ha!

Picture of a picture.

Okay, she told me NOT to post this for all the world to see because she thinks she has a double chin.

Dear Marianne,
1. You are not large enough to have a double chin, hon.
2. Your smile is flippin' adorable!!
3. I'm posting it anyway.
Love, Patti

Isn't he just adorable?! I discovered him in my Easter basket. This little bugger winds up and runs across the table and freaks out your unsuspecting elderly relative.

Hope you all had a fab Easter :)

italian [heart attack] cream cake

2010-04-04T01:53:00.002-04:00

THERE IT IS.

The cake. Of heart-attackness. Of deliciousness.

Of coconutty, cream cheesy goodness.

Of oozy, yummy, creaminess.

....and now I feel like I'm writing a story-time book for little people under the age of five.

Yes, my friends, this was one heck of a cake. You need to make this cake, serve it in very small slices, and devour. I got this recipe from the infamous blogger, The Pioneer Woman. My step-mom, Lisa, loves her, so she inspired me to browse her blog after my trip with her and my dad a month or so ago. And damnnn, can that Pioneer Woman cook! And take pictures! I am in love with her pictures. :)

Anyway, I will most likely make this cake again, but next time, I will definitely cut back on some of the ingredients that just were unnecessary, but did make the cake extra decadent. Such as....the cup of vegetable oil (maybe half apple sauce, half veggie oil next time?) and the cup of sugar. However, if you do decide to give this cake a whirl in your mixer, I suggest that you follow the recipe the first time, and then make alterations based on your health needs. ;)

chavadone extravaganza!

2010-04-04T01:49:00.004-04:00

My family has a tradition around Easter of making this cholesterol laden thing called chavadone. My great-grandma, Pasqualina, used to make them, and both my grandma and mom have kept up the tradition over the years. Needless to say, I will be happy to keep the tradition going when I am a real-person with my own real-person family.

Sidetrack....wow. That scares me to think I will have my own real-person family someday. Eep. But that is another story for another day.......haha. But on the same note, I totally think it'd be awesome to name my first daughter Pasqualina after my great-grandma. I mean, sure, that'd be one helluva name for her to learn to spell in kindergarten, poor thang, but she could be called Lina for short. I like it. :)

Anyway, into chavadone goes: eggs, Munster cheese, ham, and raisins. Yes. You heard me right. Raisins. Now I know that might sound super strange, and I will admit that when I was little, I totally picked the raisins out of my chavadone slice before inhaling it. But for some reason, the raisins complement the salty ham flavor very well. Just trust me....you have to try it to believe it.

Who knew cracked egg shells could look so pretty? Or maybe I'm just weird and find beauty in the most random of things. :)

Anyway, I didn't get a shot of the actual baked chavadone, but they came out SO well. Super cheesy this year for some reason, but we definitely did not have a problem with that. Here's to another successful chavadone baking extravaganza! Nice work, mom. :)

magnificant peanut butter brownies

2010-04-04T01:33:00.008-04:00

There is nothing quite like cutting into a jar of creamy peanut butter untouched by human hands.

Dear peanut butter,
I love you. Our love shall never die as long as we both shall live.
Love, Patti

Thought this looked cool :)

Oh, hello, peanuts. Are you ready for your close-up?

And those peanuts, peanut butter, (lots of) brown sugar, and chocolate chips got whipped up into these. And man, were they good. To prevent yourself from entering a diabetic coma, cut them small....please.

I'll nomnom to that.

york peppermint patty brownies

2010-04-04T01:31:00.008-04:00

I am seriously concerned for my family's health this Easter, and I'm hoping that no one is gonna keel over or pass out from sugar overload. Yes, my friends, the three desserts I made are that sugary. And buttery. And peanut buttery. And cream cheesy. Just you wait and see.

Mmmm, butter and chocolate look kinda pretty getting all melted up together.

And poured.

And stirred.

Next on the brownies went peppermint patties....and they must be healthy! They have 70% less fat!

Mmmmm.

And then when you cut them, they look just fabulous.

Like this.

Hungry for these puppies? Click here for deliciousness.

st. patty's day!

2010-04-04T01:27:00.006-04:00

I love, love St. Patty's Day! First off, it's my name-day. :) Second....green is my favorite color. Three, all of UM is so soooo happy on St. Patty's Day, and it always seems that it falls on one of the first really nice days of the year. My mom would always make St. Patty's fun when I was growing up, and she would dye lots of foods green, we'd eat broccoli with dinner, and eat green jello poke cake for dessert.

Sooo I had to make green cupcakes for the day! Mmmmm, artificial food dyes...... Also, the bowl of cake batter looked JUST like a big bowl of vanilla yogurt. Hah, that'd be a fun (and delicious) April Fools joke, huh?

So what I did....I split the batter into two bowls and dyed one green and left the other plain. And then, I swirled the two together a bit in the cupcake tins. How prettttty!

And then....decorated the tops with green dyed frosting.

Don't you just want to nom right into that puppy? I do.

And then, I took them to my friends, and they were devoured. :)

I procrastinate like it's my job.

2010-03-15T22:38:00.007-04:00

Let's take a look at what my evening looked like.

Start time: 6pm
1. Came home, put in laundry.
2. Showered.
3. Ate dinner.
4. Answered e-mails, checked Facebook.
5. Ate some cereal.
6. Checked e-mail.
7. Lit a few candles to get in "the mood". The mood for homework.
8. Opened up Food Safety homework document and read instructions.
9. Started homework: 10 minutes.
10. Checked Facebook.
11. Did a little more (of the same) homework: 5 minutes.
12. Decided that green jello needed to be made for Wednesday....St. Patty's Day!
13. Decided that granola needed to be made, even though I didn't have the correct ingredients.
14. Talked to Namira, Karen, and Anita on AIM while making jello and granola. I have mad multi-tasking skills.
15. Finished cleaning up from jello and granola-making.
16. Talked to Anita on the phone.
17. Contemplated getting halfway done with my homework. Yes, the same assignment.
18. Checked Facebook.
19. Ate some granola.
20. Checked e-mail.
21. Actually got 1/3 of homework done.
22. Decided to test jello. Verdict? Delicious.
23. Decided to procrastinate ONE LAST TIME by blogging.
Finish time: 10:45pm

Yeah. I'm pretty bad, huh? Anyway, the worst of it is that I am craving dessert like no other, and I'm not able to have any because of Lent. Hmmmm. It's quite the situation, as you can imagine.

I best be logging off now. I would have gladly posted a picture of my failed granola and green jello made in muffin tins, but Lancelot is being moody today, so I am unable to upload pics. :(

On a happy note, a one year anniversary is coming up this Saturday. :) Maybe I should make my man something delicious. Something with cherries or strawberries, maybe? Those are his favs, along with the classic chocolate-peanut butter combo. Anyway, we'll see. :)

quacamole! ole, ole, ole!

2010-03-08T19:23:00.007-05:00

So while in California, I was amazed at how my step-mom, Lisa, would whip up a batch of guacamole like it was nothin'. Avocados were as everyday as apples in her kitchen, while I had never tackled an avocado in my life, let alone have one in my kitchen. So, I decided to give the guac a shot. First thing, though, homemade tortilla chips. Slice, toss with olive oil, sprinkle on salt, and shove it in the toaster oven until crispy and delicious.

Next, operation: guacamole. It was easy to cut the avocado open and spoon out the guts.

Ohhhh, pretttttty green color. My favorite.

But what was that line of black there at the bottom of the avocado? Want to know my first nasty instinct? Well....it reminded me of that black line (shrimp poop) that is sometimes near the vein of a shrimp. So....AVOCADO POOP, of course! But no, I'm pretty sure it was just some of the skin that got into the meat when I sliced it open. And I'm pretty sure that avocados don't poop.

And look at that huge seed!!! Sheesh. That could give someone a lump on the head if you threw it at them.

The avocado got mashed up with fresh lime juice, salt, garlic powder, chopped onion, and some spoonfuls of salsa for flavor. The salsa actually helped smooth out the avocado lumps. And isn't that lime pretty?? It smelled really good, too. Hmmm, now I have two lime halves left over. I'm thinking I'm gonna have to make some kind of lime muffin or something.

Um, and while we're photographing sea salt here........

Dear Janine,
I love your sea salt.
Love, Patti

It's so so good.

And there we go....TA DA! Mission accomplished. Guacamole is super easy to make, and it's fun to season it as you please. I suggest you give it a whirl. I proceeded to dip my tortilla strips in it, and also layered some on a whole tortilla along with refried beans, cheese, and salsa for a burrito. I'm sure it'd also be good as a dip for veggies, too.

And now, I have procrastinated enough. Off to polish off some epidemiology homework. Ew. I'd rather polish off the leftover guacamole in my fridge.

trip to the motherland

2010-03-04T12:30:00.002-05:00

I envision this blog slooowly becoming a non-food blog. Hmmm, don't know how I feel about this. But this trip had SO MUCH food involved! So I think it's alright that I write about my spring break trip to The Motherland aka California. Even though I only lived here for four years, I was born here, so gotta give it some respect, right? But one thing before we move on....

IS THIS PLACE FLIPPIN' BEAUTIFUL, OR WHAT?!

I'm convinced that at the ripe old age of 22 (not really) I can finally appreciate the prettiness that is California. I never really realized it when I would go out here to visit my dad when I was younger, but really, it's such a beautiful place. And SO many different things to do all within an hour or two away! Crazy, right? And....the Mexicans are EVERYWHERE. I'm among my compadres....my people! It's pretty cool, actually. :)

Also, I've come to the conclusion that when I am a real-person...aka have a job and real-person money...I need to live at least in semi-close proximity to a body of water. Actually, I've had this conclusion for a while, but being in California just solidified it after being by the ocean so many times this past week.

Anyway, these are two of my favorite pics from the week. A family friend, Olivia, makes a really good subject! As does the scenery at Zuma Beach.

Let's move on to the food part of the trip. The part where we ate and ate and ate and ate. Oh my. Seriously, people, I feel like I'm gonna roll out of the plane when I get back home tomorrow. But whoa, was it delicious and, heck, it's spring break.

The epic eating night, however, happened yesterday. My dad, step-mom, and I literally meal-hopped around San Diego. We started at the Hotel del Coronado for appetizers and drinks: fried calamari, crab/salmon dip smeared on warm ciabatta bread, and mai tais. SO GOOD. If you go to San Diego and want delicious, five-star dining, but not the price tag....do this: go during a week day during happy hour. Three words: half-off appetizers. GOOD STUFF, let me tell you.

Next, we went up and down Fifth Street in downtown San Diego in search for a good dinner place. After much searching, we settled on the Urban Bar & Grill. Pretty decent food, I was still a bit full from appetizers, so I ordered....another appetizer: chicken satay. I'm not gonna lie, for the price ($10), the chicken was a little low on flavor, but the presentation was pretty neat. Three chicken skewers were stuck in a huge round of pineapple and surrounded by little fried white things. Erm....never really figured out what those little fried white things were, but they tasted like some kind of cheese curl, without the cheese. Actually, I ate that entire round of pineapple, which must have been an abnormal amount of pineapple to eat because after polishing it off, my tongue felt wickedly weird. Too much acid? Mayhaps.

Next stop? The Altitude Sky Lounge on the 22nd floor of the San Diego Marriott. This is also another must-go-to stop in San Diego. It was really tame when we went up there, but apparently, this is THE place to be during the weekend in the summertime, according to my dad. Hmmm, and how would he know....? ;) The only bad thing about this place, is that drinks run a little higher than usual. However, you are also paying for a beautiful view of the downtown lights, so it's worth it. Go here. I guarantee you'll leave feeling so San Diego-urban-esque.

Anyway, tomorrow I leave this sunny state and head back to cold, snowy Michigan. Frankly, I'm not too thrilled, except for the fact that I get to have a few chillaxing days at home and will be hanging out with the madre for a bit before I head back up to school. It's always depressing to leave a warm place and then zap back to reality once that plane lands in your snowy homeland. Siiigh. Guess some good things must come to an end, right? I'm sure I'll be back soon, though, to the motherland. Here's to a very, very good trip. :)

been MIA, sorry, my faithful followers

2010-02-22T00:23:00.019-05:00

There's actually a really good reason I've been MIA for about a month now. Actually, a few.

1. School: Grad school. It sucks. There's much learning to be done.
2. Life: Life gives you twists and turns, good and bad, and sometimes there just isn't time for blogging.
3. Lancelot: He's been on and off broken for about a month now, aka the main reason for MIA-ness. By the way, Lancelot is my trusty HP laptop, and to my dismay, he's been quite temperamental lately. Is it because he is growing older? Could it be male PMS? 'Tis a mystery, but I believe things started to go awry when he began to crash when I would edit pictures in Paint Shop Pro.

And yes, the 22-year old still enjoys naming inanimate objects. :)

So I am sorry to report that this is not a food post. However, I may be able to dig up a few random pictures for your entertainment. And for the (few) people who do read this, I thought I'd give a little snippet of my life. I know when I read random food blogs, I always am curious who, in fact, is behind the story of those decadent white chocolate macadamia nut cookies or the master behind that helluva mean stir fry.

The low down: my name is Patti, and my last name will be withheld to protect the innocent. :) Currently a graduate nutrition student at the University of Michigan (GO BLUE!), I am trying to keep afloat with all of the studying, learning, part-time job-ing, and typical college-socializing, to keep my sanity, of course.

Speaking of college-life....my roommate is currently still out studying. This is strange and surreal because: 1) I am the night owl of the two of us. Erm...more like night owl enough for the both of us, and 2) She always stays at the apartment to study at the big ol' island in the kitchen. Weird. Hopefully, no one was hungry and ate her on her walk home. Kidding, guys, kidding.

For the record, I am also relatively sarcastic when put with the right group of people.

Anyways, here is a picture of my lovely morning commute. Via walking. The lovely Michigan weather has lately been either rainy or so snowy that you can barely trudge along. Yeah, you know you're jealous, you hot-weathered folks. You're also probably wondering why I exactly took this picture. Well, you know the classic saying:

"When I was your age, I had to walk to school! Up hill, both ways, in the snow, with no mittens! With a hole in my boot!"

Well, this is the first road that I have realized is truly uphill, both ways. Solution? Valley. Or very tall mountain, as pictured above. Ann Arbor is actually quite hilly, in contrast to the rest of Michigan, and one morning, during my 8am trudge to a biostats class, I had a revelation in regards to this quote since a road being uphill both ways always seemed so improbable to me.

Not gonna lie, it kinda made my day.

And to all you worried moms out there, Janine just got home. You can rest at ease.

Now this little bundle of fur is Vino, my adorable shih tzu puppy dawg back at home. And we've also got some wicked tongue action going on, too! Vino's actually not a puppy, he's 9-years old - an old man. He's so so cute, but getting old, which we can tell by the grunts and groans me makes when we pick him up and plop him somewhere for cuddling ease.

So you may or may not be surprised to know that I'm actually in love with all photography, not just food-porn shots. My favorite is to take pictures of sunny places - above are some from a trip to Florida last year with a great group of friends. Seriously, if you put me in a tropical setting with a camera, I will be like a kid in a candy shop. I go crazzzzy. :) And yes, I even take pictures of non-scenic things, like the fun tray in front of my seat on a flight.

Maybe not so surprising, another love of mine is writing. When I was younger, while other kids were watching cartoons for fun, I was writing stories and, later on, poems. Granted, I never really did finish many of the stories, but I've always enjoyed forming thoughts into words. There's something soothing about it, and to this day, I would always rather write an obscenely long paper than take an exam. Hands down. Perhaps this is the culprit behind my extremely mediocre test-taking skills? The world may never know.... :)

Well, hopefully, I've done enough writing for tonight to help me fall asleep now. Like I said before, MEGA-night owl like whoa....even when waking up at a decent hour today and not staying up late the night before. Ohhh well. Good night, all. Hope your Monday's swell. :)

It feels strange to use a picture in my blog other than my own. Therefore....uphill-both-ways picture courtesy of http://paulwilkinson.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/uphill-both-ways.jpg.

veggie bean pasta

2010-01-23T23:06:00.002-05:00

So being the poor college student that I am, I was living off of black beans, barley, and cheese for a few days. It was getting pretty boring, despite its deliciousness, so I decided to deviate a bit from this once I had eaten all of my barley and switch to....whole wheat pasta. Yep. Big difference, huh?

Anyway, I commandeered leftover chicken broth from my roommate, Rachel, sauteed up some broccoli and carrots with cumin and chili powder, threw in the rest of the black beans, and drenched it all in the broth and let it simmer.

The cooked pasta went in and got stirred up a bit. And VOILA! Veggie bean pasta. Sprinkle on some salt and a generous dose of Parmesan cheese and you're all set. Enjoy and devour.

bake-date 2009

2010-01-02T01:27:00.015-05:00

So each year, my friend, Lizzy, and I have an annual bake-date where we cook/bake multiple things and chow-down....like big time. We always end the day with both of us in a HUGE sugar coma. It's quite delicious.

Above? Our cast of characters for epic-sandwich-making: mozzarella, locatella, and asiago cheeses, cucumbers, tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, and capers. We piled the ingredients on a plate and then layered them all over spices of whole grain bread.

There's Lizzy chopping up broccoli! And yes, broccoli went into our sandwiches, too.

Ohhh, so green, huh?

Look at that beauty. Now to you meat-lovers out there, don't get me wrong, slices of turkey (or ham, or prosciutto) would be delicious in there, but I'm sure one bite of this would convince you otherwise of its sans meat deliciousness. Seriously. :)

Next on the baking agenda....this Chocolate and Peanut Butter Streusel Cake. Now, there was supposed to be streusel on top, but Lizzy and I fail at reading directions. Sooooo, the streusel ended up being baked into the cake. Niiiiice! So yeah, 2 CUPS of brown sugar went into that cake. Just a little extra sweetness, right?

And then, because there just wasn't enough chocolate-y peanut buttery enough, we had to concoct something else: Brownie Peanut Butter Cups. Oh my, that fact that these exist are just proof that God loves us and wants us to eat chocolate and peanut butter. Together.

So after the deliciousnesses were baked, the Brownie Peanut Butter Cups had an extra touch to them. An indentation goes in the middle, which gets filled with....what? Yes, my friends. More peanut butter. And then topped with a few chocolate chips.

Two words. Ohhhhhhh yeahhhhhh. Sign. I love being a child of the '80s, what with the creepy music videos and such. Speaking of music videos....does any one else out there think that Lady Gaga's Bad Romance video seem so '80s-esque?! I do. Gets me every time.

Rawr rawr ah ah ah. Ga ga, oh la la la. ;)

'tis the season to eat cookies, fa la la la la la la la la

2009-12-29T01:08:00.008-05:00

Mmmm all the ingredients. Oreos, cream cheese, sugar cookie mix, white chocolate chips, and cordial cherry kisses. What more could you want?

Oreo close-up. Drool.

So these are the Cookie Truffles, and they are so so easy. Just mash up 2 rows of Oreos, and mix in 8 oz. of cream cheese. Roll them into balls, and then coat them in chocolate. I made two different kinds: one with vanilla creme sandwich cookies coated in melted chocolate chips and the other with real Oreos coated in white chocolate. They came out really good. I feel like they are "fake" truffles, though, since there's cream cheese in the middle. But they still taste truffle-esque.

Next on the baking to-do list, these Fudge Kiss Cookies. I'm sure most people have seen these made with a peanut butter cookie and a Hershey kiss in the middle, but these give a Christmas-y flair. I made half a batch of these with peppermint kisses and the other half with cherry cordial kisses.

Personally, I think these guys taste better than the cordials.... :)

Mmmm. Also, my dog is super cute, and I love taking pictures of him when I'm home for break!

Yes, that blur of pink would be a tongue in motion.

end of hiatus, I swear

2009-12-22T02:37:00.006-05:00

Behold, I bring tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people....

PATTI HAS FOUND HER CAMERA CHARGER!

Wow....you have no idea how naked I've felt for the past month when I couldn't find my camera charger. Where did I eventually find it? At home-home in the basket of chargers, of course. Sigh. So many baking adventures that were not documented in the past month - especially during the stressful finals-time! Oh well. Fortunately, it is Christmas vacation - WAHOOO - so much baking will be done :)

While no baking has been done yet, here are some Christmas-y pictures for your viewing pleasure. And did I mention that I am BEYOND excited to have my camera back?! It's a Festivus miracle!

Oh, hello, Patti's toes.

turkey day deliciousness: part 2

2009-11-25T19:33:00.005-05:00

From the moment I laid my eyes on these beauties, I knew I would need them in my life at some point. Think....no-bake cookie. Think....fudge. Okay, how about....fudge-like no-bake cookies?! Heck yesssss. Can you drip me this intravenously, please? Mmk, thanks.

It's the bottom layer of these Nanaimo Bars that are no-bake cookie-esque. And, God, are they GOOD OR WHAT. WOW.

Supposedly Nanaimo Bars are all over the place in Canada, eh? Their namesake is the city of Nanaimo, British Colombia, and they find their way into donut and coffee shops. Personally, I think these things need to infiltrate their way into Starbuck's and Espresso Royales across southeastern Michigan, and fast!

The second layer is a mixture of butter, vanilla pudding powder mix (yeah...weird, right?), heavy whipping cream, and powdered sugar. Yum yum yum.

And then layered on top? Melted semi-sweet chocolate. I had issues spreading this evenly over the white topping, so that means that I'll just need to use more chocolate the next time I make these. Never a bad thing.

And the most disappointing thing ever? I take this picture, a terribly fuzzy picture. I cut the perfect square of Nanaimo. I point the camera, I shoot....and the battery dies. FAIL. And my charger is sitting, stuffed in my desk drawer up at school. Lovely, just lovely.

Well, that is just an excuse to make these again, now isn't it? :)

turkey day deliciouness: part 1

2009-11-25T15:51:00.010-05:00

The day after Thanksgiving, a bunch of friends and I are getting together for a Turkey Day celebration of our own. I am so excited beyond words to see my two out-of-state girlfriends!! It will definitely be a good time.

I decided to make these Coconut Chocolate Chip Bars along with sweet potatoes for Friday's event. The sweet potatoes are a really good recipe from my Great-Aunt Jane - we've been using her recipe for years now. If you're lucky, maybe there'll be a post about those in the very near future.

Happy Thanksgiving! Gobble, gobble. :)

Coconut Chocolate Chip Bars
Altered from Spiced Apple Caramel Bars

Base and Topping
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups oatmeal
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup coconut, shredded
1 1/2 sticks butter
Chocolate chips

Caramel-y Sauce
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare base and topping: mix dry ingredients together, except chocolate chips. Cut butter into the mixture until you have a coarse, mealy texture. Pat two thirds of this into an 8x8-inch square baking pan sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

In saucepan, stir together cinnamon, sugar, and water. Bring to a simmer over medium low heat. Simmer about five minutes. Stir to prevent burning. Stir in vanilla, and pour and spread evenly over base. Sprinkle chocolate chips evenly over caramel layer, as desired. Crumble remaining mixture over chocolate chips.

Bake for about 20-30 minutes. Devour.

are you ready for your close-up?

2009-11-21T20:28:00.006-05:00

Mmmm, look at that beauty.

SUPER thick honey whole wheat bread, grilled + sliced bananas + creamy peanut butter = heaven.

HAPPY ONE-HUNDREDTH POST!

2009-11-12T21:05:00.009-05:00

Wahooo....this is my one-hundredth post! :) And it's about a stuffed acorn squash. Hmmmm. Too bad it couldn't be about some crazy-decadent cake or something. Oh well.

Anyway, Wednesday was a rough day. Four classes, back to back, 8am-3pm with a two-hour exam from 1-3. Niiiiice. Welcome to grad school. So, of course, I couldn't come home and study after a day like that....even though there was plenty of work to do. Instead, I proceeded to go on a four hour baking and cooking spree. And was it a good time or what. The bag of apples in the fridge morphed into apple crisp and three mini-loaves of apple bread, and my zucchini and acorn squash turned into that lovely thing pictured above.

I did not plan on making stuffed acorn squash, and I had already begun to roast the zucchini and squash separately in the oven. It was then, my friends, that I had an epiphany. There was barley in the cupboard and a roll of ground Italian "sausage" in the fridge. Sooo, why not mix the barley, cooked sausage, and zucchini together and stuff them squashes? It was a brilliantly delicious idea.

And this is totally unrelated, but my roommate I just finished up a food science lab: biscuits and chocolate cake:

And, of course, I decided that the chocolate cake needed to be amp-ed up with a smothering of peanut butter and chocolate chips. Mmmm, yay for carbs.

week of the sandwiches

2009-11-04T18:20:00.004-05:00

This is the BEST bread in the entire, entire world. Seriously, people. Go to your local Great Harvest, ask for a loaf of Honey Whole Wheat, pay them the $5, and then run home and make yourself a sandwich. Quick. Do it. NOW!

It might also be the fact that Great Harvest is a little nostalgic for me. Back in the high school days (ahhh....that was nearly FIVE years ago!) my cross country team would make "GHB runs" after practice. This meant that whomever drove us to practice that day would dump off the car-load of girls (ohh, high school memories of packing eight people into a compact....) in front of Great Harvest Bread Co. We would proceed to run into the store, snatch a free sample of fresh bread (and one for the driver, of course), race back outside, into the car, and speed off back to the high school where our coach was waiting for us to do our push-ups and sit-ups. And he had no clue about our GHB runs......yeah, right. ;)

So this week's dinners have been 100% sandwiches made on GHB honey whole wheat. Last night's had olive tapenade, roasted broccoli, and mozzarella. Tonight's? Sliced acorn squash, roasted broccoli, and mozzarella. Doused with spray butter, of course. Only the best. :)

roasting par-tay!

2009-11-03T16:22:00.012-05:00

Once again, I have surprised myself....I am cooking real food. And I haven't even finished a full box of cereal yet this year. This time last year, I had probably been through 3-4 boxes already. Seriously, people, I really don't know what is happening to me.

Another thing: I have given up trying to get myself to prepare chicken and other meats for myself. Granted, I am definitely not a vegetarian, nor will I ever be, for that matter. I am simply a lazy person who doesn't feel like dealing with something that grosses me out for the time being: raw meat.

Ew. I don't like it. I like eating it. Cooked, of course. In time, I will have to get over this because when I'm a real person, have a family, etc. I don't want make them eat beans and veggies and barley all the time. But for now, I could eat the same meatless thing every day and couldn't care less. And a dose of something meaty once or twice a week? Sounds good to me. I'm still having dreams of the amazing, beer and onion boiled, cheese-filled brats the boyfriend made for a tailgate a few weeks ago. Damn. That thing was good.

But alas, here we are with lentils. And they are so so good for you! They've got about 8 grams of protein and about the same amount of fiber per serving. All that fiber ought to clean ya out real good, huh? Sounds delicious to me. :)

But how to make them?! I had no clue. My grandpa is King of Bean Soups, and he makes a mean lentil soup. I had definitely eaten them before, but it had never crossed my mind how to actually cook them. So I whipped open Cooking Bible a la Mark Bittman, looked up 'lentils' in the index, and got busy cooking.

One thing I am learning about cooking is that it's pretttty hard to mess up. I guess it's a good thing that I've already mastered baking, as it is harder than cooking, so they say. For instance, if you don't have a certain spice on hand....no worries! Substitute something else instead! However, if you're lacking baking soda, well, your cake is just gonna flop then, isn't it?

The lentil recipe called for curry...but I didn't have any. Instead, I decided to use a combination of spices that I thought were delicious in last month's Black Bean Vegetable Soup - cumin and chili powder. So into the pot went 2 tsp. of cumin and 1 tsp. chili powder instead of the 1 tbsp. curry (1 tbsp. = 3 tsp, by the way ;) They came out really good, but for next time, I think I would use 2 tsp. chili powder and 1 tsp. cumin to amp up the spice factor.

So what can we eat lentils with when they're not in soup-form? Roasted veggies!

Ahhhh, what happened to my hand??!?? Yes, I like playing with the fingerling potatoes. And food in general. Sigh....I suppose I'll never grow up. :)

Say hello to the cute little acorn squash I bought at the farmers market this Saturday. I sliced it up and put it in a pan with some olive oil drizzled over it and with sprinkles of sea salt and pepper.

In another pan went the sliced fingerling potatoes and broccoli, along with olive oil, parsley, basil, oregano, and sea salt. Then, both pans went into an oven preheated at 450 degrees, and I checked on them periodically, occasionally flipping the potatoes and broccoli to make sure they didn't burn.

And why use sea salt? You need less of it to get that salty flavor. And it's just delicious. I really should get my own. Sometimes I borrow Janine's sea salt. Okay, a lot of them time I borrow Janine's sea salt. Sorry, Janine. ;)

Also, I had another a-ha moment....acorn squashes have seeds!!! Here is another food that I definitely had eaten before, but didn't realize something about them. Hmmm, guess they're more pumpkin-y than I thought.

Anyway, today for lunch I ate the lentils and roasted veggies together, and it was really good. I'll definitely be making these two things again.

Split Pea, Mung Beans, or Lentils with Curry
Altered from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything"

1 1/2 cups split peas, or mung beans, or lentils, washed and picked over
4 cups chicken, beef, or vegetable stop, or water, plus more if needed
Salt and black pepper to taste
3 tbsp. curry - I used 2 tsp. cumin and 1 tsp. chili powder instead

Combine the beans, liquid, curry, salt, and pepper in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Turn the heat to medium-low, cover partially, and cook gently, stirring occasionally, until the beans are soft and beginning to turn to mush, at least 30 minutes. Add additional liquid if necessary. The mixture should be moist but not soupy.

I'm-sick-of-studying-and-it's-only-november bars

2009-11-03T16:07:00.005-05:00

Sometimes only crumble and a cookie will solve life's problems. Often when I am craving something, I'll just hone in on what exactly I'm craving (in this case, crumble and bar cookies), survey what is in the kitchen cabinets (M&Ms), and bake something from that. VOILA! M&M crumble bars! Let their buttery goodness take you away....at least for a moment.

I'm-Sick-Of-Studying-And-It's-Only-November Crumble Bars

1 stick butter, softened
1 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar

1 1/2 sticks butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt

M&Ms....as many as you want.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In bowl, prepare crumble: mix together butter, oatmeal, flour, brown, and white sugars. Set aside.

Prepare cookies: mix together dry ingredients - flour, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together butter, brown, and white sugars until combined. Mix in egg and vanilla. Gradually add dry mixture to wet mixture, and mix until combined.

Spray a 13x9-inch baking pan with non-stick cooking spray. Pour batter into bottom of pan and smooth it out. Crumble crumble mixture evenly over the top. Top with M&Ms.

Bake in preheated oven for 20-ish minutes until brown around the edges. Devour.

brussels sprouts adventure 2009

2009-10-28T16:14:00.008-04:00

Actually, this will probably be the only brussels sprouts adventure I have....at least for awhile. Don't get me wrong they were delicious, despite common brussels sprouts belief.

So how did I come across this monstrosity? The farmers market, of course! And you should've seen my excitement when I came across it, I bet I looked like a little kid on Christmas. And to make it even better, a 15-year old girl was telling me, the older, wiser, maturer 22-year old all about brussels-sprout-growth. Wow. I kinda felt like an idiot.

Me: "These things grow on stalks???"
Girl: "Uhhhh, ch-yeah."

And then I learned all about brussels sprouts harvesting, growing, plucking of the sprouts off the stalk - you name it.

And the best part? The fact that the stalk can be a number of imaginary things....unicorn horn, peg leg, Pinocchio nose, extremely long buck-tooth. Way too many possibilities.

Let the pluckage begin!

An all bare stalk. How sad. :(

So if you are so inclined to make brussels sprouts starting from the stalk, be sure to dunk 'em in a bowl of water to get the dirt off, if there is any. Who knows what's been on those things. I then sauteed them in a pan with a little bit of olive oil and then seasoned them with sea salt and pepper. Garlic would be great with these, too, but they really don't need much. Cook them till they're bright green.

Mmmmm. Okay, so there's only one brussels sprout in this picture, but oh well. I mixed a bunch of random veggies I had sauteed earlier, melted some mozzarella on them, and gobbled them up. It's tastier than you think it may be. I guarantee it. :)

I WANT CAKE. please. :)

2009-10-16T19:09:00.005-04:00

It hasn't even been two hours since I've been home, and there is already a cake in the oven. I've been having wicked cake-cravings for the past 48 hours. I really don't know why, but I have a sneaking feeling that the cake I made for Wednesday's dinner triggered it. And this is no CHOCOLATE cake craving, but for something more like....carrot cake. With cream cheese or vanilla frosting. Or maybe I am just craving more of the same cake from Wednesday....which is why I just whipped another one up. :) I also came home to homemade applesauce, so it was clearly meant that this cake be made again!

One of the best parts of being home-home? 72 OUNCE BAGS OF NESTLE CHOCOLATE CHIPS, HECK YES. And I know it might sound weird, but there is a big difference between Kroger and Nestle chocolate chips. Being the poor college student that I am, the cheapest chocolate chips usually win in my book. But Nestle....oh yeeeeah.

apple sauce + banana bread + chocolate chips + vanilla frosting = cake

2009-10-13T23:50:00.005-04:00

So everything is in this cake. Okay, not everything, but a lot of different ingredients that you wouldn't necessarily bake together. Something like....bananas + chocolate chips + homemade cinnamon apple sauce. Sound good? It is.

So I didn't start out making cake...I originally wanted to make homemade apple sauce because I had three apples in the fridge that had been there for about two weeks. Yeah, time to use those puppies up.

Peeled apple. How lovely.

So into this went three apples, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp. cinnamon, and a little bit of water. But there was way too much brown sugar, so I recommend using about half the amount. I wasn't patient enough to let the apples cook down enough till they were "saucy", but they were cooked decently enough. IMPORTANT NOTE: Water is key to successful applesauce sauciness. Without it, you will burn the apples, and that is not good. So add a little to start, and then keep adding it as need be.

Next up on the baking agenda was a dessert for a dinner with my friends, Raluca and Yvan. I was going to make chocolate chip cookies and then cut them out into out initials (yeah, yeah, cutesy-tootsy, I know), but there wasn't a single sprinkle of white sugar in my house! I know, blasphemy, right?! So the overripe banana in my freezer inspired me to make banana bread, since that uses brown sugar - no white sugar needed. But then....I realized I had no loaf pain. Fail, again. But lo and behold, I had a 13x9 pan. Voila....banana cake.

And wow, was it good. I mean, don't want to toot my own horn or anything, but......yeah. Really good. :)

Applesauce Banana Bread Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups mashed overripe bananas
1/3 cup cinnamon apple sauce
About 1/2 cup chocolate chips

4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
2-4 tbsp. milk
2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13x9-inch pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs, mashed bananas, and applesauce until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.

Bake in preheated oven for 20-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool.

Prepare frosting. In a medium bowl, mix whisk together powdered sugar, butter, milk, and vanilla until frosting consistency. Set aside

Cut cake into two equal parts. Place one part on the bottom of a plate. Cover with half the frosting. Top with remaining cake layer. Frost with remaining frosting. DEVOUR.

black bean vegetable soup

2009-10-03T17:45:00.003-04:00

Look at me go!!!! Making all this real-food and such! My med school friend, Elizabeth, says I am turning into a real-person by making all these foods....maybe she's right, haha. All I know is that I will have to make something realllly unhealthy in the very near future. And I'm thinking it's going to involve the jumbo-size bag of Resee's cups I bought yesterday for an intense studying session with Raluca. So stay tuned for Resee's brownies, or something like that. :)

This recipe came from my mom's food science class that she took last semester. She made it while I was home for the summer and it was SO GOOD! So I thought I'd give it a try. I never realized how easy soup is....you just open some cans, cut up some veggies, onions, and garlic and let it all get happy in the pot. So easy. I think I'll be making soup more often, now. AND it's kind of like cereal - a meal in a bowl! Only two dishes to wash! Brilliant, really.

Black Bean Vegetable Soup

1 tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 carrots, chopped
2 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. ground cumin
4 cups veggie stock (or chicken or beef, whatever your heart desires)
1 (15 oz.) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
1 (8.75 oz.) can whole kernel corn
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
1 (14.5 oz.) can stewed tomatoes

In a large pot, heat oil over medium heat; cook onion, garlic, and carrots, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes, or until onion is softened. Add chili powder and cumin; cook, stirring for 1 minutes. Add stock, 1 can of beans, corn, and pepper. Bring to boil. Meanwhile, in food processor or blender, puree together tomatoes and remaining can of beans; add to pot. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until carrots are tender.

lucky yellow limoncello: sugar edition

2009-10-03T17:35:00.005-04:00

Yep, it's that time, again. Limoncello time! Two months have gone by, which means it is time to add that second round of delicious Burnett's (sarcasm) and sugar mixture.

Eight cups of sugar and 10 cups of water were heated until "thickened"....which didn't happen for awhile. The recipe said 5-10 minutes, but was obviously lying since it took more like 20 minutes. This is probably because we doubled the recipe....eight cups of sugar is quite much, haha.

Then, the lemon schtuff was split up between four milk jugs and the sugar mixture divided into fours.

Hmmmm....can limoncello cause "serious injury"? Hah. We'll see how strong it is when it's all done!

And, of course, I had to try a little....and it tasted reallllly really strong. Hmmmm. Hopefully the next 1-2 months will do the trick into making it delicious.

college eats, week 3: anita brownies/cupcakes

2009-09-22T00:32:00.005-04:00

Eat it. Now. Dooooooo it. You know you want to. ;)

Wow, I'd be a great drug-pusher, huh? Except that my drug of choice would be desserts. :) I had a yearning to make something chocolate tonight, so what did I bake up? None other than the chocolate cookie dough cupcake recipe from my good friend, Anita. I made these about a year ago for a BBQ with a bunch of friends....but I have just recently discovered that these puppies are even better when you bake 'em in an 8x8-inch pan. I had a little extra cake batter and cookie dough left over and didn't really feel like washing out the muffin tin after the first batch had finished baking. So I basically just made a mound of cookie dough in the center of the pan, poured in the rest of the cake batter, and made sure it covered the dough. Bake until a knife comes out clean, and voila! Deeeelicious cookie dough brownies. :)

Anita Cupcakes

1 box chocolate cake mix
chocolate chip cookie dough
1 can chocolate frosting
sprinkles

Prepare cake according to package instructions, and pour batter into cupcake pan. Before baking, push a teaspoon-sized ball of cookie dough into the center of each cupcake well. Place in oven, and bake for time indicated on cake package instructions. Remove from oven, and cool.

Frost cupcakes with chocolate frosting.

college eats, week 3: tuscan risotto

2009-09-22T00:29:00.003-04:00

So for my food science class, we had to make a whole slew of things at home for our "lab"...three different white sauces, a pudding, and this reallllly good risotto. This is now my favorite class of all-all time (obviously...really, are you that surpirsed? ;)

Onions look so pretty once they're out of their wrapper for some reason.

And so does celery. I really don't like raw celery....like a lot. But it's good cooked up in rices and soups, so I suppose I'll have to allow it this time.

Say hello to my roommate, Janine! She's a nutrition grad student, too. And we both loooooove food, so I think we'll get along quite fine. :)

And then Arborio rice was added....

Mmmmm, looks so pretty, huh?

And it tasted really really good, too. The only problem was that we ran out of vegetable broth, so we had to add water instead while cooking it. It definitely would've been much more flavorful with the broth, but still really good.

college eats, week 2: eggplant parmesan

2009-09-22T00:27:00.008-04:00

It's official. I have fallen in love.......with the Farmer's Market. I picked up two eggplant for $1 this Saturday from these nice Amish farmer-kids. Once I bought them, I immediately knew what I could concoct with them: eggplant parmesan.

WEIRD FACT #1: Eggplant start to get brown VERY VERY quickly after you slice them up! Why? I am not quite sure. I really should Wiki this later.

So my grandma makes some HOT DAMN GOOD eggplant parmesan. No joke. And she's told me how to prepare it a number of times, and I am always in awe of how easy it is to make! Simply slice, bread your eggplant, bake 'em till brown-ish, then layer them up with sauce and mozzarella. Yes, my friends, it is that easy. Even a caveman could do it.

WEIRD FACT #2: Michael's mom also makes some HOT DAMN GOOD eggplant parmesan....but with a different twist. She uses their fam's sauce for the layer-age, which has sausage in it sliced slightly thinly. I had never had eggplant parmesan with sausage in it before until Michael brought a tray of it over for us to eat one night. And wow.....was it good, or what. So if you feel the need to be carnivorous, feel free to add some sausage. It definitely won't do it harm.

Ohhhh, there it is, there it is! Isn't it lovely? Here's a close-up for your viewing pleasure:

Ohhhhhhh. Ahhhhhhhhh.

After I told my grandma how I had made the eggplant, I realized that I had forgotten a step in the process: peeling the eggplant. Whoops. Yay for eggplant parmesan with increased fiber. Anyway, the main concern was that it would be difficult, if not annoying, to eat with the skin on there, but a consultation with my Great Aunt Bernie proved otherwise. Apparently, Aunt Bernie never peels her eggplant before parmesaning-it up, so I am in good company because she is an amazing cook! I like to think that it was my inner Italian-cooking instincts that told me not to peel that purple veggie. :)

Yum, I can't wait to eat this. I'll be inviting Michael over to try it with me soon....I need a fellow Italian with me to enjoy eating eggplant parmesan. :)

college eats, week 2: cheesy garlicky dill mashed potatoes

2009-09-22T00:15:00.005-04:00

Ooohhhhh....yummy Vermont cheddar cheese from Zingerman's.

And then all mixed together with fresh dill and minced garlic.

Mashed up with some boiled white potatoes from the farmers market....

And TA-DA! Delicious, homemade, gourmet-tasting mashed potatoes in about 15 minutes. It's that easy.

college eats, week 1: veggie extravaganza

2009-09-07T12:28:00.003-04:00

So one of the joys of living in this new pseudo real-person area is that I am three short blocks away from the local farmer's market that goes on twice a week. It's great....there are TONS of fresh veggies, fruits, and herbs. Basically, I feel like I'm in heaven. :) The downfall? It's kinda expensive. But hey, you're paying for locally grown, fresh, organic food, so I think it's quite worth it. And the experience itself is worth it....for some reason I just love walking up and down the pavilion looking at everyone's fresh produce. Everything just looks so good, I want to buy one of everything!!! So yes, I definitely think I'll be making a weekly trip.

This week, I bought tomatoes and potatoes. Hey, that rhymes....haha. And let me tell you, these potatoes were SO SO adorable! They're the smaller kind, and they tasted delicious sliced up, seasoned with basil, salt, pepper, and fresh chopped garlic. Oh, and olive oil. Gotta love the olive oil. :) Then I just made a little packet to hold them in and placed them in the toaster oven until they were cooked. Mmmmmm. Sorry, guys, I didn't take any pictures of the concoction, I was wayyy too hungry.

Ohhh, look at that fresh garlic. I've decided to try to use fresh garlic this year instead of the minced stuff that I usually get. And the best part? My fingers smell like garlic for a good few days after. The best kind of perfume, huh?

I also got carrots when I went on my Kroger adventure....and yes, they are....GASP....organic. I know, I know, I know. I swore I wouldn't cross over to the dark side. But these guys just looked so so cool with the green stuff still attached! And they were super cheap, too.

So yes, I will admit that my dinner this night consisted of solely vegetables: tomatoes with balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, and basil; potato-concoction; and carrots in balsamic vinegar. Okay, yes, I need to work on incorporating protein in there, but let's take things one step at a time, okay?

college eats, week 1: peanut butter oreos

2009-09-04T19:23:00.007-04:00

I am officially back at U of M, and so begins the eight months of strange eating habits. Wahoooo. If we're lucky, hopefully I'll try to write one post a week....each week featuring a delicious or funny food.

This week? Oreos with peanut butter. And they're even better when there's homemade peanut butter sandwiched in between that delicious cookie. And look!! I managed to perfectly split the cookie, schmear on the peanut butter, and top it with the other half of the cookie. Look at those beautiful layers! One of my new roommates, Janine, laughed when she saw me bust out my camera and take pictures of this beauty mid-bite. Guess they'll have to get used to my quirks, haha.

Oh, how I love love peanut butter. :)

ohhh, look at that swirly-goodness

2009-08-22T18:31:00.009-04:00

So I came back a few hours ago from seeing Julie & Julia with my mom. Wow, what a great movie!! Anyone who lives to eat should see this movie. And it definitely made me reevaluate my career goals. Hmmm, culinary school after grad school, anyone?? ;) To create my own culinary nutrition degree? To be a....personal chef?? Hmmm, you never know. :)

So the next bread I tackled from the Epic Sandwich Cookbook? Cranberry Currant Bread! Now, I really don't know what kind of sandwich this would work well with. It seems to me that it's best as a dessert-like thang that you heat up in the micro or toaster oven.

The cool thing about this bread is the realllly good cranberry-currant-cream cheese filling that gives it that classic jelly roll-look. After that mixture was made on the stove top, it got smeared over the rolled out whole wheat bread dough.

And drizzled over the bread dough before the cream cheese? Maple syrup. And in my case, real maple syrup that my mom had bought when we were in the UP this July. Ohhhh yeah. It doesn't get much better than that, huh?

Oohhhh, Giada-shot.....aka picture with low-cut shirt. ;)

Rolling up this puppy was definitely an adventure. I almost feared that the cream cheese filling was going to explode out since there was so much of it.

But fear not! The bread came out marvelously. However, since I made this bread for Mike, I never got a taste of it....as it would be just slightly rude to give a loaf a bread with a slice already cut from it. ;) I did get pictures of it, though, thanks to Mike's mom. These last two pictures are hers....she's not too shabby with the camera, huh?

Cranberry, Currants, & Cream Cheese Bread
From "Beautiful Breads & Fabulous Fillings"

1 tbsp. butter
1 1/2 cups dried cranberries
1 1/2 cups dried currants (I pretty sure this is a fancy word for raisins....)
16 oz. cream cheese
1/4 cup plus 3 tbsp, maple syrup
1 egg
2 tbsp. water

Basic Whole Wheat Bread - WARNING: These measurements make 4 LOAVES. I halved it and used one portion for this recipe and the other for a plain whole wheat loaf.
2 tbsp. yeast
5 cups warm water
2 cups warm milk
2 cups warm half-and-half
3/4 cups brown sugar
2 sticks butter, melted
3/4 cup honey
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
18 vups whole wheat flour
3 1/2 tbsp. salt
1 egg
2 tbsp. water

Prepare Basic Whole Wheat Bread: Generously grease a large bowl and set aside.

In a very large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the water, milk, and half-and-half. Let stand for 5 minutes, or until the yeast is foamy. Add the brown sugar, butter, honey, and vanilla to the yeast mixture and mix well.

In another very large bowl (or stand mixer), combine the whole wheat flour and salt. Slowly add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and mix well. If you're using a stand mixer, knead for 3 to 4 minutes. If you're kneading by hand, turn the dough onto a floured countertop or board, and knead for 4 to 7 minutes. Keep the dough moist for a soft, tender bread.

Place the kneaded dough in the prepared bowl. Place the bowl in a warm, dry place and let the dough rise for 60 minutes.

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the cranberries, currants, cream cheese, and 1/2 cup of the maple syrup. Mix well and cover. Let simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring frequently.

Generously butter 1 9-inch loaf pan. Roll out a softball-size piece of the dough from the Whole Wheat Bread recipe (one-quarter of the batch) into a 9x11-inch rectangle so that the long side is perpendicular to your body.

Spread the remaining maple syrup over the dough. Then spread the mixture in the skillet evenly over the dough.

Tightly roll the dough into a loaf, rolling away from your body. To hold in the filling, fold the outer edges of the dough as you roll.

Place the dough into the prepared loaf pan seam side down. Place the pan in a warm, dry place and allow the dough to rise for 60 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Beat together the egg and water to make an egg wash. Brush the egg wash over the dough. Make three diagonal slits - deep enough to see the filling - across the top of the loaf.

Bake for about 1 hour. Remove the loaf from the pan and tap the bottom of the loaf. If it sounds hollow, it's done. If not, continue to bake, checking every few minutes. When the loaf is done, return it to the pan, remove from the oven, and cool for 30 minutes. Remove the loaf from the pan and transfer it to a wire rack. Cool for another 30 minutes before slicing.

Yield: 1 loaf

what?! concord GRAPE bread?!

2009-08-15T16:57:00.012-04:00

Oh hello, fair readers. So for those of you who don't know me in real-life (and most of you do....), here's me mid-mix during the making of the Concord Grape Bread, aka The Purple Monstrosity. If there's one thing I've learned from making bread out of this new cookbook, it's that mixing with your hands is so SO much fun. All that squishy, ooey, gooeyness just makes you feel like you're five again, making mud pies in your back yard. I don't know about you, but some days, I would just love to be five again....having no worries, except for how you're going to evade that scary green vegetable on your dinner plate. The heck with this up and coming entrance into Real Persondom. ;)

What a delicious ooey gooey mess.

So the moment I saw this recipe, I knew that it was made to be the bread for a peanut butter and banana sandwich. Grilled, of course. For the record, PB&B always must be grilled. It's the only way to get those peanut butter juices a flowin' and for the banana's natural sugars to come out and get all gooey and delicious. And then the bread gets warmed and crispy from the butter (or spray butter, if you will) schmeared all over before grill-age. Oooohhhh. Oh, so good. Yes, I may have had a love affair with a PB&B sandwich once....or twice. We go wayy back.

The cool thing about this sandwich is that it is kind of like a peanut butter and jelly banana sandwich, thanks to the grape bread. Crazy, kind of mind-blowing, right?! I like the idea of two sandwiches in one. :)

And here it is, my beautifully delicious grilled PB&B sandwich on grape bread. It was really strange to see purple bread being baked, to say the least. But appearances are usually deceiving, and this bread came out really well. It's more like a sweet bread (think banana bread-like) that's good for dessert or a snack. Or in a sweet sandwich. :)

Concord Grape Bread
From "Beautiful Breads & Fabulous Fillings"

1/2 tbsp. yeast
1 cup warm vanilla soy milk
4 oz. boysenberry yogurt
16 oz. jar Concord grape jelly
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 stick butter, melted
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tbsp. salt

Generously grease a large mixing bowl and two load pans and set aside.

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the soy milk. Let it stand for 5 minutes, or until the yeast is foamy. Add the yogurt, jelly, powdered sugar, and butter and mix well. In another large bowl, combine the flour and salt.

Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well with your hands. This dough is EXTREMELY wet! Transfer the dough to the prepared bowl. Place bowl in a warm, dry place and allow the dough to rise for 60 minutes.

Separate into two portions and transfer each portion into the prepared loaf pans. Place the pans in a warm, dry place and allow the dough to rise for 60 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and bake the bread for about 1 hour.

Test for doneness: if the pan sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom, the bread is done. If not, continue to bake, checking every few minutes. When the loaf is done, remove from oven and cool for 30 minutes. Remove the loaves from the pan, and transfer them to a wire rack. Cool for another 30 minutes before slicing.

Yield: 1 loaf

delicious birthday gift, part 2

2009-08-11T00:08:00.008-04:00

So prepare yourselves for a slew of sandwich-inspired recipes in the very near future. First recipe attempt from Margaux Sky's "Beautiful Breads & Fabulous Fillings"? Homemade peanut butter....wahoo!

First step was food processing-up the peanuts, and they actually "stood up" along the side of the food processor. Very strange.

And as you continued and added olive oil, it eventually got creamy after a few minutes.

Yum. I really love peanut butter. I will always have a soft spot for Jiff, but this stuff has no chemicals and tastes like you're nom-ing on a dry roasted peanut. And the best way to eat peanut butter, you ask? With a banana, of course. :)

Nut Butter
Taken from "Beautiful Breads & Fabulous Fillings"

8 oz. unsalted peanuts, almonds, or cashews - if you use salted nuts, reduce salt to 1/8 tsp.
1-2 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 tsp. salt

Place the nuts in a blender or food processor and blend for about 2 minutes or until the nuts cling to the sides of the machine.

Turn off the machine, and add the oil and salt.

Turn it on, and blend for 1 minute more, or until creamy. If the mixture seems dry, add a little more oil and process until it's the consistency you like.

Store any extra nut butter in an airtight container in the redrigerator.

Yield: About 1 cup

a delicious birthday gift

2009-08-10T19:24:00.006-04:00

Isn't it beautiful?! And delicious, too. This was my gift from Michael for my 22nd birthday, along with a sandwich-inspired cook book - more to come about this at a later date. But anyway, this was so good, it nearly put my dessert-creating skills to shame. Hmmm, this guy might be up to no good....hehe.

Anyway, this was SO SO good, and it wasn't even chocolate!! Mike added ground-up almonds to the shortbread-like crust, which made it really great. And then there was this cream cheese layer and a limeade-esque layer. To top it off, it was also a Paula Deen, Butter Queen recipe. You can't get much more delicious than that.

And I was going to take a picture of it in slice-form, but I remembered to do that right as I was placing the last bite into my mouth. Whoops. Maybe next time. :)

chocolate cinnamon coffee cake

2009-08-10T19:21:00.003-04:00

Have I mentioned yet that I am convinced Mark Bittman is a Baking God? So far, everything I have made out of his cookbook, "How to Cook Everything", has been a hit. So it is no wonder that this coffee cake came out realllllly delicious, too.

The walnuts were chopped up, and then drenched in this flour, cinnamon sugar, and butter mixture. This recipe didn't have chocolate chips in it, but I decided to add them because I was in the mood for chocolate. And I am so glad I did because the chocolate part of the coffee cake got rave reviews.

Ohhhh....the cookbook kind of has an eerie glow to it, huh? Maybe it was because I baked this around 1am. For the record, baking after midnight is the best time to bake. The kitchen is free and cleaned, and I get to bake in my PJs...aka U of M PJ-shorts and an old running t-shirt from the high school days. This way, I don't get flour on my clothes for the day. Because who cares if I go to bed with flour and chocolate drippings all over my t-shirt? :)

Quick Coffee Cake
From Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Anything"

1 stick butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 cups walnuts or pecans
2 tsp. baking powder
1 egg
3/4 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan. Combine 3 tbsp. of flour, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp. of cinnamon, and 3 tbsp. butter with the nuts. Set aside.

Combine remaining 2 cups of flour, the baking powder, salt, adn the remaining 1/2 cup or sugar, 1 tsp. of cinnamon, and 5 tbsp. of the butter, cut into bits, in a bowl. Mix well with a fork or electric mixer until all of the flour is coated with some of the butter.

Still on low speed, beat the egg into the butter-flour mixture, then the milk until blended. Pour half the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle over it about half the streusel mixture. Sprinkle chocolate chips over streusel. Add the remaining batter, then the remaining streusel.

Bake for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Devour.

lucky yellow limoncello

2009-07-25T12:45:00.008-04:00

So when life gives you lemons, how about cutting right to the chase? Skip that lemonade stand and make some limoncello! Limoncello is basically an Italian lemon liquor that my family was crazzzy about a few years back. Some of my great-uncles even made their own batch and passed bottles out to the family around Christmastime. Really fun, delicious stuff, right?

So when I discovered this recipe on foodgawker.com, I felt that I just had to give it a try. I quickly called up Michael Anthony (not an Italian-enough name, right?), and asked if he wanted to try it out. Basically, Mike and I have conquered desserts and real-foods of all sorts, but haven't explored the booze-making world all that much. Welcome to our limoncello adventure.

It was decided that we were going to make a half recipe of the drink, which would yield 3 1/2 cups of the drink. Definately plently, as limoncello is traditionally sipped in small amounts. However, once word got out on the street of what we were making, my mom ordered two more bottles, and Mike's mom wanted one, as well. Sigh. Which meant we would need to double the recipe. We were up to the challenge.

Our shopping list was a bit funny...thirty lemons and two fifths of Burnett's. I can only imagine what people thought when passing our cart full o' lemons and cheap booze....haha. Also, I am sure that a nicer vodka would make the limoncello even more delcious (Absolut, Stoli, etc.), but us Poor College Students thought Burnett's would do. Hey, at least we didn't chose Mohawk or Five O'Clock. Afterall, we wouldn't want to serve rubbing alcohol-like vodka to our relatives, right? :)

Anyway, once home, we got to work zesting and pithing the lemons. My job title? The Zester Master. And Mike's job? The Pith Master. I used a peeler to peel the zest off of the thirty lemons (I never want to see another lemon again....), and Mike used a small paring knife (a fillet knife works well, too) to get the excess pith off of the peels.

Ohhh, those piles of zest. And pith. I'm sure it'll be deliciously worth it in the end, though.

The aftermath. I was entertained by the fact that it looked like a bunch of drunks had come through my kitchen. And those two shady-looking bottles on the left with no labels? We removed the labels to make our own once the limoncello is finished. A name for the limoncello is still underconstruction, though I'm thinking Lucky Yellow Limoncello has a fun ring to it. The limoncello being "lucky" really has nothing to do with it, except for a bit of alliteration going on there. I'd like to think that the fluorescent yellow hue that the limoncello aquires with age, however, is lucky in a way...haha. Or at least shady-looking, to say the least.

Here's allllll the zest in the vodka, waiting to sit in a cool, dark place (aka your local kitchen cabinet) for two months. Yes, you heard me right. Two months, people. That's a long wait for a delicious drink. And that's only half of it....at that time, you whip up the sugar mixture to add to the vodka-lemon zest concotion and THEN add the other half of the vodka from the recipe. In our case, this means two more fifths of vodka will be poured into here. Yum.

Ohhhhh, pretty. :) By the end of the night, the vodka was already taking on a pretty yellow color. And for the record, this concotion is sitting in two glass gallon jars that were made to hold milk....which is why the bottle says "Real Milk in Real Glass".

Look back in two months for Lucky Yellow Limoncello: Sugar Edition!

Limoncello

15 lemons
2 bottles (750 ml) 100-proof vodka
4 cups sugar
5 cups water

Wash the lemons in hot water. Dry them.

Use a zester or peeler to zest the rings. If some pith gets on there, remove it with a small pointly knife. Make sure you do so, or the limoncello will be spoiled.

In a big glass jar, pour in half of the vodka. As you are zesting, drop strands of the lemon peel inside. Close it up well, and leave it somewhere cool and dark (like a closet) for two months.

After two months, make the syrup. In a sauce pan. cook the sugar and water over medium heat until thickened slightly (about 5-10 minutes). Cool completely. Take the bottle out to add the syrup and the rest of the vodka.

Close it up, and put it back in the cool, dark place for another month or so. When ready, take the bottle out, disgard the peels, strain the limoncello, and drink and be merry. You may also put it in the freezer until ready to serve, to chill.