New Photos

One of my very best friends got married last weekend and I was honored to be a bridesmaid. Here are some photos Ben and I (okay, mostly Ben) took from the event and the weekend we spent in the country. On another note, I'm feeling MUCH better, so I'm starting to get back into my cooking.

Crickets

I haven't done a very good job at keeping this blog updated since I've been pregnant and one reason is because I've done little to no cooking at all. Blame the hormones. All I want is rice or brussels sprouts or mac and cheese or ice cream or bagels. And I'm too tired to actually look up a recipe, shop for all the ingredients and then cook. Usually b/c I'm STARVING by that point. So, I'm not abandoning this blog, I'm just on a little hiatus until I'm feeling up to cooking again. I'll post a few random things here and there since my blog used to be random, but then turned more towards cooking/baking/eating/nominess. So back to the randomness!

Here are some pretty shots I took at my BFF's bridal shower this past weekend in NYC.

Pretty Peonies

Favors: floating candles that looked like apples!

Gift table... there were WAY more gifts after I took this pic.

With the beautiful bride to be!

Cutest little pup, Tallulah

So True

Yup... that's about right ;)

Avocado Chimchurri Bruschetta

Sorry for the absence... I've been busy being pregnant! YEP! :) Anyway, back to what I like to talk about most, FOOD! I've made this recipe twice now and everyone loves it! It's a fantastic appetizer, particularly if you are an avocado fan, and if you aren't then I feel sorry for you.

Avocado Chimchurri Bruschetta

2 Tbs. lemon juice
2 Tbs. red wine vinegar
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon red chili flakes
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup chopped cilantro, minced
1//4 cup chopped fresh parsley, minced
3 minced garlic cloves
2 avocados, peeled, pitted, and cubed
1 baguette, sliced and toasted (I've used both white and whole wheat baguette)

Combine the garlic, lemon juice, vinegar, salt, oregano, and black and red pepper in small bowl.
Whisk in the oil until thoroughly combined, then stir in the herbs.
Gently toss the avocado cubes into the sauce.
Spoon the avocado and sauce mixture onto toast slices.

Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie

Look at this giant cookie Ben made me. It was oh so delicious!

March Madness

I haven't posted b/c I've been busy with this!!

Enjoy all you foodies :)

Baked Brie Bites

My go-to appetizer to please any party goer is baked brie. It's cheap, easy and ALWAYS a hit. There has never been a time where I didn't end up with an entirely empty plate. So when I stumbled across this gem of a recipe while perusing an amazing food site, Tastespotting.com, I knew I hit the baked brie lottery! I decided to make it when my friends Abby and Zack came over for some drinks. Zack doesn't like jam, so I made some without (I know, he's crazy!).

Crescent Brie and Raspberry Bites
by Taste and Tell

1 tube refrigerated crescent rolls
Il de France brie (I am not a brie snob, so choose what you wish)
raspberry jam

Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a mini muffin pan.

Unroll the crescent dough. Separate into 4 rectangles by pinching 2 triangles together. Slightly flatten out rectangles. Cut each rectangle into fourths, making 16 smaller rectangles.

Arrange dough in the mini muffin pan, forming small cups. Cut brie into small pieces, about 1/2 - 1 teaspoon each. Put one piece of brie in each crescent cup. Top each with 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of raspberry jam. (Definitely do not overfill your cups, no matter how tempting.. they will runneth over!)

Bake in preheated oven for about 10 minutes, until crescents are golden brown and cheese is bubbly. Remove from oven. Serve warm.

I think I could've cut these into even smaller pieces for the bites. More brie, less bread.

I prefer a rind-less brie.

See.. definitely could've gotten more bites out of that dough.

These pieces of brie may have been a little aggressive. Next time I'll go smaller.

Jam and jam-less.

They came out a little messy b/c of over filling, but I think next time I will experiment with baked brie balls! I'll just fold the dough completely over!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Layer Cake

Chocolate and peanut butter is by far my favorite combination of food. It's my go-to flavor of Baskin Robbins ice cream and I'll never turn down a Reeses Cup, so it was obvious to me when I came across this recipe that I HAD to make it. However, "when?" was the question. Well, Valentine's day duh! Ben and I had no problems picking this as our dessert, plus neither of us had ever baked a cake this big. We added our own touch by topping it with chopped up Reeses, which I would highly recommend. It was delicious and rich, however next time we will change up the peanut butter filling and make it more peanut buttery and less cream cheesy!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Layer Cake
adapted from The Other Side of Fifty

1 3/4 cup sugar
1 cup butter, softened
2 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs plus 2 large egg whites
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 cup Dutch-processed cocoa
2 tsp espresso powder
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/4 cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray cake pans with cooking spray and flour generously.

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla with mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Scrape down bowl and beaters.

In a separate bowl combine flour, cocoa, espresso powder, baking soda and salt. Beat into creamed mixture alternating with the buttermilk. Scrape down bowl and beaters and continue mixing on medium speed for one minute. Pour into prepared pans.

Bake for 28-30 minutes and until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. This actually ended up being about 35 minutes in my oven with the 6"x2" pans.

Remove from oven and cool for 15 minutes before removing from pans to cool completely on cooling rack.

When cakes have completely cooled, slice them in half horizontally, now giving you four separate cake layers. Place one layer on plate and spread peanut butter filling over the top. Repeat with remaining layers but do not top the last layer with peanut butter filling. Pour ganache over the top of the cake and let it run down the sides.

Peanut Butter Filling

1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1/2 cup marshmallow creme (Fluff)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup heavy cream, chilled
Pinch salt

Mix all of the filling ingredients together with a mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scraping down the bowl as necessary.

Chocolate Ganache

1 1/3 cups (8 ounces) chocolate chips or chopped semisweet chocolate
1/2 cup heavy or whipping cream
2 tablespoons light corn syrup

Combine the above in a microwave safe bowl and heat in 15-20 second increments until cream is hot enough to melt the chocolate. Stir until chocolate is melted and ganache is smooth.

Top with desired amount of Reeses Cups (I used minis).

All the dry ingredients

Butter, sugar and vanilla

Using our new hand mixer!

My arm got a serious workout!

Who wants to lick the mixer??

Two beauties

That's how you cut a layer of cake!

Mmmm, the peanut butter layer goes on.

Ready for the ganache!

We added some extra chips :)

OMG

Chop, chop, eat. Chop, chop, eat.

Almost done....

Final product!

Ranch Mac & Cheese

Sorry for the silence! I've been beyond busy at work helping to launch our new food site! Check it out: Kitchendaily.com It's currently in beta and there's a lot more to come! I am literally submersed in food content alll day long and the last thing I want to do when I come home is get on my computer. But now it's the weekend and I have so much to update on my blog!

Valentine's Day is long gone, but I'll take you back there with this post :) We decided to make our own meal instead of going out to a restaurant. We love challenging ourselves, particularly when it comes to baking (stay tuned for that post!). The hardest part? Choosing our menu! Since we always eat healthy we decided to splurge and make some sinful deliciousness!

This recipe came from one of my favorite food blogs, The Noble Pig. It came out better than I could have ever imagined. I can't wait to make it for my favorite Ranch lover, Colleen. She puts Ranch on EVERYTHING! And she loves mac & cheese to boot!

Ranch Mac & Cheese
Adapted from Taste of Home

1 package (16 oz.) elbow macaroni
1 cup milk (I used whole)
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1 envelope ranch salad dressing mix
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon garlic pepper blend
1 teaspoon lemon-pepper seasoning
1 cup (4 oz.) shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1 cup (4 oz.) shredded Colby cheese
1 cup (8 oz.) sour cream
1/2 cup crushed saltines
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Begin by shredding your Monterey Jack, Colby and Parmesan cheeses.

Cook macaroni according to package directions, however, do not use salt in the pasta water. Meanwhile in a Dutch oven, combine the milk, butter, dressing mix and seasonings; heat through. Stir in Monterey Jack and Colby cheeses until melted. Stir in sour cream.

Drain macaroni; stir into cheese sauce with the saltines. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Milk, butter and seasonings

That's me!

Cheesy nomness!

That's a lot of sour cream!

YUMMM!

Stir, Stir Stir

Are you drooling yet?

The final product, topped with crushed red pepper of course!

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Today is day seven of being snowed in. Well, I was able to make it to the store on Tuesday, but besides that I haven't seen civilization in a week! The other day while I was wandering around the kitchen, snacking and taking a break from work, I noticed our bananas were getting to the point where neither myself nor Ben would eat them, well I probably would've, but I decided I would much rather make some banana bread. So I found a simple recipe that only required 3 bananas (luckily I had one in the freezer)! I just added a random amount of chocolate chips to the recipe so use your own judgment on that ingredient. And because Ben and I are newly living together, we don't have all the cooking goodies one needs... so we improvised with cake flour and a random sized baking dish! It still came out delicious and I know this b/c it's already almost gone after just 3 days of being made! :)

I found this recipe via Google... what would we do without it?
Credit: Simply Recipes

Ingredients

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

Method

No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Squishy squish squish nanners

Oh heeeyyyyyy Paula Deen

I should've cropped this photo...

I wish you could smell how delicious this is.

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of cake flour is equal to 1 cup of all purpose flour

The best part!!

The cooking time was a little off b/c we used a different pan, but it was oh so yummy!

Ewww cleaning up is not fun!