Fill in the Blank Friday

Made in Oregon!

Happy Friday! We made it through the week! Jose is visiting me from Mexico this weekend and he just got here last night (Jose is my bf from Mexico FYI). After his flight came in we went downtown and walked around and found an amazing restaurant called Violetta.

If you live in Portland or near Portland you cannot miss out on this place! Super cheap prices and amazing food! I had black truffle fries and let me tell you, out of this WORLD good and only 4 bucks! Jose had a burger and it was super tasty as well. I love locally run, sustainable businesses like this one. Such a great find, I will definitely be returning! I snagged a Fill in the Blank Friday from my dear friend Lauren's blog so enjoy and have an amazing weekend!

1. My favorite thing about this week has been Jose coming to visit me and me not having to work today AND the fact that blueberries are showing up more at the market!

2. The weather this week has been AMAZING! I am loving it... except my apartment doesn't have AC so that kinda stinks.

3. The last (interesting) item I received in the mail was Coupons for pizza hut... not very exciting at all, but at least it wasn't a bill!

4. The last movie I saw was Ratatouille, one of my all time faves, puts me in a good mood no matter what! and I've been watching old Paula Dean episodes on DVD, does that count?

5. If I could be doing anything I felt like today I would I actually get to do this cause I have the day off in honor of Jose's visit. So we are gonna go get delicious Mexican food and then hike silver falls. Not a bad day all together!

6. As a teenager I was awkward and had poofy hair, and bad taste in fashion

7. I wish I could trade lives for the day with maybe Harry Potter, it would be pretty freakin sweet to do magic, but only AFTER Voldemort is taken care of, cause I wouldn't want to meet him!

mmmmmm... black truffle oil fries

Couldn't wait for a bite!

Martha's Rosemary Almonds

Today I love... long flowy summer dresses like this one, frozen cookie dough, my bread machine and puppies!

Does it get any cuter???

Now, for something I love everyday..... snacks.... little delicious morsels I can nibble throughout the day. Extra bonus if the snacks are nutritious and not chock full of sugar. These rosemary almonds are full of good for you things and are wonderfully addictive! I clipped the recipe from Martha Stewart Living a few months back and have made them quite a few times since then. The first time I made them I used dried rosemary as I didn't have fresh on hand. However, when I discovered that the italian restaurant down the street has a HUGE rosemary plant out front, I decided to try them with fresh rosemary :) (It's a really big plant, I'm sure they don't mind my borrowing a branch every now and again). Fresh rosemary, if you have it, makes for a more flavorful snack but the dried is pretty darn good too. Enjoy, and happy snacking!

Rosemary Candied Almonds

Recipe from Martha Stewart Living, May 2010

Ingredients

2 tbsp sugar

Coarse salt

2 tbsp unsalted butter

2 tbsp honey

2 cups raw almonds

2 tbsp fresh rosemary

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Stir together 4 teaspoons sugar and 1/2 tsp salt. Set aside. Heat butter and honey over medium-high heat in a large skillet until bubbling. Remove from heat.

Add almonds and rosemary, toss to coat

Transfer alomd-rosemary mixture to a parchment or foil lined baking sheet (don't scrape excess syrup from skillet, it will make them too gooey). Sprinkle almonds with sugar/salt mixture. Roast almonds until fragrant, 8-9 minutes.

Remove from oven and sprinkle with remaining 2 tsp. sugar and 1/2 tsp salt, toss to coat. Let cool completely.

If your not going to eat them soon, they can be stored in a tightly sealed tupperware in the freezer for up to one month. That is a month's worth of yummy munching!

Whisked Away Wednesday: A couple of cookies!

Happy Wednesday ! For my family's fourth ofJuly barbecue I was in charge of making cookies! I knew that one of the recipes I chose would have to be made with Splenda, as one of our guests is severely diabetic. I also knew that every year dad makes fresh raspberry ice cream, so I had to choose cookies that would go well with that. My first thought was lemon! I have been looking for a recipe to try and replicate the Lemon Zester Cookies from Paradise Bakery. They are one of my favorite things! I found a recipe on the Mcdonald Family Potluck blog and decided to give it a try, as an added bonus, it gave me a chance to try out my new (to me) vintage mixer that I got at a garage sale a few weeks ago!

The recipe doesn't specify oven temp so I set it at 375. I also refridgerated the dough overnight. When I pulled them out of the oven I was a little disappointed at first because they were flat as pancakes. However, they tasted delish. Buttery, lemoney and sweet, they were a great accompaniment to the rasperry ice cream, especially if used for an ice cream sandwich! They aren't much like the Paradise cookies but they are yummy nonetheless. Word to the wise, zesting the lemons takes quite a bit of time if you dont have a proper lemon zester. I used my trusty old cheese grater and it was a bit of a project. The fresh, zesty taste was definitley worth it.

For my diabetic friendly cookie I went with the recipe for Oatmeal Coconut Chewies from mel's cafe blog. I have made it many times to bring to work (not using Splenda) and it has always been a hit! I have never actually used Splenda for baking so this was kind of an adventure for me. Since the recipe calls for both granulated and brown sugar I got Splenda and a generic brown sugar substitute. Both claim to measure cup for cup like real sugar. I tried a bit of the brown sugar substitute before adding it to the batter and it tasted AWFUL! However, I decided to proceed in the hopes that after it was mixed in with the other ingredients and baked, it would be fine. I procedeed with the recipe as normal, when I peeked at the cookies half way through I noticed that they had not flattened out at all as they normally do, they were still in big balls. So, at this point I used a fork to press them down a bit so they would bake through. They turned out pretty good, surprisingly! They came out drier than the cookies made with real sugar, but all together the taste was not bad. They also aren't as sweet as the original cookie, but I was pleased with the results nonetheless.Actually, people who had never tried the original cookies couldn't tell that these were made with sugar substitue. If you are on a special diet or are baking for someone who is this would be a great cookie for them. However, nothing beats the original :) You might also try using 1/2 sugar substitute and 1/2 real sugar depending on a persons individual sugar tolerance. Have fun, experiment! Have a great week!

Lemon Zest Cookies

Recipe adapted from Gather Round the Table

Ingredients

2 cups sugar

1 cup butter (room temperature)

Zest of 4 lemons

2 tsp. vanilla

2 tsp. lemon extract

¼ cup lemon juice

1 egg + 2 egg yolks

3 cups flour

1tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

Procedure

In a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy, at least five minutes.

Add the lemon zest, vanilla, and lemon extract and continue mixing to combine.

Add eggs, contine to mix, add one egg yolk at a time, mixing after each one.

Sift the three dry ingredients together into a bowl and add to wet mixture.

Add lemon juice to form a soft dough. Refridgerate, covered, for at least one hour (I did overnight). Place heaping tablespoon fools onto parchment paper lined cookie sheets. These spread ALOT, I only put six on each cookie sheet so that they would have enough room to expand. Bake 9-12 minutes until cookies are SLIGHTLY browned on the edges. Remove from oven and let cool on cookie sheet. The recipe makes about 24 big, flat, delicious cookies!

Oatmeal Coconut Chewies with Splenda

from My Kitchen Cafe (www.melskitchencafe.com)

Ingredients

1 cup granulated sugar or Splenda

1 cup brown sugar or sugar substitute

2 eggs

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened to cool room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 teaspoon soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 cups flour

1 cup shredded coconut (I usually use unsweetened but this time I used sweetened)

1 cup quick oats

Procedure

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mine didn't get very light or fluffy due to the Splenda, but it didn't affect the end result :)

In a large bowl cream together the sugar, eggs, butter and vanilla until light and fluffy.

Add the dry ingredients and mix until combined.

Drop by tablespoonfuls onto a parchment lined baking sheet. If using sugar substitutes press down lightly on the top of each cookie with a fork to flatten it a bit. Bake at 350 degrees for 9-11 minutes, until the cookies are set but not overly browned.

Sweet Cherry Pie Bread

Happy Fourth of July Weekend! Can I just say, I LOVE my bread machine! I have been making a different kind of bread pretty much every day and it's so easy! I have been sticking to the more basic recipes since my first loaf didn't turn out so well. When I came across the recipe for Apple Pie Bread in one of my bread machine cook books, I decided it was time for me to go outside the basic bread box and try something new. I didn't have any apple pie filling or apple juice but I did have some low sugar cherry pie filling so I decided to try it out using some substitutions. The bread does not rise much and the loaf is heavier than other breads but the taste is out of this world! I sliced it warm and topped it with Mom's homemade strawberry jam. It was sooo good, a great treat to make ahead and munch while you are working on your Fourth of July barbecue!

Sweet Cherry Pie Bread

Recipe for 1 pound loaf

Ingredients

1 tsp active dry yeast

5 - 6 tbsp sugar

2 1/4 cups bread flour

4 tsp dry milk

1/2 cup cherry pie filling

1/2 tbsp salt

1 tbsp butter

3 oz juice - I didn't have any juice so I mixed two tblsp syrup (from the pie filling) with about 1 tbsp sugar and then added warm water to equal 3 oz.

Add wet ingredients to bread machine pan. Add dry ingredients to pan. Set bread machine on "sweet" setting with light crust. After the first rise cycle open bread machine and check dough. If it is sticking to the sides of the pans and appears too wet, add more flour and sugar until it forms a ball that does not stick to the sides of the pan. Close bread machine, let it do it's job, and enjoy!

When life gives you stale bread... make breadcrumbs!

Some of my favorite words (in no particular order):

Cheap

Easy

Homemade

These bread crumbs are all three! I recently blogged about the rockin bread machine I bought for 5 bucks at a garage sale. Unfortunatly this machine did not come with an instructions manual so I wasn't exactly sure about porportions/baking cycles. Therefore, my first loaf was an experiment, and it failed. I chose to try a whole wheat/molasses/corn meal bread recipe I found in one of my cookbooks and lets just say the results were less than spectacular.

The loaf came out heavy and dry. grrr.... what a waste! But wait! There must be something I can use this for.... a weapon? a paper weight? hmm... I've got it! Bread crumbs! They are dry, work well with whole wheat, and they are super versatile. I dont have a food processor or blender so I pulled out my trusty cheese grater and used it to grate the bread into fine little crumbs.

If you have a food processor or blender this would make the process even easier!

I had placed the loaf in the freezer while I decided how I was going to use it, so grating was a breeze as it was hard as a rock. I wouldn't recommend trying to grate fresh bread, freeze or toast the loaf first so it has a dry, hard texture. After grating the loaf up, I spread the crumbs out on a foil lined cookie tray and popped them in the oven for about 20 minutes on very low heat to dry them out even more and give them a toasty flavor. The crumbs can be stored in a ziplock bag in the freezer. When you are ready to use them, pull them out, add some seasonings and voilá! Homemade, healthy bread crumbs!

Now I'm off to look for a good recipe to utilize my crumbs!

Maybe this one

OR

this one

OR

this one....

:)

Easy Peasy Pintos N' Cheese

Feliz Friday! Ready for a great Mexican recipe? This is a super easy way to make delish pinto bean and cheese from scratch, using just a few ingredients. I got the basic bean recipe from one of the women at work, I then started adding ingredients according to what I had on hand and the result was this impossibly easy bean and cheese dish. The advice my coworker (who brought this bean recipe up with her when she moved here from Mexico) gave me was, "After they are cooked I pretty much just throw in whatever I have on hand that I think will be good." So taking her advice, I came up with this recipe. The secret, I found out, is to take out about three cups of the beans after cooking, and smash them up with a potato masher before stirring them back in with the rest of the beans. This will make your beans super creamy! The other secret that makes it so delicious is adding chorizo. Pretty much any sausage would work, but the chorizo gives it an authentic mexican flavor. You can get chorizo at most grocery stores, but I prefer to get the real authentic kind at the local Carniceria. Espero que les gustan... provecho!

Crockpot Pintos and Cheese

Ingredients

1 lb dry pinto beans

Water (to cover)

Salt (to taste)

Chili Powder (however much you want depending on how spicy you like your chili)

1 small jar medium salsa

12 ounces chorizo (or other sausage)

Mrs. Dash Spice

2-3 cups cheese

1/3 cup chopped onion

3 tbsp lite sour cream

Lay beans out on a large tray and sort through, removing anything that isn't a bean (rocks, fluff, etc.). Place beans in collander and rinse until water runs clear.

Pretty, No?

Put beans in a large crockpot. Cover by at least 2 inches with water.

Cover with water

Soak over night (don't turn crock-pot on yet). After soaking, make sure beans are still covered by at least two inches of water. Turn crockpot on low and cook for 8 hours. When beans are tender, drain. Leave enough liquid to make them soupy. The less liquid you leave, the thicker your chili will be. If you drain off too much just add in a bit of hot water until you have the consistency you want.

Smash them up!

Using a slotted spoon, remove about two cups of the cooked beans and mash with a potato masher. Stir back in to crock pot. Allow to continue cooking while you crumble and brown the chorizo and onions in a non-stick skilled over medium heat. Add to crockpot.

¡Olé!

Add salsa, cheese, sour cream, and spices to taste. Stir and allow to simmer for 10 minutes. Serve with more sour cream, topped with cheese. Yum!

Cheesy!

Serve with chips or tortillas and some sliced avocados for an easy dinner.