Tag Archives: baking

Hot Granola

This past weekend I posted about a breakfast dish I had — Hot Granola. I’m telling ya, folks, if you want to see the food I’m eating way before I blog about it — follow me on Instagram! A few of my Instagram followers saw this picture and couldn’t help but ask, “how on earth does someone recreate this dish?” And I’m over here blogging this post wondering the exact same thing.

For the past several months I have been baking and cooking with rolled oats. But I have never had hot granola before. So, I’m opening up a forum of discussion to talk about the best way to recreate a hot granola dish that I’m dying to make at home. Feel free to venture to the “Contact Me” tab if you aren’t wanting to share any recipes with other bloggers, or simply comment on today’s post.

hot granola

This specific hot granola that I ate for breakfast last weekend was filled with hearty flavors — raisins and almond slivers also added some extra texture to the dish. The consistency was filling but didn’t weigh me down… I’m thinking it would be the perfect breakfast to consume before heading out for some wintery activities. 1. It will warm you up before you bolt out into the cold and 2. It gives you the perfect amount of energy to stay active for hours before having to eat again. Oh — and did I mention that it’s healthy? Full of whole grains and just a little bit of spices to give it that bold flavor — it’s a guilty-free start to your day!

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Oatmeal Lace Cookies

My Food Network Magazine arrived just in time this year — just in time for me to put some of their recipes from the December/Holiday issue to test over Thanksgiving. Next weekend I am attending a friend’s annual cookie exchange party and it’s always fun because I get to: stuff my face with cookies, have about a week’s worth of cookies in my kitchen (which usually lasts me the weekend), and I pick up on some great baking inspiration — and lets admit it, I need as much baking advice & tips as I can get! We all know, I am a cook — not a brilliant baker.

My sister can agree with me on that, that I am not the best baker. One holiday she asked me to help her bake dozens of cookies to put together some holiday cookie tins for her boyfriend’s family (they are now her inlaws). Well, in a nutshell, I accidentally flung several egg whites across her kitchen — causing a major mess on her walls. Then, I, um, probably was the one that accidentally, um, put in double the amount of baking soda into her chocolate chip cookie recipe.

So what, that’s the past. And now, I am at least much more aware of my baking actions.

Below is my favorite cookie recipe that I tested out this weekend from FNM’s brilliant “Cookie Countdown” spread. I have to say they were a hit at my friend Jesse’s Thanksgiving lunch, they were adored by my father who is a more “traditional oatmeal cookie type of man”, and my mother put in a special request that I bake her more before heading off to work again tomorrow.

So here they are — FNM’s Oatmeal Lace Cookies. Try not to eat the batter, it’s pretty darn tasty and you probably won’t be able to stop gobbling up all of the buttery batter; but I promise the baked cookies will be just as fabulous!

Nom, nom! Enjoy! And, Happy Holidays!


The Recipe for Oatmeal Lace Cookies:
Ingredients:
1 Stick Unsalted Butter
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup rolled oats (not instant)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon beaten egg white
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

Directions:
1. Position the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Melt the butter with the sugar in a saucepan over low heat, stirring, until the mixture thickens and the sugar is almost dissolved, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in the oats, flour, vanilla and salt. Let cool 10 minutes, then stir in the egg white.
3. drop 6 rounded tablespoonfuls of the batter onto each prepared baking sheet, about 3 1/2 inches apart. Spread each mound into a 3-inch circle. Bake, switching the position of the pans halfway through, until golden brown, 12-15 minutes. Let cool on the baking sheets until firm, about 3 minutes, then carefully remove using a thin metal spatula and transfer to a rack to cool completely.
4. Put the chocolate in a small microwave-safe bowl and microwave in 30-second intervals, stirring, until melted. Drizzle on the cookies and let set, about 30 minutes.

(note: this isn’t my own personal recipe, it’s taken word-for-word from FNM. And, I highly recommend trying this recipe, it’s brilliant and is perfect for Holiday cookie parties, and just plain ol’ every day cookie eating!)

Citrus Brussels Sprouts

I know, I have been horrible with blogging the past couple of months. Actually, I have recently received a few, lets call them, “hate emails” asking when the next time I’ll be posting.

I have been spending a lot of time cooking and baking — surprise, surprise! And I am excited to share with you that I have had some fantastic success stories that I will be able to catch you up on.

Which is exactly what I am going to do right now…

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and lets all admit it… you should never, EVER, make a recipe for the first time on Thanksgiving. Am I right? I’m such a dork when it comes to recipes, I have to test them out in advance. This weekend, I couldn’t help but get a bit creative with some gorgeous brussels sprouts. Actually, it wasn’t that creative, rather it was a middle ground of a mixtures of flavors that everyone in my family would enjoy.

Here’s what I did with the little bite-size veggies…

What you’ll need:

  • 1 small basket of brussels sprouts
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • salt & pepper
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • juice of half of a lemon

Preheat oven to 375 degree. Cut the brussels sprouts in half and lay on a baking sheet. Drizzle some extra virgin olive oil over top, sprinkle with salt and pepper and two garlic cloves that are chopped up into small pieces. Toss this mixture together and spread out on to the baking sheet. Bake for 20-23 minutes. Remove from oven and place into a serving bowl. Juice half a lemon over top of the brussels sprouts. Serve!

It’s that easy, and I swear you’ll love it! I can’t help but enjoy a combination of garlic and citrus on top of a very flavorful green vegetable! Let me know what you think, and be sure to enjoy this recipe this Thanksgiving!

 

Okay folks, lets give this a shot — are you a Pinterest fanatic like myself? Now you can pin my yummy Citrus Brussels Sprouts recipe to your Pinterest food boards! Be sure to hit the “Pin It” button below!

Mexican-Style Puff Pastry

An exotic idea for a puff pastry recipe came to me when I saw a photo on Tumblr of a puff pastry stuffed with salsa, cream cheese, and avocado.

I love avocados… maybe a little too much. I could half the avocado, put a bit of fresh ground pepper and salt on top and spoon it out and eat it.

So, when I saw this idea I decided to run with it.

I quickly realized that I had all of the ingredients already in my refrigerator and freezer. I took out the puff pastry dough, grabbed an avocado, fresh Whole Foods salsa, and low-fat cream cheese. Once the puff pastry was ready to go I cut out 3.5 inch squares of dough, cut a piece of cream cheese a little smaller than my thumb and then I placed that on the middle of the dough. Then I took a table spoon out to scoop avocado out — used a table spoon or two for each piece and there was no need to mash it up either! Then I put about a tablespoon of fresh salsa around the avocado. I folded the dough over so the shape became a triangle. Finally, I used a fork to press down the sides so the dough would stick together and none of the ingredients would fall out.

With the oven already preheated to 375 degrees, I popped those babies in the oven for about 10-12 minutes.

When I took them out of the oven, I let them cool for a few minutes before eating. This was the first time I ever had an avocado heated up! All of the flavors reminded me of a mexican dinner but this time I got all the flavors stuffed into an insanely crispy, buttery, flakey puff pastry!

The colors inside the appetizer reminds me of a fiesta — and would be perfect to serve at a chic outdoor grill-night in the middle of summer!

mexican style puff pastry

With four ingredients, no seasoning, no mixing, no chopping, and within 20 minutes … I was able to create something so tasty! No need for dipping sauce either! The cream cheese provides a sweet and savory texture and flavor, and the salsa adds all of the spices you need!

Give it a try — I’m sure you’ll be just as surprised as I was when I sunk my teeth into this newly discovered dish!

Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have been on one heck of a Ree Drummond kick lately! This chef is a fairly new addition to the Food Network channel and I am loving her show every Saturday morning. There’s something about homemade food, cooked in the middle of nowhere, that’s whipped up on a ranch filled with cowboys. Anything that’s homemade, homestyle, and baked with love I’m sure tastes fantastic.

The other week I made Ree’s Spinach and Mushroom Quesadillas — and since then I have managed to pass this recipe along to all of my coworkers and a number of friends. All have cooked-up the recipe and they loved it!

I was totally infatuated with Ree’s episode the other week where she baked Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies. Here’s what I loved about it: she adds an ingredient that I never knew could be added to a cookie recipe — malted milk, while the cookies bake they end up spreading out and baking flat because of this special ingredient, and you have the choice of making the cookie crunchy or chewy. Since I prefer my cookies to be crunchy, yet so many prefer them to be chewy, I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and make half the batch my preferred way and the other half the way my friends would enjoy it.

Since I recently got a KitchenAid mixer for Christmas, I knew baking these cookies would be easy. But, I realized quickly that I owned only a few ingredients. Since I now have a mixer, I knew it was time for me to buy basic ingredients — like flour, sugar, etc. So off to the store I went.

When I got home from Trader Joe’s I put all of the ingredients I would need on the counter. They include: unsalted butter, brown sugar, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, flour, baking soda, baking soda, salt, malted milk powder, and milk chocolate chips. (And just like Ree, I figured I would take a photo for you.)

While the oven preheated to 375 degrees, I added the room temperature unsalted butter to the mixer, gave it a bit of a stir and combined it with 3/4 cups brown sugar and 3/4 cups sugar. Once the three ingredients were mixed together and became fluffy in consistency I added the 2 eggs and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract to the mixture. With the mixer still on, I added 1/2 cup malted milk powder. While the ingredients were mixing, I sifted together the following: 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and 1 1/4 teaspoon salt. With the KitchenAid mixer on low, I added the ingredients to the bowl. Once all of the ingredients were combined, the chocolate chips were gently stirred in. By this time the oven was preheated and ready to go!

I placed small scoops of the cookie dough onto the cookie sheet. Plenty of space between the cookies was needed since the cookies become flat when they bake and they end up taking double the space on the sheet compared to the stereotypical chocolate chip cookie. I baked for 12 minutes for my crispy cookies and 10 minutes for my chewy cookies.

I couldn’t get over how easy it was to make cookies from scratch! Well, it was easy after I lugged home all of the heavy ingredients from the grocery store.

For the rest of the weekend I couldn’t stop indulging in the cookies I had made. I loved that my crispy cookies were crispy on the outside but still had a soft chewy texture on the inside.

There’s nothing like baking home made chocolate chip cookies and making your entire apartment building hallway smell like cookie dough. I’m sure I made my neighbors very jealous!

Do You Bake From Scratch?


A poll taken from Redbook Magazine this month shows that 50% of women are baking from scratch and 50% of them are baking with the boxed stuff. For some reason I find this hard to believe… are women lying? I really would have thought less than 50% of women polled would be baking from scratch!

Take my poll, are you honestly baking from scratch the majority of the time you bake? or are you baking with pre-made mixes? Don’t be embarrassed to tell the truth ladies (and gents!)!

Campbell’s Green Bean Casserole

Green Bean CasseroleA traditional Thanksgiving staple is the classic green bean casserole. A Thanksgiving dinner table would be incomplete with out it and luckily it is probably the easiest thing to make. This year, I spent the holiday in Chicago with my boyfriend and his family. My boyfriend’s sister can cook but she isn’t extraordinarily kitchen savvy so I gave her a lot of credit when she wanted to make Campbell’s Green Bean Casserole all by herself. She pulled the recipe out of a People Magazine issue that had an advertisement for the classic dish on an advertisement. I watched her make and bake the entire dish! You can either use the frozen green beans or you can use the fresh ones. I watched as my boyfriend’s sister washed and chopped up some fresh green beans — she ran into some difficulty when reading the recipe because the recipe called for 4 cups cooked green beans. How on earth do you measure 4 cups of cooked green beans? So, she guessed — luckily she did a good job. After steaming the fresh beans she mixed in a separate bowl the milk, soy sauce, cream of mushroom soup, and two thirds cup onions. She then poured the mix over the green beans, tossed it all up and added some more of the crunch onions to the top, she then put it in the oven. It came out gorgeous!

I managed to have a few bites of this before dinner and I was so proud of her! It came out so tasty! And the flavors were much better with the use of fresh green beans instead of the easy to use frozen green beans. The texture was crunchy, but of course cooked enough. When she reheated the dish later, she added some extra onions on the top so they would be nice and crunchy.

I don’t know why we don’t make Green Bean Casseroles more often, year-round. It’s such an easy dish to put together and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like it. Here’s the recipe from the Campbell’s website:

    Ingredients:

  • 1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Campbell’s® Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup (Regular, 98% Fat Free or Healthy Request®)
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 teaspoon soy sauce
  • Dash ground black pepper
  • 4 cups cooked cut green beans
  • 1 1/3 cups French’s® French Fried Onions
    Directions:

  • stir the soup, milk, soy sauce, black pepper, beans and 2/3 cup onions in a 1 1/2-quart casserole.
  • Bake at 350°F. for 25 minutes or until the bean mixture is hot and bubbling. Stir the bean mixture. Sprinkle with the remaining onions.
  • Bake for 5 minutes or until the onions are golden brown.