Easy Peasy: S.O.S. Dessert

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! Sadly, I have class tonight so Hubs & I won’t be doing much for Valentine’s Day this year. (I can’t wait to graduate). However, I did whip him up a one of our new favorite desserts last night while we were hanging out on the sofa last night. My Bestie, Felicia, made this for her husband’s birthday a few weeks ago and we’ve been making them at home for the last couple weeks. It’s really easy and might be a fun thing to surprise your honey with tonight… you know, if you don’t already have Valentine’s dessert plans.


Basically it’s a cookie with ice cream on top, but here’s how to make it…

(Click recipe to enlarge)

I hope you all have a Happy Valentine’s Day!

2010 Recapped

I was MIA around the holidays. I kinda stopped posting all the Reverb10 prompts, only doing the ones that really spoke to me and wouldn't repeat something I’d already talked about. I haven’t posted the gluten free dessert I made for Christmas Eve yet… etc. I’ve decided to do a recap post for 2010 a little later than most. Let’s be honest though, it’s only the 3th, so I’m not that behind.

I really liked the way KJPugs did her 2010 review, so I’ve decided to copy her. Don’t worry, I asked… although, I didn’t really wait for her to respond and say it’s cool. Anyway, here we go…

January we upgraded our TV stand and general appearance of our  living room.   

February I discovered two of my favorite “go to” recipes: Dark Chocolate Red Wine Cupcakes with Mascarpone Icing & Enchilada Casserole.
March Hubs and I went to Vegas for meet-up with the Bees and celebrate my bestie from college’s 30th Birthday. Of course, a trip to Vegas would not be complete without eating at Battista's Hole in the Wall.

April Joy from How Joyful redesigned my blog and created those adorable little birdies.

 
May I started making recipe cards for my recipe posts. The first two I made were for the salad I recreated from a local French restaurant & Margarita Cupcakes.

June I made several desserts using fruit from our local CSA, my favorite was the fruit pizza I invented with the help of Amy from Dandelion Paperweight.

 
July I turned 30 and made a kick-ass flag cake!

 
August Hubs and I celebrated our one year Anniversary and played travel roulette with some friends and ended up in Austin, TX.

September was a pretty busy month: I hosted a Giveaway from one of my favorite artists, I discovered  my local food truck meet-up and I took an allergy test and discovered I cannot eat gluten,

 
October I did my first guest post and rattled on about the wonder that is Jazzercise.

 
November I blogged every single day… errr, posted every single day. Let’s be honest sometime we blog more than once a day but schedule those posts out. I also discovered Chipotle,

 
tried Gluten Free Bisquick,

 
hosted a beautiful necklace giveaway from Honey My Heart 

 
and finally finished my wedding recaps.


And lastly, in December, I attempted Reverb10, made Potato Latkes and guest posted for Forty Twenty Four about my on-the-cheap/modern Christmas table setting.

  
Happy New Year everyone! I hope I have even more to recap for you at the end of 2011 :)

Easy Peasy: GF Mini Pizzas

One of my favorite carbs to eat before you know, was English Muffins. Mmmm I have always loved me some English Muffins. Anyway, one of my favorite, quick meal, things to do with them was make mini pizzas. It called for 3 things I usually always have in the fridge: English muffins, spaghetti sauce and cheese.

This weekend Hubs and I went to Henry's for some groceries and so I could check out their gluten free offerings. I found a lot of things I want to try, but only one thing I needed right away – Gluten Free English Muffins.

The week I learned I was gluten intolerant I went to Trader Joe’s a lunch one day to get a few things. There I found Gluten Free, Vegan, and Organic Spaghetti Sauce. I’ve used it on gluten free pasta a few times in the past 2 weeks and it is delicious. I decided this week for lunch I’d try to make mini GF pizzas for lunch.

Here’s what I brought…

AND


Daiya is the Gluten Free Vegan cheese I found at Whole Foods, last week. Although not entirely the same a real cheese (for obvious reasons) it is similar enough and tastes pretty good, too.

How I make them…

I put the spinach on before the sauce because I’ve found it helps the cheese lay better and it’s easier to eat after the cheese melts. I add the spinach to help make up for the calcium I’m missing out on by not eating cheese.

To melt the cheese, I just microwave the pizzas for about a minute. I guess I could stick them back in the toaster, but I like to avoid getting cheese allover the work toaster and the microwave is quicker.

Voila! Mini Gluten Free English Muffin Pizza :)

For the past two weeks I’ve been discovering more Gluten Free blogs and the GF Community. Several of my friends have been tweeting and emailing me links to GF recipes and websites (Thank you!). In the process I found JennCuisine, a gluten free food blogger. She is doing a round-up of Gluten Free Substitution recipes this week and I’ve decided to share my mini pizzas. They’re nothing fancy, I’ve definitely substituted something (if not two somethings) to make them better for me.


If you’re curious about more ways to substitute gluten free options in recipes you should check out her blog in the upcoming week so see what the others submit :)

My Morning Star Burger

A couple weeks ago, the week of my birthday to be exact, I took Thursday off to work on homework. I lead an exciting life people. I took a break and went to Trader Joe’s to get lunch and a couple other things. I decided to try a few new things in the freezer section. One of those things was Morningstar Farms® Tomato & Basil Pizza Burgers.


I’d never had a Morningstar burger, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but OMG you guys this is my new favorite dinner. It may have something to do with the toppings I added, but if the burger was gross, the toppings wouldn’t save it, right?


Wanna know what I put on it?
   
I took our left-over heirloom tomatoes and made a relish…

  

Hubs melted the mozzarella on top, while the burgers were still on the grill. Once it was ready we just piled it all on and enjoyed.

 
I felt weird not to put ketchup or mustard on my burger, but with the tomato and the cheese it doesn’t need it.

What are your favorite burger toppings?

Easy Peasy: Fruit Pizza

Last Friday Hubs and I went to dinner at our friends house. The same couple we used to have LOST night with, so we’re used to splitting up the dinner responsibilities. We used to trade off who made the main course, and the other would make the salad or a veggie, etc. This Friday we brought a salad and a dessert.

I totally volunteered for this dessert thinking I would just make another blueberry crumble, but we still have half a blueberry crumble in our fridge and I felt super guilty wasting all that fruit making another one…. also felt I could just take over our leftovers haha.

I couldn’t think of anything else to make that didn’t involve fruit and crumble or baking a cake (which I did NOT have time for). So, I asked put the question out on Twitter and got a couple great suggestions. My favorite was from Amy at Dandelion Paperweight…


I was already kinda thinking of making a galette*, but all the recipes for the crust seemed too time consuming. Pizza? Pizza, I could cheat and buy premade dough for and call it a night! Thank. You. Amy!

I’m not gonna lie, I’m sort of proud of this recipe because I didn’t use a recipe, it’s super easy and UBER tasty!


How to make it…

Click Recipe to Enlarge

* I don't technically know what a galette is, so this could very well be one.

Cinco de Mayo: Easy Peasy Queso Dip

I know I haven’t done an ‘Easy Peasy’ recipe in a while but I’ve actually attempted to blog about this dip a couple times but the pictures are always so ugly I give up.

See? Ug-ly... and my camera is sucky.

Lets just say this – this dip is not pretty, but it is tasty! My MIL made a variation of this dip for us at Christmas time and Hubs couldn’t get enough of it. It’s seriously the easiest dip in the world to make… besides adding onion soup mix to a container of sour cream.

How do you make it?

(Click recipe to enlarge)

Anywhoodle, if you need a quick dip or appetizer this Cinco de Mayo, this is ready in a snap :)

Do you have any Cinco de Mayo plans?

Heirloom Tomato, Basil, Parmesan and Balsamic Vinaigrette Salad

Leading with the blurry picture...

This past Sunday the Hubs and I went to dinner at another couple's house. Jane made a delicious dish from this month's Cooking Light (I gave her a subscription for her birthday) and I was in charge of bringing a salad. I'd seen some great heirloom tomatoes at Trader Joe's earlier in the week so I decided to make this salad.

Ingredients

Heirloom Tomatoes - Sliced

Fresh Basil
Shaved Parmesan
Balsamic Vinaigrette

Balsamic Vinaigrette Ingredients

(Adapted fromEmeril Lagasse's Recipe)

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1/2 teaspoon ginger powder

1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup olive oil

Home Decor: Christmas Wreath

Friday morning I was done with Thanksgiving and ready for Christmas. I wanted to put lights up and decorate our tiny abode with Christmas, Christmas, Christmas. Sadly, since I've never decorated my own place for Christmas we had nothing to put up. For our engagement party last year we received a number of Christmas themed items, but they were all for entertaining. Things like snowman plates and wine stoppers. Truth be told, I opened a bottle of wine just to put a Santa stopper in it, but I needed MORE!

I talked the Hubs into stopping by Target while we were out so we could get lights and hopefully a wreath. I wondered around the Christmas section looking at all the ornaments, garland and wreaths imagining we lived in a place where we could put lights on the outside of our house and our tree could be HUGE. I found one wreath the Hubs and I bought really liked, of course I didn't take a picture because silly me thought I could find it on Target's website. FAIL! It's not on there. Well, it was white flocked garland with tiny colored ornaments. However, for $25 I felt like it could have a few more ornaments so I set out to find supplies to make my own... and I did.

Supplies

White Wreath - $5
Colored plastic ornaments - $5

Wire - $3 ish

Basically, all I did was fluff the wreath and use the wire to affix the ornaments to it. It was Easy Peasy.

The not so matchy blue ribbon was left over from my sister's birthday present. I want to get another color, but it needed a bow, so this will have to do for now.

Now all I need it a snowman or snowflake 'Welcome Mat'.

Easy Peasy - Mummy Pizzas

The Hubs' office is a lot larger than mine and they do fun things, like have potlucks on Halloween. Last year we made Mummy Dogs and they were a BIG HIT! I know this because the Hubs was sick last Halloween and I dropped them off at work for him. When he got back to work the next Monday they had taken a picture of the dogs and put it on the company server.

Pretty creepy, huh?

This year he couldn't very well show up with some boring 7 layer dip so we made Mummy Pizzas... gotta sick with the theme, right?

Ingredients
English Muffins
Pizza Sauce
Sliced Mozzarella, cut in strips (we used a pizza slicer)
Sliced Black Olives

Directions
1 - Cut the English Muffins in half

2 - Spread on desired amount of Pizza Sauce

3 - Arrange Mozzarella slices

4 - Add 2 Black Olive slices for eyes

5 - Place under the broiler until the cheese melts.

Creepy and Tasty!

Cheesecake - Attempt No. 1

This weekend the Hubs and I had a tiny dinner party with another couple. I We couldn't wait to make a fancy meal and use as many new kitchen tools as possible.

Kitchen Too1 #1: My super sassy Black and White Polka Dot Apron. A shower gift from my sister.

The first thing I made Saturday, was the last thing we were going to eat... Cheesecake. I had dreams of making a pumpkin cheesecake or peanut butter cheesecake with strawberry topping, a PB&J Cheesecake if you will? But the Hubs really wanted me to make a cheesecake where he could really taste the cheesiness (his word not mine, although it does sound like something I would say). Anyway to make him happy, I made Chantal's New York Cheesecake from All Recipes.com.

Kitchen Tool #2: My Green Mixing Bowls

This is me mixing the melted butter margarine with the graham cracker I crumbed myself, thankyouverymuch.

This recipe also allowed me to break out Kitchen Tool #3: My Martha Stewart Kitchenaid Mixer!
No picture of me with it because the Hubs was too busy hooking the speakers up to his laptop... BOO!

INGREDIENTS
15 graham crackers, crushed
2 tablespoons butter, melted

4 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup milk
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup all-purpose flour

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 inch springform pan. (I failed here, I didn't have a springform pan, nor the desire to drive to more than one store to find one. I just used a 9" backing pan).
In a medium bowl, mix graham cracker crumbs with melted butter. Press onto bottom of springform pan. (I'm not gonna lie - crushed graham cracker and butter is GOOOOOD).
In a large bowl, mix cream cheese with sugar until smooth. Blend in milk, and then mix in the eggs one at a time, mixing just enough to incorporate. Mix in sour cream, vanilla and flour until smooth. Pour filling into prepared crust. (I would recommend not using the Kitchenaid mixer for this and using either a hand mixer or food processor because I had a lot of left over cream cheese stuck to the side of the bowl).
Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour. Turn the oven off, and let cake cool in oven with the door closed for 5 to 6 hours; this prevents cracking. Chill in refrigerator until serving.

The Strawberry sauce is just something I whipped up really quickly to make the cheesecake look better. It was Easy Peasy.

Ingredients
Frozen Strawberries (un-sweetened)
Splenda
Cinnamon
Brandy
Water

I put the frozen strawberries in a glass measuring cup with about 1/2" of water and defrosted them. Then, with kitchen scissors (because that is how the pros do it) I cut the strawberries up. Added a shot of Brandy, about 1 Tbsp of cinnamon and Splenda to taste. I just reheated it when it was time to pour it over the cheesecake.

Easy Peasy: Blue Cheese & Honey Toasts

This past weekend the Hubs and I went to Palm Springs with another couple. One of the Hubs friends (and groomsmen) just bought an AWESOME new condo in Palm Springs with his girlfriend, so we stopped at their place for dinner on Friday night.

Source

I'm not gonna lie, there place is AWESOME! Totally mid century modern. I would live there in a heartbeat if it wasn't in the desert, it's just too hot out there more me.

Anyway, Tiffany (Jeremiah/Groomsman's girlfriend... you following) made us the tastiest dinner with a really yummy and simple appetizer. I thought I'd use Tiffany's apps to kick off a little something I'm going to call "Easy Peasy". These will be tried, true and easy recipes, that I love.

Blue Cheese & Honey Toasts

1 loaf French Bread (I prefer Trader Joe's Par-cooked French Bread)
Blue Cheese
Honey

1 - Slice the bread in rounds with desired thickness, I like about a 1/4"
2 - Put blue cheese on top of bread rounds

3 - Place cheese and toasts under broiler until the bread starts to toast on the ends

4 - Drizzle honey over cheese and toasts

5 - Enjoy!