Filed under: Cooking, Cool Finds, FUN!, recipes, These are a few of my favorite things..., tmc, work
I think these could be a new fave! They will be right at home in Sweazy where we love everything orange. I even had one for breakfast :).
Orange Creamsicle Cookies
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 firmly packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons orange zest 2 cups white chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars until light and creamy. Beat in egg and vanilla until smooth. Gradually add flour mixture until combined. Stir in orange zest and chips.
Drop rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Do not flatten cookies; it will make them dry. Bake 8 – 10 minutes or until golden brown around edges. Do not over cook! Cookies will be plump. Cool for several minutes on cookie sheets before transferring to rack to cool completely. Store in airtight container.
My coworkers and I have a little lunch club going on. It’s actually the female RD meeting, but we take turns cooking for each other. It gives us a chance to try out recipes that we wouldn’t necessarily be willing to try on just anyone. This week I hosted and I got a keeper. Here is my version of Real Simple’s Sweet Potato Chowder.
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound turkey bacon
- 1 whole orange, yellow, or red pepper
- 1/2 red onion
- 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
- 3 13-ounce cans chicken broth
- 3 mild green chilies
- 1 cup of frozen corn or half a bag
- salt to taste
Directions
- Cook the bacon in a large stockpot over medium heat until it begins to crisp, 6 to 8 minutes.
- Add the peppers and onion to the bacon and continue cooking, stirring frequently, until the vegetables are tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Because I used turkey bacon, I also needed to add a little olive oil at this stage.
- Add the sweet potatoes, chicken broth, and chilies and simmer, covered, 15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.
- Stir in the corn and ½ teaspoon salt and cook until heated through.
I served this with ham, apple, and white cheddar mini-paninis. We had home-made peach fro-yo for dessert. The blueberry fro-yo was a flop :(.
Last week, I had just returned from the store, had just started making butter horns, and had guests coming in an hour, when I realized I only had one egg and the recipe had called for 3. Yikes! What’s a girl to do? When I text-messaged one of my neighbors and didn’t hear back right away, I called my mom.
Jenn: Mom remember that stuff you gave me that you can substitute for eggs?
Mom: Yes.
Jenn: What do I do with it?
Mom: Dissolve 1 Tb. in 3 Tb of water for each egg.
Jenn: Thanks. What’s it called?
Mom: Flax meal.
Jenn: You are the best. Thanks, Mom
It worked! I’ve had it in coffee cake before, but it worked in my rolls. They were speckled, but they were delish and nutrish :). Just thought I would share this info. Flax meal lasts in the fridge forever, so it’s nice to have a little on hand for when you are baking and out of eggs.
Filed under: Cooking, Friends, FUN!, Hospitality, recipes, These are a few of my favorite things...
It’s been nice to be cooking again. I haven’t been gourmet; the meals have been simple. Instead of practicing entertaining, I’ve been practicing hospitality and you know what I don’t think anyone has noticed. It could, however, be a phenomenon of being around people who regularly eat caf food and think that anything homemade is spectacular or magical. Tonight, this is what was on the menu. I am going to use this again in the future. Simple but delicious.
Chipotle’s Basmati Rice Recipe
Here’s the recipe with some changes I made:
1 teaspoon butter 2 Tbs. fresh cilantro 1 cup white basmati rice 1 1/3 cup water 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 Lime
In a 2-quart heavy saucepan, heat butter over low heat, stirring occasionally until melted. Add rice and lime juice, stir for 1 minute. Add water and salt, bring to a full rolling boil. At boiling, cover, turn down to simmer over low heat until rice is tender and the water is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Fluff rice with a fork.
Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken
- 2 chicken breast frozen
- 14.4 oz can diced tomatoes with mild green chilies
- 15 oz can black beans
- 8 oz frozen corn
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
- 14.4 oz can fat free chicken broth
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp cayenne pepper (to taste). I had to use 1/2 tsp of chili powder because I didn’t have cayenne on hand and because I didn’t know how my guests liked spice.
- salt to taste
.Filed under: Cooking, Cool Finds, FUN!, Girly-Girl, recipes, These are a few of my favorite things...
Apple Cinnamon Chai Trifle (Too Sweet)
Frosted Banana Bars (A Personal Fave)
Pub Mix (from Costco)
Apple Nachos (because I like all things nachos :) ) – basically caramel apples, but cut up with all sorts of fixings on top like caramel, chocolate chips, pecans, etc.
Carmel Pecan Pretzel Bites (Best of Show and they are a great gluten-free treat if you make them with gluten-free pretzels.)
HT: glorioustreats.blogspot.com
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies: Mix one yellow cake mix, one white cake mix, one 29oz can of pumpkin, 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice, and chocolate chips as you please. Enjoy for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert.
Image from glorioustreats.blogspot.com.
Brown bag flowers, one of many decorative touches:
Filed under: Community, Cooking, Cool Finds, Friends, FUN!, Home, My life, Quirky, These are a few of my favorite things..., tmc, work
My "Trainer's Chair" waiting on me for my Last Day
I made the Deans' List :). This made my day. A good end to three good years. Here's to 3 more!
Eating Paninis at My Place
Fun Guests
Pipe Cleaners = Hours of Entertainment
I need to remember to take more pictures. I’m documenting less, when I need to be documenting more :). Hope to post about my birthday soon.
No one should be allowed to purchase this much sugar. They regulate spray paint and even the quantity of cold medicine you are able to buy while allowing you to purchase enough sugar to go into a diabetic coma. Lets’s hope someone is moving in with 88 college students and found brownie and cake mixes on sale :).
Filed under: Cooking, Family, recipes, These are a few of my favorite things...
I did it again. Voila: dinner from what was in the house. It’s not as difficult at my mom’s house as at my own. She has lots of stuff on hand. Last night we had lettuce wraps for dinner. Lettuce, shredded chicken, garlic, Yoshida’s, sesame oil, nuts, mandarin oranges, and crunchy chow mein noodles. Quick, no oven, and delicious. Enjoy; I know we did.
Filed under: Cooking, Cool Finds, Family, FUN!, These are a few of my favorite things...
I’m on vacation. Tonight I made my parents a simple dinner with ingredients we had on hand. Those are the meals I love because you get to be a little more creative. It’s like when others comment about new clothing when really you’ve just arranged new combinations and outfits out of necessity because of an overflowing hamper.
I made a discombobulated tuna sandwich?. The question mark is to help you raise your voice in your head as you read it because my title is a little uncertain :). It was more than deconstructed. I used hearts or romaine, filled them with smoked tuna with a smidgen of mayo and some minced onion. I served them with a hard boiled egg and cheesy, garlic, nutty croutons on the side. The garlic croutons had cheddar cheese and the pecans on top were of the sweet and spicy variety from TJ’s.
For dessert, we had Breyer’s vanilla ice-cream with a plumb comport sprinkled with ginger granola. Not my fave, but it was summery and fresh. I would do it again.
Filed under: Cooking, Cool Finds, Friends, FUN!, Quirky, recipes, These are a few of my favorite things...
As promised, here are our bacon night recipes:
Phil’s Bacon and Cashew Caramel Corn. I like the kick of cayenne.
Adrienne’s Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes
Pan De Jamon – I use the IBEX challah bread recipe. Roll it out. Place slices of ham lunch meat, raw bacon, black olives and the raisin/berry mix from Trader Joes. Roll up. Bake until toasty brown and slice. Delicious! This recipe is incredible for taking lunch to the beach. The more authentic version (a.k.a. what we would get in Venezuela has black raisins and green olives).
Bacon Wrapped Dates- Stuff date with almond. Wrap in bacon (Usually half a strip). Secure with toothpick and cook at 415 degrees until bacon is browned and done. These are better than you imagine!
Bacon Wrapped Pineapple- I had never done this before. You also bake these at 415. It’s delicious. It tastes like Hawaiian pizza but better and without the white flour and cheese.
