Nutty Mocha Biscotti

I tried something new and sent a recipe card along with my Christmas cards to close family & friends. I had a really cute picture of my daughter from one of her photo shoots, and had just made these...so I decided to put the two together. And everyone really enjoyed them. So here is the recipe for all to see :)

Ingredients: 

2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 Tbsp. instant coffee

1 cup chopped pecans

heaping handfuls both chocolate chips & chopped pistachios

Directions

 HEAT oven to 325°F.

 MIX flour and baking powder in small bowl. Beat next 4 ingredients in large bowl with mixer 2 min.    or until well blended. Gradually add flour mixture, mixing until well blended after each addition. Stir in nuts.

 DIVIDE dough in half. With lightly floured hands, shape each half into 14x2-inch log on greased baking sheet. (Dough will be sticky.)

BAKE 25 min. Remove from oven. Cut each log diagonally into 16 (1-inch-thick) slices. Place, cut sides up, on baking sheet. Return to oven. Bake an additional 10 to 15 min. on each side or until lightly toasted on both sides. Cool completely.

MELT chocolate chips in microwave for about 1 minute, dip biscotti end in chocolate then pistachios……ENJOY!

first round of baking done

10 more minutes per side

getting all dressed up

all done & ready to be eaten!

I could not resist posting these pictures too!

Cookie Xchange & Slow Cooker Lava Cake

I love the concept of a cookie exchange. Bake a couple dozen of the same cookie and then share the fruit of everyone's labor!! (In half the time of what it would have taken you to bake everything.)

In effort to get out of the house and meet new people, I jumped at my invitation to a book club in August, plus I consider myself a book worm. I had been in Cincinnati for almost 9 months and had oh...3 friends. Mind you I was figuring out this whole motherhood thing out and had my hands full at times. But after the routines & scheduling had kicked in with my daughter, I was ready for something else. PLUS my husband had never put my daughter to sleep at night because why would he if I was home!? So very happy to have this 'social' evening with these lovely ladies.

 Good food, great girls, and flowing conversations....what else do you need!???

We usually bring appetizers, finger food, dessert, etc.

picture taken directly from tasteofhome.com

For our cookie exchange  get together,  I brought slow cooker lava cake with candy cane ice cream (to be festive). Imagine...steaming lava cake with a minty cold ice cream melting over it....are you salivating yet? Because I know I am! It is so so easy to make and clean up was a cinch with my newly discovered slow-cooker liners. I read a review of the recipe and someone had recommended using a slow-cooker liner bc the cake really stick to the pot and then you need a chisel to get it clean afterwards.

3 main ingredients for the lava cake: devil's chocolate cake mix, chocolate pudding, and lots of chocolate chips. And there can be so many different variations to it, if you let your imagination (or taste buds) run wild.

Change up the pudding: use vanilla, coffee-flavored, mint, etc.
Change up the choc. chips: use peanut butter chips, butterscotch, white chocolate, etc.

Had to include this bc its such a great invention, find it in the saran wrap/ ziploc bag section of your grocery store.

http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Slow-Cooker-Chocolate-Lava-Cake <---link to the recipe, enjoy!!

The cookies that I brought were soft ginger molasses, I got the recipe from a blog, Bran Appetite, that I recently started following. She had a post up called "my top 6 holiday cookies", I do plan to give all of them a try, but one at a time ;) So far so good! I did sub butterscotch chips with Heath toffee chips.

http://www.branappetit.com/2012/11/27/my-top-6-holiday-cookies/

the girlies

"Its the most wonderful time of the year!"

My Healthy Twist on Cream of Mushroom Soup...shhh its a secret

Thank you trialx.org for pic ;)

Believe me you will not taste the difference...I even fooled my husband ;)

Ingredients:
12-16 oz. soft tofu <---that's the secret!
1 cup water
1 1/4 cups portobello mushrooms
2 medium yellow onions
4 cloves garlic
2 stalks celery
3 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 tsp sea salt, plus more to taste
1 Tbsp. unsalted butter
freshly ground black peper
fresh or dried thyme
2-3 Tbsp. dry sherry or dry Marsala
6-7 cups any basic vegetable broth
2 1/2Tbsp. Arborio rice
1 tsp. sweet paprika
1/3 cup chopped fresh dill or parsley

Method:

1. Clean and coarsley chop the mushrooms. Chop the onions; you should have about 3 cups. Mince the garlic and chop the celery to get about 3/4 cups.
2. In a nonstick skillet, heat 2 Tbsp. olive oil, add the chopped onions and a pinch of salt, and cover over gentle heat, stirring now and then, until the onions are soft and golden, about 20 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, in a second skillet, heat the remaining 1 Tbsp. oil with the butter and saute the garlic in it over medium heat for about 2 minutes. Add the the mushrooms, 1/2 tsp. salt, and black pepper and thyme to taste. Raise the heat to high and saute the mushrooms, stirring often, until they give up their liquid, sizzle, and begin to turn darker brown, 7-8 minutes. Add a splash of sherry or Marsala and stir as it cooks away.
4. When you get a spare moment, blend the tofu an water together.
5. While the mushrooms and onions are sauteing, put the broth, rice and celery into a soup pot and simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes. (Remember, if you are using canned broth you should dilute it, about 2 parts broth to 1 part water, or it will be too salty.) When the mushrooms and onions are ready, add them to the pot along with the paprika and tofu, keep simmering, covered, for another 15 minutes. remove the soup from the heat and stir fresh dill or parsley. Taste and correct the seasonings with a pinch more salt if needed.

**I pureed this soup to a semi-rough stage with an immersion blender until it was somewhere between smooth and chunky. Of course, you can puree to any degree of smothness you like. Add a bit more water or broth if the soup seems too thick.

Greek Yogurt Cheesecake Cups...guilt free

mm mm mmmmmmm

Getting the cream cheese filling ready

Filling the bottom with almond granola

fill 'em up

swirled some melted chocolate & topped with white choc chips

this was my fail, had a huge blob of chocolate fall, so I swirled it for a marbled effect
delicious none the less!

Link for recipe:

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/greek-yogurt-cheesecake-cups#cmpid_FB_Link

my deviations from the original: I filled the bottom of my glass cups (instead of cupcake liners) with granola instead of melted chocolate. And I topped mine with the melted chocolate. The sky is the limit with what flavors you want to put into the cheesecake mixture or for the garnish on top!!

Cashew Chicken

    I was in a nutty mood...had some cilantro in the fridge that was going to go bad very soon and chicken marinated ready to go. I was pouring over my cookbooks trying to figure out what to make. And I am so glad I chose this recipe, so yummers :)

   I have been a dedicated Cooking Light Magazine subscriber for years, and would rip out & put into a folder the recipe that I liked and would probably make in the future. Then about once a year I would sit down cut the frayed edges off (yes I am a bit OCD), organize them and put them into a well-categorized binders. I have 7 (3-ring) blinders thus far, and had canceled my subscription before my daughter was born. It takes a lot of time to do this type of organization, and I knew would be tempted to stash away good recipes; so this way I am actually making use of all my recipe collections. And since she was born I have been really good about sitting down on Fridays, pouring over my cookbooks & binders and creating a weekly menu for everyday of the following week. Then go grocery shopping on the weekend (ONCE) and have a well stocked fridge for all my meals, and not darting back and forth to the grocery store bc I do not have the one ingredient. This method has really paid off and does not cause the usual stress-full question: 

"Ahhhh, what am I going to make for dinner!?"

Hopefully you will enjoy this recipe as much as we did, click here for the link.

The only things that I changed from the original recipe:
   -added a splash of white balsamic vinegar instead of dry sherry
   -subbed low-sodium soy sauce for the oyster sauce
No real preference, just what I had on hand ;)

Chicken and Egg Sammie Deluxe

I got this recipe from a Rachel Ray cookbook. She had this to say about it when it was featured on the ABC Good Morning America Show:  " I don't know which came first, but I'm glad they met up in my sandwich! This simple Sammy supper stacks together cutlets, egg, cheese and greens, all in one bun. It's so good it's why the chicken crossed the road."

I was hosting a little mom get together/playdate and decided to make these delightful sandwiches. I served it along with waldorf salad. The crunch of the apple and grape salad went along very nicely to the gooey cheese and egg filling! Great for breakfast, lunch and even dinner if you so choose ;)

I posted this waldorf salad recipe last year in November, check the archives on my blog for the recipe I used

The ingredient layers from top to bottom:

whole wheat bun top - chopped baby spinach - smoked gouda cheese - sliced chicken - 

egg & roasted red pepper mixture- whole wheat bun bottom 

for the recipe:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/which-came-first-chicken-and-egg-sammies-deluxe-recipe/index.html

Black Bean Soup...Panera Style

One of  my favorite soups from Panera Bread is their Black Bean. So one day when I was there and enjoying it, I thought to myself, "this cannot be difficult to make". I looked online, yep...definitely easy to make! I got the recipe from Spark People Recipes. The only changes I made was that I cooked my own beans while they used canned; and I used vegetable bouillon cubes instead of chicken. I was so pleased with the results of this soup that I used the same recipe base but I subbed the black beans for red lentils. Again...delicious.

The final product with some sour cream, avocado, cilanto sprigs
& a side of corn bread

Cooking my own black beans...remember to soak overnight if
you decide to take this route

The soup ingredients

saute, saute, saute

All done and ready to be eaten :)

(p.s.- for the soup recipe click on the Spark People Recipe link in blue above ;)

Pickling Party

As always I try to meet up with my girlfriends when visiting Toronto, and attempting to see as many people in those few days as I can. I was delighted to hear that my co-workers were getting together for a Pickling Class. Thank you Corinne, for organizing the event! It was a blast :)

Prepping the cucumbers

Cucumbers galore...everyone took bags of extra cukes home!

The Gang

Everyone helping to peel the garlic 

overhead view of our massive kitchen, took the pic off the mirror

ingredients prepped, on to make the brine

Brine before boiling it

Brine after it has been boiled

Fill 'er up!

A very important step: boiling and sealing the jars

 You will need:

•  24 wide mouth jar with NEW lids (can’t reuse your lids because the seal will have broken down over time)
• 4 Liters of vinegar
•  6 - 8 bulbs of garlic (2 to 3 cloves per jar, peeled and cloves left whole)
•  2 to 3 cups of chili flakes (this is to taste, so omit if you want but the spicier the better!)
•  lots of fresh dill flowers and sprigs! (two sprigs per jar, rinse flowers and sprigs before using)
•  half a bushel of cucumbers from your local Farmer! or whatever else you want to pickle
•  box of salt
   

Brine formula:
32 cups water (8 liters)
8 cups apple cider vinegar (2 liters)

8 cups white distilled vinegar (2 liters)
 32 tbs salt (2 cups)
32 tbs chili flakes (2 cups)
  = 48 cups of brine
 

Steps:

1. Wash cucumbers and store them on ice for up to 24hrs.
2. Sterilize jars by running them through an extra hot dishwasher, with heated dry cycle or boiling them.
3. Sterilize jar lids in a pot of boiling water.
4. In a very large pot, add all ingredients of the brine (water, vinegar, salt and chili flakes) and bring up to a low boil, make sure all the salt has dissolved.
5. Add to each jar one to three cloves of garlic (depending on the size) and a few fresh dill flowers and springs (rinse your dill first!)
6. Pack cucumbers in a circle around the jar, fill the center and then pack the top with smaller cucumbers.
7. Fill one jar with the HOT brine, being careful to just cover the cucumbers and with a bit of space at the top (to leave room for expanding steam (as the brine is hot hot hot).
8. Using tong, take the lids out of the boiling water and place on top. Tighten that jar lid!
9. Fill all of your jars!
10. In a big pot of water, boil the jars for about 10min to seal and preserve the pickles.
11. Within a day or two the seals on the jar lids should pop inwards. This is proof you have a good tight seal! Store for at least 4 months in a cool, dry area. Eat until you find they are too soft (like over two years...) (if you make them now, you can start eating them in November)

Hope they are tasty :)

Sesame Almond Cabbage Salad

Glad to have met some great people along the way here in Cincinnati. Got this recipe from a Cincy acquaintance after a lovely Sunday lunch. This salad is nice and light, and the almonds & sesame seeds provide a nice crunch & texture!

For the salad:

1/2 medium green cabbage, thinly shredded

5-7 green onions thinly chopped

bunch parsley, thinly chopped (about 1/2 cup)

1/2 cup slivered/sliced almonds

3 Tbsp. sesame seeds

While shredding & chopping the first 3 ingredients (or before), set your oven to 350F and toast the almonds & sesame seeds for about 8-10min until golden brown. Allow them to fully cool before putting them in the salad, the heat will cause more juices to release from the cabbage.

For the dressing:

2 Tbsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. both salt & pepper

2 Tbsp. chicken broth base powder

3 Tbsp lemon juice

1/3cup either olive oil or flax oil

I did not have the chicken broth base powder so I added an all-purpose salt seasoning mix, and I split the lemon juice requirements with white balsamic vinegar and it still tasted delicious!! Those were my deviations from the original recipe.

Mix it all together and enjoy. 

This recipe produces a pretty big portion, about 6-8 servings. It is good the next day but just know that it will be soggier and not as crunchy!

Chipotle's Barbacoa AT HOME!

I always like the challenge of make a copy-cat recipe from a restaurant and seeing how closely the finished products compares. I wasn't planning on making this dinner idea a blog post but once I tasted the beef as I was shredding it, I could not resist. So that will explain why I don't have my normal picture of all the ingredients. Just snapped a few pics of the final thing. My husband & I love Chipotle and this recipe was absolutely fabulous! I used Eye of Round Beef Roast, and the chipotle peppers in adobo sauce gives it the nice smokey flavor (you can find these peppers in the Mexican section of your grocery store, they are canned). Since you only use 3-4 peppers, depending on the size of you meat, I froze the rest in a small tupperware. What I did so that it would be convienent for next time, I layered parchment paper between 3-4 peppers so that I would not have to defrost all the peppers, just the portion I needed. What I like about this food.com version of the recipe was that I was able to tweak the serving size until it showed the weight of the size of meat I bought, so that I would make the appropriate amount of marinade. They call for a piece of meat that is too big for my family, and since I had a 2.5lb piece, I tweaked it to 4 srvgs and it worked perfectly. It also works the other way if you have a larger piece or making this for a party!
So here is the link & enjoy:
http://www.food.com/recipe/chipotles-barbacoa-copycat-recipe-472445?scaleto=6&mode=null&st=true

I also had a side of white rice splashed with lime juice, cilantro and corn.
If you like Chipotle's rice here is the copycat recipe for it:
             http://restaurant.food.com/recipe/chipotle-copycat-lime-rice-recipe-147335