Does making it at home mean its healthier? Or am I fooling myself?

Back to the scones! I've decided thats my default thing to bake... why? Because I can make them. It seems that other things that I bake seem to... well fail. Its not like I'm clueless, i KNOW why it happens I just continue to do the same thing over and over again. I'm not a baker. Not yet anyways. I'll just keep trying, but I'm telling you, scones... I can do scones. This time I decided to do a glaze, mmm confectioners sugar. So I proceeded on my merry way to make raspberry scones with lemon glaze. Delicious. Oh! I forgot to say that I used a new recipe then normal and this one had no eggs in it. I was hesitant to follow the directions, because baking without eggs seemed... wrong in some way. But I resisted the urge to not follow the directions per usual, because when I deter from the normal directions thats when my baking goes.... wrong.

Raspberry Scones with Lemon Glaze

For scones:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut in chunks
• 1 cup heavy cream, plus more for brushing the scones
• 1 cup fresh raspberries

For lemon glaze:

• 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
• 1 lemon, zest finely grated
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
  

My girlfriend loves fried chicken... and man So do I. But I've been trying to move away from fried things (at least until I get back into my gym routine). So I decided we would try and bake the chicken with some delicious panko crumbs on it. Lets just say it didnt taste as good as when its friend.. but we still ate it all. What does that tell you?

Baked Panko Chicken

Finally I've documented a burger creation that I've been making for awhile and it always is a winner in my book. I love hamburgers, cheeseburgers, bacon cheeseburgers all of the above so I decided to make delightful twist on a cheese burger.

Gorganzola Cheeseburger with Caramelized Onions

I forgot how long it takes to caramelize onions. But it was totally worth it.

So I decided to make some brownies from scratch something I've never done before, and since my best friend Deirdre who is a baker didnt answer her phone... I had to find a recipe on my own and of course they turned out dry and gross. Thanks for not picking up the phone Deirdre, the cost was the lives of innocent brownies. ANYWAYS, to try and save the brownies I decided to make a caramel sauce from scratch... but since the brownies were such a fail I was only left with caramel sauce so.... I made caramel apples.

Homemade Caramel Sauce on Apples

Homework? Who has time for that.

Comfort Food Has a Life of its Own

So graduation rolled around and as predicted... I'm still in school. Summer school to be exact, which is not the most fun way to learn, but each of us has to do what we have to. My girlfriend recently returned from Italy which has encouraged me to get back on my blogging high horse and start cooking more frequently again. What better to cook then comfort food? Oh yeaaaa

So I tried my hand at lasagna for the first time, seemed easy when I read the recipe but I didn't realize what I had in store for myself. I had to half cook the noodles and then dip them in ice water to stop the cooking? Well... as you all know I've got fairly good coordination but zero focus so... It went a little hay wire, burned some of my fingers but I got the job done. I decided to use a cream sauce instead of a heavy bolognese and I used turkey meat instead of beef.

Turkey Lasagna

The process..

Ready to bake!

Crispy!

Dig in!

The recipe I used is from the book that I forgot I had bought "Live, Love, Eat" by Wolfgang Puck, I altered his recipe only slightly.

Recipe:
6 Cups Hearty Beef Bolognese
2 Cups ricotta cheese
3/2 Cups fresh grated Parmesan
1/4 Cup Marscapone cheese
1 large egg beaten
1lb dried lasagne noodles
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (I used 2 cups)
Chopped fresh Italian parsley
Fresh ground pepper

I went back up to my grandma's the other day and went back into the shop that sold all those amazing cook books, ya know the one where I was going to buy the salad dressing book but opted for the home cooking? Well I bought a new one! Yes thats right... more cook books. This one is called "Sunday Soup" a number of soups, sorted by season with easy and delicious recipes to maintain my apparent need for soup in my life. I decided to try out a recipe called "Spring New Potato and Garlic Soup". It sounded promising for sure, so I began my journey down potato soup lane. Easy and successful. Not gonna lie though, make sure your ready for dairy, dairy and more dairy.

Spring New Potato and Garlic Soup

Creamy...

Recipe:
12 oz new red-skin potatoes (I used yellow)
2 tsp salt
2 Cups half and half (I'd advise for you just to use 2% milk)
One 5 oz package 5 oz Boursin cheese with garlic and herbs
Ground which pepper to taste
4 tsp Parsley
4 tsp fresh chopped chives

First cup up the potatoes and boil them until soft. Then add the rest of the ingredients and keep burner on low, make sure the soup doesn't boil. Make sure all the cheese is melted and add the potatoes and warm through. Then eat!

Alright so lets see a show of hands, who loves meatloaf??
Thats what I thought everyone... and if you dont, have you even tried it? Or does your mom make really bad meat loaf? Well my pseudo Greek mom made amazing meatloaf and I recently asked her for the recipe.

Oh Meatloaf..


Mix mix mix! Its the most fun with your hands..

Forming the loaf is an art form.

Load that baby up with ketchup

Eat with delicious green beans.

It was really hard for us to stop eating it... Its all gone now. It left quick.

So recently it was a friends birthday and we went to Napa and went wine tasting and by the time lunch rolled around we were all... drunk. Well at least I was, and we ate this delicious curry chicken that my friend Lianna made. I couldnt stop eating this delicious little concoction so I asked her for the recipe. It was a Giada recipe. Knew there were no faults. Now I dont really like cabbage too much, not that I've had very much of it... I made the chicken salad the night before and ate it the next day for lunch, another thing we couldnt put down.

Chicken Curry Salad with Cabbage

Recipe:
8 ounces thinly sliced pancetta, about 8 slices (I didnt use this)
1/2 cup, plus 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
2 teaspoons honey
1 1/2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
3 1/2 to 4 cups diced/shredded roasted chicken
1 1/2 cups shredded radicchio (or red cabbage)
4 ciabatta rolls

I could eat it all day...

We're Back in Business Baby

Ok, ok, ok, I know this has been a fail lately, and I'll admit it's 100% my fault. I swear I've been cooking but not up to par at all. Nor have I been posting. The madness! Will you ever forgive me guys?

How can you guys not forgive that sad face?!
Look at it!
LOOK AT IT!
Full of shame and despair from the loss of cooking.







Lets get back on track...

Ice cream?

Holy ice cream maker! I'm really enjoying my ice cream machine, not only is it easy but it makes delicious things for me to eat. Recently my mom gave me some lemons... like 15 lemons and so i decided to make some lemon sorbet, I juiced and juiced and zested and mixed this sorbet and hoped for the best. I threw it in the machine and it swirled and churned. It created a delicious lemon sorbet.... that was EXTREMELY overpowering. I think I over indulged in the zesting or something because boy... It was hard to eat. So it was what we like to call "a good intentioned fail". This has not discouraged me though, I will continue to create ice cream and my roommate wants me to make some frozen yogurt soon, fro-yo for short and it will be grand.
Maybe you guys can do better on the recipe?

Lemon Sorbet

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest

Remember to zest lightly ladies and gents.

Lets move onto something quick an easy shall we?

We have a large amount of chicken that our household likes to eat and at times it can become a bit... boring. God how could you say that about chicken?! I know. Its terrible. But its true and sadly to say I've been running out of options for new and improved delicious chicken treats. But we also ALWAYS have tortillas at the house. So? Chicken tacos, you guessed it. They look delicious, like I've marinated the chicken for days in tomatoes sauce and all that goodness. Its a ploy. Ha ha! All i did was cook the chicken in salsa (any will suffice) and it turned out full of flavor. Throw some normal taco ingredients in there as well, cheese, sour cream, ect. and you've got a full blow meal.

Chicken Taco's

They're so good. I want one right now.

So I was at my grandmothers house awhile back and we decided to go shopping for my mother and her twin sisters birthday, we walked through a number of shops and of course one HAD to be full of plates and nic nacs and throughout the store it was littered with miscellaneous cook books and everyone that I picked up I couldnt help but want. Finally I decided on a salad dressing cook book because who make salad dressing cookbooks with pictures?! I needed it. I clutched it tightly as we finished up walking through the store and then I saw it. I cookbook with a large picture of baked Mac and Cheese as the cover, it was a cook book... of HOME COOKING. Ok... so I tossed the salad dressing book, I mean was I really going to buy champagne vinaigrette? Who am i kidding?

I meticulously looked through the cookbook when i returned home because whichever cardiovascular threatening dish I was about to embark on needed to be the correct one for my first. And I chose well.

Baked Conchiglione with Spinach-Ricotta Filling

(Before they baked)

(After they baked)

Before they met certain death in my mouth.

Also I'd like to note that whenever i say "Ricotta" I think about Giada and how she says it and it feel somewhat legitimate.

Recipe taken from "From Our Home to Yours:
1/2 Pound Spinach leaves
2 Garlic Cloves, Minced
1 Cup whole milk ricotta cheese
1/2 pound Mozzarella (I used a whole pound cuz were really into cheese)
1 egg lightly beaten
1 tablespoon finely minced basil (Omitted)
Salt and Pepper to taste
20 Conchiglione (Jumbo Shells)
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups tomato sauce
1/2 cup Pecorino romano cheese

Alright people. Get to it.

So everyone knows how much I like to bake muffins right?
Come on, you haven't noticed a pattern by now?

Well I like to do this thing, usually around 8 pm on a week night where I look in our cabinets and take all the delicious ingredients we have and put them into muffin form. Now the problem with this method is that sometimes I create splendid muffins and sometimes I create muffins that taste like powerbars. The other problem is that I have NO IDEA what i put in them to make them so delicious or not.

Well I made these blueberry muffins and I didnt put much sugar in them because I wanted them to be less sweet and more approachable for breakfast. I remember putting oats and blueberrys and other muffin like ingredients but who really knows what was in those babys. All I know is that i sprinkled sugar on top, baked them and they were gone in a day and a half. To this day people still ask me to let them know when I make those muffins again so I can either save them one or invite them over. What was in those muffins?! WHAT?!
Love obviously and some well rounded cynicism.

Blueberry Muffins with Sugar Tops

These look professional for sure.

I have this memory growing up, a positive one, of me and my father going to Jack in the Box after school all the time and getting chicken teriyaki bowls. We would then proceed to the park in Rockridge under the freeway and sit on the ground in the sunny spots that we could find and eat them together. Boy do I miss him and those bowls. Well I figured out how to make them myself! Fooled you Jack in the Box! They are fairly simple and if you know how to make rice and cook vegi's your set. I just steam the broccoli and carrots, saute the onions and of course some minced garlic in a store bought terriyaki sauce and add some chicken. Throw it on some rice, mix it on up and you got yourself a homemade meal ready to calm your comfort food craving.

Chicken Teriyaki Bowls

I have not have a good piece of red meat in awhile, so when I returned from Italy (Yes I went to Italy, we can get into that food in another post), I wanted to cook myself something fantastic. So once again me a Fillet Mignon had a showdown. Last time I just cooked it on my stove top slightly, having done no research. But this time I was ready for battle, I did my research and figured I would pan sear it and then bake that baby. And thats what I did.
Now the sides were a little harder, I wanted green beans (I know I always make them but I like them) and but i really wanted some pearl onions as well. Now my good friends always bake a chicken with pearl onions and it turns out marvelous and I wanted that kinda taste in my mouth. A succulent pearl onion that popped in my mouth. What's best when you dont know what to cook it with? In the words of Paula Dean, Add some butter!
So I sauted my pearl onions in butter for awhile and then added in the beans, lets just say the fillet mignon was not the only thing my friends were jealous of as they watched me eat.

Pean Seared Fillet Mignon with Brown Butter Green Beans and Pearl Onions


Not too glamorous on our plastic plates but it was damn delicious.

Thats all I got for now, I need to go cook me some lunch, my brain cells are depleting and I need to give ya'll something to look forward to eh?
I know it's been a lengthy time since my last entry but I'm back dont you worry, Momma's gonna make you some more meals.

Holy Goat Cheese!

Recently one of my best friends returned from North Carolina where she lives and we spent a lot of time together, we both enjoy cooking and she had been talking to me about making cheese. All the talk about curds and whey threw me off, I didnt know half of how to make any of that stuff and it sounded more complicated then I was ready to embark on. But the other day I was browsing the internet, as I do frequently, and I came across a step by step blog on how to make goat cheese. We LOVE goat cheese at the house so I figured it seemed simple enough and began my journey towards making cheese. Now, I went to a health food store to find goats milk, but I couldnt find any, so I reached out to my friends and was informed I could purchase some at Trader Joes (TJ's for short), so I had to wait another couple days to go get my milk! Finally I bought some and came home to begin my adventure. The first thing I had to do was heat the milk to 180 degrees so that it would be hot enough to curdle once I added in a 1/4 cup of lemon juice. Well... I added that in and it didnt seem to do much, so I added some more and it began to curdle a bit. I then strained it with cheese cloth and caught all of my curds!

I had to strain it a couple times to really get all of the curds.

Once all the curds were collected I had to tie up the cheese cloth and hang it so it would drain properly.

After I let it drain for an hour I mixed in some spices and put it on a cracker!

Hot damn that cheese was good.

Ingredients:
1 Quart goats milk
1/4 cup lemon juice (add more if curdle doesnt happen)

Instant Vanillia Pudding ChocolateChip Cookies & Greek Pasta

I feel like chocolate chip cookies are a staple in most peoples lives, whether your mom made them for you as a kid, or if you grew up and realized that making these babies was an easy out in a potluck. Anyways, I've put myself into a rut, in which the only way my chocolate chip cookies turn out fantastic is if I make them in bar form. I want to break out, I want to break freeeee from these god damn cookie bars that seem to be haunting me. So... I found a recipe, strange but reassuringly good that I was ready and destined to try. Now, I understand why my cookies suck unless in bar form, I'm impatient. Its because I dont soften the butter, I melt it. Sigh. I know, but we didnt have a microwave and it was me versus the stove. This time I bought the butter and never put it in the fridge so I wouldnt have to face this issue. If you cant solve it, work around it. So this recipe had one quirk which made it pop, instead of added in hella granulated sugar, you add in a packet of vanilla instant pudding (I was tempted to do chocolate but I stuck to the recipe, next time ladies and gents). I made the batter and instantly couldn't stop myself from eating it. It was so much better then any i'd tried before. So I started making the cookies, some small, some big, some firm some chewy. This recipe is fool proof to get you some of the best damn cookies you can make.

Vanilla Instant Pudding Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe:
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla (optional)
2 1/4 cups flour
1 box (3.4 ounces) vanilla pudding
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Makes up to 44 cookies.

I recently got some pasta from Greece that my neighbor brought back with her and I couldnt wait to eat it! But alas, the woman who usually makes this for me is a skilled cook and I had large shoes to fill. So... I tried to make it my own. Didnt work. I put a lot of garlic and olive oil on it and... well it tasted terrible. So... I put the rest in my fridge to wait until I found the correct opportunity to eat it with. PESTO! Yesss, I went into this health food market looking for Goats milk and found some tasty other things, and one of them was pesto. So I made a cold pasta salad with it and then utilized the other things I bought, some Sicilian Hot sausage and my classic side dish of spinach and onions.

Greek Pasta with Spinach and Sausage

Carrots, Strawberry-Meyer Lemon Ice Cream and Green Beans

The holidays! Ooooh the Holidays, they were great, I got to spend time with my family, I drank copious amounts of wine and got so many good things to cook with. I know. Im excited too. I have not taken as much time to cook as I probably should have but I did create some strange things.

So I got home very late at night after being out with my friends and it was maybe 2 or 3 in the morning and I really wanted something to eat, but not because I was hungry, but just to eat. I scrounged around the fridge and discovered that there was barely any food for me to make. I found some random juices and baby carrot. So I got the idea to julian some carrots and just stir fry them around a little bit and maybe give them an Asian flare. So I threw them in a pan, added some minced garlic, garlic chilis, sriracha and some soy sauce. Im sure there were some other random things added in throughout the process but I cooked them carrots until they were a little tender and then started to munch! I had created a masterpiece! A fantastic little dish that had enough spice and the salty flare I was looking for. It will be a fantastic side dish to something I make!

Carrot Creation

Looks a bit strange but I promise it was delicious.

One of my gifts for Christmas was an ice cream maker! So I really wanted to make some ice cream, and at first I really wanted to make green tea ice cream. Then I decided I would make some strawberry ice cream! Part of the process of extracting the juices from the strawberries it that you have to put it in lemon juice and and it softened the strawberries and creates a syrup of sorts. But I really liked how it tasted with the lemon juice so I decided to make strawberry Meyer lemon ice cream instead! Promising I know. Now the recipe I was following didnt have any eggs in it, but a lot of the recipes for ice cream I've read about include some part of the eggs. So I researched what they did in the ice cream... and decided to throw one in. Why not?

I made the ice cream batch and then realized I needed to wait for the bowl in the ice cream maker to freeze. So... I hade to wait another 24 hours. But finally the next day I was able to make it! It kinda comes out like a thick soft serve and then you have to freeze it. It turned out SO GOOD. It was rich and creamy and the lemon gave it sort of a sorbet tang.

Strawberry-Meyer Lemon Ice Cream

I invited people over for a small ice cream party.

I've been cooking a lot with soy sauce because I really like how it sinks into whatever your cooking with it. I have some green beans and some shrimp and i decided to do sort of a stir fry with garlic and onions minced. I added in some soy sauce, sea salt, garlic powder, about half a cup of water and some brown sugar. It turned out really delicious, I couldnt stop eating it! I'm really starting to get this little flare down.

Stir Fried Green Beans and Shrimp


mmmmm

Overall some delicious treats.

The Holidays Are Here!

The holidays are here, and we've all decorated our stockings above the fake fireplace. But alas, no one is here, they've all gone away to their selective regions. Which means, I must go back to Oakland! But before I do that let me tell you about the fantastic caramels I made. Now I've been trying to find enough time to make these, but my time has been limited to say the least, so finally when finals were done I went to the store and bought the items I needed to complete my task. I even bought a cooking thermometer so I could make these right. It was all fairly simple, mixed all of the ingredients and let it boil, then simmered it on a med-high heat and had my friend time it for 10 mins. Now I had a mishap where the thermometer fell into the caramel and I almost lost it forever! But I fished it out just in time. Then I poured the caramel into a pan with wax paper and let it cool.

The Cooling process...

As it was cooling I decided what I wanted to put on top of them, now See's candy has these delicious caramels with marshmallow on them, so I tried to find their secret recipe, but I couldn't find it. So... I winged it, I melted the marshmallows with some butter and added some honey, then i layered it on a third of the caramels. Then I bought some raw walnuts, toasted them and added them on top of the caramels. And finally I was ready to dip them in chocolate. I did a large batch in bittersweet Godiva chocolate, but then I ran out of chocolate! So.. I had to wait till the next day and I had to get semi-sweet for the rest. Both turned out delicious.

Covered in Chocolate...

Thats all that was left...
But It made about, 60 or so? And I am gifting them for Christmas, easy way to make gifts from the heart, that taste delicious. And if you got some wax paper and ribbon, your set.

Wrapped and ready to go...

And we had some left over that were not covered in chocolate so we just cut em' up, and wrapped them in some wax paper and gave those to people as well. Delicious.

Tomorrow is going to be full of homemade candy and delicious foods. Cant wait.

Happy Holidays!