I love homemade pizza, you know this. And I really love burrata on homemade pizza – it is so creamy and gooey and just heavenly. It’s great with tomatoes in the summer, but when paired with caramelized onions it becomes this luscious and sophisticated fall combination.
The onions are caramelized slowly with butter (this takes time and patience), and finished with balsamic vinegar. They are piled on pizza dough and topped with torn burrata, no sauce needed.
Then it is baked and topped with fresh basil. Oh. My. Gosh. It is just so good – rich and creamy and perfect.
My thanks to Melissa from Smells Like Brownies, for suggesting that we make this and for teaching me to stop rolling my pizza dough out so dang thin! (more…)
It’s time for another Secret Recipe Club post! This month, my assignment was The Tasty Cheapskate. Food was not a big focus for Jean growing up, neither eating it nor cooking it, which is pretty much the opposite of my childhood. Luckily all that changed for her as an adult. Now she focuses on whole foods and budget friendly family meals. She even did a challenge where she fed her 6 person family on $6 a day! Incredible!
Looking through her blog, I found a lot of yummy baked goods. Like a bunch of different pull-apart breads, but especially this coconut and lime one. Also zucchini bread with lemon or with coconut. And self frosting nutella pumpkin muffins – shut the front door! But despite all those yummy delights, what I really wanted was a nice healthy meal – so my eyes lit up when I saw this Broccoli Barley Casserole. And I was even more excited when I saw that the original recipe used farro, which I have been meaning to start using for a long time, and that it could be made in one pot.
Start by sauteing onions and garlic in a Dutch oven. Then add the farro and allow to toast a bit.
Add in frozen spinach, water, and vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until the liquid is almost all gone and the farro is tender but still chewy, about 20 minutes. (more…)
I made these cupcakes (a long time ago) for the bridal shower of a vegan friend of mine. Please ignore how terrible I am at frosting – this was literally my first time using my piping set. I got the recipe from Melissa (Smells Like Brownies) who said it was a delicious cake recipe, even for non-vegans. And you know what? She was right! These cupcakes are moist and decadent and very chocolatey – and don’t taste at all like avocado! They are also incredibly easy to make.
The original post included a lemon and avocado frosting that I was not a fan of, so I ended up using Duncan Hines chocolate frosting in the tub (which just happens to be vegan). You can use whatever frosting you prefer.
Vegan Chocolate Avocado Cupcakes
adapted from Joy the Baker
makes 36 cupcakes
3 cups all-purpose flour
6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil (I used avocado oil)
1/2 cup soft avocado, well mashed, about 1 medium avocado
2 cups water
2 tbsp white vinegar
2 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place cupcake wrappers into 3 muffin tins.
Sift together all of the dry ingredients except the sugar.
Mix all the wet ingredients together in a bowl, including the super mashed avocado (you really don’t want any chunks).
Add sugar into the wet mix and stir.
Mix the wet with the dry all at once, and beat with a whisk (by hand) until smooth.
Scoop batter into muffin tins. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Let cupcakes cool in pan for 10 minutes, then remove onto cooling racks to cool completely before frosting.
It’s time for another Secret Recipe Club reveal! This month I was assigned Amy’s Cooking adventures, a blog that I recognize from my other blog circle – Food ‘n Flix. As I was looking into Amy’s blog in more depth and reading her bio, I started to feel like I knew her. I, too, came to cooking later in life. I, too, have a masters but chose to stay at home (as a homemaker for now and hopefully a mother soon). I, too, am an avid reader (and a huge geek/nerd in general). I love that Amy posts a list of what she has been reading, and I love the books on those lists, too! Her writing is very open and conversational and makes you feel like you are an old friend – what a treat!
I was really tempted to go with these Pesto Mozzarella Burgers on Tomato Basil Buns, maybe paired with a Roasted Blueberry Basil Margarita. But then I saw that she had a ton of s’mores based recipes! I love s’mores so much! Would I go with s’mores brownies, cupcakes, or a frappuccino? So many choices! I eventually settled on cookies, but Amy has not 1, not 2, but 3 s’mores cookie recipes. I decided to go with the 3rd and most recent recipe, because Amy said it’s the best one and I trust her judgement.
They are a chocolate base with chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, and graham cracker bits – and they really taste like s’mores! You can store them in an airtight container, but I liked them best the first day, when the graham crackers were still crunchy.
They also have a secret ingredient – chocolate pudding mix! I’ve used pudding mix in cakes and ice cream before, but hadn’t thought about it for cookies – what a great idea! They came out really fudgy and moist. I really didn’t make any changes at all to this recipe, it’s perfect! (more…)
Earlier this week I talked about my Marrakesh box from Try The World, and what I did with the sardines from it. Now I’d like to tell you what I did with the rest of the items, which was to make this beautiful lamb and couscous dish!
First I took cubed lamb and tossed it with some of the kefta rub, then browned it in batches. (more…)
I really want to tell you guys about this delightful sardine butter that I made with lemon and fresh herbs, but first I need to tell you how I happened to acquire some sardines. (Also -check out my delicious Seeded Peasant Bread in the photo, there.)
I recently signed up for a subscription service called Try The World, which sends me a box of international goodies every other month. The boxes are themed, so that everything in each comes from one country – my first box was Marrakesh (Morocco).
Lemme walk you through what it is like to get one of these boxes in the mail. You open up the cardboard cube, and inside is an adorable print and your beautiful box. (more…)
Earlier this week, I posted about homemade Seeded Peasant Bread. Well, what goes better with homemade bread than homemade jam? This jam, made with Rainier cherries and Amaretto, is the perfect compliment.
Rainier cherries are so beautifully colored, I just love them. Start by pitting and chopping (I was lazy and just quartered mine, and the chunks were a bit too large).
Combine with sugar, bring to a boil, and cook down for a bit. (more…)
I have been trying to make bread for years. I have tried so many different recipes, and never been happy with any of them. Until Melissa introduced to to this recipe from Alexandra’s Kitchen, that is. It’s so ridiculously easy – there’s no kneading, just mixing and rising – and the texture is amazing. I’m seriously obsessed with it.
First step – activate yeast. And while that is happening, stir together flour, spelt flour, salt, and seeds. Melissa uses 1 tbsp each of quinoa, flax, chia, and millet – I don’t like flax seeds very much, so I use 1 tbsp plus 1 tsp each quinoa, chia, and millet.
Then you mix the yeast mixture into the flour mixture and THAT’S IT (at least as far as mixing goes). It’s so stupidly easy. Let it rise for 1 hour, or until doubled. (more…)
When I asked Melissa (Smells Like Brownies) to help me become a better baker, I specifically asked to do these cookies. If you have ever stayed at a Doubletree Hotel, then you know the joy of being handed one of these giant cookies when you check in. It’s probably one of the most searched for cookie recipes, and it has some secret ingredients that I wouldn’t have guessed.
So, let’s get started! The first step is to mix the dry ingredients, which include finely ground dry oats. This is one of the secret ingredients that makes these cookies so good – it makes the texture so lovely. There’s also a bit of cinnamon in there, yum.
Next, cream butter with both granulated and brown sugar, vanilla, and the next secret ingredient – lemon juice. I would never have guessed to use lemon juice in a chocolate chip cookie, but it keeps them tender.
Mix the dry into the wet, then stir in chocolate chips and toasted chopped walnuts. The original recipe didn’t call for toasting the walnuts, but I think it makes the texture nicer and brings out the nutty flavor. (more…)
It’s Food ‘n Flix time again! Where we watch a movie and then make something inspired by that movie. This month’s flick is August: Osage County, hosted by Elliot’s Eats, and boy is it a doozy.
I could tell immediately from the dialogue that this was a play adaptation, and I was right. The movie portrays the funeral of the patriarch of an extremely dysfunctional family, set in the desolate plains of Oklahoma. The cast (including Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Juliette Lewis) acted the crap out of some very dark and intense material – addiction, depression, suicide, abuse, and incest. This is not a feel good movie (you know it’s bad when incest is the best scenario), but it is very good and it will make you think.
As for the food inspiration – there was a ton! Many of the most tortured scenes revolved around food, including the horrible funeral dinner and the infamous “eat the fish!” scene. The moment that I was drawn to was Meryl Streep’s character talking about her last interaction with her husband over biscuits and gravy. She must have said the phrase “biscuits and gravy” ten times. I’m not even that big a fan of biscuits and gravy, but that was what I wanted to make.
I wanted to make something special, not basic, so I went to Pinterest thinking I would find an herbed biscuit recipe or something. But what came up were a ton of recipes for biscuits and gravy casseroles. I had never heard of that before and it sounded awesome! Some were just biscuits, gravy, and cheese; but I liked the look of one that included eggs (kind of like a strata). (more…)
