"Cookie" Pancakes

Oh, hey. As you can tell, school is keeping me busy - too busy to update the blog. It's time-consuming and tough but I'm loving it. Anyway, I had this post in draft-form for ages and because one of my new friends from school asked for the recipe, I figured I might as well post 'er up!

Oatmeal chocolate chip banana pancakes. We make these nearly every Saturday and Sunday morning because we love them so much. They're delicious and moist and the melty chocolate chips in them make them taste like cookies. They also fill you up for a good long time! We got the recipe here. We use coconut oil instead of canola and sunflower seed butter (or any other nut butter) instead of almond butter but otherwise we make them exactly as written. They take a while to cook because they're so dense. I really can't explain how heavenly they are. It's saying something about how good they are that Jason eats them even with chocolate chips (he usually doesn't like chocolate chips in anything)! You really ought to try them - I'm pretty sure you won't be disappointed!

Summer Produce

Summer food! I'm so glad that my joy of cooking developed in the summer - it makes meals so easy with all of the in-season fruits and veggies. You can make delicious meals without much effort! I made some spinach edamame hummus yesterday - a bit more than anticipated - so I'm trying to think of creative ways to eat it. Any ideas? Please let me know if you have any ideas (or WANT some of it) because I have a giant tupperware full of it! Below is my first meal made with it - a sandwich flat toasted with the hummus and some cheese and topped with tomatoes. Eaten with a side of (more) spinach and some watermelon (I can't get enough watermelon)!

One of my favorite summer combos is this little dish of sauteed zucchini, summer squash, onions, garlic, and tomatoes.

It's delicious roasted as well. You can do so much with it - eat it with poached eggs and toast in the morning, as the insides of an omelette, on its own, over pasta with a little parmesan, a topping for pizza... the combos are endless! Yum.

In the Kitchen

More healthy culinary expeditions since the last post:

• Whole wheat buttermilk blueberry banana muffins
• Pasta with chicken sausage, white beans, spinach, and cheese
• Beet and orange arugula salad with apple cider vinegar, olive oil, and dijon dressing 

• Grilled blackened salmon served over a black bean, red onion, and grilled corn medley (for my dad's birthday)
• Potatoes au gratin (for Dad's birthday)
• A triple berry trifle (for Dad's birthday)

who needs a trifle dish when you have clear tupperware? classy.

• Black bean veggie burgers (these were delicious but need some serious alterations with the filler - they were more like mush than burgers but were really tasty as part of a spinach salad with mango and tomato)
• Chicken enchiladas
• Zucchini and cheese enchiladas

one of us doesn't like scallions & cilantro. he shall remain nameless...

• Chocolate chip banana muffins - I've made these a bunch of different times with some alterations each time. Jason loves these to take for breakfast to eat on his walk to the bus each morning which is why I keep making them (his without the chocolate chips, of course). Yesterday I feel like I perfected the recipe - I'll share it soon!

• Tilapia tacos
• Mexican chicken crock pot dish
• Barbacoa in the crock pot served with brown rice (with corn, black beans, onions) and topped with cilantro, tomatoes, scallions, and avocado.

who needs chipotle?

• Chewy chocolate chip granola bars
• BBQ pineapple chicken
• Zucchini fritters (they fell apart a little - I need to learn the proper ratio of flour/egg here!). I didn't make marinara sauce but I thought next time I'll make some to dip them in. Yum.

• Chicken salad
• Zucchini chocolate chip muffins 
• Pumpkin spice chocolate chip cookies

We loved the grilled blackened salmon and made it again when we were at Jason's parents' house since they have a grill. Someday we'll do it again at home but we don't have a dang grill. I keep searching on Craigslist for a mini charcoal grill - I would kill for a grill! We've also made the enchiladas twice. We have plans to do coconut chicken salad again tonight (from the last post). We're clearly finding favorites!

Whenever we're together for dinners (which is rare - usually only once a week), Jason helps me in the kitchen which makes things so much easier, faster, and more enjoyable. He's a great sous chef. On the days I'm alone, I just prep his dinner for him before I go to work so it's ready for him when he gets home! It makes me happy to cook for him because he has been super busy lately with school and work (I'm so proud of him). He has also been taking his turn in the kitchen by making breakfasts on the weekends before I have to go to work and not waking me until it's nearly done which I LOVE. I could get used to that! He's made a lot of whole wheat banana chocolate chip waffles and pumpkin pancakes. They are so delicious.

Our dishwasher bit the dust a couple of days ago... so there is a lot of hand-washing going on around these parts lately with all this cooking and baking (boo...)! The plumber came out yesterday but he couldn't do anything... sigh. Next stop - appliance dudes! Wish us luck that it's fixed soon... Of course I'll continue cooking anyway!

Food, Glorious Food

I have found a new hobby. 

In the past week and a half I have cooked: 

• Zucchini turkey burgers with caramelized onions, tomato, and spinach;
• Brussels sprouts with turkey bacon and garlic; 
• Arugula salad with watermelon and feta (pictured); 
• Mini quiches with caramelized onions, zucchini, tomatoes, cheese, and turkey bacon;
• Mini quiches with spinach, cheese, and turkey bacon; 
• Brown fried rice with onions, scallions, carrots, edamame, and egg;
• Spicy mayo shrimp;
• Garlic lime shrimp;
• Roasted summer veggies: yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, onion, and garlic;
• Stuffed mushrooms with turkey bacon, spinach, and cheese (pictured); and
• Coconut chicken salad.

And I have baked:

• An oatmeal bake with bananas and blueberries;
• Oatmeal cookies - chocolate chip, cranberry, and blueberry varieties (pictured);
• Blueberry scones (some with chocolate chips);
• Banana muffins (some with chocolate chips) - these are dangerously delicious... I might have eaten three in one day...; and
• Chocolate banana souffles.

Jason made banana chocolate chip waffles for me one morning this past weekend too. I had plans for other meals but two people can only eat so much. I started cooking to make healthier meals for us both and despite the fact that a lot of it doesn't sound all that healthy, it all is - at least when you give yourself the right serving size. I think the most fun part was finding ways to make every one of these things healthy (turkey alternatives to beef, wheat flour instead of white, less butter and more alternatives, etc). A lot of these were recipes that I found online, but I made my own twist on most of them.

If you had told me two months ago that I would love to cook and bake if I had free time, I would have laughed at you. But now that my schedule has changed and I have free time during the day, I'm loving it! Now if only I had space to entertain (and someone to clean the rest of the apartment I've neglected) so I could feed more people!

P.S. How do people cook with online recipes? This is the first time I can understand the usefulness of an iPad because my MacBook takes up half of our counter space (I wish I was exaggerating). But I still won't buy an iPad if that is the only use I get out of it. Maybe I could try my Kindle's awful "experimental" browser? Anyone have any other ideas?

P.P.S. I have another post lined up for Friday, so come back now, ya hear? I hope to be updating a bit more soon... and doing a bit of catching up!

Mmm... muffin.

The past couple of weeks have been a tease. We thought we were going to buy a house. We got further in the process than we ever have before, but the inspection report made us back out of the sale. Sad. Anyway, while we were in the midst of the tease, I was making an effort to deplete the contents of our shelves and freezer full of food in anticipation of eventually moving. I thought about making banana muffins since we had about six bananas frozen in the freezer and clearly frozen bananas will not travel on move day.

By Tuesday we knew the house wasn't going to happen, but I still had banana muffins on the brain. My mother-in-law celebrated a big birthday last week so I decided to bake some muffins for her. A couple for Jason, a couple for me, and the rest for her (she got one for every decade she was celebrating). Of course mine were full of chocolate chips while the others were plain. They wound up with a little more chocolate than I originally planned on, but I'm not sure there is such a thing as too much chocolate.

End result?

Slightly crispy tops and perfectly cooked insides.

Delicious.

I am of the mind that chocolate chips can make pretty much everything better but Jason does not agree. So answer me this: do you prefer chocolate chips in your baked goods or do you like 'em plain? Or with nuts, perhaps?

Five guys? Nope just one.

This blog was originally one that Jason and I both wrote in.  Now I call it my own, but here's a post from him! -K

We've been better about making food lately and although I'm not a blogger nor much of a writer I told my wife I'd try to do some posts about food here and there.

Her burger habit is still in full swing and she takes any chance she gets to try a new burger place. She's tried Five Guys, but this time around she tried One Guy. I rolled out some small burger patties added just a bit of salt and pepper, caramelized onions for 40 minutes and sautéed some baby bella mushrooms with a bit of balsamic glaze and vinegar (not that I like either of those but my wife sure does, so it was well worth the time). She seemed very happy with the results and informed me that she would purchase burgers from One Guy again. On a side note, I'm not sure I understand the fascination with breadcrumbs in a burger, that is more of a meatloaf, but I see so many recipes calling for them these days. I can understand the Cajun/blackened or seasoned burgers those add a nice twist to the flavor, but really is there anything better than just a bit of salt and pepper (besides the obvious cheese and make-everything-better-bacon)?

We also have been trying to do some crock-pot recipes because let's face it, sometimes it's just nice to throw everything in and come home from work not having to cook dinner. We tried a chicken parmigiana recipe from a site by a woman who did crock-pot dishes every day for a year. It wasn't bad but I don't think we'd try the recipe again, I'm too much of a chicken parmigiana snob thanks to my Italian side.

Some salmon currently marinating in the fridge will be up next, though since it's still cold out and we've already done chili recently it might be time for some chicken and dumplings the Jason way soon...

Snow again, snow again, jiggity-jig

Did anyone else watch 24/7 Penguins/Capitals: Road to the Winter Classic on HBO last night? I loved it. Even though my dearest team is not doing very well (they lost again last night making the losing streak a total of seven in a row - ouch) it was really, really cool to get a "behind the scenes" look at my favorite professional sport.

So - SNOW. You already know how snow makes us happy. Today we got what I would call our first REAL snow. Snow that sticks. It looks like our snow storms from earlier this year (that's three separate links!)... but only in the beginning. It's expected to stop tonight (tear), and has already slowed down, but I hope it sticks for a while and stays clean and pretty.

Now you can actually see the snow behind us unlike last time.

 

A young trail-blazer with his sled.

Freezing cold pup.

In snow/holiday fashion, I wanted to make something "cozy" and holiday-like. First I thought I would make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies but we don't have eggs. So I tried making hot chocolate with soy milk (I try to avoid dairy when I'm sick, and I have been quite sick lately). Verdict: gross. Then I figured I would make dinner in the crockpot and decided to make this orange curry chicken dish again except this time I used orange cranberry marmalade instead of plain orange. It smells delicious right now - we'll see how it turns out!

Dinner Tonight: Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Apples

Another chapter in the kitchen chronicles!

We made a chicken dish tonight with sweet potatoes, apples, onions, and sage. It wasn't our favorite but it wasn't terrible. The smell while it was cooking was heavenly - it smelled like Thanksgiving - and it looked so autumny in the pot!

Tomorrow is OCTOBER!!! The best month of the year - HOORAY!!!

Orange Curry Chicken

I have been trying to cook quite a bit lately. I want to learn to enjoy it and be good at it! I have made a few dishes lately that have turned out pretty yummy including some tofu (for me) and chicken (for Jason) fajitas that were quite tasty and some barbeque chicken over Labor Day weekend. Tonight I used A Year of Slow Cooking's orange curry chicken recipe and while it wound up not looking quite like her pictures, it tasted delicious! I used a little bit of apricot preserves as well as orange marmalade. Sweet and spicy - yum!



Our lazy weekend was quite enjoyable. I felt so lousy that it was perfect. We ventured out to see one open house but other than that, we were bumps on logs. It paid off too - I woke up completely better (albeit a little tired) today! I'm amazed how quickly the cold went away considering how terrible I sounded and felt on Saturday. Rest really does do the body good. Oh, and watching hours of Arrested Development... Speaking of which, this is amazing.

Misadventures of me in the kitchen

I want and need to learn to cook... and actually be good at it. Jason went to the grocery store to get ingredients for a salmon dish with breadcrumbs and a side of horseradish mashed potatoes. We decided I should cook it. I had to shoo Jason out of the kitchen quite a few times because I decided I wanted to do this one without help. He heard me cuss and yelp but I never told him what was going on until we finished eating. Once the meal was done, I shared my tweeted chronicles with him while he laughed. Laugh all you want, people. It was a delicious dinner. I'm proud of it and am ready for more misadventures in the kitchen!

Here are my tweets over the course of an hour in the kitchen:

Cooking a relatively difficult salmon dish J picked out. Let's track the misadventures of this.

Didn't print recipe out. Have to track up and down on blackberry between ingredients and directions.

Dropped potato on floor.

Dropped wet lemon into bread crumbs.

Forgot to start timer on potatoes.

Forgot to spread dijon on fish before putting bread crumbs on it. Good thing J doesn't like dijon. Too bad I do... Sad.

Put oven on 50 degrees too high. Realized it very shortly after fish went in, thankfully. I don't make this stuff up, guys.

Cooked a potato too long... It broke apart in the pot when I tried to take it out...

Burned some of the green beans in the microwave.

And done! Not too shabby!

That was actually a really good dinner!