Friday Happy Hour: Sangria!

TGIF--The weekend is only hours away, and it's time to celebrate with a homemade cocktail!

I love sangria.

Peanut Butter Cookies

So you've mastered the chocolate chip cookie. You feel good about it. You've made them a few times and gotten rave reviews from your friends and family. But now that they know you can bake, they are getting greedy for more. Switch it up next time with these equally simple peanut butter cookies. And since you already know the basics from reading my Chocolate Chip Cookie blog, this will be super simple for you.

Peanut Butter Cookies
1/2 cup softened unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter (you can use crunchy or smooth, whatever your favorite is)
1 tablespoon milk

Jerk Chicken with Jalapeno-Mint Glaze & Mango Salsa

Tonight I wanted to be adventurous. REALLY ADVENTUROUS. Last night, I defrosted some chicken breast so I searched online for a new chicken recipe (something EVERYONE needs, right?). I found Bobby Flay's Jerk Chicken recipe, and adjusted it to my tastes and the ingredients I could get my hands on.

Let me warn you--this dinner is a little overwhelming if you think you're gonna be able to do everything at the same time. Just take it one step at a time, and in no time you'll have a delicious, Bobby Flay-worthy meal:)

Herb-Marinated Pork Tenderloin

Everybody should always have a go-to recipe in case you have a last-minute dinner guest. This recipe for pork tenderloin looks impressive, tastes amazing and is so quick and easy. And it's still as tasty and easy even if you don't have anyone to impress:)

I adjusted my version of this recipe from Ina Garten's recipe for pork tenderloin. The amounts are just guestimates, as I always just eye-ball everything. It still tastes good even if you put a little too much of something, promise! That's the difference between baking and cooking. Baking is a science, and you have to measure everything exactly. When you cook, you can adjust the amounts to suit your taste buds, without having to worry that your cake won't turn out right. These amounts are for one tenderloin, which serves about 3 people.

Tomato & Cucumber Salad

Do you ever have the craving for a simple, healthy salad to go with dinner? No store-bought dressings filled with chemicals and junk. You don't even need lettuce. Just fresh vegetables, oil and vinegar.

Chimichurri Hamburgers

Remember when you made ALL that chimichurri the other day? Well, you could eat it all in one sitting, invite a group of friends over to finish it off, or you can save some and make chimichurri hamburgers. I'll show you how.

Start with 1 lb of ground beef. Add in about 1/4 cup of chimichurri, salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly. Usually 1 lb of ground beef makes 4 burgers. If you divide it into fourths in the bowl, it makes portioning the burgers easier.

Friday Happy Hour: Cosmopolitan

TGIF--and that means it's Friday Happy Hour again!

Sex and the City made the Cosmo fashionable. I'm going to make it do-able for you:)

Cosmopolitan:
1 1/2 oz. Citrus Vodka (if you don't have citrus-flavored vodka, regular vodka is TOTALLY okay too)
1/2 oz. lime juice
1/2 oz. Triple Sec (I used Grand Marnier though, so just use what you have)
1/4 cup cranberry juice

Mix all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker over ice and pour into your favorite martini glass (or regular glass if you don't have martini glasses). Enjoy!

If you aren't big on keeping liquor in the house and just want one or two drinks, buy the little nips at the liquor store. They're the perfect size for just one or two drinks:)

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yes, my faithful followers. It is time for chocolate chip cookies. And while today I'm not divulging my super-top-secret Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe (that will come eventually, stay tuned!), the Toll House recipe I will divulge is AMAZING as well. You can also find this recipe on the back of basically every bag of Toll House Chocolate Chips--the best ones, I think, and the ones I always use.

Chocolate Chip Cookies:
2 sticks softened unsalted butter (for baking, we always use unsalted butter, so we can control how much salt goes into our recipes)
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda (not baking powder--there IS a difference!)
2 cups chocolate chips

Breakfast Sandwiches

Don't you just love a hot breakfast sandwich from McDonalds? I can't get over my sausage biscuit obsession, but sometimes, you just want to lounge in your PJs instead of racing to McDonalds for a McGriddle before 10:30 (who's up on the weekend in time for their 10:30 cut off anyways?!?). It's easy enough to make a tasty breakfast sandwich at home any time of the day! I'll tell you how:)

First, you'll need to gather the ingredients. I usually have either bagels or English muffins (but you can totally use regular bread too), eggs and cheese on hand all the time. But you'll also need a protein (if you like meat in your breakfast sandwich...and I LOVE MEAT). So next time you go to the grocery store, pick up some bacon or sausage (if you're super lazy, just get the pre-formed raw patties). Use what you need, and freeze the rest until you want to make another Bacon, Egg & Cheese.

Next, crack a few eggs (about 1 per sandwich) and mix them with a little milk or cream, salt & pepper, and a few dashes of hot sauce (I dunno why, but this really makes them amazing! And not spicy, I promise). Scramble them up just like you're making scrambled eggs, but when they are almost set, form them into whatever shape your bread is. And at the very end, put your cheese on top (while they're still in the pan) so that it can melt.

Then, cook your bacon or sausage. Bacon is super easy to cook in the microwave--just follow the instructions on the package. Or, I usually make it in the oven, which is super easy too. Ryan and I bought a cookie cooling rack that we've dedicated to proteins (you can cook chicken like this too!). We spray it with some Pam and put it inside a half-sheet pan (make sure the pan has sides) lined with some aluminum foil. Put a few slices of bacon on the cookie rack, and cook in the oven at 425 for 15(ish) minutes, or until the bacon is as crispy as you like it. Cooking it like this lets the fat drain off the bacon, and it ends up crispier than in the microwave. Of course, you can cook it in a pan the old-fashioned way too, but whenever I do it that way I get little fat sprays all over my stove. Sausage I do in a frying pan, with fat sprays all over the stove.

While your eggs are scrambling and bacon or sausage cooking, toast your bread, then butter it (if you really want that greasy, fast food taste).

Put the protein on the bread, and top with the eggs with cheese, and the other piece of bread. Whip up some coffee and pour some OJ, then, head back into bed, snuggle with your sweetie and enjoy your delicious and homemade breakfast sandwich!!

My bacon, egg & cheese bagel sandwich:

A delicious sausage, egg & cheese croissanwich.

Sauces: Chimichurri

Now, I know what you're thinking... "what in the WORLD is chimichurri sauce??". Well, it's a flavorful green South American sauce usually made from herbs, garlic, and olive oil. Most importantly, it's delicious on anything grilled, or any meat for that matter. All you need to make it is a food processor (one of the most useful kitchen appliances you can own). Warning: it's truly FLAVORFUL, so if you aren't into REALLY strong flavors, try this one at your own risk. :)

I based my chimichurri on a recipe I found online and altered. It's best if you make it a few hours (up to a day and keep it refrigerated) before hand because it just gets better when the flavors meld together. If you do make it in advance, just take it out of the fridge an hour before, because you want to serve it at room temperature.

Chimichurri Sauce:
1 1/2 cups parsley (2 bunches at Publix--I used a mix of flat and curly, but you can use whatever you prefer)
1/2 cup cilantro (1 bunch at Publix)
4 large garlic cloves
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper (you can omit this if you don't want the extra bite)
1 teaspoon salt

Keep in mind that these are just suggestions for amounts. Feel free to alter the recipe to fit your own tastes--there is no "right" way to make this. (In fact, there is rarely a "right" way to make anything!) If you like cilantro, add more cilantro! If you love parsley, bring more parsley to the party. It's completely up to YOU!

First, peel and chop the garlic in the food processor.

Lightly chop the herbs before placing into food processor.

Add the crushed red pepper and salt, and pulse until herbs are chopped completely.

Stream in olive oil and vinegar, and process until sauce is mixed. It should be thick and smooth, not chunky. Dump into a bowl, let sit for a few hours (or more), and put on top of your favorite steak or grilled veggies. YUM!

This makes a LOT, so keep an eye out for a blog on how to use your leftovers to make chimichurri hamburgers!

Friday Happy Hour: Margaritas!

So, every Friday I'm going to try to put a cocktail recipe for everyone out there that's trying to save some money and skipping happy hour out at a bar. Honestly, sometimes I think it's better to just chill out at home, rather than fighting the crowds in a packed bar. Plus, a while back, my dear friend Brett gave me this amazing cocktail set, and I just have to use it!

This week, I decided to make some margaritas (Ryan's fave). Last weekend we had margaritas made with margarita mix, and I wasn't a huge fan. So today, I made the sour mix from scratch and threw together a delicious margarita!

Sour Mix Recipe:
1 cup simple syrup
1 cup lemon juice

Mix & chill.

Some tips on juicing lemon or limes. To ensure that your lemon is as juicy as possible, roll firmly on counter before cutting.

I bought a Williams Sonoma Lemon & Lime Juicer and it's probably one of the best cooking investments I've made. It's super useful, not only for drinks, but for any recipe that calls for juice. I even made orange juice with it a few weeks ago--I just had to cut the oranges into quarters so that they fit in the juicer.

Simple Syrup:
Equal parts of water and sugar. Heat until sugar dissolves. Let cool.

Easy enough, right??

Margaritas:
1 1/2 oz tequila
1/2 oz Grand Marnier (orange-flavored liqueur)
squeeze of lime juice
3 oz sour mix


Mix all in a cocktail shaker with ice.

Pour over ice in a salt-rimmed glass.

Garnish with a lime wedge and voila! Homemade and DELICIOUS margaritas:)

Happy Friday!!

--Please let me know if there's any specific recipes you want me to try or write about on my blog--I'm totally open to suggestions and requests, plus you'll get a shout-out on my blog. :)

Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits

So, I had a special request today to divulge my Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuit recipe for Alex (mostly I bet so his girlfriend can make them for him!). Nevertheless, here it is (and eating them when they FIRST come out of the oven makes them taste much, much better than the heat-lamp warmed ones you actually get at Red Lobster, I promise!).

Biscuits:
2 1/2 cups bisquick
4 tablespoons cold butter
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
3/4 cup cold milk
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Cut butter into bisquick using a fork, pastry cutter, or food processor. The butter should be about the size of peas. Add cheese, milk & garlic powder (by hand) until just moistened. Overmixing at this point will make the biscuits tougher. Drop by 1/4 cup-fulls onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 400F for 15-17 minutes until top of biscuits are light brown.

Topping:
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon parsley flakes
pinch salt

Mix ingredients together, and pour over biscuits right after they've been taken out of the oven.

Hope you enjoy, Alex!

Spaghetti & Meatballs

How many of you buy those frozen premade meatballs (chock full of chemicals and fillers--ick!!) at the grocery store? Or even the premade raw ones in the meat department? Making homemade meatballs is too simple to spend all that money on premade ones! You can make homemade meatballs using ingredients you already have at home. I'm going to tell you how I did it (so you can do it too!), in 30 minutes, tops.

There was a big spread in Bon Appetit magazine this month on meatballs, so I took their recipe for meatballs and adjusted it a little bit (since I didn't have bacon or red peppers on hand).

Meatballs:
1 lb ground beef (I used 20% fat)
1 large garlic clove, peeled & crushed (or finely minced if you don't have a garlic crusher)
1/3 cup panko breadcrumbs (you can find them in the breadcrumb section of Publix)
1 egg
1/4 cup grated onion (just use a cheese grater)
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp crushed red pepper (these are spicy, so tone this down if you are spice-sensitive)

Mix all ingredients together. Make sure you don't over-mix, because that will make your meatballs tough.

Using a tablespoon and wet hand, form into 1 1/2" meatballs.

Brown the meatballs in a frying pan, making sure all the sides are browned (Ryan did this part for me!).

For the sauce, I cheated and used canned sauce, Classico's Tomato & Basil. Whenever I use canned sauce, I always jazz it up a little, to give it more of a homemade taste. I chopped up the unused part of the onion from the meatballs, some garlic cloves, and sauteed both with some olive oil and crushed red pepper. (If you put crushed red pepper (or any herbs) in with the oil over heat, it'll infuse and you'll get more flavor from them--a tip if you ever want to make infused oils for gifts!) After the onions and garlic were softened, I added the jar of sauce. I also added some Italian seasoning (the only premade seasoning I use, but when I run out, I'll make some from scratch), salt, and pepper, then let the sauce simmer while the meatballs were browning. Doesn't it look good? I'm getting hungry just writing this post!

Once the meatballs are done browning, add them to the simmering sauce, and let cook for 10-15 minutes, so the inside of the meatballs get cooked through, and the flavors get to meld. We also added the pan-drippings (read as: fat) from the frying pan to the sauce, to add more flavor. Fat=Flavor!

Cook up your favorite pasta (while the sauce is simmering) and voila--homemade spaghetti & meatballs!

My First Grown-Up Christmas

This post is gonna be pretty long, because, let's face it, it's about an entire Christmas meal!!

This year, my brother went up to visit his girlfriend's family for Christmas, so I offered to make my mom a "gourmet Christmas" meal. She was to provide the wine, and I would take care of EVERYTHING else... EVERYTHING. I turned to my most trusted recipe source - Bon Appetit - and found a wide variety of Christmas Menus. I settled on a French menu with turkey as a protein, since my mom loves her turkey. And I vowed my turkey would not be as dry as my Aunt & Uncle's usually is (sorry to rat you out!). A few weeks before the big day, I was talking to my good friend Becky, telling her about my eternal dry turkey problem, and she suggested I brine my turkey, using a handy dandy brining pdf she had on hand--Thanks Becky!!

So the Monday before Christmas, I bought a small turkey (8lbs) and let it thaw in the fridge. Wednesday I made Ryan help me make the 2-gallons worth of brine, and fill my (beer) cooler with ice, the 2 gallons of brine in a garbage sack, and my turkey. On Thursday evening, I whipped up the truffle butter (the truffles were SUPER expensive - $15 for a teeny jar!) in my food processor. I took the turkey out of the brine, and dried it off, and rubbed the butter all over it. I added lemons and onions into the inside cavity and put my baby into the fridge to sit overnight.

In the mean time, I whipped up a few desserts. First, Ryan had requested a strawberry ice cream cake for his birthday, so I cheated a little and made a boxed strawberry cake and bought some vanilla and strawberry ice cream. After freezing the two 8" rounds, I cut each in half longways (so I was left with 4 layers), and let the ice cream soften a bit. I lined a trifle dish with saran wrap, and started layering! First a layer of the cake, then half of the strawberry ice cream, another layer of the cake, and half of the vanilla ice cream. Then I repeated the entire thing until I had 8 layers and my trifle dish was full. After it was completely frozen, I tried prying it out of the dish, and it was truly stuck, so Ryan had to come in with his man muscles and pry his own birthday cake of the trifle dish (shameful on my part, I know, but you don't know how hard that cake was!). I frosted it with whipped heavy cream and decorated it with strawberries. It turned out to be a deliciously strawberry 8-layer ice cream cake.

We cut into it on Christmas and Ryan (and his family) LOVED it! See all the layers!?

I also made some chocolate mousse from Julia Child's famous cookbook - Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which I had stolen from my mom's cookbook shelf a few weeks ago. (She actually had the two-volume box set, so that's why I'm linking to that version. And I will add it's the 1972 printing, so you know it's been loved!) The mousse took forever and was super complicated, but was definitely worth all the trouble. Lastly, I made panna cotta, from David Leibowitz, which was EASY, QUICK, and delicious. Instead of having to worry about unmolding both the mousse and the panna cotta, I put them in cute martini glasses I had, so they would be ready to serve at a moment's notice!

At the last moment, I decided to accompany this french meal with some homemade baguettes. A few months ago, I made ciabatta from scratch with a recipe I found on the King Arthur website (a great baking website all around!), and they turned out pretty good, so I felt confident making baguettes. Thursday night I made the poolish (the yeast starter) and Friday morning after putting the turkey in the oven I finished the dough and set it to rise. I had to cheat a little on the rise since I was running short on time, but they turned out amazing anyways. And I have to thank Aunt Joanne for the wonderful couches (the round thingies you form baguettes on) she gave me! See if you can find my baguettes in the photo below of our Christmas Table spread :)

Friday morning I put the turkey in the oven, and I thought it would take much longer than it did to cook it through. I took it out after maybe 2 1/2 hours, tented it with aluminum foil, and let it sit while I finished the rest of the food.

The rest of the meal was fairly simple. A variety of cheeses for appetizer (a little trick I picked up from Ina Garten--no cook appetizers!) -- I chose Stilton Blue Cheese, Ile de France goat cheese, and Port Salut. For sides, I cooked up the haricot vert (French green beans) and carrots coated with dijon mustard mixed with heavy cream, in the Bon Appetit menu. These were easy AND delicious, even though I hate mustard, and I've made them once since Christmas. The potato galette, also in the Bon Appetit menu, was rather simple to make as well, it just too forever to place layer after layer of potatoes. It turned out beautifully (I made extra sure the top layer was arranged perfectly), but when I tried to unmold it, I guess I didn't use enough butter on the pan, and the potatoes stuck, so it didn't look as pretty on the table as it did pre-un-molding. My wonderful boyfriend had the privilege of carving the turkey. And the cognac gravy was the best gravy my mom said she had ever had!

All in all, Christmas dinner went off without a hitch (thanks to my own neurosis and list-making!) and my mom (and Ryan & I) LOVED it. Next year she wants me to come home and make the same meal in Tampa.

A Big NO: Chocolate Cake in a Mug

(I apologize in advance that there are no photos with this post... I'm going to have to get into the habit of taking pictures of everything I make from now on!)

Women across America (and probably the world) have been RAVING about this 5-minute Chocolate Cake in a Mug. I recently got the recipe in an e-mail, and tonight I was craving some chocolate (slightly strange for me, because I don't have much of a sweet tooth), so I decided to try this out, instead of making a pan of boxed-brownies.

The recipe says you are supposed to "bake" this cake in a microwave for 5-minutes, but my microwave is more than a little finicky (it's actually half-microwave, half-convection oven), so I made one for the microwave, and one in a small Le Creuset saucepan to cook in the oven.

The recipe I used was from http://tinyurl.com/y9ou3y2, and is as follows:
4 Tbsp. flour
4 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. cocoa
1 egg
3 Tbsp. milk
3 Tbsp. oil
Small splash of vanilla

So the gig is you mix everything together, put in a coffee mug (I used a mason jar, as a tribute to my redneck heritage), zap it in the microwave for 5 minutes, and POOF, a delicious chocolate cake.

Well, that was what was supposed to happen anyways. Surprisingly, my microwave didn't set this thing on fire (as happened a few weeks ago to one of those pre-made store-bought microwavable chocolate cakes), and it actually puffed up like it showed in the photos. I dumped it out onto a plate for Ryan, my boyfriend and ultimate taste-tester, to try. It was rubbery. Like one of those bouncy balls you win at Chuck E Cheese. And surprisingly not that chocolatey. We threw it away after two bites. "Let's not make this again, ok?" said Ryan.

The oven baked one (I cooked it for around 15 minutes), was slightly less rubbery, but also not a "make-again" according to Ryan (and me).

I do hope this serves as a warning against all you (women) out there that are looking for a quick chocolate fix--there is none!! Buy some good dark chocolate (I prefer Ghiradelli for both snacking and baking) and keep it in the freezer for your more desperate chocolate moments!

My First Post!

So for a few months I've been debating starting a blog, mainly to diary my (almost) daily culinary adventures in my teeny tiny apartment kitchen. After making another TERRIBLE recipe I found online, I decided today was the day. I want to share which kooky online recipes I've tried that were just plain bad. And I want to share which kooky online recipes I've tried that were amazing! Most importantly, I want everyone to realize how easy it is to make (virtually) everything from scratch (today I made hoisin sauce from scratch!!). And hopefully, by reading my adventures, my friends and family will feel better about their cooking mishaps and successes.