Merry Christmas Eve!

MH and I hosted an Italian themed Christmas Eve dinner for the family. Mangia mangia!

Branciole                                   Seafood Medley

Roasted Artichoke Salad               Parmesan Zucchini Crisps

Italian Ragu & Pasta                          Dessert Buffett

Homemade Deep Dish Pizza

We tried to make deep dish pizza at home and I was pleasantly surprised by the results. Our crust was wonderfully buttery and flakey. However, our sauce could use a little work. 

MH made a sausage and mushroom pie and I made a chicken, mushroom, and basil pie (trying to imitate my all time favorite Zachary's stuffed chicken pie). 

Christmas Festivities

The winter holidays came and went faster then I would have liked this year. We were late putting up the tree and started a new home project just after the holiday so my fun and enjoyment of the Christmas decorations were short lived. Nevertheless, MH and I had a great holiday season with family and friends and I was glad to be able to spend some time in the kitchen to do some baking.

MH and my Christmas breakfast cinnamon roll tradition was altered slightly by a lovely invitation to a Christmas morning brunch and a new recipe. Since MH's parent's decided to not visit for the holiday, MH's sister had us over for brunch and we enjoyed our cinnamon roll tradition together.  

I typically bake a modified version of my Mom's cinnamon roll recipe, but after coming across Lauren's Latest blog and her Cinnabon cinnamon rolls I couldn't resist giving them a try. I think this is going to be my new go to cinnamon roll recipe. They taste pretty darn close to the real deal!

On Christmas Eve we enjoyed a traditional prime rib dinner, and MH and I made roasted garlic butter roasted mushrooms, roasted cauliflower and carrots, and a sour cream apple pie. 

The pie was featured in Martha Stewart Living and I don't think I would recommend the recipe. Although the crumble and crust were delicious, the pie in whole missed the mark. There was something about the sour cream apple filling that just didn't seem right. 

Since we enjoyed all of the traditional dishes on Christmas Eve, we decided to have a non-traditional Christmas dinner and cooked up a delicious homemade mexican spread. 

We made beef tamales, chili colorado, garlic grilled chicken, carnitas, al pastor, spanish rice, black beans, roasted corn salad, vegetable lime salad, guacamole, salsa, and a pitcher of horchata. To compliment the meal, we also bought some corn and flour tortillas, chips, and Jarritos sodas from the neighborhood Mexican market.

To finish the meal I made the an Impossible Cake otherwise known as chocoflan. Making this cake is a serious science experiment. When you prepare the cake and slide it into the oven, the cake sits at the bottom of the pan with the layer of flan floating on top, and when you pull it out the layers are reversed!

The cake turned out well and I was pleasantly surprised how nicely flan and chocolate cake paired together. I hope you had a wonderful holiday filled with delicious treats too!

Making Progress...

MH and I are getting better at making home made pizza. We are far from being pros but can manage to make semi-round pizzas now. Making pizza dough round is much more difficult than we anticipated!

I've been on a margherita pizza kick lately and fresh pizza just out of the oven can't be beat.

Hand Twisted Fusilli

Making pasta from scratch is a lot of work, but the end result is so rewarding. I found a Martha Stewart recipe for fusilli with bacon, onions, and mushrooms that sounded good, so MH and I decided to make some fusilli. 

Unfortunately, making it wasn't as easy as making bucatini. We must have been doing something wrong, because the pasta didn't twist as it was extruded so MH and I ended up having to hand twist each pasta! Do you have this problem?

The finished dish didn't disappoint and I'll be adding this recipe to our recipe box. If you are interested, you can check it out HERE.

Mini Waffle Furniture!

How cute are these?!? Check out more information HERE.

Picture from Sapore Dei Mobili (Furniture Tasting)

Easter Treats!

I hope everyone had a good weekend! MH and I had a great time celebrating the Easter holiday with family and friends and had fun making treats to share...

Lemon Green Beans

 Rainbow Jello

 Italian Herb Boules

 Citrus Salad with Mint

 Brussel Sprouts with Bacon

To no surprise, the rainbow jello was the biggest hit. It took forever to make though so I don't think we will be making it again anytime soon. Each layer has to be made and set individually and we found that all shortcuts end in disaster. 

Dainty Dumplings

I had a hankering for some dumplings, so the first step in the process was to make the dumpling wrappers.

Making them from scratch was more work than I anticipated but I'm glad I did it. The homemade dumpling wrappers have a stretchiness to them that allows you to make your dumplings in a closed satchel.

My closed satchel dumpling technique could definitely use some work, but I think they turned out pretty well. Unfortunately, most of them got stuck to the pan when I was cooking them and ended up tearing on the bottom. What a bust.

Mashed Cauliflower

I can't remember when I first heard about faux mashed potatoes aka mashed cauliflower but I decided to give it a try since sticking to a South Beach Diet can be a challenge.

To my surprise, they turned out pretty well. Unfortunately, they taste like cauliflower and not potatoes, but they have a pleasantly light and fluffy texture.

To try them for yourself, cut up one cauliflower head into small florets and boil them till tender. Puree all of the cooked florets with a tablespoon of butter, tablespoon of olive oil, until smooth, and then season to taste. I added some seasoning salt, granulated onion, granulated garlic, and topped it with some green onions and black pepper.

Chinese Eggplant & Dumplings

I was super excited to get Easy Chinese Recipes: Family Favorites From Dim Sum to Kung Pao for Christmas and was inspired to do some cooking. Since we had some eggplants leftover from our Christmas ratatouille, I went with the 'Fish Fragrant Eggplant' recipe and then also decided to make the 'pork and chive dumpling' recipe because they sounded good.

Both recipes were a success and I will definitely be making them again. However, since I am a total wuss when it comes to spicy food, I have to remember to cut back on the spicy garlic paste. Even after omitting the pepper in the recipe, the eggplant dish was still way too spicy for me.

Shout out to Ickity for the awesome prezzie!

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with family and friends!

This year MH was inspired to make a vegetable side dish for our holiday meals and he decided to make ratatouille. However, since traditional ratatouille is a stew served out of a giant bowl, he opted to make ratatouille a la Pixar's Ratatouille movie because the end result is much more aesthetically pleasing.

Ratatouille

It turned out to be a really tasty dish. We just wish it didn't take so long prepare, assemble, and bake!

Since I love baking for the holidays, I made a lattice top apple pie for our Christmas Eve family dinner, our traditional cinnamon rolls for breakfast Christmas day, and a banana creme pie for our Christmas day family dinner.

Apple Pie

I didn't bother snapping a picture of the cinnamon rolls or the banana cream pie since the cinnamon rolls look the same as the ones I made last year and the top of the banana cream pie was just a fluffy layer of whipped cream. I'm afraid you'll just have to take my word on it that they turned out well and were delish!

Thanksgiving Leftovers

While shuffling all of our Thanksgiving leftovers around in the fridge, I accidentally cracked half a dozen eggs and needed to figure out a good way to use them as soon as possible. Since we already had an excess of leftover desserts, I decided to make something savory and settled on fresh bucatini with our kitchenaid pasta extruder.

Homemade Bucatini

I made a sausage ragu with the leftover sausage and mirepoix from MH's cornbread stuffing and also made sure to include the last bit of leftover red wine.

Homemade Bucatini with a Sausage Ragu

Voila! Unfortunately, I forgot about the apples in MH's cornbread stuffing and as a result there were a few them sprinkled in the ragu here and there, but all in all, it turned out pretty well and made a great dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving!

MH and I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. This year, we hosted our first joint family Thanksgiving and it was quite the doozy! With our two families coming together, we had 24 people at the house for dinner.

Unfortunately, since it was a jam packed cooking day, we didn't have time to take pictures along the way or get a chance to take a picture of the final spread before our guests started chowing down but this was our dinner menu...

Needless to say, there were plenty of leftovers and MH and I will be having bits and pieces of our Thanksgiving spread for the rest of the week!

So Much For South Beach

I've been meaning to get back onto the South Beach Diet for a couple of weeks but MH and I got into a cooking at home kick and of course cooking at home isn't as much fun when you're trying to be healthy.

Thursday Dinner Menu

-Buffalo Sirloin

-Mashed Potatoes

-Garlic Green Beans

Friday Dinner Menu

-Hawaiian Style Pork Ribs (Aloha Seasoning & Pineapple Juice Marinade)

-Iceberg Salad

-Baked Beans

-Corn Bread

-Fruit Salad

Saturday Breakfast Menu

-Buttermilk Belgium Waffles with Berries & Ice Cream

Saturday Dinner Menu

-Fried Chicken

-Corn

-Mashed Potatoes

-Corn Bread

Going on a diet always seems like a better idea next week anyways. After all, you only live once.

Granola Not So Bars

Every morning, MH has a Cliff bar for breakfast (sometimes two!). This week, instead of restocking on our Cliff bar cases, MH decided to make home-made granola bars.

We searched the net and found a recipe from Alton Brown and combined it with another recipe from the Flour cookbook by Joanne Chang to fit our taste. A lot of granola bar recipes include coconut as a main ingredient and dates as a binder and MH doesn't particularly care for either.

MH decided to use a variety of dried fruits (cherries, raisins, and cranberries) with lots of almonds. They tasted nothing like the processed granola bars you buy at the grocery store and were absolutely delicious! The only disappointing part of them was that they didn't turn out as bar like as we had hoped. Perhaps we needed the Tupperware SnackBar Maker, haha.

Boy oh boy, granola bars are not the healthiest snack for you! MH used half a jar of jam, 6 ounces of honey, and brown sugar, granted it did make approximately 14 bars. After knowing what we put into our granola bars, I cannot imagine how much sugar/sweetener is added to the mass manufactured granola bars. With that being said, I can't wait for MH to make the next batch. After the first day we had them, I couldn't wait for the next opportunity to have another.

Pre-Christmas Eve Dinner

MH cooked up an Italian feast for our co-family pre-Christmas Eve dinner! The menu included homemade pizzas, baked rigatoni with sausage, orecchiette with meat sauce, and meatballs.

To accommodate vegetarian diets, MH made a pesto sauce and marinara sauce for the pizza base and we prepared a variety of veggies for our topping bar. Cauliflower and broccoli raabe are surprisingly tasty pizza toppings!

Pizza Topping Bar

As you can see, we haven't quite mastered the art of throwing our pizza dough to get beautifully stretched round pizzas but what we can manage still works pretty well.

Homemade Pizzas

Next time, I think we'll par-bake the pizza dough to quicken the process and make it easier to slide the pizzas on and off of the pizza stone when there are loaded up with toppings. Live and learn!

Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good

While MH and I drove up the 405 freeway to one our family's Thanksgiving festivities, we listed to NPR's All Things Considered and caught an interview with Dorie Greenspan. She was promoting her new book, Around My French Table, and talked about her favorite recipe "Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good", a homey, hearty, and seemingly foolproof recipe.

In a nutshell, you cut off the top of a pumpkin, scoop out the insides, fill the pumpkin with whatever yummy goodness that you can imagine, re-top the pumpkin, bake, and serve.

Stuffed Pumpkin Out Of The Oven

MH filled our pumpkin with bacon, leeks, mushrooms, and radishes. It was absolutely delicious!

Stuffed Pumpkin Serving

If you are interested in hearing the segment, you can check it out here - Sweet or Savory: Stuff, Bake and Devour a Pumpkin.

Montana De Oro State Beach

On our way home from San Francisco last month, MH and I stopped in Morro Bay and camped over night at Montana De Oro State Beach. The camp sites sit on the bluff across from the beach so you can't hear the waves crashing during the night, but the peace and quiet was welcoming.

Montana De Oro State Beach

Before we left the bay area, we picked up groceries at Berkeley Bowl (my absolute favorite grocery store) for our camping dinner. We typically try to have something a little tastier than hot dogs, so we picked up some sausages, mushrooms, sweet onions, baby bell peppers, and rolls.

Dinner Prep

After slicing everything up, MH fired everything off in our camping stove. Our stove accommodates an 8" fry pan so we can cook almost everything at the same time when need be.

Sausage Sandwiches with Mushrooms, Sweet Onion, and Baby Bell Peppers

Our ultralight camping style pales in comparison to any family with their RV's, generators, weber grills, etc. but our system definitely works for us.

Spring Rolls for Summer

Ickity and LQ kindly accommodated my request for spring rolls and we had a spring roll extravaganza!

Home made spring rolls are a fair amount of work. You have to clean, cook, and cut all of your ingredients and only then are you ready for the assembly process.

Spring Roll Ingredients

Apparently purchasing pre-cooked, shelled, and de-veined shrimp is considered cheating, who knew? Sorry Ickity! I was just trying to expedite the process. I promise there will be no cheating next time.

My Second Spring Roll Unwrapped

I didn't realize that there was an art to assembling spring rolls until after I had made my first feeble attempt and then saw Ickity's spring rolls. Her spring rolls were fit for a magazine cover and mine were... quickly consumed.

My Second Spring Roll Ready to Eat

Thankfully, my tummy didn't seem to mind my amateur attempts because pretty or not, they were undoubtedly delish!

Mangia Mangia!

MH and I consider pizza a treat. There is something about the ooey, gooey, goodness that makes our mouths salivate and our tummies rumble when we decide we're going to have pizza for dinner.

Sometimes when we want something homemade that is quick and easy, we make french bread pizzas. Cut a loaf of french bread in half, spread some tomato sauce, cover with toppings of your choice, bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes (till lightly browned) and voila! French bread pizza!

French Bread Pizza

Later in the week, MH and I used the tomato sauce we made for our pizzas with some pasta and made chicken parmesan and rigatoni. I love how tomato sauce can be so versatile.

Chicken Parmesan & Rigatoni

I think MH's cooking specialty is Italian cuisine. We'll have to post the next time he makes lasagna!