Grilling My Way!

Friday, June 25, 2010


Looks delish to me!

So a few posts ago I told you we got a grill. So far my BF has made steaks and chicken and cheeseburgers. Tonight I got hungry and couldn't wait any longer so... chicken sausage!! But first... homemade potato salad!

INGREDIENTS

6 Potatoes
5 Eggs
1/4 mustard
1/2 cup mayo
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper
1 teaspoon all purpose seasoning like Mrs. Dash or (what I used) Nature's Seasoning

(Now I know what you're saying... no onions? peppers? celery?! I'm not a fan of... any of that in my potato salad but definitely add those things in! Heck I've even seen bacon and diced tomatoes in potato salads!!)

1. First boil the potatoes until cooked through. 30 minutes or so. Check with a fork.


2. Let cool then peal and dice. 

3. Boil eggs then cool, peal and dice! 



4. Mix in the mustard, mayo and seasonings and chill for at least one hour. 

While that was chilling I made these... 


These are amazing and come in several flavors. I love that they're all natural and I can actually read all the ingredients!!




Oh yea! That's what I'm talking about! Serve with potato salad and you have a nice summer meal my friend!!! 

* on a completely different note, a parent at my little brother's baseball party liked my baseball cookies so much (remember last post?!) that she contacted my dad for my phone number, called me today and placed an order!!! I'm so excited. As soon as we nail down a delivery time good for both of us (darn you retail hours!) we'll be set! Check back for those cookies!! 


Cookies and Cakes OH MY!

Thursday, June 24, 2010

The other weekend I had a baking blitz!! I wanted to make some cookies for my little brother's baseball team... which turned into trying a few other cookie shapes. Then my stepmom called and asked if I could bring a cake to the event to celebrate the team and grandpa's birthday... sure! More baking!

First I want to share one of my fav cookie books...


It has cute ideas and great tips and quick and easy decorating methods... Plus... they have a website The Decorated Cookie. Check it out! 

So first, baseball cookies... 



I took half baseballs and half trophies with their name on it... since they did come in first place in the regular season!! 

Then the cake was a must... can't show up without cake!



The color didn't come out great in this photo... the red is a lot more red and the green is... greener! Anyway, it was yellow cake with vanilla frosting. Some simple candles (since it was really hard to write on the grass! I did try though!)

Then the extras. I had some extra dough so I thought I'd play with some ideas... here are the ones I liked!


4th of July is coming!



Pretty summer flowers! 


These were too cute but I couldn't get my green more lime like... 

Now that my hand had recovered from all the decorating and piping... I need to get a few more vibrant colors... I like the black piping on the cookies but I don't like the white on the flowers. Next time I'll outline in the same color as the cookie will be. 

And as always... I need better lighting in my apartment!!!!!! 

MY Chicken Salad

Monday, June 21, 2010


I'll be honest, I work at a grocery/restaurant supply store. We have a lot of food there and well, I'm in charge of what gets sampled during the week so naturally I eat a lot of food. I try lots of food and I spruce up a lot of food. One thing I have yet to find, though, is a good chicken salad. That's kind of funny though because we carry four different kinds! They are all really heavy on the mayo, the chicken is shredded in most (ew) and the celery is tiny. It's just not good. That is why I always make my own. It's simple but delicious... and I hope you like it. :)

INGREDIENTS

(serves 2)

1 large thawed boneless skinless chicken breast
1/4 cup mayo (or substitute half mayo and half sour cream. Also delish)
1/4 cup sliced almonds (you can roast them in the oven for a great taste too!)
1/4 cup dried cranberries
Seasonings

1. The first thing I do is cook the chicken breast with lots of seasonings such as an all purpose, Mrs. Dash or just salt and pepper. Once cooked, dice it up and put in a container.



2. Stir in the other ingredients and chill in the fridge. SO EASY! 



The reason I love this salad is because of the sweetly tart cranberries and the crunch from the almonds. It's just different and yummy from what I ate growing up and what I eat at work. 

It's been so hot out that these cold kind of salads are perfect. I found a recipe I might try... it's a lemony chicken salad... if it turns out any good I'll be sure to share!! 

A New Cooking Experience

Thursday, June 17, 2010

I'm pretty excited. Some awesome things have been happening here and to celebrate I wanted to get something for my BF... and myself too ;) We bought a grill!! I don't think I've ever grilled. I've eaten grilled food and watched people grill but I don't think I've done it myself.

So, after four or five stores, many phone calls and driving around for a few hours... we had found the grill we wanted... and nobody had it in stock! Rats! So we just gave up and ordered it and I'll pick it up when it comes in!!



You like?

Since we have such a small patio to put it on this is the perfect size. Each side flap (yes that's a technical term) folds down which I like and it's gas/infrared which he likes (and I don't understand in the least). We SHOULD get it tomorrow and he will probably put it together on Saturday... so grilling should be blogged sometime soon after that!! 

Any suggestions on what to make??? 

Peanut Butter Pancakes with Honey Butter

Sunday, June 13, 2010


What to do what to do??? I've been looking at this can of evaporated milk for a while now, trying to figure out what to do with it. At Christmas I made a lot of fudge and had one lonely can left. So I searched... and found a great recipe at Recipe Zaar which I love!! Here is the original recipe

INGREDIENTS

1 cup pancake mix
2 TBSP sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup peanut butter
5 ounces evaporated milk
1/3 cup water

Also, I did try the Honey Butter

1/4 cup butter (softened)
2 TBSP honey





1. In one bowl, mix pancake mix and sugar.

2. In a separate bowl mix egg and peanut butter.

3. Add evaporated milk and water to egg mixture then slowly stir in the dry mix.



4. On a medium heat pan, pour the batter and flip when bubbles start to form.


At this point they smelled amazing!!

5. For the honey butter simply mix softened butter with honey and spread on... anything! Delish!



They were a bit heavy but the flavor was amazing and not too peanut buttery or sweet. I ate the whole plate and thought about eating my BF's extra pancake! I even made extra batter and put in in a tupperware in the fridge for tomorrow!!! And the butter would be great on cinnamon raison toast!! 



YUM!

Banana Bread

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Sometimes you just want a nice sweet baked good with no frosting. I know, sounds crazy. Who doesn't love frosting? I do, I really do but sometimes... eh. So... mmmmmm... banana bread.


Usually I make THIS recipe but alas... I had no yellow cake mix. Try it though, so easy!!!


Alright, fine, I'll get out the flour and all that jazz...


Here I go.




INGREDIENTS


2 cups flour (I used half AP and half Whole Wheat)
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs (I know there are four in the pic... it was a quick staged thing. I was doing too many things at once... typical!)
2 1/3 cup mashed ripe bananas
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon



    1. Preheat oven to 350 F and grease a loaf pan. 

    2. Combine flour, salt and baking soda in one bowl and set aside. 

    3. In a mixer, cream together butter and brown sugar. 

    4. Add in eggs, bananas, vanilla and cinnamon. Combine well. 


    • Mash Mash Mash Mash!!
    5. Stir in the dry ingredients set aside earlier. 

    6 Pour into loaf pan and bake for 60 minutes... 

    Now don't laugh at my bread... for some reason I thought the recipes I was combining would make two loaves so my loaf is a little... vertically challenged... 

    Be kind... 


    I still love it and it is mine! It was really good too. I wish I could have put in some walnuts or something but the BF is a nut hater. Oh well. Spread some real butter or some peanut butter on it and it is a delish breakfast or snack!

    Oh, and the second loaf froze wonderfully... until I ate that one too. Like I said... you put the peanut butter on it and ..... Oh my!

    Chips!

    Wednesday, June 2, 2010


    If there's a bag of chips in front of me... I'll eat them... all. That is why I keep no chips in my house. When I was trying to come up with something to make as a side for my BLTs I thought how nice it would be to have some chips... so I made some!!

    Baked Potato Chips

    INGREDIENTS:

    Washed potatoes
    Olive oil
    Salt

    1. First, slice the potatoes nice and thin. I used this mandolin I have. Super easy. Oh, and preheat the oven to 400 F.


    2. Then blanche the slices of potato in a bowl of water for five minutes. 



    3. Place the slices on a paper towel to drain. 

    4. On a large baking sheet, toss the slices with just enough olive oil to coat and spread out into one layer. Sprinkle with salt. 

    5. Bake in the oven at 400 F for 12 minutes, half way through you'll need to flip the chips. (Sorry about that Paul! Hope you enjoy the chips!)

    I found that the tray placed on the bottom browned up nicely and the little bit of brown meant the chip was perfect and not soft in the middle. These were crispy and tasty and irresistible and they were all gone quite quickly! I used three potatoes for two people and threw away one tray of too brown chips and there was still enough to share. :)


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