Latkes!

Last weekend I went home to clean out my room so my parents could remodel the upstairs. I was not particularly excited about the idea of cleaning my room, not because I hate cleaning, but because I knew there was probably a giant hairy spider lying in wait for me.

Just sitting....waiting....ready to pounce from behind my collection of stuffed animals...

Ugh, the thought gives me chills. But luckily, there were no spiders to be found! And I was extremely successful in cleaning my room! I essentially threw out 80% of my stuff and reduced everything that mattered to me to about 5-6 boxes. I had so much junk, like I don't even know how I accumulated that much stuff. In the past when I tried to clean my room, I never wanted to throw anything away. But this time, I kept only the things I really needed and, you know what? It felt awesome! I feel like I get to start all over with my stuff, because the next place this stuff is going is into my very own apartment. That idea just blows my mind. That now, I have stuff that belongs to ME and will go in MY HOUSE. Not just my bedroom, but my very own place! That's just nuts you guys.

And now, in honor of my ability to get rid of a bunch of crap, here's a random recipe I have in my "to post" folder!

Latkes

Adapted from Allrecipes

2 cups potatoes, peeled and shredded

1 Tbsp grated onion

3 eggs, beaten

2 Tbsp all purpose flour (more if they aren't holding together)

1 1/2 tsp salt

oil for frying

Now, I don't know about all of you, but the idea of a potato pancake makes me drool. Potatoes are delicious. Pancakes are awesome. Therefor potato pancakes must be deliciously awesome! And these potato pancakes really are. They're really easy to put together, basically just throw it all in a bowl and mix. But one of the important things to remember is that the potatoes need to be really dry. After you shred the potatoes, put them in ice water so they don't turn brown. Then right before mixing them in, drain them and try and squeeze as much moisture out as possible. Cheesecloth is good for this, but if you don't have any, paper towels work too. After mixing the potatoes, onion, eggs, and flour together, heat a bit of oil in a skillet. You don't need too much oil, just enough to fry them in. Drop the batter into the skillet in spoonfuls, flattening them out quickly. Let them fry 1-2 minutes per side until lightly browned. Let drain on paper towel then serve with sour cream or applesauce and a salad on the side!

XOXO

Natalie

Daring Cooks: Apple Butter

The September 2010 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by John of Eat4Fun. John chose to challenge The Daring Cooks to learn about food preservation, mainly in the form of canning and freezing. He challenged everyone to make a recipe and preserve it. John’s source for food preservation information was from The National Center for Home Food Preservation.

This month's challenge was Apple Butter in order for all of us to better understand food preservation. To be honest, I'm a little dissapointed because my apple butter didn't come out quite right. It was too chunky to really be called apple butter, but no matter how much I mashed those apples, I still couldn't get it to be like butter. And without an immersion blender, what's a girl to do? So what I have is a cross between apple butter and sauce and is quite tasty. I ate it this morning on a bagel with cream cheese!

The whole process of making apple butter is simple, but time consuming. Basically I peeled and cored 5 lbs of apples, cooked them with a cup of water for about n hour until they were falling apart, added some spices, mashed, and let it go! It ended up being about a 3 hour process, but I think it was worth it. Apple butter freezes very well so this is a great idea if you have an apple tree and need to use up the piles of apples in your backyard.

Sadly, I don't have any pictures of the finished product because my camera/phone died. However, I will be using the apple butter this week to make a tasty pork dish. So look forward to pictures then!

XOXO

Natalie

Poptarts

Ok quick recipe today because I am so exhausted! I think that's mostly because while I'm at work I eat one or two (or a dozen) sugary snacks and then I crash later. Today I crashed right before dinner, and even though I ate real food, I'm still sooooooo tired. So I'm just gonna give you a really fast recipe that I've had on my "to post on blog" list for a while. How to make your own poptarts!

I tried this a long time ago after I had made apple pie. I had a lot of pie crust leftover and I remembered seeing something about making poptarts out of leftover crust. And hey, I hadn't had a poptart in eight years and I had a huge pile of gluten free pie dough...so poptarts it was! I made mine with strawberry jam because it's my favorite, but you can use whatever kind you want. You could even make frosting to put on top! (But then

wouldn't it be more like a toaster strudel?)

The basic idea is: roll out the leftover dough and cut it into a large rectangle. Fill one half of the rectangle with jam, leaving a 1/2 inch border around it. Then fold the dough over and seal the edges with a bit of water or beat up egg. Cut a couple of decorative slices on the top and throw it in the oven. Bake at 350F for about 20 minutes. The other method is to cut two seperate squares and just make a pie dough sandwich. Then seal the edges with a fork--they look more like poptarts this way.

As you can see, I used the folding method which I think makes them look more homemade and cute. But that's just my preference.

XOXO

Natalie

Almond Butter- Daring Cooks July Challenge

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

So I am officially a Daring Cook! I have participated in my very first Daring Cooks challenge and it was awesome! For those of you not in the know, Daring Cooks is a foodie challenge; every month a new challenge is posted and the participants all create some dish using the challenge item. This month's challenge was "nut butters." (Isn't that just so ironic? My first one is all about nuts.) Luckily for me, I'm not allergic to almonds and so I was still able to participate in this challenge. I made an almond butter then used the almond butter in a curried chicken dish. The recipes were given by Daring Cooks, so they aren't original for anything, but everyone should really try it. This is one of my new favorite chicken dishes and I'm sure it's going to become a weeknight go-to meal.

So for today's post I will explain the process of making a nut butter, then the next post will be about using it in the curried chicken dish. Honestly, it's 12 am and I am just not in the mood for typing.

Nut Butters (Almond Butter)

1 cup almonds

canola/vegetable oil

salt

Grind the almonds in a food processor until they start to form together into a sort of paste. This will go faster if the almonds don't have the skins, but that's kind of a personal preference thing. Then drizzle in the oil until the almond butter reaches the desired consistency and salt to taste. Again with the personal preferences, but you can make it chunky or smooth here. This will give you about 1/2 cup of almond butter, in general the amount of original almonds is divided by two to make the butter.

A potential variation is to roast the almonds. I did this and I thought that the butter had a richer flavor because of it. Roasting the almonds is very easy, so I definitely recommend trying it. Preheat the oven to 350F and lay the almonds out on a baking sheet. Roast in preheated oven for 10 minutes. Let the almonds cool before grinding. Also at this point I took the skins off the almonds. I left a few on for the hell of it, but I tried to get the majority of the skin off.

So there you go! Almond butter!

XOXO

Natalie

Double chocolate chip banana bread

Here is part two of bananapocalypse. I didn't make this one gluten free, but I heard that it tastes pretty darn good. So here's double chocolate banana bread!

Adapted from Deelish Dish

2 cups flour

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed

2 large eggs

2 ripe bananas, mashed

3/4 cup milk

1/4 cup chocolate chips

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. I didn't have anything to sift with, so I just mixed them together really well with a whisk. But please sift it if you can, it really changes the texture of the bread.

With a mixer, beat the butter at medium speed until soft, then add the sugars and beat for another two minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each one. Put the mixer on low and add the bananas. Then add the dry mix in three parts, mixing well after each addition. With the mixer still on low, add the milk. When the batter is combined, fold in the chocolate chips.

Pour into a buttered loaf pan and put in a 350F oven.

Bake for 30 minutes, cover loosely with foil, then bake another 30 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. I had to bake mine for an extra thirty minutes because my oven is ridiculous. it also kind of exploded. Not literally, but the loaf was enormous!

Hope you all like it!

XOXO

Natalie

bananapocalypse?

So a couple weeks ago we had an eggpocalypse. And now we're having a bananapocalypse. I really need to stop buying large amounts of food, even if it is cheap. But on the plus side, this bananapocalypse is giving me the chance to try out all sorts of banana breads! Today's recipe is my personal favorite: this is a gluten-free banana bread using Pamela's gluten-free baking mix. It's a pretty common baking mix, they sell it at Safeway, but I don't use it that often. Normally I don't like it because it has almonds and all sorts of strange grains in it, which give it kind of a nutty/beany flavor. Icky in most baked foods. But in banana bread it is so. good. My dad tried this recipe a long time ago, and started messing with it to make it better. There were days when he knew there was no way I was going to get out of bed without some motivation and he would make banana muffins. He would walk into my room to wake me up and I would shoot out of bed to eat them. Ok, that's an exaggeration, I didn't shoot out of bed, but I was slightly speedier than usual.This is my dad's banana muffin recipe, which I made into banana bread.

Dad's Banana Bread
4 Tbsp melted butter
1/2 cup sugar or honey (I used honey)
1 egg, beaten
1 cup bananas mashed (2-3 bananas)
1 3/4 cup Pamela's baking mix
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional, slivered almonds work great)

Beat together butter, sugar/honey, egg, banana, and salt.Add remaining ingredients and mix together. Pour into lined muffin tins or a greased loaf pan. For muffins bake in 335F oven for 40 min. I know that's a strange temperature, but my dad has determined through much trial and error that it is the best. For bread, bake at 350F for about an hour, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
XOXO
Natalie

Cinco de mayo!

Happy cinco de mayo! The most un-mexican mexican holiday celebrated in the US! Mostly on college campuses! WOOOOOO!

For my cinco de mayo meal I decided to go with a breakfast dish. The general opinion seems to be that I need more breakfast dishes, so here ya go--Americanized huevos rancheros!

4 Corn tortillas

Vegetable oil for frying

4 eggs

1 can of refried beans

salsa

shredded cheese

Pour a bit of oil into a pan over high heat. When the oil is hot, gently put the tortilla in the oil. The middle might bubble up, so use tongs to push it back down, otherwise you get round tortillas. After a minute or two, flip the tortilla over.

Once it is crispy enough, put it on a plate lined with paper towels. Repeat with all the tortillas then dump out most of the oil, leaving some for the eggs. Fry the eggs over med-low heat. Fry them however you like best. Andy likes them runny, so I fried his the traditional way.

But Dan likes the yolks solid, so I flipped his over to make sure it cooked through completely.

While the egg is cooking, prepare the tortillas. Layer the fried tortilla with refried beans, salsa, and cheese.

When the egg is done frying, lay it on top of the cheese and dig in! I tried eating it with a fork, but I got to impatient and just picked it up. But if you aren't as rude as I am, use a fork.

Also I tried something new today and took this picture outside. and Damn! It looks good!

XOXO

Natalie

eggpocalypse!

So a couple weeks ago me and my roomies went to Safeway and they had this deal going that was "buy one 18 pack of eggs, get a second free." So we went for it and bought 36 eggs. We've done this before and never really had a problem with finishing them. But this time around...we kind of forgot about them. I looked in the fridge last weekend and noticed that the eggs expired in 6 days. 6 days! So I freaked out and ordered everyone to start eating eggs. Nothing else! Just eggs! the eggpocalypse was upon us.

I looked up ways to use a lot of eggs at once and I found a really awesome recipe. It's a ham and cheese frittata and it was soooooo good. Also used up 12 eggs, so that was super helpful. I forgot to take pictures because I'm a failure, but I promise it was beautiful and tasty. Here's how you make it!

adapted from allrecipes

6 Tbsp oil

4 cups frozen hashbrowns

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 lb baked ham cut into cubes

12 eggs

6 Tbsp milk

1/2 tsp seasoning mix (we used pappy spice, and the closest equivalent is probably italian seasoning)

2 cups shredded cheese

salsa (optional)

In a skillet, heat up oil and then add the frozen hashbrowns. Cook them for about 8-10 minutes until they are almost brown. Then add the salt, pepper, and ham and let cook for 2-3 more minutes. While the potatoes are cooking, whisk together the eggs, milk, and seasoning mix. Grease a 9x13 baking pan and layer the potatoes on the bottom. Pour the eggs on top, making sure that they are spread throughout the potatoes. Bake, covered, in 350F oven for 15 minutes then cover with the shredded cheese. Bake for 15 more minutes, or until the eggs are set. Let cool for 10 minutes before cutting. Serve with salsa if you like, but I liked it better plain.

XOXO

Natalie

And in the mornin'...I'm making WAFFLES!

Honestly, who doesn't like breakfast for dinner? Brinner is maybe the best kind of meal. Doubly so if you've been in your pajamas all day anyway. The other day I was looking in the cabinets and noticed the waffle iron I had completely forgotten about. So brinner it was!

I've made waffles from scratch before, but I think they're kind of boring on their own. So I made three different kinds. Regular, chocolate chip, and brown sugar-cinnamon. The brown sugar-cinnamon were my favorite, but the boys liked the chocolate chips ones. The recipe below is just the regular waffle recipe, but if you want to make variations, it's really easy.

adapted from allrecipes

2 eggs

2 cups flour

1 3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 Tbsp white sugar

4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

In a bowl, beat the eggs until fluffy, then whisk in all the other ingredients until smooth. Then just throw a spoonful into a (preheated) waffle iron and cook until golden brown! Depending on your waffle iron, you may have to grease it or flip it, so look in the instruction manual for more specific instructions.

Brown sugar-cinnamon: After mixing the normal recipe, add about a 2 Tbsp brown sugar and a generous dash of cinnamon. Mix well and prepare normally.

Chocolate chips: Mix as many chocoalte chips as you want into the batter and grease the waffle iron well. The chocolate chips will melt onto the iron, but you want to be able to scrape them off easily between batches.

Enjoy!

XOXO

Natalie

granola

I would like to announce something awesome. Last week I went to the dining hall for lunch and was annoyed, but not surprised, to find that there was nothing for me to eat. I approached one of the managers, hoping that I had missed-read the ingredient labels. Unfortunately, I had been right. No gluten free food! GRR! He offered to make me a quesedilla, but I told him that I couldn't eat their tortillas. He informed me that they had gotten new tortillas that were both gluten free and nut free! So he made me a cheese quesedilla, which was amazingly delicious, and I was giddy with excitement. What can be better than a gluten free quesedilla at an otherwise unhelpful dining hall? But then...the next day...it got even better! I went to the dinner service the next day, and they had signs up saying: gluten free brown rice and the main course was gluten free by coincidence. I was ecstatic! I love it when that happens. They also had a pasta bar, but I didn't even look there, cause that would be silly. But then I went over to the soups and had to do a double take: gluten free turkey noodle soup. WHAT WHAT?! I beg your pardon!? Well I just had to eat everything. So I grabbed servings of all that gluten free stuff and sat down. Then Dan said: "what, no gluten free pasta? You saw it right?" WHAT WHAT WHAAAAAAAAT? I shouted a couple of expletives out of pure joy and ran back to the food. I probably cut a couple of people in line, but I don't care. I was a woman on a mission. I got like two plate fulls of the pasta and it was mmmmmmmm tasty. I was so happy I nearly started crying. I thanked like every dining hall employee I saw. One of the managers informed me that they just hired a new chef who has done gluten free cooking before and they're overhauling their labeling system. I am sosososososososososo happy with this. I have been trying for the longest time to make the dining halls better for students like me, and it seems that all my whining has paid off. And I couldn't be happier. Let's hope they keep it up!

On to the food! Because of the awesome combo of gluten and nut allergies, I never get to eat granola. ever. I think I ate a chewy bar once, but I really shouldn't have. Anyway, I found this recipe for cinnamon granola that is gluten and nut free and it is really tasty. I'm looking forward to eating it with yogurt for breakfast tomorrow! Note: oats have been determined to be safe for SOME celiacs. Depending on your sensitivity, they may not be safe. I have eaten oats plenty of times and never had a problem, but I know that some celiacs choose to avoid oats. Please, use your own judgment if you are gluten-free.

4 cups oats

1 cup shredded coconut

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup honey

1 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

raisins or other dried fruits/nuts

Preheat the oven to 350F. Then, in a large bowl, combine the oats and coconut.

In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, oil, honey, and cinnamon. Heat it over med heat until it boils. Stir it while it's cooking because you want the ingredients to blend into a syrup. After it comes to a boil, take it off the heat and mix in the vanilla.

Then pour the whole mixture into the bowl with the coconut and oats. Mix it up really well so that there are no dry oats of coconuts. Then spread the granola out onto a foil lined baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. I stirred it after about ten minutes and then left it in for another five. After the granola has cooled, stir in whatever dried fruit or nuts you are adding. I just added raisins, but you could really add anything you want.

This granola isn't clumpy, it's more flakey. If you prefer clumpy granola, change the amount of honey and oil to 1/3 cup.

XOXO

Natalie

poached eggs!

I know that I promised to post a video yesterday, but I have literally spent all yesterday and today tryung to ge the video going. I have it! It's all edited! But the website won't let me post it....

SO! I'm going to keep trying and see if I can't make it work eventually. So stay tuned!

XOXO

Natalie

eggs benedict

So one of my mom and stepdad's favorite breakfasts is eggs benedict. But they don't get to eat it very often because they don't usually eat breakfast and when they do, they don't have time to make it. So while I was visiting over spring break, I thought it would be fun to make it for them! This was kind of a scary thing to do because I had never poached an egg before! But I was surprised at how easy it was. After a little trial and error, I managed to make some beautiful eggs. In fact, for my next post, I will be putting up a video (GASP!) of how to poach an egg! But before I do that, here is the recipe for eggs benedict. The ingredient list is just for two eggs benedict. Just change the proportions for however many you want.

1 toasted english muffin

2 slices of canadian bacon

2 poached eggs

hollandaise sauce

2 egg yolks

1/2 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 cup melted butter

pinch cayenne

pinch salt

First make the hollandaise sauce. Whisk the egg yolks and lemon in a stainless steel bowl until they are have doubled in volume. Now here's where it gets interesting cause I didn't have a double boiler. It's ok if you don't, it's just a little more complicated cause you have to do everything one handed. Get a saucepan and fill it with about an inch of water. Make sure that if you put the bowl on top of the water, it doesn't actually touch the water. Put the water over medium heat and bring it to a simmer. Once it reaches a simmer, turn the heat down a bit. Set the bowl on the saucepan and VOILA! make-shift double boiler. Once you have it all set up, whisk whisk whisk whisk whisk! don't stop whisking! Oh also, don't let the water get too hot or the eggs will scramble. Now the bowl might start tipping over, so you're going to need to hold onto it with one hand while you whisk with the other. Now it gets tricky cause the next step is to pour in the melted butter. So let go and slowly drizzle in the butter, while still whisking like mad. Keep on whisking until the sauce doubles in volume. Then take it off the heat and add the cayenne and salt. The sauce can just chill out while you put together the eggs, but when you need it, just add a little bit of hot water and whisk it.

So to make the eggs! poach the eggs (check out the video on wednesday!), toast the english muffin, and fry the canadian bacon. You don't need to fry it for too long, just heat them up a bit. Then put it together! 1. toasted english muffin. 2. slice of ham. 3. poached egg. 4. hollandaise sauce.

Top with fresh chopped chives and dig in!

XOXO

Natalie

Valentines!

Happy Valentines day everybody! I've been having a great valentines so far (granted I've only been awake for an hour, but still) When Dan and I woke up we watched some spongebob and then I made breakfast for us. Now what he didn't know was that I had secret plans. I told him he wasn't allowed in the kitchen and he had to watch tv. On second thought, he probably figured out I had a secret plan around then. For breakfast I made us banana pancakes. Sounds not so exciting? They were hearts! They were adorable. I'm very proud of myself. And he loved them too!

How did I make them into a heart you ask? With this handy little thing! I found it at an art store downtown and even though it's meant for eggs, it worked just fine for pancakes too.

Unfortunetly I don't have a recipe for the pancakes. We were out of milk so I couldn't make them from scratch and had to resort to a gf mix I happened to have. I was worried Dan wouldn't like them because they aren't really traditional pancakes, but he really liked them.

I had mine with jam, so it looked even more like a heart!

Happy Valentines! (Or singles awareness/hallmark holiday/red paper crap/forced romance day)

XOXO

Natalie

Bananananana bread

Raise your hand if you like banana bread. I know that you all just raised your hand. some of you may have even raised both. This was one of the winners from last week (it was tied with orange chicken) and this banana bread is doubly awesome because it has delicious cinnamon swirls in it! There's really only supposed to be one line of cinnamon, but I did two because that's how I roll. It's a super easy recipe that I stumbled on at sandwichhoss. It does take a while to bake, but that's ok cause you can do other things and your kitchen will smell amazing while you wait.

Here's how to do it!

French Toast!

Alright, so I finally got back to cooking. Unfortunetly, we haven't been grocery shopping in a week which means we're basically out of everything I need to actually cook something delicious. But, we did have a lot of bread! So I made vanilla french toast. Well, first I had to convince Dan that breakfast for dinner is one of the best things in the world. But after I got that under control, it was french toast making time!

French toast is really really easy, the only thing is that you have to make sure that the egg is cooked. Otherwise the bread is slimey and gross.

So! Here's what you need!

6 slices of bread

3-4 eggs (4 if you don't use milk)

1/2 cup milk

1/2-1 tsp vanilla (depending on how sweet you want it)

cinnamon

Crack your eggs in a dish that's big enough to fit the bread. I used a cake pan, but any thing like that will do. If you have milk, this is where you would have added it. But I live with milk addicts that go through 3 gallons a week. Seriously, it's a problem. Should get some intervention up in here.

Once the eggs and milk are beaten together, add the vanilla and a dash of cinnamon. Again, personal preference- how ever much cinnamon you want.

Now grab a slice of bread and dunk it in the eggs! Make sure to get both sides nice and egg-y. (not to be confused with eggo)

Grab a pan, preferably a nonstick teflon pan, and put a nice big chunk of butter in it. When the butter melts, put a slice of egg-y toast in it.

After a minute or two, flip it over. It should be nice and brown and toasty. If it's not, just flip it back over again. Once both sides are done, take it out of the pan and go onto the next one! Serve them up with syrup, powdered sugar, jam or all of the above!

Dan went with jam as you can see.

And right now the poll is tied between orange chicken and cinnamon swirl banana bread, so everyone vote!

Enjoy!

XOXO

Natalie

Cinnamon Rollllllls

Well people. It’s the morning. Well you were all probably awake way before I was. But anyway morning = breakfast! And no, I don’t mean a candy bar or a bowl of cereal or a can of soda. None of this healthy nonsense either. Why would you eat granola when you could eat CINNAMON ROLLS?! Really people. Why? For those of you on a diet: stop. Just….stop. eat these!

I made these last weekend and they were AMAZING. I made one batch gluten free, and one not gluten free. I will admit that the gf ones didn’t turn out quite as amazingly as the normal ones, but they were still really, really good. I mean honestly, how can it not be good? Butter. Sugar. Frosting.