Black Bean Quinoa Chili

Well, I went to the doctor not too long ago. I was sitting in her cold, tiny office, and she was looking at me strange and asked how old I was. I told her I was 23. She asked "so why do you have high cholesterol?" 

Um, I didn't know that.

Then she proceeded to tell me I have high cholesterol.

That seemed out of order slightly.

It runs in my family (thanks dad!) so now I have to be very very careful about what I eat.

You all know what that means.

Goodbye french food! My absolute favorite thing to cook. All in it's savory, buttery, fancy deliciousness. Julia Child, what have you done to me? I thought we were friends!

I like to eat healthy, I do. But nothing really compares to Beouf Bourguignon, Coq Au Vin, Tatins, or Crêpes, right!? Nothing. So much butter. And if you asked Paula Deen, we all know that butter equals happiness. And if you ask all my friends, they will tell you I put butter in almost everything.

What I am trying to say is you're going to be seeing a lot more healthy recipes on here from now on.

I was looking for a meat free chili recently, and I came across an idea for a quinoa chili. I figured I had enough random things lying around to throw something together, and when I did, I can honestly say it was magical. Im serious, this came out really, really good. 

And it's packed full of healthy things like beans, grains, and vegetables. It has a nice hint of spice, but not overly so. It has a lovely southwestern flavor and filled with eye pleasing colors of red, green, yellow.

Recipe:

1 cup quinoa

2 cups water

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper 

1/4 teaspoon chili powder

1/2 cumin

1 tablespoon taco seasoning

1 green bell pepper

1 red bell pepper

1 onion

4 green chilies

1 can crushed tomatoes

1 can black beans

1 cup corn

Begin by taking 1 cup of quinoa and adding it to the pan with 2 cups of water. Heat on medium heat while stirring every so often until all water is absorbed, and set aside.

Dice up onion, and both pepper and add to pan with olive oil. 

Sautee on medium heat until soft, and add spices as well as salt to taste.

Add can of crushed tomatoes and can of black beans to pan, as well as the reserved quinoa. 

Add diced green chills and corn.

Let simmer for 15 minutes, until the liquid has mostly combined, and serve. 

Enjoy!

Apple Tatin

So, I've never made a tatin but I have always wanted to. I had a few friends over for dinner last night, and they joke that I only cook non-American food, or mainly French food, so I set out to prove them wrong and made chili. Aha! Can't make fun of me now, can they? Then I realized, I need to make dessert and I had all the things for a tatin (they always also joke that I never have ingredients on hand and make constant runs to the store) so that's what I made. 

Then I realized it was French and my whole point was ruined.

Darn it!

A tarte tatin is is a tart that is baked upside down, with caramel. It was created in the late 1800's in France by the Tatin sisters. There are many rumors as to how exactly a tatin came about, but it is said that one of the sisters made an error while baking a tart and just went with it, and served it to the guests anyway, and it was very well received. 

Tatins are usually made with apples, traditionally, but also are delicious with pears, peaches, pineapple, cherries, etc. Possibilities are endless. 

Recipe:

Six tablespoons butter plus extra for greasing pan

2 apples cut into 12 slices (or more)

1 3/4 cups granulated sugar

2 extra large eggs at room temperature

1/3 cup sour cream

1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

confectioners sugar

Start by peeling & cutting your apples into 12 pieces and rearrange in a very well buttered cake pan.

Preheat the oven to 350.

Take out a saucepan and add 3/4  cup sugar and 3/4 cup of water over high heat, let caramelize until a light amber color. Remove from heat and pour evenly over apples. 

In an electric mixer, add 6 tablespoons of butter and 1 cup of sugar and beat until creamy. Add in one egg at a time, followed by sour cream, lemon zest and vanilla.

Take  separate bowl and add flour, baking soda, and salt and sift. 

Add to electric mixer until blended. 

Pour batter over apples.

Bake at 350 for 30 to 40 minutes until it comes out clean with a toothpick or knife.

Enjoy!

Sausage Gravy

So, my four year marriage anniversary is on Wednesday. When I was 16 years old, I met my now husband, and at 18 we were married. Now I am almost 23, with two little girls, and ver in love with my husband. Every day I fall more and more in love with him and I often wonder how I got so lucky. I try to show him daily that I love him, and I often just do what I know how to do best: cook for him.

Tonight he worked a really, really long day, and he came home tired and hungry. I know one of his favorite breakfast meals is biscuits and gravy, and I often like to surprise him with breakfast for dinner, so that's exactly what I made him tonight.

I often enjoy a sweet breakfast like french toast or pancakes, but nothing compares to delicious biscuits and gravy. It's so comforting, homey.  It feels familiar. That's what you want on days where you work really late. You want to come home to something familiar and comforting. Not only does Shane get to come home to 3 smiling ladies, he also came home to a hot plate of biscuits, gravy, and eggs. 

I'll warn you, this meal is not good for you. But, once in a while it's nice to treat yourself. Right? 

This is the kind of breakfast you can whip up in 10 minutes. Before learning to make sausage gravy, I thought it was probably pretty difficult and was surprised when I found it out was simply 4 steps. Easy enough right? Sometimes I make my own drop biscuits to pair with it, but tonight for sake of a fast meal for this hungry husband, I just used grand's biscuits. 

Recpe:

Jimmy Deans ground breakfast sausage

just under 1/2  cup flour

1 stick butter

4 cups whole milk

pepper

salt

Begin by browning your sausage. When browned, add a stick of butter and melt. When melted, add your flour and stir. Make sure this is well stirred and cooked so you don't end up with that raw yucky flour taste. When combined, add your milk and let bubble on the stove until it begins to thicken. When thickened, add salt and pepper to taste. (Usually sausage gravy is heavy on the pepper but use to your liking!)

Simple, right? Enjoy! 

Lemon Cream Asparagus Mushroom Risotto

The first thing I ever cooked in my life was risotto. I think I was about 11 and my mom asked if I wanted to help with dinner, and we were having risotto. I remember thinking how easy it was, my job was the stirrer. The first meal my daughter ever cooked was today, and it was risotto. How special is that? 

She took the asparagus and mushroom out of the fridge of me, stirred the veggies (the oven wasn't on, but I wanted her to feel like she was really helping here), measured out the rice as well. She had a ball. She said she felt like a princess. 

One of my favorite meals is risottos. If I am at a restaurant I have a really hard time not ordering risotto. I find that it's really expensive at places...where at home, it's actually very inexpensive.

You'll need to exclusively use arborio rice, which is a short grained italian rice. It expands a lot and contains a high amount of starch so it creams well.

Recipe:

8 cups chicken broth

2 cups arborio rice

2 lemos

1 onion

bunch of asparagus

mushrooms

half and half 

1/2 cup white wine

1/2 cup parm cheese

olive oil

salt 

Dice onions and asparagus. Heat a pan with olive oil and add vegetables. Sautee until soft. Set aside.

Add a second pan with olive oil and heat. When heated, add your two cups of rice and stir until slightly golden.

At this point, you want to add 1 cup of chicken broth. Stir in chicken broth until absorbed, and add another cup. 

Add salt to taste.

Continue to do this until your rice is soft but still has the tiniest hint of a bite to it. It should have expanded & creamed nicely. 

When the rice is cooked add your lemon juice and your wine(let the wine heat and the alcohol cook out). I used two small lemons.

Add your cream

And cheese.

Enjoy!

Orange pancakes

Sundays are a special day in our family. It's my husbands day off, so I like to make it special for him in some way. I usually prepare a nice breakfast so he can relax and just enjoy the day. This sunday was no different, so this week I prepared him some orange chocolate chip pancakes.

One of my favorite memories of my mom making pancakes growing up is my mom spooning them on the griddle and it was always special when she gave me a "baby pancake". Sometimes when you ladle the batter on the griddle, a bit drips and you end up with "little pancakes". My mom always gave them to me while she was cooking the pancakes and I always felt so special that she made me special tiny pancakes while waiting for the big ones to eat. I do it for my kids now, I hand them the little baby pancakes to nibble on while the rest are cooking. I hope they remember it fondly as well.

When I was getting married, my mom put together a cookbook for me of family recipes. It was such a special gift and I constantly flip through it for recipes to make for dinner. I feel like no page of the book has gotten more attention then the pancake page. 

Isn't it cute?

When I think pancakes, and maybe this is weird, but I think of old western times in the 1800's..you know, like flapjacks. With a women in a feedsack dress on a prairie with a bonnet, using a triangle to call her kids in for breakfast. But after researching pancakes I learned they go back ancient greece. To quote Wikipedia, "The Ancient Greeks made pancakes called τηγανίτης (tēganitēs), ταγηνίτης (tagēnitēs)^[3] or ταγηνίας (tagēnias),^[4] all words deriving from τάγηνον (tagēnon), "frying pan".^[5] The earliest attested references on tagenias are in the works of the 5th century BC poets Cratinus^[6] and Magnes.^[7] Tagenites were made with wheat flour, olive oil, honey and curdled milk, and were served for breakfast.^[8][9][10] Another kind of pancake was σταιτίτης (staititēs), from σταίτινος (staitinos), "of flour or dough of spelt",^[11] derived from σταῖς (stais), "flour of spelt".^[12] Athenaeus is his Deipnosophistae mention staititas topped with honey, sesame and cheese.^[13][14][15] The Middle English word Pancake appears in English in the 1400s.^[16][17]"

Interesting right?

With this recipe, I take my family's basic pancake recipe and add orange zest and chocolate chips for a little fun.

Recipe:

2 cups flour

2 tablespoon baking powder

4 tablespoons sugar

pinch of salt

2 cups milk

1/2 cup oil

2 eggs

3 teaspoons of vanilla

zest of one orange

handful of chocolate chips

This is really simple, all I do is mix the dry ingredients together and then add the wet ingredients, and then zest the orange & add the chocolate chips and whisk.

Get out your griddle or pan and add a ladle full of batter...when it begins to bubble on top and brown on bottom your ready to flip it.

As my mom wants everyone to know:

Don't forget to heat the syrup!

You know you did good when you get smiles like this!

Enjoy everyone!

Homemade Italian Pesto

Recently I heard of the idea of the "happiness jar" from Elizabeth GIlbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love). About a month ago I set out writing little notes to myself about what made me happy in each particular day and I threw them into a jar. Usually things I ate or cute things my kids did or said. However, today, I was looking on Instagram and Solanah over at Vixen Vintage has made pesto, and I was craving it..

I didn't have any other jar to store it in, so I emptied my happiness jar and filled it with pesto. Same thing, right? Pesto=happiness. It's true. Look it up.

I love the bright green color of pesto and how refreshing it tastes. I would never in a million years buy pre made pesto. The difference with pre made pesto and homemade (at least the recipe I use) is that pre made is made through a machine such as a food processor, and mine is made and chopped soley by hand (Or you can use a mortar and pestle but I don't have one.)  I like to see the varying textures and colors within the pesto...I don't want it looking like a green paste. 

You'll get a pretty good arm exercise out of this, too. My arms are sore. Maybe I am out of shape..

Recipe:

Big bunch of fresh basil

Small handful of pine nuts or walnuts

1/2 cup of parmesan cheese

4 cloves of garlic

Few tablespoons of olive oil

I begin by mincing my garlic, and then adding 5-6 leaves of basil and chop chop chop. 

I throw some nuts in there and chop them up as well

I begin to add some of the cheese a bit at a time, and chop...add more basil and nuts and chop chop chop.

Keep chopping!

Until it's all chopped. You can chop it smaller then this if you'd like..I just prefer mine this consistency.

Add it to a jar or a bowl and pour in your olive oil.

Add some salt and pepper

And shake. 

This can last a few days in the fridge. I am going to be adding it to pasta tonight for a quick and light dinner. Enjoy!

Homemade Puff Pastry and Cheese Danish

It would be somewhat of an understatement to say that I love cheese danish. I would go as far as to say I mildly obsessed with cheese danish.  There's something about the light flaky dough and the creamy filling ( in this case, the slightly lemon-y creamy filling. *drool*). But, to make puff pastry is a GIANT chore. I've seen 36 hour long recipes. No thanks. When I want a cheese danish, I kinda want it right then and there. 

So, it's up to you- whether you want to buy pre made puff pastry of follow this link to make your own like I did, it's up to you. 

Whenever I make these cheese danishes, they never seem to last long. I think when I make them I get to sample one, and then they're eaten up by everyone else. I suppose that means they came out good, but it also makes me cry a little bit to myself. 

Plus, theres nothing like homemade, right? 

Recipe:

(For the cheese filling)

8 ounces of cream cheese softened

1/3 cup of sugar

3 tablespoon sour cream

3 tablespoons ricotta cheese

3 egg yolks at room temp

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

zest of 2 lemons

puff pastry dough (again, either store bought or follow the link a above for homemade)

1 egg beaten for egg wash

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Line a pan with parchment paper. 

Add the cream cheese and sugar and cream them together, then add the egg yolks. On low, add the ricotta, sour cream, vanilla, lemon zest, and salt. Mix it until its combined, but make sure not to whip it. 

Roll out your dough on a floured surface to a 10x10 square. Cut the dough into 4  squares and add a heaping amount of cheese mixture. Brush the egg wash along the sides of the square, and fold the two opposite ends into the center, and again on the other side, and brush the top of the pastry with egg wash. Continue with remaining squares. 

Bake the pastries for 20 minutes.

Enjoy!