What's for dinner?

As part of a new year's effort to find a little more balance in my life, I have been working on finding some healthy recipes that are easy to throw together after a long day at work. This one was yummy and SO easy to make. Seared chicken breast with lemon herb pan sauce - so quick and delicious - and on the table in no time. We'll definitely be having this again soon! Check out Simply Scratch for more great recipes - I'll be sure to post about others I try and love.

Click here for recipe

Gnocchi fail...

Gnocchi - starts off like this...

I love being home from work! Love the luxury of time to do things you have been needing/wanting to do for months. Like sweep up all the lint dust bunnies that cover my laundry floor. (Check!) Or make gnocchi from scratch and revel in my success. There are few things in life I adore as much as gnocchi - it is absolute perfection, the way I see it.

And ends up like this... ideally!

Well, not the way I made it. I will probably try again. As soon as the disappointment of watching my little dumplings dissolve into floating lumps of potato lessens slightly. At least I can say I've tried it! Here's how it went:

Me: They might not work. I've never done this before.
Hubby: They will. Everything you make works. Except for that one time.

NOTE: There were actually two times - the time he forgot, I cooked a delicious steak with the BBQ closed (hazard of being raised by practically vegetarians, no idea how to cook red meat!), and it shriveled into a tiny, jerky-esque piece of crispiness, so we went out for dinner. And another time, I tried some spanish lemon chicken recipe I found online and it honestly tasted like poison. Either there was a typo in the recipe or I misread it, but it was hilarious becaue we'd been arguing and it was completely feasible that I'd be trying to poison him - we laugh about it to this day.

Anyway, the water boils, the gnocchi are plopped in and...

Me: It didn't work :( We should get take out!
Hubby: What do you mean it didn't work? I mean, can we still eat it? What would it taste like?
Me: Really soggy, lumpy mashed potatoes
Hubby: Yum!
Me: We are NOT eating that.

A bag of penne saved the day, sauced with the sauteed mushrooms in brown butter sauce that I'd made for the gnocchi. I'm not quite ready to try again yet!

Thanksgiving turkey brie!

My sister is a genius. First of all, she made a delicious brie en croute (a wheel of brie cheese wrapped and baked in a sheet of puff pastry, served melty and delicious with crackers, bread and/or fingers :P) last year as an appetizer and it instantly became a required part of all future Thanksgiving meals. YUM!

Then this year, as she was plating her masterpiece, she realized it would be pretty easy to make the whole thing look like a turkey. Extra points for THEMATIC creativity!!! All it took was a few small pieces of roasted carrot, two cranberries and a little piece of cracker for his 'chin' (what on earth do they call that?!). Isn't it ADORABLE?!!! Almost too cute to eat, but it was so delicious, we managed to overcome that!

Thanksgiving is almost here!!

Thankful for my kitchen! After living in a tiny apartment with a stove so small regular sized baking trays didn't fit inside with the door closed for such a long time, it is still exciting that I am able to make stuffing, bake sweet potatoes and sauté all at the same time... Also thankful for the Barefoot Contessa's reliable recipes ~ these sweet potatoes are sooooo yummy :)

Baking it up as we go...

Somewhere out there in other parts of the world, people are enjoying views like this. I just know it. While we are still seeing temperature forecasts up in the 80s this week. So no chocolate candy for trick or treaters coz it will probably just MELT. Sigh.

Well, I spent a lovely weekend with a few fun house guests, stayed up late (waaaaaaaaaay too late), laughed and chatted the whole time and we BAKED. Yeah, it wasn't cold or raining, but we pretended the weather was baking appropriate and had a GREAT time! Two of my FAVORITE easy recipes to share with a crowd:

Apple Crisp ~ the simplest, most deliciousest (word invention!) creation that evokes the happiest, homiest smells. Mmmmm. No picture (SORRY!) - but imagine... If you have a bunch of apples you need to use (or that you happen to buy at the store with the very intent of baking this!), it's the perfect thing to make!

And Aunt Holly's Banana Bread ~ yummmmmm! Yeah, I know, pictures!!! Sorry! Neither of these treats were around long enough to take a pic, the apple crisp was whisked straight from the oven and out the door to church!

These two recipes are so super quick and easy to throw together, completely forgiving if you get a little 'creative' with the ingredients, and perfect for you to try if baking isn't really your thing. Trust me. You will SUCCEED. And nothing emboldens a baker like SUCCESS!!!

Gosh I want to go apple picking. I've never been, it sounds like SUCH good fun. Of course if I were to go apple picking in Southern California, I'd probably pass out from the heat right now. Exaggeration? Maybe... just a tad :P

Wishing for winter...

Well after two ninety degree days in a row, I woke up this morning to a semi-cloudy day and because of the AC blasting, I deluded myself into thinking it was going to be a cooler day. So I made pot roast. By midday, the breeze still had a slightly cooler temperature than the sweltering weekend, but it was clear that it wasn't quite a pot roast kind of day. Still, it's nice to think there's dinner waiting for me at home at the end of a long, crazy work day. Phew. And I tried a new recipe for Balsamic Pot Roast that sounds delicious ~ I mean, doesn't this pic just make your mouth water?!?!?! Yum!


UPDATE: It's delicious!!! All three diners give this recipe a big thumbs up. We'll be eating this again!

Party recap... finally!

Well, now that I have at least figured out how to work around Google Chrome's evil hijacking efforts, I can finally post about the two parties I threw during the week of sheer madness. The week of sheer madness resulted from the perfect storm of a combination of things. I was out of town the weekend before, had a work event on Tuesday night, and birthday party number one on Wednesday night.

One of my best friends was hitting the big 3-0 in August, and I had been planning a big surprise party for her when we both got the ultimate surprise - she was moving to Washington, and is it turned out, would be leaving the week before her actual birthday. So I moved the celebration up, changed the plan a bit, and ordered catering to make it easier on myself since I would be coming straight from work to church, and then the party afterwards. The party ended up being lovely, it was intimate, memorable and fun... And put a smile on the birthday girl's face!

Here are the party details:

DECOR:
I am SO bad at remembering to take pictures of parties, usually because I'm busy doing something else, I definitely need to improve on that! Anyway, for decor, I went with a simple, bright color scheme. Turquoise is one of the birthday girl's favorite colors (by chance, she wore a dress that matched the party!), so we decorated with turquoise, using hot pink napkins and pink roses for accents. The picture below (from Pinterest) shows my color scheme inspiration :)

I set up one long banquet table, so everyone could sit together, and added tea light candles for pretty lighting.

FOOD:

This is the important part, right?! :P Most of it, I ordered from Chicken Maison, which is yummy and an extremely affordable way to feed a crowd. Here's the menu for the dinner:

Appetizers

Caprese skewers**

Stuffed dates**

Stuffed Grape leaves

Main course

Rotisserie chicken - spicy lemon and original

Rice pilaf

Veggie kabobs

Pita and hummus

And birthday cake for dessert!!! Aside from the caprese skewers and stuffed dates (recipes at the end of the post) and the veggie kabobs, everything else came from Chicken Maison, and we just plated it and added garnish. 

PARTY FAVOR:

I wanted to make sure everyone left with a little treat, a reminder of a sweet evening spent with the birthday girl. I had been thinking of macarons, but when I realized one of the guests attending has a severe nut allergy, I figured I'd save that for a future party. Look how cute that idea is!!

Anyway, so macarons were out, and I immediately thought of yet another Pinterest inspired favor that seemed easy enough to pull off in the extremely limited time I had to do everything. 

These were adorable, easy to make, and I will DEFINITELY be using this idea again in the future! I put each oreo pop in a clear plastic treat bag and tied a bright pink ribbon around each stick, and by all reports (I didn't get to try one! But my hubby is my favorite food critic, and the fact that there were none left to try speaks for itself!), they were delicious! For a great tutorial, check out this website!!

So that's the first party recap! The second party recap will have to wait, as the few pics I took are on my other (good!) camera, which I am trying to use more! All in all, it was a lovely night and fairly easy to pull off on a work night :D 

Caprese Skewers

I love making these! They are easy, they look pretty, and people LOVE eating food on a stick. Even salad. It's TRUE! 

Ingredients:

mozzarella cheese (cut into 3/4 inch chunks or buy the little mozzarella balls)

grape or cherry tomatoes

basil leaves

balsamic dressing (or just balsamic vinegar)

skewers

Onto each skewer, thread a tomato, then a basil leaf, then a piece of cheese. Keep covered in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours, and before serving, bring to room temperature. Drizzle with balsamic dressing (or vinegar, I also add a little pepper), and enjoy! :) 

Stuffed dates

These are DELICIOUS. They might sound a bit odd, but the flavors go so well together, they are yummy at room temperature, or you can make them ahead and then put in the oven right before serving. I made extra of these, and saved some for our beach picnic birthday dinner the following night!

Dates (pitted)

Cheese (goats cheese, blue cheese, parmesan cheese, manchego - I've tried all of these, they're all good!)

Prosciutto

Cut prosciutto slice into quarters. Stuff each date with a piece of cheese, then press the date closed and wrap with prosciutto. You can secure the prosciutto with a toothpick, if you'd like, I don't find that to be necessary. Put the stuffed dates on a tray, and bake at 400 degrees for about 5 minutes (or until the prosciutto looks a little crispy). Transfer to serving plate and enjoy!!!

National Hot Dog Day ~ Sonoran style

Well, I'm not the biggest fan of hot dogs, but while living in Tucson, I had the opportunity to try a local delicacy - Sonoran Hot Dogs (or as some people call them in LA, Danger Dogs). I am sure they're bad for you in every single way possible, but they are delicious, and in honor of National Hot Dog Day (apparently - according to a google search fueled by a facebook post), we had a bunch of friends over yesterday and celebrated with Sonoran Hot Dogs. If you've never tried them, you should! Just not too often :P 

You will need:

Bacon

Hot Dogs

Buns

Tomatoes (diced - I used 3)

Onions (diced - I used 2 smaller ones)

Mayo, mustard, ketchup, relish, chipotle mayo etc. (whatever else you want!)

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Wrap half a piece of bacon around each hot dog (don't overlap it too much as you want it to crisp and cook evenly) and set aside. In a little olive oil, saute the onions until the are softened, then add tomatoes and stir. Cook on medium high heat for about 10 minutes, adding a little garlic salt for extra flavor, if you'd like. While the tomatoes and onions are cooking, cook bacon wrapped hot dogs over medium high heat, turning as the bacon cooks. Place buns on a tray and heat in the oven for about 5 minutes. When the bacon is done on all sides, remove the hot dogs. To eat, pile hot dog buns high with condiments, sauteed onion and tomatoes and enjoy! If you're lucky, your homemade Sonoran hot dogs will come out looking something like the real deal! Yum!!

Beachy waves!

Well, I have tried to take pics to prove it, but am unable to successfully capture just how pretty the beachy waves are that I created by using this recipe I found on Pinterest - how do people take such great pics of themselves?! Well, for now, you'll just have to take my word for it! When I first read this recipe, I was a bit skeptical, having tried many 'surf spray' or texturizer products. And I know depending on your hair's natural texture/body/wave, thickness etc. it may not work for you. But boy am I happy with the little spray I whipped up this morning! Try it - you might love it!

1 cup warm water

1 tbsp coconut oil (I bought it at Trader Joe's - recommend it for use as a body lotion too for dry summer skin!)

2 tbsp sea salt

a squirt of gel (I skipped this coz I hate crunchy hair, but it was in the original recipe as it helps hold the style/waves all day)

Combine all ingredients in a spray bottle and shake well to combine. Spray on damp, detangled hair, and scrunch if you'd like to. Air dry.

That's it. Five minutes of effort, and I can honestly say I am more impressed with this than any other product I've used! I haven't tried it yet on dry hair (to spruce up waves on the next day), but I will, and I am hopeful it will work just as well. My hair is pretty wavy naturally and prone to frizz, but I am LOVING these zero effort beach waves created by this spray. So try it :) Makes me feel like I'm spending the day with these ladies, on the beach... And heaven knows it's hot enough in LA today to make me wish I was there!

Rooftop garden ~ Panzanella!

My rooftop garden is yet to produce a zucchini, but the tomatoes are doing very well! I've already had several, and I found three more juicy ones ready to eat when I watered on Monday morning. And there was a sad, neglected, stale baguette that didn't get eaten this weekend. So I made this yummy salad for dinner last night, and it was delicious!

Bread, cut into 1 inch cubes (stale or fresh, I used about half a baguette)
3 tomatoes, cut into large dice
Roasted red peppers (to taste)
Kalamata olives (to taste)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
one clove of garlic, minced
Sea salt and pepper to taste
Optional: fresh basil, chopped, and/or sliced cucumber

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Brush the bread cubes with olive oil, then toast in the oven for 5-10 minutes, until golden. Combine olive oil, vinegar and garlic in a bowl, and whisk (or put it all in a container with a lid and shake :P). Allow bread cubes to cool a little, then put them into a bowl and pour the dressing over them. Add diced tomatoes, roasted red pepper slices, olives, and other optional ingredients if using, and toss. Let the salad sit and marinate in the dressing for 30 minutes, tossing several times to distribute the dressing evenly. Add sea salt and black pepper to taste. Yum!

We had this for dinner with an assortment of tapas and it was the perfect recipe to use my homegrown tomatoes in - tastes like summer!

Veggie-licious!

Every now and then, I have one of those days where I realize that my alfalfa growning, quasi-vegetarian childhood has made a lasting impression on me. Yesterday was one of those days. I had a fridge full of veggies (my compulsion to buy beautiful looking veggies, even when I'm not sure of when or how I'll use them is probably another side effect) that were going to go to waste if I didn't use them quickly, so my veggie-loathing hubby and I had a yummy vegetarian dinner that he enthusiastically raved about the next day("She made these zucchini things taste like steak" - hahahahaha).

There were grilled portabello mushrooms, season with cumin, pepper and garlic salt, with leftover chimichurri sauce (which is SO good on anything!), a yummy salad of chopped cherry tomatoes, avocado, feta cheese crumbles and kalamata olives, and of course, the very popular zucchini cakes. It's a bit of a joke to call it a recipe, but here's how I made the zucchini cakes.

Preheat the oven to 425. Grate zucchinis (I used three medium sized ones) into a bowl, add a little salt and let it stand for a while (salt draws out some of the water, which can make these tasty little bites soggy, so the longer you can let it stand, the better). Drain excess liquid from grated zucchini, then add one egg and mix well with a fork. Add seasoning (I added salt, garlic salt, onion salt and pepper to taste), and mix well, then form flat heaps of the mixture on a greased cookie sheet. Bake until crispy, about 20 minutes. You may need to flip them over to brown the other side, or if you're impatient like me, you could just brown the other side in a little olive oil in a skillet (the same skillet you grilled the mushrooms in, for example :P). This made five good-sized zucchini cakes, which were eaten before I could snap a pic! Try them - they're veggie-licious!

Mini apple pies

Happy Independence Day!! Just found this recipe online yesterday and since everyone else is bringing something blueberry-related, I saved my favorite blueberry crumb bars for another day and made these for 4th of July!

Recipe slightly adapted from Sweet Peony

Pie Crust
3 large apples, peeled & cored (I used 5 medium sized apples)
1/2 cup light brown sugar (I used a little less, as I don't like things overly sweet)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon corn starch (I skipped this)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
pinch of salt (I skipped this, by accident :P)



1. Cut out rounds of pastry and press into greased cupcake pan (or mini-cupcakes). Two pie crusts made 20 cupcake-sized pies for me.
2. Cut up apples into small pieces (so they have time to cook!).
3. In a large bowl, mix apple with sugar, lemon juice, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.
4. Slightly overfill mini pies (filling will shrink a little), and then top with lattice, or pastry shapes cut out with a cookie cutter (I used stars - wish I'd had a slightly bigger cookie cutter laying around, but they're packed up with my Christmas things! Next time though...).
5. Brush with an egg wash, and bake in 350 degree oven for 35-45 minutes (depending on your oven - just keep an eye on them).


Yummy!! Mine could have used more filling and a bigger pastry star on top! I think they'd be really cute served warm with melon ball sized scoops of vanilla ice cream, but took the easy way out with whipped cream :)

Chimichurri sauce ~ on everything!

I love chimichurri sauce - I don't know how a simple whirl of a blender or food processor can elevate such simple ingredients to such a delicious, unique flavor, but I LOVE it. It's great on steak (that's how we'll be eating it tomorrow), yummy for dipping a baguette, tasty with pita chips (I discovered when I'd whipped a batch up this afternoon and had no baguette for dipping), and I'm sure it would be delicious on chicken, fish, shrimp, and pretty much anything else you can think of. There are a lot of different recipes for it, and every time I make it, I think I alter it slightly. But here's my yummy chimichurri recipe - try it!

Bunch of parsley
1/2 cup of olive oil
1/2 cup of red wine vinegar
One garlic clove
Salt to taste

Throw everything except the salt in a food processor or blender, and pulse until it reaches a pesto-like consistency. Add salt to taste. Smother everything in it and enjoy :) Keeps for at least a week in the fridge.



Weekend houseguests and banana bread

You know those kinds of recipes that you can totally bake on autopilot? Aunt Holly's Banana Bread recipe is one of those for me. So easy, delicious, and yummy! With houseguests in town for the weekend and a few bananas that were kind of past the stage of overripe, we spent a relaxing day on Saturday hanging out with friends and inhaling the delicious, heavenly sent of this tasty treat baking. I may or may not have (ok I did) added an extra egg by mistake, due to my preoccupation with chatting with our guests, and it STILL worked out perfectly! So rather than throwing away those way (waaaaaaaaaaay) too ripe bananas, take 5 minutes to make a batch of this. Perfect for sharing with houseguests, or keeping it all to yourself :)

Aunt Holly's Banana Bread From Epicurious

Ingredients:
3 medium-sized bananas, overly ripe
¼ cup of butter, melted
1 ½ cup of all-purpose flour
1 cup of white sugar (I always use a little less and find it plenty sweet enough, even without choc chips)
1 large egg, beaten
1 tsp. of baking soda
¼ tsp. of salt
Optional additions: chocolate chips (milk, dark, even white chocolate is divine), walnuts, or shredded coconut

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 9 inch loaf pan with parchment paper, leaving about 2 inches hanging off the sides.
2. In a large bowl, mash bananas. Add all the ingredients but the additions. Mix well (until all the flour is gone).
3. Stir in the additions, until just combined. Pour into loaf pan and even out the top with a spatula.
4. Bake in oven for 50-60 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. If top of bread begins to brown but the inside isn't done yet, tent the top with foil and continue baking.
5. When ready, allow to cool in pan for 30 minutes. Lift out with parchment paper, continue cooling until banana bread is firm to cut into (about 20 minutes).

Yum!

Homegrown!

Well, I've been busy getting ready for a week in AZ, and one of my concerns was that the two juicy orangish tomatoes growing on my patio would ripen while I was away. Thankfully, the timing was right and they were ready to pick before I left, so I HAD to make this delicious tomato tart. YUM! The recipe is included below, although it's so easy, it's not really a recipe.

This picture doesn't really do it justice, and is upside down because I am frustrated with my technology today and no matter how hard I tried to flip the pic, I couldn't succeed... But you get the idea ;P

Mustard (coarse grain)
Parmesan cheese (shaved or grated)
Tomatoes (preferably juicy and delicious :P)
Puff pastry
Salt and pepper

Heat oven to 400. Thaw the puff pastry on the counter for 10 minutes, or in the fridge for several hours. Cut to the size you plan to use. Line baking tray with parchment paper (I am lazy and hate scrubbing trays, so I always do this :P). Spread a layer of mustard over the puff pastry, almost all the way to the edges. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over the mustard. Thinly slice the tomatoes, and arrange on the crust. Add a little sea salt, and pepper to take, then sprinkle with a little more Parmesan. Bake until the crust is done - about 15 minutes.

Fresh basil would probably be delicious, but I didn't have any and this was still a very tasty pre-airport treat!! :)

Crock pot BBQ chicken sandwiches - YUM!

Well, Sunday I endeavored to make crock pot pulled chicken sandwiches for a crowd. I borrowed my sister's crock pot, and between hers and mine, put ten pounds of chicken in, with a few bottles of BBQ sauce, and set it to high for 4 hours. It feels a little misleading to call it a recipe, because that is basically it. It really is so easy. But of course I messed it up - kind of. One of the two crock pots had a slightly bowed lid, which was steadily allowing heat to escape(!), so after the 4 hours cooking, it wasn't quite 'stir it a bit with a fork and watch it fall apart' done (that's the last part of the 'recipe' :P), so rather than feed the masses sub-standard BBQ chicken sandwiches, instead I ordered pizzas and let the chicken finish cooking. After we got home, the chicken was perfectly done in both crock pots, so I shredded it and froze it for the next time we're feeding the masses. I'll just thaw it, and reheat in the crock pot with a little more BBQ sauce - yum! Of course this 'recipe' works in any quantity, and is great at the end of a work day!

Pulled Chicken Sandwiches

buns
BBQ sauce
chicken (breast, thigh, whatever, boneless or bone-in depending on how much work you want to put in after it's done cooking)

Pour a little BBQ sauce into the crock pot. Add layers of chicken, squirting a little BBQ sauce in between each layer. Set crock pot to high for 3-4 hours, or low for 8-10 hours. Remove chicken to bowl, stir with a fork until it shreds, and add a little more BBQ sauce to the chicken. Serve on toasted buns - yum!

Cupcake babies and ant adventures...

I was itching to try this recipe since I mentioned it in my post almost a month ago, so my friend's birthday last week was a great opportunity to bake a treat. They were so easy to make, not overly sweet at all, and were devoured by the birthday girl and others. I wish I'd taken a better picture, but I was decorating them in a hurry on Friday morning, before work. So this is as good as it gets ~ but just trust me, they were cute!

Want to know a funny background story? Our house has long been ruled by the tiny black ants we affectionately call beasties... Since we moved in, they have protested the intrusion by invading our kitchen, master bathroom and various other odd locations. I want to hate them, but for whatever reason, I don't find ants to be dirty (like cockroaches), or scary (like spiders), and given how persistent they are, you have to admire their gumption. We've attacked them through various methods, and we've definitely seen a marked improvement, but whenever I make baked goods, that is one of my challenges. There was the unfortunate incident of the cake pops (adorably decorated, kept overnight in a tightly sealed container, found the next morning to be the site of an ant party), and since then, I have developed a short list of safe 'hiding places' that the ants can't find. Fast forward to last Friday morning, when I got up early to decorate my cupcake babies, and I open my microwave to find... my short list of hiding places just got shorter!!! Those ants are SO persistent! Miracle of all miracles, I made 24 mini cupcakes, then used the extra batter to make 3 large cupcakes, and the ants had chosen to set up camp on the big cupcakes, leaving my minis alone, much to my relief!!!

While I made the frosting (my favorite part of this recipe by the way!), I turned the microwave on for 3 minutes, thinking that'd kill them. Well, I opened it to find them crawling around, unfazed by the nuclear action I'd taken against them. So I sprayed the microwave with vinegar (my trusty ant killing people safe organic cleaning spray :P), microwaved them a little longer, and cleaned those guys out! So that is the story of how my ant safe hiding place list got a little shorter.

Try this recipe - ants love it so much, they'll risk microwaves and vinegar for a bite - how's that for a glowing endorsement? :P



Apple crisp and other cozy treats...

Well the long weekend is minutes from starting for me (hooray!), and there's a crisp chill in the air (welcome back winter - and by winter I mean less than 75 degrees, but I'll take what I can get!), so I can't stop thinking about relaxing at home, spending time with friends and my wonderful hubby who is off for President's Day too (his old job made him work, so we feel like it's a bonus holiday!), and baking!! Something about chilly weather makes me want to cook! So I'm definitely planning to try my hand at making these delicious coconut white chocolate cupcakes! And maybe I'll finally use my poor neglected butternut squashes to make a yummy bowl of this soup. But I have to say, whenever the weather gets a bit wintery, I feel like eating apple crisp. And with a recipe this easy, I think I'll definitely have to make this! I love long weekends ~ having the time to do all the things I'm usually too busy to do!

Cinnamon Apple Crisp

Ingredients:

1 cup of golden brown sugar

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

3 1/2 lbs granny smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) chilled, unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Preheat oven to 450°F. Butter 13x9x2-inch glass baking dish. Combine brown sugar and cinnamon in large bowl. Add apples and toss to coat. Transfer apple mixture to prepared dish. Combine flour, 1 cup sugar and butter in medium bowl. Blend ingredients until coarse meal forms (I use my fingers, you could use a pastry cutter/fork/food processor). Spread flour mixture evenly over apples. Bake crisp 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Bake crisp until apples are tender and topping is golden brown, about 30 minutes. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

Mad Hatter's Valentines Tea Party... The Plan

Well, last night I ran a bunch of errands and this morning I worked on my lollipop bouquets. They are pretty adorable - I will post a picture, just didn't have a chance to take one as I rushed out the door for work! I am SO excited to use my new three tiered cake stand ~ it was a Christmas gift and I have wanted one for so long! Here's the menu for tomorrow:

Tea Sandwiches - Chicken salad, ham and cheddar with dijon mustard, roasted turkey with cranberry thyme spread, and open face cucumber sandwiches
Mini quiches
Cream scones with strawberry jam, lemon curd and whipped cream
Brownie bites, lemon squares and some other tiny dessert
Bowl of fresh strawberries (or maybe chocolate dipped strawberries if I have time)

Not sure what the other tiny dessert will be. Maybe I'll make my mini cheesecakes, or else some little fruit tarts, like these:

Or if I run out of time, then maybe some mini cupcakes. I am serving icea tea and lemonade, in addition to hot tea, since I know not everyone is a fan :) Can't wait to post pics of the party tomorrow - I know it will be a lot of fun! Here's the recipe I'm using for the cream scones:

Cream Scones

2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups heavy cream, plus more for brushing the scones.

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and position a rack in the top third of the oven. Thoroughly combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center of this mixture, add 1 1/4 cups of cream and stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients with a fork. Work quickly, stirring as little as possible, until a soft, shaggy dough forms. Add more cream, a tablespoon at a time, if the dough seems too dry.

2. Use a large serving spoon or cup measure to drop the batter onto an ungreased baking sheet, allowing at least 2 inches between each scone. Brush the top of each with heavy cream and bake until golden, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes 8 large scones.



Five minute chocolate cake

Some things seem too good to be true - like this!! I found this recipe a few weeks ago, and then came across it again today - which seems like a sign that I need to try this recipe pretty soon. Like tomorrow! 



Ingredients:
4 Tablespoons cake flour
4 Tablespoons sugar
2 Tablespoons cocoa
1 Egg
3 Tablespoons milk
3 Tablespoons oil
1 Mug

Instructions:
1. In a microwavable mug, mix flour, sugar and cocoa, then spoon in egg.
2. Add the milk and oil and mix it with a fork.
3. Microwave for 3 minutes on high.
4. Wait a minute or two, to let the cake set, then remove from the microwave.

Yum! Can't wait to see if it works!