Bakin' it up!

Some days are just great days to spend in the kitchen, hands deep in flour with an apron on. I love baking! For my wedding I created welcome bags for all my out of town guests...and all of my family were out of town guests. So with 30 welcome bags to be made, there needed to be a sweet, homemade element. I had once seen a Texas sugar cookie with a mini red heart on it in a bakery, every since then I knew I wanted to make this for my wedding. Since all of my family came from all over the United States, this Texas cookie would work perfect.

You of course do not have to make Texas cookies, they could be in any shape. What I really want to show you is the wonderful sugar cookie recipe. I also added the blue heart because my favorite color is blue, you could dye your dough any color to your lovely cookie confection.


Texas Sugar Cookies

1 large egg
2 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups flour

Whisk egg and vanilla into a small bowl and set aside. In a standing mixer, cream butter until fluffy, scrape sides of bowl and add sugar. Beat until light, add egg mixture and beat for about one minute. Add the salt to the flour in a separate bowl, reduce speed and slowly add flour mixture to wet ingredients. Just mix til blended, do not over mix.

Remove dough from the bowl and place on a floured surface. Roll out dough to about a 1/4 inch thick surface. Use your cookie cutters to make whichever patterns you'd like. If you want to create a colored cookie part to place on your sugar cookie, take part of your dough, add whichever color you'd like and mix thoroughly. Bake cookies for 8 minutes at 350 degrees.


Cherry Brownies

1 cup softened butter
4 squares of semi-sweet chocolate (4 oz)
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp ground coffee
3 eggs
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chopped candied cherries (you can use fresh or dried as well)

My husband and I were invited to a pool party a few weeks ago, I decided I wanted to make brownies with my new standing mixer. I didn't have any nuts but we had ground coffee and candied cherries. First I put a double boiler onto the stove to melt my chocolate squares. If you don't have a double boiler, simply put a metal bowl over a sauce pan which has about a cup of water in it. You don't want the water to touch the bottom of the bowl.

Place butter, sugar and vanilla into the mixer, mix for about 30 seconds. Turn the speed up and beat for about two minutes. Turn the speed down slightly, add eggs, one at a time. Stop and scrape the bowl. Add melted chocolate mixture, turn down speed. Add all remaining ingredients and mix til blended, do not over mix (30 seconds). Pour into a greased and floured baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

These delectable desserts will have your mouth jumping for joy! Simple sugar cookies with a little flair and chocolatey brownies with soothing hints of coffee and gooey pieces of candied cherry. YUM!

Enjoy! xo Lo

Cornflake Encrusted Pork

How many of you love fried chicken or fried pork chops? With this recipe it'll be like eating fried pork chops but for half the calories! I had tried cornflake encrusted chicken and decided I wanted to try this recipe on my pork cutlet. My husband and I love pork so with this dinner I paired fresh strawberry, spinach salad and sauteed onions and mushrooms.

Ingredient List

2 pork cutlets
1 1/2 cups of basic cornflakes
1/2 red onion
5 button mushrooms
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
2 cups of fresh spinach
1/2 cup fresh, sliced strawberries
1/2 cup sliced cherry tomatoes
salad dressing of choice

Heat oven to 350 and allow pork to tenderize in milk for 30 minutes. Assemble your pork, in one dish put in cornflakes, in the next dish put in flour,  salt, pepper and paprika (mix together), take the pork from the milk and dredge into the flour mixture, back to milk then finally into the cornflakes. Once completely covered put the pork onto a baking sheet covered in aluminum foil. Put in the oven to bake for 25-30 minutes.

While your pork is baking, chop your onion and mushrooms. Heat saute pan to medium heat and drizzle in some olive oil, throw your veggies in to saute. Add a bit of salt and pepper to taste.

Meanwhile, assemble your salad, rinse your spinach, slice your strawberries, cut your cherry tomatoes in half. If you have a salad spinner (I highly recommend one) put your spinach in there to get rid of all the water, if not pat down with paper towels. On your plate pile up our spinach, sprinkle on strawberries and tomatoes. Use whichever dressing you prefer, we used bleu cheese dressing. Once the pork is done add that to the plate with your sauteed veggies. Enjoy this simple, healthy meal!

xo Lo

Cooking Outside the Box

I'm always finding ways to cook what I want without having to leave my kitchen for extra groceries. My cooking style is opening up my pantry and fridge, gain inspiration for a dish to make then figuring out how to make it work. That is exactly what I did for this dinner and dessert recipe. I had some pre-seasoned BBQ chicken, leftover quinoa and fresh veggies. Plus I just got my Kitchen Aid standing mixer from my wedding registry so I definitely wanted to break it in and bake. I wanted to make my husband's favorite cookie, the snickerdoodle but I was missing a few ingredients including butter and I had minimal cinnamon.

The way I put everything together was to cook the chicken on the grill pan, make a quinoa with toasted pine nuts, garlic and apricot in addition an easy vegetable tian. Quinoa is one of my favorite grains to work with, it is a powerhouse grain that is pumped up with protein, it's fairly plain which is great when cooking because you can add anything to it. For the vegetable tian (which is a fancy way of saying layered roasted veggies), I had half a zucchini, carrots and yellow onion. Before assembling the side dishes, place the BBQ chicken onto the grill pan with olive oil and cover, start timer for 30 minutes.

Vegetable Tian

- Heat oven to 425 degrees
- Slice up any veggies you have that roast well into thick slices (zucchini, squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes, onion, carrots)
- Chop up two cloves of garlic
- Place veggies in a bowl, drizzle with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic and poultry seasoning
- Neatly place into a baking dish, layering the veggies every other
- Place into oven for about 30 minutes


Apricot, Toasted Pine Nut Quinoa

- Take a 1/4 cup of pine nuts (or any nut you have) roughly chop up
- Heat saute pan at medium heat and toast pine nuts
- Chop up two cloves of garlic, after pine nuts are toasted add the garlic into the saute pan with olive oil on low heat
- Chop up five apricots

Meanwhile, get your ingredients ready for the cookies:

My Twist on Snickerdoodles

- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup of yogurt margarine
- 1/4 cup of olive oil
- 1 tsp cream of tartar
- 1/8 tsp of salt
- 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 Tbs of plain sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, 2 tsp cloves, 1 tsp nutmeg (to roll dough in before baking)

Mix together margarine, olive oil and sugar into your mixer- blend until smooth then add egg. Combine dry ingredients into a separate bowl, once blended add dry ingredients slowly to wet mixture. Blend well then roll dough into small balls the size of walnuts. Roll each ball into sweet spice mixture, bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 8 minutes at 400 degrees. This should make about three dozen small cookies.

Once the cookies are in the oven, add extra (or newly made) quinoa to the pine nut, garlic mixture. Check on the veggie tian and flip the chicken. Add apricots to the quinoa after a few minutes. After 30 minutes everything should be out of the oven, cooked and ready to eat. Plate your delicious meal and enjoy!

xo Lo

Piled High Southwestern Burger

Who doesn't love burgers? There is a wide spectrum of burgers, my husband and I went to In n Out Burgers yesterday and they are simple and delicious. I like to find ways to spice it up a bit and create burgers that are outside of the box. On this summer day, my husband and I were working with the last bit of groceries we had. I had ground beef, veggies, eggs, black beans and cornmeal. I decided to whip up piled high southwestern burgers on black beans, green chile cornbread, sauteed onions, a fried egg, cherry tomatoes and fresh cilantro.

The first thing I did was form my beef patties, I added some salt, pepper and garlic then I set those aside and allowed the flavors to merry. I then started to make my green chile corn bread, I used one cup of organic stone ground corn meal, half a can of corn, a small can of green chiles, salt, pepper, one egg, 1/2 cup cheddar cheese and 1/4 cup of milk; mix this altogether and pour into a pan to bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

While the cornbread was baking, I poured a can of black beans into my sauce pan and cooked them on medium heat. Next, I chopped my onions into thin slices, sliced the cherry tomatoes in half and roughly chopped the fresh cilantro. I put the sliced onion into a saute pan with olive oil on medium heat, along with putting the burgers onto my grill pan with olive oil. My dad always taught me growing up that sauteed onions are the base to any delicious homemade recipe. I use olive oil because it is healthier than butter or other oils, plus I personally love the taste. After a few minutes I flip the burgers, check on the cornbread, stir the onions, stir the black beans and it's time for the eggs. I love eggs, I try to use them in every meal I make...especially fried eggs, I firmly believe fried eggs are Heaven topped on any meal :)

Once the cornbread was done, I removed it from the oven to cool. Then I cracked the eggs into a saute pan with (you guessed it!) olive oil. The key to a fantastic fried egg is generous portion of olive oil (2 Tbs), salt and pepper, then once it starts bubbling up flip over, when the egg is flipped over turn off the heat and let it finish for a few minutes. Then I began to pile my southwestern burgers, first I plated the black beans, next came the corn bread, the burger, sauteed onions, fried egg and last but not least fresh slices of tomato and cilantro.

Once you dig in, the yolk spreads it's luscious, velvety flavor all over the burger and that first bite is darn good! Enjoy! I'd love to hear your comments.

xo Lo

My favorite meal of the day

What is your favorite meal of the day? Mine is hands down breakfast! Everything about breakfast makes me smile, the smell of coffee brewing in the wee hours of the morning, getting settled on my comfy couch with a book before anyone else in the house wakes up. Then as my tummy grumbles I decide what to make. On this particular day I was feeling a bit over-worked from having a bit too much fun the day before so I knew I needed a good breakfast fix. Pancakes with a fried egg on top smothered in Maple syrup...mmmm! This dish will get your sugar levels back on track, add some healthy protein and carbs, before you know it you'll feel back on track to conquer the day.

The recipe I used:

Pancakes:
1 1/2 cups of 1/2 whole wheat flour & 1/2 organic unbleached flour
2 large organic eggs
3 Tbs sugar
1 Tbs baking powder
a pinch of salt
pinch of fresh nutmeg
1 1/4 cups of organic milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

Combine dry ingredients into a bowl and wet ingredients into a mixer. After blending separately add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and fold together. Oil up your skillet and add 1/2 cup of the pancake batter, let sit til bubbles appear on the sides then flip and continue.

Eggs:

Grab a few large eggs
salt & pepper

Make sure your skillet is hot with olive oil in it, crack the egg gently into the skillet. Add a pinch of salt and pepper on top. Once the egg starts bubble on the sides, gently flip. Turn your skillet off, assemble your pancake on the plate, top with the egg then smother with Maple syrup and dig in!

What did you think of this recipe? xoxo Lo