You say Potato, I say Potato!

This weeks recipe just to happened to fall on Valentine's Day and what better way than to celebrate with your loved one and good friends! Since we hadn't seen them in a while, we decided to get together with Valerie and Ryan for Valentine's Day and just hang out and watch movies. We definitely didn't want to go out and face the crowds since Valentine's fell on the weekend this year! So instead, we decided that Val and Ryan would bring the meat (pork chops, YUM) and I would make my next recipe in line from my book which was Grilled Potato Salad with Watercress, Green Onions and Blue Cheese Vinaigrette.

Since I am the worlds biggest procrastinator (ok maybe not THAT bad), I waited until the day of to go out and get all the ingredients for this recipe, which at the time seemed pretty simple. We had a lot of the stuff already at the house, so all I needed were: red potatoes, shallot, green onion, blue cheese, watercress & aged sherry wine vinegar. That's nothing like chipotles in adobo sauce or anything, right (refer to pressure cooker chili for that story)?! So Adam and I head off to Kroger to get everything, that afternoon, and our first headache was finding the aged sherry wine vinegar! We say sherry cooking wine and aged vinegar, but no combination of the two! So after standing and talking for what seemed like forever...since all the last minute, disgruntled husbands were all frantically taking over the store trying to find cards, balloons, dinner ingredients, flowers, etc...we decided that we would buy both and just mix it together to make our own aged sherry wine vinegar. So we continue along, trying to get in and out as quickly as possible, because neither of us do well in crowds of people, and hit another road block-watercress was no where to be found. After looking up pictures from google on Adam's phone thinking that maybe I was mistaken and it isn't a leafy green veggie, I decided to ask the produce stocker if they carried it. He proceeded to say, "hmmm, let me check" and I followed him over to where I had just come from and he pointed and said, "No, we just have water chestnuts" (apparently everything was in alphabetical order)! SERIOUSLY Mr. Produce stocker guy...I mean I know you were stocking the oranges, but watercress and water chestnuts are two TOTALLY different foods. Not to mention I sincerely loath water chestnuts and just hearing him say that word made me gag! I tell him, ya that's not quite it...watercress is a leafy green veggie and he said "OH YA, you are like the 4th person to ask about that, so I'll let my Manager know and maybe we can get it in stock for you". I politely said thank you and found my way back over to Adam who was gathering the green onions (which side note: 2 green onions means 2 stems of green onions, not 2 bunches, haha LOVE YOU HUN)! Since waiting a week for them to get watercress in stock wasn't really an option, we decided we would give Tom Thumb a try, since they seem to be an upper class Kroger and are right around the corner. ALSO I need to mention that we put both the sherry wine and aged wine vinegar back, thinking that maybe Tom Thumb would carry the aged sherry wine vinegar we needed as well!

We enter Tom Thumb and quickly discover that they do not carry watercress, but decide to ask Customer Service, just in case they had it hidden in the cereal isle or something (we were desperate)! While Adam dealt with Customer Service, I went off to look for my aged sherry wine vinegar, only to discover that they carry the exact same sherry wine and aged wine vinegar as Kroger it is just about $3 more expensive!!! Feeling more than frustrated, I return to where Adam is and of course the watercress wasn't hidden on the cereal isle, they don't carry it either. I told Adam that I no longer think that Tom Thumb is an upper class Kroger...it is just the same store, same stuff, more expensive! We decided we would give Whole Foods and/or Central Market a try. Instead of driving to both and getting the same result as we had with Kroger and Tom Thumb, we called to check first and found out both of the stores carried watercress and they had it in stock. Of course I'm thinking we will just go to Whole Foods, since it is closer than Ft. Worth, but Adam quickly reminds me that the All-Star game is in town and Whole Foods is located right by the stadium and he was not going anywhere near that area of town. I was in complete agreement, and it doesn't hurt that I absolutely love Central Market, so we decide to go there instead! So LONG story short, we find watercress at Central Market, but still no aged sherry wine vinegar. I decide to just get sherry cooking wine and mix it with some white vinegar and use that, because if Central Market doesn't have it then it must be a New York thing and I didn't have the time nor money to make that trip to find it!

Moving right along to the fun stuff...the cooking part!! First you have to take the potatoes and par boil them. This is basically placing your whole potatoes in a pot of cold water, bringing it to a boil and as soon as it starts to boil, removing it from the heat, draining and letting the potatoes cool for a bit. After I was done with letting the potatoes cool, I got to bust out my super cool julienner that Adam got me for Christmas! I have to admit I was standing there about to try and measure and cut my potatoes by hand 1/4 inch thick and Adam reminded me that I now had super cool kitchen gadgets that can do that for me! Thank goodness for him, otherwise I would have been there for hours measuring and cutting potatoes, ugh! With the julienner it was a cinch and the potatoes were done in no time. Although, I must warn you, they are SUPER sticky at this point. After they were all cut and put into a bowl, I tossed them with some olive oil (just enough to coat them all) and salt and pepper (again, just eye ball it) and it was off to the grill. Adam went ahead and lit the grill again for me and placed it against the house so that the horrid wind wouldn't blow my flame out. Not the safest thing to do and I don't recommend it at home, but it was my only option. I think my next invenstment will be an in-door grill like the Neely's use on Food Netword! I carefully and meticulously placed all my potatoes on the grill and waited about 10 minutes before flipping them over and cooking again for another 10 minutes. Note: Since there are different "hot spots" on the grill, you may have to re-arrange some of the potatoes so they all get evenly browned.

While my potatoes were finishing up on the grill I went ahead and combined my sherry wine with my white vinegar to make my aged sherry wine vinegar. I then added my chopped shallot, dijon mustard and 1/2 cup of olive oil to the bowl. While that sat, I chopped my watercress and green onions and set them aside for later. Since I was knee deep in doing all of this, I lost track of time, but luckily Adam had my back and was able to remove my potatoes from the grill for me and bring them inside! Once you have your potatoes grilled you just simply toss it in your vinaigrette mixture of olive oil, shallot, vinegar and mustard and remove them with some tongs and set them aside in a bowl or platter of your choice. Then you take your watercress and green onion and add it to the remaining vinaigrette.After you have everything tossed in your vinaigrette, it's time to crumble your blue cheese. The recipe called for Cabrales blue cheese or Roquefort blue cheese. Kroger didn't carry Cabrales, but luckily had Roquefort on hand. The piece I got was about the size of the palm of my hand and cost $8! So this isn't just any blue cheese we are talking about. The "cheese lady", for lack of a better term, at Kroger informed me that a little bit of this blue cheese goes a long way! I am not really a huge blue cheese fan, so this was the only part of the recipe I was hesitant about. The thought of aged, moldy cheese just doesn't excite me! Luckily the recipe only called for 1/2 of the blue cheese! I crumbled it up and placed it on top of my potatoes (washed my hands, because this stuff was pungent) and then poured my remaining vinaigrette over my potatoes and blue cheese and tossed it all together!

We had these delicious, thick, juicy pork chops that Valerie and Ryan brought over to pair with the potatoe salad and a side green spinach salad, and I must say it was quite the feast! It all not only looked pretty together, but complimented each other quite well in taste. I wasn't a huge fan of this recipe, just because of the blue cheese, but everyone else said they really enjoyed it and even went back for seconds AND thirds! They all promised they weren't just doing it to make me feel good and they genuinely liked it, so I will take their word for it! For dessert (since you HAVE to have dessert on Valentine's) Valerie and Ryan brought over and assortment of candy and m&m cookies...DELICIOUS! So we all just sat around and nibbled on chocolates and watched a movie after dinner! It was the perfect Valentine's Day surrounded by lots of love and laughter!

Recipe Rating: Medium, only because not everyone has a julienner to save time
Good Leftover: My Mom was the only one who tried it left over and said it was good (note: she also ate it cold)
Tip: Never trust Tom Thumb to carry what Kroger doesn't and call ahead to other grocery stores before going on a wild goose chase!
Stay tuned in 2 weeks-Grilled Oysters with Mango Pico de Gallo and Red Chili Horseradish

You can find the Grilled Potato Salad with Watercress, Green Onions & Blue Cheese Vinaigrette recipe here (FYI: The quail wasn't in my recipe book):
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/grilled-potato-salad-with-watercress-green-onions-and-blue-cheese-vinaigrette-recipe/index.html

Holy Guacamole!!

This week was my first recipe with Bobby Flay!!! I was SUPER excited to start on this chapter because Bobby is one of my favorite chefs on Food Network. Even though he is from New York, he still has a Southwest flair to his cooking and usually packs a punch when it comes to his recipes. This is my favorite part, because if you know me, you can not make it TOO hot...that just doesn't exist in my book!

I was looking for an excuse to make this Charred Corn Guacamole recipe, because it isn't a main course and I wanted to be able to make it to take some where for an appetizer instead of having people over like we normally do. So it was perfect when our good friend Lori and Nathan invited us over for a game night at their house! It fell on the weekend I was suppose to make this recipe and there would be about 10-15 people there!! Since I wasn't sure how much the recipe would make, considering portion size in Texas is usually double everywhere else, I went ahead and doubled the recipe to be safe. Better to have too much than too little, right?

Luckily all the ingredients were recognizable and super easy to find at Kroger. Even the avacadoes were good and ripe, for being out of season (FYI-avacado season is in the spring). The first thing I did was get all of my ingredients prepped and prepared when I got home. I started first with finely chopping up my serrano chile. If you aren't familiar with serrano chiles, just think of it this way...compared to a jalapeno, a serrano chile (if it were a man) could lift a VW van and a jalapeno can lift a vespa! So, needless to say you are going to have more heat with a serrano than a jalapeno! Serrano peppers are like a slender jalapeno and as it ages it turns from green to red to yellow. You might have seen these variations at your grocery store! Anyway, I used the green (young) serrano's and it was perfect for a large crowd. It isn't "Brittany" hot, but it still packs a punch and gives the dish some flavor! If you are sensitive to heat and still want the flavor then remove the seeds and that will eliminate some of the heat of the pepper. After chopping and setting aside my serrano chile, I went ahead and finely diced my red onion and cilantro leaves and also set those aside in my bowl.

Next it was on to juicing my lime. Unfortunately, the limes weren't as impressive as the rest of the produce. For some reason, I just HAD to get the hard as a rock lime with no juice!! BUT since I am a Food Network freak, I learned a little trick that some may or may not know about! If you come across a hard lime, just pop it in the microwave for about 15 seconds, roll it on the counter and then cut, WAHLAH...a practically dried up lime becomes this fresh and revived juicy fruit (not the gum)! Also, it helps to have one of those fancy juicer dishes for those of us who don't have a strong grip! Or you can always rely on the strong hands of your husband (or Dad, Brother, someone with man hands that's around) like I do most of the time! Once everything was chopped, squeezed and placed in my bowl it was time to move on to the main star of this dish, the CORN!! First, I must tell everyone I have only grilled one other time in my life and Adam was by my side the entire time. Not sure what it is, but I have always been intimidated by the grill. I guess I just always viewed it as a man's cooking tool and never really wanted to interfere with that. Plus there are many times when I see men missing hair on their face, hands, etc...and there is always a funny grill story to go along with it! I tend to like my eyebrows and didn't want to have to start drawing them on, so I usually leave the grilling to Adam!

Moving along...I had to start by removing just the outer husks from the corn. The husks are the "leafy" parts of the corn and tear away fairly easy. Once the outer husks were removed from my ears of corn, I loosened up the silks without removing them completely (the silks are the stringy, silky looking parts attached to the kernels). I have to admit that I still had Adam light the grill because we are in desperate need of a new grill (it's on the list, don't worry) and he had to do it by hand. As stated above, I wanted to keep my eyebrows so I let him take care of that part! Other than that, he left me to do everything else all by myself (after a quick lesson on all the parts of the grill). I dunked my corn in a bowl of water and placed them all directly on the grill. The recipe calls to leave the corn on the grill about 15min, rotating occasionally. It was a bit windy and cold the day I was making this that I left mine on about 30min, since everytime I would open the grill to rotate the corn all my heat would go out. So don't always go by time on a recipe...go according to your cooking instruments and pay attention to the elements! If it would have been summer time with a small breeze, 15min would have done just fine! Once you see the kernels showing through the husk and you have a nice char on your corn, they are done!!

I brought my corn inside and let it cool a little before I handled it. It isn't pleasant to try and cut corn while it is still hot unless you have no nerves in your hand! Once it was cooled, I carefully removed the remaining husks and silk from the cobs and cut the kernels off using a sharp knife. Make sure you have a sharp knife, otherwise your kernels will look butchered and you'll make a HUGE mess! Once the corn was added in with the rest of my ingredients in my bowl, I went ahead and started on my avacadoes. I didn't cut my avacadoes up with the rest of my ingredients at the beginning because I didn't want them turning brown. Avacadoes are super sensitive and if you cut and mess with them too much they can turn brown and look unappealing really quickly! So, I saved these for last, for a reason! I cut my avacadoes into chunks by first slicing each one in half and CAREFULLY removing the pit. I say carefully since there have been many occasions where I have seen many people, myself included, severely cut themselves while trying to remove those stubborn pits. Once you get the pit removed, take a tablespoon and slide it around the edges and remove the avacado from its skin. Place it flat side down on a cutting board. Then slice it length wise (or hot dog style as I say) and then width wise (or hamburger style) to form the perfect size chunks.

Once everything was in the bowl, I added the final touches of vegetable oil and salt and pepper (to taste). Then I tossed it gently, cleaned up my edges around the bowl and we were off to game night!! Adam and I agreed that it was more like a pico de gallo guacamole instead of the traditional mashed guacamole, we Texans are used to. All-in-all I think my guacamole was a success and everyone enjoyed it (or at least I hope they weren't lying)! A huge thanks to Nathan and Lori for having us over for game night, it was a ton of fun (especially since we won the Newlywed Game, YEA!!).

Recipe Rating: Easy, just chop, grill and pour everything into a big bowl!
Good Leftover: Yes and No, if you scrape off the top to get rid of the brown avacadoes you can probably eat it the next day!
Tip: Instead of eating this like a dip, you can also use it as a fun topper for fajitas, tacos, burritos, chicken, etc...
Stay tuned in 2 weeks-Grilled Potato Salad with Watercress, Green Onions and Blue Cheese Vinaigrette

You can find the Charred Corn Guacamole recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/charred-corn-guacamole-with-chips-recipe/index.html

I Scream, You Scream, We all scream for...Yogurt?

This weeks recipe was bitter-sweet. Bitter because it was my last recipe from Alton Brown! Sweet because my next set of recipes are Bobby Flay!! I love Bobby Flay and am excited to start grilling, which is something I always leave Adam to do. So it will be fun to do new recipes while learning to grill at the same time!

First, before even starting the recipe, I had to find an ice cream maker. I read the recipe before hand (tip learned from previous recipes, ie English Muffins) and realized I needed an ice cream maker and instead of buying one that I would never use, it was my mission to find someone that would let me borrow theirs. My mission was short lived, being that my Mom had one and conveniently she is staying with Adam and I right now! Once I had the basics down, it was off to Kroger to get my ingredients. Luckily, Adam was off work the week of Christmas and was able to go to the store while I was at work and round up everything I needed! My plan was to have the lemon-ginger yogurt on Christmas Day! A break from the normal Holiday treats...something different.

I woke up Christmas morning and first things first, I had to open up all of my gifts from Adam!! I was so excited because I already knew I was getting a Food Processor, something I have wanted for a while! Yes, I'm bad and guess my gifts before the actual day, and Adam is bad and tells me if I'm right or wrong! So after opening all my wonderful kitchen gadgets (garlic chopper-you put the garlic inside this little car looking thing with wheels and roll it on your counter and it chops the garlic for you, cheese grater-one of those big bell looking graters with different grating sections, food processor-self explanatory, julienner-SUPER sharp slicer that makes all sort of fun shapes and MUCH MORE) it was off to start making Christmas lunch/dinner and my frozen yogurt.

First, you must separate the curds from the whey in your yogurt. Basically the curds are the solid particles (the ones you want to keep) and the whey is the liquid that you see when you first open the yogurt, before stirring it. You don't want your whey, because this would hinder your yogurt from becoming a solid and turning into and ice cream-like frozen treat. So you have to use a colander (or splatter screens, which is what I used) lined with cheese cloth, set over a large bowl, so that the whey has something to drip into. After reading the recipe many times, I knew I would have to go through this process, but completely over-looked the fact that this would take 12hrs and it was now 10am!! There was no way I could get this done and have the Frozen Yogurt on Christmas! It seemed as if my plans had been ruined, until I decided to pull out the laptop and watch the actual show Alton Brown did on the recipe to see if JUST MAYBE there was a short-cut. Low and behold, there was! The 12hr time frame is for gravity to naturally pull out the whey from the curds. Well to speed up this process you simply FORCE gravity. I'll explain: You take your cheese cloth-lined colander set over a bowl, spoon the yogurt onto the cheese cloth and fold the cheese cloth over the yogurt to keep it clean and then take a tupperware lid or any kind of flat lid that you have and place it on top. Then you take a soup can or anything that is heavy (but not TOO heavy) on top of the lid and PRESTO you force gravity and instead of waiting 12hrs you cut your time to 4hrs! This was definitely do-able, we would just have yogurt as a late night, after dinner snack!

SIDE NOTE: Make sure you buy yogurt that CONTAINS live and active cultures, not yogurt MADE with live and active cultures. Made with means that they were once live, but are now dead.

So after crossing my first hurdle, it was a waiting game. I just had to let the yogurt sit in the fridge and drain for 4 hrs. I started with a soup can on top of the lid at first and then moved to a ketchup bottle and then to a bag of flour! You could say that I'm not the most patient person in the world!! It worked out great though, because during this 4 hours I was able to spend Christmas with my family, play a few games of farkle and let all the food we had eaten throughout the day settle! Once the whey has separated from your curds your yogurt should be a cream cheese-like texture. You could actually use this as a spread for crackers or add ingredients to make it a cheese ball and it is much healthier than actual cream cheese (just a little extra tid-bit for you people with the New Years resolution to lose weight). I discarded the whey and emptied my yogurt into a medium bowl and threw away my cheese cloth. It was time to start using 1 of my new gadgets...the cheese grater!! Except I used it to grate my lemon zest and ginger instead! If you have never worked with ginger root before, do not be afraid! It was my first time as well and for some reason I heard it was hard to work with, but in fact it was really easy! I just used my vegetable peeler (sorry Angela, I went back to being lazy and didn't use your nifty techniques you showed me with the knife) and peeled away the outer "skin" and then grated 1 tablespoon to add with my yogurt. On top of that I grated 2 teaspoons of fresh lemon zest and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice! It smelled so good already, that I wanted to just stop and devour it then, but knew other people would probably want to enjoy some too. Then you just throw in your corn syrup and sugar and it is prepped and ready for the ice cream maker!

I had never used an ice cream maker, so I enlisted the assistance of my Mom. We put the yogurt in the mixing bowl part and then filled it up with ice-salt-ice-salt...and plugged it in and...NOTHING! It didn't budge an inch, so we fidgeted with it again and plugged it in and....NOTHING! It still wasn't moving, so we fidgeted again and again and this goes on for about 15 minutes until we finally decide that either 1. the yogurt is too thick so the ice cream maker thinks it is done and won't churn or 2. the ice cream maker is broken (which it was bought in 2006, but had only been used once, so we assumed 1. was the safest bet). We came to the conclusion that we were just going to have to churn it by hand. Sounds easy right? NO! It only had about a 1 inch knob on top that you would have to spin for 25minutes (probably longer, since we were doing it by hand and were slower). So feeling defeated, I call Adam into the kitchen and ask him to trade off with my Mom and I on spinning the ice cream maker for about 30 minutes. Adam, determined that he wasn't going to spin a 1in knob for any amount of time says, "WAIT A DAMN MINUTE"!?!?! If you know Adam you can hear him saying this and you are probably laughing right now! He runs off, leaving my Mom and I bewildered as to what is going on and quickly returns with a hammer drill. Thinking, in my head, that he is going to beat the crap out of the machine until it works, he corrects me and shows me that we will use the drill instead of our hands to churn the mixer. I assured him this was exactly why I loved him so much and that he is a genius!! We are still singing his praises for saving us from hand churning the yogurt!!

With the drill in hand, we churned away for 20 minutes and at the end it looked fantastic! It still isn't ready to eat at this point though. I chopped up my crystallized ginger (which is super yummy and SUPER expensive for such a little bottle) and gently folded it into the mixture. I placed it in an air tight container and put it in the freezer for about 2hrs. It was well worth the wait once the 2hrs was up and we were able to try it. By this time it was about 9:00 at night and we were all stuffed from all the food we had eaten that day, but managed to each have a couple scoops of yogurt!

My plan worked out and we were all able to enjoy frozen yogurt on Christmas Day! I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday season and a Happy New Year! Here is to a New Year filled with new recipes!!!

PS: We tested the ice cream maker with water to see if our theory of the yogurt being too thick was right and we were wrong. The poor ice cream maker had sadly just given out from lack of being used! RIP ice cream maker 2006-2009 :(

Recipe Rating: Medium if you have a faulty ice cream maker or want a quick recipe!
Good Leftover: YES! Just like ice cream it will last for a while!
Tip: Think outside of the box when you run into a problem, there is almost always an easier solution than your first thought!!
Stay tuned in 2 weeks-Charred Corn Guacamole with Chips

You can find the Lemon-Ginger Frozen Yogurt recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/good-eats/lemon-ginger-frozen-yogurt-recipe/index.html

Pineapple Up-side Down Cornmeal Cake!!

This recipe was SUPER special, since I was able to make it for Thanksgiving and ALSO that Thanksgiving was spent in Italy this year. Well technically we were in Poland for Thanksgiving, but we improvised and had Thanksgiving dinner 2 days early at my Sister and Brother-in-laws house in Aviano, Italy. We were on vacation for 2 weeks and were able to spend time with family and travel Europe and taste ALL kinds of delicious food! More about that later, though.

My recipe for this week was Pineapple Up-side down cornmeal cake, BREATH, whew that is a long name! I love pineapple and love cake even more, so I knew right away that I would love this recipe! I had to multi-task while making this recipe because at the same time I was helping Angela with our Thanksgiving feast! So I'll leave out all the parts where I stopped to make greenbean casserole and Angela giving me a crash course on how to peel vegetables with a knife instead of a peeler (I'm spoiled)!

First thing to do was to place the milk in a microwave-proof dish and bring it to a boil. Let me just say that European microwaves are weird! You have to turn them off, otherwise when you open the door they keep going! Anyway, once your milk starts boiling you add in the cornmeal and let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. This was helpful since, as said above, I was helping with other dishes for our feast that evening. Once I was done with my other duties, though, I took the butter and melted it in a cast iron skillet over the stove. Once the butter was melted I added in my brown sugar. NOW here is the part that tripped me up! The recipe says wait for the sugar to dissolve (about 5 minutes). Well I waited and was expecting the sugar to completely dissolve and become a syrup...which didn't happen! So I thought I would leave it a little longer and maybe it would dissolve. NO, it didn't happen...all the sudden Angela and I start smelling this awful burning smell and yes you guessed it, I burned the sugar! Who burns sugar?? That's almost like burning water!! Anyway, I burned the sugar and it was hell trying to get it off the cast iron skillet, but it worked and luckily I had the PERFECT amount of brown sugar left to start over. Funny enough, when I was done with the first batch I almost threw the brown sugar away because there wasn't much left. Thank goodness I didn't because I needed every little granule that was left!

Round 2, I was much luckier and realized that brown sugar doesn't dissolve like white sugar. It will be a little bit thicker consistancy. Just be sure to look out for this if you attempt this recipe! After you perfect your sugar mixture, just remove the cast iron skillet from the heat and now the decorative part comes in! I placed 1 slice of pineapple in the center of the pan and then around that placed the other 5 slices to make a pretty flower pattern. Then in each of the pineapple circles, I put a maraschino cherry perfectly in the middle. OF COURSE I had to taste test the pineapple and cherries just to make sure they were edible for everyone else! This is HIGHLY recommended when making this recipe. After you make your pretty "flower", you take 1/3 of a cup of chopped pecans and sprinkle it like fairy dust on top of the pineapple, sugar, cherry-yummy goodness! Then if that wasn't good enough, you take 3 T of your pineapple juice and drizzle it all over to top it off.

I let my pretty flower pattern sit while I sifted, in a separate bowl, my flour, baking powder, and salt. If you don't have a sifter handy, just whisk through it really good to combine everything and get any lumps out. In another bowl (yes there are a LOT of bowls in the recipe which bro-in-law Jason can attest too. He did the dishes that night...Sorry Jason) I whisked my eggs together. Before I continue, make sure your egg bowl is a big one because this is the bowl that you use to combine all your other bowls together in. Continuing along, to the eggs I added the sugar and incorporated that in fully, then it was time for the canola oil to join the party! After that the cornmeal and milk mixture (the FIRST bowl I made in the microwave and let sit) gets into the mix of things. By this time your arm MIGHT be tired, but you aren't quite done whisking yet! Add all of the "party" bowl to your flour bowl and whisk away!!! It's ok if there are lumps, you just want to make sure to combine everything.

Once everyone had joined the party in 1 bowl, I poured the mixture into the skillet on top of my pretty flower pattern and into the oven it went. You bake it at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes. Once I removed it from the oven, it was really hard, but I had to let it sit for 30 minutes before trying to flip it over (hence the name pineapple upside-down cornmeal cake). At the end of 30 minutes though, I have to admit, I was a little nervous to try and flip the cake. I am not the most coordinated person in the world, so Adam was there to save the day! He flipped the cake flawlessly onto the platter and all the yummy buttery sugar ooey-gooey stuff ran over the top of the cake and it looked beautiful!

It was the perfect ending, along with pumpkin pie, to the most perfect Thanksgiving I have ever had! Angela made the best turkey I have ever eaten and we had every side you could ever think of! We were all stuffed and happy at the end of the night!

*As a special treat I will post pictures of some of the food we experienced while in Europe!! Buon Appetito!!

Recipe Rating: Easy
Good Leftover: Yes, just be sure to cover with saran wrap, so it doesn't dry out
Tip: Beware of hot cast iron skillet! It can be super dangerous, so have oven mits handy at all times!
Stay tuned in 2 weeks- Lemon-Ginger Frozen Yogurt

You can find the Pineapple upside-down cornmeal cake recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/pineapple-upside-down-cornmeal-cake-recipe/index.html

No cow in this pie!

This week I did things a little differently. Instead of making it on Sunday night, I did the recipe on Thursday. The reason I did this was because Adam and I were leaving to go out of the country and were going to be gone on Thanksgiving. My Dad and Glenda invited us over for dinner to celebrate early, so I figured it was the perfect time to make my moo-less chocolate pie.

This pie scared me a little bit at the beginning when I read it was made from tofu. I've never had tofu, but have heard some stories that weren't so pleasant about tofu. BUT this is all about making and trying new things, so I pushed my way through it. (FYI the enter is for you Ang and J...shoutout!). So first I started with a metal mixing bowl over a saucepan with simmering water in it (in essence a homemade double boiler) and melted the chocolate chips and kahlua together. I really wanted to stop here and just eat the melted chocolate and Kahlua, but didn't think everyone else would appreciate eating pie crust for dessert. Once the chocolate was melted down I added in 1t of vanilla and stirred it all together. Quickly (so the choc. didn't harden) I placed the rest of the ingredients in a blender, silken tofu & 1T of honey. Make sure you empty the water out of the tofu before you place it in the blender. After this, I placed the melted chocolate mixture in the blender with the tofu and honey and blended everything together until it was creamy.

Instead of making the pie crust this recipe called for pre-made chocolate wafer crust. I had only ever heard of vanilla wafers so had no clue where to find a chocolate wafer crust. I looked up and down the cookie isle to see if chocolate wafers even existed. I found the chocolate sugar wafers, but no chocolate cookie wafers. I then made my way over to the pie crust isle and found a chocolate cookie pie crust and just convinced myself this is what the recipe meant by chocolate wafer crust. So once the mixture was creamy I simply poured it into the pre-made pie crust and made the journey to my Dad's house.

Once we got there, I placed the pie in the fridge and it calls for it to sit 2 hours in the fridge. This was perfect because it gave us time to eat and chat before we had dessert. Glenda and Dad made the perfect meal! We had chicken parmesan, zucchini wth a tomatoe sauce, mashed potaoes and rolls. It was the perfect pre-Thanksgiving meal!

We pulled the pie out of the fridge and my Dad and Adam has the first pieces. I was a little worried because no one was saying anything at first. It seemed like an eternity but finally they all assured me it was delicious. Believe it or not Adam, who doesn't even like sweets, said that this was his favorite recipe I have made from the book to date. So sorry Pressure Cooker Chili, you got trumped! Everyone said it tasted almost like a chocolate mousse and agreed it would be best paired with a cup of coffee. A huge thanks to Dad and Glenda for having us over and agreeing to try tofu pie!!

I will definitely be making this pie again! I might not tell people prior to eating what ALL the ingredents are, but hopefully after trying it and me letting them know it is healthy for them, they will have more of an open mind when it comes to unconventional ingredients.

Recipe Rating: SUPER Easy
Good Leftover: Great, but make sure to cover with saran wrap overnight so it doesn't dry out.
Tip: Have a cup of hot joe at hand when eating, because this pie is RICH!
Stay tuned in 2 weeks- Pineapple Upside-Down Cornmeal cake

You can find the Moo-less Chocolate Pie recipe here:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipe/alton-brown/moo-less-chocolate-pie-recipe/index.html

English Muffins

This week was a little different because instead of an entree, I had a breakfast recipe to tackle. I have to admit this was my least favorite recipe I have done so far! I prefer a recipe that is a little more complex and has a few more working pieces, I'll get to that shortly and you'll understand why. So this past weekend was Halloween and we were having a Halloween party as well as some friends come into town. So I figured why not have this weeks recipe on Saturday morning instead of the morning after Halloween when we are all tired and just want to sleep in. So that is what we did! One of my best friends Brittney, her 2 girls and her Sister A'Lisha and her boyfriend all came into town Friday night and stayed the weekend with us. It worked out perfectly because Brittney lives about 2hrs away and has wanted to be a part of one of my recipes! This time I went to Wal-Mart Neighborhood Store instead of Kroger, since we were having a party and I could just get everything there for a little bit cheaper than Kroger. So I woke up on Saturday morning ready to get started and I wasn't as prepared for this recipe as I thought I was. Usually I'll sit down the day before and read through the recipe just making sure I understand everything and have everything I need. I just skimmed through it this time because I had so many other things going on at the time. BIG MISTAKE! Come to find out, the recipe calls for metal rings to pour your batter in on the griddle to make sure it keeps its round shape and plumps up all pretty. It gives you a tip to use a tuna can and just clean it out and cut the tops and bottoms off for a do-it-yourself metal ring. So I bought 1 tuna can and the first problem I ran in to is that I didn't read closely enough that the tuna can needs to have a flat, crimped top and bottom. So, luckily I have an innovative husband and he pulled out his knife and was able to cut the bottom off my tuna can. Whew, so problem solved right? NO! Next I start reading and see that each muffin takes 5-6 minutes on EACH side to cook. So do the math...I had 5 people staying with me plus Adam and I, so a total of 7 people times 11minutes and if each person had 2 muffins and I only had 1 tuna can well I would be in the kitchen for a VERY long time making english muffins. So, on to innovation number 2...my Aunt sends home from Alabama every time my Mom goes and visits, cans of fresh green beans, tomatoes, etc...in those mason jars with the pop tops and the rings that screw on around them. I decide to use these tiny little rings and we can just deal with mini and regular sized english muffins. Of course looking back, I should have 1. thoroughly read the recipe before beginning or 2. instead of getting tuna cans, just have bought round metal rings! It was ok though, it made the meal a little more interesting and is a funny story to tell...now. Once we figured out the ring situation, it was time to start actually making the muffins. First I combined my powdered milk (which I have never even noticed at the store before), sugar, shortening and hot water with 1/2t salt and stirred until the sugar and salt were dissolved and then I set this aside to cool. While this was cooling, in a separate bowl I mixed my 1 envelope of yeast (Ok, funny story is that I was thinking how is an envelope a measurement? Am I going to have to buy an envelope, this is confusing? No worries though the packages the yeast come in are "envelopes". It was my "blonde" cooking moment) with 1/8t sugar (I STILL don't understand the point of having 1/8 of anything) and warm water. Then you also have to set this aside until the yeast dissolves, about 10 minutes. Sounds super exciting huh? So far you just mix and set things aside! Once the yeast was dissolved I poured it in with the powdered milk mixture. Then in a THIRD bowl I sifted my 2C of flour and added this into the party with the rest of the ingredients. My favorite part was what came next, I got to BEAT it with a wooden spoon until I got all the lumps out! It was a great stress reliever to say the least!! After that you just cover the bowl and let it rest in a warm spot for 30 minutes. During this time I got my griddle out and heated it up to 300 degrees. I placed my metal rings on the griddle, sprayed them with good old Pam, and learned a valuable lesson that you DO NOT touch anything metal if it is placed on something that is 300 degrees! I already knew this, I just think that Murphey's Law was in FULL effect during this recipe. So anyway, once my griddle was heated and my mixture had set I added the remaining 1/2t salt and got to beat it again, FUN!! Then I took an ice cream scoop and dipped out 2 scoops for my tuna can and 1 scoop for my mason jar rings and then covered with a cookie sheet and pot lid and then I waited for 5-6 minutes and flipped the rings and mixture over with tongs and let it cook on the opposite side for another 5-6minutes. You just repeat this process until all your mixture is gone. You might want to re-spray your Pam on your rings after the first few you make. This lasted for about 45 minutes until I was completely done with the mixture! Needless to say I only got 1 picture of the girls enjoying their English muffins, because everyone ate at scattered times. Luckily I had wonderful sous chefs and Adam made yummy sausage patties and Brittney made fried (over easy) eggs. So we had runny, yummy, English muffins. Brittney did say it was the kind of food you want to eat in private because you felt so savage due to how messy it was! We all had a good time, I survived my burns (yes plural, I decided to touch the metal pot lid, cookie sheet and rings not once or twice but 3 times! UGH!) and everyone either lied to me because they felt sorry for everything I went through that morning or they really did enjoy the English muffins! Brittney's girls assured me that their "pancakes" were yummy too. They are too cute! Either way, I thought they were good, but this type of recipe as simple as it may be is not my forte at all! I just hope I didn't scare Brittney and her girls away and they'll come back for another recipe sometime!

Recipe Rating: Easy
Good Leftover: Not sure, we didn't have any left. I'm sure they would be though!
Tip: Read any recipe before starting, THOROUGHLY and NEVER touch hot metal!
Stay tuned in 2 weeks- Moo-Less Chocolate Pie

You can find the English Muffin recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/english-muffins-recipe/index.html