Browsing Tag

yum

Food, Savory

Burger Love – Kick up the spice

It’s getting cold out. Evidence is the ice I had to scrap off my car’s windshield this morning. My solution: cook something spicy and perhaps warm my insides.

Off to the Franks Red Hot and the jalepenos then. Fresh picked jalepenos from my friend’s garden at that.

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In a bowl I mixed diced green peppers, jalepenos, onions, hot sauce, cayenne pepper, and black pepper.

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I also took some onion and carmelized it. Toasted some bread, smeared it with avacado and places my cooked up burgers. Topped with some cheddar and its delicious.

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Maybe that will warm me up a bit.

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Food, Savory

Birthday Stromboli

Okay, so stromboli is not just for birthdays. It just so happens that my mom and I used to make it a lot and I thought, for her birthday, that it might be nice to make it for her again. I may have traveled 1,300 miles to celebrate with her. Anyway, back to the stromboli. Unlike a calzone, I do NOT put pizza sauce in, nor do I put tomato in it at all. Sooo, with that said, I opted to make my famed stromboli. nom nom

Gathered troops. Note the onion, green pepper, mushrooms, shaved beef from the deli, and american cheese. There’s pizza dough involved as well.

First of all, you must get the oven preheated to 350. While that’s getting all nice and toasty, get a frying pan going with some olive oil. In that, cook up some diced green pepper and slices of onion. Cook it through on medium until the onion is cooked through. I added a half pound of the shaved beef to the pan and kicked up the heat a hair to get the pan hot.

While I had been handed a glass of Moscato wine (that’s a sweet white wine), before I took a sip, I may have dropped a few drops into the pan to keep the meat moist. When that cooked off a bit, I was dropping in the mushrooms. Cooked those through.

Cookin’ up some goodness.

Then I went looking for a rolling pin to roll out the dough. But, being at my mom’s house, a normal rolling pin wouldn’t exactly be found in her kitchen. So I found this random beauty in a drawer…

What kind of rolling pin is this??

It looks like some sort of weird futuristic kitchen device. Why do you need two ends to a rolling thingy?

Anyway, I layered on some American cheese and then started scooping on the filling.

Filling it up!

I may have gone overboard and overfilled it, but I pulled the dough over and then cut a few little holes in the top of the dough to let it breathe. Bake for 25 minutes or until the top is browned.

Will be super hot when it comes out. As much as you want to eat it now, let it cool for 8 minutes.

I wanted to eat the whole thing myself. That’s probably a bad idea.

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Food

The Ultimate Anti-Kid Food, But Yum

I have recently found my newest favorite show on Netflix: Mob Wives. I don’t know if it’s the mob theme, the Italian-Americans, or the drama. I would love to go shopping with these ladies, though. Seemingly unlimited funds and they get to eat out all the time. My dream life, but take out the murdering families and all. Also, I’d prefer just a hair less drama in my life.

Anyway, after I was watching a few episodes, I headed to the supermarket to continue my new veggie friendly menu. I ended up grabbing some brussel sprouts – yes, you heard that right – to have with dinner.

Preheat the oven to 350. I don’t usually cut the brussel sprouts in half, but it would probably cut down the cooking time. Toss the veggies in some olive oil, ground black pepper, salt, and garlic powder to coat. Bake for 35 minutes, or until cooked through. The outside will get a little crispy, and that’s probably the best part of this dish.

 

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Food, Sweet

Peanut Butter Cheesecake Bites

So I was offered up the proposal to either go to the gym and work out, or stay at home, drink wine, and make dessert. Take one guess what I opted to do.

It tastes way better than it looks, I promise.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
3/4 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup  chocolate chips
1 tablespoon creamy peanut butter
2 pkgs. (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened (I used one regular and one reduced fat package)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 325. (At this point, we opened a bottle of wine, best decision of the night). However, you should probably combine the graham cracker crumbs, butter, and 1/4 cup of sugar. Put 1/2 cup of the mixture on the side, press the rest into the bottom of the baking pan. I used a 9 x 13 inch pan (the beauty that I use to make my awesome lasagna.)

Making the crumby base.

Then we proceeded to mix in another bowl the following: softened cream cheese, rest of the sugar, flour, and vanilla extract.  Add eggs one at a time, mix until smooth. We didn’t have an electric mixer, so it took a while. But the workout is worth it. Beat in the peanut butter and fold in the chocolate chips. Pour in baking dish, crumble the rest of the graham cracker mix on the top of the cream cheese mixture.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until set. Let cool, then refrigerate. Believe me, it was delicious. And let it cool, because we didn’t at first (because we were so eager to eat it), that it wasn’t as good as it was cool.

Yum!

Yum, yum!

I sprinkled a bit of sugar on top of the bars after I cut them. Gave them a bit of an extra bite.

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