Tonight...we hit up the Cheesecake Factory.
I haven't eaten that much in a long time. Ugh. I think I'll be full straight through tomorrow. We started with the fried calamari, which was pretty standard as far as calamari goes (read: delicious). Next we moved on to share a Four Seasons pizza...ah-mazing. It's basically four pizzas in one: artichoke and roasted tomato, prosciutto, wild mushroom, and fresh mozzerella and tomato. When you can't decide...it's the best of both, and then both again, worlds. :) Top it all off with a slice of white chocolate raspberry truffle cheesecake (I'm gonna have to break out the sham-wow to mop up the drool puddle) and you have one heck of a dinner.
Tomorrow...bring on the Old Spaghetti Factory.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Did You Save Room for Dessert?
That question haunts me at restaurants...Do I want dessert? Yes. Did I save room for dessert? No.
Well tonight I hope you have saved room for dessert! I had never made cupcakes from scratch before and these weren't perfect but they were still mighty tasty. Check out this Classic Vanilla Cupcake recipe I found on cooks.com! I added a shake of cinnamon (a little overly generous but it worked). Felt a little odd to make the cupcakes from scratch and then top them with a can of store bought icing since I already know how to make icing but eh, what's a girl to do? ;)
Have you ever made cupcakes from scratch? Have any suggestions or recipes to share? I'd love to hear from you!
Well tonight I hope you have saved room for dessert! I had never made cupcakes from scratch before and these weren't perfect but they were still mighty tasty. Check out this Classic Vanilla Cupcake recipe I found on cooks.com! I added a shake of cinnamon (a little overly generous but it worked). Felt a little odd to make the cupcakes from scratch and then top them with a can of store bought icing since I already know how to make icing but eh, what's a girl to do? ;)
Have you ever made cupcakes from scratch? Have any suggestions or recipes to share? I'd love to hear from you!
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Cinco de Mayo!
I love me some Mexican food so naturally I love me some Cinco de Mayo. I've tried out Hacienda on this momentous occasion but it has proven to be way too crowded for me...and I'm sure they had a heck of a day today with the weather as gorgeous as it was.
Instead, we stayed in tonight and made quesadillas with Homemade Gourmet's Black Bean Salsa. Oh yum yum yum...I bet if you found another really good black bean salsa (or other chunky salsa) you could make these like that. All you have to do is slap some Mexican cheese blend, a few heaping spoonfuls of salsa and some grilled chicken (or not) between two tortillas and there ya go. You can make it work in a frying pan but if you have a quesadilla maker like I do it's even better. Give it a try next time you've got a hankering for some quesadillas...I promsie you won't be disappointed!
Instead, we stayed in tonight and made quesadillas with Homemade Gourmet's Black Bean Salsa. Oh yum yum yum...I bet if you found another really good black bean salsa (or other chunky salsa) you could make these like that. All you have to do is slap some Mexican cheese blend, a few heaping spoonfuls of salsa and some grilled chicken (or not) between two tortillas and there ya go. You can make it work in a frying pan but if you have a quesadilla maker like I do it's even better. Give it a try next time you've got a hankering for some quesadillas...I promsie you won't be disappointed!
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Sloppy Joes...Slop, Sloppy Joes
Time for some serious comfort food, folks. I saw the Pioneer Woman's recent post about sloppy joes and it inspired me to create a combo recipe between her amazing one and the items available to me in my fridge and pantry. First, allow me to be totally honest...had I had everything in my pantry to make it Ree's way, I totally would have. So here's how it went...
Extra Sloppy Sloppy Joes
1 lb. extra lean ground beef
4 oz. diced green chilies
minced garlic
chopped onion
3/4 c. ketchup
1/4 c. chili sauce
1 Tbls. chili powder
1/4 tsp. dry mustard
1/3 c. water
2 shakes worstershire sauce
1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 Tbls. brown sugar
Super easy folks...brown the meat, add the rest, simmer and devour.
Does it get any better than that on the fourth night of Blogathon 2010?
Extra Sloppy Sloppy Joes
1 lb. extra lean ground beef
4 oz. diced green chilies
minced garlic
chopped onion
3/4 c. ketchup
1/4 c. chili sauce
1 Tbls. chili powder
1/4 tsp. dry mustard
1/3 c. water
2 shakes worstershire sauce
1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 Tbls. brown sugar
Super easy folks...brown the meat, add the rest, simmer and devour.
Does it get any better than that on the fourth night of Blogathon 2010?
Monday, May 3, 2010
The Whole Wheat Craze Continues...
Perhaps you will recall a few weeks back when I posted about the Mixed Berry Whole Grain Coffee Cake. Remember? It's the only thing I posted in April? Sheesh...seriously what was I doing all last month?! Well that was delicious...and it caused me to purchase a bag of whole wheat flour so lately I have been looking for ways to use the rest of it. Lucky for my hubby, I got the idea to make pancakes with it a couple weekends ago so I got to work looking up various whole wheat pancake recipes.
This particular recipe on Cooks.com caught my eye first...Quick Mix Whole Wheat Pancakes. I like quick. I gave it a whirl on a Saturday morning, then ate them again on Sunday and Monday when we realized how many pancakes it made. Not that it was a bad thing to have so many pancakes, but I was done with them after Sunday. These pancakes were ok. Yes, just ok. We spread apple butter all over them which was delicious but they were pretty heavy and the texture was borderline strange. Needless to say, I was disappointed.
This past weekend, I was again thinking about whole wheat pancakes. I knew I could do better than that past recipe so I thought back to the things that were so good about that coffee cake from Easter. Mmmm...mixed berries. Would have made a good topping but I didn't have any and it wouldn't have helped the actual pancake itself. Next...mmmm...oats. I like oats in cookies and coffee cakes but I wasn't really sure what to do with them as far as pancakes go. Scratch that. Then I remembered that the coffee cake used half whole wheat flour and half "regular" white flour. Hmm...now we might be on to something. I got back to my research to try to find a recipe that used this flour blend and found a handful. I settled on this one but decided to cut it in half.
Favorite Whole Wheat Pancakes (How can you not like something with "favorite" in the title?)
Then I realized we were out of milk...doh! Well, water it is. So here's exactly what went into my bowl and, eventually, onto my griddle.
3/4 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. all purpose flour
1 Tbls. baking powder
1 Tbls. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 beaten egg
1 1/8 c. water (instead of low fat milk)
1/8 c. vegetable oil
Preheat griddle to 350 degrees. Pour 1/3 cup batter onto griddle for each pancake. Cook until bubbles form on surface, check to see if golden on underside and then flip. Cook until golden on both sides. Makes 6-8 pancakes.
These were SO much better than the first recipe. We straight up ate these bad boys with syrup and they were tasty, tasty, tasty. I would definitely make them again...maybe with milk...but they were great with just water so I'd be tempted not to mess with em. We'll see how that goes.
While we're on the topic of pancakes...do you have an electric griddle? You should...even if you ONLY use it for pancakes. (I occasionally break mine out for bacon or other goodies but most often it's for pancakes.) I happen to own the Presto Cool Touch Electric Skillet which I purchased at Kohl's the day after Thanksgiving two years ago for $10. Gotta love those Black Friday specials right?
This particular recipe on Cooks.com caught my eye first...Quick Mix Whole Wheat Pancakes. I like quick. I gave it a whirl on a Saturday morning, then ate them again on Sunday and Monday when we realized how many pancakes it made. Not that it was a bad thing to have so many pancakes, but I was done with them after Sunday. These pancakes were ok. Yes, just ok. We spread apple butter all over them which was delicious but they were pretty heavy and the texture was borderline strange. Needless to say, I was disappointed.
This past weekend, I was again thinking about whole wheat pancakes. I knew I could do better than that past recipe so I thought back to the things that were so good about that coffee cake from Easter. Mmmm...mixed berries. Would have made a good topping but I didn't have any and it wouldn't have helped the actual pancake itself. Next...mmmm...oats. I like oats in cookies and coffee cakes but I wasn't really sure what to do with them as far as pancakes go. Scratch that. Then I remembered that the coffee cake used half whole wheat flour and half "regular" white flour. Hmm...now we might be on to something. I got back to my research to try to find a recipe that used this flour blend and found a handful. I settled on this one but decided to cut it in half.
Favorite Whole Wheat Pancakes (How can you not like something with "favorite" in the title?)
Then I realized we were out of milk...doh! Well, water it is. So here's exactly what went into my bowl and, eventually, onto my griddle.
3/4 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. all purpose flour
1 Tbls. baking powder
1 Tbls. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 beaten egg
1 1/8 c. water (instead of low fat milk)
1/8 c. vegetable oil
Preheat griddle to 350 degrees. Pour 1/3 cup batter onto griddle for each pancake. Cook until bubbles form on surface, check to see if golden on underside and then flip. Cook until golden on both sides. Makes 6-8 pancakes.
These were SO much better than the first recipe. We straight up ate these bad boys with syrup and they were tasty, tasty, tasty. I would definitely make them again...maybe with milk...but they were great with just water so I'd be tempted not to mess with em. We'll see how that goes.
While we're on the topic of pancakes...do you have an electric griddle? You should...even if you ONLY use it for pancakes. (I occasionally break mine out for bacon or other goodies but most often it's for pancakes.) I happen to own the Presto Cool Touch Electric Skillet which I purchased at Kohl's the day after Thanksgiving two years ago for $10. Gotta love those Black Friday specials right?
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Mouthwatering Marinade
I've been saving this marinade I found on http://www.simplyrecipes.com/ for a couple weeks so I'm excited to have the blogathon to push me along to finally share it with you!
We made this flank steak on a Friday night for a special dinner with friends with some roasted asparagus and big ole' baked potatoes...it really was a treat and we love to grill so it was super easy. One thing I will note is to make sure you follow the marinating directions and score the outside of your steak to make sure the marinade can penetrate the steak even better.
Here's a link to the recipe.
Grilled Marinated Flank Steak
For once in my life, I actually stuck to the recipe! Feel free to experiment if there's something you don't have or something you don't particularly care for, though.
Stay tuned for more delicious recipes to come later this week...vanilla and cinnamon cupcakes, super sloppy joes, delicious and healthy whole wheat pancakes! Help me keep up with the blogathon! If you have any suggestions (or Ask Lauren questions) I'd love for you to leave a comment below!
We made this flank steak on a Friday night for a special dinner with friends with some roasted asparagus and big ole' baked potatoes...it really was a treat and we love to grill so it was super easy. One thing I will note is to make sure you follow the marinating directions and score the outside of your steak to make sure the marinade can penetrate the steak even better.
Here's a link to the recipe.
Grilled Marinated Flank Steak
For once in my life, I actually stuck to the recipe! Feel free to experiment if there's something you don't have or something you don't particularly care for, though.
Stay tuned for more delicious recipes to come later this week...vanilla and cinnamon cupcakes, super sloppy joes, delicious and healthy whole wheat pancakes! Help me keep up with the blogathon! If you have any suggestions (or Ask Lauren questions) I'd love for you to leave a comment below!
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Blogathon 2010
I just heard about May being a "blogathon month" meaning you sign up to "pledge" to post on your blog every day for a month. I'm not officially signed up (I'm lazy like that) but I figured I could give it an "unofficial" try. (Have I used quotation marks enough yet?)
So here goes nothing...31 blog posts in 31 days...can your google reader handle that? I don't think it's ready for this jelly. Mmmm...jelly. Oh, yes, where was I...
I thought it might be fun to start off the month with a theme day so Saturdays this month will be my "Top Five" days. Why five you ask? Why not ten? Most times you see a top ten. It's simple really, coming up with my top ten anything would take me forever. I give you...my first top five...
Top Five St. Louis Patios
5. Llywellyn's CWE location (lots of shady trees for those afternoon happy hours)
4. Growler's Sunset Hills location (might rank higher if there wasn't always a crazy wait for a table)
3. Tucker's Place (partially cause it's so close to my house but the frosty mugs are a nice touch)
2. Schlafly Bottleworks (live music, great food and beer...fantastic combination)
but I think my favorite patio to sit on would have to be (and I've only been there once...what a shame)
1. The Vine on Main (Can't beat two patios, one in front for Main Street views and one out back with occasional live music...love it)
See you all tomorrow with some recipes!
So here goes nothing...31 blog posts in 31 days...can your google reader handle that? I don't think it's ready for this jelly. Mmmm...jelly. Oh, yes, where was I...
I thought it might be fun to start off the month with a theme day so Saturdays this month will be my "Top Five" days. Why five you ask? Why not ten? Most times you see a top ten. It's simple really, coming up with my top ten anything would take me forever. I give you...my first top five...
Top Five St. Louis Patios
5. Llywellyn's CWE location (lots of shady trees for those afternoon happy hours)
4. Growler's Sunset Hills location (might rank higher if there wasn't always a crazy wait for a table)
3. Tucker's Place (partially cause it's so close to my house but the frosty mugs are a nice touch)
2. Schlafly Bottleworks (live music, great food and beer...fantastic combination)
but I think my favorite patio to sit on would have to be (and I've only been there once...what a shame)
1. The Vine on Main (Can't beat two patios, one in front for Main Street views and one out back with occasional live music...love it)
See you all tomorrow with some recipes!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)