The Anytime Dish

Breakfast? Brunch? Snack? Really, I would eat this any time of day for any occasion. If you go in any remotely healthy restaurants you can usually find a fruit and granola cup, and it's something you can't go very wrong with. You can make it as light or as rich as you want, but it's always satisfying and sweet (and healthy)!

Here, I used fresh strawberries, blueberries and a banana, with the additions of Nature Valley Maple Brown Sugar granola bars crunched up, some honey, and about half a cup of Stoneyfield Farms Organic Whole Milk Vanilla Yogurt. The recipe is entirely flexible depending on one's personal tastes, but I like this combination best.

My favorite restaurant in town, Melanie's Food Fantasy, has a dish nearly identical to this. The only difference is my addition of blueberries, subtraction of orange slices for a garnish, and the fact that their granola is soft and chewy as compared to the crunchy kind I used. When I go there I usually make it a meal by ordering the vegan biscuits and gravy alongside (note to self: beg them for that recipe) or an egg and cheese biscuit. However, when I'm at home and lacking biscuit resources like today, I do something as simple as cheese toast. That way you get your salty and sweet and still remain in a similar breakfast-y realm.

I've been really lazy about posting here. I'm going to make an effort to photograph my food more! I've made very good things that have been worthy of photographs but have been too lazy to just take the picture. Now that's lazy, eh?

Blueberry Scones

If you ask me, there's hardly anything better than a scone (with the exception of chocolate, of course)! This came from a box mix called Garvey's Best of Britain Traditional Scone Mix, which I got as a Christmas gift. I added about 3/4 cup of fresh blueberries to the mix and followed the rest of the directions as on the box. EXCEPT I think I may have needed to add sugar at some point and neglected to do that, the results of which proved quite fine because I don't like sickly sweet scones. Besides, the glaze I added on top made up for the lack of sweetness in the scone itself. Since they're not too sweet they'd probably do well with some yogurt or cream and the addition of more fruit. I can't wait to eat this for breakfast!

Not So Nutritious, But Oh So Delicious.

This was my first time making key lime pie and I used THIS RECIPE. Instead of adding whipped cream as a garnish I made some white chocolate "mousse" which I think I did incorrectly and it turned out more like whipped cream, but insanely better. I found that recipe HERE. The pie was very tart so it definitely needed the super-sweetness of the mousse. The flavors balanced each other out nicely and even though I don't have as beautiful results as the original poster of the recipe, it's still tastes amazing! Oh, and I just used a Harris Teeter pre-made crust because I am lazy-- I still say it's good.

There's no velvet like Red Velvet.

I used this great mix from Sprinkles Cupcakes that I bought at a Williams Sonoma store recently, and I was really happy with how they turned out. The batter was really rich and darker from the usual pop-red of red velvet mixes, but I liked it because it includes cocoa powder in the mix. I think chocolate always contributes to better flavor! The recipe for the cream cheese icing also made some super-fabulous icing, and lots of it. I skipped using their "modern dots" that came with the kit because I'm not the best icer-of-cupcakes. But the flavor is so good -- who cares what it looks like? Mmm cupcakes!

More edibles!

Derek and I made some very delicious dark chocolate truffles using Ghiradelli chocolate and some Peppermint flavoring for half of them. Mmm. The recipe I used can be found here.



Tonight I made some pesto cream sauce using this recipe and the leftover heavy cream from the truffles, and boy oh boy was it ever good! I grilled some vegetables on my trusty ol' George Foreman and voila-- a delectable dinner!

Failed, but in a good way.

I made these muffins with the intention of following the recipe below, but when I realized my butter wasn't melted enough and I'd already dumped all the berries in, I had to resort to using an electric mixer to thoroughly blend the batter. I was worried at first but it wound up giving them a really cool violet color on the tops and insides. Not quite as beautiful and moist as I'd hoped, but fluffy and berry-flavored all the same! I wound up adding some white princess icing to some of them and that really improved the overall quality quite a bit.

So hooray for happy mistakes!

THE RECIPE, credit to Nook & Pantry.

The Kristen & Emily Cake

My friend Kristen and I made this cake, whose recipe is originally by Martha Stewart (recipe here). We made some edits, such as not doing any of the "topping" recipe, and adding a "goo" above the berries (a cream, if you will) that was made using this recipe. Also, we baked it in a large rectangular pan (not sure about the dimensions, but large!) since neither of us owned a round pan with a removable bottom and hole in the middle.

It made for a very moist, crumbly and delicious cake! Hooray!

The Quest for a Simply Delicious Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie

I found what I thought to be a good recipe for a chewy chocolate chip cookie, and boy was it ever! Not a lot of butter involved, easy and quick. I changed a few things about the recipe to suit my own needs and voila! Deliciousness was born. I think the greatness was partially due to the use of Ghirardelli chocolate chips (60% cocoa) instead of your plain-old store-bought brand. They were good warm, but I think even better cold once they had the chance to actually become chewy.

Chocolate Chip Cookies (with a hint of Chai spice)
an edited version of this recipe - Makes 14 medium-sized cookies

* 2 ounces (1/2 stick) unsalted butter (softened)
* 6 tablespoons white sugar
* 3 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
* 3 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 or 1.5 teaspoons chai spice (I used David Rio Fine Teas Masala Chai)
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 1 large egg
* 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 3/4 cup to 1 cup (6 ounces) chocolate chunks or chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. (My oven bakes very hot, so I set mine to 325 right before I put them in the oven.)
2. In a medium bowl and using an electric mixer, beat the butter, sugars, salt, chai spice* and vanilla until well combined. Beat in the egg until entirely combined.
3. Sift together flour and baking soda. Add this to the wet mixture and mix on low speed until absorbed. Stir chocolate chunks into the dough.
4. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper or aluminum foil. (I used non-stick spray on my aluminum foil.) Shape the dough into 1 1/2 inch balls and drop them about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until edges are golden. Let sit for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

*Note: I could stand to have added another couple of teaspoons of the Chai spice if I really wanted to taste it. I could only very faintly detect it in these cookies.

Double Chocolate Spice Cake & Sparkling Grapefruit Juice

Double Chocolate Spice Cake
A guess-and-try recipe that worked out very well!

The cake:

1 box Devil's Food chocolate cake mix
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp (a pinch) ground cloves

Follow the box's directions and add in the spices with the rest of the ingredients. Easy!

The icing was a chocolate ganache recipe from this website. Once the ganache set, I dusted the top with powdered sugar. Voila! The spices made all the difference in perking up the recipe.

Sparkling Grapefruit Juice

Alas, no photograph!

Juice from 1 freshly squeezed grapefruit juice (no pulp!)
1 cup Sprite (or I think I also tried ginger ale and it was fine too)
1 packet of sweetener

Combine juices and stir in sweetener, and don't forget the ice! It's really a recipe you can change to taste. I doubt those measurements are exact because I played around with different combinations before I found something I really loved.

Chocolate is art in my book...

Thanks to this recipe by Martha Stewart, I made some seriously delicious chocolate cookies! They aren't quite as perfect as the ones photographed on her website but they're still extremely tasty. Chocolatey, flaky, chewy... Thanks Martha!