Friday, October 22, 2010

Pecan Waffles

My hubby bought me a waffle iron a couple months back and I love it. However, I am starting to get bored with the same old waffle batter I have been making. So this weekend I decided to try something a little bit different. I love nuts and by far my favorite ones are Pecans. I found an awesome Pecan waffle batter recipe from Foodnetwork.com. They turned out great. I am not going to lie the first one I made was definitely left in the iron too long and the nuts burned. Anyone who has burnt nuts before know the horrible smell and bitter taste of them. Once when I got the timing down right the waffles turned out great.

I also roasted some pecan and chopped them up and placed them in my butter syrup combination. My hubby is dying for some type of banana waffle. I told him I need to get the basic ones down first before I try the more advanced ones.

Waffle before the syrup.Butter and syrup with toasted pecans, so good!!

Best waffle ever. Cant wait to try some gingerbread ones around Christmas.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Eggs-n-Toast

My favorite thing to cook is breakfast. I don’t drink coffee so my pick me up is cooking something first thing in the morning and having it come out perfect. That is all the caffeine that I need. Because of our very very busy work schedules the weekend is the only time that I can really make a big breakfast and I am always looking for way to dress it up a little.

This weekend I made eggs –n- toast. I take my ravioli cutter that I use and cut the center out of the bread. It is pretty easy to make. You just place the bread in the pan like you would for grilled cheese or french toast and wait until it gets a little crisp on each side and then crack the egg into the center of the bread. Sounds more complicated than it really is. I then used the last bit of bacon from the farmers market will have to make sure I get there before it ends in November so I can stock up for the winter. This is a great recipe to try and you can creative by using different cookie cutters. For Valentines Day last year I used my heart cookie cutter.

Not the best picture I have ever taken but you get the general idea.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Halloween Whoopie Pies

I love fall (hate the cold weather) but love the leaves changing, the clothes and especially the holidays. I love Halloween; I just think it is so much fun. So to get the hubby in the Halloween spirit I made Halloween whoopie pies. They were a delicious moist chocolate cake and I made cream cheese frosting for the center. I then rolled the cookies in sprinkles so that they were decorated with black and orange on the sides to stay in the Halloween spirit. They were so cute and tasted even better.

Next time I make them I will double the batter recipe it only makes 12 cookies (remember each whoopie pie needs two cookies). They are just too good and my husband and I keep eating them there are going to be none left for lunch this week.


What the pies looked like when they first came out of the oven.


So I have tons of picutres of the cookies, I really loved them!! I have a Halloween party at work and I am thinking I will make them for the party because they are a definte crowd pleaser.

They just look so cute sitting on their cake tray.

LOVE THESE!!!











Tuesday, October 19, 2010

English Muffins

I was sick this week, and of course I could not sleep or sit still. I have never really been able to sit around. I am always doing something (much to the dislike of my husband). With the extra time on my hands I decide to try a recipe that requires a time commit. I decided to make my own english muffins. Like I said you are going to need some extra time on your hands. You have to wait for the dough to raise a couple of times before you can actually “cook” the muffins.

I was not happy with the muffins. I don’t know what I was expecting but they were a little flat. I don’t know if I did not let them rise long enough or if I handled the dough too much, or it may just have been because I was sick and did not read the recipe correctly. Who knows. I will be trying these again because I feel like they could be great.

Even with the english muffins not turning out exactly the way I wanted they still tasted great. If I was feeling a little better I would have made some orange butter to go with the english muffins. Once when I am feeling better I will attempt this recipe again. I am just way too stubborn to not get this recipe perfect.

I did not have a round cookie cutter so I used the top of a glass to cut my dough.

The muffins on the griddle. They toasted up so nice on the outside.

You can tell from this picture that the muffins were not as fluffly as I wanted.

They were still very tasty and was nice to have with a hot cup of tea.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Early Anniversary Gift



Happy anniversary. Well my “first” anniversary is not until December but it is getting colder and colder down here in DC so my husband thought I would be able to start using my anniversary gift already. I have wanted a Burberry Snood since they came out last winter. With trying to plan my church wedding, buying the house and work I just could not find the time I needed to go and shop at the store. So my wonderful husband decided to buy one for me as a anniversary. I love it. I was wearing around today (it was 70 degrees) and my husband REFUSED to go into the grocery store with me. He is just the best husband and now I am going to have to find something awesome for him. I love him so much and I am so happy I am with him!!
The bag my snood came in. My husband is not the best gift wrapper. I am going to try and use the ribbon and make a Halloween bow for Dexter. I am sure he will love that.

Here is my snood, it is so soft I cannot wait until it gets cold and I can wear it and not have people stare.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Candy Corn Cookies

I really enjoy the fall, the leaves changing color, pumpkins, cute sweaters, boots and candy corn. My husband and I both love candy corn. I don’t know if it is because you can only get candy corn for a couple of months a year or because it just reminds me of being a child, but I love it. I have been trying to work it in everywhere before the stores stop selling it. So this week I wanted to make some kind of cookies and incorporate candy corn. I could not find any type of cookies that used candy corn so I decided to make my traditional sugar cookies I make around Christmas and place candy corn on them. It was a great way to enjoy one of my favorite fall treats.

Just a simple sugar cookie made a little more special with some candy corn. Goint to miss this stuff when it goes away.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Blueberry and Pecan Scones

I love scones, I know some people don’t like them because scones can be too dry but, I found a recipe for scones that did not use too much flour. I hope that by limiting the flour the scones would not be as dry. I also went against what all the recipes told me to do and added fresh blueberries. All the recipes I looked at required using dried blueberries or some other type of dried fruit. I don’t like dried fruits I never have so I figured how different could they be by using fresh blueberries, you use fresh fruit in muffins so this should not be too different.


These scones are great; I added blueberry and pecans to mine. The scones were NOT dry; they were quite the opposite very moist and soft in the middle. They had a cake like texture to them. I loved them. I am so happy I went with the fresh blueberries. They only thing was the blueberries broke a little causing my scones to take on a light purple color to them. I thought it looked cute and I did not mind at all. I loved the pecans in the scones it gave them a nice sweet flavor. I will be making these again and trying to do a lot of different flavor combinations.
This is the only picture that seems to want to load today. My cutting is a little off but that does not matter becasue these taste awesome.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Pumpkin Trick or Treat Bag

I love Halloween, I love to see all the little kids dressed up and it is just a fun day. One mistake that I made last year was I bought four different types of candy. Kids were taking too long to decide what type of candy they wanted and we started to have a back up at our house. So I needed to find some way this year to alleviate this problem.


I found these cute little pumpkin treat bags on Martha Stewart.com. I could not find mini craft bags like the instructions called for but I did find some small orange bags which are perfect. It allows me to place four pieces of fun sized candy in them, so each child gets one of each.
This was my first time using floral tape. I was not aware that the tape is sticky on both sides. Next time I make these I am going to look for an alternative to the floral tape or maybe a different brand of floral tape.
These are just such a cute little idea, I love it. I also decided to take a black sharpie and draw a face on the pumpkins. It just makes the pumpkins a little more festive looking. I can’t wait to give these out on Halloween night and to bring some into work for my coworkers.




I am going to have to get another bowl. All the pumpkins are not going to fit in one bowl. They just look so cute.




I made some pupmkins without faces on them.



I put faces on some of the pumpkins. It was hard to place faces on some of the pumpkins but it looks so cute.




Some of the finished pumpkins. They are just too cute. I can't wait to hand them out on Halloween night.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Treats for the Hubby

I had to travel to Chicago last week for work. I was so happy I didn’t have to go for an extended period of time but I still hate leaving home. I miss my hubby and my dog so much I can only imagine what is going to be like when I have children. Before I go on travel or before the hubby goes on travel I always like to make something special.

This weekend I woke up very early. I usually get up at 7 on the weekends (haha that is sleeping in for me, I usually get up at 5) but I woke up around 6ish because I had a lot to do before I left. So I decided to run to the grocery store and surprise my husband with breakfast in bed. I was able to sneak out of the house without the dog getting up so I figured I was in the clear. I was able to creep back in the house and made breakfast. I thought I was in the clear and my hubby was still asleep. I was able to sneak up the stairs and I was so excited when I saw the bedroom door was still closed. When I opened it I was greeted by a 100 pound German Shepherd and my husband watching TV. It turns out he had been up for awhile and could smell breakfast so the surprise was ruined. We moved breakfast outside because it was a nice sunny morning. It was just really nice to sit with my husband and talk with him before I left.


I dont know why the picture is not letting me turn it. I made cinnamon buns for breakfast which does not happen very often. It was a nice treat.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Beef Bourguignon

The hubby and I went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History last week. It is a great museum; there are a ton of great exhibits. My favorite was the exhibit with the inauguration dresses of the First Ladies. My favorites were Jacqueline Kennedy’s (of course), Laura Bush (I loved the bold red color) and Michelle Obama’s. Michelle’s was just breath taking seeing it on television that night did not do it justice. It was gorgeous close up.

My other favorite exhibit was Julia Child’s kitchen. The museum made an exact replica of the one she used. I thought it was so cool being able to see where she cooked, I remember seeing the shows growing up but did not have an appreciation for cooking yet. I was so inspired by seeing the kitchen I decided to cook one of Julia Childs famous and favorite dishes, Beef Bourguignon.

I was worried the recipe was going to be difficult because Julia is known for her French cooking. I personally find French cooking to be one of the hardest cuisines to perfect. It has a lot of very specific measurements and ingredients. However, I found the Beef Bourguignon to be quite easy. The most time consuming aspect of the dish was searing the beef beforehand. Once that was accomplished the stew was placed in the oven and simmered away for around 3 hours. When the stew was complete I placed it over a bed of egg noodles. I think this dish is going to be one of our favorite winter dishes. It was very hardy. It warmed us up from the inside out. I will certainly be making this dish again once the cold weather really hits the DC area.
In this picture I was trying to show the mushrooms and onions. You can only see the carrots but trust me the onions and mushrooms were in there.
We could not wait for the stew to cool we ate it right away. I had to take a rest and stop eating. I was eating so fast the food was super good.