French Onion Soup

It was such a chilly weekend, not as bad as the winters in New York that I am used to but it was still cold. The leaves are changing and Thanksgiving is right around the corner. I can’t believe Thanksgiving is almost here. Where did the time go! So to get in the cold weather sprit I decided to make some soup. I was debating between broccoli cheddar soup and French Onion. After some careful thought and my husband pretty much telling what to make (haha) I decided to make French Onion.

This is one of my favorite things to make. It is so easy, only a couple of ingredients and you have a great warm family dinner. It is really easy to make and is always a crowd pleaser. The one thing you have to do when making French Onion soup is the onions HAVE to be a deep, deep brown. If the onions are not cooked down, they will give the soup a raw taste. The recipe calls for cooking the onions for less time than I would recommend. I cook the onions for at least an hour and half or two hours depending how much time I have. I cooked the onions for two hours. My husband and I were both very happy with the outcome. It was delicious.

This is what the onions look like after they have been cooked for an hour. The onions are still a little raw (you can see it in the pictures) so I contiuned to cook them for another hour.

I could not get the picuture to turn around, but you still get the idea. The cheese was perfect and there was a great crust on the top. Which I think is the best part.

I think this is my favorite picture. You can really see the cheese and how it melted over the bowl. LOVE THIS SO GOOD!!

Hot Spinach Dip

So I had my Halloween potluck awhile back and I made a couple of different things for it. One of my all time favorite dips and always is a huge crowd please is my Hot Spinach dip. I only make it for special occasions because of the ingredients. The dip contains mayo, cream cheese, pepper jack cheese and spinach. Haha the spinach is the only healthy ingredient in this dip. I top it off with a little pepper jack cheese to give it a little more kick and it is good to go. It is always a huge hit and can be made the night before and just cooked through that day of you party. I look forward to holidays when I can make it and not feel bad for eating it. This is definitely not a low fat dip.

Here is a picture as soon as I came out of the oven. Please ignore my dirty stove top. I was cooking alot that night and did not have time to clean up until after I was finished.

A closeup look of the dip. It is so good with homemade crackers.

Parmesan Fish Sticks

My husband loves fish sticks, but I rather not buy the ones at the store. So I make my own. Salmon is my favorite fish it is a nice firm fish so I knew it would hold up with all the handing. I used Italian breadcrumbs to give them a little extra flavor because I didn’t have any fresh parmesan cheese. I always drizzle a little oil over the fish sticks so that they come out golden brown.

We just used regular tartar sauce to dip the fish sticks in they taste great. The fish stays surprising moist. The prep and clean up is not too bad you need about 3 bowls but other than that these are a definite keeper. Love them and they make great left overs.

The fish sticks before. I know these are not the best picutes. My regualr camera was not working so I had to use my old one and the picuture quality is not the best. But dont let the pictures fool you these are the BEST!!

The fish sticks after they were cooked. Again dont the picutures fool you these are great.

Scallop Provencal

I have been so busy the last couple of weeks with a huge meeting I was helping to plan for my firm I have had no time to blog. In between my normal client work, I was calling different venues and caterers trying my best to fit our budget and still make the partners happy. As you can imagine it was extremely time consuming. So of course something had to give and, that was my blog. I still continued to cook ( I had to make a whole week’s worth of food for the hubby with all the late nights I was working) but I was not able to write about them. So this weekend, I finally feel like I was able to catch up on everything.

With being so busy with work and planning this meeting I was defiantly neglecting my husband. So I wanted to make him something special for dinner. I decided to make him Scallop Provencal. I have not made it since News Years and it is one of my husband’s favorite. It is very easy to make but scallops can be very expensive. I buy the ones from Whole Foods. The great thing about scallops is they soak up the flavors from the sauce so well, you can taste the sauce in each bite. However, because the sauce is so rich (made with butter, wine, garlic and some flour to thicken) I wanted to make something to cut the richness of the sauce. So I made simple red roasted potatoes with just a little rosemary, to complement the sauce. It is so quick and easy to make I love it, and what makes it even better is that I know how much my husband loves them.

I sprinkle some parsley over the top of the dish to open up the taste buds even more.

The red potatoes before I placed them in the over,

The potatoes after they were roasted. So good love these they are so quick and easy to make.

The Scallops cooking in the pan. The sauce was so good. I am going to try and make the sauce and place it over pasta.

The finished product. Haha looking at these pictures makes me realise I need to work on my plateing. The presentation does not make the dish look any better.

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.

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.

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!!!