ADVENTURES OF THE FORTUITOUS COOK

My girls are off this week on Fall Break, my fall break is next week and Daddy had a deadline, so we solicited help from the grandparents! Grandma Barbara beat out the other grandparents, there was only a little bloodshed, and made plans to come out for the week. The girls have been in utter bliss, making Halloween costumes (one devil and one R2D2), browsing the bookstore, riding scooters and bikes, and reading with Grandma. From the first night she was here they have been asking to make their favorite Grandma Barbara cookie, so last night was the night!

Peanut Butter Blossoms are my favorite Grandma Barbara cookie, I’ve tried and tried to recreate them, and while they are pretty darn good when I make them, I just don’t have that special touch that Grandma does – hers are always better! So here it is, the famous scrumptious recipe:

1/2 Cup unsalted Butter
1/2 Cup Creamy Peanut Butter
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
1 Egg
2 Tablespoons Milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 3/4 Cup Flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Hershey Kisses
Extra sugar for rolling dough in

Mix all ingredients in a standing mixer. Roll into 1 inch balls and roll balls into sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes – do not overcook! As soon as you pull the cookies out, push the kiss into the center of the hot cookie (make sure you have the kisses unwrapped before the cookies are out of the oven!)

And enjoy, while trying not to eat the entire batch…

I recently made a drastic life change and have returned to school for my Ph.D. in Social Work!! Unfortunately the program is only available in Phoenix, about 120 miles from my house; fortunately my parents have a home in Phoenix – so here I am, back to living with my folks three days a week! While I miss my daughters and husband, my parents are wonderful and take good care of me. In exchange for all they are doing for me, I wanted to contribute to the household and I figured what better way than to make them dinner the nights I stay with them. This seemed like a great idea until I remembered the dietary restrictions, but heck, I’m up for the challenge.  My mom is gluten free, and allergic to tomatoes, my dad is a recent vegetarian. This may be a good time to add that I love my carbs – pasta, bread, anything with wheat. I am also allergic to soy, so the no meat thing poses some additional challenges. Thankfully my dad does eat fish – giving me a few more options.

So far I’ve had three nights and each was a success. Night one I made calabacita enchiladas, sans tomatoes and enchilada sauce for my mom – she proclaimed they were still scrumptious. Night two was a halibut steak marinated in a cherry sauce with mango, pineapple, avocado salsa and roasted red potatoes.

Tonight, night three, was stuffed bell peppers with a green salad topped with strawberries and avocado, dressed with balsamic and olive oil.

I stuffed the peppers with rice, grilled onions, garlic, yellow squash and morning star fake sausages for dad and ground turkey for mom and me. Baked in the oven topped with cheese – I didn’t even miss my regular side of bread!

So stay tuned, more meat, gluten, tomato, soy free ideas to come!

I was searching for a Memorial Day inspired dessert and found tons of recipes for festive Trifles, thus trifle inspiration began! It is simply delicious. Helpful hint: this recipe makes a ton, however I’ve easily halved it for a smaller gathering.

And if you are so inspired, you can even make adorable individual servings.

The Recipe:
1/4 cup Sugar
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
1/4 cup water
*Heat the above ingredients until sugar is dissolved, remove from heat and cool.
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
*add almond extract to cooled lime syrup
2 Lbs pound cake cut into 1 inch cubes
*Place pound cake in a bowl, poor lime syrup over and allow to sit while you are making the rest of the trifle

1 Lb mascarpone cheese
2/3 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla
*Whip together until stiff peaks

2 pints strawberries, chopped
1 pint blue berries
*or any kind of berries you like, I’ve also used raspberries, but blueberries and strawberries are my favorite so far

Assemble – either use a trifle bowl, or make individual servings:
Layer half of the pound cake, cover with blueberries then a layer of the mascarpone cream, topped with strawberries. Repeat – top trifle with Strawberries.

If you have a Trader Joe’s near you, I highly recommend using their pound cake.

And those Strawberry tops, my chickens love them!

It all started at brunch today when I ordered a sandwich with Brie. Jacob declared that he wanted Brie for dinner, so I went on a hunt for brie inspired recipes. I found a Guy Fieri recipe for Brie Smothered Pork Chops:  www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/guy-fieri/brie-smothered-pork-chops-recipe/index.html , and oh. my. goodness. They were delicious!

We rounded out our Brie meal with an old stand-by: brie, apples and fig jam enclosed in pizza dough. Here’s how it goes: purchase pizza dough, cut the white stuff off the brie, and thinly slice an apple. Stretch the dough, place the brie, apple and either spread the fig jam, or add figs and close the dough around the ingredients. Brush with butter and olive oil and bake for about 10 minutes at 500 degrees. Prepare for scrumptiousness and an inability to stop eating the stuff.

Finally we gathered some lettuces from our garden, made vinaigrette with olive oil and balsamic vinegar from alfonsooliveoil.com and
enjoyed our brie inspired meal!

My Garden – my tranquil urban oasis in my backyard. I probably shouldn’t refer to this as my garden, but after my husband did all the hard work, I’ve taken it over! First, he built up a garden that we filled with some lovely smelling soil (I’m sure our neighbors were not happy with us for a few days). Then we had to build a sturdy wooden fence to keep the chickens out. Once that was complete we planted our first harvest. Our first few attempts at planting went okay, we grew tons of herbs, and the tomatoes took off, but we had struggles with some other vegetables. Last fall I tilled the garden and filled the soil with our homemade compost (all my hard work of cleaning out chicken coops paid off). I planted lettuces and we have been eating salad every night!

The lettuces however lived their cycle and began to flower, and while our garden became a gathering place for the neighborhood bees, it was time to replant. So today I tore up the old and planted some new scrumptious lettuces and tomatoes.

So where does the guacamole come in? Well, while I was in the garden I was inspired by my green onions and cilantro and those ripe avocados sitting on my counter (unfortunately they were store bought, which means it’s time for my mother-in-law to visit me and bring some from her tree!)