California and Christmas Candies

Merry almost Christmas everyone!!!! I love this season!

Mark and I decided that we were going to fly out to CA and surprise his family as an early Christmas present this year! It has been so much fun :) We made Christmas candies and cookies with his mom while his sister was at school. Tonight we're going to see his day and brother! Such a fun time.

Here are a couple of the recipes that we are using today... due to family awesome-ness, unfortunately I wont be giving out certain recipes, who knows, maybe I'll make some for one of you lucky winners.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Marshmallow Fudge:

1 cup                             coconut milk

½ cup                            sugar

3 cups                           dairy free chocolate chips

1 teaspoon                     pure vanilla extract

Pinch                             kosher salt

1 cup                             peanut butter

1 cup                             marshmellows

Bring the coconut milk and sugar to a boil and stir constantly for 10 minutes. Reduce by about half and remove from the heat.

Add remaining ingredients and stir until well incorporated.

Pour the fudge into the prepared pan and shake until the fudge is spread evenly and bang the pan flat on the table a couple times to ensure that there are no trapped air bubbles.

Place the pan in the refrigerator and chill until set, at least 2 hours and up to overnight. Once the fudge seems to be set, remove it from the pan using the overhanging sheets of parchment paper and slice it with a large wet knife into 16 pieces.

Serve chilled.

We crushed up peppermint candies and sprinkled it on top of the fudge. Yummm

Persimmon Cookies with Maple Glaze:

½ cup           Shortening

1 cup             Sugar

1 each           Egg

1 cup             Persimmon Pulp

1 cup             Flour

½ tsp             Baking Powder

½ tsp             Baking Soda

1 ½ tsp           “Pumpkin Pie” Spice

½ tsp             Salt

½ cup             Raisins

½ cup             Chopped Walnuts

1.   Preheat oven to 325

2.   Cream the sugar and shortening.

3.   Add the egg and Persimmon Pulp and mix until well incorporated

4.   In a separate bowl combine flour, powder, soda, spices and salt. Add mixture to bowl and mix well. Don’t over beat

5.   Fold in the raisins and walnuts.

6.   Drop tablespoon size dollops on sprayed cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

Maple Glaze:

1 tbls         Maple syrup

1 cup         Powder sugar

¼ cup        Almond milk

-Mix well all ingredients. 

 

This is just a couple of the yummy yummy recipes we made today. I had never had persimmon before and can I just tell you, that is some delicious fruit!!!

Enjoy Family

This Crazy Life and a Slice of Banana Bread

Hello! It has been too long, I apologize, let me introduce you to my crazy life :) Hola! Here is a quick recap of what has happened over these last several weeks since I have last talked to y'all...

The hubs and I moved back to Colorado due to some unforseen changes in our life. We lost one of our cars and the jobs weren't going to match up in when he would need the ONE car and when I would need it. Plus unfortunately, New York state does not have the best public transportation in the world either. The city is one thing, upper state is a whole other issue. So since we weren't going to be able to fork out the cash to buy a new car and we really were ready for a change in scenery we decided to move to Colorado. It is so good to be back in my home state!

Fortunately for us the hubs got a job the first week he was out here and mine came only 2 days after his. Thank you Lord! So we are busy being young and crazy. Since we've been back it has snowed once, like an ince MAYBE :/ and we have been able to see some family and some friends! It has been great :) We are plugged into a church and enjoying building relationships there!

I have so many fun and some challenging projects that this new year is going to bring! First up on the list is making a new head board! I can't wait to start that project. Our bed has been through H-E- double hockey sticks and back. So we have a metal frame and then I'm going to make a free standing head board and call it wonderful! I started baking again and I can't wait to start making the meals. When the hubs doesn't have to work he dominates the kitchen, blessing and a curse! Blessing because honestly who wouldn't want their husband to cook Amaze-balls food for them every night, and yet a curse because to blog about cooking you have to be able to cook lol. Oh if this is the only issue I ever have I am blessed!

But I was fortunate to be able to make some yummy banana bread the other night! I am trying out several banana bread recipes to see which one I like the best, so don't be surprised if you see more than one blog about banana bread! Here is the recipe and guidelines for the one I just made:

4 each                             SUPER ripe bananas (I let mine ripen for almost 2 weeks)

2 cups                             Flour

1 cup                              Sugar (or 1/2 c brown and 1/2 c white sugar)

2 each                             Large Eggs

1 tablespoon                   Ground Cinnamon

1 teaspoon                      Baking soda

1 teaspoon                      Baking powder

2-3 tablespoons              Almond milk

8 tablespoons                 Earth Balance spread

Set your oven to 350 degrees

Start by creaming the sugar and Earth Balance spread in a mixer. You want it to have a light texture to it. Make sure you don't beat it too much :) After you've creamed those ingredients, mix the mashed bananas and cinnamon together. Add one egg at a time to the creamed ingredients and mix well each one well. Add the banana mixture and almond milk. Mix all the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Also through a pinch of kosher salt into the mix, yummy. Add everything into the bow and mix just until the dry ingredients are mixed in.

Spray a bread loaf pan down or rub it with oil. Turn your oven down to 325 and bake the loaf for and hour. Check it and make sure nothing comes out on your tooth pick when you stick it in the middle. If there is some gunk on it bake it for another 15 minutes and check it again. Once it comes out clean set the entire loaf pan on a cooling rack for around 15 minutes. Take the loaf out of the pan after the 15 minutes and enjoy!

My favorite way to eat banana bread is fresh out of the oven with a good thick layer of butter on it. Unfortunatley the hubs doesn't get to experience this good and glorious way of eating banana bread! 

Enjoy Family! Good to be back with y'all again!

Almond Bark and Chocolate dipped Cherries

I know these are not AMAZING recipes and they don't really stretch the culinary limitations that you so badly want to push, but they are my favorite candies around the holiday's. I have a big party coming up on Saturday so I am getting them ready for everyone :)

What are some of your favorite recipes around the holidays, any home made family candies that you love? Growing up my mom, sisters, my grandma and me would all stand around the kitchen counter making cookies and candies and all sorts of goodies! They really is nothing better in the world than that time spent with the women in our family.

So tonight we're going to go back in time and make it happen!

Almond Bark:

2 cups                               Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate or White Chocolate Chips
2 cups                               Slivered, Blanched Almonds

Melt your chocolate down, either in a double broiler or a microwave, and add in the almonds. Stir until everything is evenly coated and pour out onto a cookie sheet. Make sure it has raised edges or else it'll pour over. Take a rubber spatchula and spread it so that it's even across the pan. 

Let cool. 

Break into pieces and bag up for gifts or simply put it in a plastic container. 

Store in your garage or somewhere cool in the house where it wont melt.

Dipped Chocolate Cherries (2 days)

1 jar                 Maraschino Cherries pitted

1-2 cups          Milk Chocolate

Drain the cherries from the liquid and set liquid to the side. Let the cherries completely dry.

Melt your chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave and set to the side.  

Dip the cherries in the chocolate by using a toothpick and only dip them up to the hole. Don't cover the hole. PLace the dipped cherries on a parchment covered cookie sheet. Set somewhere cool to dry.

The second day, fill the cherries with the juice you set aside with either an eye dropper or some other fancy thing. Dip them a second time but covering the hole this time. Remove the toothpick and dab a bit of chocolate over the hole. Let sit in cool place till dry.

There ya have it! One of these day we'll get back to making real food, but for now I'm craving my sweets!

Mahalo Family

 

Pumpkin Chai Cookies

Holy goodness! Did you know that Hershey's has a pumpkin spice flavored kiss??? I just found them! I am trying to have self control, OK wait, who am I kidding, I have NO self control! I unwrapped one, ate one, unwrapped one, ate two, etc. Why do we only have the good stuff seasonally??? Seriously, where I work we only have garlic bread during the garlic festival, there is only pumpkin spiced items during fall/winter and for crying out loud, why cant we have the Christmas tree up all year long!? Com'mon, I mean life would be a happier place if there was no such thing as "seasonal".

Done with my rant, onto the coking. So for tonight were going to get into cookie season. Here's what you'll need:

Pumpkin Chai Spiced Cookies

1/2 cup                         Earth Balance butter
1/2 cup                         Brown Sugar (or white)
1 each                           Egg
1/4 cup                         Chai concentrate
1 teaspoon                    Vanilla Extract
1 3/4 cup                       Flour
1/2 teaspoon                 Baking Soda
Pinch                             Salt
1 bag                             Hershey's Pumpkin Spiced Kisses

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cream the sugar and room temp butter until it's light and fluffy. Add the egg, chai concentrate and vanilla extract and mix until combined. Then add you dry ingredients and mix well. Let it sit in the fridge for about an hour.

Once it has hardened a bit roll out balls no bigger than 1 inch. Place them on your parchment covered cookie sheet and continue. You can get creative with these by sprinkling chai powder over them or possibly orange zest or adding crushed nuts to the top. Once you've got them all prettied up throw them in the oven for 12-15 minutes. A little bit of color but not too much.

While they're in the oven unwrap the kisses and try to have self control!!! Don't eat all the kisses because then you wont have any for the cookies, epic fail. Once the cookies are done pull them out and immediately place the kisses in the center of them. Let cool and enjoy!

Got any cookies you love and want to see featured on the blog? Leave a comment below or email me at cbell1(at)comcast(dot)net. We'll see if we can't get them up here, who knows, maybe we'll have a bake off of the best cookie recipes!

Happy Eats!

A Tour of the City

One of the benefits of being in New York is being able to go into the city whenever I feel like it. Luckily, that feeling only comes once in a blue moon. But this was a special occasion! My husband graduated from the Culinary Institute of America! He's amazing, he graduated while working full time, getting married and having to be a husband :) he's pretty awesome. Here's our photo from graduation!

After the graduation we went to lunch at the Italian restaurant on campus. And so began the weekend of gorging ourselves... I seriously only wanted liquids after this crazy weekend of constantly shoving food in our faces! 

After lunch we headed down to the city. We decided to stay in NJ instead of the city because it's a lot less expensive, for reals.While we were in Jersey we decided to go to the Cake Boss... it was fun :) it was cool to see the place but honestly, the pastries were terrible. Between the lack of flavor and how horribly made they were I wasn't impressed. But it was a blast non the less. I think everyone should go and see a cool famous TV show spot at least once in their life. 

And no lets get to the tour portion of the blog:

Good Morning!!! Or not... here we are at the start of the day. Is my head really that big in real life

 

this is my mom and my step dad, they look much more awake than the hubs and I

And m beautiful sister in law, she deffinitely looks like she's struggling along with the two of us!

On the tour bus around the city! I learned some really fun things that I never knew about NY. Did you know that the man who started to build the Brooklyn bridge died in the process of it being built and it wasn't his son who finished in but his daughter in law... and she was only 22! What an inspiration! And they didn't think that it was stable enough to walk on so a leader of the circus decided to have a parade across it and that when people started using it... after all the elephants crossed and it didn't break! Craaazzy.

One of the tribute towers... such a breath taking experience

One of the pools of remembrance for all the victims of 9/11

 

They call this the "survival tree". It has survived three major catastrophies including the 9/11 attack and a huge fire that wiped out hundreds of buildings.

 Lady Liberty!

Welcome to Elise Island... looking much more awake!

Hahaha ok I know this is inappropriate but I couldn't resist! How hilarious is this sign!!!!

Has anyone ever seen When Henry Met Sally??? Anyone, anyone? Ok well you know that scene where the lady says "I'll have what she's having." {watch here} THIS IS THE PLACE!!! And oh by the way, it was a phenomenal place! It was such a fun atmosphere and the food is delicious! I got the pastrami sandwich and it was as big as my head! so yummy.

Here's me scared shitless on the top of the Empire State building 

So there ya have it! Our fun tour of the city!!! Some how I managed to not get a single photo of my in laws which is amazing to me... but rest assured I will get them in a photo!!! Hope you enjoyed your cyber tour of the city :)

Happy Tuesday

Thank you to everyone who participated in the first ever blog giveaway! Congratulations to Lila Dalton!!! I will be making you snowmen hot chocolate gifts and sending them to you by next Monday! 

On a smaller excitement scale I completely bombed my chicken pot pies last night! I guess you can't always win at the game of cooking. I honestly have no idea what went wrong? Luckily it still tasted good, but the crust got way too brown on some parts and undercooked on others and the filling didn't thicken. I think it was just supposed to be a "take out" night lol. 

Alright, when I get home tonight Im going to be getting back up on the blogging horse! Tonight you'll get to meet some of my wonderful family and see the city of NY!

This is a GREAT week!

Let me just start off today by saying I do not hate you, and I am not avoiding you :) This week is a very happy but very busy week for the Bell house! The hubs graduates with his associates from The Culinary Institute of America on Friday and so we have had the wonderful luxury of family coming in town! We love our family!

With that said I noticed I did not plan the first give away properly. So since it didn't start on Monday, I will start it today and we will go through the weekend! Since the holidays are coming up and we all have parties to go to or little gifts to give out so I'm going to start the Holiday giveaways. This weeks giveaway is Snowman Hot Chocolate :) I'll be making homemade hot chocolate and sending out the gift to the winner.

Remember, you MUST be a follower of this blog to play. If you haven't clicked on the blue "join this site" button on the side -----> than you can't play, so sorry! Makes it better for the 8 girls who are! To enter follow the steps below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Also, stay tuned! I will be taking some pictures of our awesome weekend! Finally, a little look inside our crazy life! Also on the menu for the week: Vegan Pumpkin Muffins with butter creme frosting, homemade hot cocoa and one more surprise :)

XoXoXo

Vegetable Tortellini Soup

Aaaannnd for tonight's post! Wow, two posts in one night, it's like Christmas in my head right now and my fingers are these tiny little elves making wonderful toys for all the boys and girls. Haha I work in a weird world where conversation like that is normal, please don't judge me :)

On the map for tonight were taking a left turn at dumplings, heading strait for Tortellini and stopping at vegetable stock! Clearly I am starving right now! Who wants to make me dinner? I promise I'll teach you something cool while you do it!

Vegetable Soup: 

1 tablespoon                                     Oil
2 each                                               Yellow Onions*
2 each                                               Celery Ribs*
2 each                                               Carrots*
1 each                                               Garlic Clove (smashed)*
1/2-1 cup                                          Baby Bellas*
1 tablespoon                                     Tomato Paste
1 teaspoon                                        Black Pepper corns (whole/cracked)
5 cups                                              Water
TT                                                    Salt

*Always use fresh vegetables. Using pre packaged ones or ones that are not in good condition will yield bland and flavorless stock.

The best part of this soup is making your own vegetable broth for the Tortellini. If you want you can absolutely just fill up a pot with vegetable stock and heat it up and drop your Tortellini in there BUT you're missing out, and your cheating yourself. I bet you, you can look on the back of your stock box and not be able to name or identify at least 1 ingredient, if not more (especially if you're using Swansons). How many of the ingredients listed above do you have questions about? 

To get started go ahead and small dice all of your veg (except mushrooms and garlic). The small dice allows for the water to hit more surface area allowing for more flavor to be drawn from the vegetable. Next, crush your garlic, literally take your knife, lay it on top of the garlic clove and press down until it's crushed. 

Take you stock pot and add the oil to it. Bring it to temp and add your onions, carrots, and celery. Cook until you begin to smell their flavor. Add your garlic, cook for 30 seconds and add your tomato paste. Stir the items around until your tomato paste is aromatic and rich/deep in color.

Add the remaining item and bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 30-45 minutes. You don't want to cook it too long because you can cook the flavor right out of it. For extra flavor throw in a fresh bay leaf or sprig of thyme about 15 minutes before it's complete. Constantly taste for flavor. Add salt to season it, be weary of adding pepper since you already have some in there. Strain and set to the side.

Tortellini:

1#                              Flour
4 each                        Eggs
1-2 teaspoons            H2O (only use if necessary)

You can get the basics for making pasta {here}

Decide on your vegetables and get them in a sautee pan. You're going to cook them ALL the way through. You want them fully cooked because when you go to cook the pasta you don't want to have undercooked vegetables and over cooked pasta! No bueno! For my pasta filling I chose to do onion, garlic, eggplant, spinach and roasted red pepper. I roasted my red pepper on my electric stove btw... no haters. I finely chopped them once they were completely cooked through (removing the skin from the peppers) and then placed about 1/2-1 teaspoon into the center of a square piece of pasta dough. I then folded two corners together and then grabbed the remaining corners to meet each other opposite the other two corners. Resembling something of a rounded triangle. If you're confused, Google images for Tortellini pasta :). You can also turn your vegetables into a paste by pureeing them if you feel like that is the texture you're going for.

Once I assembled them all I brought a giant pot of SALTED water to a boil and dropped them in. It took about 3-5 minutes for them to be done. Once they float to the top they are most likely done. Remove one and taste it. If it tastes done, looks done, and smells done... then it's probably done. Don't second guess yourself and over cook the pasta. It's a waste of time and ingredients and you'll be disappointed with your dish.

** I also want to encourage you guys to go out on a limb. Maybe don't put fresh herbs in your stock or your vegetables, maybe cut it up and put it in your pasta dough. Try cooking the pasta in your stock instead of salted water... what I'm saying is, experiment, see what avenue you like best and then run with it. No one has the same taste buds and I'm sure we all have a different opinion on how food should be made... so prove my recipe wrong and make a better one that you are completely coo coo for! Love you!

Blessings Ohana!

Chicken Noodle Soup with Dumpligs!

I am sooo sorry! I can't believe this didn't post last night, don't hate me! You can still have this for dinner if you eat late dinners or live on the West Coast! Lol I am sorry. Well here is YESTERDAY'S post:

Everyone knows that Chicken noodle soup is everyone's favorite. It is quite possibly the reason why Campbell's came up with the phrase "MmmMmm Good"... either that or they somehow knew about Tim Tebow or Channing Tatum way before the rest of us! Just sayin'!

Ernie ways, I love chicken noodle soup... it's good for the teenage soul, ha... but no really. It is such a comfort food from my childhood that I could never turn my back on it. My mom makes the BEST chicken noodle soup. There is no competition, and even if there is, there isn't. She puts fairy dust in it I'm certain, or opium, either way it's mesmerizing. Unfortunately I am not as good of a cook as her and I hope I never will be because I always want her to cook for me when I go home, instead of me cooking for her.

Tonight, though, I'm going to spin chicken noodle soup. I'm going to throw out the classic soup with noodles and insert dumplings and *bonus* even a recipe for gnocchi! BAM! I just blew your mind, how do you feel?

Chicken Noodle Soup (Class act)

1 Tablespoons                              Oil
1 each                                 Yellow Onion
2 each                                 Garlic Cloves
2 each                                       Carrots
2 each                                 Celery Sticks
1 each                           Chicken (about 3-4#)
1 quart           Chicken Broth (Please don't use the kind that has a ton of preservatives in it!!!)
1/2 quart                                Cold H2O
2 sprigs                               Fresh Thyme
1 each                                    Bay Leaf
1/2 teaspoon                             Sage
TT                                     Salt and Pepper

Start off by getting your soup pot on the stove and heating it up. Add the oil (I suggest olive oil) and get it to temp. Add the onions first, sweat them, aka leave them in the pot till they become tender, NOT browning them like you would if your were caramelizing them! Add the garlic and then follow suit with the carrots, celery and bay leaf. Stir those around for a couple minutes, you just want to start to tenderize everything, and then add your chicken stock. 

Cut your chicken into about 8 pieces** not removing a lot of the excess fat (it's good for flavor) and then add your water. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Skim the fat and grease off the top of the soup continually to avoid gelatinization of the soup when it's cooled. When you're about 30 minutes out add your sage and then at about 15 minutes out add your fresh herbs. Adding your fresh herbs too soon will kill the herb and the flavor and that really sucks. 

** You can also cut your soup time in half or more by buying a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken and shredding it and adding the chicken meat to the soup, warming it through and just cooking the vegetables and developing flavor. OR you can go back and make your crock pot chicken by clicking {here} and shred it and add to the soup only having to worry about cooking the vegetables.

Here is where you would usually be boring and add your egg noodles. NOT TONIGHT ladies! You're going to be fun, and exciting and daring... ohhhh yeah.

Dumplings:

2 cups                      Flour
1 teaspoon               Salt
                                Cold Water

Mix the salt and flour together in a bowl. Move the flour around in the bowl so it looks like a doughnut with the flower on the outside and a blank ring in the middle... Oooo I want a doughnut now, Boston Creme with chocolate glaze to be specif, shoot... pouring about 1/2 cup-3/4 cup into the ring, incorporate the ice water and flour together. Kneading the dough so it becomes well incorporated but not over worked. Cause then you have cement dumplings and those aren't good for the dentist bill. Let the dough sit for a couple minutes, about 7-10.

DO NOT ADD DUMPLINGS TO THE SOUP UNTIL YOU ARE SURE IT'S DONE COOKING.

You can not stir the soup once the dumplings are in there or else you're going to end up with no dumplings and very floury tasting soup. Once your soup is ready grab a teaspoon, you know, the kind you eat your coco puffs with in the morning, and start scooping out your dumplings. Remember, you want them to be bit size, not too big not too small.

Once you get the dumplings in gently swirl your wooden spoon in the pot to make sure all the dumplings are getting cooked evenly. This does not take long, 3-4 minutes max. Once your dumplings come floating to the top they are done. Cooking them too much will also result in no dumplings and very murky floury soup. Remove from heat and ladle into your favorite soup bowl! Enjoy!

**BONUS**

Gnocchi

2#                            Starchy Potatoes
3 each                      Eggs (lightly beaten)
1 cup                       Flour
                                Salt

I honestly can't explain it better than this recipe, so I'm going to redirect you now. If you want to know how to make Gnocchi the click {here}

I hope you all enjoy this recipe passed down from many, many women and onto the next generation. I pray it brings you some comfort on these beautiful fall days!

XoXo Family