White Chocolate & Macadamia nut cookies

Bob went back to school this week, and to make it a little easier for him, I made him these lovely cookies.

 

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup melted butter

¼ cup brown sugar

¾ cup white sugar

2 large eggs

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups white chocolate chips

1 cup chopped macadamia nuts

 

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

 

In one bowl, whisk  together the melted butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Add the eggs, and vanilla and whisk again. Whisk in the flour, then the baking soda, then the salt. Toss in the white chocolate chips and the macadamia nuts, and fold them into the dough so that they are distributed throughout.

 

Take an ice cream scoop and place equal spoonfuls of dough about an inch or two apart on a cookie sheet. Place the cookie sheets in the over for 10-15mins. Take out of the oven, and let them cool a minute or two on the cookie sheet. 

Pear & Apple Pie with crumb topping

My fridge is full of apples, pears, and peaches fresh from the farms of the Western Slope.  We have more fruit than we know what to do with! B & I had an end of the season picnic this past Friday with our softball team. I got up early Friday morning to make a pie to take, but after getting a look at it, B decided that it was not for sharing. I grew up in a family that believes that pie is an acceptable breakfast food, so this is what B & I had all weekend.

 

*Important note: Fruits give off gases, and the gases given off by apples do not mesh well with the gases given off by pears. Store them separately. We keep our peaches and apples in a basket on the bottom shelf of the fridge, and then the pears in a bowl on the top shelf of the fridge. If you keep pears and apples together, they ripen too fast.

 

Crumb topping:

½ cup flour

¼ cup brown sugar

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

4 tablespoons cold butter chopped into tiny pieces

 

Pie Filing:

I frozen pie crust

4 apples of any kind, peeled & cored, and sliced into bite-sized pieces

4 pears of any kind (feel free to mix types) peeled & cored, and sliced into bite sized pieces

½ cup brown sugar

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 tablespoon cold butter chopped into tiny pieces

 

Make the topping by mixing all of the topping ingredients together in a Tupperware dish or covered bowl.  Cover the dish and shake the mixture. Set aside.

 

Put the apple and pear pieces in a bowl with the brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and butter. Give it a good stir with a spoon so that all the fruit pieces are covered.  Put the pie filling into a frozen piecrust. Top evenly with the crumb topping.

 

Place the pie (in pan) on a cookie sheet (to prevent messy overflow situations) and place the pie in the oven @ 375 degrees for 40mins.

What I've ate today

I'm having a tought time at work this evening, so in my head I'm planning out the meals for the week - which is very easy, since we are going out of town on Thursday and I wont have to worry.

So far, here's what I have had today:

Breakfast/Brunch/Lunch @ 11:00

Bob goes to work at noon on Mondays so we have a late breakfast/early lunch. Today we had Bufflao Chicken Mac - inspired by a Rachael Ray recipe (which I will now call 'RRRs')

Take 1lb of chicken and hack it up into bite size pieces. Cut up an onion, some celery, and some carrots while you're at it. I make Bob do these tasks becaus chicken is gross and slimy and onions make me cry :( Toss the chicken pieces in a skillet w/ some oil and brown them. Then add the carrots, celery, onion, some paprika (for color) and a bay leaf (to add flavor) Cook these all together, then add 2 cups chicken stocks. Let simmer for 10 mins.

Take some cooked macaroni, and mix it in to the chicken mixture. Then, put all of it into a baking dish, top with blue cheese and bake @ 400 for 5mins.

I had 2 bowls of this with a large glass of milk.


Around 4pm I ate:
Pastrami sandwhich
Green Olives

I take whole grain bread, top it with herb mustard, and slap on some beef pastrami and gouda. yum. I had about 15 green olives on the side.

Beets

Our CSA has forced us to cook with beets and we have learned that Bob likes beets. Here's how I make them.

Cut off the greens. The CSA says you can use them, but I tossed then in a salad a few weeks back and they were gross. Then, wrap each beet individually in foil so you have a bunch of little foil balls. Roast in the oven for about an hour to an hour and a half depending on the size of the beet. unwrap. let them cool for about 15mins, and then the skins just fall right off.

B likes the beets sliced and in salads. I like them sliced and on a cracker with a herb-goat cheese spead.

Jalapeno Poppers (but better)

This past week B made me some of his famous Fish Tacos (see April 2008) We went to the store to stock up on supplies, and this recipe calls for 3 jalapenos - but Sunflower Market only sells Jalapenos in packages of 10.....whatever. So with the leftovers I made poppers.

Cut the jalapenos in half, and de-seed them. In our house this is a job for Bob because my delicate skin cant take the heat and I sometimes end up with a seed in my eye.....moving on.....

Mix together some herb flavored goat cheese (or any kind of soft cheese) with some blackberry Habanero jam (see October 2008) If you would like to cut down on the heat you can substitute regular fruit jam for pepper infused jam.

Fill the jalapeno halves with the cheese/jam mixture, then top with parmasean cheese. Bake @ 400 for 15 mins, then let cool for 5mins.

Enjoy.....perhaps with a glass of milk.

I am a lazy blogger.....but enjoy this curry recipe :)

I know. I havent posted anything in awhile. And I know I type this in every other post, but I've been busy and I'm sorry. To make excuses: I had to plan a wedding, be in that wedding, be a wife, and a bunch of other things that go along with that.

On the brightside - I have a new work schedule. My sister-in-law and mother-in-law agree that my new schedule sucks....which it kinda does...but finding the lemonade in the whole thing, I am now home for dinner 6 nights a week! OMG!

Inspiration has also come to me from a few places. 1) being home 4 days a week has given me lots of time to watch the Food Network. Most of the time, I watch it while folding laundry or cooking or cleaning or other domestic housewife projects. I also like having it on in the background because it seems to calm our dogs. 2) B (I call Bob "B" because Bob is sometimes just too long to write out...jk) and I joined a CSA, which stands for Community Suported Agruculture. Each week B goes to a neighbors house and pick up a box of fresh from the farm, organic veggies, a bag of fruit straight from the orchard, and a half dozen eggs. We never know what were going to get or how to use what we get........more about that in future posts.

But here, as promised, a curry salad recipe.

Take some mayo and mix in a decent amount of curry powder, celery salt, and some fresh ground pepper. Mix it all together well to make a dressing. Then, add some dried cranberries, some chopped celery, and some chopped almonds. This is your salad base and since it has mayo in it it needs to be kept cold. Serve this on a bed of lettuce, mixed with veggies, or mixed with a cold meat. B and I grilled up some chicken sausage, sliced it and stirred it into the curry mixture. Its good.

Broccoli Nachos

Bod and I like to eat junk food. I guess its not really 'junk' food, we don't eat sacks of doritos or hohos, we enjoy bar food. Nachos, potato skins, spinach and artichoke dip, fried things.......yum. We have a few rules in our house (maybe a lot of rules?) and maybe rules is the wrong word, because they are more like guidelines for peaceful living. (I fold the socks the way Bob likes, and he puts the seat down.) One of the rules that we agree on is that we don't fry anything at home. We don't own a deep fryer, nor would we ever like to. We bake our chicken and fries. This is so we can eat the bar food that we love, but not get so fat. or dead.

This is a recipe that I came across and modified.

Take some tortillas. cut them into pieces and throw them on a cookie sheet and bake for 5-10 mins, until they get crispy and brownish. If you like, you can salt them or spice them and use some oil to crisp them more, or you can just buy some chips already crisped. 

In a skillet (or in our case, a wok) put a bag of frozen broccoli. Turn the heat up and watch it steam. When it has defrosted, add in some garlic, cumin, chili powder, and a can of cannellini beans. (they're white kidney beans) Mix it up, warm it up then spread it over you chips. Top with shredded cheese and bake @ 400 for 5mins until cheese gets all melty. Top with salsa, guac, sour cream, or whatever you like.

Eat this in front of the TV while watching baseball.

I recommend you pair this dish with a bottle of Kona beer. I'm enjoying mine right now with the Longboard Lager. And its awesome.