Pear Cranberry Walnut Bread
MOIST. Does that word make you cringe? Sorry about that. It looks especially bad when it's in CAPS, huh?
The word MOIST doesn't bother me for some reason. I do, however, cringe at the words ointment and discharge but that's a completely different blog post altogether. To cater to the moist haters, I tried searching on the Google machine for some synonyms and what I found just doesn't cut it.
I wouldn't call this Pear Cranberry Walnut Bread humid, drizzly, soggy, misty, mushy or clammy. It's just dense, sturdy and moist- everything I like in a sweet breakfast/snack bread.
Sweet pears make up most of the liquid base. Cranberries add a little tartness and a pop of color. Walnuts provide good crunch and the lemon zest adds a little perfume into the bread. It's no surprise that a loaf didn't last 24 hours in the Shutterbean household.
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Tuscan Kale Salad w/ Pecorino
Kale and I have enjoyed a sultry love affair for over a year now. We've definitely moved past the puppy dog phase and we're currently treading in the I leave a toothbrush in his medicine cabinet territory. Yes, I'm talking about KALE. Lately I've been looking for something new to "spice up" our relationship. I've seen this salad on a few of my favorite food blogs and I thought it might lead us back to the non-stop PDA phase. It worked! Suddenly I'm absolutely infatuated with kale again and all it took was this simple salad!
Close your eyes and you might think you're eating a Caesar salad. Open your eyes and look at that dark leafy green pile of healthy kale sitting on your plate! Crazy, huh? You'll notice how creamy/sharp the Pecorino is and that lemony red pepper dressing sure is tangy AND spicy, right? I find that the texture of the kale shreds pairs so well with bits of the crunchy country bread crumbs, don't you? Now that I know how easy it is to make this, I'm totally going on a Raw Tuscan Kale Salad bender. Think Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas but sub the alcohol with Kale. Watch me.
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Herbed Ricotta Bruschetta
You made your own homemade ricotta! Now what?? You should make this simple/scrumptious herbed ricotta bruschetta because it's absolutely out of this world! I brought this appetizer to my neighbor's house last week and it was gone in NO TIME. Within minutes, I had to go back to my house to grab the rest of the ricotta. Just when I thought I was in the clear, I had to go back AGAIN for crackers! People were SCRAPING the sides to get every single last bit of herbed ricotta that was clinging to the serving bowl. If no one was looking I'm pretty sure they'd use their fingers. It's that good.
"This tastes like it came from a restaurant," my neighbor remarked. She's right; it totally does. It's thick, creamy, sophisticated and totally decadent. If I was having a fancy brunch at my house, I'd add a little smoked salmon on top and serve it with a green salad. Put this in your bag of tricks because it's sure to impress the heck out of people.
Blueberry Zucchini Bread
During the car ride home from my parent's house yesterday, I listed all the recipes I need to post on this here website to Casey and he had no recollection of me making Blueberry Zucchini Bread! When I described it as "that tasty/moist/lemony bread studded with juicy blueberries...you know the one you ate a LOT of?" the memory of eating the bread finally came back. Apparently he was just thrown off by the word zucchini because he had no idea there was zucchini in that bread! Cooper had no clue too. I'm guilty of vegetable hiding.
Blueberries & Zucchini! They're both in season right now, so why not combine the two and make a scrumptious bread? This recipe makes TWO loaves. If you're scared that you'll eat BOTH loaves (which is easy to do and I don't blame you), wrap one up and give it to your neighbor/friend/coworker and earn brownie points. If you're feeling greedy, wrap up the second loaf and stash it in your freezer. Blueberry zucchini bread will be a great start to your week, next week!
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Homemade Soft Pretzels
If you decide to make these AH-mazing homemade soft pretzels, make sure someone else is home to help you eat them. I had to wait FIVE excruciating hours for Casey to get home and I SWEAR I almost locked myself out of the house TWICE so I wouldn't eat more. When Casey finally arrived, I had a pretzel filled dinner waiting for him. For an appetizer, he started off with a plain pretzel dipped in hot mustard. His entree was a cheesy jalapeno pretzel with a few dashes of Tapatio. For dessert, he devoured a crispy cinnamon sugar pretzel. That's right. Three courses of doughy goodness for my husband. That's how we roll.
You should make these pretzels this weekend if you can! The active time is a snap and the inactive/proofing time can be spent cleaning up your kitchen or doing crunches while watching trashy TV. The bottom line: these pretzels are LEGIT and people will be impressed! I kinda feel like opening up my own soft pretzel stand outside our house featuring Honey Rosemary Lemonade. Wouldn't that be awesome? I'm totally dreaming.
p.s.- Cross off another item from my 31 comes before 32 list. #15. Make my own soft pretzels!
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Little Summer Berry Puddings
When the weather reaches almost 100 degrees at my house, the last thing I want to do is turn on a HOT oven. During the summer months, I crave recipes that require very few ingredients and effort. Because when it's hotter than heck, even putting an apron on can feel like too much work.
Raspberries+ Sugar+ Milk= Dessert Alchemy. This recipe requires such little effort for a really big payoff. Toss juicy red raspberries in sugar and let them sit. Slightly soak rounds of bread in milk. One berry layer, one milky bread layer, smoosh & repeat. A small stint in the fridge... Invert, add a dollop of whipped cream followed by berries on top and then what do you get? Cold juicy summer berry studded puddings that are light, decadent, dark red & delicious. If you need me, I'll be huddled over my A/C vent eating one of these.
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Sausage Cheddar Biscuits
For as long as I can remember, our family celebrated Easter at my grandparent's house. We would all pour out of my mom's avocado green station wagon and us kids would run right into the house to find my grandma working in the kitchen and my grandpa grilling lamb in their sunny backyard. We would immediately check out grandma's candy dish to survey our Easter loot, then we'd run right into the kitchen for a slab of her infamous Italian Easter bread. That thick, delicious bread studded with Italian sausage, cheese and egg proved more tempting than EASTER CANDY. Can you imagine? Bread better than Easter candy?? We ate our pieces so fast, they'd get stuck in the bottom of our throats. No doubt, we were enthusiastic about that bread.
This year my grandma will be in New York while I'm here in California celebrating Easter without her Easter bread! I hope she makes some for our relatives back east. Eat a few slices for me, will ya? Where am I going with this? Let me get to it... I made these little biscuits last weekend and they totally tasted like my grandma's Easter bread! I mean, they're definitely not a 100% replacement for her legit Easter bread, but they're a nice knockoff, if I do say so myself.
Carbs + Meat + Cheese = Trouble. The kind of trouble that I love getting into.
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Flaky Buttery Biscuits
Let's play the WHAT IF game. What if I went back in time and slipped this recipe into my mother's yellow recipe binder when I was a kid? How would that change the course of my life? Would that mean I wouldn't be writing this today? Would I have 9 children and live on a commune in the desert? Would the flux capacitor actually exist? That would mean the delorean would still be a popular car, right!? Would I weigh over 500 lbs? Would I have my own biscuit shop in Vermont? One may never know.... The good news is that today I'm making up for my biscuit-less childhood. Reason #2482 why my son is the luckiest boy--these biscuits! He will never have to ponder this great big WHAT IF? What if my mom wasn't a crazy biscuit lover? She just is.
What I like about biscuits is that they can be eaten at every meal-- all day long. A huge dollop of apricot jam and a sliver of butter and your breakfast is covered. Split one in half, add some bacon, a slice of aged sharp cheddar, some tomato & arugula and you've got yourself a fantastic lunch. Plop one in a big bowl of white bean chili and LOOK! Dinner is served! Or you could be just like your pal, Tracy and eat a whole batch within a course of a Sunday...
