April 17, 2013

French Bread Pizza- 2 Ways

When we were kids, my mom used to buy frozen french bread pizzas with the intention of giving us something to eat while she went out on a date night with my dad. But when you have two growing boys and a daughter who knows her way around a microwave, well…you basically have trouble. My mom would bring a few frozen pizza breads into the house and in a flash they’d be gone. We were sneaky kids!

Yesterday, Joy and I got the idea to make some French Bread Pizzas because it’s a versatile way for you to get all your favorite toppings into your mouth on a convienient delivery system—French Bread! It’s also a really great way to customize lunch/dinner for people with different food interests. There were 4 total in our lineup and they were all INCREDIBLY delicious. I’m gonna show you my two. Let’s go through the whole process, shall we?

recipes

April 15, 2013

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cake

While doing a little spring cleaning around the house, I stumbled upon my copy of Baked: Explorations and decided to flip through the pages (mostly because I was procrastinating. What else is new?). I’ve made quite a few recipes (ahem Malted Waffles & Farmstand Buttermilk Doughnuts) from the book…and yet I keep coming back for more. I find all of their interesting combinations incredibly alluring.

What was the hook that brought me back? A cake for the cookie lover– also known as this Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting! A cake that will tame the cookie & cake-loving voice inside your head that tells you YOU MUST HAVE CAKE and YOU MUST HAVE COOKIES and you MUST HAVE THEM RIGHT NOW. This voice & I go way back. The problem is this voice always wants both. Now this voice is like…Cool Tracy…This will tide me over. Now get me another slice. Make it an edge piece. What other two awesome things can we combine? Melted Cheese & Tater Tots? Cool. Cool.

This cake is super simple to prepare. At first you think you’re eating carrot cake (cream cheese frosting!) and then you think you’re eating banana bread and suddenly you bite into a chocolate chip and there it is…something cookie and cake-like. A cake that tastes like cookie! It should be made & eaten on only days that end in Y.

my everyday life, Photography

April 13, 2013

My Everyday Life: Week 15

Here’s what this past week looked like.

Bedtime shenanigans. Tonight’s excuse for not being in bed– I need to blow my nose.

Uncategorized

April 12, 2013

I love lists, Friday!

I love this 100 Rules of Dinner list!
Please Don’t Ask Your Vegetarian Friends These Questions. (HA!)
First I was like ooooh when I saw this recipe and then I fell over and drooled with this one.
Do you love Roger Sterling as much as I do? Read all of his quips!
Message Washi Tape?? Genius!
Totally loving this Kid’s Work Space.
AMEN to this.
Please tell me I’m not the only one freaked out by 13 year olds these days.
This whole email story had me doing fist pumps by the end.
I mean….can I please lick the screen??
I love reading what goes into a photo shoot. The creative process excites me.
Totally “unnecessary” quotation marks. “HAHAHA”
I seriously had this recipe up in a tab in my browser for 48 hours. Couldn’t LOOK AWAY.
This pink lemonade bar recipe has me super duper excited for summer bbqs.
I just ordered the Jerusalem Cookbook and Vietnamese Home Cooking to inspire me in the kitchen. I’m totally stoked!

Let’s Get Physical! On the 91st episode of the Joy the Baker Podcast we talk about going to the doctor. It gets real…awkward. We answer your questions! Talk about getting ready to show some skin this summer. CHECK IT OUT HERE.

This week on High Straightenence, I give you an update on my email merge situation. (I’m still working on it!!!)

My Bites Around the Net:

The Texan New Yorker made my Malted Waffles

Plant Based Munchies made my Shredded Rainbow Salad

I’ll Have Seconds made my Artichoke Basil Bruschetta

I’ll Have Seconds made my Kale Coconut Salad

recipes

April 10, 2013

Lemon-Ginger Crispy Treats

I accidentally forgot my headphones when I was going for a walk yesterday, so instead of using that as an excuse (I’m always full of them when it comes to exercising), I thought I’d use the opportunity to clear my head before I started working in the kitchen. What could be better than listening to chirping birds and overzealous crickets surrounded by redwoods? I’ll listen to podcasts another day.

For some reason I just couldn’t focus. The chatter in my brain went something like this: BIRDS CHIRPING, Whoa. LEMON, GINGER, RICE KRISPIES, Is that poison oak? WHITE CHOCOLATE, EMAIL, ZEST, LEMON CAKE.What time do I need to get this done. RICE KRISPY TREATS. Repeat that for 60 minutes and you’ll have my workout. I think I walked fast just so I could get home and tackle this. I suppose that might be good motivation?

And so I made them…and they were everything I’d hoped for. Rice crispy treat meets lemon cake meets ginger white chocolate bark. Now if only I could meditate hard enough to make fries magically appear in my kitchen. Hold on, let me concentrate and get this crazy brain going….

recipes, Uncategorized

April 8, 2013

Sweet Potato & Sausage Soup

April showers bring May flowers. I have to keep reminding myself of that when it rains all day long. And in between moments of crazy rain and sun peeking through clouds, I want to sit at my kitchen table reading a magazine & eating a bowl of soup. This fantasy includes a hunk of garlic bread, as most fantasies do.

One of my go-to soups is this Sausage Soup I made years ago. I’ve probably made it as many times as I’ve seen The Royal Tenenbaums (which is A LOT). When I was flipping through one of my old Everyday Food Magazines (sniff sniff! So sad they shut down) I found this recipe and realized I had all of the ingredients at my disposal.

It’s like having a bowl of pasta, a bowl of soup, and a salad all in one. Carbs, meat, greens, SUPER FOODS and dairy all in one dish. It might soon replace my old standby. We’ll see about that.