What's Baking in the Barbershop?!

Homemade Calzones

2012-02-08T18:12:00.001-05:00

As you may know if you're a regular follower of the blog, I'm a big fan of homemade pizza. It's definitely one of my all-time favorite homemade meals to make. It's so versatile and soooo yummy!!

I've posted a few times about pizza in the past, including:

Savory Pumpkin Pizza Dough

BBQ Chicken Pizza with Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Peppers, Onions, and Rosemary

Root Vegetable Pizza with Sweet Potato, Onion, Rutabaga, and Acorn Squash (pictured below)

And I've even posted about a Breakfast Pizza, as well as a dessert style Candy Pizza!

So, I think you get the gist. I love pizza. ;)

Last week, however, I wanted to change it up. I was craving those typical flavors, but I didn't feel like doing the "same old" thing and make traditional pizza. So, of course, making calzones was the next best alternative! I've never actually made homemade calzones before, but I assumed it would be somewhat easy, and I didn't really follow a recipe for this...

I used a Stop n' Shop brand whole wheat pizza dough, divided it into two halves, and rolled each half out like I would if I were making pizza.

I baked a couple chicken breasts in the oven, one with bbq sauce and one with a plain tomato sauce.

Next, I sauteed an assortment of veggies, pictured here below (red peppers, onions, broccoli, and mushrooms). I believe I sauteed them in olive oil, and seasoned them with salt, pepper, and rosemary.

Next, Mike and I each built our own calzone. In mine, on one half of the dough, I first layered some of the already fully-cooked chicken breast, and I topped it with some more tomato sauce. I decided to cook both the chicken and veggies ahead of time because I wasn't sure how well they'd cook inside the dough.

Then I threw in some veggies; I just used the peppers, onions, and mushrooms in mine. Oh, and I added some chopped tomato too (which I did not saute ahead of time).

What's next? Cheese of course! I sprinkled some shredded mozzarella and grated parmesan on mine. When my fillings were all ready to go, I simply folded the other half of the dough over top of them.

(that looks like a lot of cheese, but it's not, I promise)

My and Mike's calzone's were a bit different in size. Oops! But who needs perfection when you're making calzones? Not me!

To seal the calzones, I just pressed the outside edges together with a fork.

How cute is my handsome fiance? ♥

I baked the calzones on my awesome pizza stone at 425 degrees for about 12 - 15 minutes, until they were lightly browned.

Apparently the dough of Mike's calzone was a bit thinner? That's my guess why his was more browned after baking.

Here's an inside shot of Mike's calzone. So good! In his, he put the bbq chicken, extra bbq sauce, all the different veggies, and an assortment of three cheeses (mozzarella, parm, and pepper jack!!).

And this was mine. Loved them both! We shared. I ate about 1/3 of mine and 1/3 of Mike's. I had intended to serve these with a side salad, but on this particular weekday I had already been busy in the kitchen for 2 hours before starting on the calzones, and to be honest, I just got too lazy and tired to prep all the veggies for a salad too. But that would have been the perfect accompaniment to these calzones!

The only thing I wish had happened was that the dough had risen more and was a bit thicker. It remained pretty thin, but that's ultimately okay. I'm not sure if I rolled it out too thin or if it maybe had something to do with the fact that this dough had been frozen and I had thawed it before using it? Not sure.

Either way, bottom line = I'd totally make calzones like this again! I'd also be excited to make an entirely veggie calzone without meat. Looove my veggies!

Trail Mix Cookies

2012-02-07T13:15:00.001-05:00

If you read my last post, you know that I recently made some homemade trail mix. Yummm! I've been enjoying it as a snack these last few days. This weekend I needed to make a dessert to bring and enjoy with friends while we watched the Super Bowl. That's when I remembered that my friend Jeanne from Adirondack Baker recently made trail mix cookies. Voila! I decided I'd make some too.

Jeanne's recipe calls for trail mix, as well as coconut and almonds. I chose not to add the coconut and almonds to my cookies, but you definitely can. That's the beauty of this recipe. The extra ingredients you can add are totally flexible! I also cut the original recipe in half here. So the proportions below are what I used when I made these. This recipe made 20 cookies for me that were about 2.5 to 3 inches in diameter.

Ingredients:

-1 stick butter, melted

-2/3 cup packed light brown sugar

-1 tsp. vanilla extract

-1 egg

-1 and 1/8 cups all-purpose flour

-1/2 tsp. baking soda

-1/2 tsp. salt

-3/4 cup trail mix*

-1/3 cup mini pretzels, crushed

-1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

*I used my own homemade trail mix that was my previous recipe on the blog, but you can use any homemade or store bought mix that you like. Also of note, with mine, I removed the pretzels from the mix and crushed them separately before adding them to the cookie dough. The trail mix itself had whole mini pretzels in it, and I didn't want pretzels of that size in the cookies. :) You can go back to my trail mix post to get other ideas for ingredients you can add to your own trail mix and/or to these cookies!

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Melt butter and pour into a large bowl. Stir in brown sugar and vanilla. Mix completely and let cool for 15 minutes (you add the egg next and don't want to cook the egg!). To the cooled mixture, add the egg and mix well. In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to the sugar mixture, a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the trail mix and chocolate chips until everything's well combined.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheets, and bake for 10 - 12 minutes or until edges are very lightly browned (I baked mine slightly longer than I wanted to, but they still turned out great).

I love the texture of these cookies. Although I cooked them a little longer than I intended, they were still very chewy with only the slightest crisp on the outer edges. Perfection!

Thanks to the Adirondack Baker for such a delicious, unique cookie recipe!

Homemade Trail Mix

2012-02-06T17:36:00.000-05:00

Trail mix is one of those foods, at least for me, that I could eat and eat and eat and eat... Handful after handful. Can you relate? Fortunately, I have pretty good awareness and self control so I don't actually eat and eat and eat and eat treats such as trail mix. But I know that if I were to let my cravings get the best of me, I would keep eating tasty snacks like this homemade trail mix I made last week!

I actually made this batch of trail mix to give to Mike's brother, Dave (my future brother-in-law!), as part of his birthday gift. Dave is an avid bird watcher (it's an intense hobby if you don't know much about it!), and I thought it would be nice to give him a snack he could bring along with him on his birding trips that sometimes are hours and hours long.

Below I've listed the ingredients and proportions I used for this batch of trail mix, but obviously you can add whatever your favorite ingredients are in whatever proportions you'd like! That's the beauty of a treat like this. Trail mix doesn't require a very precise recipe since there's no baking involved, of course!

Ingredients:

-2 cups mini pretzels

-1 and 1/2 cups Quaker "whole hearts" cereal

-1 cup dried cranberries

-3/4 cup dark chocolate m & m's

-3/4 cup pretzel m & m's

-2/3 cup whole almonds

-2/3 cup dry roasted peanuts

Instructions:

Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl. That's it. ;-)

Store in airtight containers or ziploc baggies!

I went a little crazy with the m & m's in this batch. Feel free to tone down the chocolate if you want a healthier version!

This made about 7 cups of trail mix for me. I don't know the nutritional information for this mix, but I'd guess that eating no more than 1/2 cup of it at one time is a safe bet. If you're afraid of overeating a snack such as trail mix, simply proportion the snack ahead of time into appropriate serving sizes. For me, when I take a snack like this to work, I only bring enough for one serving a day. That way there's no temptation for me to keep eating since after I finish that one serving, there's no more!

I had jury duty today, and I brought some of the mix with me to snack on when we got a break. It was perfect! I haven't made trail mix in so long. Making it this time around and remembering how much I love it will hopefully remind me to make it more often...

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I got out of jury duty, thank goodness! There was potential I'd be on a case for 3 weeks... Yikes!

Some other ideas of ingredients you could interchange or add in addition to the above ingredients include: raisins, dried fruits (apricots, banana chips, etc.), other nuts, sunflower seeds, chocolate chips, soy nuts, and coconut. Oh, and Teddy Grahams! I love Teddy Grahams in trail mix. I didn't happen to add any to this batch because they weren't on sale at the store this week, but they are such a fun addition to trail mix...especially when it's a mix for kids! Or, for adults who are kids at heart. :)

What other ingredients do you enjoy in your trail mix? I'd love to hear about your favorites!

Oh, and stay tuned... I made a second batch of trail mix, and I ended up using some of it to make some pretty darn tasty trail mix cookies. That recipe's up next!!

Bean and Butternut Squash Chili (Crock Pot Recipe)

2012-02-02T21:50:00.005-05:00

Helloooo! I've been meaning to write this post since Tuesday, but alas, time has slipped away from me. What a busy week!

Speaking of busy weeks, this recipe for bean and butternut squash chili is perfect for a busy week. There's nothing quite like coming home from work, walking in the door, and smelling the delicious aromas of dinner that's been cooking slowly in the crock pot all day long. Mmmmm. It's one of my favorite food "experiences"! Sadly though, I don't cook enough with my crock pot. I really need to make more tasty meals with it!

I was a big fan of this chili when I made it last week. But you know what? I became even more of a big fan of it when I ate it as leftovers. This was one of those dishes (in my opinion) that's better the day after! I made this last Thursday, I believe, and I just finished up the leftovers this week. Soooo good! This hearty, flavorful chili, paired with a delicious slice of When Pigs Fly bread (their best-selling baby spinach, onion, and garlic ciabatta), was my lunch on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week. And nope, I didn't get sick of it. That's the sign of a good recipe. :)

The original recipe is from Perry's Plate, although the ingredients posted below are what I used. I ended up adding some chopped green pepper that wasn't in the original recipe. Otherwise, I followed it almost exactly with just a couple other slight changes!

Ingredients:

-1 20-oz. package butternut squash

-1 medium onion, diced

-1 medium green pepper, diced

-2 jalapeno peppers, finely chopped

-olive oil

-1 15-oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained

-1 15-oz. can white beans, rinsed and drained

-1 14.5-oz. vegetable or chicken broth (low sodium, if desired)

-1 16-oz. bag frozen corn

-2 Tbsp. chili powder

-salt and pepper

Instructions:

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute the onion, pepper, and jalapeno pepper for a few minutes. Add the butternut squash and saute until slightly tender.

Pour the sauteed vegetables into your crock pot. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir until well-mixed. Season with salt and pepper. Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours. Serves 6 to 8.

I cooked mine on low for closer to 9 to 10 hours, and it turned out just fine. I also sauteed the veggies the night before, let them cool, and kept them in the fridge overnight before putting them in the crock pot early the next morning. As I mentioned, the addition of the green pepper was not in the original recipe, and I also added two jalapeno peppers instead of one. Also of note, in my opinion, this chili was a little heavy on the corn. When I make it again, I think I might only add 8 or 10 ounces of a bag of frozen corn instead of the entire 16 ounces. I also think you could easily add other veggies too like other types of squash or peppers.

As I mentioned above, for some reason, this chili tasted better to me the next day (and on subsequent days when I continued to enjoy the leftovers). I'm not really sure why! Sometimes I guess it just seems that a recipe benefits from "sitting" longer and letting the flavors meld together better.

As you can see, there are two "sets" of pictures of this chili. The ones of the chili in the green bowl I took the night I made this chili. And the other ones in the white mug are of when I ate the chili at work for lunch. I'm obviously not an experienced photographer, nor do I have great camera equipment or any special lighting, so I do apologize for the less-than-perfect pictures! But trust me, despite how this chili looks in the photos, it's quite a tasty recipe!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the Super Bowl! Did you know that the average American consumes four chicken wings on Super Bowl Sunday? I did not until I heard that on the radio today (if it is, in fact, true). Mike and some friends and I plan to munch on various goodies during the game, including homemade pizza. I am thinking that one of the pizzas we make has to be shaped like this one. How fun is that?? And if you're not a pepperoni person, you could easily do sliced tomatoes or something in place of the pepperoni. I found some great Super Bowl appetizer ideas on Pinterest this week!

(photo source)

Gooo Giants! And yes, I live in Boston now, but the first 22 years of my life were spent in New York State so I'm rooting for the Giants. :)

Enjoy your celebrations, friends!

Pumpkin Cranberry Bread

2012-01-30T19:31:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday! Hope everyone had a great weekend and a good start to your week today. Mondays are always tough! You know what might help you get up on a weekday morning? Having some delicious pumpkin cranberry bread waiting for you when you wake up. ;)

(photo source)

No, that's not my own lovely photo, unfortunately! I didn't end up taking many pictures of this bread, sadly. I made it late at night and just didn't feel like taking the time to take many photos, especially since I was wrapping all of it up to give away and I was somewhat in a rush when I was doing it. My apologies!

I made this bread toward the end of last week, as I wanted to bake something yummy to take home to my family members when I traveled back to NY for the weekend. I hadn't baked with pumpkin for quite some time (not since my pumpkin gingerbread muffins in December!), but that doesn't mean I haven't stopped thinking about my beloved pumpkin. It was high time I paid it the attention it deserves though! This moist, delicious, flavorful pumpkin cranberry bread was the result.

The recipe is from Very Best Baking, but I altered the original recipe slightly. My exact measurements are below, and the original recipe can be found here. I reduced the amount of sugar from 3 cups to 2, added a combination of all-purpose and white whole wheat flour, and reduced the amount of vegetable oil and replaced some of that with a light vanilla yogurt. Oh, and lastly, the original recipe calls for orange juice or water, but instead, I used some cranberry pomegranate juice!

Of note, this recipe does make two loaves, so you can halve the recipe if you'd like. With the ingredients below, I ended up making one 8 x 4 loaf, 8 mini loaves, and two muffins (I made the muffins for Mike and me - someone had to taste test the recipe to be sure it was okay to give away!).

Ingredients:

-2 cups all-purpose flour

-1 cup white whole wheat flour

-2 tsp. cinnamon

-1 tsp. nutmeg

-1/2 tsp. cloves

-2 tsp. baking soda

-1 and 1/2 tsp. salt

-2 cups sugar

-1 can (15 oz). pumpkin

-4 eggs

-1/3 cup vegetable oil

-6 oz. light yogurt (I used vanilla)

-1/2 cup cranberry pomegranate juice

-1 cup dried cranberries (I used pomegranate flavored craisins)

(Apparently, with this recipe I was really into supporting Ocean Spray, and in particular, their cranberry pomegranate flavored products! Too funny.)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease the pans you're planning to use, or place liners in muffin pan. Combine flours, spices, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Combine sugar, pumpkin, eggs, oil, yogurt, and juice in a large mixing bowl, and beat until well blended. Add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture, and beat until well-incorporated. Fold in cranberries. Spoon batter into prepared pans.

Bake loaf pans for 50 to 60 minutes or until a knife or cake tester comes out clean. Bake muffins for 15 to 20 minutes. Let loaves cool in pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on wire rack. Let muffins cool in pan for 3 or 4 minutes before removing to cool completely on wire rack.

Such cute lil' mini loaves!

I enjoyed my muffin served warm. Sooo good! One thing I might try differently the next time I make this recipe is to toss the dried cranberries in some flour before adding them to the batter. They did not all sink to the bottom of the loaves or muffins, but they also didn't seem to be distributed evenly from top to bottom in the loaves. In the end, no big deal though! But perhaps tossing the cranberries lightly in flour would help with that. Also, I think this recipe could be made without an electric mixer. It seemed easy enough to mix by hand, I think!

Be back again soon. :) Next time, I will have a crock pot dinner recipe to share involving another favorite orange ingredient of mine - butternut squash!

A Review of "Winter Warmer Thursday" at Jamaica Plain's Ten Tables

2012-01-26T20:12:00.003-05:00

I love food. As soon as I'm done with one meal, I'm thinking about the next. Although, in all seriousness, I must confess; I actually think about several meals ahead, not just the next one... Sometimes I wonder if the amount of time I spend thinking about food might be a problem... :)

Homemade meals are usually my preference. Creating and cooking in the kitchen is very enjoyable for me, and I love cooking for and eating with loved ones. However, every now and then it's nice to have someone else do the cooking for you, and I'm sure many of you would agree! Once in a while I just really want to go out to eat. Fortunately, on one of those recent occasions when I "craved' going out to eat, Mike and I could just take a 10-minute walk down the street and head to Ten Tables in Jamaica Plain (or "JP" as we residents and locals call it!). Last spring I wrote a blog post about our 3-year anniversary dinner that we had at Ten Tables, so it may sound familiar to you! And for all you locals in and around Boston, I'm going to go ahead and assume you definitely know Ten Tables. In addition to the JP location, there are restaurants in Cambridge and Provincetown.

I believe it was the last Thursday in December that Mike and I went to Ten Tables for their Thursday special "Winter Warmer" night. This consists of their mac n' cheese and a glass of wine for $14. You can rarely get dinner and a drink for $14 anywhere around here! It's definitely a steal. We arrived shortly before 6:00 and were seated quickly on the bar side of the restaurant; the Winter Warmer night is only on the bar side, and the other side is the main restaurant (and yes, it has only ten tables, as you may have guessed!). Our service was prompt and friendly, and we each started with a glass of wine. I had the house white on tap (you read that right - on tap!), which was a local wine from Westport Rivers Vineyard in Westport, MA. I have to apologize because I don't actually remember which specific Westport wine it was. Mike enjoyed a red, Montepulciano d'Abruzzo. Within 15 or 20 minutes of our arrival, the place was full! We had arrived just in time to snag a table before there was a wait.

(image source)

As we enjoyed conversation, in the back of my mind I thought our mac n' cheese was taking a little longer than I would expect it to, but I didn't think much of it since Mike and I were chatting, sipping our wine, and enjoying a delicious, soft dinner roll dipped in olive oil (the roll is one of my favorite aspects of eating at Ten Tables!). After a time, our server came over to let us know that they were very sorry that our mac n' cheese was taking longer than usual and that they'd "take care of it" for us. We honestly didn't think it was taking too long, but we thanked our server and continued to chat. A few more minutes later, a manager (I believe) came to the table, and he also apologized for the longer than usual wait we were having for our food. The manager offered to give us a second glass of wine on the house because of the wait. Mike and I weren't quite ready for a second glass yet, so we thanked him and he went away. At this point we were a little confused about what "deal" we might get due to the contradicting messages; would they comp our mac n' cheese or would we get an extra glass of wine? Either way, it didn't matter to us! Anyway, very shortly thereafter, our mac n' cheese was served, piping hot and each one in its own adorable little cast iron skillet. The portion size was perfect. It was definitely filling, but not too much so, like pasta dishes often can be. We each finished the entire dish, as it was delicious! I can't remember what types of cheese were used in it (sorry!), but it was very tasty. Part way through our meal, the manager returned to offer us that second glass of wine, and we both took him up on the offer. :) I enjoyed a second glass of the same white I began with, and Mike switched over to white for his second glass. I'm not a wine connoisseur by any means (as you may know if you're a regular blog follower, I'm much more of a craft beer gal!!), but I do enjoy most kinds of wine even if I might not be able to critique them like an expert would. This white from Westport was very crisp and refreshing. It was very easy to drink two glasses. :)

Once we finished our meal and the bill came, we were both curious as to what it would say. As it turns out, we were only charged for the mac n' cheese ($12 for each) and our total of four glasses of wine was free. Yummy, comforting mac n' cheese and two glasses of wine for $12 each. Not bad at all, I'd say! The night we went was definitely a cold winter night too, so the "winter warmer" theme was quite appropriate. Ten Tables was the perfect place to be for us on that night! So warm and cozy. If you live in JP or in and around Boston and have not yet been to Ten Tables, you must go. Soon!

And you know what else you should check out at Ten Tables? If you're not a vegetarian, you should absolutely go to their "Beerger" night on Mondays (also on the bar side like Winter Warmer Thursdays). We've been to Beerger night about 5 or 6 times, I'd say, and it's deeelicious! The deal on Mondays is the signature Ten Tables burger and a beer for $15. And the burger? One of the best burgers around, we think. You can catch a glimpse of this awesome burger on the "bar bites" page of their website.

(image source)

Ironically, on one of the nights we enjoyed our burgers, we had another slight mishap in service. When Mike took the first bite of his burger, he bit into plastic! Oops. It turns out that each burger bun is individually wrapped, and the plastic from the bottom of his bun wasn't fully removed. Our server quickly fixed the error by having a new burger freshly made for him, and his meal was comped that night, as was the right thing to do in our minds.

I don't mean to mention these two errors in a negative light; these things certainly happen from time to time in the food industry! I wanted to mention them though because I think that both times, the ways in which Ten Tables handled the situations were appropriate. And that's another reason why we love Ten Tables. Not only do they have delicious food and a warm, cozy, friendly atmosphere, they also have wonderful customer service.

Now, after reading this, don't you want to go to Ten Tables? I hope so! I didn't really intend this to be a "review" of Ten Tables, but I suppose it turned out that way. Well, it's a review of their Monday and Thursday night specials anyway. :) Since I've been trying to reduce the amount of cooking and baking I do because of my wrist tendonitis, I thought I'd change it up and share my thoughts on a recent dining experience. As a JP resident who loves eating and drinking locally, I wanted to give this top-notch restaurant a positive nod. If you love a good deal like we do, I'd highly recommend the Beerger night on Mondays or Winter Warmer night on Thursdays. You won't be disappointed! And if you're thinking about having a more elaborate meal, definitely look into eating on the restaurant side (the side with the signature ten tables). You can review my blog post from last April about our great experience sitting at the chef's table. We've only eaten on the bar side since that meal, but perhaps it's time for us to return for a special occasion dinner there!

I'm sorry I don't have any pictures for you in this post! When we went to Ten Tables that night, I wasn't planning on writing a blog post about our experience, so I didn't take any pictures. But you can rest assured that the mac n' cheese both looked and tasted great. :)

Happy almost weekend, friends!

Chickpea Veggie Burgers

2012-01-23T17:03:00.002-05:00

Tendonitis. Or, as I've seen it spelled, tendinitis (looks so odd that way though!). I have it. Not only do I have it in one place, but I have it in two. My wrist and my foot. :( The wrist tendonitis has been going on since early November, and the foot tendonitis only for a couple weeks, but it's become more severe over the past few days. If you've ever had tendonitis, you know how frustrating it can be. For the wrist, I've been wearing a brace, and for the foot, I've been icing and elevating it these past few days. No running for me! I am signed up to run a half marathon on February 19th, but I'm not so sure that's going to happen now...

Now, I suppose I should get to the point of why I'm telling you about my injuries before you get too bored or annoyed with me and my complaints. :) I suppose that one reason I'm telling you is to "vent" a bit. I'm a pretty active and busy person, so it's not necessarily the easiest thing to deal with injuries that slow me down (I keep telling myself it's a lesson to teach me to be more patient!). I am thankful for very good health overall though, and I realize this is just a bump in the road right now. Another reason I decided to share information about my current injuries with you is because they have limited, to an extent, the types and amounts of goodies I've been making in my kitchen. I have made an effort to scale back my cooking and baking, or at least try to make recipes that don't require too much extra effort on the part of my wrist (so, not a lot of chopping or twisting or stirring by hand or lifting of awkward pans - or whatever else you do in the kitchen while cooking and baking!). The hardest part of making these burgers for me was probably using the can opener to open the can of chickpeas! Otherwise, they were easy, and that's a reason I chose to make them. That, and well, they looked really yummy to me!

The recipe is from the wonderful blog, Daily Garnish. I adapted it slightly though. The original recipe can be found here, and the ingredients I used are below.

Ingredients:

-1/4 cup rolled oats

-1/8 cup sunflower seeds

-1 can (15 oz.) garbanzo beans (chickpeas!), rinsed and drained

-1 medium carrot, grated

-1/2 cup flat leaf parsley

-1 to 2 Tbsp. garlic hummus (or any flavored hummus)

-1 Tbsp. lemon juice

-1 Tbsp. olive oil

-1/2 tsp. minced garlic

-1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

Instructions:

Using a food processor, add the oats and sunflower seeds, and pulse until coarsely chopped. Grate a carrot and add it to the food processor. Add all the remaining ingredients, and pulse until mixture is roughly chopped, scraping the sides with a spatula a couple times. Be careful not to process too much, or the mixture will become too mushy.

Once mixed, transfer the mixture to a bowl and wet your hands. Form into four evenly shaped patties. Cook burgers over medium heat on a non-stick pan until they are browned on both sides.

Serve however you desire to eat them!

Of note, I used actual hummus in this recipe, but you may have seen on the original recipe that it calls for tahini. I had tahini, but I was a bit unsure as to its expiration date and whether it was safe to use still...so I just used hummus instead. Still worked fine!

I chose to enjoy my burger with some lettuce and tomato. Mike and I enjoyed these (yes, Mike really liked them even though he tends to be a meat guy!) on some whole wheat 100-calorie sandwich thins.

And we ate them with some delicious roasted blue potatoes on the side. My new potato obsession is blue potatoes. Love 'em! I buy them at our Whole Foods all the time...

I actually didn't put any condiments on my burger the first time I ate it because I wanted to taste it as is (and it's very flavorful!). But you could easily do ketchup, mustard, hummus, bbq sauce, etc...whatever your fav condiment is! You could add a nice slice of cheese too.

I brought one of the leftover burgers to work the next day for lunch. It was an awesome meal the next day too!

Since you lovely readers brought me good luck when it came to the Whole Foods pecan recipe contest, I'm going to ask if you don't mind sending me some more of that good luck of yours for my wrist and foot injuries... I'm seeing a new specialist for my wrist this week, so hopefully we can make some better progress together. And as for the foot, well, for now, I'm trying to take care of it on my own by resting when possible, elevating and icing it, and taking some pain meds...but if need be, perhaps I'll see a specialist for my foot too. Either way, please send me positive "tendonitis go away vibes." Please and thanks. ;)

And on a completely different note, today, January 23rd, is National Pie day! This is ironic because I had a free pie delivered to my door today. What??!? I tried online grocery shopping with home delivery for the first time today through a Boston grocery store, Roche Bros. It was great! The only reason I tried it is because I had a great coupon for it. Anyway, for the first time you try their home delivery, you get a free apple pie! Yesssssss. I know what I'm having for dessert tonight!

Hope everyone's week is off to a great start!

Oatmeal Butterscotch Chocolate Chip Cookies

2012-01-18T22:05:00.000-05:00

I love baking cookies. In fact, I think cookies might be my favorite type of dessert to make. Second favorite? Probably cupcakes. Give me either a cookie or a cupcake (or maybe both? :)), and I'm a

happy gal.

Not sure if you read it or not, but in the Q & A on the Whole Foods blog earlier this week after I won the pecan recipe contest, I was asked the question: "Is there one ingredient you can't live without?" My answer? "Chocolate chips! If you need a dessert in a pinch, you'll have options so long as you have baking staples and chocolate chips on hand." This recipe of oatmeal butterscotch chocolate chip cookies is a perfect example of that.

Ingredients:

-6 oz. unsalted butter, melted

-1 cup packed light brown sugar

-1/2 cup sugar

-2 large eggs

-2 tsp. vanilla

-2 cups all-purpose flour

-1/2 tsp. salt

-1/2 tsp. baking soda

-3/4 cup quick or regular oats

-approx. 3/4 cup - 1 cup butterscotch chips

-approx. 3/4 cup - 1 cup chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate in this recipe but use your favorite or whatever you have on hand!)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter in microwave and allow it to cool slightly. Using a whisk, combine the butters and both sugars together in a large bowl. Whisk in the eggs and vanilla. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Add the flour mixture to the sugar and egg mixture and fold until just combined. Fold in the oats, butterscotch chips, and chocolate chips.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Drop dough by tablespoonful on baking sheet, placing about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 - 14 minutes. When the edges are slightly brown, remove from oven. Allow the cookies to cool for a couple minutes before removing to cool completely on rack. Makes about 30 cookies.

Hi Mr. Snowman! :)

If you read the recipe closely, you may have recognized that this is the same base recipe as my "award-winning" (it's just fun to say that!) pecan, cranberry, cinnamon chip cookies. I just changed the mix-ins; that's all! Just shows how you can be creative in baking yet still keep things very simple.

I highly recommend these cookies with a nice tall glass of milk or a mug of delicious hot chocolate. Now that's the stuff. ;)

P.S. If you're an email subscriber, I had some technical trouble earlier in the week with the two posts I published on Monday for my baked potato soup and my announcement that I won the Whole Foods recipe contest. Sorry if you missed getting those emails! Please be sure to check them out still!

Whole Foods Pecan Recipe Contest Results!

2012-01-16T16:17:00.001-05:00

It's the moment we've all been waiting for. Drum roll, please... And the winner of the Whole Foods contest "Your Best Recipe with Pecans" is pecan, cranberry, cinnamon chip cookies!! Yeah!

(photo source)

I mentioned it briefly in my latest post, but in case you missed it, my recipe did, in fact, win the contest! I am pretty darn excited. So cool! The results were announced on Friday, January 13th, which as I had mentioned earlier last week, is a lucky day in my family in general and it's also my mom's birthday. So to me, it's even cooler that I found out my recipe won on the lucky day of January 13th!! Thank you so much to all of you who took the time to vote for my recipe online and to cheer me on. It really means a lot to me! I've had multiple friends and family let me know that they've already made the recipe or intend to make it soon. I hope everyone enjoys it! You can find the original recipe either on my blog here or on the Whole Foods Market Cooking website.

For those of you who follow my blog regularly (thank you!), you probably already know quite a bit about me. However, if you're interested in learning more random details about the "Barbershop," on the Whole Foods Market Cooking blog today, there's a little "Q & A" session about me! You can learn things I'm sure you've always been curious about...you know, like if I was reincarnated as a single dish, what would I be, or does my ideal dinner party include 2, 4 - 6, or 8+ guests? You can find the answers to those questions and more over on the Whole Foods blog!

I also wanted to thank a lovely friend and fellow blogger, Jeanne from Adirondack Baker, who wrote a blog post over the weekend about my victory in the contest. So thoughtful! Take a few minutes to look over Jeanne's blog; you won't be disappointed! She creates some amazing goodies in her kitchen. I am continually amazed by her talent in the kitchen! Some of my favorite posts are about her cake creations, like this super cute snowman cake and her grandson's treasure chest cake she made for his third birthday.

Also, I wanted to talk about cinnamon baking chips for a minute. A few friends and family have contacted me, wondering where they can buy them. Well, some Whole Foods stores may carry them, but I haven't bought them there yet. In the Boston area, I've found them at both Shaw's and Stop and Shop stores. I believe that my mom has bought them before at Hannaford in NY state. If you're unable to find them near you though, you can always resort to buying them online! Amazon actually has a decent price for the Hershey's brand cinnamon chips, which is the brand I most commonly use. Many different brands of baking chips make cinnamon-flavored ones though! They are sooo yummy. If you've never baked with cinnamon chips, you really need to give them a try!

(photo source)

Lastly, a big thank you to Whole Foods for hosting such a great contest! For all you cooks, bakers, bloggers, and foodies out there, I'd recommend that you check out the various recipe contests that Whole Foods Market Cooking sponsors on a regular basis and I'd encourage you to enter one of your own recipes. I was completely surprised when I made it to the final two and even more surprised when I actually won! Overall this was a really fun, positive experience that makes me love Whole Foods even more than I did previously! I've recently begun shopping there more regularly now that we have a store in the town where I live and work; it opened last November. It's the smallest Whole Foods store in the country (at least that's the rumor I've heard!) and I love it. They even carry local pork from my super small hometown in rural upstate NY. Pretty neat!

Now, I'm pretty sure that what I'll be doing this week is heading to Whole Foods and using my winnings to buy $100 worth of ingredients to make several dozen pecan, cranberry, cinnamon chip cookies. ;) I have a lot of friends, family, and coworkers who have requested samples of these prize-winning cookies since they so nicely voted for my recipe without actually tasting them!

Thanks for listening to my ramblings here today, friends! I'll leave you with one more thought:

Found this awesome saying on Pinterest. So perfect!

Cooking Light Baked Potato Soup

2012-01-16T11:24:00.001-05:00

Last week I mentioned that I'd have a delicious, hearty winter soup recipe for you. Well, I'm back and here it is! I made this baked potato soup a couple weeks ago on a cooooold weekday night, and it really hit the spot. I was inspired to make this recipe by my latest magazine issue of Cooking Light, which had a recipe for a "cheesy potato soup" in it. However, when I looked up reviews of that particular recipe online, the reviews were only mediocre. So I looked around for other potato soup options (I was really craving a potato soup for some reason and couldn't get the idea of making one out of my head!) and luckily stumbled upon this one that I ended up trying and loving.

The original recipe makes enough for 8 servings. I halved the recipe (more or less, it was probably more like I "5/8'd" the recipe ;)). So when I made this I had 4 or 5 servings. I have written the original recipe below for 8 servings. Feel free to alter it as you wish!

Ingredients:

-4 baking potatoes (about 2 and 1/2 lbs.)

-2/3 cup all-purpose flour

-6 cups 2% milk (I used 1%)

-1 cup reduced-fat shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese, divided

-1 tsp. salt

-1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

-1 cup reduced fat sour cream

-3/4 cup chopped green onions, divided

-6 bacon slices, cooked and crumbled

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pierce potatoes with a fork and bake at 400 for 1 hour or until tender. Cool. Peel potatoes and coarsely mash.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Place flour in a large Dutch oven (or just a large, deep saucepan - whatever you have!); gradually add milk, stirring with a whisk until blended. Cook over medium heat until thick and bubbly (about 8 minutes). Add mashed potatoes, 3/4 cup of the cheese, salt, and 1/2 tsp. pepper, stirring until cheese melts. Remove from heat.

Stir in sour cream and 1/2 cup onions. Cook over low heat 10 minutes or until thoroughly heated (do not boil). Ladle 1 and 1/2 cups soup into each bowl. Sprinkle each serving with desired amount of cheese, onions, and bacon (the recipe says 1 and 1/2 tsp. cheese, 1 and 1/2 tsp. onion, and 1 Tbsp. bacon). Garnish with cracked pepper, if desired.

I used this Whole Foods brand of reduced sodium bacon. Use whatever your favorite kind is! Also, of note, I only added 1/4 tsp. of salt to the recipe. For 8 servings, the recipe calls for 1 tsp. of salt, which seemed like a lot to me, and halving the recipe means I should have added 1/2 tsp. salt, which still seemed like a lot. With soups, I tend to be conservative when it comes to adding salt to the actual recipe. I think it's better just to let each person who's eating the soup to add their own salt, if they want, to their individual bowl! :)

Mike and I enjoyed this soup with some toasted Whole Foods ciabatta bread. Simple and delicious.

Mmmmm, extra sharp cheddar. It makes everything better!

I really really liked this soup. It was slightly time-consuming to make, thanks to the need to bake the potatoes and cook the bacon. All in all though, it was not difficult and was totally worth any time and effort you put in to make it. And cream/milk based soups tend not to freeze very well, which is one reason I chose not to make the full recipe....if I had made the soup and had a lot leftover, I would have felt the need to either eat most of it within a few days or freeze the rest, and I didn't really want to do either. Also, I didn't want to use up 6 cups of milk for one soup! That's about all I had in my fridge when I made this recipe, so it was a better choice for me to halve the recipe and still have milk in the fridge for other uses.

And on a completely different note, isn't this a gorgeous sunset? This was a pic I took outside my apartment last week. Love those beautiful colors!!

And on yet another note, my cookie recipe won the Whole Foods pecan recipe contest!! Woohoo! I found out on Friday the 13th (my lucky day!) and was totally psyched. I'm planning another blog post about that, so please stay tuned! Thanks so much for your votes and support! :)

Last Chance to Vote!

2012-01-12T23:02:00.001-05:00

Greetings, friends!

I had high hopes to write up the post for my delicious baked potato soup I mentioned the other day, but alas, the time this week got away from me. My apologies! But you can look for the recipe soon. It is such a wonderful winter soup!

You can also look for another yummy cookie recipe (butterscotch, white chocolate, oatmeal cookies!), as well as a fun one for chickpea hummus burgers that I made this week. Yum!

But in the meantime, if you have a quick minute, I would like to kindly ask that you head on over to the Whole Foods contest website and vote for my pecan, cranberry, cinnamon chip cookie recipe!

As you may already know, I'm a finalist in the "Your Best Recipe with Pecans" contest. I would be very grateful if you could vote for my recipe! In order for your vote to count, you do need to create an account if you don't already have one, but it takes no time at all to do so. You have until Friday the 13th at noon ET to cast your vote.

Please and thank you! Fingers crossed!

Happy Friday to you all and happy birthday to my mom too! :) :)

Whole Foods "Your Best Recipe with Pecans" Contest: I'm a Finalist!

2012-01-10T16:54:00.001-05:00

Hey friends! So just yesterday in my post about baked parmesan tomatoes, I reminded you that today Whole Foods would be announcing the two finalists for the "Your Best Recipe with Pecans" contest, and I asked for your good luck wishes that my cookie recipe would make it... Well your good luck vibes must have worked because my pecan, cranberry, cinnamon chip cookies made it to the final two! Woohoo! I am quite excited. :)

Now I am going to so kindly ask you to please head on over to the contest website and vote for my recipe, if you don't mind! To vote, you do need to create an account, but it only takes a very quick minute, I promise. And you don't have to choose to get the Whole Foods Market Cooking newsletter if you don't want to, but I recommend that you do! The newsletters have some wonderful recipes, cooking tips, etc.

What I love about this contest is that someone actually made the recipes that were submitted to test them out! I think that's very cool that someone physically followed my recipe in a test kitchen to see if it was worthy of becoming a finalist. You can read her impressions here too. Neato. :)

Thanks for your support, friends! You have until 12:00 p.m. ET on this Friday the 13th to vote! Yes, that's Friday the 13th. It's always been considered a lucky day in my family, so I'm hopeful! And January 13th is my mom's birthday too, so that makes it even better.

I'll be back again soon this week with a great winter recipe of a delicious baked potato soup!

Baked Parmesan Tomatoes

2012-01-09T18:33:00.002-05:00

Greetings! Sometimes you just need the simplest of simple recipes, wouldn't you agree? The majority of the time I really don't mind spending a little extra time in the kitchen to prepare a yummy, healthy dish. However, there are times when you're hungry, tired, cranky, or crunched for time (or all of the above!), and the last thing you want to do it make a dish with multiple steps or ingredients. The recipe I'm sharing with you today, baked parmesan tomatoes, is one of those easy and delicious recipes you can make in a flash and don't need to expend much mental or physical effort to make. :) This recipe wouldn't really serve well as a main dish, but if you wanted to use it as part of a meal, you could easily pair it with a simple salad, soup, or sandwich, or maybe pick up a rotisserie chicken at the store, and then you've got yourself a complete meal.

When I made this recipe a couple weeks ago, for me it was one of those, why haven't I ever thought of this before? It's something you'd think I could come up with on my own, but alas, I did not. I found the recipe at EatingWell.com. You can easily modify it too, depending on how many tomatoes you have, how many people you're cooking for, etc.

Ingredients:

-4 tomatoes, halved horizontally

-1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

-1 tsp. chopped fresh oregano

-1/4 tsp. salt (I omitted the salt)

-freshly ground pepper, to taste

-4 tsp. extra virgin olive oil

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place tomatoes cut side up on baking sheet. Combine the cheese, oregano, salt, and pepper in a small bowl, and sprinkle evenly over the tomatoes. Drizzle with olive oil, and bake until the tomatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.

Oh, and I didn't have fresh oregano so I just used some dried herbs de provence that I had. Use whatever herb(s) you like! Basil would be great with this, I bet.

I actually added some shredded mozzarella, on top of the parmesan, to two of the tomato halves I made. I had mozzarella on hand that I wanted to use up, so this was a great way to use it.

That one on the bottom left was a little overdone, but that's okay. Still tasted great!

Seriously, such a delicious and easy side dish! You've gotta give it a try!

Tomorrow Whole Foods is announcing the two finalists of the Pecan Recipe contest. Wish me luck! I'll keep you posted on how my pecan cranberry cinnamon chip cookies fare. ;)

Root Vegetable Pizza with Sweet Potato, Rutabaga, Onion, and Acorn Squash

2012-01-04T21:45:00.001-05:00

Who doesn't love eating pizza? And who doesn't love eating pizza that's both delicious and healthy? I'm pretty sure we all love pizza (if you don't, please do forgive me for making assumptions ;)), and I have another pizza recipe for you here today that you're bound to love. The inspiration for this pizza came from the fact that I had sweet potatoes and a rutabaga in the house that I wanted to eat up. With veggies like these, I'd typically roast them and eat them as a side dish with dinner or put them on top of a salad. The other day, though, those two ideas seemed boring to me. As I was brainstorming what else I should do with them, it hit me. Make pizza, of course! Just about any vegetable works on pizza really...well, according to the Barbershop rules of the kitchen anyway. :)

I bought whole wheat pizza dough at Whole Foods so I'd have a healthier dough as the base for my delicious pizza pie. I roasted my sweet potato, rutabaga, and onion in an oven around 400 degrees or so. All the veggies were drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt, pepper, and dried rosemary. I had actually roasted the acorn squash a few nights earlier so I only had to roast the other three. On top of my pizza dough, I spread a thin layer of canned tomato sauce and then the veggies. I then sprinkled some shredded mozzarella cheese and baked the pizza for about 10 - 12 minutes or so at 400 degrees (my oven cooks quickly; I think it might normally take a bit longer than that).

Oh, and in case you were wondering, before roasting the veggies, I chopped the rutabaga into 1/2-inch pieces (as pictured below) and the sweet potatoes into round slices that were maybe 1/4-inch thick. I don't peel my sweet potatoes before roasting them, but you're more than welcome to peel them if you don't care for the skin. You do have to peel a rutabaga before chopping or slicing though - just an FYI if you've never cooked with rutabaga! I hadn't ever cooked with one until we got one in our CSA last fall.

What here doesn't belong??

Whoops! Guess I snuck in a picture of the other pizza I made the same night. This one was more classic - peppers, mushrooms, and tomatoes. Also a winning veggie combo!

Deeelish! I was so in love with this pizza. I've been enjoying leftovers for lunch at work the past two days too. Leftover pizza's the best and it's even better when it's full of yummy root veggies!

Happy mid-week, friends. :)

Pecan, Cranberry, Cinnamon Chip Cookies

2012-01-02T17:26:00.000-05:00

Hello blog friends and happy 2012 to you! I'm especially excited about this year since 2012 is the year I'll be getting married. :) Only 306 days to go! It'll be here before we know it...

Although our wedding is clearly on my mind, there's another very important thing on my mind at the moment. What might that be? Well, it's pecan, cranberry, cinnamon chip cookies, of course!! I made these cookies over this past weekend to share with friends on New Year's Eve, but I also made them because I wanted to submit a recipe to a Whole Foods recipe contest that was for "your best recipe for pecans." Once I taste tested one of these cookies and knew they were pretty darn yummy, my hope of submitting this recipe to the contest was confirmed. Check out my submission here. :) The entries are narrowed down to two final recipes on January 10th. Wish me luck!

Ingredients:

-6 oz. unsalted butter, melted

-1 cup packed light brown sugar

-1/2 cup sugar

-2 large eggs

-2 tsp. vanilla extract

-1 cup all-purpose flour

-1 cup whole wheat flour

-1/2 tsp. salt

-1/2 tsp. baking soda

-1 tsp. ground cinnamon

-1 cup chopped pecans, toasted

-3/4 dried cranberries (e.g., Ocean Spray craisins)

-3/4 cup cinnamon flavored baking chips

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the chopped pecans on a baking sheet; toast in the 350 degree oven for 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove and set aside to let cool. Melt the butter in the microwave and allow it to cool slightly. Using a whisk, combine the butter and both sugars together in a large bowl. Whisk in the eggs and vanilla. In a medium bowl, sift together the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon. Add this flour mixture to the butter and egg mixture and fold until just combined. Fold in the pecans, dried cranberries, and cinnamon chips until well-incorporated, but be careful not to overmix.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Drop cookie dough by the tablespoonful on baking sheet, placing at least 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 - 14 minutes. When the edges are just lightly golden brown, remove from oven. Allow the cookies to cool on the sheet for a couple minutes before removing to cooling rack. Once fully cooled, the cookies can be stored in an airtight container. Makes 30 cookies.

I was very pleased with the flavor and texture of these cookies. The combination of the three ingredients - pecans, dried cranberries, and cinnamon chips - may be a new favorite flavor combination of mine! I bet this would be a yummy combo for muffins too....

This recipe is very versatile too. You could easily use all whole wheat flour or all-purpose flour instead of half of each like I did here. And if you're not a fan of any of the ingredients, substitute away! Different flavors of baking chips, other nuts, etc. could be interchanged without a problem.

Hope everyone's 2012 is off to a great start thus far!

Stout Gingerbread Cake with Citrus Sauce

2011-12-29T17:06:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to write this post all week but just haven't had the chance to get around to it until now! Aren't things supposed to be less busy after Christmas?? :)

As you may be able to tell from the picture above with the Christmas plate, this Stout Gingerbread Cake with Citrus Sauce is the dessert I made for our family's Christmas dinner (which we enjoyed on Christmas Eve). It was definitely a winner! The recipe comes from Cooking Light, and I found it online at My Recipes. If you click on that link, it'll bring you to the original recipe. And in the reviews, you might just see a review by someone you know. ;) My family and I liked this recipe so much that I thought it deserved a rating from me online!

Although the recipe calls for a stout beer, such as Guinness, I used the beer pictured here, Hibernator by Long Trail, that I picked up right at the awesome Long Trail Brewery in Vermont on my drive home to New York for the holiday. This beer is a Scottish ale, which is a style that's on the darker, maltier side. I figured this would work just fine in place of a stout. Basically, what I needed was a beer that wasn't overly hoppy and/or bitter. A Scottish ale fit the bill perfectly! And coincidentally, if you're a craft beer enthusiast, I'd recommend trying Hibernator if you haven't yet. It's quite a delicious beer and gets great ratings on beeradvocate.com. It's so delicious, in fact, that I had no problem drinking the beer that was remaining (around 10:30 AM on Christmas Eve morning) after I had added one cup of beer to the recipe. My sis took a picture of me to show I had finished the beer. Can't let a good beer go to waste now, can we? :)

Okay, back to the recipe at hand. Do forgive me for getting off tangent there. But when you're marrying a homebrewer and craft beer lover, and are a craft beer lover yourself, it's really hard not to discuss good beer. :)

Ingredients for Gingerbread:

-2 cups all-purpose flour

-2 tsp. ground ginger

-1 and 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

-1 tsp. baking soda

-1/4 tsp. salt

-1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

-1/4 tsp. ground cloves

-3/4 cup sugar

-1/2 cup butter, unsalted and softened

-1 large egg

-1/4 cup molasses

-1 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger (I did not add this; instead, I added another 1/4 tsp. of ground ginger)

-1 cup stout beer (or a dark, malty - non bitter or hoppy - beer)

Ingredients for Citrus Sauce:

-1/2 cup sugar

-1/2 cup water

-1 Tbsp. cornstarch

-1 Tbsp. butter

-1 Tbsp. grated lemon rind

-1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

-1/4 tsp. vanilla

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350. Coat a 9-inch round cake pan with cooking spray and sprinkle with flour. Or, coat it with cooking spray, line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper, and coat paper with cooking spray. Combine flour and next 6 ingredients (through cloves) in a bowl, stirring with a whisk. Combine the sugar and butter in a large bowl, beating with a mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the egg, and beat until blended. Beat in the molasses and fresh ginger, if using. Add the flour mixture and beer alternately to the sugar mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing from pan and cooling completely on wire rack.

To prepare the citrus sauce, combine the 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup water, and cornstarch in a medium saucepan; bring to a boil. Cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add 1 tablespoon of butter, stirring until smooth. Stir in rind, juice, and vanilla. Cool to room temperature and serve with gingerbread.

As you can see, I didn't use a 9-inch round cake pan. Instead, I used my awesome Wilton mini snowflake pan. Isn't it so cute? It gets even cuter once you see the cakes themselves...

Love the four differently shaped snowflakes! The white spots you see on a few of the cakes is just flour from when I sprinkled the pan with flour before filling it with the cake batter.

I sprinkled the cakes with powdered sugar using my mom's sifter... It worked pretty well! I was going for the effect of snow...how'd I do?? I had intended to bring home a little shaker that I have with powdered sugar in it that makes sprinkling powdered sugar very easy but I forgot it. The sifter worked great though instead.

To serve the cakes, I cut them in both halves and thirds, to serve people both bigger and smaller pieces. I poured a generous spoonful of the citrus sauce over the cake, and then topped it off with a dollop of cool whip too. Delicious!

The flavors of the cake itself were wonderful, and the lemon sauce was an excellent compliment to the gingerbread. I highly recommend this combination. It was a perfect Christmas dessert, but I also think it would be awesome at Thanksgiving or throughout the colder weather months. :)

Friday Favorites for the Holidays (4th Edition)

2011-12-21T07:34:00.001-05:00

Hello hello, and welcome to my last Friday Favorites before Christmas! And yes, I realize it's Wednesday, not Friday... I wrote this post last night and since it was all ready to go, I thought I'd share it sooner than later in case you want to use any of the ideas I have for you here.

Since Christmas is only a few days away at this point, I was debating what to include in this edition since hopefully you've got most of your homemade treats made and all your gifts purchased and wrapped... What could be left? Hmmm.

Maybe you need a few ideas for simple, tasty appetizers? How about an easy item to include in your Christmas morning breakfast or brunch? I've gathered a few such ideas for you and have shared them below. Oh, and at the very end of this post I have shared a few holiday cocktails that look miiiighty tasty so be sure to read all the way to the bottom. ;)

Appetizer Ideas!

Beer Cheese Dip from TidyMom

(photo source)

I actually shared this recipe a while back in an older edition of my Friday Favorites. I still haven't made it but I still want to! It only requires four simple ingredients: cream cheese, beer, shredded cheddar cheese, and ranch dressing mix. It's not really on the healthy side but it sure does look delicious!!

Mini Apps on a Stick from Pillsbury

(photo source)

These are adorable! Pillsbury has tons of great ideas for different flavor combinations to make with these "apps on a stick" - smoked salmon with dill, caprese, turkey club, and dried fig and mascarpone to name a few. And each one contains only four ingredients!

Crescent Wrapped Brie

(photo source)

This is definitely one of my all-time favorite appetizer recipes. Love this!

Roasted Asparagus Wrapped in Prosciutto

(photo source)

Another favorite appetizer of mine! Simple and soooo yummy.

Breakfast/Brunch Ideas!

Well, for a little shameless self promotion, I suggest you check out my very own Barbershop Recipe Index and scroll to the breads/muffins/scones section. You may find a few tasty ideas there. ;) Another non-bread idea would be my overnight egg casserole. Judging by the name, you can probably tell that this recipe is able to be made ahead the night before. Anything that means less fuss and time on Christmas morning is always a plus!

I came upon this fabulous looking recipe for banana and candied walnut muffins from Kitchen Confidante on Pinterest this week. YUM!

(photo source)

Or maybe a baked oatmeal? This recipe from Our Best Bites looks awesome!

(photo source)

It calls for very simple ingredients that you'll likely already have on hand. Minimizing last minute trips to the grocery store means a lot this time of year!

Now, if you're looking for a more decadent brunch recipe, maybe you could try this baked french toast casserole with maple syrup from Paula Deen. This gets an average of 5 stars after close to 2000 ratings online - crazy! Something tells me this recipe is tasty. ;)

(photo source)

And lastly...

Holiday Beverage Ideas!

I recently re-discovered that I actually like eggnog, so I was looking up eggnog "adult" beverage recipes. I came across this yummy looking eggnog martini and really want to try it! I actually have the liqueurs on hand that it calls for (vanilla vodka and amaretto) so I am pretty sure I have no excuse not to make this!

(photo source)

Or how about this spiked apple pie? It's apple juice or apple cider with rum and cinnamon. Sounds deelicious to me! And it's served warm too. Perfect for the winter!

(photo source)

If you're a fan of the bubbly, this cocktail looks delightful! It's simply cranberries and champagne.

(photo source)

And finally, it wouldn't be the holiday season in my book without a peppermint-flavored cocktail. This peppermint patty cocktail looks perfect! It's milk, hot chocolate mix, peppermint schnapps, and whipped cream. Helloooo YUM!

(photo source)

And on a completely different note, my recipe for pretzel M & M cake mix cookies was featured on Boston.com's virtual cookie swap this week! Check out cookie #14 there and you may recognize the recipe. ;)

If you're celebrating Christmas, good luck with your final preparations these last few days! And if you're celebrating Hanukkah, Happy Hanukkah!

Spaghetti Squash with Sauteed Vegetables and Kielbasa

2011-12-20T07:05:00.000-05:00

I eat a lot of veggies. I loooove them. When Mike and I cook together, we tend to cook a lot of veggies, and I feel really lucky to be marrying someone who enjoys healthy, nutrient-rich foods like veggies! Sometimes we get in a rut though with our veggies... We most often roast veggies, and we also eat many of the same types of veggies over and over. Now, don't get me wrong; I'm not complaining! We still incorporate a large variety of veggies in our diet (and we especially did this with our awesome CSA this summer/fall!), but every now and then I realize our meals have become a bit redundant, and that's when it's time for a change. This time, spaghetti squash was that change! I've read other bloggers' recipes using spaghetti squash, but can you believe that I've never actually cooked it myself? Uh oh! So when I saw spaghetti squash on sale at Whole Foods last week, I figured it was about time that I gave it a shot. :)

The method I used to cook the squash was from Emeril on the Food Network. It's so simple (I didn't follow his entire recipe though - just the part for cooking the squash)! All I did was cut the squash in half lengthwise and put both halves, cut side down, in a baking dish with some water (about 1/2 inch of water in the bottom of the pan). Then I covered it in aluminum foil and roasted it at 400 degrees (although Emeril says 375) for about 45 minutes. When there was about 15 minutes left in the roasting, I flipped each half over so that the cut side was up, returned it to the oven covered with foil, and continued to roast it for the last 15 minutes. After the full 45 minutes, when I took the squash out of the oven and tested for doneness, it was perfectly tender and ready to go!

Here's the squash, straight out of the oven.

Make sure to discard the seeds!

To remove the squash from the peel, simply take a fork and pull the strands of squash (you know, the "spaghetti") away from the skin. It pulls away so easily! It was really fun to remove the squash. It was like popping bubble wrap or something. There was something really satisfying about it for some reason.

I peeled both halves all the way down to the squash's skin. I got every last strand of spaghetti, let me tell you!! I should have taken a picture of the empty skins. :)

To keep the meal super simple, we decided to just saute some other veggies and kielbasa (with olive oil and spices - herbs de provence, s & p) and put everything over top of the spaghetti squash.

Then we mixed it all together...

Added some cheese...

And voila, we have an easy, healthy dinner!!

I like how you can see the strands of "spaghetti" here. :)

I loved my first experience of cooking spaghetti squash! If you're a spaghetti squash novice like I was until last week, I'd highly recommend it. If you're a fan of squash in general, you'll love it. It's so easy to cook and it tastes delicious too!! And if you're a pasta person but you're trying to cut back on carbs, this squash is the perfect substitute for actually spaghetti or any other pasta really!

I found a few other spaghetti squash recipes that look really healthy and tasty and have posted them below for you. YUM!!

Herbed Spaghetti Squash from Emeril

Spaghetti Squash and Pork Stir-Fry from Eating Well

Spaghetti and Spaghetti Squash with Lemon Garlic Sauce and Ricotta from Eats Well with Others

Spaghetti Squash Lasagna from Skinnytaste

Roasted Shrimp with Spaghetti Squash from Martha Stewart

I'll be back in a couple more days with my last Holiday Edition of Friday Favorites before Christmas! Be on the lookout early though; it may be appearing on Thursday. ;)

Hope you're all having a great week!

Pumpkin Gingerbread Muffins

2011-12-18T21:25:00.000-05:00

Gingerbread! It's such a great winter flavor. I've actually been hoping to make a gingerbread flavored treat for a while now, so I'm glad I finally had an occasion to incorporate the flavor into a baked good. These muffins would be a great addition to have on your Christmas morning breakfast table. :) The pumpkin and molasses combination was very yummy.

The recipe is from King Arthur Flour. It gets great ratings online, so I figured it was worth trying!

Ingredients:

-3/4 cup butter or vegetable shortening (I used unsalted butter)

-1 and 1/4 cup brown sugar

-2 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

-2 tsp. baking powder

-1/2 tsp. baking soda

-3/4 tsp. salt

-2 tsp. cinnamon

-1/4 tsp. allspice

-1/2 tsp. nutmeg

-3 large eggs

-2 Tbsp. molasses

-1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin pan with cupcake liners. Or, if you'd like to make this recipe into bread, grease two 8 x 4 or 9 x 5 loaf pans. In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until well blended. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices, and mix well; the mixture will be crumbly. Add the eggs, one at a time, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl after each addition. Beat in the molasses and pumpkin until well incorporated. Scoop the batter into the muffin cups or loaf pans. If using muffin cups, fill 2/3 to 3/4 of the way full. Bake the muffins for 15 - 18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Bake the loaves for 50 - 55 minutes.

For me, this recipe made 18 large muffins and 12 mini muffins. Now, you should know that I didn't follow the KAF recipe exactly with regard to the ingredients. The recipe calls for allspice, but I don't have allspice so I just added some ginger (maybe 1/4 to 1/2 tsp.) and cloves (1/8 to 1/4 tsp.). Also, the original recipe actually includes an orange glaze, which I bet would be quite yummy on these muffins. However, I honestly didn't have the time to add one more step to these muffins when I was making them! Also, the recipe has optional additions of pecans, chocolate chips, and/or chopped crystalized ginger. So, as you can see, I really kept this recipe as minimal as it could be. If you make these though, definitely refer to the original recipe to see if you might like to make some of the additions I didn't make!

I was very satisfied with this recipe overall. The muffins were flavorful and moist (a must, in my opinion, when it comes to homemade muffins!). The only thing I would wish for is a stronger gingerbread flavor. The recipe only calls for two tablespoons of molasses. I'm not sure if just adding more molasses would be an okay thing to do, as it might change the proportions of the ingredients in the wrong way... However, if I were to give my amateur guess, I would think that another tablespoon or two of molasses would actually be okay to add. It definitely wouldn't make the batter too liquid-y judging by the consistency of the batter when I made these, so actually, the more I think about it, the more I think that adding more like four tablespoons of molasses to the batter would be just fine. I think I'll do that the next time I make these, as there will be a next time! :)

Friday Favorites for the Holidays (3rd Edition)

2011-12-16T07:55:00.001-05:00

Happy Friday! Love love love Fridays... Today is especially exciting because I am leaving work early to go home and BAKE! I was "hired" to make a couple desserts for a neighbor's dinner party, and although I did some of the baking/preparation last night, I have a bit more to do after work today. So I'm really looking forward to getting out of the office early and getting into my other "office," the kitchen. :)

(photo source)

And no, that's not my kitchen. :( I would love all that natural light though!!

But before I do that, I must share some more fun and simple holiday treats and ideas! The countdown until Christmas is just over a week now...can you believe it?! I can't. If you're like me, you have a lot more to do. Hopefully you don't though! Maybe you're way ahead of the game. If so, good for you! No matter what stage you are in your holiday preparations though, chances are you could use a couple recipes that are super easy and quick. I'm all about efficiency, especially when I'm extra busy like I am during the holidays! Below are a couple easy sweet treats, followed by some gift wrapping ideas. Enjoy!

Rolo Pretzel Bites

These are AWESOME. I've made them before, and my cousin used to make them all the time (she was the one who gave me the idea originally!). Seriously. These are great. Simple, fast, and deeelicious.

(photo from Glorious Treats)

Homemade "Thin Mints"

I made these a couple years ago for the goodie bags I gave to my coworkers, and they were a huge hit. Love these! They're simply ritz crackers dipped in melted chocolate that's flavored with peppermint extract. If you need a last minute holiday treat to bring to a party or give as a gift, I highly recommend these!

(photo from Kraft Foods)

Chocolate Graham Toffee Treats

And I'm also going to put a plug in for a yummy goodie I made for coworkers last year, chocolate graham toffee treats. These involve a few more steps than the two treats mentioned above, but they are still very easy, let me tell you. And the combination of flavors in these? Divine. It's tough to eat only one of these!!

Recycled Gift Wrap

How fun is this? This is old wrapping paper or tissue paper, run through a paper shredder. This would be a great filler to use in a gift bag in place of traditional tissue paper. Or, you could use it to fill space in a gift box, as pictured below. Neat! Great way to reuse material... So save that leftover wrapping paper and put it to good use!

(photo from Martha Stewart)

(photo from Real Simple)

Lastly, if you have outdoor space, I love the decorations below in plant pots. Simple and really pretty! These could easily stay outside throughout the winter too, not only during the Christmas season.

(photo source)

Have a great weekend - last one 'til Christmas!

Maple Date Bars

2011-12-14T06:57:00.000-05:00

There are certain recipes that I look at and immediately know that I have to make them. This recipe for maple date bars was one of those. I first saw this recipe about a month ago in an e-newsletter I receive from My Recipes. I saved it on one of my Pinterest boards so I could easily locate it whenever I decided to make it. This past weekend was that time...and it was a happy time. :) Boy are these bars tasty! I love dates (I talked about my love of dates back when I made these layered oatmeal date bars. That was this past January and I hadn't baked with dates since then! Not good. It was about time they were incorporated into a delicious creation again...welcome, maple date bars! These are a Cooking Light recipe too (so less guilt!!).

Ingredients:

-1 and 3/4 cup finely chopped pitted dates

-3/4 cup water

-1/3 cup pure maple syrup

-1 tsp. grated lemon rind (I actually omitted this because I didn't realize I didn't have lemon on hand)

-2/3 cup sugar

-1/2 cup butter, softened

-1 cup all-purpose flour

-1 cup regular oats

-1/4 tsp. baking soda

-1/4 tsp. salt

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine dates, water, and maple syrup in heavy saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil; cook for 12 minutes or until most of the liquid has been absorbed, stirring frequently. Stir in rind; cool completely.

Beat butter and sugar together in mixing bowl on medium speed. Combine flour, oats, baking soda, and salt. Stir flour mixture into sugar mixture (mixture will be crumbly). Firmly press two cups of the flour mixture into the bottom of a greased 13 x 9 baking pan. Spread the cooled date mixture evenly over the bottom layer, and then sprinkle the remaining flour mixture on top. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes or until the top is lightly golden brown. Cool completely in pan before cutting. Store bars wrapped individually in an airtight container or place between layers of wax or parchment paper in an airtight container.

Overall these bars were suuuper simple to make. The most time consuming part was cooking the dates on the stove, but that definitely wasn't difficult. Truly, these were very easy to make, and they got rave reviews! I made them for a beer tasting event Mike was hosting. Friends who come to his beer tastings have quite the refined palates, so if they liked them, they've got to be good, right?! ;)

Chocolate Cupcakes with Peppermint Icing and Crushed Candy Cane "Sprinkles"

2011-12-12T07:26:00.000-05:00

Remember those chocolate whoopie pies with peppermint buttercream filling last week? Right. My obsession with the combination of peppermint and chocolate. Well, here it is again but this time it's in cupcake form. :)

I made these cupcakes for a coworker's birthday last week. They were eaten quickly and folks used positive words to describe them. I am going to go out on a limb and say they were a success. ;) The chocolate cupcake recipe is the same one I used when I made my oreo stuffed chocolate cupcakes a few weeks back, and the icing recipe is from a great little book Cupcakes! by Elinor Klivans.

Ingredients for the cupcakes:

-1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

-1 cup hot water

-1 and 2/3 cups flour

-1 and 1/2 cups sugar

-1/2 tsp. baking soda

-1/2 tsp. salt

-1/2 cup butter, softened

-2 eggs

-1 tsp. vanilla

Ingredients for the icing:

-2 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar

-1/4 cup unsalted butter

-6 Tbsp. water

-1/4 tsp. peppermint extract

Also:

-crushed candy canes to sprinkle on top :)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place paper cupcake liners in muffin pan. Mix the cocoa with the hot water in a bowl until the mixture is smooth. Set aside and let the mixture cool for about 10 minutes. When it's cool, place it in a mixing bowl and add the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, butter, eggs, and vanilla. Beat on low speed for two minutes. Increase speed and beat for two additional minutes. Fill the cups about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way full. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from pan and let cool completely on wire rack before topping with the icing.

For the icing, sift the powdered sugar into a large bowl. Heat the butter and water in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until the butter melts. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the peppermint extract. Pour the warm mixture over the powdered sugar, then whisk vigorously until it is smooth. The icing will be soft but thick enough to cling to the tops of the cupcakes. Immediately sprinkle with crushed candy canes, if desired. These cupcakes can be stored at room temperature, covered tightly, for up to 3 days.

I crushed candy canes in my food processor - worked like a charm! So easy.

One thing I might do differently next time is make the icing thicker than it was. The icing was definitely tasty with a strong peppermint flavor; however, in my opinion, it was a bit too runny. I would have just added more powdered sugar this time around, but I had actually run out! At the time I made these, I had just the two and a half cups called for in the recipe. Oops! Probably 98% of the time, I have extra on hand of just about every baking staple you can think of. Not this time though! Oh well. The icing was still very yummy but I would have preferred it to be a bit thicker, that's all! No big deal. :)

Friday Favorites for the Holidays (2nd Edition)

2011-12-09T07:33:00.000-05:00

Hello hello! Is it really Friday already? Yessss. I think it is. This week actually flew by for me, and I hope it did for you too!!

For this week's Friday Favorites, I have a few more excellent ideas and/or goodies... Enjoy! :)

Reindeer Cookies

(photos from Home Seasons)

Are these not the cutest little cookies ever? Love them. And they're so simple too! They'd be a great little baking project for the kids.

And the holiday/winter season really isn't complete without edible snowmen, now is it? Check these out.

Nutter Butter Snowmen

(photo from Brown Eyed Baker)

Adorable, and yet again, easy!! :)

Homemade Snow Globes

(photo from Our Best Bites)

Talk about easy, fun, and creative. These are all that and more! The items needed are minimal - glass jars, figurines or fun little doo-dads to put inside, glitter, glue, and well, that's about it!

Using Cranberries for Decoration

(photo from Wedding Bells)

I think this is just so pretty! Simple decorations like this are often the best. There are some other great ideas for decorating with cranberries here too.

Finally, if you live in the Boston area, there's a great holiday market going on tomorrow, December 10th, in the South End. It's the SOWA Holiday Market.

(photo source)

There will be tons of vendors with crafts, jewelry, pottery, clothing, stationery, homemade goodies, etc. etc. etc.! I plan to go and hopefully get some creative Christmas gifts for people on my list. I'm quite behind on my shopping so I'm hoping to get a lot done here. :)

Have a great weekend!

The Barbershop's Two Year Blogiversary...er, Anniversary! :)

2011-12-07T21:43:00.000-05:00

Hi blog friends! Guess what? I just had my two year blogiversary a couple days and I didn't even realize it! On December 5th, 2009, I published my first recipe on the blog - zucchini muffins, as well as a little "welcome to my blog" message. I'm such a dork. :)

I wasn't really sure what to expect when I started my blog, but I can now say that keeping up with the blog has become a hobby for me that has enhanced my love of baking more than I ever could have imagined! I've published close to 200 posts (not quite all of them are recipes when you include my Friday Favorites, but most of them are!). The blog has become an excellent method for me to chronicle my baking adventures, keep track of my impressions of different recipes (as well as the impressions of the people who help me eat all these creations!! :)), and come to understand and appreciate the craft of baking in a very different way than I probably ever would have if I didn't have this blog. I'm not what I'd call a fancy baker; I don't make pastries, I don't decorate beautiful cakes, and I don't make challenging recipes with unique, rare ingredients. However, a lot of love goes into my baking, and I'm proud of the many recipes I've made over the past two years. Baking is one of my favorite ways to show the special people in my life how much I love and care about them, and although my recipes might not be the fanciest ones out there, I think it's evident that they're made with love as well as my wish that the recipients of my baked goods enjoy eating them as much as I enjoy creating them. :)

In honor of my 2nd blogiversary, I thought I'd share with you ten of my favorite posts to create and/or eat! This is very difficult to do, you know... ;)

In no particular order:

1) Chocolate Peanut Butter Monkey Bars

This was a super fun recipe since it was one that I submitted to the Pillsbury Bake-Off! I wasn't a finalist, but everyone to whom I gave these bars looooved them. Too bad Pillsbury didn't. :( Oh well. You can bet I'll submit a recipe again next year!

2) Chocolate Chip Graham Cracker Blondies

This is my most viewed post of all time on the blog, thanks to Pinterest. Somebody out there pinned this picture and it went crazy over Pinterest! This has given me more pageviews that I ever could have imagined. I know that the number of pageviews I get is nothing compared to many other blogs out there, but it makes me excited. :)

3) Savory Pumpkin Pizza Dough

I loved this recipe. It was fun to create and especially fun to eat since it was so yummy! If you're a pizza fan and you're not intimidated by making your own dough (it's really not that hard if you are!!), then definitely give this recipe a shot.

4) Baked Blueberry Cake Donuts

This was a favorite recipe because it was so unique! It was my first donut recipe with my awesome donut pan and it turned out wonderfully! I was also proud of my pictures on this post. I don't have a fancy camera or equipment, so I just do the best I can with my little ol' digital camera and natural lighting (if and when it's available).

5) Pumpkin Cinnamon Chip Scones

This was a favorite simply because these scones are sooooo yummy! Pumpkin and cinnamon = a match made in heaven.

6) Lemon Cupcakes with Strawberry Filling and Lemon Buttercream Frosting

I've made these cupcakes several times, and each time, they're a huge success! I've made them for birthdays and different special occasions such as the bridal shower for my good friend, Jenn. :)

7) Marbled Chocolate Banana Bread

I've been making this recipe for years, and I'm still not sick of it! It's definitely my favorite variation on traditional banana bread.

8) Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

The flavor/ingredient combination in this one is awesome. Bananas. Oatmeal. Chocolate chips. Can't go wrong! And these cookies are on the healthy side too as far as cookies go, so what's not to love about that?

9) Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Kahlua Cream Cheese Frosting

The chocolate stout cupcake recipe from this one is wonderful (if you're looking for a chocolate cake recipe!), and the kahlua cream cheese frosting is out-of-this-world delicious. Enough said!

10) Spent Grain Bread

Spent grain bread is one of my favorite recipes because it combines Mike's main hobby (homebrewing!) and mine (baking, obviously) to create a tasty, hearty homemade bread.

There you have it! Ten of my favorite recipes from the past two years.

Thanks to everyone for reading my blog and supporting me in my baking adventures! It means a lot to me and keeps me going. :)

♥,

Colleen (aka Barbershop ;))

Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Peppermint Buttercream Filling

2011-12-05T14:45:00.000-05:00

Chocolate and peppermint might be one of my favorite flavor combinations during the holiday season. Well, actually, it might just be one of my favorite flavor combinations year round, let's be serious. :)

I made these deeelicious whoopie pies for a holiday party this past weekend. And they were a huge hit!! The cakes were light and airy, yet moist, and the peppermint buttercream filling had just the right amount of mint flavor and, in my opinion, the filling is what really made these whoopie pies the hit that they were. If you love chocolate and peppermint like I do, you are doing to love these. I promise!!

The recipe is from a handy dandy, awesome little whoopie pie cookbook a friend gave me:

This cookbook has made an appearance on the blog before too, back when I made zucchini whoopie pies with a maple filling. What I like about this book is that it has many different cake recipes ("cake" meaning cookie) and many different filling recipes, and then you can mix n' match flavors as much as your little heart desires! In case I haven't mentioned it, this chocolate and peppermint combo was a real winner (oh wait, have I already said that??).

Ingredients for chocolate whoopie pie cakes:

-1 and 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

-2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

-1 and 1/2 tsp. baking soda

-1/2 tsp. salt

-4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature

-4 Tbsp. vegetable shortening

-1 cup packed dark brown sugar

-1 large egg

-1 tsp. vanilla extract

-1 cup milk (I used 1%)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. In the work bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the butter, shortening, and brown sugar on low speed until just combined. Increase the speed to medium and beat until fluffy and smooth, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat for another 2 minutes.

Add half of the flour mixture and half of the milk to the batter, and beat on low until just incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the remaining flour mixture and 1/2 cup milk and beat until completely combined.

Using a spoon, drop about 1 tablespoon of batter onto one of the prepared baking sheets and repeat, spacing them at least 2 inches apart. Bake one sheet at a time for about 10 minutes each, or until the pies spring back when pressed gently. Remove from oven and let the cakes cool on the sheet for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool completely. Makes about 48 two-inch cakes (says the book!). I made about 36 cakes (so 18 sandwiches), but mine were more like 2 and 1/2 inches wide.

Ingredients for the peppermint buttercream filling:

-2 cups confectioners' sugar

-4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

-3 tablespoons heavy cream (whipping cream)

-2 tsp. vanilla extract

-1/2 tsp. mint extract

-1/2 tsp. salt

Instructions:

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the confectioners' sugar and butter, starting on low and increasing to medium speed, until the mixture is crumbly, about 1 minute. Add the heavy cream, vanilla, mint extract, and salt and beat on high until smooth, about 3 minutes.

Spread a generous tablespoon of the buttercream filling on one cake, and top with another cake of roughly the same size. If desired, sprinkle with colored sprinkles or crushed candy canes.

After writing this post, I really want to just go make another batch of these!!

Friday Favorites for the Holidays (1st Edition)

2011-12-02T07:10:00.001-05:00

Hi friends!

It's been quite some time since I posted my Friday Favorites on the blog. In fact, it's been just over two months since I presented you with Friday Favorites. Whoops! I just felt like I needed a break from it for a bit. But, with the holiday season upon us, I thought it might be fun to bring you some ideas for holiday treats over the next few weeks!

What prompted me to bring you holiday editions of Friday Favorites was a blog post by the Cookin' Canuck that I saw today. This recipe for chocolate covered marshmallow pops needed to be shared with others! It just looks like such a fun, easy homemade goodie for the holidays - one that both kids and adults can enjoy eating and creating!

(photo from Cookin' Canuck)

And I love the three different ideas for flavors - candy cane, heath bar, and coconut. They'd all be great for the holiday season but the candy cane idea is especially festive! You could easily do others too - maybe colored sprinkles or chopped nuts?

Another great holiday recipe is this one for peppermint snickerdoodles that I saw a couple weeks ago on Taste and Tell. I saved it to one of my boards on Pinterest so that I wouldn't forget it!

(photo from Taste and Tell)

Don't those look sooo good? I've made variations on snickerdoodles before (maple, pumpkin) but I don't know if I would have thought to make peppermint ones!!! Brilliant! Be sure to head on over to Taste and Tell to check out the ingredient list too. There are only 5 items required to make these delicious little gems!

Finally, brought to you by the always creative Real Simple, here are two fun ideas for dispensing ribbon (if you are one of those people who loves ribbon for gift wrapping or crafts!!).

Use a paper towel holder:

Use a wire hanger:

I just love simple yet useful ideas like this, don't you?!?

Happy holiday season, all. :) I hope to have more fun, easy, festive ideas and recipes for you over the course of the next few weeks!

Easy Pumpkin Crumble Cake

2011-11-30T12:08:00.000-05:00

Greetings, friends! About a week ago I was busy making this pumpkin crumble cake to have for Thanksgiving dessert with my family the next day. The adjective easy is incredibly accurate for this dessert. Talk about simple! This recipe was just what I was looking for - no fuss ingredients, takes very little time, and delicious, of course! Delicious is always a requirement.

This recipe is from the tried and true, always yummy blog, Our Best Bites (I've mentioned this one a few times before). The original recipe can be found here but I've written it below for you as well. Note: part of what makes this so easy is that it uses yellow cake mix. Although I do love making things from scratch, you also know that I love a shortcut from time to time (as evidenced by my beloved cake mix cookies here, here, and here!).

Ingredients:

-1 box yellow or white cake mix (I used an 18.25 oz. box of yellow)

-1 to 2 sticks of butter (see notes in instructions)

-1 can pumpkin (15 oz.)

-2 eggs

-1 can sweetened condensed milk (14 oz.)

-1 tsp. cinnamon

-1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

-1/4 tsp. ginger

-1/8 tsp. cloves

-1/8 tsp. nutmeg

-1/2 tsp. salt

-1/3 cup chopped pecans

-1/2 tsp. additional cinnamon for topping

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place 2 cups of the cake mix in a bowl. Cut in 3 Tbsp. of chilled butter. I used my fingers (as the original recipe suggests) to crumble the butter into small pieces. Place this cake mix and butter mixture in the bottom of a 13 x 9 pan (I greased mine even though the recipe didn't specify) and press flat with your hands/fingers.

Mix the pumpkin, eggs, sweetened condensed milk, and spices until smooth. Pour on top of the cake mixture in the pan. Take the rest of the dry cake mix and mix in 1/2 tsp. cinnamon. Sprinkle it all over top of the pumpkin mixture. Before you put the remaining cake mix in the pan though, measure it so you know how much you have, and here's why: for every cup of cake mix, you'll need about 3 Tbsp. of melted butter. Since cake mixes vary in size (they're not all 18.25 oz.!), you may have a different amount of cake mix left than the next person after you use the first 2 cups of it for the bottom layer.

After sprinkling the cake mix and cinnamon mixture on top of the pumpkin layer, sprinkle the pecans evenly over top. Then, depending on how much cake mix you sprinkled on, melt the appropriate amount of butter and then drizzle the butter evenly over top of everything. That's it!

SPICES. :) I used more than what the recipe listed.

Bake for about 40 minutes or so, or until a toothpick or knife comes out clean. Serve it warm, chilled, or room temp - whatever you prefer! I served it room temp on Thanksgiving. I also served it with cool whip, but you could definitely make your own whipped topping or serve it with classic vanilla ice cream or any other yummy ice cream flavor. Options options!!

Now, I have to confess that I somehow forgot to add the salt. Whoops! But, as far as the various ingredients go, that was a good one to forget since the lack of salt wouldn't affect the taste as much as say, a lack of pumpkin would. ;) Also, I didn't have pumpkin pie spice so I just added a little extra of everything (cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg).

Super simple and super tasty. It was a nice change from the more traditional pumpkin pie (even though I love that too!!).

I made this the day before Thanksgiving which worked out well since I didn't take up any space in the kitchen or need to use any dishes on Thanksgiving day. I stayed out of my mom's way as she was cooking. :)

Easy as pie! ;)

Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies

2011-11-28T21:51:00.000-05:00

I have a new favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. This one! I've been meaning to try this particular recipe for a while now, and I am thankful I finally did. These cookies turned out to be just what I look for in a cookie...soft and chewy yet just very slightly crispy on the outer edge (very slightly). And they were super easy to make too! That's always a bonus.

This recipe is from a fun cookbook my sister gave me a while ago - Gourmet Meals in Crappy Little Kitchens.

Now I wouldn't say that I have a crappy kitchen, nor do I have a little one, but the recipes in this book are right up my alley. They're generally on the easy side, yet they're delicious and unique. A few examples of other recipes include crabtastic avocado cakes, grilled cheese sandwich soup, daylight come and me want pork stew, the mean green frittata, butternutty squash bread pudding, fig and lavender honey yogurt pie, and mexican chocolate soup. Interesting, right? Many of the names of her recipes are hilarious actually (there are probably at least 100 recipes in the book). This cookie recipe is probably one of the more traditional recipes in the book. Some recipes do require ingredients that the average, everyday cook like me might not have on hand on a daily basis. But none of them really require totally off-the-wall ingredients that are hard to find either. There. That was my short and simple review of this cookbook! Now I'll finally get to the point - the cookie recipe!!

Ingredients:

-6 oz. unsalted butter, melted

-1 cup packed light brown sugar

-1/2 cup sugar

-1 whole egg plus one yolk

-2 tsp. vanilla extract

-2 cups plus 2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour

-1/2 tsp. salt

-1/2 tsp. baking soda

-2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips (or flavor of your choice)

-1 cup pecan pieces (toasted, if desired)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Melt the butter in the microwave but allow it to cool down a bit to keep it from melting the chocolate prematurely. Using your whisk, combine the butter and sugars together in a large bowl. Whisk in the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Add this flour mixture to the butter and egg mixture and fold until just combined. Fold in the chocolate and pecan pieces. Be careful not to overmix.

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Drop cookie dough by the spoonful (whatever size you desire; the cookbook said use a 1/4 cup measure, but mine were tablespoon-sized) on cookie sheet, placing at least 2 inches apart. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes. When the edges are just lightly golden brown, remove from oven. Allow the cookies to cool on the sheet for a couple minutes before removing to cooling rack. Once fully cooled, the cookies can be stored in an airtight container.

A couple other points to note... I actually used milk chocolate chips, not bittersweet, simply because that's what I had on hand when I made this recipe (and I didn't plan ahead and buy bittersweet ahead of time; I made these cookies kind of last minute...). Also, initially, the cookie dough was a tad dry, in my opinion. The recipe calls for 1 egg and 1 yolk. I was wondering if it might be okay to add 2 whole eggs? Perhaps that would make the dough less dry. What I ended up doing was adding a couple tablespoons of milk to the dough before forming it into balls to put on the cookie sheets. Perhaps you'll have better luck with the recipe as is if you try it. If you have a similar experience to me though, maybe try adding two full eggs or a teeny bit of milk like I did. It worked like a charm! The cookies likely would have turned out just as well if I hadn't added the milk, but it seemed necessary to me at the time.

As I look at these pictures, I'm thinking that I might need to make another batch of these cookies ASAP! My mouth is starting to water...

Talk to ya again soon!

Baked Stuffed Apples

2011-11-22T07:10:00.001-05:00

I had never made baked stuffed apples before this recipe even though I have often thought about making them... I'm glad I finally did since they were super yummy!

This great recipe came from an awesome blog, Eat, Live, Run. Check it out! And her pictures are waaay better than mine so this recipe looks a lot more appetizing on her site. :)

Ingredients:

-4 large apples (the original recipe recommends Granny Smith; I actually used some Golden Delicious and Macintosh because that's what I had)

-1 and 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (or a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc. - whatever you have!)

-1/2 cup apple juice (I used apple cider)

-1/4 cup pure maple syrup

-1 Tbsp. butter, melted

-1/3 cup dried cherries (I used craisins)

-1/3 cup roughly chopped walnuts (I used slivered almonds)

-1/4 cup cinnamon baking chips (this was my own addition - not in the original recipe)

-1/3 cup brown sugar, lightly packed (I think I used closer to 1/4 cup)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the pumpkin pie spice, dried cherries, walnuts, and brown sugar (and cinnamon chips if you decide to use them) in a bowl and set aside.

Carefully core the apples, making sure not to cut through the bottom. Fully fill the cavity of each apple with the brown sugar mixture and place apples in a glass baking dish with the apple juice poured in the bottom.

Mix together the maple syrup and melted butter and drizzle over top the apples. Cover with tin foil and bake for 40 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 20 minutes or until the apples are tender.

Love this mixture of ingredients!!

Please forgive me not-so-great pictures. It's so hard to take good pictures when it's nighttime and no natural light to help out!

My overall appraisal of this recipe? Awesome! It was super easy and on the healthy side as far as desserts go. The tender, baked apples were incredibly flavorful and the filling inside was delicious! As I mentioned above, I substituted a few ingredients (craisins for dried cherries, almonds for walnuts, apple cider for apple juice), and I added one of my own (cinnamon chips). The flexibility of this recipe also makes it awesome. There's a lot of room to be creative here! Now, if you were looking to make this a little less healthy and a little more indulgent, I'd say that a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream would pair very well with the baked apples, wouldn't you? :)

Crock Pot Apple Cider Beef Stew

2011-11-20T09:37:00.001-05:00

Last weekend I went wedding dress shopping all day on Saturday with my mom, sister, and future mother-in-law. What a wonderful day! And yes, I found a dress. ;) Why am I telling you this? Well, since I knew we were going to be gone all day, I thought it would be the perfect day to have dinner slowly cooking in the crock pot all day so that we could have a yummy meal waiting for us when we got home (and so that the house would smell delicious too!). I figured we'd be much too tired from dress shopping to cook. And I was right; wedding dress shopping is exhausting! But it's also super fun. :-D

I found this recipe for Apple Cider Beef Stew in one of my cookbooks specifically dedicated to slow cooker recipes. Now that the weather is getting colder, I've been thinking about using my crock pot much more often but just hadn't gotten around to it yet. I'm glad I finally did use it with this recipe! It was a great recipe to start off crock pot "season."

Ingredients:

-2 lbs. stew beef

-8 large carrots

-6 medium potatoes (I used red potatoes)

-2 apples (you can use whatever kind you have on hand! I think I used Macintosh)

-1 small onion (I used a yellow onion)

-salt, pepper

-thyme and other herbs you like (I also added herbs de provence)

-2 cups apple cider

Instructions:

Cut the beef into 1/2-inch cubes. Peel and slice the carrots and potatoes (I cut mine into about 1/2-inch pieces - and I actually did not peel my red potatoes). Also cut the apples into 1/2-inch pieces. I left the skins on the apples but you could peel them if you wanted. Finely chop the onion.

Place the carrots, potatoes, and apples in the crock pot. Add the beef, and sprinkle with salt, pepper, thyme, and onions. Pour the cider over top. Cover and cook on low setting for 10 - 12 hours. Makes approximately 8 - 10 servings.

Serve hot and enjoy!

I didn't list an amount for the spices/herbs because I think you can just eyeball how much you add. My guess is that I added about 3 teaspoons total of the various dried herbs and maybe about 1/4 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. pepper? Sorry - I didn't measure!

Along with our yummy stew, I served some deeelicious bread from When Pigs Fly, one of my favorite bread bakeries. This particular bread was their baby spinach, onion, and garlic ciabatta. Sooo flavorful! I am lovin' that there's a When Pigs Fly in the town where I live, but my wallet and waistline aren't as happy about it. ;)

Back to the stew... This was a very tasty, hearty, comforting dish - just what you want when it comes to beef stew! The apple cider was detectable and added a unique flavor. And the apples added a bit more nutrition too! All in all, this dish was a winner.

Yay for crock pot cooking!

Pumpkin Pudding Graham Cracker "Cake"

2011-11-16T19:36:00.000-05:00

This dessert recipe has to be one of the most simple dishes ever... Seriously. Trust me on this one. Anyone can do it! This recipe is actually the same as my easy icebox cake that I shared with you last year. Essentially it's just a dessert with layered graham crackers, pudding, and cool whip.... Hellooooo easy! I thought it would be more fun to call it pumpkin pudding graham cracker "cake" this time around though. ;-)

Ingredients:

-1 box pumpkin flavored pudding (I used JELL-O's pumpkin spice flavor)

-8 to 10 full graham crackers

-cool whip

Instructions:

Make the pudding according to the directions on the box and make sure it's set before proceeding. In an 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 pan, place graham cracker sheets so that they cover the bottom. My pan was an 8 x 8, and it took a little more than 4 full crackers to cover the bottom. Next, spread half the pudding over top of the graham crackers until it's smooth. Cover with another layer of graham crackers and then another layer of pudding (use the rest of it). Let the dish sit overnight in the fridge (or for several hours) so that the pudding seeps into the graham crackers and makes them soft.

If desired, you can spread cool whip evenly over top of the pudding before slicing the "cake" into pieces to serve, or you can just serve it by putting a dollop of cool whip on each piece. The latter way may be slightly safer just in case someone doesn't care for cool whip!

I forgot to take a picture again after I smoothed out the pudding here on the top layer.

I also forgot to take a picture until half the dish was already gone! Oops. It went fast. :)

Yummy layers! So simple yet delicious and fun.

You can obviously make this with any pudding flavor you'd like! One time I made it with pistachio pudding and another time I went wild n' crazy and made this with two different pudding flavors...wowzers! And then I even threw in a couple layers of fresh fruit. Yikes! Something must have gotten into me that day. I just went crazy. And it's also always fun to top this with some fun, colored sprinkles or maybe some crushed graham crackers for an added crunchy texture. You can also make this in a larger pan like a 13 x 9, but you may need to use two boxes of pudding with the larger dish and obviously more graham crackers too. :)

Happy mid-week, all!

Barbecue Chicken Pizza with Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Peppers, Onions, and Rosemary on Multigrain Dough

2011-11-15T10:20:00.000-05:00

Homemade pizza is probably in my top three dinners of all time. I love its versatility and the opportunity it provides to have a fairly healthy meal that's also a comfort food. :) I've written previously about some of my favorite combinations of toppings, and I've also shared an awesome savory pumpkin pizza dough recipe on the blog. Today I'm sharing a "recipe" for a most delicious pizza that Mike and I made last week - barbecue chicken pizza with roasted sweet potatoes, peppers, and onions on multigrain dough. YUM!

I used the multigrain pizza dough from Whole Foods when we made this pizza. Oh my goodness. This dough is the best! A Whole Foods very recently opened where I live, and I am sooo excited about it. Last week I picked up the last bag of multigrain dough that was on the shelves at the time, and I think it was meant to be. WF multigrain dough + me = a match made in heaven. Try not to be too jealous, fiance Mike. ;)

Now, this recipe doesn't really have exact measurements, per se. When making pizza, I just eyeball everything. So I apologize for not having measurements, but you'll get the idea!

Ingredients:

-pizza dough of your choice (you can make your own, of course!)

-barbecue sauce (I used a honey bbq sauce)

-cooked chicken, shredded or cut into bite-sized pieces (I baked a medium sized chicken breast with bbq sauce and then cut it into bite-sized pieces)

-roasted sweet potatoes (about 3/4 cup or so; I used leftovers I had roasted a couple nights prior, and at that time they were seasoned with salt, pepper, and rosemary)

-pepper (any color!), sliced

-onion, diced

-dried rosemary or other herbs of your choice

-shredded cheese of your choice (I used a store bought "Italian" blend of cheeses)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. If using a pizza stone, preheat it in the oven (to prevent it from cracking). Saute your onion and pepper in olive oil, over medium heat on the stove, for 6 or 8 minutes until they start to get soft (they will cook more in the oven). Spread out your dough until it's as thick or thin as you'd like. Evenly spread a few tablespoons (or so!) of bbq sauce across the dough. Place the rest of your toppings (cooked chicken and veggies) evenly on top of the bbq sauce, and then sprinkle with your preferred flavor(s) and amount of cheese. I typically don't like my pizza too cheesy, as I don't want the cheese to overpower the taste of all the other delicious toppings! And it's healthier with less cheese too. ;) We chose to sprinkle some dried rosemary over top of our pizza before baking it. Feel free to add whatever herbs you might like!

(Terrible lighting there; sorry! But this is the dough with the bbq sauce spread on it.)

If you preheated a pizza stone, transfer the pizza to the stone and bake for 10 - 12 minutes (that's how long my pizzas take anyway!) or until the outer crust edges start to turn a light golden brown. I have preheated my pizza stone before, and I also haven't... It's turned out fine every time, but I guess you should probably do whatever your pizza stone's instructions tell you to do! I have an awesome Pampered Chef stone that my mom gave me. Love it!

Let your pizza sit for a couple minutes before slicing it. Then, ENJOY and try to hold back from eating the entire thing in one sitting. ;)

Below you'll see a slice of the bbq chicken pizza, but what's that on the left, you wonder? Well, it's the other pizza we made the same night! The second pizza was a tasty broccoli, tomato, and goat cheese pizza on Whole Foods white dough. Also super delicious! However, the bbq chicken and sweet potato pizza really stole the show, which is why I decided to share that one with you.

What toppings and flavor combinations do you like best on your own homemade pizza?!

Hope everyone is having a great week so far! :)

Pumpkin Waffles

2011-11-09T07:21:00.000-05:00

Warning. I'm back on the pumpkin kick! Well, let's be honest. I never really went off it... I've still been creating yummy treats with my beloved pumpkin all along. I've just taken a break for a couple posts from sharing the recipes with you.

I made these pumpkin waffles a few weeks ago and thought they were super yummy. They take a little extra time to make, but if you've got the time, they're totally worth it!! The recipe is from Smitten Kitchen, a wonderful food blog that I've mentioned before. I'm posting the original ingredients below, although when I made these, I halved the recipe. I think that half the recipe made about 10 or so waffles for me?

Ingredients:

-2 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (you could easily do half AP and half whole wheat here)

-1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed

-2 and 1/4 tsp. baking powder

-1 tsp. baking soda

-1/2 tsp. salt

-2 tsp. cinnamon

-1 tsp. ginger

-1/4 tsp. cloves

-4 lage eggs, separated

-2 cups well-shaken buttermilk

-1 cup canned pumpkin

-6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Instructions:

Preheat waffle iron. Sift together flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. Separate eggs. Whisk egg yolks in a large bowl with buttermilk, pumpkin, and melted butter until smooth. In a mixing bowl with the whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites until they hold a soft peak (like in the second picture below). Fold them into the waffle batter until just combined, Brush waffle iron lightly with vegetable oil or spray it with cooking spray. Spoon batter into iron, spreading it quickly, and cook until done (however long that is for your particular waffle maker!). I used around 3/4 to one cup of batter for every two waffles. If desired, keep waffles warm in a 250 degree oven while you cook the remaining batter.

The Saturday morning that I made these, I actually ate mine with both butter AND maple syrup (the real stuff, of course). For some reason I was in the mood for both tasty toppings. Obviously you can enjoy them however you would like to. :) And there's a chance I ate the leftover ones cold.... And there's also a chance that they were delicious cold. Just sayin'!

Mashed Root Vegetables (Potato, Rutabaga, Parsnip) with Rosemary

2011-11-07T19:48:00.000-05:00

Hello hello! Sorry it's been several days between posts. Whoops! This is a tasty side dish recipe that involves very yummy, healthy root veggies that are abundant this time of year. During our last week of our CSA at the end of October, we got a rutabaga! My first ever :) I was debating what to do with it and decided it might be fun to mash it! So I did. I combined it with a parsnip and a couple potatoes...all from our CSA. I kind of just flew by the seat of my pants with this recipe, so the approximate measurements are listed below for you. I feel like this is the kind of recipe that you can make to your own taste, adding a bit more butter or milk (or whatever!) to your liking.

Ingredients:

-1 parsnip

-2 small potatoes

-1 rutabaga

-2 or so Tbsp. of butter

-salt and pepper to taste

-1/4 to 1/2 cup milk (I used 1%)

-a few sprigs of fresh rosemary

Instructions:

Peel veggies and cut into small cubes/chunks. I probably ended up with 2.5 to 3 cups of veggies (I actually only used about 2/3 of the rutabaga). Place root veggies in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, cover and cook for 15 - 20 minutes or until tender. Drain and return veggies to a large bowl. Add the butter, milk, salt, and pepper. Beat until light and fluffy, or mash with a masher or fork. Stir in fresh rosemary (or other herbs of your choice!).

I'm sorry I didn't take any more appetizing photos. I forgot to take any more than just these! I didn't feel like using an electric mixer to beat the root veggies, and I don't have a masher...so I just used an old-fashioned fork. That led to some lumps in mine, but I didn't mind. I actually liked the texture. ;-) I am not actually sure if I've ever had rutabaga before now! I did like it, and I'd definitely make this dish again. I roasted the remaining 1/3 of the rutabaga that I didn't put in this dish. That was tasty too!

Lesson learned here = I ♥ rutabaga. :)

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Cupcakes with Kahlua Cream Cheese Frosting

2011-11-01T17:32:00.005-04:00

Yes, you heard me right. Or, rather, you read my words correctly. ;-) These are OREO STUFFED chocolate cupcakes. I was inspired to try this by recently reading some recipes about making oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies. I actually bought oreos several weeks ago with the intent to make those cookies. But then came the occasion of a coworker's birthday (which also happened to fall on Halloween!), and I thought to myself, you should really use those oreos you bought a while ago. I wanted to make cupcakes for the birthday occasion though since they're much more birthday-like than cookies. And then there it was - the idea for oreo stuffed cupcakes! As soon as I had the idea, I knew it would be a winner.

When making cupcakes on Halloween, one must use Halloween-themed liners!

The oreos I used weren't classic oreos; rather, they were these newfangled "heads or tails" oreos that have one chocolate wafer and one vanilla one. Even better - the best of both worlds!

I'll share the actual cupcake ingredients later on in the post, but first, the method of stuffing the cupcakes... It's quite simple really.

Put a spoonful of cupcake batter in the bottom of the liner. And by spoonful, I mean about a tablespoon or so?

Next, the oreo goes in!

Finally, place more cupcake batter on top of the oreo and fill until the cup is about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way filled. That's it folks!

You can easily use whatever cupcake recipe you love too (doesn't have to be the one I share below!). If you have a favorite homemade chocolate cupcake recipe you love, use it. Or, try the oreo stuffed cupcakes with vanilla or peanut butter cupcakes. Whatever you want!!

I used a new recipe from this fun book. The original recipe was just for the chocolate cupcakes. The addition of the oreos was a Barbershop twist on the original. Oh, and actually, I added the salt and vanilla to the ingredients list myself too. They weren't in the original recipe.

Ingredients:

-1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

-1 cup hot water

-1 and 2/3 cups flour

-1 and 1/2 cups sugar

-1/2 tsp. baking soda

-1/2 tsp. salt

-1/2 cup butter, softened

-2 eggs

-1 tsp. vanilla

-20 to 24 oreos (any kind will do!)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place paper cupcake liners in muffin pan. Mix the cocoa with the hot water in a bowl until the mixture is smooth. Set aside and let the mixture cool for about 10 minutes. When it's cool, place it in a mixing bowl and add the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, butter, eggs, and vanilla. Beat on low speed for two minutes. Increase speed and beat for two additional minutes. Using the method I described above, make your oreo stuffed cupcakes and fill the cups about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way full.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from pan and let cool completely on wire rack before frosting.

I was pretty pleased with the flavor of these cupcakes. And they were very moist! That's key for me when it comes to cupcakes.

For the frosting on these little gems, I used a recipe I previously posted about and looooved. It's this kahlua cream cheese frosting. Use any frosting you'd like though! Classic vanilla or chocolate frosting would be great with these cupcakes.

Now, because I was making these cupcakes for a Halloween birthday, I decided to decorate them in a way that fit Halloween. I made them into mummies! The method to make mummies is very simple. And you don't have to be very precise either which is always nice. :) I used my Wilton cake decorating tip #47. Basically, to create the mummy look, just pipe lines with your pastry bag any which way you want on top of the cupcake and you've got yourself a mummy! Then place a couple candies of your choice on top for the eyes. Anyone can do it! No need for them to look perfect.

I made about a dozen mini cupcakes too! These did not have oreos in them though. :(

Here's my family of mummies, just chillin'. Little did they know the fate that was around the corner for them... Poor mummies didn't know they'd be completely devoured the next day.

The first night I made these, I taste tested one just to be sure they were worthy of being fed to my coworkers and the birthday guest of honor the next day at work. Rest assured; they were.

Below are a few more looks at the deliciousness that is the newly discovered favorite type of cupcake among my coworkers...

Cupcakes will never be the same!!

Pumpkin Banana Muffins

2011-10-30T16:55:00.001-04:00

Happy weekend, all! The hot topic in much of the northeast is the SNOW we got this past weekend! In Boston, we ended up getting much less than predicted so it didn't really affect us too much. But it is pretty darn chilly out there! To combat today's chilly weather, I've been doing some baking...some "surprise" chocolate cupcakes (recipe coming later!) and I'm about to make some homemade applesauce with some really yummy apples I picked yesterday at Drew Farms here in MA. Love love love the smell of applesauce cooking on the stove...

Enough rambling though - onto the recipe at hand, pumpkin banana muffins!

This was a fun new recipe to try. I love both pumpkin and banana flavors but had never actually thought to put them together. Brilliant! The end result was a fluffy, moist muffin that had hints of each flavor but wasn't overpowering really one way or another. I found this recipe through Foodbuzz, and it's a recipe from a blog called Alida's Kitchen. The recipe is actually for pumpkin banana bread but I made muffins instead. It's an incredibly easy recipe - and healthy too!

Ingredients:

-1 cup all-purpose flour

-1 cup white whole wheat flour

-1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

-1 tsp. baking powder

-1/2 tsp. baking soda

-1 tsp. cinnamon

-1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (I added my own mixture of cloves, nutmeg, and ginger here)

-2 bananas, mashed

-1 cup canned pumpkin

-1/4 cup canola oil

-2 eggs

-1 tsp. vanilla

-1 tablespoon brown sugar (for topping, optional)

-1 tsp. cinnamon (for topping, optional)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray loaf pan or line muffin pan with paper liners. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and spices. In a medium bowl, whisk together the bananas, pumpkin, oil, eggs, and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients to the banana-pumpkin mixture, and gently fold until combined. If using, combine the sugar and cinnamon for topping (I did not use this).

Pour batter into prepared pan(s). Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, if desired. Bake for 40-45 minutes for a loaf, or about 15 - 17 minutes for muffins (that's how long mine took anyway!), or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 5 minutes. Remove and let cool completely on a wire rack. For me, this made about one dozen regularly sized muffins and a dozen mini ones too.

These were excellent served warm, and I thought they were actually better one to two days after I baked them as opposed to the day of baking. So, if you have the patience, I recommend waiting until the next day to eat them. ;-) The flavors seemed to come through more after a day or two.

cute lil' mini!

fun Halloween muffin liner...

I actually completely forgot to take more pictures of these tasty treats! I baked them the night before heading up to VT to spend a couple days with my family, who was vacationing up there. I brought the muffins with me, and we all enjoyed them the next morning yet I forgot to take pics! I guess being out of my usual environment through me off. :)

Hopefully I'll be back again soon!

Pumpkin, Sweet Potato, and Black Bean Chili

2011-10-27T21:58:00.000-04:00

Deeeelicious. That's the one word I'd use to describe this chili (well, if I had to choose only one word ;-)). If I could use more words (and why can't I?), I'd also use hearty, flavorful, comforting, easy, and healthy.

And it's made with pumpkin beer! Yes, please! The recipe only calls for one cup of beer, which means there's some leftover. And you know what that means...

I found this recipe from a wonderful blog, Healthy Food for Living. I'm feeling lazy this evening so I'm not going to re-type the recipe here (my apologies!). But, please head on over to Healthy Food for Living and read it there. And check out the other great recipes there while you're at it!

I did make a couple changes to the recipe...namely because I didn't have all the exact ingredients on hand. I did not add actual chili peppers, but I had some great dried chili spices that I added. And also, the recipe calls for tomato sauce/puree, but I only had canned diced tomatoes on hand so that's what I used.

I also made some homemade herb drop biscuits to go with this yummy dish. The biscuits turned out fabulously! I was really happy with them. The recipe will be shared with you in the near future...

You have to try this dish! It is totally a keeper of a recipe, and I can't wait to make it again. :)

Apple Cider Bread

2011-10-23T20:29:00.000-04:00

Alright alright, I'll stop with the pumpkin recipes for a little bit (but not for long!) and give you another tasty fall treat. Apple cider bread!

For the past few weeks, I've made a point to always have some apple cider in my fridge. It's such a nice treat to have every now and then... I heat a mug full, add some cinnamon, and sit down to relax. There is something very calming about warm apple cider, wouldn't you agree? :)

Well, there is also something calming about this apple cider bread. I found this bread to be incredibly moist and full of flavor. I brought in a mini loaf for one of my coworkers, and after she tried some, she sent me an email saying "I just died and went to heaven." That's quite the compliment to this recipe, I'd say!

I got the recipe from Recipe Girl. She has some amazing recipes! Check out her site.

Isn't this a super cute pan? I used it for the first time with this recipe and made a few fall-shaped "loaves." So fun!

Ingredients:

-2 cups all-purpose flour (I used 1 cup AP, 1 cup white whole wheat flour)

-1 tsp. baking powder

-1 tsp. salt

-1 tsp. baking soda

-1 tsp. ground cinnamon

-1/2 tsp. ground cloves

-1/4 cup butter, at room temp

-2/3 cup granulated sugar

-1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed

-2 large eggs

-1/2 cup apple cider

-2 and 1/4 cups apples, peeled and chopped
-1 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour an 8 x 5 loaf pan. Sift dry ingredients in a medium bowl (flour through cloves). In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to combine the butter and sugars. Beat in eggs. Add in the flour mixture, alternating with the cider, and mix until just combined. In a small bowl, toss the apples with lemon juice. Stir the apples into the batter. Put batter into prepared pan and bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in pan for at least 20 minutes before removing and letting cool completely on rack. Enjoy at room temp or warm (yum!).

Cute lil' acorn, pumpkin, and leaf loaves :)

I made about four regular mini loaves as well.

This bread just bursts with great fall flavors. It's a keeper of a recipe, for sure.

Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies

2011-10-20T19:52:00.000-04:00

Greetings friends! Okay, so I have one more pumpkin recipe for you this week... So far this week I've given you a breakfast recipe of pumpkin pancakes, a dinner recipe of pumpkin mac n' cheese, an "anytime" recipe of pumpkin biscuits, and now I present to you a dessert recipe of pumpkin snickerdoodle cookies! In my opinion, I've saved the best 'til last. These cookies were AMAZING. And they're easy too! I used my shortcut of the cake mix cookie trick. ;-)

Ingredients:

-1 box (18.25 oz.) yellow cake mix

-1 egg

-1/2 cup canned pumpkin

-1/4 to 1/3 cup vegetable oil

-3 Tbsp. sugar

-1 tsp. cinnamon

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, and grease two large cookie sheets. In a large bowl, combine the first four ingredients (cake mix through vegetable oil). Start with about 1/4 cup of vegetable oil, but if the mixture doesn't feel like it's sticking together well or isn't quite moist enough, continue adding a bit more vegetable oil until it comes together nicely. In a small bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon. Form the cookie dough into 1-inch balls, and then roll each ball in the cinnamon sugar mixture until it's well coated. Place on prepared cookie sheets, and bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until the cookie springs back if you touch it with your finger. Let sit for a couple minutes on the cookie sheet before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely.

For some reason I didn't think of this until after the fact, but you could definitely add cinnamon to the actual cookie dough too if you wanted to make them have even more cinnamon flavor. I'd say a teaspoon or so should do it!

I will say that these cookies were not super pumpkin-y, but the flavor was definitely there. The soft and chewy texture of these cookies is my favorite quality of them. Cake mix cookies come out great every time I make them!! And this new recipe is no exception. Next time you need a quick dessert, give these a try. You can whip up a batch in no time at all! And they'll be devoured in no time at all too. :)

Pumpkin Mac n' Cheese

2011-10-19T19:56:00.001-04:00

And the pumpkin kick continues! Today I bring to you my own homemade version of pumpkin mac n' cheese. I was inspired by a couple sources to make this. One is my own butternut squash mac n' cheese that I made last year, and the other is a recent recipe by Angela from Oh She Glows. Below is the recipe I ended up using that I kind of just created as I went along... Oh, and I did take a look at a couple of my own cookbooks too just to make sure I was generally on the right track with ingredient measurements. :)

Ingredients:

-2 cups of pasta, cooked and drained (use whatever shape you'd like!)

-1 to 2 Tbsp. butter

-1 and 1/2 cups of milk (I used 1%)

-2 to 3 Tbsp. flour

-salt and pepper to taste

-1 heaping cup of canned pumpkin

-1 heaping cup of shredded cheddar cheese (I used VT sharp!)

-1/4 to 1/2 cup parmesan cheese

-handful of bread crumbs and more parmesan cheese

Instructions:

Cook and drain the pasta and set aside. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and stir it with the milk until the milk is steaming. Whisk in the flour and cook the mixture until it begins to bubble and thicken. Add salt and pepper to taste. Once the mixture is thickened (you'll easily be able to tell when this happens!), remove from heat and stir in your canned pumpkin until smooth. Next, stir in the cheddar and parmesan cheese until well combined.

In a large bowl, combine the pasta and pumpkin/cheese mixture until the pasta is well coated. Spray a 2-quart casserole dish with cooking spray, and add the pasta mixture to it. Top with whatever amount of bread crumbs and parmesan cheese you'd like (I didn't measure how much I added to mine; I just sprinkled some on top until it looked just about right :)). Bake for about 15 to 25 minutes, until the top is lightly golden brown and slightly crispy to your liking. ENJOY!!!

Milk mixture, beginning to thicken...

Time to stir in the oh-so-important pumpkin!

Lookin' good enough to eat...

Lookin' even better with the addition of cheese...

And more cheese...

The cheese sauce doesn't look too appetizing here, but trust me, it is.

I wanted to eat it at this stage. There's a chance I did... Just one bite.

Bread crumbs and parm cheese on top before popping it into the oven...

Out of the oven and ready to EAT!!!

Oh yeah. Pumpkin mac n' cheese. Simple and "healthified"! Perhaps you'd like to serve this with a tasty, homemade pumpkin biscuit? And if you're in the mood for a pumpkin flavored dessert after you enjoy this meal, I've got a tasty pumpkin cookie recipe coming up next for you... :)

Happy mid-week!

Pumpkin Pancakes

2011-10-17T16:42:00.000-04:00

PUMPKIN! I've been cooking or baking with it at least a couple times a week thus far this fall...and you can bet that I'll continue making many yummy pumpkin dishes. I just can't get enough! This past weekend I actually had time on Saturday morning to make a slightly more time consuming breakfast, so I took advantage of that time and made these delicious pumpkin pancakes. They were super easy and even more delicious than they were easy! Bottom line = they're a must try. :)

The recipe is from Sunset magazine, and I found it online from myrecipes.com. The site actually provides a recipe for ginger butter but I did not make that. It sounds great though!

Ingredients:

-1 cup all-purpose flour (I used half AP and half whole wheat)

-2 Tbsp. firmly packed brown sugar

-1 tsp. baking powder

-1/2 tsp. baking soda

-1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

-1/2 tsp. ground ginger

-1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

-1/4 tsp. salt

-1 large egg

-3/4 cup milk (I used 1%)

-3/4 cup canned pumpkin

-1/4 cup yogurt (I did not add this; I only had greek yogurt on hand and didn't want to open a container of it to use for this recipe, so I just didn't add it - worked out totally fine!)

-2 Tbsp. butter, melted (I did not add the butter either!)

Instructions:

In a large bowl, whisk together all the ingredients from the flour through the salt. In another bowl, mix together the egg, milk, pumpkin, yogurt, and melted butter. Stir together the wet and dry ingredients until they're just combined.

Over medium heat, coat a skillet with butter and place batter on pan in 1/4 to 1/3 cup portions. Cook for about 2 to 3 minutes or until pancakes are browned. Flip and cook the other side, about 2 to 3 more minutes. As you're continuing to cook the remaining batter, transfer the done pancakes to a baking dish and keep warm in the oven (at around 200 degrees). Serve with butter, maple syrup, or toppings of your choice! For me, this made about 12 pancakes that were probably 3 inches or so in diameter.

For a fun side, I sliced some orchard fresh apples and "dressed" them with a drizzle of honey and a sprinkle of cinnamon!

Pumpkin pancake perfection.

Finally, A Recipe Index!

2011-10-17T10:56:00.003-04:00

Hi friends!

Just a quick post to inform you that I finally have a Recipe Index page for you (see the tab right below the blog title?)! Sorry it's taken me so long to get this together. Hopefully this will make it much easier for you to browse and find recipes on my blog. I categorized all my recipes as best I could. Let me know what you think!

I also made a few changes to my "About Me" section and made that a separate page as well.

I'll have more pumpkin recipes coming your way this week... Pumpkin pancakes and pumpkin mac n' cheese are on deck!

Have a great Monday! :)
-Colleen (aka Barbershop)

Pumpkin Biscuits

2011-10-16T14:53:00.000-04:00

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend. It's very fall-like in Boston with cooler temps and leaves falling to the ground. Love it... :)

I've been on quite the pumpkin kick lately (no huge surprise there!). This weekend I made pumpkin pancakes, and last week I made both pumpkin mac n' cheese and these pumpkin biscuits. Both were delicious!! These biscuits could easily serve as a biscuit that goes with dinner (which these did for us) OR they could be a breakfast biscuit too since they're actually on the sweeter side.

I found this recipe from a blog I love, Sugarcrafter. You really should go check out her blog! She posts some amazing recipes. I've written the recipe for you here too though for ease of reference. A couple points of note... This recipe was very simple. It took no time at all to put together the biscuit dough, and they don't take much time in the oven either. Gotta love a super simple homemade recipe that you can quickly get on the table for a weeknight dinner! Also, the recipe calls for 2 cups of all-purpose flour. I ended up using 1 cup of all-purpose and 1 cup of white whole wheat flour from King Arthur Flour.

Ingredients:

-2 cups all-purpose flour (or half AP & half whole wheat)

-1 Tbsp. baking powder

-3/4 tsp. salt

-2 Tbsp. brown sugar

-1/2 tsp. cinnamon

-1/4 tsp. nutmeg

-2 Tbsp. butter

-3/4 cup pumpkin puree

-1/2 cup milk (I used 1%)

-2 Tbsp. maple syrup

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, brown sugar, and spices. Blend in the butter using a pastry blender (I just used a fork). In a medium bowl, combine the pumpkin, milk, and maple syrup.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients, and stir until the mixture holds together. Knead lightly on a floured surface and roll out to 1" thickness. Using a biscuit cutter (2" or whatever size you have), cut the dough into circles. Be sure to use all the dough by rolling together all the scraps (if you have to make a slightly smaller or mis-shapen biscuit to use the scraps, no big deal; I made a super small one so I could taste test the biscuit and make sure they passed the test to share with others!).

Place on parchment paper and bake for 12 - 14 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Serve warm, if desired. The recipe makes approximately six biscuits.

I used a pumpkin shaped cookie cutter as my biscuit cutter!

Served with my pumpkin mac n' cheese and some sauteed swiss chard and cabbage on the side.

Yum yum! Now if you make this recipe and still have some canned pumpkin leftover, be sure to check out my previous post about ideas for using up that extra pumpkin!