Chocolate Chip Scones

Hi there. I made scones tonight using this recipe. They came out great! I used chocolate chips instead of cranberries because that's what I have. I also used whole wheat pastry flour, and fat free milk instead of whole milk because that's what I have. I've only had them right out of the oven and they were wonderful. Nice and crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. I wonder how they will taste the next day... probably not nearly as good. Oh well! I really like the chocolate chips in them. I think scones are the new muffins for me.

Raspberry Muffin Tops

I bought a muffin top pan! I used it tonight for the second time. The first time I made muffin tops they didn't come out quite right but these ones are better. I love the crunchy aspect of muffin tops so that's what I am looking for in them, and last time they just didn't have that. These ones do, and they are delicious! I used this recipe substituting nonfat strawberry yogurt for the plain yogurt because that is what I had, and I used a pint of raspberries instead of the blueberries. Needless to say, I used whole wheat pastry flour instead of all purpose. I also made raspberry muffin tops for my first attempt. I'm starting to think that I shouldn't be making raspberry mufins because raspberries are too soggy after I wash them. I won't make them anymore. Next time perhaps I will make chocolate chips ones.... ooooh lala!! My favorite.

Latte!

After spending the summer in Seattle, I started to drink more and more lattes. I love foam. The foam is the best part of the latte. I always get disappointed when the barista neglects to give me enough foam. I won't have that problem anymore because now I can make my own foam! It's a dream come true! I bought an aerolatte and a Bialetti. So now I can make my own lattes. The foam came out amazing... all velvety the way I like it. The espresso came out fine too... but I'm not that picky about that. The only problem is that when I'm done with the foam, I don't have much of a desire to finish the coffee! I'll have to adjust the ratio of foam to coffee :)

Strawberry Frozen Yogurt

After being away from my ice cream maker for the entire summer, I kicked things off with strawberry frozen yogurt. The ingredients are 1 cup 2% plain greek yogurt (Trader Joe's brand), 1 pound of frozen strawberries, 1/2 cup sugar. I blended all of the ingredients and then threw them in the ice cream maker. The churning process made it fluffier. Then I put the mixture into the freezer. This is absolutely delicious. It's not too sweet - it's just right. And it's very strawberry-y. The frozen yogurt gets pretty hard in the freezer, making it difficult to scoop. I am told that this is because there is not that much fat in it. However, if I just let it sit out for 5 minutes or so, and then scooping it isn't a big deal. This is pretty wonderful because it satisfies my ice cream cravings but it's much better for you than ice cream! :D

Veggie Burrito

I'm back, after a 5 month sabbatical :) I made veggie burritos tonight. All I did was roast red peppers and onion, warm up some canned beans (I'm busy these days), cut up some avocado, and put it all together in a warmed up whole wheat tortilla. The result was pretty good but not amazing. Next time I'll throw some more ingredients in there. This wasn't really thought out completely. Very filling though!

Veggies pre-roasting:

Spanakopita

Well hello. I made this spanakopita with the help of my roommate. I bought some whole wheat phyllo dough because the store had both white and whole wheat and I couldn't resist. In a bowl I mixed some frozen spinach that was defrosted and drained with some feta and caramelized onions. Then we rolled them up into triangles. There was also some melted butter than was spread on the phyllo. I really liked the spanakopita, especially the next day. The complaint that I heard was that it wasn't oily enough but I don't mind that. The phyllo was still really crispy and delicious.

Feta, Tomato, Chickpea and Edamame Salad

Oh hi there. I made this random salad because it seemed good at the time. It was alright, but I think it needed something extra. The ingredients are all in the title in addition to some onion, a little olive oil and vinegar. If I make this again I will change it up a bit and maybe through some lettuce up in therr. Also the onion was too much for me.

Potatoes + egg + avocado

This morning I ate like a king. I made a variation of home fries and scrambled eggs, and cut up an avocado. The home fries are a variation of this recipe, except that I didn't use bacon fat. I boiled some potatoes whole, until they were tender, cut them up into cubes and then fried them with some onions. I think I should have boiled the potatoes for a shorter amount of time because they easily lost their shape in the frying process. Also I didn't brown them as much as I should have. They were still tasty imho. The eggs I just scrambled and put cheese on top. The avocado was the perfect ripeness, and was delicious. By the way, avocados are 3 for $1 at Henry's! Hurray for cinco de mayo.

Burritos

Oh hai. I made burritos because my roommate bought tortillas and I got jealous. I bought some chicken legs and cooked them and scraped off the meat, because that's cheaper than buying chicken breasts and I'm poor. I also caramelized some onions, made some brown rice, cup up a tomato, opened up a can of veggie refried beans from TJ's, opened up a jar of salsa from TJ's, and grated some cheddar cheese for those who wanted it. The first night that I had the burrito I didn't really like it because it felt like each ingredient was separate, they didn't really combine to make one solid burrito. However, I made two burritos to take to school and by the time I ate them there, everything combined and they were delicious. The above picture is what my roommate calls "the beaver shot" of the burrito.

Here are some of the ingredients available:

Spaghetti and Turkey Meatballs

This is the first time I've made this dish. I looked at a bunch of different recipes and ended up not following any one in particular. The meatballs are made out of white meat ground turkey from Trader Joe's. I didn't have time to put anything fancy in them such as parsley or onion or garlic since I was trying to make this as fast as possible. The red sauce is made from whole canned tomatoes, tomato paste, eggplant and onion. I actually really liked the meatballs but I think the sauce could use some work. Also the pasta was really bland, I probably didn't season it enough with salt.

Mint chocolate chip ice cream

Hi! I made mint chocolate chip ice cream using this recipe. The complaint I got was that it is too minty. It doesn't taste like the mint chocolate chip ice cream from the store, it tastes more like spearmint since that's the type of mint I used. This is the first ice cream I made from a custard. I think it went quite well! My only complaint is that it was sort of flaky - it wouldn't really stick together. Other than that I liked the flavor and texture.

Blackberry Popsicle

Oh hello! I made blackberry popsicles using the popsicle holders I bought from Ikea. All I did was puree a box of blackberries and added a little sugar as well as some juice I had lying around. I didn't want to overpower the flavor of the blackberries with the juice so I only put a little juice - probably a few tablespoons. Then I loaded the popsicle holders up and put them in the freezer and that it's. It's so easy and a nice little snack especially when it's very hot in San Diego.

Eggplant Lasagna

To be honest I was trying to make this, but mine doesn't look like the picture. I didn't include the sausage and I just used eggplant instead of a combination of eggplant and zuccini. The lasagna was good but the eggplant was a little weird in it. I think I probably should have cooked it longer even though it was in the oven for about an hour. The eggplant seemed a little underdone. I liked the cheese combination though. Also the lasagna was falling apart when I was cutting it, which wasn't very nice.

Chocolate Ice Cream

Now now, this is Philadelphia style chocolate ice cream. What that means, ladies and gentlemen, is that there is no custard going on in there. Custard ice creams scare me so I haven't tried them out yet. The ingredients of the ice cream are heavy cream, milk, cocoa powder, chocolate, sugar and vanilla. There is only one cup of milk that is required and the recipe said whole milk, but I was sneaky and used fat free milk. And guess what, the ice cream was still good! The next trick will be to substitute fat free milk for the heavy cream. Yeah, that won't work, but I would still like to come up with ways to make ice cream less bad for you! The night the ice cream was made, it was pretty soft, but after it had been in the freezer a while it got pretty hard. Some might say it was too hard. But it was still good. Overall great success in my mind!

Double Chocolate Crackle Cookies

Wow, this recipe is amazing. This is the kind of cookie recipe I've been looking for for a long time. The cookies are delicious, and they're SOFT THE NEXT DAY!!! Even the edges are soft. And it's not cakey soft, it's just good. They're very chocolately, and you can tell that I used dark chocolate to make them, which is delicious. These are my favorite cookies out of all of the cookies that I've made. And they only require 2 tablespoons of butter! Of course all of the chocolate in the recipe makes up for that. The recipe is here. The chocolate bar that I used had almonds in it, so I chopped that up and there were little almond pieces in the cookies. I didn't know how that would turn out but I ended up liking them in there. As Borat would say, GREAT SUCCESS!

Vanilla Frozen Yogurt

The recipe for this came from my ice cream cookbook. The ingredients are 3 cups of yogurt, 1 cup of sugar and 1 teaspoon of vailla extract. I used Fage Greek yogurt, because they said that Greek yogurt is the best for this. I noticed that one serving of that Fage yogurt, 1 cup, contains 90% of the daily value of saturated fat. That is kind of disgusting. The frozen yogurt doesn't taste like soft serve vanilla ice cream, unfortunately, because that would be awesome, but it has a sour flavor, that just tastes like the yogurt. I don't really like it that much and don't think I'll make it again.

Vegetarian "Pad Thai"

I got this recipe from here. It definitely does not taste like pad thai but I enjoyed it. It was much better the second day, after it sat around a while. I think there was too much tofu and not enough delicious filling such as spinach, scallions, bamboo shoots, peanuts and bean sprouts. I think that next time I attempt to make pad thai I will look for a different recipe.

Red Lentil and Cauliflower Curry

My roommate made this curry and it smelled really good so I decided to make it. It is from Veganomnicon (and it is vegan!). I really liked it, especially how the whole curry turned all mushy. It had parsnip in it, which I don't think I've ever had before. I do think it is missing some spices since I didn't have any tumeric or curry powder. I also think I cooked it too long since it was a little too mushy but it was still delicious.

Wheat bread with seeds

I made my second loaf of bread from this book. It involved me making two separate doughs one day in advance, then mixing them together as well as adding additional ingredients, and then letting the resulting dough sit for some time. After that I had to knead the dough some more and let it rise in the loaf pan before I could finally bake it. This bread has sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds in it. It also happens to be vegan. I like the texture of the bread even though it is a little dense, and I think it tastes especially good after it is toasted. I used the Kitchenaid for all of the kneading and mixing, which was nice. I didn't get sticky dough fingers or anything.

Chocolate chip muffins

I made muffins again, mostly following this recipe, except using chocolate chips instead of blueberries. I used 1 cup of whole wheat pastry flour and 1/2 cup white flour instead of the 1.5 cups white flour. I think it made a difference - it's better than having all of the flour be whole wheat. Also I'm not sure if the fact that it was whole wheat pastry flour made a difference, as opposed to regular whole wheat flour. I again used cracked wheat instead of wheat germ, which adds a crunchy texture. I'm not sure if I like that or not, but regardless I will continue looking around at random healthy ingredients I can throw in muffins. Overall I liked these muffins.

Pizza with Caramelized Onions and Basil

I made pizza and put caramelized onions on top because I saw it in a food blog and it looked delicious. I used Trader Joe's wheat pizza dough and instead of making 1 big pizza out of it, I made 2 medium pizzas in an attempt both to make thin crust pizza and prevent pizza stone catastrophe. I cooked the onions before hand in a frying pan with some butter, olive oil and brown sugar. I really liked the onions on the pizza. I need to find a new tomato sauce though because I think that the one I use is too salty.

Brown rice noodles with peanut sauce

I made this recipe from this cookbook that I got a while ago. I didn't follow the recipe exactly because I didn't have all of the ingredients, and I didn't have the patience to go to the store. So the sauce was missing fresh ginger, among other items. The sauce was good but it was obvious that it was missing something. I will probably try to make a better version of this in the future because I love peanut sauce and this recipe has potential.

Brownie Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

This were pretty good. This is the recipe that I followed. I put these Trader Joe's mini peanut butter cups in the cookies. I think the cookies would have actually been better if I used peanut butter chips because there was too much chocolate surrounding the peanut butter in the mini peanut butter cups, and peanut butter is delicious. The cookies were still nice and soft which is how I like my cookies.

Crustless Spinach Quiche

I made this around 2:00am one morning when I was working on a branch predictor. This is the recipe that I used. The quiche tasted good but I think it would have been better had I left it in the oven longer, even though I did leave it in there a whole 30 minutes. I also didn't use the proportions listed in the recipe and the whole thing just made me feel a little gross. I don't think I'll make this again - at least this variation of it.

Blueberry Muffins

These were quite delicious imho. I made blueberry muffins using regular white flour and they were so much better than when I use white whole wheat flour. They did have quick oats in them and I snuck in some cracked wheat. The cracked wheat was in exchange for wheat germ, which I'm told is not a valid substitute. I don't even know what wheat germ is and they didn't have it at Henry's, so cracked wheat seemed like the next best thing. The cracked wheat added a crunchy texture to the muffins which I enjoyed. There were about 2 cups of fresh blueberries in them, when the recipe called for 1. I liked the fact that they were overly stuffed with blueberries. This is the recipe that I used.

Here's just one more picture, just for kicks:

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I made some oatmeal raisin cookies after I tried some at Trader Joe's the other day. The Trader Joe's ones were firm and crisp, which I liked. That is what I was going for with these but these are softer and thinner. I don't know how I would even make them thicker because they spread out in the oven and I don't have any control over their thickness. I think these would be better thicker because they fall apart easily. I do like the taste of them though. I used 1 stick of butter and 1/4 cup of canola oil instead of 1.5 sticks of butter (because I ran out of butter). I hope I find a recipe that yields thicker and firmer cookies! This is the recipe that I used.

Orange Cranberry Muffins

I decided to make muffins again because I didn't feel like doing any work. This is a different recipe than usual, from my humungous baking cookbook that I haven't looked at too much yet. So this is the first thing I've made from that cookbook. The recipe required buttermilk but I didn't have any (because who has buttermilk on hand or is willing to go to the store?) so I substituted it with milk and a little (balsamic) vinegar. Balsamic vinegar because I didn't have any regular vinegar. The recipe called for orange zest, orange juice, typical baking ingredients and blueberries. I used dried cranberries instead of the blueberries, and they plumped up in the baking process. I don't like the muffins that much. I think that they are dry and I just don't really like the orange with the cranberry. I don't typically like orange flavored things much in general (although I do like oranges on their own). Plus I used whole wheat white flour and that taste is just not good. These at least weren't very cake-like, which is good. I shall continue my quest to seek a delicious muffin recipe.

Here's another picture of the suckers:

Pizza. You're doing it wrong.

I messed up when I was making pizza. I was using the pizza stone and in the process of transferring the pizza to the pizza stone using the paddle, I messed up and got a lot of pizza sauce on the pizza stone and part of the pizza was falling off of the pizza stone. I still let it cook though, and it turned out alright. Part of the dough was very soft due to the excess pizza sauce. The pizza didn't get nice and bubbly like it did last time. It was still tasty. I put some feta cheese on top and that was delicious, I think it needed more though.

Here are the toppings: garlic, tomatoes and spinach.

Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

I made whole wheat sandwich bread from Peter Reinhart's "Whole Grain Breads". The process took two days. The first day I made two separate doughs, each with its own unique ingredients. The next day I combined the two doughs, added some extra ingredients and let it sit for about an hour. I then put the dough into the loaf pan and let it sit again for an hour before I put it in the oven. It is a fairly complicated procedure but the result was pretty good. It did taste like bread, and it didn't taste as doughy as my bread has tasted in the past. The downside to baking your own bread is that you have to slice it yourself. I wanted to use this bread in my sandwiches that I take to school but it was hard to cut a perfectly thick slice. I usually cut slices that were too thick and my sandwiches ended up very bready. I would still prefer store-bought whole wheat sandwich bread to this bread, but it's a step in the right direction. I hope to try a more exciting recipe from that book next.

Cinnamon Rolls

I had been craving cinnamon rolls lately so I finally decided to make them. I followed this recipe: http://www.whatgeekseat.com/wordpress/2008/01/01/rollin-and-tumblin/
I made the mistake of using powdered sugar in the filling instead of regular sugar (I read the recipe wrong). I'm not sure how big of a difference it made. I also feel like there isn't enough filling. I used whole wheat white flour, so the cinnamon rolls do have a bit of an earthy taste, but I don't mind it too much. They definitely would have been better with bread flour. I tried one of these right when they came out of the oven and it was very good - the center was all soft and warm and the frosting was also good. The frosting is just powdered sugar, vanilla extract and milk. I'm not sure how these will taste the next day. I put them in the refrigerator because they have milk in them and it just seems wrong to leave something with milk in it out. Overall I'm happy with how they came out.

I also got to use my kitchenaid to make the dough! It was my first time using both the paddle and dough hook attachments. It was very exciting.

Kitchenaid doin' it's thang:


A cinnamon roll before it was put in the oven. Not very flattering due to the powdered sugar - it would have been cuter if I used regular sugar.


Here is a cooked cinnamon roll:

Lasagna

I made lasagna again. It's just not very exciting. It's the same way I always make it, with ricotta, tomato sauce, an egg, onions, broccoli, spinach and cheese. I still think it tastes good but I'm a little sick of it. Plus I made it earlier this week with the intent of eating it every night of week but I didn't eat it for dinner once. I did have it for lunch today though.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hi! I made extra fatty chocolate chip cookies today. Typically if I make a cookie, I try to find the recipe that requires the smallest amount of butter but today I went all out. I was going for a "chewey" chocolate chip cookie, meaning it requires extra butter. The problem with these cookies is that I didn't know when to take them out of the oven - I didn't want to overcook them and I didn't want to undercook them. The first batch I pulled out too early and the centers of the cookies were completely undone. I ended up putting them back in the oven for a little. The second batch I think I overcooked, since I saw how the first batch came out and didn't want to make the same mistake. Overall, the cookies are good - you can't really go wrong with an obscene amount of butter (1.5 sticks) and sugar (1.5 cups). Quite frankly I think that there's too much butter in them - they have a faint greasy texture which I am not a fan of. I'll have to see what I do next time. This recipe made a lot of cookies, so at least the butter is fairly spread out.

Pasta with Pesto

This was my first experience making pesto. The ingredients are fresh basil, olive oil, parmesan cheese, pistachios and fresh garlic. I didn't know how much of each ingredient to put in there, so I just winged it and tasted it as I went, adjusting appropriately. I think it turned out fine, I personally enjoyed it. But thas jus me!

Blueberry muffins with chocolate chips on top

I decided to make blueberry muffins tonight. I actually used fresh blueberries instead of frozen but I'm still deciding whether or not they are significantly better than frozen in muffins. They were certainly plumper than the frozen. These muffins turned out pretty good, and I put a few chocolate chips on top just for kicks. I didn't put anything extra healthy in them, other than the flour being white whole wheat. I personally don't feel that chocolate goes well with blueberries but I felt that the muffins needed a little something something on top. I think it worked out fine.

Oh, and thanks to my roommate, I know how to take closeup photos now! Check out this puppy:

Chocolate Sorbet

Howdy, I made chocolate sorbet! This is my first ice cream making experience with my new ice cream maker attachment. I must say that I am very pleased with how it came out. The texture is very nice and ice cream like. It is very rich and sweet, perhaps next time I will use less sugar. This ice cream is even vegan and has my vegan roommate's seal of approval. Shout out to my other roommate who helped get the ice cream maker out of the box. Thanks!

Tomato, Basil and Garlic Pizza

Why hello there! I made pizza with fresh basil, tomatoes and garlic on it. I made it using our awesome pizza stone. I love how the pizza got all bubbly - I don't think it does if you don't use a pizza stone (or it hasn't done that for me before, without the pizza stone). I used Trader Joe's wheat pizza dough, since this was an impulse pizza, and regular tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, 3 cloves of garlic, fresh basil and fresh tomatoes. I copied my roommate by using the basil, garlic and tomatoes. The pizza was very garlicky, but I liked it. The bottom of the pizza was nice and crispy.

My cute little slice:

Challah Back Youngin'

I made challah! This is the first time that I made traditional challah in a while. Surprisingly it came out amazing - the perfect texture and the perfect sweetness. My older sister even asked for seconds!! My 8 year old sister helped me out by mixing some of the ingredients. She even made her own mini challah. The challah I made is a 6 braid.. fancy I know! There's nothing whole wheat about this challah - it's just straight up bread flour. Maybe that's why it's so good! Perhaps next time I'll put chocolate chips in it.

Edit: I had originally written this post after trying the mini challah which was cooked completely. My big challah had some areas that weren't cooked completely (in the center of the big part). Next time I will make sure to cook it all the way though! The recipe only said to cook it for 30 minutes and I believe I may have even cooked it for 40 minutes. The recipe was probably talking about a smaller challah though. I was just looking at the color of the challah to determine whether or not to pull it out.