Roasted Cauliflower!

Apologies for posting up our Black Friday dinner and not following with the new recipes! Life got crazy and all that jazz but I finally have a moment to share the news!

Starting with the Roasted Cauliflower!!!!!! This recipe is so easy and so delish! It's a great way to add veggies to your meal with some flava!

You need - Olice oil, Parmesan cheese, cauliflower, salt and pepper, garlic powder, lemon juice, tarragon, thyme, and parsley!

Put your cauliflower (cut up first) on the baking sheet and then cover with olive oil. If you are me then you forget this until you've had them baking for 5 minutes. But the olive oil should prevent any burning!

Heat the oven up to 450 then put in your pan of cauliflower. Every 5 minutes (total of 20 minutes) stir the cauliflower around so that it does not burn. I did my best but they got a little brown.

Sprinkle with parsley, thyme, tarragon, and garlic and bake for an additional 5 minutes.

While thats baking for 5 minutes put together your cheese mixture. In a bowl combine the cheese and remaining ingredients.

Take the cauliflower from the oven dump into the bowl with the cheese mixture and get to stirring. You want to make sure to coat all the cauliflower with the cheese mixture. Then put in a pretty bowl and enjoy!

I LOVED this recipe! It's easy and since I'm now a lover of Cauliflower this will be a regular in our house!

For the full recipe go here.

Up next - Miss Laura's Brussel Sprouts! Stay tuned........

Black Friday Dinner 2011

Here it is folks our Black Friday Dinner for 2011!!

This is how I keep myself organized on that day! I just set the table and then lay out all the dishes needed with little post it notes for what goes with what! It makes like SO EASY!! That and PREP PREP PREP!!

Oh YUM!!! Doesn't that look so delish! It was!!

As you can see we had - Jello Salad, Dressing, Turkey, Brussel Sprouts, Roasted Cauliflower.....

Crescent Rolls, Miracle Mashies, Gravy and of course Sparkling Cider!

Oh yes this dinner was DELISH!!

Get ready for all my new black friday recipes, which include the brussel sprouts, roasted cauliflower, and a new dressing recipe!

As Simple As 1-2-3!

Are you ready for this extremely complicated, full of ingredients recipe? Nope neither am I, which is exactly why it's the opposite!

For lunch on Black Friday I knew I needed something super simple but also energizing and delish! Again I browsed www.skinnytaste.com and was reminded of this recipe that I had pulled out awhile back! It's a Grilled Chicken Sandwich with Avocado and Tomato!

All you need is salt and papper, grilled chicken, 1 avocado, 1 tomato, and a small ciabatta roll!

Mash up your avocado. I only used 1/2 of an avocado and I kept mine on the chunky side since I could eat avocados whole!

I recommend toasting your ciabatta roll!! They are just so much better when they are toasted! 

Then get to building you sandwich! 

How freakin good does that look????? 

I mean seriously other than the tomato I was dying to get in my first bite! 

I waited  no longer and dove into this sandwich!! And O.M.G.!! Even with the tomato I was lovin' it! It was seriously so good, so filling, and so fresh!!

I highly highly highly recommend this sandwich! It's easy and it's pleasy!! (Yes that's my new word for pleasurable)! And it's only 6 weight watchers points! Officially a new recipe to keep and you better believe I'll be making these for lunch more often!!

Next up....The official Black Friday Dinner!!! Stay tuned...

Nests for Breakfast? Why Not?

Most of you know and remember that I celebrate Black Friday by spending the day cooking up a storm for Chuckles and I! I love love love cooking and since the parents cook on the official holidays I figured I'd get in my cooking fun while other people are out shopping like crazies!! Actually this is the first year I did ZERO shopping on Black Friday, but to be honest - I did NOT miss it!!

I digress - for this black friday I of course chose to try out some new recipes and this is the first new recipe from that day!! Since Chuckles had to work I figured I'd make myself a "healthy" breakfast and lunch! After browsing www.skinnytaste.com I found a great breakfast recipe called Hash Brown Egg White Nests!

Gathered my ingredients - (ok so I improvised my own ingredients just a little bit) Turkey, Cheddar Cheese, Olive Oil, Spray, Garlic Powder, Hash Browns, Onion, Bell Pepper, Egg Whites, and Salt & Pepper.

First things first - do the prep work! Seriously prep work is what saved my sanity this day! 

Combine your hash browns, salt and pepper, onion, and garlic powder!

Spray your muffin tin with the olive oil spray and then build your little nests from the above mixture! Then pop in the oven.

 While your nests are in the oven combine your bell pepper, turkey, onion, and cheese!

YUCK! I'll be the first to admit after looking at this I was ready to toss the whole thing! It just didn't look appetizing! But I pressed forward....

Once your hash brown nests are browned pull those suckers out of the oven and start filling each next with the egg mixture!! About 3 tablespoons per nest. 

Once those are filled go ahead and pop them back in the oven for another 20 minutes.

Let them bake and get nice and cooked! No raw egg whites here.

At this moment I take back my YUCK reaction. After these starting baking in the oven and the smell wafted into my nostrils I was stoked!! They looked much better baked and smelled so good!! 

And you get a decent size nest (in my opinion)! This little guy was enough to hold me over until lunch time, which had been fast approaching since I was not on top of my time frame this year! 

YUMMY!!! I was suprised at how much I really did enjoy these little guys! I am usually put off by bell peppers in anything that I can't pick them out. Love the taste, but something about the texture makes me cringe!

I can happily say I devoured my little nest and had my lunch not been a new recipe I probably would have eaten two more of these and called it good....but my next new recipe (also from Skinnytaste) was one NOT to be missed!! Stay tuned for my black friday lunch break........... 

Pop Tart Scones?

I happened to run across a new recipe called Strawberry Pop Tart Scones on the adorable blog - Macaroni & Cheesecake. Me - being a lover of Pop Tarts - was extremely skeptical and I had really low expectations for this recipe! But I absolutely HAD to try this recipe!

I gathered a WHOLE BUNCH of ingredients: whole wheat pastry flour, all purpose flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, butter, fat free half & half, milk, vanilla extract, fresh strawberries!

The first thing I did was cut up my strawberries! Then you add the vanilla extract and milk! Set aside.

Combine your flours, sugar, baking powder & salt.

Mix them all together really good! Then cut in your butter. Your batter will look and feel similar to sand.

Add in your strawberry mixture

Then add in your half and half and get to mixing! 

You will more than likely need to add some flour (god knows I did) in order to get your "Wet" dough to get to a workable point. 

Once you have your dough lay it out on a cookie sheet and form a circle. From that circle cut out 8 triangle scones and separate them! GOOD LUCK!! My dough was such a pain in the booty to work with and I just couldn't add any more flour! 

Bake in your oven for about 20 minutes. Then wrestle with the wax paper (use parchment if you got it) and place the scones on a cooling rack! 

Don't they look so purdy? 

Once the scones have cooled whip up a nice glaze using confectioners sugar, water, and vanilla.

Then get to spreading! She says to dip I used a pastry brush and just brushed the glaze over all of them, letting all the excess drip right onto the wax paper. 

They look so delish don't they? 

No offense to the blogger because her recipes look AMAZING! But this one didn't do anything for me! I was let down by my low expectations and really felt like I wasted time! Now if you all remember correctly I have only found ONE scone recipe that I don't screw up so this could defintely have been a chef error and not a recipe one.

Maybe had I not had to add so much flour they would be better. They were really dense and could have used a bunch more strawberries! However I will not be making them again! I feel like it was too much work, too many ingredients wasted and not even the slightest bit of fireworks in my mouth!

Happily Ever After Fluff!!

Looks like I found my reading groove again - I just finished up Nearlyweds by Beth Kendrick and it was super cute!

Source

After reading the summary it sounded kind of cute but I was concerned it might be a little depressing at the same time. Regardless, I took my chances and I am happy that I did! This book is typical chick lit fluff but what's so great about those books? They are fun and fast reads!!

At first I was getting a little confused because the author switches between 3 different women who are all friends. But after awhile I got them all straight and started to really enjoy each of their unique personalities!

Without giving too much away all three women end up not being legally wed to their new husbands and it turns out that may not be a bad thing! It's cute, not at all depressing since it's such fluff, and you will end up loving the end - I promise!!

Overall grade - A. It was exactly what I wanted from this book!!

Spice Up Your Life!

The other day (which happened to be a Sunday) I was itching to get my baking on! Luckily the week before I had stumbled across a Spiced Kiss Cookies recipe out the amazing Weight Watchers magazine and I had picked up the one ingredient I needed. I had everything else, including the Hershey Kisses!

Sunday afternoon while my Chuckles was watching his Football game I popped my iPod into the under cabinet stereo and for those of you who know me I bet you don't even have to guess at the playlist I put on! Yes I will admit it (cause there ain't nothin' wrong with it) - I put on my massive Christmas playlist and started enjoying two of my favorite things - Christmas and Baking!!

You only need a few items for this recipe: Sugar, Flour, 1 Tube Refrigerated Sugar Cookie Dough, KISSES!, Pumpkin Pie Spice, and Unsweetened Cocoa.

First things first - unwrap all the kisses and set aside in a bowl. Preferably in a place where you honey won't steal kisses!!

Next up combine your cocoa, sugar cookie dough, flour and Pumpkin spice!

You can either knead by hand or cheat like me and use a KitchenAid Attachment! Granted I still hand kneaded a little bit since I wanted to make sure the spices sunk into every crevice of the dough! 

Next up roll your dough into 1-inch balls. Okay so mine might be a little bit bigger than that but this recipe makes 56 cookies and we do not need that many! 

After you have formed the 1-inch ball roll it in some sugar and start lining your cookie sheets! 

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees, let the delish fall spice smell fill up your home! And immediatly after pulling from the oven place a Kiss in the center of each cookie! 

I just LOVE when the kisses start to melt a little from the heat of the cookie, but to prevent the Kiss from completely melting make sure to remove the cookies and place on cooling racks! 

Next step - Enjoy!!

These cookies were delish! Of course Chuckles like them too but he did want me to make him some more "simple" cookies A.K.A plain ol' chocolate chip cookies! Did I? heck no! I got my baking fix in and it was time to get my reading on while snuggled on the couch with the pups!

But I satsified my need to bake that day and have discovered an AMAZING fall cookie! I even took in a whole plateful to work where they were enjoyed!

*I am so sorry to report that I have lost the recipe :-( I am still on the hunt and if I find it I will make sure to post. I even tried searching online and it's like the damn thing doesn't exist on the web!! I am just hoping my honey didn't accidently throw it away while he was cleaning the kitchen!! Fingers crossed I can find it!!