garlic breath and pizza heaven

Yup tried out making "clean" pizza.  Tony saw a recipe in one of the clean eating magazines and we tweaked it to our tastes.  The result was a very tasty dinner minus the grease and daily recommended allotment of calories in one meal.

As you can see I was focused on eating before I remembered I had picked up my blog again. In my defense I just got back from the gym and food is a must!

New title/ new cooking style.

So I had to change the title since I really cook mostly healthy food now.  I still love an occasional amazing chocolate filled creation or finding some way to incorporate smoked cheese but it is farther and fewer between.  This will also be very evident when I get to visit London and France in a few weeks.  For now though I wanted to update this with a meal I tried out that turned out to be surprisingly tasty! 

Orange-Poached Tilapia and Maple Lemon Carrots

The recipe after the jump:

Daring Cooks: Edible Container (Flax cracker bowl and a yummy salad!)

At the Daring Cooks Reneta of Testado hosted this months challenge.  The challenge was to make a savory container and fill it with something appropriate.  I made a cracker bowl with salad inside.  These would be wonderful as appetizers.  We had them for dinner with maple glazed salmon added to the salad.  Recipes included below for Maple Glazed Salmon and the Cracker Bowl.  The salad consisted of a spring mix, carrots, burdock root, strawberries and sunflower seeds.  Then for the dressing a strawberry balsamic dressing.

Cake balls with a strawberry center

Strawberries were buy one get one free so naturally I made strawberries covered in cake then wrapped in candy.  Nice and healthy...

Daring Bakers: Coffee Cake and a Pizza Log...My new favorite dough.

This dough recipe was WONDERFUL! I started out making a sweet version of this but savory sounds amazing.  Giant pizza log = best idea ever. So there are several versions below.

1. Meringue with orange zest, cocoa powder, and 70% dark chocolate chips. (Next time I am just going with Nutella)
2. Manchego cheese, pepperoni and jalepeno. (His Favorite)
3. Ham and goat gouda.
4. Ham and Manchego. (My Favorite)

  

After the jump more pictures and the recipe for this yummy dough!

Daring Cooks: Papa Rellenas

Well ALMOST Papa Rellenas... The filling was quite different from the traditional but the process remained the same!  This ended up being a little ball of thanksgiving.  Next time gravy should be made.

First time canning and Some Marmalades

I am increasingly enjoying David Lebovitz's blog.  I have also wanted to try canning for quite sometime now.  So when I saw his recipe for Bergamot Marmalade and tons of citrus was in season it was a perfect opportunity.  Bergamots were not available but Meyer Lemons and Blood Oranges were.  The best part about all of this is I have never actually tried eating a marmalade or a blood orange so this was an interesting experience.  Overall I was quite pleased with the results.  I will link to the recipe for the Lemon Marmalade here.  The only addition was that I used the meyer lemons and let three vanilla pods cut in half steep in the liquid as it boiled.  I would also listen to his advice of adding the Kirschwasser.  It is a little pricey but it really makes the whole thing come together.  In the end it really turned into something visually pleasing and I think it would taste wonderful layered into a vanilla cake if not on a biscuit.  For the Blood Orange I didn't really measure anything but it turned out tasting quite good.

Banana Cinnamon Bread

Being impulsive results in seeing a recipe Wednesday and trying it on Thursday.  The best part was the leftover perfectly ripe bananas in the teacher's lounge at work.  I got the recipe from here, Serious Eats, and tweaked it only slightly.  If you decide to make it the only thing I changed was I added more vanilla extract (1 TB. instead of 1 tsp.)  since I have made my own and any time I get a chance to use it I get a little giddy.  Also I added less flour (1/4 cup less).

Daring Bakers: Panna Cotta and Florentine Cookies

I want to start off by stating I hate milk.  I do not like the smell let alone the taste.  This is most likely why I was not huge on the taste of half of this challenge.  It did however look beautiful.  I think with some tweaking it could be something I would really enjoy.  I also wanted to try making a fruit gelee which this challenge forced me to do.   The cookies were pretty decent and very simple to make.  It also makes me want to start working with Agar-agar.  I still drool over these pictures and am going to have to make some interesting creations of my own.

Blueberry-Lemon Chiffon Tart

This was wonderful and I was finally able to try out my Tartine cookbook!  Tonight I did my daring cooks challenge and was feeling creative so I decided to make dessert as well.  I think this might just be my new favorite dessert cookbook!

Daring Cooks: Soba Noodles and Tempura

This is my first Daring Cooks Challenge!  This month the challenge was to create some form of a cold noodle salad and tempura.  Buckwheat noodles were preferred.  I took my best stab at making them and will have to revisit them again sometime.  I switched to rice noodles because it had that same simple fresh taste to compliment the tempura.

The finished meal! Green bean, crab and sweet potato tempura and rice noodles with Mentsuyu (traditional dipping sauce)

more after the jump!

You have invaded my heart!

This valentines day I got blueberry pancakes in bed and dark and milk chocolate covered strawberries.  This meant that I had to step up my game since so far all I had was a crocheted Bombomb. 

So I made Space Invader chocolates! 

more pictures after the jump!

Tangerine Lemon Curd

Tony is sick and I am banished to the living room.  This means I ended up cooking and hanging out spending some time next to Jackson (our rabbit) who has started to snore.

The recipe was taken from here.  So far her recipes have been easy and work well.  Curd is something that sounds gross but her pictures looked nice and I figured I should explore out of my comfort zone.  It was also incredibly easy.

Turkey Bacon Waffles / Apple Pie Alcoholic Drinks

I saw the waffle recipe here and thought it would be something worth trying.   Especially after a night of drinking and Rockband at the house.  The drink was my own concoction this time which is surprising since I rarely drink.  The recipe for both after the jump!

"Holy Uncle Buck!" Roommates response to waking up to these

and now for the filling...

I made the first batch of ganache that was white chocolate vanilla and hated it.... so it is now down the drain and inside the vanilla macarons are dark chocolate ganache and freeze dried bananas.  It also gave me an excuse to use my edible ink pens.  

Vanilla French Macarons

These little buggers were annoying the first three times I tried to make them so why I came back for more is beyond me.  I finally tried the Italian Meringue and had the best success.  These were slightly adapted from a blog that translated a Pierre Herme Recipe.  The ganache will be added later cause it is far too late and I have children to teach in the morning.  After eating one with out I am thinking dark chocolate ganache with a banana flavoring or mashed up banana would be amazing!

Daring Bakers

So basically I started this up to join the Daring Bakers Challenges.  Not sure how often this will be updated  but the goal is more often than once a month!  Until then I leave you with this:

may the holidays be with you