Pillowy French Bread

So I have been baking bread now for 7 years now and this is The Best Recipe Yet. 

The kneading process in this one has to be what makes the difference.

My husband keeps complimenting me on it.

The soft texture is so beautiful haha

My son is sick today so during the last 10 minute rest I let it rest for more like 30 minutes

I also cut the recipe in half and just made one loaf.

Happy baking

Kuddos to The Baker Upstairs 

My Husband took a bite out of the top for no apparent reason. 

I am just as confused about this as you are.

Public Service Announcement [Cookie Butter]

Or I feel on the verge of diabetus or a sugar coma but whatevs!

I love this stuff so much.

I don't know how I've never tried it before yesterday.

The Trader Joes version has been floating around Instagram for awhile and I've been very intrigued, even looked up a recipe to make it homemade. 

Yesterday it happened though when I saw this jar in Walmart in the peanut butter section. 

Try it.

I have been smearing it all over strawberries...and my face while I devour it.

And maybe just maybe I've been eating it straight out the jar. 

A lady never reveals her secrets 

Looks it's all natural, that means I can feel like a health guru, like someone who is realy in charge of their diet while eating enough to supply a small dinner party

Chicken Alfredo and Bonus Chicken Alfredo Pizza Recipes

So way back in the day my sister in law lived with us for a few months while she went to college. My husband and I were newlyweds and I was still learning how to cook. Brick oven baked roasts and thrown out batches of brick bread that refused to rise. Most coming with lessons learned, like roasts are best slow roasted (crock pot preferably) and yeast wants warm water not scaulding hot :). Anyways she made this recipe and I loved it. So much so I remember sorta awkwardly sneaking bites of her leftovers...

It also makes me think of her late husband who she was newly dating at the time. 

Never fails when I make this I think of her haha. Love you Nik! 

Adapted a little

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup butter
  2 tbls flour

• 1/2 cup heavy cream
  1/2 cup milk

• 1 tsp minced garlic

• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  1 tsp salt
  1/2 tsp pepper
  1/4 tsp oregano or Italian seasoning

Directions:

Cook noodles according to package 

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium low heat, when melted add minced garlic. Let cook for one minute. Next add flour to butter. Stir and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add milk/cream, salt and pepper and simmer for 5 minutes, or until thickened. Stirring constantly. Stir in oregeno/Italian seasoning. Turn off heat then add cheese and whisk quickly, heating through. Pour over drained noodles in the noodle pan and stir together.

Top with pan cooked chicken 

Great with extra Shake Parmesan cheese ontop (the pizza topping kind) 

Speaking of pizza this is a great recipe for  Alfredo pizza! Top your crust with this sauce and minced chicken and onion then ontop of that add mozzarella cheese. Bake for 15-20 min or until golden brown.

Asian Shrimp Rice Noodles

Bam! 

This recipe took me around 10-15 minutes to complete. Its yummy, It's light, It's fresh,

and it's all like organic or something.

Okay well it could be if you made it that way.

I didn't.

I'm sure it's like -2 Weight Watchers points ;)

Serves: 4

Cook Time: 10-15 min

Okay anyways Heres what you need for the sauce

Ingredients:

3/4 C stir fry veggies (I used frozen)
3 C medium shrimp
1 tsp minced garlic
salt to taste

1 Package of Rice Sticks
(found in asian section of grocer, not walmart, a grocer)

3-4 Tbl Soy Sauce
3-4 Tbl Rice Vinegar
2 Tbl Sesame Seed Oil (- + to taste)
2-3 tsp ground ginger
1 Tbl Hot Garlic Sauce
1 Tbl Honey

Prepare Rice Sticks to packages instruction.

In bowl Mix together sauce ingredients, set aside.

Heat olive oil (or any other cooking oil) in medium skillet

add veggies, cook for 2 minutes, add shrimp, salt and garlic,

cook until shrimp is done (about 3 minutes)

Add the sauce you made to the pan. Cook for 2 minutes.

In a serving Dish pour the mixture over the Noodles

Eat

Pin Domination :)

Who doesn't love Pinterest? Well ok I actually have met a few that didn't but I think the main reason for that was simply because they couldn't grasp the concept or were confused by how to use the site. The way I always explain it to my friends who don't have it is by telling saying, "You know how people make bulletin boards and thumb tack projects they like or magazine clippings or even photos up, its like that. You "pin" virtual things you like to your virtual "board" and its a way of remembering the items you like or the recipes you want to try.  Follow Mine Here  

Thats Pinterst in a nut shell, you pin the things you like and to get to the item you click on it then once it appears bigger you click on it again to be taken to the original website that had the item or recipe.

Well I thought I would share with you all some of my favorite pins that I have tried out and or bought, then you can just pin this post to your "Approved" or ""Thumbs Up" boards....

Beef Stroganoff (Crock Pot)

Its weird but a lot of the time I steer clear from crock pot meals, it just seems like many of them have very difficult recipes to follow. Such as searing the meat first, for me having to cook the meat first completely defeats the purpose of a crock pot meal. When I cook in the crock pot I do it for ease, not so I have a bunch of pots to clean and 20 steps to follow, I might as well just throw the rest of the ingredients in after cooking the meat in the pot and cook the whole thing in the pot 100X faster. 

This recipe is amazing, I did half it every time I cook it though, and instead of beef broth I just measure out 7 oz of water (which is half) and add a beef bullion cube. Theres always plenty left over for our little family. Also I never have Worsh. Sauce so I use Soy Sauce instead.

Coconut Pound Cake

I loved this recipe! And that glaze, oh my! I took a loaf to a girls night that me and some friends get together for and I was sincerely embarrassed by all the attention it/I was getting, and also by how much I was eating of it :) I also like how out of the ordinary it is, its fun, different, and unexpected.

Perfect Iced Coffee

The Pioneer Woman

photo belongs to pioneer woman

Okay so I read this tutorial slash recipe and it was like a light bulb in my head, like an "ohhhh im an idiot for not thinking of that!" Simply put all you do for iced coffe to not make it taste watered down is to brew very strong coffee ahead of time and store it in the fridge. Her method is alot more complicated then what ive adapted it to but my way came from her way so I thought I would give credit were credit was due. 

Audrey's Way: step 1)pack a butt load of coffee grounds into your coffee maker or like me into my k-cup, then only brew with minimal amount of water into a mason jar.  

step 2) if using kureg machine repeat step one into the same mason jar twice. 

step 3) secure concoction with mason jar lid and place in fridge for a couple of hours (one at the least) or until your ready to drink it. 

step 4) fill glass 1/4-1/2 the way full, add two teaspoons sugar, then add milk until the glass is 3/4 full, finally add ice and enjoy. 

Ive added vanilla syrup (found in coffee aisle in an italian jar) and or a teaspoon of chocolate syrup or Nesquick to my glass for a vanilla iced coffee or a Mocha one. If you like a richer version add cream instead of milk.....its so much better that way but waaaay fatter. 

Asian Glazed Drumsticks

Skinny Taste 

photo belongs to skinny taste

My husband who is so weird about chicken loved these! He's also that guy who never gives me input and requested these a week or two later...they're sooo yummy and not too many ingredients are required so thats a plus.

Melt in Your Mouth Chicken
Food.com

photo belongs to food.com

With the directions only three to four sentences long and the outcome being moist, tender chicken who wouldn't make these!

Peetas Stuffed Cheese Buns

Yammie's Noshery

Photo belongs to yammies noshery

The picture says it all, I still drool thinking of these...a little



Okay so all these pins I've talked about in this post that have all been sucess' ended up being all food items, my bad. Im sure I don't have to apologies though :) and if I do that means your on a diet and for that I'm sorry only for you...

Denver, My Favorite City

Piatti Restaurant 

190 Saint Paul St, Denver, CO 

http://www.piatti.com/ 

When you come in they grab a glass bottle of water for your table and pour you a glass

I thought that was really cool and made sense, I mean you don't have to wait for 

a waitress to come refill you and it looks really cool and different.

Here was our app and the bread was wonderful. My husband who is like most men just says

"that's good," or grunts approval but when he tried these he said, "wow this tastes like a garden."

It did too, it all seemed very fresh, it kept making me think of how much my SIL Amie would

love this place.

I think this was our second bowl of bread....it was just me and my husband. We had to ask our really sweet, knowledgeable waitress Wendy to not bring us anymore. It came with  an olive oil, balsamic dipping sauce. It was off the hook, yeah I had to bring back that saying just to prove how yummy it was. It had chunks of chopped garlic swimming in it too.

The grand finale was the reason we came. 

Margherita Pizza 

Cooked to order on a stone oven. When they bring it out to you they grate Parmesan cheese all over it, its really a thing of beauty. There was none left, even after all that bread and crap we scarfed down before it got to our table. When the bill came we were both really shocked, in a good way, $33 was all. That's with an app, a bar drink, soda, and our pizza.  We spend that at our local small town restaurant easily, so it was so
nice eating at a nice restaurant and seeing that small of a bill.

Little Man Ice Cream
2620 16th St. Denver, CO 80211 
http://littlemanicecream.com/ 

''At Little Man, we strive to bring you the best ice cream experience in town. Our ice cream is hand-made with some of the finest, local ingredients and in small batches to ensure quality. '' -A quote from Little Man Ice Cream.com

These were just some of the flavors...

Me tasting my riches, ps I hate my highlights. I just feel like I look like a 50 year

old wanna be teen or something. If that makes any sense.

And this my friends is why my sweet husband and I went to Denver.

Three months ago while on a date we were talking about how Needtobreathe 

was on tour and we both really wanted to go. After so many excuses as to why we couldn't/shouldn't

my husband said, "You know what order the tickets tomorrow, if we don't now we never will."

So guess what I did the next day :) yep I ordered those dang tickets

My very attractive husband, he didn't even know this one was going to be snapped.

While waiting in line we had a great view of the State Capital which is gorgeous.

BTW did you know the dome is capped in real gold. True story. Once it hailed and chipped

chunks off and people where running and getting flakes out of gutter.

We got really close to the stage! Only one person deep in front of us. 

Needtobreathe front man

Heres a video of what they sound like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC7YR11gRUQ&ob=av2e 

Opener: Ben Rektor

Heres a video of what he sounded like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHCrFA2X26I 

All in all it was a great show and amazing trip. 

Needtobreathe was even better live then they are on CD. Why do we

still use that saying, no one listens to those things anymore,

okay they're really great on iPod.

Ohhhh that's why because it sounds dumb.

Anyways.

I love my husband and it was so nice to get away!

I came to the conclusion that i am too old for concerts now though :) 

Too much standing! Next time if I ever go to another one I'll be in the VIP section for sure.

Oh waiiit I'm not a celebrity 

PS did I mention I'm trying to keep myself up by being on the computer because I'm going to the midnight

screening of

The Hunger Games!

Home Sweet Home Biscuits

I love these babies. They are seriously close to tasting as good as KFC's which are my favorite, close but not quite. I love bread with my meals. When I'm running low on time and letting bread take its sweet time rising for 2 hours is out of the question, I run to these quick fixes. They are soft and savory. Let me know what you think. Pictures are always welcome.

________________________________________________

Ingredients:

2 Cups Flour
2 Tsp. Sugar
1 Tsp. Salt
2 1/2 Tsp. Baking Powder
1/3 Cup Shortening
3/4 Cup Milk

Preheat oven to 450 deg.
Pour first 4 ingredients in mixing bowl. Mix together.
add shortening

mix shortening into flour mixture with hands or pastry blender.
mix until crumbles are on the small side, like so.

make well in the center of the mixture and add milk into it. mix.

mixture should look a little something like this. if its too soppy add another tablespoon of flour

turn dough out onto floured surface. knead to make mixture come together.
with a floured rolling pin roll dough out until its around 1 inch thick or around a milk cap high. do not roll too thin or you'll wind up with wimpy thin biscuits. roll less for thicker ones if you like yours a little meatier :)

cut biscuits out with floured biscuit cutter or heck use a floured drinking glass. whatever you have works. Try and get as many biscuits out of your mix as you can, so cut close together. When cutting these puppies out use an up and down motion. Dont twist your cutter while cutting these out, you'll pinch the edges closed and your biscuits wont rise up in the oven :(
Now that would be a drag

Place biscuits on greased baking sheet. if theyre stuck to the work surface try and pry them up with a thin, floured plastic spatchula.
Pop the tray in the preheated 450 oven
for 10-15 min or until golden brown
keep an eye on them

Vwoaalah-- golden brown, warm from the oven, homecooked biscuits.
spread some butter and jelly on 'em, honey and butter, or heck make
them into a meal...

biscuits and gravy,yummmm :P

Recipes




Asian Shrimp Rice Noodles

 

No Stir Pumpkin Spice Creamer

Fail Proof Chicken Alfredo Sauce

 Pillowy French Bread

Crustless Coconut Cream Pie

Thick & Creamy Frappe at Home

Home Sweet Home Biscuts


Tai Chicken Salad
(photo source: Taste Of Home)

Corn & Black Bean Salsa

For Canning or just to eat right away