Recipes
Sink your spoon into the Ooey Gooey, melty bubbly cheese…
…down past the pieces of floating French Bread into a deep, dark amber liquid. As you pull out your spoon little bits of caramelized onion fall down the string of cheese that dangles down into the steaming bowl of soup.
You can’t help but enjoy every spoonful of this French Onion Soup!
I adapted this from Tyler Florence’s recipe and it’s better than any that I’ve had at a restaurant.
Who doesn’t love the combination of banana and peanut butter?
For my nephew’s graduation open house I decided to make a variety of cupcakes for him. One of the inspirations I had was to make a cupcake that tasted like moist banana bread and pair it with my Tiger Butter Frosting that is a Swiss meringue buttercream flavored with white chocolate and peanut butter. It was divine…it had the perfect balance of flavors! I attempted to test dipping it in chocolate as well but decided it was too sweet and the original recipe was perfect.
Needless to say, the cupcakes were a hit at the open house…actually everyone was eating the cupcakes instead of the cake. I even seen a few people go back up for a second and third cupcake…lol. So I guess you could call them a success.
I work 10 hour days at my job so making cupcakes for an event like this I had to prepare ahead of time. I researched a bit and tested freezing cupcakes to see how they would hold up and see if they would stay moist after a few weeks. I found this technique worked well and I was able to make cupcakes a couple weeks in advance on my days off and they tasted exactly the same and were still super moist.
After cupcakes have cooled completely wrap them individually in plastic wrap and place in ziplock bags or in an airtight container, place in freezer. To unthaw, remove from freezer and unwrap…place on a cooling wrap for a few hours till cupcakes come to room temperature before frosting. I also made my buttercream a day ahead and placed in the fridge. The frosting also has to come to room temp before you can pipe it. Frosting takes only around an hour to warm up enough to re-whip in the blender once more before piping. Then you are all set to decorate your cupcakes after that. Easy prep so you don’t have to stress the night before baking or the day of an event.
I took some inspiration for the banana cupcake recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction and tweaked it by adding some chopped walnuts and pairing it with my frosting recipe. Normally I like to adjust recipes more to my liking but she did such a good job that I kept it pretty much true to her recipe- Bravo Sally! She has a wonderful blog and some amazing recipes, if you haven’t visited her site you should check it out.
I have only just recently started liking guacamole.
It may have to do with me not finding the recipe I really like…but my search for the perfect guac is over.
I love this recipe that I found from Knorr…with a few alterations of my own I have come up with my version that is a creamy and spicy guac.
This creamy & spicy guacamole goes perfect with tortilla chips, tacos, tostadas…anything you want to eat it with! Including eating it by the spoonful.
Grief is a funny thing…
It comes in waves of being unbearable and not feeling a single thing at other times. It’s a juggling act of when and how to allow the pain and memories to flood your mind. Sometimes it’s uncontrollable and sometimes you can steer through the deep floods of emotions that lurk beneath the surface of the mind.
I very recently lost my grandfather expectantly and have been trying to cope with the loss. I’ve had more experience with death in my life than I care to have had…and knowing it’s a part of life doesn’t make it easier. Knowing my grandfather lived a full and happy life does make it bearable a little.
At times I am numb and don’t feel anything, like the event, didn’t affect me at all. Then it all crashes down on me and I cry and get angry at different things…I tell myself I should have done so much more with my papa, visited him more…but I realize these are all the steps to grieving and it’s normal and good to feel all of these including feeling numb. It’s a self-defense measure that doesn’t allow you to feel the whole impact of the loss at once.
I’ve found that allowing myself to remember things that we shared to be helpful…like food. Meals that we shared, special recipes I first had with him or weird dishes we both enjoyed like grilled peanut butter and onion sandwiches. Sitting with my grandmother and remembering the things he didn’t like and sharing recipes that were his favorites. It’s the things like these that make it bearable.
Like this recipe- my first time having this beef stroganoff melt was at Sunday dinner over my grandparents. Of course, my grandpa didn’t like the green peppers so he got a slice without them. Making this recipe has always made me think of him and I’ll always have that memory tied to this dish…and that is beautiful. These types of recipes are my favorites- the ones that are sprinkled with a loving memory.
Everyone loves the classic peanut butter cookie.
This recipe is a spin on that memorable cookie from childhood with a little bit of a crunch with Heath Toffee bits mixed in and sprinkled on top. Best of all they whip up in no time at all.
The first time we had these cookies I came home from a long day at work to find my husband had looked up a Hershey’s recipe and changed it a bit…he had baked a bunch of cookies and they were waiting for me cooling on the counter. I was both impressed and pleasantly surprised! We have dubbed the recipe to be his now but I gave it a go myself for this post and they don’t disappoint.
I used to work with a friend who made candies.
My favorite were these little Tiger Butter candies, they were like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, only much better. They were white chocolate mixed with peanut butter and topped with milk chocolate. She gave me the recipe years ago and I make them every so often when I get a craving for them.
I made some in starfish shaped molds for our wedding dinner…we had a destination wedding at the Sandals Halcyon Beach in St.Lucia in a gazebo by the ocean. When we came back home we had a small intimate dinner at our favorite restaurant (Maggiano’s) with family and a few close friends. So the starfish tiger butter candies were our “wedding favors” to our guests. Ahh…I’m reliving the feeling of that day, the sun on my face, and my love’s hand in mine.
Anyways, I decided I wanted to make a frosting that had those same flavors and the results were spot on! This amazing frosting can go on cupcakes and cakes of all sorts…white cake, chocolate, banana cakes, I could go on and on…heck I’d even dip an apple in it! Give it a try and see what you can pair it with.
