I'm That Type Of Person...

If I were to ever loose my phone the person to find it might think that I'm obese. Seriously. I was looking through my photos and every fifth picture was of food. Yup I'm that girl that takes a picture of a hamburger and finds joy in it. The funny thing is I never do anything with the pictures. They just sit in my phone for my own personal enjoyment. Well until today. Ladies and gentlemen I give you my favorite food photos from my favorite places to eat in San Antonio & Austin.
Big'z cheddar avocado burger on a sweet sour dough bun with caramelized onion mayo. Oh sweet mercy that bun is heaven on earth. Oh and those onions rings? Best. Ever.

Texas Pride BBQ. Ok it's NOT our favorite BBQ place but it's still pretty darn good. BBQ is one of our favorite Texas traditions. Cooper's is my fave (didn't have a great pic). If you ask Denny he would say something different.

Hey Cupcake! black & white and very vanilla cupcakes. Delish & served out of the cutest airstream trailer I ever did see.

Torchy's Democrat taco, chips & salsa and a coke. Fiery perfection.

Frank Jackalope Hot Dog. Sausage made from Antelope, Rabbit & pork topped off with huckleberry compote and cheddar cheese. A. Maze. Ing. Truly. Oh and thank you Canada for the poutine waffle fries. Canada has the best junk food.

We go to this taco truck at least once a week. We love it so much. Carne Guisada taco, corn cup, mexican hot dogs. This place can not be beat. Too bad I don't even know it's name. However you can find it near Heubner and Vance Jackson in San Antonio every night.

Sushi Zushi Strawberry sushi roll. Yes you heard that right. Strawberry and sushi. Together. And it's actually pretty fantastic.

Just a warning. This probably won't be the last time I post pictures of food on this blog. I love to eat. And amazingly enough I'm not 300 pounds.

P.S. For the life of me I can not get the spacing of the pictures to look right. It's driving me crazy.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Another Great Snack

I was watching a show once where the guest was Chef Tyler Florence. He said that the best way to cook vegetables to make them taste great is to roast them. That even people who don't like veggies will like them roasted. He was right. I've been roasting ever since. However I had never thought of roasting edamame until I saw a post about it on The Kitchn. I don't know why I never thought of it. I love roasting. I love edamame. It just makes sense that I would love roasted edamame. So today I gave it a try. And I do love it. Even Miss. S gobbled it up. I will definitely be making this one again. You should give it a try too! Recipe found here.

Steal of the Week

Denny picked me up this darling book at Border's the other day. It was on sale for $2.99! I'm so excited to try out some of the scrumptiousness inside. I may even have to whip up the New York, New York Super Crumb Cake this weekend. Or the Wicked Good Chocolate Peanut Butter Pudding Cups. Every recipe looks delicious and fun. For $3 you can't beat it! Now I just need to get the original Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey. Do any of you have these cook books? Have you made anything out of them? 

Skinny Pancakes

This is a recipe that takes me straight back to my childhood. It's actually a recipe for Swedish Pancakes but my niece Islay dubbed them skinny pancakes. My Mom made these all the time growing up. Probably more often then regular pancakes. They are similar to a crepe but a little thicker and a little easier to make. Everyone in my family loves them so I thought I would pass along the recipe.
Ingredients
3 eggs
1 1/4 cup milk
3/4 cup flour
1 table spoon sugar
1/2 tea spoon salt

Combine all dry ingredients. Add in eggs and mix together to form a paste. Then add in milk slowly.

The batter will be super runny and it will not make perfect little round pancakes. They will be rather wonky but when you roll them up on your plate you won't even notice. I made them for Miss. S the other day with nutella and bananas. I had mine with pure maple syrup and powder sugar. Delish!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Best Snack Ever!

Or breakfast or lunch. Pretty much whenever you want to eat it it's gonna be good. I love yogurt. So much! I mean good yogurt. Real yogurt. Not that yoplait crap they call yogurt but is basically a bag of skittles in yogurt clothing. I mean have you seen how much sugar is in that stuff? I think a lot of people make the assumption that if it's yogurt then it's automatically good for you. Not so my friends. I'm a pretty picky yogurt eater. I've experimented a little bit and I've found my three favorite yogurt brands.

First there's Fage Greek Style Yogurt. Thick creamy tart goodness. Get the plain and the add your own honey. Seriously good. Did you know that adding a tablespoon of local honey to your diet everyday can help with allergies? True story. Also this is a great healthy alternative to sour cream. Substitute it when ever you would normally use sour cream.

The second brand I like to give to Miss. S. I get her the individual cups of Stoneyfield. It's organic so you know they won't use any high fructose corn syrup to sweeten it. I've also heard that Stonyfield is the best to use as a starter for making your own yogurt. My Mom makes her own yogurt quite a bit and uses Stonyfield  as the starter. I feel good giving Miss. S Stonyfield. She likes it just as much as Go-Gurt and it is a much healthier alternative. The price is also fairly low.

The last one I just tried a week ago per my Mom's suggestion. The Greek God's Honey flavored yogurt. OK this is like a dessert. It is to die for. Toss a handful of fresh berries on the top and you're set. It is seriously a party in my mouth. I'm begging all of you to try it. It is definitely a special occasion treat (it's pretty high in calories, fats and sugars). Not an everyday snack, but so so yummy! You can feel kind of good eating though because it is made with milk, cream, pure cane sugar, honey, pectin & five live active cultures. Notice no high fructose corn syrup or anything you can not pronounce (well except the cultures).

All of these brands contain those ever so valuable live active cultures that everyone is talking about these days. They aid in digestion and boost your immune system.

So there you have my yogurt low down. Does anyone else love it as much as I do? Do you have any favorites?

My Go To Pasta Dish

Making pasta around here isn't the easiest task. Denny doesn't like marinara and I don't really like to eat heavy cream sauces. Don't get me wrong I love the taste of them. I just tend to over do it then I feel full, fat & sick. So it's just best to stay away from them. I can't tell you the last time I had Chicken Alfredo. It's been a while. So when I saw this recipe on Everyday Italian I had to try it out. It seemed like a good happy medium. Of coarse I tweaked it a little to suit our needs. So here is our favorite Pasta Dish.

No Sauce Creamy Farfalle

Ingredients

1 Box Whole Grain Farfalle (Bow Tie Pasta)

1 lb Fresh Mushrooms, thickly sliced

1 Bunch Thin Asparagus, trimmed & cut into 1 inch pieces

3 tablespoons Butter

1 Dash of Garlic Salt

A pinch of freshly Grated Nutmeg

Salt and Pepper to taste

1/2 Cup Chopped Pecans

1 Cup Mascarpone Cheese

1/4 Grated Parmesan Cheese

*Optional*

1 Cup your choice of meat...

Shredded Rotisseri Chicken

Grilled Chicken Breast

Diced Prosciutto Ham

It tastes great without meat, but Denny likes it best with Prosciutto.

Directions

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until Al Dente

2. Meanwhile add butter to a large skillet over medium heat. Add mushrooms and garlic powder and sauté until mushrooms are tender and most of the juices have evaporated, about 5 min. Add asparagus (and prosciutto if you choose to use it.) sauté another 5 min.

3. Remove pasta from pot into a large serving bowl saving 1 cup pasta water. Add vegetables. Stir in Mascarpone Cheese until pasta is evening coated. If you feel the pasta might need more moisture then add a 1/4 cup pasta water at a time until you feel like it is moistened enough. It may not need it. Stir in Pecans and nutmeg (If you chose to use Chicken this would be the time to add it). Season with Salt and Pepper to taste and top with Parmesan Cheese. Enjoy!

The Chinese New Year Festivities

We had a fun time as a family last night for Chinese New Year. We ordered in some Dim Sum (including my beloved Char Siew Bao), walnut shrimp & Moo Shu Chicken from Golden Wok. Golden Wok is owned by some really great family friends of ours and they have the widest variety of Dim Sum available in San Antonio. It truly is delicious! If you're not really sure what Dim Sum is visit their website and you will wonder no more.

After some good eats we got our paper craft on. We made lanterns, fans & fortune cookies. Miss. S is still pretty young and has a hard time with most crafts. So I involved her by letting her color the paper for the lanterns and the fans. She also wrote "letters" for the fortunes. She had such a good time and was really proud of what she made. I have to admit the fans didn't turn out so good, but the lantern & cookies were really cute. If you are going to make paper fans with your kids make sure to use a thinner type of paper. It will make folding them much easier.

The fortune cookies were my favorite. After writing out our own fortunes we glued them to the inside of paper cupcake liners. Then you fold the cupcake liners back and glue the bottom together. They turned out pretty cute and so easy!

All in all our Chinese New Year was a success. I think it's important to teach your children about other cultures. They love it! It's so much fun watching her soak up new things.

Happy Chinese New Year

Today we're ringing in the Chinese New Year. It's the year of the Rabbit! I don't think I've ever mentioned what Denny does for a living on this blog. His parents own Fire Wok a Chinese Restaurant here in San Antonio and he manages it for them. So The Chinese New Year is an important holiday around this house. I would love to say that I'm celebrating by cooking up all sorts of Chinese Delicacies and throwing a party. However that is just not going to happen this year. I'm way to big and uncomfortable to be slaving over the stove all day. Maybe next year. I really would love to learn to make Char Siew Bao (steamed pork buns). Yum! Just thinking about it makes my mouth water. Anyway I'm sure we'll do something fun. Perhaps I'll post about it tomorrow. Go enjoy your day and if your trying to figure out something good to eat try some Chinese Food!

Monday Meal Day

Monday's are the days I sit down and pour over recipe books, magazines, web sites and more to try to decide what to make for the week. I'm really bad at meal planning. I like fast, easy, healthy meals, that don't require a lot of ingredients. Sundays are the exception as I usually like to make a nicer dinner on Sunday and dessert. During the week however I go for easy. I have somewhat of a formula. Certain days I set aside for certain things. Like every Friday is sandwich night, and we usually eat out on Saturdays. Thursdays are dedicated to left overs. But Mondays give me a head ache. This week I decided to try to plan several weeks at a time so I don't have to stress every Monday about meals. I like to cook I just don't like planning and preparing for it. I found a great website that has several free printables to help with things like this. Some great tools to help keep you organized. It's called Mommy Tracked. Today I decided to utilize the eat sheet. I'm hoping it will give me some direction. How do you handle the task of planning your families meals?

The Cookies of My Dreams

Yes they are really that fantastic. I found a cookie recipe some time ago that was good NOT great. I've done a lot of tweaking to this recipe to make them just right. After much deliberation as to whether or not to keep this recipe a guarded secret I've decided that it is much nicer to pass it along. So with no further delays here you are. Happy Holidays!

Glorified White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter softened

2/3 cup Firmly packed light brown sugar

1 Large egg

1 3/4 cup All-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon Baking soda

1/4 teaspoon Salt

3/4 cup Coarsely chopped macadamia nuts

1 cup Shredded coconut divided

3/4 of a bag of White chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350

2. In a large bowl cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy

3. Beat in egg and vanilla

4. In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Blend into creamed mixture.

5. Blend in nuts and 1/2 cup coconut.

6. Stir in white chocolate chips.

7. Take heaping spoonfuls and roll into balls. Slightly flatten out like a pancake. Take rest of coconut and put on a small plate. Roll the top of you cookie in coconut. This part is essential as it gets toasted and crispy while baking.

8. Place cookies 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 min or until set. They should be slightly brown with coconut toasted.

9. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets then cool completely on wire racks.

10. Enjoy with a tall glass of milk.

*Disclaimer* These cookies are very sweet and very rich. A glass of milk may be necessary.

I am not a huge fan of white chocolate, and I'm very picky about coconut. I assure you that these cookies will not disappoint. If you make them please let me know what you think!

*Update* Last night Denny told me that this last batch may have been TOO sweet. If this is the case you can use 3/4 of a bag of white chocolate chips. They will taste just as wonderful.

Eating Well

We have been making a conscious effort around this house to eat better lately. More veggies & fruits. More whole foods. Less of the processed junk that litters our grocery stores shelves. Today's lunch was fantastic. We got the recipe from this months Everyday Food (great & inexpensive). It's basically Egg in the Hole but the hole is a red bell pepper. The only thing we added to the recipe was sliced avocado. Very fresh and yummy. Served with spinich and strawberry salad. I have to give credit where credit is due. Denny cooked everything (and took the picture). All I did was wash and ready the salad. He is a great cook and he really enjoys it. I'm a lucky lady.

Phases

I go through phases with things. I'll be really into crafting for a few months. Then I'll switch it up and read a ton of books in a 2-3 month time frame. Then I burn myself out on that and I go back to sewing. Right now I'm in a cooking phase which I've never done before. I've actually been really into trying new recipes and making dinner a little more exciting. I love getting on allrecipes.com and just looking at all the choices. That is my go to site. Then last week I discovered the Campbell's Soup recipe site. I know it's probably nothing new to you guys, but I'm pretty excited about it!It's a sleek and very user friendly site. It has provided me with very easy, nutritious, yummy meals. We tried these BBQ Roast Beef sandwiches and they were a hit. I served them topped of with a little cheese and coleslaw. Very tasty. Tonight we'll be trying out the Chicken Broccoli Divan. Using 98% fat free cream of mushroom soup instead of cream of chicken & adding sauteed mushrooms. Served over rice. I always like to change up recipes to suit my taste. Go to www.campbellkitchen.com and enjoy.

P.S. I have been indulging in a little crafting as well. I just can't post about it yet. Soon though. So check back.