Enter the MarxFoods.com Contest and You Could Win $400!

Our friends at MarxFoods.com are hosting an awesome Party Food Recipe Contest, which you should all enter! You could win $400 credit for their site! I just recently learned about them, and they've got lots of really helpful insight and awesome goodies over there. It makes me wonder where the heck I've been!



Be sure to act quickly- the deadline is today, 4 p.m. Pacific Time. Give it a try!

Introducing Our Guest Blogger: My Sister!

Hi everyone, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Heather's older sister, Amy. I live in Washington DC and work as a paralegal. I will be updating at least once a week (if not more!) with a special feature called Restaurant Recreations.

I know that many people, myself included, are cutting back on the extras, namely going out to eat. The purpose of this feature is to recreate restaurant meals at at least 1/2 the price with all of the delicious taste. All prices listed on the recipes are from my local Safeway. Since I live in DC and don't buy products from BJs or Sam's Club, I bet that my meal prices will probably be higher than yours. Leave comments with your Recreation costs!

The first Recreation I decided to tackle was the California Pizza Kitchen BLT Pizza: http://www.cpk.com/menu/pizzas/index.php?page=2. This pizza will feed two VERY hungry adults, or 3-4 kids. My boyfriend and I ate the pizza for lunch and dinner and were completely stuffed.


What you need:

• 12" Prepared Pizza Crust, Regular Thickness (we used Boboli) - $3.99

• 8 slices of bacon - You can use maple flavored or regular. This is about half of a package of bacon. If a package is $5.50 - this would work out to $2.75. The Safeway had a buy one get one free sale on bacon, so the package was only $2.75, and thus 1/2 the packet was $1.38. Score!

• One Roma Tomato - $0.70. I chose this tomato as it was the perfect size to cover the whole pizza and also the cheapest per pound.

• 2 Tbsp of Mayo - $0.00. You probably have this in your fridge. If not, I'm sure you an get some of those little mayo packets for free.

• 2 cups of mozzarella cheese - Two cups of Safeway mozzarella cheese were on sale for $2.50.

• About 1 1/2 cups of iceberg lettuce - $0.80. I bought one of those bags of lettuce/salad mix for $1.00! I didn't even use the whole bag. I recommend using iceberg lettuce as it is pretty much flavorless, which is what the recipe needs.

• Optional - 1 avocado - $1.99. My boyfriend and I really enjoy avocado, so we sliced some up and added it to our pizza.
  
  

How to Cook:

1. Cook the bacon first. Don't cook it to the crispiness level that you would ultimately enjoy, as the bacon will cook up a little more in the oven. We baked ours in the oven for 12 mins at 400 (what can I say, we enjoy the crispy bacon).

2. While the bacon is cooking, prep the pizza crust with a layer of mozzarella and chop the lettuce into fine shreds (about 1/4" wide).

3. When the bacon is done, blot it with a paper towel to get the extra grease off.

4. Put the bacon on the pizza crust, and then cover it with the rest of the mozzarella.

5. Bake it in the oven for 10 minutes at 450 degrees.

6. Whilst the crust et al. is cooking, chop the tomato into circles. Also, put the chopped lettuce in a large Ziploc bag and add the mayo. Shake the bag around until the lettuce is covered with the mayo.

7. When the crust et al. is done, let it sit for about 5 minutes.

8. Add the lettuce and tomatoes.

9. Voila! Delicious pizza!


Total cost of pizza without avocado/with avocado: $9.37/$11.36 (feeds two hungry adults for two meals) Total cost of pizza from my local California Pizza Kitchen: $10.49 (feeds one hungry adult for one meal... maybe two).


Compare your local CPK cost by clicking on the link above, then on "Order Online" in the BLT pizza area. Choose your location, and click on "pizzas". The BLT pizza will be listed there (clearly).

Marathon Eating: Pre-Season Cooking and Streching of the Stomachs

One of my good friends is going to D.C. next semester, and I'm going to miss her and her affinity for talking about food, cooking and eating delicious food- and then talking about it some more.

Thus, we decided to spend the entire day cooking and eating delicious food. When I say the entire day, I mean nine hours. Straight. It was our personal heaven.

We had quite an ambitious menu, and spent way too much money at the supermarket, but it was great!

-Dates Wrapped in Maple Bacon (a slight variation on dátiles)

-One of my roommates' mom's 8-Layer Mexican Dip

-Caramelized Onion Crostini (we made this recipe all by ourselves!)

-Red Velvet Cookie Sandwiches

-Coconut Cake

-Roasted Chestnuts

First, I must say that Roasted Chestnuts are very overrated, but grew on me after a few. There's an entire song dedicated to them, so we thought we'd give them a whirl and have some out-of-body Christmas experience. It was quite disappointing. They reminded us of lima beans... Next time, we were thinking of sauteeing them with butter and adding some cinnamon and sugar, which you can never go wrong with! Anyone have any suggestions for them?

Erica's mom's 8-Layer Dip was so delicious! The recipe had called for 1 cup of mayonnaise and 1 cup of sour cream, but we just doubled the sour cream since neither of us like mayonnaise. What really made the recipe was the sour cream mixed with a packet of Taco Seasoning. We also decided that next time we might only add one or one-and-one-half cans of refried beans, instead of two. And maybe more tomatoes, or even a layer of salsa, since I love tomatoes so much. The other layers were avacado, olives, and cheese. Yum!

The Caramelized Onion Crostini was amazing! I'm bad with the exact measurements since we eyeballed, but I'll give it a shot:

-2 tbs butter

-3 c finely diced yellow onion

-1 tbs fresh sage, finely cut

-3 tbs flour

-3/4 c dry white wine

-2/3 c Low Sodium Chicken Broth

-Salt, pepper

We let the mixture get nice and thick, and after it cooled a bit, piled it on top of freshly toasted Italian bread. We concluded after that maybe we should have let the wine cook off a bit more, and maybe should have added a touch more broth. Overall, it was awesome, and I think Lauren may be making it for her family's Christmas Eve Appetizer Cook-Off. It's a real winner.

The Red Velvet Cookie Sandwiches, off of the Food Network, were pretty good, but we ran into some trouble since we forgot to grease the sheets before we baked. We tried to cut the cream cheese icing recipe in half, but it still tasted too much like cream cheese for our liking, and so we kept adding sugar to our liking. The cookies were also huge, so we cut them in half to make moon-like sandwiches instead of monstrosities that would make us ill. Overall, it was delicious and could be a real crowd-pleaser.

The Coconut Cake. I personally am a huge fan of coconut, cake, and icing, and when the three are combined, I turn into a monster. We had this cake at the end of the day, and so we didn't have very much room, but it was delicious! We did not have two round cake pans, so we used one large rectangular pan and cut it in half to stack the cakes. Icing was much easier than I had expected, and we used the recipe for icing from JoyofBaking.com instead of the recipe that went along with the cake recipe. The cake recipe was from Paula Deen, and was definitely decadent and delicious. A+!

I'm going to miss Lauren while she's off politicizing and all that, but I know it won't be long before we blow all of our money and partake in marathon eating again.

Round Two: Sugar Cookies with the Aim to Perfect!

My roommate needed a great treat to bring to a Holiday Potluck, and so she decided to make giant sugar cookies with everyone's names on them. As far as I know, they were a hit, and they looked great- probably since I helped a lot (but don't tell her I said that...).

Our key learning is that to make the sugar cookies similar to the ones you buy in the bakeries, make them large, and don't be afraid to make them a little thicker. We got our recipe from JoyofBaking.com, and the cookies baked in no time! The frosting recipe (also from JoyofBaking.com) was also delicious, and it hardened perfectly.

My smarty-pants roommate decided to use a pint-size tupperware (the kind you get soup in from Chinese take-out) as her cookie cutter. They worked really well!

It's Beginning to Feel A Lot Like Christmas...

With finals looming, things were pretty crazy last week. I finally had a few days to relax, and decided to make a new post about some wonderful goodies my friends and I had made a few weeks ago.

It's always fun creaming butter and sugar when you don't have any sort of electric mixer, and I'm grateful that both of my friends who helped are very athletic and actually have some upper body strength. We made the traditional sugar cookies, but made them kind of thin, and so decided to make them thicker the next time we would bake them.

I was also dying to try my hand at some puff pastry treats, and obviously bought the frozen pre-made phyllo dough sheets. I had seen Sunny Anderson on the Food Network make these beautifully simply puff pastry cookies simply by spreading jam on the sheet, and rolling and slicing.

We decided to be safe with only one sheet, and went crazy with the other! I can't tell you exact amounts, but here's how we made our filling:

-first, we started with a simple sugar in a small saucepan

-then, we diced clementines very small and added them

-when they didn't reduce exactly how we wanted, my friend popped them in the Magic Bullet (love that thing!) and returned back to the saucepan

-We added about 2.5-3 tbs of Blackberry Jam and let it all meld together

-To get the consistency we wanted, we popped it in the fridge for a few minutes

The clementines weren't at their best, so there was a slight aftertaste, but overall, they were great!

The pictures show sloppy pastries, but my friend reminded me how to make them really look like hearts: you roll the doll from each end, meeting in the middle, and you slice them. It was a yummy and fun experience! We also discussed adding cinnamon, sugar, and butter for the next time we experiment with phyllo dough.

Does anyone out there have any great phyllo dough dessert recipes or suggestions?

Great Success! Fried Dough!

I made this a couple months ago for a special Halloween Treat, but I'm very tempted to try it again. It's something that is warm and delicious, and great for an evening in when you just want to drink hot chocolate and munch on something delicious and festive. To be honest, I can't remember if I got the recipe from Food Network or Epicurious, but they have since taken the recipe down, and I can't give either proper credit. The recipe for the fried dough had maple syrup and cinnamon, which was a great alternative to the usual sugar. It was a delicious fall treat! I made the batter and tried to create a make-shift piping bag, but was pretty bad at it. I need more practice in that department.

Here is what I learned:

The fried dough works better when piped in thin pieces. You should remove excess oil well, and put LOTS of confectioner's sugar on top. Also, be sure to serve hot. They're far better when warm, but I also served them cold to some PRSSA kids, and I got some great reviews.

As you may have gathered by now, I'm a proud New Jerseyan, and I always remember Zeppoles from the church fairs and street festivals. This is basically the Italian fried dough, placed in a brown paper bag with confectioner's sugar, and then shaken up for a delicious warm and sugary bite. I can never turn down a visit to a Zeppole stand, and you really shouldn't either. Do you have any great fried dough memories or recipes?

Thanksgiving Recap!

Here is what is left after the delicious and painful consumption that was Thanksgiving:

It's such a lonely piece of pie, isn't it? Maybe I should go take it out of its misery...

Anyway, here's what we had for Thanksgiving. My sister is actually a pretty good cook, and she chipped in a lot. Overall, it was a success!

-Salume and Sopressata with Melba Toast Rounds

-Turkey rubbed with butter, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

-Standard sour dough stuffing with celery, onion, mushroom, rosemary, and sage.

-Sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top.

-Mashed potatoes with disgusting amounts of butter and milk.

-Fresh cranberry sauce and cranberry jelly. The sauce had orange zest and fresh orange juice.

-Heat 'n serve rolls.

-Steamed green beans.

-Homemade gravy.

-Pecan Pie

-Apple Pie with Splenda

-Peppermint Ice Cream (no winter holiday is complete without it!)

Now, this may seem like a bit of a basic menu, and it is. Keep in mind, though, that I have a very small family (four of us only!), and I am just a beginning cook. Considering we used to use Stove Top, canned Cranberry Jelly, and store-bought pies, I think we did quite well.

This was our first year with fresh stuffing, and it was pretty clear that my family didn't have a ton of confidence in my newly found culinary abilities! My dad bought about four boxes of Stove Top "just in case." This was also our first year cooking real cranberry jelly (yes, jelly!) and it was super easy, and so worth any of the extra effort! We also enjoyed a Prosecco before the meal and a Riesling to accompany the turkey. Nothing like a good bubbly bubbly to get the holiday spirits going!

I was also pretty impressed with the Splenda Apple Pie. My father's diabetic, so I've recently been trying to have at least one diabetic-friendly dessert. Confession: I did use an already-made pie crust for the apple pie and the pecan pie. It was still delicious!

I cannot wait for Christmas to bake more desserts and cookies. I think I'll ask to make a ham this year instead of a turkey. And I promise to try and make things a bit more...nontraditional.

Can We Just Take a Minute and Laugh?

Hopefully everyone's recovered from the Thanksgiving food coma. I didn't have Internet back home in Jersey (my parents still don't even really know what the Internet is...), and couldn't make a Thanksgiving post! A menu post will follow, but no pictures available... :(

Anyway, my roommate and I were walking home one day a few weeks ago and saw a squirrel outside of my window, chewing on a chicken bone. What a foodie.

Feels Just Like I'm Falling for the First Time...

Exactly one year ago today, I was in Paris. Last fall, I studied abroad in London, and a friend and I decided to travel the Chunnel to reach a land full of beautiful people, the Eiffel Tower, and croissants- on what would have been our Thanksgiving weekend.

Did we indulge in Duck Confit, expensive French wine, or rich French cheeses? Nope. I'd like to think that even if our wallets had been much fatter, we still would have taken the simple and inexpensive route. We dined one-at-a-time on pastries and baguettes that were seen as peasant food, but we didn't care- we were staying in a one-star hotel (not a hostel), and we felt like kings.

What better way to start my new blog with a post about my travels abroad, and how they changed the way I look at and appreciate food?

Let's start with my home base: London. With the dollar/pound conversion rate at two to one, and sometimes a bit more, it was a challenge to eat delicious food without breaking the bank. I would personally like to thank Sainsbury's and Tesco for the 30p baguettes and 2.90 bottles of wine.

Without you, I would not have enjoyed getting drunk off of cheap wine, or eating delicious drunk munchies. I salute you, and will praise the day I can walk into one of your stores on American soil.

You want to talk about acting like a kid in a candy store? Go to the biggest open-air food market in London, Borough Market, and I dare you not to buy anything. You can't resist! There is almost every kind of food imaginable. My personal favorite stands were the candy/baklava stand (of course), the Scrumpy Apple Cider stand, the gourmet burger stand, any and all bread stands, and, best of all, the fresh ravioli and pasta stand. I even bought venison ravioli. Scrumptious. Every time I was feeling homesick or blue, I'd hope on the Tube to Westminster, walk along the Thames, and make my way to London Bridge, where Borough Market gloriously stands every Thursday-Saturday.

Going abroad, of course, meant stretching my comfort zones a bit. In foodie terms, that meant trying spicier foods. One of my flatmates was familiar with the South Hall area, famous for its Indian restaurants and vendors- basically, she was going to get us the inside scoop on the most delicious homemade Indian food in all of London town. I've always loved Indian food, and was psyched out of my mind to experience all the new tastes and smells of South Hall...Unfortunately, I would also experience some new discomforts. I tried my best, but simply could not finish all the food I had ordered. My flatmates made fun of me the entire bus ride home.

In late September, my sister came to visit, bring me any comforts from the homeland, and tackle Oktoberfest! Munich is phenomenal, and the weekend can be reduced to two words: 1.) Beer. 2.) Meat. This picture pretty sums up both.

A few friends from high school were studying in Rome and Florence the same semester, so I gladly hopped on a few Ryan Air flights to gorge on pizza, pasta, wine, and the fresh delicacies that these wonderful cities offered. One of my most memorable experiences in Europe was my brave consumption of rabbit while in Florence. Honestly, it tasted like chicken, smothered with a spicy and light tomato sauce. I'd eat Pietro Cotton tail any time.

Last, but certainly not least, was my weekend in Barcelona, which was perhaps my favorite city. The city is right on the water, and menus offered fantastic seafood prepared in savory and succulent ways. We almost died when we decided to splurge and eat dinner at a restaurant on Port Vell, a pier/mall on the water. A few months later, my family and I traveled to Barcelona, and I insisted we go to that restaurant. It was still phenomenal. They have almost every kind of Paella you can imagine. I tried the Fideua Paella with cod, which was to die for. Most people don't realize how different the Spanish regions can be, and this Catalunian dish is a paella with noodles instead of rice. Accompanied by the calm of the dark water and a wonderful bottle of red wine, we sat back, belly full, and tried to forget that we would be returning to the States in just one week.

A year after my gallivanting in Europe concluded, I often look back on those memories and wish I could return to European Paella, beer and meat, pastries, baguettes, and ridiculously cheap wine. Someday I will, but I know how many wonderful food experiences I have ahead of me right here, right now.