notes, quotes & anecdotes of a year fast passing

before you read this recipe, familiarize yourself with the seinfeld episode that tells you to “LOOK TO THE COOKIE!” it’s one of my two favorite episodes of the whole series (topped only by the alternate side episode made famous by “these pretzels are makin’ me thirsty” and made me laugh even more with, “who put cookies in his mouth? you’re not supposed to do that.”) so there’s the back story to what made me feel like making black and white cookies - recently seeing this episode of seinfeld.

what makes it even more appropriate of a choice to post today is that i spent the day in manhattan yesterday and black and white cookies always remind me of new york bakeries and delis. in researching a basic recipe, i learned that the reason they’re so light and cakey is that cake is what they are born from!

at the end of the day, bakers would take excess cake batter they had on hand and rather than tossing it, they’d add a little extra flour to give it some hold and behold: a light, cakey cookie.

i must admit, though, while i got rave reviews (especially to the request for an all white cookie by my coworker scott), when my friend matt asked me, “okay what makes these cookies healthy?” i didn’t have too much to say. i feel like black and white cookies are very near and dear to a lot of people’s hearts and they’re quite judgmental and particular about the classic cookie. since it was my first time making them, i didn’t want to tweak too much, for fear of disastrous results.

i will tell you this: the actual cookies themselves (not the frosting) aren’t too high in sugar and the frosting is just made of sugar and water - no fat. i hope that’s some consolation. in fact, i just calculated out the nutrition information and for a really decent-sized cookie (this recipe made about 30), it’s 120 calories and 3 grams of fat. that’s not too bad. so don’t feel guilty, just make a batch, share with everyone at work and eat them while you’re watching seinfeld.

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick), room temperature

2 eggs

3/4 cup skim milk

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon lemon extract

1 1/4 cup cake flour

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder (not pictured - i’ll tell you why in a sec)

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

1/3 cup water

2 Tablespoons dark chocolate chips

1 1/2 teaspoons light corn syrup

2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

once you’re done with the collecting, time to start doing!

first, prep your oven by heating it to 375 degrees. also, line two baking sheets with parchment paper or spray with nonstick cooking spray.

in a large mixing bowl, combine the sugar and (room temperature) butter. mix with an electric mixer until the mixture is light and fluffy. then, add the eggs, milk, vanilla and lemon extracts. mix that until it’s smooth and well-combined. then set it aside.

see that bowl in the background of the picture? that’s your dry ingredient bowl. whisk or sift together both types of flour, salt and baking powder. make sure it’s well mixed and then you’re going to dump that (in three or so batches) into the butter, sugar, etc bowl, mixing well in between each shift.

back to why the baking powder was not pictured. so here’s a habit i have… i don’t like to just print recipes off line when i’m working with them. i take a large piece of scrap paper and write everything out by hand. maybe it seems more authentic? i don’t know.

i bring my list to the grocery store with me, stash it in my planner until i get cooking and then take notes and scribble on it when i tweak ingredients and measurements. it usually gets covered in butter or batter and other messy things and then i toss it once i post my recipe online. it’s weird, it’s more work, but it works for me.

long story short, in my writing of ingredients, that got lost in transcription (get it? like translation…). luckily i have it readily available in my cupboard, so it was no crisis. it just didn’t make it to class pictures.

once you mix those together, the result should be a batterdough - not quite as runny as a cake batter, not as thick or tough as a cookie dough. catch my drift? great.

drop them onto your baking sheet and leave about two inches in between each dough ball. i’d say you want soup-spoon-sized mounds, for “normal” cookies, but black and white cookies tend to be HUGE, so you can also make them bigger if you like.

pop them in your 375 degree, preheated oven for 12-15 minutes. you want them to be cooked through but still pretty light. the darker the edges, the harder they’ll be to cover up with the icing.

as soon as they’re done, remove them from the pan so they stop cooking. they should slide right off without even needing a spatula, really! put them on a wire cooling rack to cool completely and once they’re cool enough, you can flip them over so the darker, flat side that was on the pan is facing up. this is actually the side you’ll be frosting! that’s why black and white cookies are so light and rounded on the unfrosted, bottom side.

make sure you’ve got wax paper or paper towels under the racks. not too important while they’re cooling, but once you get to icing, they’ll be drippy and that makes it far easier to clean up the mess.

while your cookies are cooling, you can get started on the very quick frosting.

put the confectioners’ sugar in a metal, heat safe bowl. you’re going to use this as the top of a double boiler later, so plan accordingly.

bring a little bit of water to a boil and then scoop out 1/3 cup and pour it over the sugar. whisk together until it’s smooth and seems like the consistency is “spreadable.”

with a butter knife or spatula (i used the former), take your white frosting and frost half the cookies. i wasn’t happy with the thickness and transparency of my frosting (picture on the left), so i let them dry and went on for round two. i was much happier with the result after that (picture on the right). you’ll be able to tell for yourself based on your frosting thickness and how it looks once you’re doing yours.

take all that’s left of your frosting and put it on top of a pot of simmering water to make a double boiler. add the chocolate chips and corn syrup and whisk until they’re melted and smooth. as you can see from the picture on the top right above, that chocolate addition does not make a black frosting. it makes a very light brown frosting. this is where the cocoa powder comes in! add that, one tablespoon at a time, until you get the color you’re looking for.

it’s totally fine to add the unsweetened cocoa, since the whole bowl is essentially sugar. trust me when i say it won’t be bitter at all. in fact, i loved the frosting and i’m not usually one for sweet frosting! it reminded me of the stuff that comes with dunkaroos and i’m a sucker for second grade throwbacks.

since this frosting is thicker than the plain white, i thought it was much easier to use. go ahead and frost the naked half of the cookies and let them dry for a considerable amount of time before you package them up.

one thing to note before i show you the finished product. i think it’s only fitting that i made these cookies because i feel like i’ve been on a back to basics/black and white kick lately. (see: my favorite black and white scarf (so LA, courtesy of mandy), my new black and white iphone cover (thanks, sephora!) and my life-changing black and white vera bradley planner (you can witness my love for it here).

if you don’t believe me, look at the evidence:

it just made sense to bake some cookies that went well with all of my favorite, can’t-live-without accessories :)

click here for a printable version of the recipe!

i have to be honest and say that i’ve never had monkey bread before. so this lightened up, individually-portioned version is fantastic to me - i don’t have any more gooey, buttery, fattening version to compare it to! polling my friends, i’ve found that this is a christmas morning tradition for many, but researching online, i found that it’s also (like many delicious holiday treats) not all that healthy.

i won’t say the original nutrition facts, but just know that this version, adapted from a hungry girl email i saved back in 2009, is just 1/3 of the fat and calories compared to the original. ONE THIRD! they’re sweet, gooey, satisfying and a real treat. luckily, they’re portioned in muffin tins, so it’s perfectly sized.

i reduced the amount of butter and made sure to get reduced fat crescent rolls, but let’s be honest. there’s really no redeeming nutritional value to these little guys. but considering the alternative, they’re a great once-in-a-while treat and so far, they’ve been a huge hit in my office!

my favorite part about the whole process was how AMAZING my ENTIRE apartment smelled while i was baking. even better than anything i’ve ever baked before. deee-licious!

3 Tablespoons Splenda, divided

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, divided

1 1/2 Tablespoons butter

2 Tablespoons sugar free pancake syrup

2 Tablespoons brown sugar

1 package reduced fat crescent rolls

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

such simple collecting! let’s get to doing so you can start eating!

get started by preheating your oven to 350 degrees and spraying a muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray.

in a small bowl, mix 1 Tablespoon Splenda and 1 teaspoon cinnamon. set it aside.

pop open the crescent rolls (i included a photo of this because i really appreciated that they gently popped open all by themselves. as a kid, i used to love pressing the spoon on the seam whenever we made these at home. it was like a treat to let it POP! but for some reason, in recent years, i’ve really hated this task! i get serious anxiety waiting for it to pop. sort of like buddy the elf with his jack in the box. serious. anxiety. anyways, it was great that both rolls of dough just effortlessly and quietly opened up as i unraveled the outer layer.)

for those of you unfamiliar with buddy’s toy testing fiasco, watch this and feel my pain.

next sprinkle the baking powder on top and smooth it evenly across and into the dough with your fingers.

separate each of the crescent triangles and cut them into three even-ish slices. then, take each slice and roll it into a little dough ball. make a pile of these and set them aside until you’re finished with all of them. you should have 24 (eight crescent triangles * three slices = 24 dough balls).

drop them (in small batches) into the Splenda/cinnamon mixture that you made earlier and toss them around until they’re lightly coated. drop four into each of the muffin tin openings. don’t press them down, let them just fall as they may.

next, put the remaining Splenda and cinnamon, butter, syrup and brown sugar in a small saucepan. constantly whisk/stir while you heat over medium to medium-high heat  until the butter is melted and ingredients are well-mixed.

then spoon even amounts of the melted mixture into the muffin tin, over the dough balls.

bake in the 350 degree, preheated oven for 12-15 minutes until they have risen, are golden brown and are firm. they will be very gooey, so let them cool for a little bit (10 minutes or so) before removing them from the tin with a fork or spoon.

side note: the sauce bubbled up and was all over my pan and i thought, “OH NO, this will be a MESS to clean up!” i was so pleasantly surprised that it came off easily by dragging a fork over the spills. it all picked right up and had the taste/consistency of a caramel!

also note, i doubled the batch so i could share the wealth with more of my coworkers, so that’s why there are more than six on the plate. the others were already in the fridge (minus one that was already in my stomach at the time of photography!)

click here for a printable version of the recipe!

imagine my panic this morning when tumblr wouldn’t allow me to post pictures inside my blog entries (!!!!!). this blog has become my favorite part of the day and hearing your feedback on my recipes always makes me smile. the other day, my dad told me it seems like a waste that i cook such great meals and don’t get to share them with anyone. my defense was fourfold:

1) it’s much more budget-friendly when i cook for myself and have leftovers for a few days. even if a dish costs me $20 to make, if i get five meals out of it, i’m fine with it! i’m much less wasteful with my grocery shopping these days, believe it or not!

2) when i make treats, i ALWAYS share them with my office. it would not be very beneficial to me or my waistline to keep plates full of cookies lying around. willpower is not in my vocabulary!

3) i AM sharing my food. with everyone that reads my blog! sure, it might not be hundreds or thousands of readers, but it’s allowed me to reconnect with people, inspire friends’ menus and show everyone something i love to do!

4) okay, i get it. i know i need a boyfriend.

anyways, that was a long way of saying that my heart was broken when i thought i had reached some type of upload limit and wouldn’t be able to blog anymore! this little thing has become my favorite hobby and thoughts were racing through my mind about having to start a new blog, not blogging at all or even taking a break from it. HELLO! i have a list of recipe i want to get cracking on! i tried a different browser, different computer, the catch-all REBOOT, different pictures, etc. and nothing seemed to work.

i wrote to the tumblr support team and i was SO impressed at how quickly they wrote back to me (thank you, thomas!). it made me feel like an actual person with a valid question than just a tiny URL in a sea of bloggers. come to find out, this is a site-wide problem (read: i didn’t break anything!) and the developers are working on it. in the meantime, they gave me a little solution that isn’t quite as convenient but works totally fine for me!

so without further ado, i give you a delicious dinner idea! feel free to swap out your favorite protein (beef, shrimp, tofu!) and your choice veggies. the ones i chose are stir fry staples for me, but the possibilities are really endless. the sauce is what MADE the dish for me and i was surprised at how great it came out. it was just an idea that popped into my head and i’m thrilled with the result.

1 cup orange juice

2 Tablespoons low sodium soy sauce

2 Tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

zest from 1/2 large orange (optional)

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 large red bell pepper

1/2 large sweet onion

small head of broccoli

1 cup snow peas

1/4 cup carrots, chopped

2 teaspoons canola oil

1 Tablespoon flour

once you’re done with your own, personalized version of collecting, let’s get to the doing!

next, wash and dry your chicken breasts, trim away the ugly parts and cut them into bite-size pieces. when i used to cook for the families i babysat for, one mom instructed me in an email to cut peppers into “stir fry size pieces” and i didn’t quite know what that meant. i do now! sometimes grocery stores have stir fry packaged meats that are already cut into these bite-size scraps, but i prefer to just do it myself.

once you’re done prepping the chickn, drop it into the orange juice mixture, cover and refrigerate for a minimum of one hour. if you want, you can do this in the morning before work and let it marinate all day. i’m not much of a morning person, though, so i’d rather sleep 10 extra minutes than deal with the kitchen before i head to work.

(please note, i had this great idea of showing you photos of each of the layers of the bowl (first peppers, then broccoli, snow peas and carrots), but i can’t resize the photos in this little temporary solution of a blog editor, so you’re stuck with just one picture!)

while the chicken was marinating, i had plenty of time to unpack my suitcase (from a week ago, which i need to already repack tomorrow), put away the dishes from the dishwasher (i think i have kitchen OCD because i love this activity. it’s oddly relaxing for me to fit everything back in its place) and finish an episode of teen mom 2 (my thoughts: love leah, not a fan of jenelle). even with all that, i had time to spare to chop my veggies before it was time to cook!

you can throw all the vegetables into a big bowl once they’re cleaned and cut, except for the onions. those should cook longer, so keep them aside.

pour the little big of oil into a large sautee pan or wok and let it get HOT! add the onions and chicken first. don’t dump the bowl with marinade, though - use a slotted spoon or tongs to just take the chicken out. save the marinade for later. constantly stir the chicken and onions for about four minutes and once it’s mostly cooked, toss in the rest of the vegetables.

stir these and let them cook for another 2-3 minutes until the veggies are not raw, but still crunchy. in the last minute, dump the marinade and stir everything together.

now, remove all the veggies and chicken with the tongs or slotted spoon and put them on a platter or in a bowl. you should be left with just the marinade. whisk in the flour and keep stirring until it dissolves. bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat and let it simmer for five minutes or so until it has thickened up a little bit.

i put a half cup of brown rice on my plate, added a generous portion of the stir fry and spooned a little bit of the sauce on top. it soaked right in and i sprinkled with sesame seeds for some CRUNCH! and i had a delicious dinner that tasted fresher, sweeter and healthier than any chinese takeout i’ve ever had :)

click here for a printable version of the recipe!

first, before i get into the details of this delicious creation i’ve eaten for every meal for the last two days… let me tell you a little bit about my morning.

i hadn’t picked out an outfit last night, as clothes haven’t really been a huge priority in this gross weather, since i refuse to ruin cute shoes, i don’t want the bottoms of my pants to get salty AND my real priority is that i just want to be warm. needless to say, i can’t wait for spring and sundresses. in the meantime, though, i like to throw in some non-traditional winter colors into my wardrobe.

i decided this morning that i would wear a bright coral sweater i got for my birthday a couple of years ago. it’s a little bit on the itchy side, though, so i threw on a black, cap-sleeved-but-really-almost-sleeveless t-shirt to wear while i was getting ready and then sport under the sweater. well, when i got to work and unzipped my coat, imagine my surprise when i realized I NEVER PUT ON MY SWEATER. so here i am, in 10 degree weather, in a tank top at work. really? yes. anyways, i threw on a fleece that’s been sitting on the back of my chair all year and i’m looking less than fashionable today.

…anyways. let’s discuss how this amazing, bright, light, flavorful mexican salad came to be! firstly, the title of my post describes all of the ingredients, more or less. i noticed this weekend that i had a can of black beans sitting in my pantry and had some “super sweet” frozen corn in my overly stocked freezer that needs to be cleaned out. i was feeling daring for some creative sandwich last week that never came to be and was left with an avocado and a couple of tomatoes sitting in my kitchen. knowing all these ingredients were strewn about my kitchen inspired me and just like that, i picked up a lime at the store and got to creating!

the assembly is SO easy and i really can’t stop raving about how delicious and versatile it is. i’ll get more into that later, though :)

1 1/2 cups sweet corn, frozen then cooked

2 small or 1 large tomato, chopped

1 ripe avocado, chopped

14 oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained

juice from 1 lime

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

2 Tablespoons olive oil

done collecting? time for some doing!

(i just love how colorful all these ingredients are! screw skittles, this is how you taste the rainbow)

since you don’t have to do much actual cooking when you assemble this salad, most of the prep work is pretty easy. first thing you want to do is cook the corn (mine was the steam fresh kind, so i popped it in the microwave) and once you drain it, put it in the fridge or rinse it with cold water to cool it down.

next, rinse the beans. remember what biggest loser bob tells us! you want to rinse the beans until there’s no white foam leftover, so you can make sure you’ve gotten rid of as much excess salt as you can.

chop your tomato and score your avocado, too. i was thinking of adding half a sweet onion, but i decided against it. feel free to do that now if you’d like! also, i hate cilantro, so i steered clear of that, too. for those of you that like it, i think the flavor would work great with the dish, so chop up some fresh leaves and add away!

also, i’d just like to note that this avocado was the perfect ripeness, no bad spots and i FINALLY took the pit out of an avocado with just a knife. photo documentation:

i always see them to this when they make tableside guacamole at restaurants and i’m so jealous of the skill. i always end up digging into the avocado with my fingers, mashing up half of it and making a mess. i was so proud of this perfect slice, i just had to share.

put all your beeeeeautiful ingredients into a bowl and toss them around a bit to mix. then it’s time to get started on the vinaigrette!

combine your olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic and lime juice and whisk together with a fork. then, drizzle it over the salad so it gets evenly distributed and then gently mix everything together even more so every bite is well-coated.

MMMM! the possibilities from here are endless. i grabbed a forkful to make sure it was seasoned well and ended up eating three forkfuls because it was so good! you can serve it in a burrito, have it as a side dish, pour it on top of nachos, dip your chips in it or make my little mexican pizza creation (see below).

i took half a piece of lavash bread (pretty much just a tortilla) and put it on the stove with a healthy sprinkle of reduced fat cheddar cheese. i let it sit, on a low heat, for a few minutes until the cheese had melted. them i poured some of the salad on top and ate it like a piece of pizza. i was in heaven!

i think this is a great option for mexican flavor without loading on tons of cheese, sour cream and deep fried dishes. other than the avocados turning a little less bright green, this was also delicious as leftovers! the flavors from the dressing just soaked in and made everything that much tastier. nothing beats it on the first night, though.

do yourself a favor and make this SOON! or better yet, bring it to a super bowl party and wow your friends :)

click here for a printable version of the recipe.

imagine all the spice-filled, texture-rich, totally unique deliciousness of carrot cake. now take that big hunk of cake and imagine it crammed all into a cookie! a totally-not-really-that-bad-for-you cookie. well, dream no more, my friends. i’ve created a carrot cake cookie that’s pretty healthy (it’s a relative term), less than 90 calories and completely satisfying.

the other day, caroline over at run cahill run mixed up some carrot cake oatmeal for breakfast. it looked delicious, but i figured my lovely readers might not totally be on board with it. also, it’d be mighty hard for me to share a bowl of oatmeal with everyone at my office.

so, i looked up some recipes for carrot cake cookies - i figured they’d keep longer than cupcakes and i wouldn’t have to worry about storing them in the fridge because of some decadent cream cheese frosting on top. i toned down some of the butter and sugar, bulked up the amount of carrots, threw in walnuts for some crunch and lo and behold - so much flavor in each notreallythatbadforyou cookie!

the best part about these cookies? i realized i had everything i needed for them on hand already! also, feel free to substitute Splenda for the sugar/brown sugar, which i would probably do if i was back home.

1/2 cup unpacked brown sugar

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 stick butter, room temperature

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 cup rolled oats (not instant oatmeal!)

1 cup finely shredded carrots (12-15 baby carrots or 2 large carrots)

1/2 cup raisins

1/4 cup walnuts, chopped

when you’re done with the collecting, let’s move onto the doing!

to make everything go smoother once you start cooking, grate your carrots and chop the walnuts now. set them aside.

in a large bowl, mix together both the sugars and the room temperature butter with an electric mixer. after 3-4 minutes, or when the mixture is light and fluffy, add the egg and vanilla extract. mix until it’s blended and set aside.

in a smaller bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. mix it together until everything is well-distributed throughout the powder.

slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix it until everything is blended. i put the mixture in about 1/3 cup at a time, so it took three shifts to get all the flour into the bowl.

once it’s all mixed together, pour the carrots, raisins, oats and walnuts in. mix everything together until every spoonful of the batter has at least a little of all the goodies!

now, let it chill in the fridge for at least an hour. while it’s hanging out in there, preheat your oven to 350 degrees and either line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray. i’m fresh out of parchment paper (note to self: buy parchment paper.), so i went the nonstick route.

after the dough has chilled, spoon the dough onto the baking sheets with at least an inch or so between the drops. bake in the preheated, 350-degree oven for 10-12 minutes or until the cookies start to darken around the edges.

let them cool on a wire rack and enjoy the smell that wafts through your kitchen! you can eat them plain (trust me, there’s enough flavor in there for the cookie to hold its own), or decorate with some cinnamon for garnish.

if you can’t imagine the thought of carrot cake sans cream cheese frosting, you could whip up a quick cream cheese frosting (i made some on my halloween pumpkin cupcakes) or you could buy a sweet cream cheese like honey nut (don’t knock it til ya try it. it’s amazing!) and make little sandwiches out of the cookies. in the interest of saving calories, i kept it plain and didn’t feel like i was missing anything at all!

click here for a printable version of the recipe!

today’s lunch consisted of greek yogurt, homemade granola (recipe here!), blueberries, blackberries and bananas. so delicious and very filling!

i knew it was a breakfast and lunch-packing kind of monday because there was no way i’d want to run to the student union or subway considering the extreme cold (-3 degrees when i got in my car. gross.) and the fact that all the students are back, so if i left my parking space, chances are, i wouldn’t get another one.

chicken fingers and honey mustard (certain types of honey mustard, at least) are two of my absolute favorite foods. i’m sort of picky about batter vs. breadcrumbs, sweet honey mustard vs. sauce with actual mustard seeds, etc. but at the end of the day, this has been a staple for me since i was a kid.

i’m not even kidding when i say that these chicken fingers are better than any fried chicken you’ve had. well… my tastebuds aren’t kidding, but i guess it depends on your preference. these aren’t greasy, the chicken is fresh and they’re so crunchy. the best part is they’re not made with any fat other than what’s already in the chicken, so you can enjoy the finger food without any greasy food coma after!

when i was in college, my roommate amanda and i used to concoct crazy homemade chicken finger recipes on what seemed like a weekly basis. i never thought to double dip them like this recipe calls for, so our breading tended to fall off. but nevertheless, we were creative! we used captain crunch, corn flakes, cool ranch doritos, classic breadcrumbs and more. i have to say the doritos were the most inventive - talk about well-seasoned! the captain crunch ones are awesome with a hint of sweetness, too.

3 cups of cornflakes

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

pinch of salt

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1 egg

1/3 cup skim milk

1 pound of boneless, skinless, chicken breast tenders (or chicken breasts, cut into strips)

pretty simple collecting, eh? let’s start doing.

preheat your oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

in a large bowl, pour the corn flakes and mash them up into tiny flakes. you don’t want to turn them into dust, but the smaller the flakes, the more likely they’ll stick to the chicken and stay there. mash just enough to get some frustration out.

in a small bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, pepper and garlic powder. if you’re looking for more of an italian seasoning, you could always add basil and oregano or if you want a buffalo-esque chicken finger, go for some cajun seasoning and hot sauce! for this classic version, i stuck with the basics.

mix together the milk and egg and then combine with the flour mixture. mix together until everything is well-blended and a batter is formed.

now, start a production line that starts with the raw chicken, cleaned, dried and trimmed to your satisfaction (i’m super picky about chicken, so about 1/5 of this package got chopped off because i was too particular). next, dip the chicken til it’s covered in the batter and then coat it completely in the crushed cornflakes. lay them flat on the parchment-lined baking tin and bake in your 400-degree oven for 30 minutes.

the outer coating should be golden brown, crisp and if you cut one open, the chicken should be cooked all the way through, no pink.

ken’s light honey mustard is top notch, so i enjoyed that immensely with the chicken fingers. i decided to stick with finger foods and had some baby carrots, while i figured cornbread was a perfect pair for (non) “fried” chicken. really, i was just trying to clean out my freezer, though, and had some homemade cornbread leftover from when i made chili back in the fall.

what are your favorite childhood foods?

click here for a printable version of the recipe!

“When my great-uncle August was in his twenties, he left Iowa & went to study cake decorating at the National Baking Institute in Chicago. He learned everything from spun sugar decorations to ice sculpture. He went to school for 2 years & when he finished, he went back to Iowa & worked in the family bakery. Except for the odd wedding cake, he never used the fancy stuff he learned. He was in charge of yeast breads & cinnamon rolls. Just after the end of WW II, the Valley Dairy Farmer’s Association had the first of the now famous Milk & Honey Festivals. August made a model of the Statue of Liberty out of 250 pounds of white cheddar cheese, surrounded by American Beauty roses of spun sugar, especially for the occasion. He showed me the page from Life magazine he kept folded up in his wallet, one summer when we visited. On it was a picture of a much younger man, smiling next to a 4 foot tall Liberty. He told me he had 6 proposals of marriage from that photo, one from the East Coast even & he smiled & I saw him grow 30 years younger & I knew in our hearts we never get old.”

if you aren’t yet familiar with storypeople by brian andreas, do yourself a solid and bookmark the site immediately. their daily “story of the day” notes are the only recurring emails that i don’t delete immediately nor mark as spam. some of them don’t make sense, most make me think and others strike a chord in my heart that are beyond words. for all you tech-savvy readers out there, you can also follow storypeople on twitter @storypeople.

i frequently post my favorites on here as i am reminded of them, so i won’t be overindulgent and list them all here right now, but as always, stay tuned and you’re sure to see more every now and then :)

if you haven’t noticed, i’ve been having a serious greek yogurt obsession lately. rather than eating identical breakfasts daily, i like to dress up my bowl of yogurt with different fruit, crunch and other accessories. one of my favorite granolas to eat is the low fat vanilla almond version from trader joe’s. well, there aren’t any trader joe’s terribly close to me, so i only go there every couple of months to stock up on some favorite staples. i don’t have any granola left over from my last trip and was really craving some, so i took matters into my own hands and created my own!

i love the way it turned out and have eaten it by the handful as a snack, as a crunchy layer in yogurt parfait and as a bowl of cereal. the great thing about granola is once you’ve got the basic steps down, you can add other dried fruits, introduce new spices or add sweet treats.

anyways, i’m a huge fan of how this turned out and was surprised at how easy it was!

2 cups rolled oats (not instant oatmeal!)

1/2 cup wheat germ or milled flax seed

1/2 cup whole almonds, roughly chopped

pinch of salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

pinch of nutmeg

1/3 cup sugar free maple syrup

3 Tablespoons honey

2 Tablespoons water

2 Tablespoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons canola oil

1/2 cup raisins

done with this version (or your own!) of the collecting? onto the doing.

to prep, preheat your oven to 275 degrees and give the almonds a rough chop. rather than suggesting you use sliced or chopped almonds, i went this route because i, personally, wanted to recognize the almonds and even be able to pick them out one by one in the granola.  if you have a different “style” almond or walnuts, etc. on hand, make use of those, instead!

in a large bowl, combine the rolled oats, flax seed, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and almonds. stir it all together and set the bowl aside.

originally i wanted to use wheat germ, but couldn’t find it in my grocery store. while standing in the aisle at the store, i whipped out my phone and looked for a substitute. i read that milled flax seed was okay to use (the purpose of this ingredient is to create a sort of mortar to hold things together). my friend morgan happens to be allergic to flax seed, so i know that if she was making this recipe, she’d go for the wheat germ - you can use whichever you can find! told you it was flexible :)

in a saucepan, combine the oil (put that in first so the other sticky sweets don’t stick to the bottom), maple syrup, honey, brown sugar and water. whisk it all together and let it come to a simmer over a medium-high heat.  after a couple of minutes, take it off the heat.

pour the oat mixture either onto a parchment-lined baking tin or a 9x13 baking dish sprayed with nonstick spray. i sort of forgot this step and ended up with some very baked-on granola at the end of the day. luckily it came off easily after it soaked for a while, but i think the spray or parchment would save you some frustration.

drizzle the maple mixture over all the oats and mix it together to make sure everything is coated. then, get your hands dirty and scrunch everything together to make some clumps and add more texture to the granola.

look how camouflaged my messy hands were!

pop that into the 275-degree oven for 20 minutes. then give everything a little bit of a stir and add the raisins (didn’t add them earlier so they wouldn’t get too dried out). once the rainsins are in, put it back into the oven for 10-15 minutes until it’s all darker and golden brown. let it cool for at least 10 minutes so it sets a bit before you try to serve.

mmm! i think the cereal version was my favorite way to serve it. what’s your favorite way to enjoy granola?

click here for a printable version of the recipe!

in the midst of this insanely snowy winter, there are days that i want traditional winter foods (read: hot cocoa and soup), but other days, i want to ignore the weather and pretend i’m somewhere warm. enter a random craving for a creamsicle smoothie!

smoothies are one of the easiest things to make, as long as you’ve got a trusty blender. i always like to experiment with different frozen fruits, yogurts, boosters and more. one blog that i religiously read suggests always adding a handful of SPINACH to your smoothies. she swears you’d never taste it in there, but it offers tons of vitamins. well, this was more of a dessert-treat smoothie, though, so i nixed the extra healthy boost and stuck with fat free, vitamin c-packed ingredients.

after weeks of waiting, i finally grabbed all the necessary ingredients (not many!) from the grocery store, so excited to start creating. i then realized, though, that i LEFT MY CAMERA AT HOME IN CONNECTICUT.  as of thursday night, my solution was to take pictures with my iphone (please excuse all the non-zoomed, vertical photos for this recipe), but thanks to my roommate, the things i created on friday were taken with a real-live camera. PHEW. (thanks, karen!) until those, though, here are some simple camera phone pictures… which, in hindsight, didn’t come out too bad.

3/4 cup (one 6 oz. container) fat free vanilla yogurt

1/2 cup mandarin oranges in 100% juice

1/4 cup skim milk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 heaping Tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate

ice cubes

a couple of hours before you are ready to make your smoothie, pour the 1/2 cup of mandarin oranges (and the juice they come in) into an ice cube tray. pop it in the freezer and let them solidify until you are ready to blend.

in your blender, combine the yogurt, mandarine cubes, milk, vanilla and frozen orange juice concentrate. blend until it’s well-mixed. add the ice cubes and blend some more until they are chopped up and mixed throughout the smoothie.

pour into a glass and drink as is, or dress it up with some whipped topping and an orange. if i had some fresh oranges, i definitely would have added a slice to the rim of the glass :)

click here for a printable version of the recipe!

it has come to my attention recently that not everyone likes cheesecake (cough, laura, cough). this is SHOCKING to me! these people have no clue what they’re missing out on! i think the dessert is amazing, especially when totally authentic in new york. it’s rich, so you don’t gorge and eat too much, but can also be sort of light. sweet, but not overly so. anyway, i’m a huge fan.

think about cheesecake factory - an entire restaurant dedicated to the decadent dessert! even at that, though, i think some of the variations go a little overboard. i go for the low carb option with a nice strawberry right on top, or if i’m going to go fancy, i’ll go all out with the chocolate coconut cream. my mouth is watering just thinking about it! maybe i’ll try to recreate that some day - but it definitely won’t be a lightened up version like this.

i decided to add a dessert to our family dinner table the other night to make the meal a little more well-rounded and complete. rather than making something overly rich and fattening, i tried to find an alternative that would be enjoyable but less fattening. i took some ideas from a low carb cheesecake, made it a little more low fat, added my own recipe for the crust and added my new obsession: nonfat vanilla greek yogurt (!) to the mix, as well. what resulted was my dad’s “favorite” thing i’ve ever created and the desserts were in perfectly-sized, generous, individual ramekins that we had at the house for creme brulee. they’re adorable, heart-shaped dishes from le creuset and i was so happy to cook at home so i got to use them!

(this makes 4-6 individual ramekins, but could be doubled to make a full-size cheesecake)

for the cheesecake:

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup fat free sour cream

1/4 cup nonfat vanilla greek yogurt

1/4 cup Splenda

8 oz. reduced fat cream cheese

1 Tablespoon melted butter

for the crust:

1/2 cup low fat graham cracker crumbs (2 full boards)

1/4 cup slivered almonds, chopped

2 Tablespoons melted butter

2 Tablespoons Splenda brown sugar

optional topping:

1 cup of fresh berries, sliced

1 Tablespoon Splenda

i know it seems like a lot of collecting, but there are some repeat ingredients! time to move onto the doing.

to prep, begin to heat a pot of water and preheat your oven to 350 degrees. melt 1 Tablespoon of butter and then microwave your cream cheese for just 10-15 seconds to soften it a bit. melt another 2 Tablespoons of butter but keep that dish separate and set it aside.

also, take some sliced berries (i used leftover strawberries) and sprinkle with Splenda. let it refrigerate and sit through the rest of the process until you’re ready to serve.

in a medium bowl, combine the graham cracker crumbs, chopped almonds, brown sugar blend and 2 Tablespoons of melted butter. mix well and set the mixture aside.

in a larger bowl, mix together (with a hand mixer or whisk) the egg, vanilla, sour cream, yogurt and Splenda until smooth. slowly add the remaining Tablespoon of melted butter and the softened cream cheese (about 1/4 cup at a time). continue to blend it together until it’s smooth again.

first, divide the graham cracker mixture evenly among the ramekins and then with your finger or a spatula, press it into the bottom and corner of the dish. then, divide the cheesecake mixture evenly and pour it on top of the bottom layer in each ramekin.

to help keep the tops from cracking, you’re supposed to bake it in a water bath. since cheesecake is “a custard at heart” (i thought that was so cute when i read it), it’s better to let it bake surrounded by water, since water never goes above boiling temperature. or something like that. chemistry is not my strong suit, but i’ve seen people do this before and i’ll stick with it. to make the water bath, take a baking dish (i used a pyrex 9x13) that can fit all your ramekins. pour the water you were heating earlier in the teapot into the bottom of the baking dish until it fills up 1-2”. YOU DON’T WANT THE WATER GOING INTO YOUR CHEESECAKE, obviously. so be careful you’re not splashing around too much and you adjust the amount of water based on the height of your ramekins.

pop the whole dish, ramekins and water into your preheated 350 degree oven for 25 minutes. when you take them out of the oven, they won’t look particularly done. (they don’t brown or anything like a cookie), but they will set in the fridge before you serve.

let them cool a bit once you take them out of the oven and then lay a towel flat in the fridge and put the ramekins on top (don’t want them to be too hot and crack the glass in the fridge!). let them sit for at least an hour.

add the berries, grab a spoon and DIG IN!

click here for a printable version of the recipe!

one of the first recipes i ever bookmarked on bakedbree was this little number for zucchini pistou (which i learned is french pesto). i don’t have a food processor back at my apartment, so i waited for a night at home in connecticut to cook it up and it was a hit!

it’s so light (no butter, only 2T of oil, minimal cheese and the tiniest bit of light cream), but feels hearty and satisfying when you eat it. my mom gladly took leftovers for lunch and my dad (shockingly) said he wouldn’t change anything if he made the dish. that’s a sure sign of a winning dish, my friends.

i also decided recently that i would love to learn a few french phrases because i took spanish for 10 years in school and never learned more than “oui” or muzzy’s friend’s trademark “je suis la jeune fille!”. does anyone else remember that? give yourself a refresher here. HA!

anyways, inspired by recently re-watching julie & julia, i wish you bon appetit!

2 Tablespoons olive oil

2 medium zucchinis, sliced

3 chicken breasts

1 cup torn basil leaves

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

2 Tablespoons pine nuts

4 garlic cloves, chopped

large sweet onion, chopped

pinch of salt, pepper

pasta (your discretion how much you’d serve per person)

1/4 cup light cream

if you’re done collecting, let’s move onto the doing!

it seems like there’s a lot of multi-tasking in this dish, but i tried to order my instructions in the most user-friendly way possible :)

the things you should do first to set yourself up for the rest of the recipe are as follows…

first, slice your zucchinis lengthwise and lay them with the flat surface down. slice them in uniform sizes across the board. heat one Tablespoon of oil in a pan and add the zucchini. let the slices cook for 5-7 minutes, until they’re golden and softer. once they’re done cooking, transfer them to a plate to let them cool.

next, poach the chicken breasts in either water or chicken broth for 10-15 minutes. when you take them out of the water, let them cool for a bit and then slice them into bite size chunks. set those aside, too.

boil your pasta in lightly-salted water. before draining it, make sure you save 1/3 cup of the starchy water it boiled in and set that aside. then, drain the pasta and put that aside. if you haven’t noticed, you’re going to have a lot of stuff on the side.

in a food processor, put 1/4 cup of the cooked zucchini slices, all the torn basil leaves, parmesan cheese, pine nuts and chopped garlic. pulse until it’s all well-blended, gorgeous, fragrant and speckly (see below):

add the pasta reserve water and pulse it again until it’s a little more liquefied and well-blended. set the basil mixture aside (shocking, i know).

heat the remaining Tablespoon of oil to a large pan and add the roughly chopped onion. let it cook for 12-15 minutes until they are translucent and browned.

to the onions, add the zucchini, chicken, pasta and basil “sauce.”  aren’t you glad you had everything ready to go, now?

toss it all together so it’s all evenly coated and then let it simmer on a low heat for 10-15 minutes until it’s all warmed through. make sure you grab a noodle with some sauce on it to see if you want to add any salt or pepper and then season as you see fit.

garnish each plate with any extra basil, parmesan and pine nuts you’ve got and voila! (see? i know french already!)

click here for a printable version of the recipe!

i think i’m one step closer to finding the cookie i mentioned in my previous great american cookie recipe search post! my mom passed along a recipe the other day for flourless chocolate walnut cookies and while they aren’t exactly like the italian cookies from the bakery near my nona’s, they are pretty darn good. light and shiny and crunchy on the outside and just so different from any other cookie that i’ve ever made.

also, it’s inadvertently the second gluten-free recipe i’ve posted this week! completely coincidental, but if you must avoid gluten, you are quite welcome ;)

1 1/4 cups walnut halves, chopped

1 1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar

1/4 cup + 1 1/2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1/8 tsp salt

2 egg whites

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

if you’re done with the collecting, move onto the doing!

to start, preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. set it aside for later.

if your walnuts aren’t already chopped, give them a medium chop (they don’t need to be pulverized, but you also don’t want huge halves in these cookies. lay them flat on a single layer on a baking sheet — not the one you already prepped with the parchment paper, though. pop them into the 350-degree oven for 5-7 minutes. you’ll be able to smell them toasting and know when it’s time to take them out.

make sure you take them off the pan right away, when they’re finished, or else they’ll keep cooking. put them on a small plate or bowl and set them aside for later.

in a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, cocoa and salt. once it’s evenly blended, add the toasted walnuts (once they’re cool), followed by the egg whites and vanilla extract.

beat the mixture together with a fork or whisk just until the batter becomes moistened — you don’t want the egg whites to stiffen the more you mix.

drop Tablespoon-sized mounds of batter onto the parchment paper, evenly spaced, and put the tray into the oven for 12-15 minutes or until the tops are shiny and slightly cracked.  when they’re done, take the parchment off the baking sheet and then remove the cookies. transfer them to a wire rack to cool. store the leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature.

click here for a printable version of the recipe!

last night i couldn’t fall asleep because of the prospect of a SNOW DAY today - some things never change, whether you’re eight or 24. usually, with my luck, i stay up alllll night so excited with the promise of a snow day and the meteorologists end up being wrong and i’m a zombie at work the next day. well, i woke up early today (go figure) and could barely see my car at 7:30 a.m. thanks to the technology of 2011, i also woke up to a text message from the University saying that it was closed for the day. i remember dialing the snow hotline all growing up but this is way more convenient!

well, i snuggled back in for a couple more hours of sleep and after breakfast, a little bit of reading and some baking, i decided it’d be better if i tried to dig my car out NOW rather than tomorrow morning when it was under a few more inches of snow and more than likely iced over. one tiny problem… i don’t have a shovel. like any resourceful girl, i put on my uggs, fleece pants, a hoodie and windbreaker, fashionable forever21 scarf and hopped out into the snow with a COOKIE PAN. yes, i thought i could dig my car out with a cookie pan and an ice scraper.

while it was a novel idea, i ended up stumbling upon my upstairs neighbors — that i’ve never met before — who had not one, but TWO shovels and were more than happy to play out in the snow with me by helping me dig out. we jumped in the snow, dug, brushed, laughed and sniffled with bright red noses. once we were done with our cars, another couple of neighbors had come out and started to dig out so we helped them, too! we were already wet and cold, so why not spread the love?! it made me so happy that this blizzard brought out the best in some people :) i also dug out my roommate’s car, so that’ll be a nice surprise when she gets back from work!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

anyways, once i got back inside, hung my “snow gear” up to dry and jumped into a warm shower, i decided it wasn’t a real snow day without hot chocolate. i grabbed a martha recipe (that apparently made 90+ servings… no thank you.), divided it and made a few tweaks and settled in with my [new umlfh national champions] hoodie, some HGTV and a mug of hot cocoa.

1/4 cup + 3 Tablespoons sugar

1/4 cup + 1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups of skim milk (per serving)

((if you are COLLECTING and you don’t have enough of any of these ingredients, don’t worry because this is enough for at least five mugs of hot cocoa - keep dividing if you just want to make one or two! then, move onto the DOING))

combine the sugar, cocoa and salt in a medium bowl and whisk until they’re well-blended. set the bowl aside.

in a microwave-safe container, heat 1 1/4 cups of milk for each mug of cocoa you plan to make. microwave it on high for 45 seconds. then, add the vanilla, mix it briefly, and nuke it again for another 30 seconds.

in your mug, put two heaping Tablespoons of the cocoa mixture. i added a couple of drops of peppermint extract, but it almost tasted like mouthwash! next time, i think i’d add almond extract or even some cinnamon. my favorite hot chocolate i’ve EVER had is at finale and it’s hazelnut hot cocoa - i’m pretty sure they just stir in some nutella and it’s heavenly. i dont have nutella at my apartment (mainly because i’m afraid i’d grab a spoon and down a whole jar in one sitting. but if you have will power and happen to have some on hand, i’d totally recommend trying that :)

pour the heated milk into your mug and mix well. top it off with whipped cream, mini marshmallows, cinnamon or whatever you like.

then, put the extra cocoa mixture in an air-tight container and save it for a rainy snowy day!

click here for a printable version of the recipe!