Chick-Fil-A

I'm a little ashamed to not have heard about this until the 2nd day of the promotion, but if you are free any morning from September 6-10, you better get your booty on down to your local Chick-Fil-A for free nomz!  Just click the link and make your reservation...but choose carefully!  You can't change it once you've picked it. 

Thanks to Sam and indirectly, Sam's friend for spreading the fried chicken-y love.

p.s. if the website is down, probably they're temporarily experiencing super heavy traffic from me making reservations for my extended family, so just give it a few minutes and try again. 

Caprese Salad

This is a lazy caprese salad.  I had some tomatoes from Mom & Dad's garden, some fresh mozzarella, and pesto.  Slice the tomatoes and mozzarella.....drizzle pesto...Voila!

I would have really liked to add some balsamic vinegar to the dish, but much to my confusion, couldn't find any in the pantry.  Must remember to pick some up ASAP.... A true caprese salad consists of only tomato, mozzarella, basil, topped with salt and olive oil.  The balsamic is a 'non-classical' addition to the dish.
Caprese Salad

Peach and Blueberry Cobbler

As some of you may know, I'm unfortunately and annoyingly allergic to a variety of delicious fruits (apples, peaches, pears... :[).  T's mom and dad came to visit on Saturday, and brought a whole boatload of juicy, perfectly ripe peaches, and so I panicked that we would never be able to eat all of them before they went became overripe.

Naturally, my first defensive response was to bake an enormous cobbler.  I had some frozen blueberries in the freezer, so I threw those in as well.  The beauty of a cobbler is that it basically asks you to mix up all the fruit, pour it into a baking dish, and then make some sort of bready topping to, well, top it with.  No muss, no fuss with a pie crust or anything like that.

 

The biscuit topping is light and airy - it is NOT very crunchy, so if that's what you're looking for, then maybe stick with a peach crumble or crisp.  (OR, try streusel topping!) 

 

Peach and Blueberry Cobbler

Adapted from an adaptation of the Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern

Crack Part II

Sometimes I can see how people find my blog (where they were referred from, what search terms they used, etc.)

Most recently, someone found me by googling "big piece of crack crack cocaine".

I don't know whether or not to feel flattered, confused, or illegal?

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

It's Kate's birthday!  She unfortunately is stuck in the ICU working all day and night, so I thought it would be nice to bring her a treat.  For the record, I do too know how to spell "happy", but an extra "P" cupcake was way too cumbersome to lug to the hospital.

I made this frosting to pair with a german mocha cupcake.  It's light, creamy, and doesn't require too many ingredients - I had pretty much everything at home already.  I had come across a lot of chocolate frostings that involved melting chocolate over double boilers and everything, but this seemed a lot more simple. 

These amounts ought to be enough to frost one batch, or 24 cupcakes, or a regular 9 x 13 sheet cake with room to spare.  I understand that some of us are, er, more frosting enthusiastic than others, but for most purposes, you should be good.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

:: 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened (not melted!!)

:: 3 cups confectioner's sugar

:: 1/2 cup cocoa powder

:: 1 1/2 tsp vanilla

:: 1/3 cup milk or cream

Cream butter with a mixer until smooth and creamy.  Add in all the other ingredients (careful, the cocoa and sugar WILL fly everywhere, using a spatula to roughly fold in the dry ingredients is probably a pretty good idea).

Wait until your cake/cupcake/whatever is completely cool before frosting!  I used a rose pipette tip for fun.

Meatballs

............so probably, you being a normal person and all, you would eat these with "spaghetti" and "sauce", but I figure it's a little more approachable to do part of a recipe at a time than a whole meal.  Feel free to use your own sauce, sauce out of a jar, whatever you want!  It's all good.

I realize that this is one of the uglier photos I've taken, but come on, it's meatballs. 

The best thing about these meatballs is that they still have pork sausage, which makes it spicy, salty, and have that fatty mouth feel, but that the OTHER half is very very lean turkey.  Effectively, you have the best of both worlds, and can pretend in your head that it's diet food.  

In the sad and ignorant past, T and I used to pan fry the meatballs before adding to sauce for better looks and taste (throwing them directly into sauce ends up in them breaking all over the place and as well as a boiled, colorless exterior), but we eventually settled on broiling them for a few minutes instead.  This gives them a beautiful golden brown color, as well as the structural integrity to be finished off in the sauce!

Blueberry Corn Muffins with Streusel Topping

The summer is fading fast, and with it disappear the carefree days of not applying for residency and not writing personal statements.  In celebration of my stress and procrastination tactics, I made muffins!  Blueberry muffins are my favorite, and this combines a little bit of the texture of a corn muffin too.  The lemon zest adds just a touch of lemon flavor, enough to brighten the batter, but not enough to be overtly lemon-y.  Frozen blueberries also work just fine, so this is a good year-round recipe.

I am a firm believer in streusel's ability to make anything taste better.  Could you do without the flourbuttersugarstreusel?  Technically, yes, but you would regret it.