Biscoff Cheeseball

I've been holding out on this recipe for almost a year.  Sorry about that.  

I first made this tasty appetizer for my housewarming party back in May 2013.  I was hoping to snap a few pictures of the final product before putting it out to be devoured, but of course time got the better of me and all of a sudden it was already half eaten.  I must say that I think this was the life of the party.  If you happen to love cookie butter and cream cheese, then this is probably a bandwagon that you will want to jump on.

This week, my client had a "breakfast for lunch" event, or as I like to call it, "brunch for lunch".  I described this biscoff cheeseball to someone last week and their reaction was: "Oh, so it's like a biscoff cream cheese frosting."  Technically, I guess that could be correct, but I like to see it as a dip.  You can serve it with fruit or graham crackers or whatever else you desire.  I picked up some Nilla wafers as well, because why not?  (Ok, I know this cheeseball has nothing to do with breakfast, but I really just wanted to make it again, so I volunteered it for the party.  That's a good enough excuse to make this, right?)

This biscoff cheeseball is quick and easy to create and it only requires 5 ingredients.  Blend the first three together, freeze the result, then roll it in the final 2 ingredients.  Freeze once again.  I can pull this together in no time and lately, I've been realizing that most of my recipes have required less than an hour of active time to make.  What can I say? A girl has things to do.

Zucchini Feta Quiche

No, seriously though...can Spring just show up already?

Ever since I returned from the Caribbean last week (Can we talk about how amazing Grand Cayman is?), I've realized precisely how tired I am of heavy coats, layered sweaters, and winter boots.  I need these seasons to get a move on right now.

Can a quiche hurry things up?  Let's investigate.  I have zucchini and feta at the ready, along with some eggs and a pie crust.  Of course I have the cheese too.  Why are you even asking?

A quiche is my go-to food when I'm feeling lazy and still want something light, nutritious and tasty.  Sometimes I love to trash it up with many things, but sometime I keep it simple.  This time I chose simplicity.  I also chose to add a dose of freshly grated zucchinis to help old man winter realize it's time to peace out.  The warm weather is coming soon.  I can feel it!

Avocado Salad with Bacon & Feta

Guys.  The day that I thought would never come, actually came last week.

I ate too much bacon.

Once you recover from the shock of that statement, let me tell you that it was my own fault.  I somehow thought that I could eat a package of super-thick bacon (yes, that's a thing now) and still feel good about myself an hour later.  Quite unfortunately, I have over-estimated my tolerance for that.

Thankfully, I had this salad the day before I ate too much bacon, so I can still give you an honest assessment of my thoughts on this.  And to be truthful, if there were no bacon on this salad, I would not have loved it as much.  There is no just nothing else that would complement the creamy avocado and tangy lemon dressing as well as a slice of crunchy bacon can.

The good news is that now I'm over my bacon overdose, so I'm back in action.  I will be having a few more of these easy and tasty salads in the near future and I will not be thinking twice about it.

Sweet Potato & Onion Quiche

 
I've been working from home for a few weeks now and I'm trying to figure out a few things, such as 1) exactly how does one grocery shop for an entire week at a time?, 2) How does one plan out meals for oneself for more than 2-3 days in a row?, and 3) How does one organize the refrigerator so that I can use up all this fresh food I seem to be purchasing?

As you can see, I have questions.  I think this quiche is the answer.  OK, it's not really going to answer any of the questions I have above, but while I am (still) pondering these questions, I can make this quiche and eat it too.

I really felt the need to rekindle my love affair with the quiche.  Recently, my attention has been diverted by pumpkin-flavored things and unnecessarily sweet desserts, aka "the Holidays".  Clearly, I need to refocus.  Quiches are the perfect easy meal: breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  I also eat it quite often as a snack.  Love doesn't discriminate.

Stuffed Acorn Squash

Sometimes I just get the urge to make and eat a lot of vegetables.  I have to say that I'm pretty happy about these urges right about now.  Every other day, I seem to find myself eating three- to four-course meals, then inhaling a pile of desserts.  Just to make sure they're good, ya know.  I'm doing some self-appointed quality control testing.

While I love hanging out with the family and trying to figure out how food much I can actually fit into my stomach, it's time to give myself a reality check.  Christmas is over and I really need to reign things in.  It's probably a wise idea to kickstart this healthy eating with stuffed squash.  Only good things can come from roasting acorn squash, and then stuffing it with brown rice, cranberries, and pecans.

In all honesty, this is my first time making a dish using acorn squash and I'm pretty proud of how this turned out.  The recipe is so easy that it would be quite difficult for me to fail at making this.  Since I'm pretty much still nursing a food hangover (4 days later, oof), simplicity is the name of my game.

Spicy Tomato & Blue Cheese Soup

Happy Merry Christmas Eve!

I know we're all in the middle of eating Christmas cookies, drinking egg nog (spiked, of course!), and singing carols.  But, contrary to popular belief, we cannot live on these things alone.  Hence, I'm bringing you some soup.  Who's in on this with me?

In case you're still hesitating, let me tell you that sriracha and blue cheese are involved in this situation.  Get you some soup bowls and sit down.  Now dig in.

Chicken Enchilada Cups

Let's recreate some summer goodness.  I can't ever get enough of Mexican-inspired cuisine and this is no exception.  While the weather has been slightly warmer in the past few days, it has still been much cooler than my preferred 60-70 degrees F.  Let's warm ourselves up.

I actually made these cups as appetizers for my housewarming party earlier this year.  However, in all the brouhaha, I never got shots of the final items.  In fact, I remember it being mid-party and wondering why my apartment was so warm (this place is always freezing!) and realizing my oven was preheating for these little things...which were chilling out in the kitchen and definitely not in the oven.

I can't even take these...in a good way.  They're tiny, which means that they're automatically cuter than cute.  Also, I'm certain I'm ingesting fewer calories than if I were to eat a huge wonton filled with this enchilada mix.  Obviously.

Sriracha Hummus

 

I have been waiting for-e-vahhh to make this hummus!!  

Since I moved to a new apartment back in April, my old grocery store is not as easily accessible as it once was.  I've been craving hummus for a while and I kept searching in various stores for tahini, a key ingredient. After 6 months, I finally spotted some, so I immediately set to work on my next hummus variation.

On another note, did you hear about how the U.S. narrowly averted a sriracha shortage?  Seriously, the Huy Fong plant in California, which makes sriracha, almost shut down.  Things still aren't 100% sorted out, but until they are, you have no reason not to indulge in this spicy hummus.  It only takes (about) 2 tablespoons of your sriracha reserves, so you can make several batches before needing to repurchase more hot sauce.  See, I'm looking out for you.  Now go forth and enjoy!

Beer Caramelized Mushroom & Onion Tart

 

I want to eat all the mushroom and onion things!  This tart allows me to do just that.  I used to be really into tarts, and by being "really into tarts", that means that I used to make them a whole lot more than I do now.  I really enjoyed that they were so easy to whip and so I could have a quick and tasty meal.  In the past week, I have had numerous work obligations, a surprise conference to attend, a 24-hour trip down to Baltimore and back, and an emergency stop to the dentist to check out a filling.  So, all I really want is a hot freaking lunch to get me through each day.

Enter Sid from Sid's Sea Palm Cooking.  I was assigned Sid's blog for this month's Secret Recipe Club, and it was pretty difficult to choose which recipe I wanted to make.  However, after I saw the mushroom and caramelized onion tart, I was sold.  In fact, I was so excited that I decided to pour beer in the pan of veggies as well.  Sorry, but...beer.  Hope you don't mind, Sid!

Oh, and there's goat cheese involved in this business as well.  You're welcome.

Watermelon & Mint Salad

The title of this post is way less interesting than originally intended.  You see, I picked up a few items at the grocery store the other day and this stash just so happened to include watermelon and an avocado.  The thought never entered my mind to combine them together.  I'm typically a salted-avocado slice kind of gal.  However, I then saw this post which combines watermelon and avocado into a salad! Since I already had most of the ingredients at hand I figured I'd throw this together to see what it was all about.

Let's segway to that moment when I slice open my avocado and there's a black ring throughout the entire fruit... You know that avocado got the stink side-eye.  But I pulled up my big girl pants and decided to simply leave the avocado out of this equation.  Problem solved in three seconds flat.  The recipe is pretty free-form, so I grabbed the ingredients I did have and got to work.

Swedish Meatballs

I seem to always be in a state of "I need to clean out the freezer!"  I'm sure you all know by now that I'm a traveling consultant, which means that I make a lot of food one day, then freeze it because I'm out of the state for the next 3 - 4 days.  Heck, I also freeze some leftover ingredients so they won't go bad before I can use them again.  And, since I'm living in the NYC area and there are a ton of tasty restaurants nearby, I tend to only eat at home about 50% of the time.  Hence, the need to freeze.

But sometimes I'm just over it.  I look in my freezer and realize I can't reach the ice cube tray because there's a cup of frozen milk in front of it.  (Yes, you can freeze milk!)  Or I open the freezer door and I'm attacked by falling slabs of ground beef.  You know how that is, right? I had picked up some extra ground beef when it was on sale at my local grocery store but since I didn't have an immediate use for it, I threw it in the freezer...aka the "black hole".  Now was the time to use this.  

For this month's Secret Recipe Club, I was assigned the blog From Grandma Loy's Kitchen.  I loved looking through all of Miss Loy's recipes.  There was so many desserts!!  We all know those are near and dear to my heart, but I am sad (happy?) to say that I have a ton of desserts already stored in my freezer.  It's sort of bordering on a dessert hoard in there.  I don't want to talk about it.  With my ground meat firmly in mind, I eventually decided to make a batch of Swedish Meatballs.    I've actually never made this before because, guess what!, I don't like gravy.  Yep, last week I completely shocked you all with my black bean disclosure, and this week, I'm continuing on that theme with some gravy info.  I don't know why, but I've never been enthralled by the thought of butter, flour, and broth coming together to smother my meat.  Not so interested.  Cheese?  Why yes, I'll take that.  Gravy?  Uh, I'll pass, thanks.

So this time I decided to give gravy a shot.  Why not?  I live my life on the edge so let's take the plunge.  I'm so glad I did because these meatballs turned out to be really flavorful and the sauce made the meat extra rich and hearty.  I could totally get on the gravy train now.  (Get it?  I know, I'm corny!)

Five Layer Taco Dip

I've been eating a little like crap lately.  I'm currently snacking on some Talenti Sea Salt Caramel gelato.  I recently (as in about 5 minutes ago) housed a small bag of popcorn for dinner.  And not long before that, it's possible that I may have eaten 3/4 of an entire monkey bread appetizer, which was probably meant to serve 4 people comfortably.  And yet...

So it may come as no surprise to you that I'm also lovin' all up on some Five Layer Taco Dip.  You knew that was coming, didn't you?  I have little shame by now.

I made this dip for my housewarming party a few weeks ago and I really enjoyed it.  So of course I recreated it for myself.  Hey, sometimes it's OK to be a little selfish.  Especially when it involves fresh avocado, corn, and cheese!

Interesting facts (because you care): I used to really dislike black beans, but I'm starting to come around.  I'm not completely on the bandwagon yet, but I'm thinking to incorporate them more into my dishes - especially Mexican-inspired dishes!  Also, this is the first dish I've ever made with black beans!  Look into the archives.  I challenge you to find a black bean recipe in there.

Smooth Hummus

 

I'm pretty certain I've figured out what can make people go crazy.

This hummus.

That's right.  This here hummus that I made nearly drove me crazy.

I know that I've made regular chickpea hummus on this blog before.  I generally don't repeat recipes, but this new recipe is worth it.  While the first hummus recipe was quite tasty, one of the things that drove me absolutely nuts was the texture of the hummus.  Not to compare my recipe to store-bought hummus (Heads-up: I'm going to do exactly that), but I found that I was getting some chunky hummus.  No major chunk-age, but most definitely not smooth.  Is it so wrong to have a smooth and creamy hummus?  But no matter how much I ran that food processor, the texture just wouldn't improve.  So I satisfied my hummus cravings with chunky homemade hummus.  And that was that.

Or so I thought until I read Deb's blog post a while back.  Apparently (and thankfully), I wasn't the only person facing this problem.  The culprit behind my texture woes turned out to be a part of the main ingredient itself: chickpea skins.  If you look closely, you can see a sheer outer layer to canned chickpeas.*  That layer needs to go in order to give you that super smooth hummus that I'm craving.

This leads me into the part where I wasthisclose to poking my eyes out: the de-shelling process.  Did you know that chickpea skins can and will stick to ever-y-thing?  Deb must be a de-shelling machine because she stated that it took her 9 minutes to do this.  My chickpeas took me about 45 minutes.  Is that ridiculous?  In case you're unsure, the answer is "Yes".  Yes, it is ridiculous.  However, once I started the process, I was committed. And once the hummus was made, I was glad that I went the extra mile to get exactly what I wanted.

Beer Batter Bread

Can we just get ready for St. Patrick's Day already?  This is pretty much my most favorite holiday of the year, primarily because it's a day to celebrate drinking.  Yes, I'm sure there is another, deeper meaning behind St. Patrick's Day, but that's not where this blog post is going.

For the past few years, my roommate and I have had a St. Patrick's Day morning/brunch party in Hoboken.  Hoboken's St. Patty's Day is celebrated on the first Saturday of the month of March.  It's a long story, but that's how it is.  We didn't do that this year since my roommate is in the process of selling the apartment.  We wouldn't want a repeat of that wine-on-the-ceiling incident that occurred a few years ago...That would be no bueno.

But what I could have is this beer bread.  I whipped this up in a matter or minutes, and uh, it didn't actually make it to any parties anywhere.  I sort of ate it.  Could you blame me?  It's all buttery and beer-tasting and stuff.  So go make your own.  It takes no time at all.

Spinach Bacon Blue Cheese Quiche

Ya'll.  I was back to work this week.  Let me tell you that I am not a happy camper.  I forgot how much I liked doing nothing.

Actually, that's not true.  I didn't forget how much I liked doing nothing.  That's the real problem, for sure.  But I have to be a grown up now and get back to being a productive legal alien in this country.  Nothing I can do about it....other than get married to an attractive and insanely rich man and become a kept lady.  Yes.  That is my future plan.  But until that happens, I will re-learn how to maximize my time.  I figured it would be best to start off with a quick and dirty quiche recipe.

OK, it's not really dirty.  Because that would be a bad thing.  Anything food-related that is dirty is most decidedly a bad thing.  Peep that.

Where is this language coming from?  I must be tired.  Ugh.  Here's the recipe.  Let's just do this!

Asparagus & Parmesan Tart

Oh, friends.  Friends, friends, friends.

My life has been in a downward spiral over the past two days.  The reason behind it all?  Ruzzle.  If you thought my Words with Friends addiction may have been a problem, then this most definitely qualifies as a Problem (with a capitol P).  Ruzzle is sort of like a timed boggle game.  I don't know why but I'm so obsessed with it! I can't put the iPad/iPhone down.  Not that I can put them down on a good day, but now...Also, it requires 2 straight minutes of intense concentration from me.  I have yet to find a "pause" button so don't talk to me if you see me furiously swiping the screen of my electronic device.  This is not natural.  I need an intervention.

But all of that has nothing to do with this tart.  This tart is what I'm using to keep myself sane.  It's one of the (very few) ways that I'm trying to stay in shape while sticking to a limited workout schedule.  Plus, it was a perfect and delicious excuse to break into a bottle of Black Truffle Olive Oil.  Ha!  As if I need an excuse.

Brussels Sprouts Salad

Listen.  You don't even want to know what's going down over here.  There are nachos, chicken fingers, fries, sweet potato fries (which are stupid good), pie, mac and cheese, s'mores, and donuts that have been ingested by myself in the past week.  I mean, this is not right.  Oh, and let's not forget the massive quantities of wine and beer that I have also downed.  Did I tell you that, to help pass my time on disability, I joined my favorite bar's Beer Club?  Don't get me started on the damage that little action has done to my insides.

I know that I am totally to blame for this and I have already apologized to myself.  I've also been trying to make things up by eating more salad.  My go-to salad is a random mix of salad greens, mushrooms, caramelized onions, avocado, and mozzarella cheese, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  My second favorite salad is from my bar, which is a fantastic chopped salad topped with grilled salmon.  I order this while putting in work to drink all 250 beers in the Beer Club.  What was I thinking?

In  order to keep things interesting in the salad arena, I figured I should test out a new salad recipe.  I've been trying to get into brussels sprouts lately and since this recipe got great reviews from a few bloggers, I wanted to try it out too.  Monkey see, monkey do!

Prosciutto Wrapped Apples

We are still entertaining, right?  Just because the new year's here doesn't mean we can't have our family and friends over for brunch and a good time. Because I really need a reason to bust out with this odd, it's-so-wrong-it-has-to-be-right meat and fruit combination.

Now.  Do not let my words fool you.  I did not have a brunch event.  I did not have people over for any reason at all.  In actuality, I was scouring my refrigerator for something to eat and I saw some freshly sliced prosciutto along with a green apple.  I wanted both and proceeded to wrap one in the other, finished the packages off with some balsamic glaze, and called it a day.  Then I sat on my bum, all alone, and started eating.

I don't feel bad about this.  In fact, I feel pretty good.  This meal (snack?) has got protein.  It's got fruit. And in terms of preparation, it's really just an assemblage situation.  So yeah, I'm down with that.

Now let's get to work...

Kale Frittata

 

You know how sometimes you "find" ingredients in the refrigerator that were really meant for this one thing you were going to make, but now it's a week and a half later and you don't really want to make that dish anymore but you don't want the ingredient to go bad?

Yeah.  That happened.  So then this frittata sort of happened.

First of all, I have to (have to, have to!) state that I KNOW the first sentence is a run-on sentence.  It annoys me and my grammar sensibilities to no end that it's a run-on sentence, but I'm owning it today.  I own you, you run-on sentence.

But...frittata.  I re-discovered some kale in my fridge the other day.  It was originally meant to make a kale salad that was going to be fresh and crisp and delicious in every way.  Unfortunately, I happened to have a ton of additional salad ingredients in the fridge as well. Since I like a little variety in my life, I made the executive decision to turn this kale into something else.

Yep.  Frittata.

Asparagus & Grilled Onions with Mozzarella

Happy New Year everyone!!!

I would like to take a pause and momentarily provide you with a salad.  A vegetable salad.

I am a fan of this sitch.  It's really been too long since I've made asparagus.  Since my mom is staying with me for a few days and she loves it, I decided to dig up some bookmarked recipes and see what was what.  I mean, I could use some health up in my life.  Who doesn't?

I eventually picked out this salad because, beside the asparagus being present, of course there are grilled onions.  Just say yes to onions.  Grilled onions deserve a double-yes.  Can we make that happen?  Thanks. Theeeeen, we also have the almonds and cheese and olive oil and vinegar....Was someone watching me in the kitchen to figure out everything I like and then make a salad out of it?  This is just genius.  Let it happen.

Oh, and just so you know, I amped things up a bit by drizzling Herbes de Provence olive oil over everything.  Have I told you that I'm into olive oils recently?  There may possibly be a new bottle of Trader Joe's Black Truffle olive oil in our pantry as well.  I just imposed a January 2013 "no-buy" on myself so hopefully these impulsive purchases will stop.  Like now.  Except I just bought a new shirt online last night.  But that was with a gift card, so technically, I didn't actually buy it.  See how that works?

I'm digressing.  Where was I?  Oh, this vegetable salad.  Let's get at it.