Parmesan Biscuits with Prosciutto (or Smoked Salmon)

I've never made biscuits in my life because when i think of them, it seems like such a complicated thing to make. I mean, you've got to have your biscuit cutters and how flaky the biscuit is depends on so many things, so when i read that this was a drop biscuit recipe, i was down to try it.  Especially cause i love prosciutto .. and parmesan. MMmmm. Giada's recipe called for Stone-ground cornmeal, but i only found the common Quaker Yellow Cornmeal so i used that instead. It tasted great to me, but its probably because i've never tasted hers ...  Trader Joes probably has the best prosciutto and parmesan for the price so i would go there.  These are SO good, MAKE THEM! Recipe

Chicken Carbonara

Pasta is one of my favorite foods, and when i discovered Giada de Laurentiis it was game on. She is one of the most attractive chefs ever and her food is really easy to cook!  I knew i had to try this carbonara recipe cause im not usually a cream sauce person but i LOVE carbonara.  The recipe calls for roast chicken and there is no way i was gonna roast a chicken so i Trader Joe's it.  Lemon Pepper roasted chicken, perfect.  Its kind of a heavy pasta and it serves 6, but Jason took the leftovers to work and said it was actually better the next day.  I think its because the hot pasta cooks the raw eggs enough to eat, but heating it up again will bring out more flavor or the eggs and cream. YUMMY. For sure will make this again, but will add peas to it and more pancetta! Recipe here.

Cheeseburger Sliders

i love sliders. it tops my bar food list. i know, i know, its just a burger but i LOVE them. Jason and i decided that we would make them ourselves instead of going to BJ's for dinner, so with our leftover ground beef and hawaiian sweet rolls (so good) we were good to go. We got some potato salad from Ralphs and some Vlasic Bread & Butter pickles, the perfect sides for a lil burger.   I got a double sided grill from Costco that we threw the meat (which he put his special seasoning in .. im gonna have to grill him for the recipe hee hee, get it?) on top of and it was amazing. It made the cutest little grill marks and it was only $24.99!

Valentines Day Treat

To lift my spirits from my royal icing fiasco, i decided to make some easy cupcakes for the boyfriend in honor of St. Valentine to redeem myself.  I remembered seeing some Hostess-esque chocolate cupcakes in the new Martha Stewart Living Mag and decided to give it a go.  The recipe was so EASY, its even called One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes cause you only use, One bowl for the whole thing. The only tips i have for this is try to fill the cupcakes with more batter so that when it puffs up you can dip it into the chocolate glaze without it touching the paper liner.  And try to choose a dark paper liner, instead of white (like i did) to make it more uniformed.  Happy baking!

Frosting Sugar Cookies. Part 1.

OK. So i had this crazy idea that i was someone going to be that person that we all know, you know, the one that bakes all these nice looking cookies and frosts them all cute and puts them in a tin with all kinds of matching ribbon, then gives them as gifts? Yea, i decided to be THAT girl.  So i spent all day online looking at inspirations and then it hit me. DUH, i was going to make my first batch of beautiful sugar cookies of hello kitty! cause i remember buying a cookie cutter of her while i was in hong kong about a year ago. So i hauled ass to Michaels and they have everything you can imagine to frost a cookie and i spent forever and about 50 bucks there and went home and got to work.

Used Marthas Sugar Cookie recipe (different from the Old Fashioned ones) and everything turned out OK until i realized I've never rolled dough before so it came out looking all weird and bumpy and uneven.  But i figured, its fine enough to go on .. so i will.  Until, i decided to make the Royal Icing. and what a royal pain in the .. it was.   Apparently 1lb of confectioners sug

ar does NOT translate into 2 cups of confectioners sugar.  You know, i figured 8oz = 1 cup, so 16oz (1lb) = 2 cups. oh, what a mistake that was ... even at this point i didnt think anything was wrong so i kept going on adding gel food coloring to my icing. My black was rich, my pink was fabulous and even my dot of yellow for her nose was the perfect canary. I put each color in a small squeeze bottle and was ready to ice. And she looked like this:

WHAT HAPPENED?!??!!!!! well at this point, it was obvious to me that the icing was too thin and spread all over the place and maybe using squeeze bottles wasn't such a good idea.  I quickly headed over to the computer and googled how many cups in 1lb of confectioners sugar? the answer was 3 3/4 cups.  WOW, did not think i was that off. but anyways moral of the story is ... i need a kitchen scale. and at least i tried. until next time royal icing, until next time.

Martha's Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies

MMmm, my hero Martha Stewart. I couldn't help but buy her Martha Stewart's Cookies book today while I was at Costco. and I vowed that I would make the first cookie that I opened the book to and totallylucked out and got the Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie and (thank god) not the Lebkuchen. Surprisingly I had all the ingredients and was ready to go. I read the recipe about 500 times and mentally prepared myself. Don't mess this up, its only a sugar cookie .. you got this. Let me tell you that I used to be a terror in the kitchen.  My family owns a very successful cafe and I've been hanging out there for about 10 years now. You would think I would know my way around a sifter and a sieve, but sadly, no. Anyways, i felt like i got through the recipe awesomely and while it was baking i sat back and watched my DVR'd America's Best Dance Crew (henceforth known as ABDC, love that show). the thing, i mean timer, beeped and my cookies looked like this:

When its supposed to look like this

         Why are mine so flat??? and pale ...

I assume i worked the dough too much and it got all soft and freaked out on me in the oven, but they tasted super good. Moist, not too sweet and a great milk dunker.  Will SOOO make these again. (Recipe here)

There's A First Time For Everything ...

And I've sure had many firsts this month. First home, first time using a electric mixer and my first time mopping a floor. Yup, I'm in my twenties and I've mopped a floor a total of once. and that was last week.  Enough about firsts, I guess I'm starting my (em, first) blog to kind of document my accomplishments and to look back a couple years later and say: hey, I remember that!  Maybe its because my parents didn't get me one of those "Babys Firsts" books and I've always wanted one. Ah, enough about me. Lets get this show on the road.