Edible Adventures: Eggless Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cookies! With No Egg!

They were tasty! Sadly, I have no idea when we made these cookies, or with what recipe we used. If I find it, I will let you know. :)

Edible Adventures: A Sneak Peak of Johnny Garlic's

I don't know about you, but I get excited about new restaurants and stores opening up. I am sure you can imagine our excitement when during our latest travels to-and-from San José, we noticed they were putting in a Johnny Garlic's at very nearby shopping center called The Plant. Johnny Garlic's is a chain restaurant started by Food Network star Guy Fieri. Needless to say, we were super stoked about it opening.

As we walked up there was a sign saying that it was a "friends and family" event, "please have invitations ready." Bummed about the lack of invitation, but excited of the promise of this new place, we decided to look at the menu and inquire about the opening.

As we looked over the menu, a wonderfully nice lady walked up to us:

Nice Lady: "Are you hungry?"
(Kristina and Aaron look at each other, unsure of the proper response.)
Kristina: "Sure, but we don't have an invitation."
Nice Lady: "I'll tell you what. You buy drinks, and lunch is on us."
Kristina: "Honey, go lock the car."

And that, my friends, is how we got free food at the new Johnny Garlic's.

Yeah, yeah, I know. We were at the right place, at the right time. I don't care, I was still über-excited.

The décor was very nice in charcoal grays and reds. It looked exactly like a Guy Fieri restaurant looked in my head. Clean. Modern. Yet, a little spunky. All of the wait staff were friendly and helpful. I did my best to ask them lots of questions so they had plenty of practice talking about the menu.

We were handed a specialty menu for the event. We were given the option of four appetizers, nearly a dozen entrées and a dessert to boot!

To start we ordered the "Maui Onion Straws," which arrived with a bourbon BBQ dipping sauce that I could serve with every meal. Oh, and did I mention this place has Pepsi products? (Kristina does a happy dance.)

After taking a look at the drink menu, I decided to try their specialty beverage called a Gorgeous Peach, which was quite delicious. :)

 For lunch, Aaron ordered the Wild Mushroom Chicken, and I had the Chicken Bacon Ranch Pizza.

For dessert, we were gifted an order of the Margarita Lime Tarte.

We walked out of the restaurant with very happy tummies, a heavy wallet (since the food was free), and the distinct desire to go back very soon!

Edible Adventures: January & February

Hello there, long time no see! I was going to attempt to write about our Edible Adventures once a week. Then it became once every two weeks. Then I was like, "Hey, once a month would be awesome!" And here I am, nearly through with February, and I still have not posted one edible adventure yet. Blerg!

Better late than never… here we go! We have made some pretty interesting stuff, too! Thanks to Pinterest, we have gotten a lot of really good, inspiring ideas.

I am completely lame and did not take a picture of them, but I did make the Soda Can Cupcakes. Basically you take a box of cake mix and substitute all the other ingredients for a can of soda — diet, regular, you pick! I took a chocolate cake mix and a can of Diet Pepsi. (If you know me, you know Diet Pepsi is my favorite beverage of all time. It's a little sad.) Despite my pessimism, the cupcakes were very flavorful and moist. They had a hint of something that I think comes from the carbonation. Super easy and simple — especially if you are jonesing for a cupcake and don't have any oil or eggs!

My classroom room-mom gave me a box of pastry dough, so I was all excited to make anything and everything with it! I really liked the Warm Apple and Brie Pastries from BlogHungry. I used my super awesome apple/corer/slicer to prepare the apples — and, using the recipe as a guide, topped the apples with some butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and a slice of brie. After baking them, be sure to serve them warm — they are oh, so tasty nice and warm from the oven.

We made several tasty Nutella treats over the last few weeks. We started off with some Nutella Sandwich cookies. After searching high and low for a recipe that looked easy and appetizing, we settled at Dishing Up Delights. They were delicious. I actually think I liked them better as a Nutella-based sugar cookie, rather than a sandwich cookie.

We also made Nutella turnovers – twice! Once for funzies, and once for World Nutella Day! We got a super simple and fabulous recipe from Bake at 350.

Seriously, so good. Especially hot out of the oven. 

Our good friends the Meeces hosted a Wine & Cheese Party. For this we decided to make Champagne Cupcakes. These cupcakes, featured on Gimme Some Oven, were very decadent and flavorful. And, yes, the frosting also had sparkling wine in it!

Sadly, we did have one edible flop. I was super excited to make the Mac N' Cheese receipe from the Alton Brown's Good Eats book. My sister purchased the book for us last Christmas and we had never quite gotten around to making it. Let me just say, it wasn't my favorite. I must have done something wrong since so many people love it and I clearly did not. But Aaron liked it, especially as left-overs. He thinks if we make a few 'corrections' it could be pretty darn tasty!

Edible Adventures: 2011 - A Year In Review

Clearly I was not so good at posting my many edible adventures last year. I don't think I posted a single one! Of course, that does not mean that I didn't have any. Aaron and I tried all kinds of tasty things last year, but apparently we were too busy to take photos and document them. We only have a few! Here is a photo recap of 2011's Edible Adventures (what I could find!)

Crêpes! A recipe from one of his childhood French teachers. 

Strawberry cupcakes and ice cream.
Both made with fresh strawberries from the local stand. 

This was my birthday gift from Iowa Mom and Dad --
an apple peeler-corer-slicer! 

We peeled several large bags of apples. 

Of course, we took pictures of the apples,
but failed to take pictures of the tasty treats we made. 

Since I don't have pictures of all of the awesome recipes we used, here is a list of the recipes I used:
Peanut Butter Cup Cookies
Chicken and Mushrooms in a Garlic White Wine Sauce
Crock Pot 3 Bean Turkey Chili  (Since I really do not like chick peas, I only used two beans!)
Strawberry Ice Cream
Maple Apple Crisp
Rubbed and Grilled Pork Loin
Chocolate Chip Cheesecake
Christmas Ham with Pineapple

Edible Adventures III

"Next to jazz music, there is nothing that lifts the spirit and strengthens the soul more than a good bowl of chili." -Harry James




You know that feeling you get, on a rainy but comfortable Sunday afternoon, when you're just ready for some comfort food? That is the feeling I had on Sunday when I got the idea to make some homemade chili and cornbread. I'd never made chili before, and I'm always up for making new things. So -- we did! 



The chili recipe I found was beyond easy. (The hard part was the hour-long grocery store trip to get all of the ingredients.) We got home, threw everything back into the pot, and let it simmer for an hour and half or so. We did make a few changes: we added a little more tomato sauce, used only one can of kidney beams, and replaced garlic salt for garlic powder.  

As the chili simmered on the stove, I went to make the cornbread. Here's a hint: check your materials before going to the store. I pulled out the cornmeal, and let's just say, uh, it would have 'bugged' me to use it. (BLECH!) After I went to the store, I proceeded to make some homemade honey cornbread. Oh. My. Goodness. This dinner was so tasty! The chili had a wonderful blend of sweet and spicy (I thank the Chipotle Salsa we chose!) and the bread was divine. Aaron says, "This bread isn't good, it's downright delicious!" 

You can't have a wonderful dinner like this without a tasty dessert. We had a whole mess of left-over baby carrots, so I thought I could make carrot cupcakes. I decided I wanted to try a new and different carrot cake recipe, so I found a recipe for maple carrot cupcakes. The recipe was very simple, and I was very excited to have been able to yield far more than the 18 cupcakes suggested (including a few mini-cupcakes, aren't they cute?) My only change was that the frosting recipe included was not quite sweet enough... so I just added a little bit of powdered sugar to taste. Viola! Great tasting cupcakes. 

Edible Adventures: Vegan Style

If you know me, you know I heart me some red meat. But I am not adverse to trying new things. I think I have been pretty good about trying new things, lately, too. For example. I ate a whole piece of sushi. Gasp! I know!  Well, it might not have been raw fish sushi, it had crab and friend shrimp in it, but it was a start. And, double gasp, I kinda liked it. Then, I had crab salad one of my room moms made. And I liked that, too! I know. 

This new attitude toward trying new tasty things has led me to make some pretty interesting stuff lately. The most interesting of which was a completely vegan meal!

Have you ever bought something from Costco and said to yourself, "Dude, I will totally use that!" And then you get further and further away from the purchase date, only to say, "Dude, how am I going to use that?!" That was me. And the item in question was a giant tub of mushrooms. Wanting something new and different, I went to my trusty Allrecipes.com, typed in both mushroom and main dish, and clicked send. A lot of interesting recipes popped up --- but one peaked my interest above all others. Mushroom Burgers, Sans-the-burger. Score! I figured I would use up all the mushrooms AND it had rave reviews. I made a few changes to the initial recipe, mostly because I was too lazy to go to the store for different ingredients. I used Lea & Perrins, rather than oyster sauce, and Italian bread crumbs instead of white bread. The end result.... pretty darn tasty! I did my burger up right with some mayo, lettuce and tomato, along with a nice thick slice of fresh provolone cheese. And what compliments a burger better than fries.... we complimented this particular burger with home-made yam fries. Much like the sweet potato fries you can buy at restaurants, they were salty, sweet and delicious.

After making this meal, I might have to give vegetarianism a second thought....  maybe next week, after I make the Double Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes.

Edible Adventures: So Much Food!

Okay, so we have had a lot of edible adventures since the last posting.... Here are the highlights:

Sheesh-ka-bobs

Believe it or not, I had never made Sheesh-ka-bobs. So we decided to grill some veggies and meat on sticks. It was pretty darn tasty.

Special Brownies

After a 30-mile bike ride to the Modesto Farmer's Market, we had a whole mess of leftover zucchini. I was going to make some chocolate zucchini bread. So, I went online for a recipe -- only to have a surprising recipe for Zucchini Brownies pop up. Intrigued, and never having made brownies from scratch, I decided to give it a try. (The picture below isn't mine, I borrowed it from L.P.L., another allrecipes.com user!)  Aaron liked them. I thought they were okay --- there was something a little off with the texture. And it was slightly disturbing to know how much zucchini was in there. I brought some of the brownies to work, and would not tell people what was in them until they tried it. No one really talked about loving it --- but no one really said, "No, thank you," either.

Grandma Ann's Meatloaf

Aaron had been asking for meatloaf for weeks. I finally gave in. We have a lot left in the freezer. We had a huge amount of ground beef. I thought it was a pound or so -- no, it was three pounds! We made two different meatloaves using Aaron's Grandma Ann's recipe, which he had received from his Mom.

Acorn Squash

During one of our weekly grocery trips, I spied (with my little eyed) this funky little squash. We bought it. We cooked it in the oven and then gussied it up with a bunch of butter and brown sugar. (Mmmm, melty butter and brown sugar!) Initially, I really liked it. Aaron did too. It tasted a lot like pumpkin. But then I got to a small little spot near the stem, and let me just say, that was not pleasant. So, don't eat the part right below the stem. Just sayin'.

Chocolate Mousse
Aaron and I had once before made a Mocha Mousse that was delicious. Aaron had been wanting to make it again, so he did! I had nothing to do with this one, folks. (It is super awesome to have a man that makes things!) He made the Joy Of Cooking's Chocolate Mousse recipe with Kahlua Liquor rather than espresso. It was wonderfully delicious and quite lovely. The homemade whipped cream was also fabulous, as was his presentation!

Fish

We cooked fish. Seriously... fish. And, I am pretty sure it was a fish that Aaron caught from the ocean. AND, I ate it. I should have taken a picture, but did not. SO... I drew a picture, so that you could have a visual. :)

Edible Adventures: Red Velvet Cake

So I may (or may not) have an allergy to Red-Dye 40. And because this may make me itchy and rashy, I of course want to consume it. Red Velvet Cake was no exception. Having looked at alternatives to using Red Dye 40, and being unsuccessful, I decided to make it anyway. (Um, seriously, where do you find beet powder?!?)

After looking at a few recipes on epicurious.com and allrecipes.com, I decided to go with the old stand-by --- the Joy Of Cooking. According the Joy of Cooking, Red Velvet Cake is simply a buttermilk cake, with a dash of cocoa powder, a whole mess of Red Dye 40, and cream cheese frosting.  After dinner Saturday night, I decided to make something new, and bust out a Red Velvet Cake.

My frosting was a little runny --- but it looked pretty, and once you cut a slice....

....really red! 

"I didn't like the cake part itself so much. It's hard to describe," said Aaron. "Its flavor was overpowered by the frosting."

My first words were "Where's the F&#$%(* chocolate?!?!"

Maybe next time, I should just make a chocolate cake.

Edible Adventures: Ratatouille for Me and You-ee

I don't remember when or how the show was on, but I was able to immerse myself into Pixar's Ratatouille. In doing so, I decided that I wanted to make Ratatouille. Remy style. The super thinly sliced vegetables that rat put on the table looked delicious.... and, damn it, if a rat can make it, so can I!

So the first thing one needs when making such a fine dish is a hundred dollar Cuisinart Processor/Slicer/Chopper. Am I right, girls? Am I right? I mean, hello, anyone can use a knife --- but how much cooler is a Cuisinart Processor/Slicer/Chopper than a boring, old paring knife. Okay, so I also could have purchased a cheaper mandolin, but whatever dude. I also made a scrumptious cheesecake with my super-awesome Cuisinart Processor/Slicer/Chopper. So there. 

I did a lot of research online. I did not want to make a traditional ratatouille, I wanted Remy's mouth watering vision. And while it would have been more authentic to make the original recipe in which the movie's dish was based on, that looked far too complicated for me. Luckily I found a wonderfully delicious looking, simple recipe to follow from the Smitten Kitchen. 

It took me several weeks before I actually got around to making my wonderful new recipe. I was going to make it one week, and I was too lazy to go to the store. I was going to make it the next week, and I even got my booty off the couch and went to the Modesto Farmer's Market for some fresh ingredients, only to be thoroughly disappointed by the selection. Finally, this last weekend, I decided I was going to do this whether I liked it or not. We went to our local neighborhood Safeway and got everything we needed. Okay, wait, no we didn't --- we forgot Parchment Paper. Super lame. So we went to Raley's two days later and got Parchment Paper, crusty french bread and goat cheese to top it off. 

Once you got the hang of it, the dish was really easy to make. We simply cleaned our vegetables, and put them in my handy-dandy Cuisinart. This left me with beautifully congruently sliced vegetable rounds (minus the small bits that fell sideways and left me with longer strips as opposed to quaint circles.) We then prepared the pan with tomato puree, onions and garlic and carefully arranged the zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, and tomatoes just as Remy had in the movie. We baked it up a bit. Made some whole wheat couscous, and a little salad --- and Viola! A beautifully arranged meal. It was just as delicious as it was purdy. And what was even better is that the ugly ol' leftovers were just as, if not even more mouth-watering than it was originally. And that is a lot, coming from a girl that openly dislikes a majority of leftovers.

Edible Adventures II

I kinda made this resolution to try and make/bake/cook something new (and preferably edible) once a week. Here are a few more of my attempts:

Steak... It's What's For Dinner  

I don't think it is any surprise to anyone that I love steak and mushrooms. But I didn't feel like that was a new and interesting recipe, so I got online and found this recipe entitled Men Love This Steak.  It's a new recipe, so I figured why not. It was pretty good --  steak topped with mushrooms and bacon. To complement the entrée,  I added oven-roasted red potatoes, and green beans cooked in chicken broth. Aaron had purchased some fresh mozzarella, so we added that to the green beans. It looked a little odd, but was really tasty!

Oreo Cheesecake!

We made 'Dirt' for a dinner with the Meeces and had a ton of left-over oreos, so Aaron suggested we make an Oreo Cheesecake. My first step was buying a springform pan! (Yay, for $10 off coupons from Kohl's. I got three different sized pans for $11!!) Since I had reduced-fat oreos, I decided to go with low-fat cream cheese, too. It probably would have tasted better with full-fat cream cheese, but it was still very tasty. So tasty, in fact, that I 'forgot' to bring it to school and share it with everyone. I did share a little with the Howenstines -- which is also when I discovered that you should probably put foil or something down when baking a cheesecake, as the butter from the oreo crust seemed to have melted onto the bottom of my oven, causing a smoking problem when I tied to bake a take-n-bake pizza for dinner that night. Good thing Ken is a firefighter!

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

My dad always enjoyed rhubarb. We rarely ate it, and I don't really remember liking it, but I do recall dad loving it. So when I received an email containing a recipe for a Strawberry-Rhubarb pie, I knew I needed to attempt it for my daddy's birthday! I went out and bought Monte Vista strawberries and fresh rhubarb. Cleaning all the produce took a while... and let me tell you, the smell of *fresh* rhubarb is not my favorite. It's not a horrible smell, but it is not what I would consider tasty either. Luckily you add so much sugar in the end all you smell is sweetness! I also used pre-made pie crust; the kind you use that you roll out into the pan. It did not roll out so well. I ended up balling and re-rolling the crust for the lattice top crust. But it all worked out. I tried engraving "Happy Birthday, Dad!" into the lattice, but you could not really see it once I baked the pie. For my first attempt at using rhubarb, it turned out deliciously! It was super tasty!

Strawberry-Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake

So, apparently I had purchases way too much  rhubarb for one pie. Having already chopped up the malodorous rhubarb, I decided to make something else. I remember my Granny making Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake, so I thought I would attempt it. I basically made another batch of the Strawberry-Rhubarb pie filling for the bottom of the cake pan. But I did not have a yellow cake mix, do rather than walk my lazy ass down to the grocery store (which is less than half a mile away mind you) I was going to make a cake from scratch. How hard could it be? Well it was not hard, but it was time consuming! No wonder people just buy a box! I used a 1-2-3-4 Cake recipe from the Joy Of Cooking. The cake itself turned out really well, I was able to make a few cupcakes because I did not want to overfill the other cake pan. It would have been super tasty with some chocolate frosting, but I digress. The Upside-Down Cake was also scrumptious! It looks kind of disgusting in that picture -- like a bunch of raw meat on a cookie sheet. But it was very tasty.