Arroz Con Pollo

Check out Williams Sonoma's Simple Suppers book for this great arroz con pollo recipe. I love this book, but I must say there's really nothing simple about most recipes in this book, they're good but they aren't the fastest to make. This arroz con pollo was VERY good, but took a good hour and a half to make. I halved the recipe because it called for 2 cups of rice and I only had 1.

First you've got to season the chicken

Enlisted Austin's help to dice the onion

Heat the olive oil to brown the chicken

Browning the chicken only took about 10 mins.

Then you cook all the veggies in the chicken juices

Then you add the chicken and rice and put it in the oven for 30 mins.

Out of the oven

Close Up

Dinner time!

Macarons!!!

Ok, I have to admit I LOVE macarons! But, by golly, they are expensive! This weekend I got the cheapest macaroon I had in a while for $1.50 at Unique LA's Local Love event, but they sometimes run up to $3. So when I saw this macarons book in the Anthropologie sale section last December I absolutely had to have it.

I had this book for a good month before I dared to try my first attempt at macaron making. On a gloomy day in January I tried my first shot at it and I SUCKED!! They never quite hardened and I still put them in the oven and they broke and just looked depressing. So I cooled off on making macarons for a while till last weekend, with Austin's help and a little more whisking of the egg whites/sugar mixture they came out pretty good. Quite a few broke or sunk in and I didn't love the buttercream recipe in the book, but they were overall pretty good. I filled these little guys with butter cream, ganache and Dulce de Leche. I will try to make these again and I'll post the tricks I learn along the way. 

Buttercream

Dulce de Leche

Ganache

Yummy!

Apple Pie

Hope everyone has a great weekend! We had a pretty busy one because of the holidays. On Friday we went to Father's Office with some friends (I'll share my review tomorrow). Saturday, I had a Christmas party in the morning and Sunday I had a Christmas party in the evening, so in between those parties we ran errands, made key chains, bought some Christmas presents and made an apple pie!

Got the recipe from Good Housekeeping Magazine. I made an apple pie for Thanksgiving using the same recipe.

These are the 10 Granny Smith and Gala apples we used (1.5 lbs. each)

You mix all your spices, sugar and lemon juice



the pastry



mmmm right before you put the lid on

Ready to go in the oven



Yummy!



Chocolate Stout Bundt Cake

Saw this great cake in December's Real Simple Magazine and I decided I wanted to make it to take to work on Monday for our staff meeting. Overall I think it was pretty easy to make, the best part was coating the pan in butter and powdered chocolate, it makes such a difference. Head on over to Real Simple for the recipe. Come back later this week to see our holiday decor and Christmas in LA take 1: The Grove. Have a great week!

The Ingredients

Out of the oven, could use some more chocolate powder

This is with the glaze, very easy to make just heavy cream and 4 oz. of chocolate

Yummy! 

This is how I set it up for our staff meeting

Easy Peasy Pasta

Tonight was a lazy Monday. I made some easy peasy bow-tie pasta with ingredients I keep regularly stocked in the pantry and a couple things I picked up over a week ago at Fresh and Easy (love that place).

**Farfalle (1/2 the bag)**

**Alfredo Sauce (1/2 the bottle)**

**Pre-cooked Teriyaki Chicken from Fresh and Easy**

** Garlic Cheese Bread**

It was soooo yummy! And we have leftovers!

Knitted Flowers

Wow, to think that last September I asked my aunt to make me dozens of flowers to sew on to my scarves later and now I am finally able to make flowers! This is my first set of flowers that I made for my Black and White Nicky Epstein scarf, it turned out just great! Can't wait to show you my secon Nicky Epstein scarf that should be ready by Wednesday.

Greek Lentil Soup

Its October and it finally feels like fall in LA! Halloween is around the corner and we're in for a rainy and gloomy week. What's that mean? It's time to make soup! I've been using this Greek Lentil Soup recipe for a couple of years and loooove it! I got the original recipe from Allrecipes.com and changed a couple of things. Below is my recipe for Greek Lentil Soup, enjoy:

Ingredients: 

• 8 ounces brown lentils (1/2 a standard bag)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic (3-4 cloves)
• 1 onion, minced
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• 1 piece of celery
• 1 quart Low-Sodium Chicken Broth
• 1 pinch dried oregano
• 1 pinch crushed dried rosemary
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 a ham steak 

**I make my life easier and buy a Maripox Mix (onion, celery, carrot) at Trader Joe's

Directions:

1. Place lentils in a large saucepan, cover with 1 inch of water. Place over medium-high heat and bring to a boil; cook for 10 minutes, then drain lentils into a strainer.
2. Dry saucepan, pour in olive oil, and place over medium heat. Add garlic, onion, and carrot; cook and stir until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 5 minutes. Pour in lentils, 1 quart Chicken Stock, oregano, rosemary, and bay leaves. Cut the 1/2 ham steak in cubes and add it to the soup. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Stir in tomato paste and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and simmer until the lentils have softened, 30 to 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add additional water if the soup becomes too thick.

                               

Enjoy!!

Bethenny's Low Fat Fudge Chocolate Muffins

Aren't they pretty? They're pretty good too! The added bonus: they're LOW FAT!!! Who would have known, here's the recipe (also found on Bethenny Frankel's website):

Ingredients:

1 cup unsweetened applesauce

½ cup raw sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

¼ teaspoon almond extract

¾ cup oat flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup semisweet vegan chocolate chips

1 dash cinnamon

Prep:

1.Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Use nonstick spray on regular sized nonstick muffin tin and combine ingredients.

2.Using 3 ounce ice cream scoop, evenly scoop into muffin tins.

3.Bake for 20 minutes to one hour, rotating half way through.

4.Place toothpick in center. When the toothpick comes out clean, the muffins are done.

5.Allow to fully cool, then pop out with a spoon.

Here's what mine looked like before they went in the oven



And after!



Carrot Cake

Happy Sunday! As usual, for a Sunday, I baked. Today I tried making Carrot Cake from a recipe I found on All Recipes. After I took time to write out the recipe it turns out, Alton Brown also has a recipe for Carrot Cake, I'll try to make his version next time. The All Recipes version called for pecans, but I left them out.

The ingredients:
(For the cake)
4 eggs

1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 cups grated carrots

(For the Cream Cheese Frosting)
1/2 cup butter, softened
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped pecans

Directions for the cake:
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.
2.In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, white sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in carrots. Fold in pecans. Pour into prepared pan.
3.Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

To make this easy Cream Cheese Frosting all you have to do is:
Combine butter, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla in a medium bowl. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Stir in chopped pecans. Frost the cooled cake.

And this is the yummy result!

Banana Bread

Made Banana Bread for a friend's husband's birthday and decided to make an extra for Austin and another friend. Whenever we buy bananas I always end up with a couple that overripe before  we get a chance to eat them. So, I freeze them and once I have 5 in the freezer I like to bust out the bakeware and make Banana Bread. I use Alton Brown's recipe, You may want to look up his Muffin Method to get the yummiest and nicest looking Banana Bread, here it is:

Banana Bread a la Alton Brown

Wet Works 1

• 3 to 4 overripe Bananas (I typically use 5)
• 1 cup sugar

Dry Goods

• 1 and 2/3 cups Flour
• 1/3 Oat flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda

Wet Works 2

• 1 stick Unsalted Butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon Almond Extract (sometimes hard to find, I found some at Target)

Options

Nuts (Walnuts, pecans, or almonds) I usually use walnuts unless I have almonds on hand.

Directions:

1) Prep a loaf pan and pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

2) Place the bananas and sugar in a large bowl and mash together with a potato masher until smooth (this is impossible with all but the most overripe bananas.

3) Proceed with the Muffin Method. Combine Wet works 1 and then Wet Works 2 in separate bowls, then combine together before adding the Wet Works to the Dry Goods.

4) If you're using nuts, fold them in now. Then pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, until the temperature measures 210 degrees F, or your toothpick comes out clean. (Remember banana bread should come out of the oven a little more moist than most.

5) Allow the bread to cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then remove the bread and allow it to cool on a rack completely before slicing

**Tightly wrapped the bread should keep at room temp for 5 days. You can also use this recipe to make banana muffins, it makes about 12. 

This is how I packaged the Banana Bread gift, I bought the Paula Dean Loaf box at Michael's

Doesn't it look so nice?

Great, affordable gift idea

This week I finally found an electric knife! Which is great for cutting my breads!

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