Perfect Pesto

January 12, 20151 Comment

Peter and I got hungry for pesto pasta this weekend. I dug out this favorite recipe from Food Renegade (http://www.foodrenegade.com/almond-spinach-basil-pesto/). Its a delicious combination of basil, spinach and roasted almonds making a slightly healthier pesto.

I use Blue Diamond roasted almonds and skip the roasting part of the recipe. I also recruit little fingers to help pull the leaves off the stems of Basil. I double the recipe and throw a container in the refrigerator for later. Or you can get fancy like my mom and fill ice cube trays in the freezer so you can easily pop out a portion at a time for cooking.

But for me? I will eat this entire container of goodness well before it goes bad…

Finally getting to cute this beautiful stuff!

Little fingers do the best job harvesting the leaves. Sometimes they are shirtless though…

I make ours a little thicker to cut some of the oil calories. I also like the way it keeps it’s flavor in pasta. And eggs. And on toast. And with chicken. And on a spoon.

Voila! Tossed with angel hair pasta and rotisserie chicken!

Chef Momma

November 24, 2014Leave a comment

Apparently, the word it out that I make some rockin’ good pancakes….

Sophia’s Amulet Popciles

August 25, 2014Leave a comment

Oh man. If you have kids who watch Sophia the First and or anything on Disney Junior, I’m sure you’ve seen, heard and been asked about Sophia’s Amulet Popsicle. I gave into the pressure and so we set out to get all our ingredients and supplies – which was an adventure in itself.

Our overall experience was a good one. However, those jerks over at Disney make the supply list sound like a walk in the park; “fill an oval shaped ice cube tray”. Who the hell has an oval shaped ice cube tray handy?? More over, where do you find such a thing? Same goes for the popsicle molds – they have horizontal, flat molds. Which are impossible to find unless you want to spend $20 on Amazon. Arg.

So, we improvised. We used on sale, grocery store molds for both the pops and the amulets. We filled the ice cube trays less than half way to make small amulets. Then after the popsicle were set, I pulled them out, laid them flat on some foil, put the amulets on and then back into the freezer. Turns out after the first round, Auggie did not like the amulets and Baylor was content to eat them separately so I call it a win!

If you want to try them out on your own, here’s the link:

http://cdn.dolimg.com/magic-of-healthy-living/pdf/recipes/disneydishes_sofiapopsicles.jpg

Happy chefs

Not too shabby, huh?

Orngen Juice

February 21, 20131 Comment

That’d be “orange juice” in Baylor speak.

Between the sudden freezing temperatures and theiving neighbors (I asked a woman to stop picking our oranges one day and her response was “Oh, I didn’t think you were using them” and then walked off with an arm full. Who does that?!) we picked all of our oranges off our two trees. I hate doing it because it’s so much more fun to pick what you want and let the rest ripen on the tree. Arg.

Anyway, I got a new juicer that was easier for Baylor to use and we set out to juice about 75 oranges this morning. She gave up after about 20 but Auggie and I made it through the rest of the bags. Three pretty bottles of juice were our prize!

Tangelos

Chef Wand and her Sous Chef Augustus

Loving the new juicer

If being cute makes you a good cook, Auggie won the James Beard Award

The final (delicious) product

Cookies Gone Wrong

December 8, 20114 Comments

Yesterday afternoon, Bay and I put on some Christmas music, lit a cinnamon candle and fired up the oven to make some Christmas cookies. B was thrilled to play in the left over dough, flour and sprinkles while the cookies cooked. It was a lovely afternoon.

That is until two cookies escaped the baking sheet and dropped into the oven where they broke into a million pieces. Crap. I decided to just close the door and let it cool before I attempted to clean them up. Until the kitchen began to fill with smoke.

“Why not let it self clean??” I thought. So I put on the self clean setting and returned to icing the trees. Until I noticed that it appeared we had a yule log in our kitchen…yup the cookies had ignited in the oven. I quickly turned off the oven and stepped back trying to decide what to do next – get the extinguisher? Call 911? As I contemplated, the fire quickly went out. Bay casually looked over from her sprinkling duties and said “Mommy, there’s a fire in the oven”. Yes, yes there is kiddo.

Despite our house smelling like a camp fire, all is well. The oven cooled and is no worse for the wear (I think). I cleaned out the chunks of cookie and it is now happily self-cleaning (I think). The windows are open, the fans are going and there are holiday scented candles burning so hopefully by this afternoon there will be no evidence of our almost fiasco.

When my cousin Will arrived last night to watch UofA and eat us out of house and home (I was prepared with 3 lbs of tacos) I told him what had happened. He responded “what’s with you guys and fire??” – referring to the grill fire of 2009. It’s nice to have family who cares about you.

On the bright side, the cookies were delicious! Chef Mini Wand does it again!