Nooooooo! _the defeat chronicles

Groan..no!..I won't admit it! I killed my first batch of biscuits. :( there I said it! Now you can laugh at my loss. They were horrible! What was promised as a flaky, fluffy, strawberry biscuit by cozy kitchen, turned into a sticky, flat, raw looking, dull purple, bland, gravy tasting biscuit. I think I am mostly to blame. I do not think I let my strawberries dehydrate long enough, so it turned sticky...repeat prior descriptive words. I'm not blaming cozy kitchen. I'm blaming myself. Hey, what's life without experiences, right?

-If you are tired of hearing the, "try harder next time" pep talk, go buy yourself some pillsbury:)

Tomato and egg salad

This week my mom made this salad, except she made it with nectarines. We don't have nectarines anymore, so I had to make the salad without. Well, I should give credit when it's do, my mom made this salad for me, but I see this salad in my future! The following is just a basic list of ingredients and you can decide for yourself how much of each you want.

Ingredients:

Tomato

Red onions

Green leef lettuce

Shredded carrots

Pears

One egg microwaved

Olive oil for dressing

Asiago cheese for topping

Healthy eating my friends!

Zucchini muffins-the trend

So unless you have lived under a rock, zucchini is in right now. This is mostly due to the fact that they are in season right now. (ever heard of summer squash?) So zucchini cupcake, muffins, and anything else zucchini related have been surrounding me. So with zucchini in the fridge I decided to try my hand at muffins because I wanted something to eat for breakfast. This recipe I found on the internet at weelicious.com. It was really easy to make and didn't take long at all! I, made these with my sister and had a ton of fun. My little sister (who is two) even agreed these are awesome.

Ingredients:

2 c. all purpose flour

1 tsp. Cinnamon

1/2 tsp. Baking soda

2 tsp. Baking powder

1/2 tsp. Salt

2/3 c. granulated sugar

2 eggs whisked

1 tsp. Vanilla

1/3 c. oil

1 1/2 c. grated zucchini

Prep:
Preheat oven to 350°.

Mix together the first six ingredients.

In a separate bowl mix together additional ingredients, all the wet ones.

Pour wet ingredients into the flour mix and stir to combine.

Pour zucchini mix into cupcake pan.

Bake for 20 minutes.

Cool and serve.

See, that easy! This recipe shall not be feared by those who do not know how to cook.

Contending with the box

So for dinner I decided to help my mom try to make stuffing and chicken...from scratch! I offered to make the stuffing as a learning experience. I have to tell you it was really easy and I'm never using the box again. I think it would even easier to make if you have all the ingredients on hand. We made our own chicken stock and bread cubes. The recipe is as follows:

1 onion chopped

4 celery stalks (we used seven) chopped

One loaf of bread dried and cubed

Chicken broth (as much as you want for desired texture)

2 t. poultry seasoning

Salt and pepper to taste

Prep:

Chop your onion and celery.

Put your onions and celery in a skillet in a little bit of oil and brown on high. Place on low with a little bit of chicken broth and cover.

Cube your dried bread.

Slowly add handfuls of bread into your skillet, and pour a little bit of your chicken broth in to, just enough to moisten. Repeat until all the bread cubes are in.

Sprinkle your poultry seasoning, salt, and pepper in and stir.

You can add enough chicken broth until it is the consistency of stuffing and all your cubes are moist. Mix.

You can add shredded chicken and mix in for an easy dinner.

Healthy breakfast

So tomarrow I'm having this yummy thing, a strawberry frappe! It's really easy to make, it only took five minutes, and it's low in calories, only 150 of them. This recipe serves two but you can easily cut it in half like I did.

Strawberry frappe:

1 c. yogurt

1 c. milk

1 teaspoon of vanilla

4 T. sugar

1 c. strawberries

2-3 c. ice

Prep:

Blend yogurt, milk, vanilla,sugar, and strawberries. When blended mix in your ice.

There it's that easy!
I think that deserves a big shout out to easy healthy breakfasts.

Squash anyone?

So I had a butternut squash in my cabinet for about two weeks now. I wanted too bake it and serve it with whip cream. But after many searches on the internet I could not find a simple recipe. So I decided why not? Lets learn as I go. So I saw some base recipes and first started by cutting the squash in half and scooped out the seeds. Then I peeled it and cut into 1 inch cubes. I decided to microwave cook it instead, so I put half the cubes into a microwave safe bowl and put 1/3 and a 1/2 a third cup of brown sugar in, a pinch of salt, and a dash of cinnamon in. Then I microwaved it for ten minutes, or until soft.  I also added a little bit more brown sugar because I thought it could a tad more sweeter, but it depends on the person. I repeated with the last batch and then refrigerated it. I also whipped up some whip cream, yum! So all in all it turned out really good for something I made up.

Butternut squash casserole

Ingredients:

A little less then a cup of brown sugar

two pinches of salt

And two dashes of cinnamon

After wards I mashed it so it was more pudding like.

Whipped cream

1 c. Heavy whipping cream

1 c. Powdered sugar

One T. brown sugar

Dash of cinnamon

1 t. vanilla

Put all your ingredients into a mixer and mix until it is thick and the consistency of whip cream, then serve or refrigerate.

Hope you enjoy! I know up did;)

the "french" breakfast

This morning I (had) decided I was going to be fancy and make some french toast from scratch. Being inspired from 5 ingredient fix, I saw her make her french toast with Brioche bread, I decided to find a recipe for Brioche. After a quick Google search I found this website for Brioche:

http://frenchfood.about.com/od/breadandpastry/r/briocheloaf.htm

The end result was delicious and made the breakfast more homemade, but I sadly had some trouble making it. First I underestimated the time I had to cook the Brioche. (it takes 3+ hours) so I decided to let it rise over night. Then I put all the ingredients in right except the milk, sadly it called for 1/3 c. of milk but I put in 3/4. (don't ask me why I thought thats how much to put in) so it was way too runny and I had to scrap the whole thing. :(

so I tried again and got all the ingredients right and let it rise over night.

Fast forward to next morning about 7:30(I'm an early riser) I took the brioche out of the pan and rolled it on a floured surface and put it in a bread pan to rise. About an hour later the bread had still not risen much. I thought maybe thats how it was supposed to be, (not having made bread much before) but my mom informed me that the bread was supposed to rise an inch above the bread pan. It turns out my bread was still too cold, and needed to rise on top of my slightly warm stove top. But it did not take too long and rose very nicely. The cooking of the bread was not difficult at all.

So because of all the delays with the bread I decided to make the french toast for lunch.

Simple Brioche loaf recipe

(from About.com/french food)

Prep time: about 3+hours

Cook time: 35 min.

Ingredients 

1 2/3 c. all-purpose flour
3 1/4 t. active dry yeast
3 T. granulated sugar
1/4 t. salt
1/3 c. milk, warm
2 3/4 oz. unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs plus 1 egg, divided and lightly beaten
1 T. granulated sugar (for sprinkling)

Prep:
In a bowl, I used a mixer, stir together the flour, yeast, sugar, and saltThen add the wet stuff, warm milk, butter, and eggs. Knead until smooth. When it is all together set aside to rise for two hours, or until doubled in size. Then transfer to a floured surface and punch down a few times. I then grease my bread pan and roll my bread into an oval and place it in the bread pan. Allow it to rise for 45 to 60 minutes. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Remove the dough and brush with beaten egg, and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350, keeping your bread in the oven, and bake for 25 more minutes. Allow to cool for 5 minutes. Then take a butter knife and run along edges of the bread and pop out onto a cooling rack. This makes 10 servings. Now when your brioche is cooled you can start working on the good stuff...the french toast. This recipe I have used before and had very little trouble with. The only screw ball that was sent my way was the fact that the flour I was using had the tendency to clump and I had to drain my egg mix to get the clumps out. If you are using normal flour you should have no problem. This recipe I got from yummy.com I posted the link here: http://www.yummly.com/recipe/Denny_s_style-French-Toast-Recipezaar These are delicious and you won't mind the 286 calories.

Ingredients: 4 eggs 2/3 c. Whole milk 1/3 c. Flour 1/3 c. Sugar 1/2 t. Vanilla 1/4 t. Salt 1/8 t. Cinnamon 6 slices of brioche Powdered sugar Agave nectar or maple syrup Butter Prep: Mix together eggs, milk, flour, sugar, vanilla, salt, and cinnamon. Then start heating up your skillet. When heated up melt some butter in the pan. Dip your bread in the egg mix for 30 seconds on each side. Squeeze out a little excess and overlap on plate. Then place the be bread in the skillet and cook for 1 and 1/2 min. On each side. You can serve it like me with agave and powdered sugar. Yum! So I hope this has helped you a little in your quest for good french toast. I know I sure have learned from my mistakes and I'm really going to make these again!