Trials of a Pinterest Junkie

Runner, Weight Watcher, Pinterest Addict, Cat-Lady-in-Training. Lawyer. I make no promises about what you'll find here. But there will be cookies. And some other stuff, too.

[pinterestjunkie]

Blueberry Cream Cheese Bread

OH MY GOSH.  I tried this in August and I've already made it again, it's that fantastic.  And something that is wonderful?  I got the recipe from this blog with these delicious looking pictures, and even though my camera and photo skills are.... not comparable to this professional blogger's...  The bread looks JUST as good in person. 

So good.

Look:

The ingredients are as follows:

FOR THE BREAD:

½ cups Butter

½ cups Sugar

¼ teaspoons Salt

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

2 whole Egg Yolks

1-½ cup All-pupose Flour

1 teaspoon Baking Powder

⅓ cups Milk

1-½ cup Blueberries (up To 2 Cups, Which I Prefer)

1 Tablespoon All-purpose Flour

2 whole Egg Whites

¼ cups White Sugar

FOR THE FILLING:

8 ounces, weight Cream Cheese

½ cups Sugar

1 Tablespoon Flour

1 whole Egg

1 Tablespoon Orange Zest

FOR THE GLAZE:

2 Tablespoons Sugar

½ teaspoons Vanilla

1 teaspoon Water

Instructions:

For the Bread, cream the butter and sugar (1/2 cup) until fluffy; then add the salt and vanilla, and the egg yolks (save the whites for later).

Then combine the flour and baking powder and add this mixture alternating with the milk (start and end with flour).  Add the berries (the original recipe says to coat them in flour first.  I don't know why.  But I didn't do it and it was fine.)

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites "until soft peaks form" (whatever that means... I did it until I didn't want to anymore.  Whatever), and then slowly add in 1/4 cup of sugar.  Once the mixture is smooth, add it to the first batter. 

For the filling: combine cream cheese, sugar, 1T flour, egg, orange zest, and beat until smooth.  The original recipe tells you to mix this first, but the blogger says that s/he leaves the cream cheese in the fridge until the batter is made.  I did the same.

Anyway, once both are made, pour half the batter into a greased bread pan.  Add the filling on top, and then the rest of the batter.  Then top it with the glaze (2T sugar, 1t water, 1/2 t vanilla-- just mix it together).

Bake for 55-60 minutes @ 350 degrees.

I love it because, with the blueberries and cream cheese, the bread stays moist for days.  I LOVE having it for breakfast and would even serve it as a dessert at a brunch or something.  So yummy. 

[pinterestjunkie]

Ham N' Cheese Pinwheels

A friend of mine pinned these because her husband loves ham and cheese sandwiches.  As it turns out, my boyfriend does too, and they were ridiculously easy to make.  Also, while boyfriend does not like cold cut sandwiches for dinner, he was totally willing to eat these (NO ONE tell him that they are essentially the same!)

To make them, I bought crescent roll dough, shredded Sharp Cheddar cheese, and deli ham (honestly, I don't think the kind would matter... whatever you would normally buy for sandwiches I guess.)

Instead of pulling the crescent rolls apart, I rolled out the whole sheet to make one larger piece of dough.    I then spread out pieces of ham , sprinkled on the cheese, and rolled the whole thing up into a log.  The tricky part was cutting them into slices, because the shredded cheese would NOT stay in its place.  Notice how it looks like there's a lot of cheese on top?  As it fell out, I just tossed it back on each of the rolls.

I baked them according to the instructions on the crescent roll instructions, and they were really good.  If you're not counting calories, I suggest spreading a little bit of butter (or... since I actually AM counting calories... I can't believe it's not butter) on top of them after baking.  The butter melts in and its wonderful.  They're easy, they're portion control, and they can always be in your back pocket-- at least in my kitchen, these ingredients are almost always on hand.

[pinterestjunkie]

After Forever.... Homemade Flour Tortillas

It's a good thing updating this blog isn't my job or anything.  I have a million pictures of food saved on my phone.  This one has been there for awhile now--

 Homemade Flour Tortillas Ingredients are 1. 2.75 cups of flour 2. 1.25 tsp salt 3. 0.25 olive oil (I used extra virgin) 4. 1.0 cups of water

Super easy to mix together.  SUPER difficult to roll out!  The dough is very stretchy until you get it really thin, and then it's really hard to move around.  I cut out the circles as shown above, but those turned out too thick for my taste.    So THEN I tried stretching them super thin, and they just shrunk up and got kinda weird shaped:

Don't get me wrong, these were good-- but as someone who is used to thin corn tortillas, these were not for me.  However, if you're willing to work on the shaping and you like flour tortillas, I'd encourage others to give them a try!

[pinterestjunkie]

"Single Serving" Edible Cookie Dough

Recently, I've been eating a lot of cookie dough, because I found a pin for "Edible Cookie Dough for One."

Loooooooord, let me tell you what a bad idea it is.  The recipe says "for one," but it actually makes a fairly substantial amount.  MY problem was that it turned into an almost-daily treat.... bad idea.  I've had to wean myself off of doing it, and I think at this point it's safe for me to share the recipe, which is from this website.  If you look at her recipe and compare it to what I'm going to write below, you'll notice that what I was making has morphed away from her recipe.  I'm not really sure where I went wrong, but when I tried her recipe as written, it came out too liquid-y.  Don't get me wrong, it still tasted good, but the consistency was hard to get past.  This is what I do instead:

Edible Cookie Dough for One

1/2 c flour 1/2 c sugar*2 T butter (I use "I can't believe it's not butter!" light w/ olive oil.... you know, to make this healthy....) 1/2 - 1 tsp vanilla (to taste) unspecified amount of milk to achieve desired consistency

*Regarding the sugar, I have tried all white.  I have tried all brown.  I have tried half and half.  I think it's all good, and you should go with that you like.  The all-white sugar will come out like sugar cookie dough.  Using brown sugar creates a slightly thicker, richer taste.  Brown sugar also creates dough more like what you would find in your standard chocolate chip cookie dough recipe.

You CAN use extra butter and just not use milk, but I think using my skim milk makes me feel a little bit better about making this.... so.  Yeah.

[pinterestjunkie]

Cheese and Pepper Stuffed Chicken

While cruising pinterest, I saw a pin from this website for chicken breasts stuffed with cheese and red pepper and wrapped in bacon....drool....   It was a lot of my favorite foods in one recipe, so I couldn't really pass it up-- although truthfully, it sat on my "to be tried" list for a loooooong time because I have a problem with keeping shredded cheese in the house.  I snack on it, and eventually I'm left with all of the ingredients EXCEPT cheese.  Very inconvenient.  For many reasons!

But, I finally did get around to trying it:

The above-posted website may have specific instructions for how much of everything to use, but I free-handed it.  I think you almost have to, because no two chicken breasts are ever the same.

I cut a red bell pepper into small, thin strips.  I then cut a slit into the boneless, skinless chicken breast, pretty much deep enough that I could have flipped the chicken open like two pages of a book! (That's probably a weird/gross analogy... I'll try to come up with something better, haha).  I then put the pepper inside the chicken with as much sharp cheddar cheese as I could fit.

Then, I wrapped it in 3-4 slices of bacon, placing the middle of the bacon strip over the chicken slit to hold everything together, and securing the ends of the bacon with toothpicks.  You might be able to accomplish this without toothpicks, but it did make the assembly a lot easier.  Just don't forget about the toothpicks when you eat it.

My only complaint was that the bacon didn't really get crispy, even though I flipped the chicken during baking (because remember, the bacon grease will pool at the bottom, and you don't want soggy bacon.... gross.  I didn't think of it at the time, but I might try throwing it under the broiler next time for a minute or two, just to crisp it up a little.   Otherwise, I would describe this as an easy way to make a chicken breast dinner more exciting.  Also, since there's so much going on with the chicken, you can probably go reaaaallly low key on any side dishes... if you need anything on the side at all!

[pinterestjunkie]

Brie/Crescent Roll Appetizers

As you can probably see, these little guys were a quick fix.  I was looking for something different to make... you can only set out chips and salsa so many times, right? (Wrong.  There was also chips and salsa.)  Anyway, I remembered my college roommate making something similar to these once, and it sounded like a good idea.

Surprisingly, there were a little more work than you expect, because you have to get all the fillings inside very carefully to prevent seepage (which I suffered anyway unfortunately).,  I also hate peeling the outer layer of brie.  Maybe that's just me.

What you do, is lay a slice of green apple (I know, I don't normally like them either.  But the tartness is important for the flavor mixture) on a crescent roll with a slice of brie (peel off that exterior layer, baby) and top it with a few pecans and a drizzle of honey. 

Follow the baking directions on the crescent roll package.... I don't remember the specifics that I used-- probably 350 for 8-10ish minutes.

My biggest complaint about these was, all the cheese melted and escaped, despite my best efforts to firmly close everything up.  Next time, I may roll the dough into small balls, put everything in the center, and then collect the sides at the top, like a garbage bag, to try to minimize leakage.  Regardless, it was a good mix of flavors and textures, and I will probably make them again.

Original source: here

[pinterestjunkie]

Iced Oatmeal Cookies

I know, I've been gone for... ever.  I've been gone forever.  And it hasn't been because I haven't been cooking/baking.... just got caught up with other things.  Now I'm going to try to charge through the backlog of food-related photos on my phone.  If someone were to look through my photos, they would probably think i was insane.  Oh well.

So, these iced oatmeal cookies are FANTASTIC.

Mine didn't look as pretty as those on the original website, but they were soft, sweet, with just a hint of cinnamon, and everyone in my office loved them.  I didn't have any nutmeg and I cut waaay back on the cinnamon.  These were my "Christmas in July" cookies, aka a convenient test run for Christmas while I happened to have rolled oats in the house.  Here are the ingredients:

2 c. old fashioned rolled oats (blended or put through food processor until coarse... maybe 10-20 seconds) 2 c. flour 1T. baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 2 tsp cinnamon (I used 1 tsp) 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg (I omitted... just not something I have at home normally) 1 c. butter, softened 1 c. light brown sugar (I make my own with 1 c. of white sugar and 1.5 T molasses)1/2 c. white sugar 2 large eggs 1 tsp. vanilla extract

And for the glaze: 2 c. powdered sugar and 3 T milk.

To make the cookies:  Cream the butter and sugars.  I turn on my KitchenAid mixer and just let it go while I'm getting other things ready.  Once well combined, add the eggs, and the vanilla.  Once mixed, add everything else and bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.  In the meantime, you can mix the glaze.  When the cookies are out of the over, set them on a cooling rack (put a paper towel underneath!)  and drizzle the glaze over the top.  They will dry and the glaze will harden after about ten minutes... they can then be stacked in tupperware.

I split the recipe based on how many oats I had, and had no problems with taste.  I then split the recipe again and used some of the dough to make oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies, where were chewy and awesome.  I will definitely be using this recipe again!

[pinterestjunkie]

Finally found a tiered dessert tray that I love! So excited to bake for this baby!

[pinterestjunkie]

Family Dinner

I'm visiting my hometown for Mother's Day weekend.  My parents are divorced and both are remarried, but they remain quite friendly, so I invited my dad and step-mom to my mom and step-dad's house for a big family dinner, cooked by me, on Friday night. 

At first I went through my recipes-to-try boards in search of something new, but trying a new recipe with a large group always makes me nervous.  My boyfriend is a trooper with last-minute pizza ordering, but for a group?  Not to mention my younger siblings being present?  I tried to go back to two tried and true recipes from earlier this year, with a new recipe for dessert.

Main Course: Creamy Garlic Pasta.  I found this pin linking to www.thecheesepusher.tumblr.com a few months ago, and tried it out with my boyfriend.  He looooooooooved it.  And then I shared it with a friend, who made it for her husband, and they loved it too.  And for good reason... this pasta is damn good!

Ingredients:

You start by cooking 3-4 cloves of minced garlic in 2 tsp of EV Olive Oil for a few minutes.  Then, you add 2T of butter, and once it melts, 1/2 tsp of black pepper, 1/4 tsp of salt, and 3 c. of chicken stock.  You bring the stock to a boil and add your pasta noodles (spaghetti or angel hair... about 8 oz) and cook them until they're done.  Add to the pot 1 c. of parm cheese and 3/4c heavy cream*, and serve immediately.

It's that easy.  And sooooo good.  Don't judge by this picture:

The one on the cheese pusher tumbler is MUCH better looking.  I'm more concerned with eating it than taking good pictures of it, haha =)

*One thing I want to mention-- adding 3/4 c. heavy cream kind of crushes my soul.  WW, remember?  When I make this, I cut the cream way back.... I found that a 1/4 c + 2T is just fine.  Maybe not as creamy, but still absolutely delicious.  My friend used the full amount but subbed fat free half and half, and that worked well for her (I haven't tried it yet, but she's an excellent cook.  I will take her word for it).

The second recipe I pulled out was for a salad.  I found a pin that let to this "fructose-free" blog recipe for Goat Cheese and Spinach Salad.  My siblings (11 and 9) were not big fans of this, and I don't think my dad loved it either, but both of the moms did.  The first time I made this salad (using baby spinach, crumbled pecans, goat cheese, and balsamic vinagrette dressing), I made the dressing indicated in the blog link from scratch.  For the family though, I saved time by just using a store-bought dressing.  It kind of defeats the purpose of the fructose-free recipe, but that's not why I was interested in the first place, so it's all good.  The salad dressing recipe mixes the following ingredients:

1. 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil 2. 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar 3. 1 tablespoon pure maple syrup or 1 1/2 tablespoons dextrose 4. 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard 5. 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 6. 2 pinches salt

And it IS quite good.  My hang-up is that I didn't eat this salad every day forever until the dressing was gone... so eventually it went bad.  Doesn't happen with store bought (which is not necessarily a good thing when you think about it... hm....).

My dessert recipe was the only thing new, and as a bonus, it was low fat!  I made these Skinny Confetti Cupcakes.  SUPER SIMPLE.  I'm a little ashamed to admit that it's all from a box mix, but as much as I've learned not to like box mixes, I have to admit that they're way more convenient.  And I'm not sure you could lighten up a from-scratch recipe this way.

See, all you do is (1) Mix a box of funfetti cake mix with 12 oz. of Sprite Zero.

...There really isn't a step two!  I scooped them into 24 cupcake tins and baked until a toothpick came out clean.  They didn't rise as much as normal cupcakes, but they tasted perfectly fine.

For the frosting, I mixed a box of fat free vanilla pudding with a container of fat free cool whip.  I didn't think I would like it (I'm such a buttercream girl), but they really were wonderful!  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture, so I'm going to steal the original blogger's picture. 

Compliments of Six Sisters:

Delicious.  All in all, a very good meal that was enjoyed by the whole fam.  And it was all easy to make, so nice for me too!

[pinterestjunkie]

I've been really into eating canned pineapple lately. Not fresh, explicitly canned. I don't know why. But I always buy pineapple canned in juice, and recently I started thinking, "what can I do with all of this juice?" I put it in a jar in my fridge and started looking for recipes on pinterest. Most of what I came up with also featured vodka... not something I want to drink right before driving to work! Then I found a recipe from zoomyummy.com for a "detox smoothie" and I figured I'd give it a shot. The ingredients are: (1) 1.25 chips pineapple juice, (2) juice from 1/4 lemon, (3) handful of spinach leaves, (4) 1/4 teaspoon of ginger. I used a tablespoon of lemon juice from a bottle and sprinkled in some ground ginger because I'm lazy and cheap and was not going tip but fresh just for this. The result was meh. It got sort of frothy and I felt like the spinach kind of separated... I was drinking through a straw and I felt like I drank a bunch of pineapple juice and then the spinach was left as this weird tasting froth that was not very enjoyable. It was a fine breakfast as far as being filling and energizing but I will probably keep looking for a better pineapple juice recipe. Probs won't make this again.

[pinterestjunkie]

I was at Target today and decided on the spur of the moment to do Easter baskets for my boyfriend and the two friends we're visiting this weekend. Since we're waking up at their place Easter morning, it makes sense! (Right? Right. Glad you agree.) I didn't want to just do candy, so I made these goldfish carrots using frosting bags! I think they turned out really cute, and they take up a good amount of space. I had to improvise with the ribbon since I didn't actually have any at home-I ended up taking apart a Christmas bow. Not perfect but it worked!

[pinterestjunkie]

Happy Easter!  As always, I got the idea for these on Pinterest, and they were so easy, it was like... why not?  They're just sugar cookies with buttercream frosting and Cadbury eggs. 

Boom.

Easy.

I think the ones on Pinterest look cooler because they actually piped the frosting.  I was lazy.  Oh well.  Still excited to serve them for dessert on Easter Sunday!  The boyfriend and I will be going to his aunt's house to spend time with his dad and extended family.  I'm bringing three different desserts-- these cookies, this cookies n' cream cheesecake, and this fantastic, low-fat strawberry pie (one of my favorite desserts!).  Yum!

[pinterestjunkie]

So, I've been training to run Grandma's marathon this summer, and I decided I needed something healthy to indulge in after my long runs, rather than using them as an excuse to stuff my face.  I found this pin that links to Jamba Juice copycat recipes, and I knew I had to try it!

I know I haven't been posting recipes-- and that's because I don't want anyone to give me credit for stealing someone else's glory.  I don't make this stuff up.  I just re-make it, and occasionally I add my own little twist.  But it occurred to me recently that sometimes websites disappear, so in the event that the link I provided someday no longer works....

The ingredients are: (1) half cup of apple juice, (2) half cup of strawberry juice (which is HARD to find!  I ended up using a strawberry/banana smoothie juice thing that I found in the cooler section, near the OJ.  It's thicker than normal juice, but it works); (3) 1/2 cup (4-5) strawberries; (4) 1/2 banana (I used a full since I had smaller ones at home); (5) 1 cup of vanilla frozen yogurt (I used fat free); and (6) 6-10 ice cubes.

I recommend putting them in the blender in exactly that order.  The first time I made it, I tried putting the ice in first, and it took much longer to get everything mixed up.  The final product was about 32oz of drink (think a large soda at McDonalds) that was delicious, filling, and satisfying.  Using fat free froyo, it came out to 8pp on Weight Watchers (I did not count points for fruit, but I know some people feel differently about that.  Choose your own path!)  As I hinted at, I've already made this again and will continue to make it in the future!

[pinterestjunkie]

I baked an extra miniature cake in case I had problems with the cat cake I already posted, so I decided to do something different with this one. It reminded me of flowers my mom planted in her front yard a few years ago. Unfortunately I smeared the side trying to get it into Tupperware and ended up just smoothing it out. Now it looks like a weird orb, but the original would probably be too girly, considering I'm giving it to my apartment manager. A small thank you for always delivering my packages to my apartment instead of leaving them trapped in the office over the weekend!

[pinterestjunkie]

A friend of mine pinned this cake a few months ago, and I jokingly told her I would make it for her someday. Tomorrow is her bridal shower, so I’m looking forward to surprising her with this!

[pinterestjunkie]

Valentine's Day

Classic example of how behind I am in posting what I've tried.  So, Happy April 8th... Here's what I did for Valentine's Day two months ago!

Part of my boyfriend's gift was a "cookie jar" full of skittles (his favorite candy); Gushers (his favorite snack); and Sugar Cookies (I don't know how he feels about sugar cookies actually... but I enjoy making them!  haha)

I saw this idea on Pinterest to do a box of "I love you like..." cookies, so I threw a few in there, but I didn't want to get too mushy with it. And then I just did a few generic ones:

I also really wanted to try these stained glass cookies, which turned out just as beautifully as the pin I found:

All you do is make sugar cookies, and use two different sizes of cookie cutters: the first to cut the cookie, and the second to cut out the inside. 

Then, you crush hard candy (I used Jolly Ranchers), separating them based on color, with a rolling pin.  You place the sugar cookie cut-out on the pan and put some crushed candy (one color, multiple colors, anything works!) in the center and bake until the cookies are done.  The candy was bubbling when I took the cookies out, but it cooled pretty quickly.  I highly recommend letting the cookies cool on the pan for 1-3 minutes and then moving them to a cooling rack to cool completely before storage.  The longer you leave them on the pan, the harder they become to remove (because the candy is sticky, duh).  Once cooled though, you'll have no problem storing them in tupperware together.  They didn't really stick to each other.

Word to the wise, though: I really still don't know how to eat these.  Once cooled, the candy re-solidifies into hard candy.  It's crunchy and kind of awkward to bite into.  I didn't mind giving them as a gift though, because they look pretty, and after that... the recipient (aka my boyfriend) gets to figure it out :-)

[pinterestjunkie]

I'm so behind on sharing what I've been making. My phone is literally telling me I'm running out of storage space because I've got so many pictures left on here. But (insert excuses about work and life and not having internet at home) I'm sure I'll be able to find some more time soon. In the meantime, this is currently one of my projects: learning to make buttercream roses! I used a #104 tip for this one, and frosting that was arguably too soft (I.e. not enough sugar). I've been watching tutorials on YouTube and have mostly learned that everyone has a slightly different technique. hopefully I'll find my own soon! (This was also a new pinterest recipe for strawberry buttercream that incorporated strawberry jam. I'll share the link tomorrow. It was really good!)