Category Archives: things we like to eat

One Hour Cast Iron Focaccia

Posted in extras, side dishes, things we like to eat by

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When I found this recipe the other day, I was a little skeptical- a delicious bread that can be made from start to finish in an hour? I’ve had a few, *ahem*, interesting experiences with rolling out dough, so that didn’t add to my optimism. I decided to give it a go though, and boy, was it worth it!

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The recipe really was incredibly simple, it only take an hour, and it couldn’t have been any easier to roll out. And the bread was so delicious! The texture was so good- soft inside and a bit crisp on top. I modified the original recipe by adding garlic powder and garlic sea salt- the garlic got a bit crunchy and added a really yummy flavor.

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Cast Iron Focaccia

Slight alterations to Crunchy Creamy Sweet’s recipe

Ingredients for the dough:

3/4 cup warm water

1/2 tsp. sugar

1 1/2 tsp. yeast (Active Dry Yeast)

2 Tbsp. olive oil

2 cups flour (divided in half)

1/2 tsp. salt

For the melted butter mixture:

3 Tbsp. butter, melted

1 Tbsp. grated parmesan

1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 tsp. garlic sea salt

Instructions:

Place warm water and sugar in the mixing bowl of a stand mixer, and stir until sugar dissolves. Sprinkle the yeast over the top of the water and stir a few times. Let stand for about 5 minutes, or until foamy.

Turn the mixer onto low and add one cup of the flour and the salt, and mix until combined. Add olive oil and mix well. With the mixer on low, add flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl- I used a bit more than 3/4 of a cup, but it may need anywhere from 3/4 cup to a full cup.

At this point, preheat the oven to 220* and turn it off once it has preheated. Keep the door closed.

Grease the skillet well. Place dough onto a floured surface and fold the dough a few times until it’s no longer sticky. Shape into a ball. Roll out the dough until it’s about the size of your skillet. Place the rolled out dough into the skillet and stretch it up the sides. Cover the skillet with a kitchen towel and place in the oven for 20 minutes to rise.

Take the skillet out of the oven and preheat the oven to 400*. Make indentations in the dough with your fingers. Mix melted butter, parmesan and seasoning in a small bowl. Brush the dough with half the butter.

Place skillet in the preheated oven and bake 16-18 minutes, or until golden brown. Brush with remaining butter. Slice into wedges or squares and serve.

Jordan

Green Breakfast Smoothie

Posted in breakfast, things we like to eat by

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Awhile back, Jordan posted the purple breakfast smoothie that she drinks every morning for breakfast. She got me on board and now it’s my favorite breakfast too.

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Recently we started adding even more fresh spinach to the smoothie and omitting the mixed berries.  It looks a bit like guacamole, but once you get over the color it is the perfect breakfast.  The measurements below are not exact, we just keep adding and mixing until it seems like a good consistency and flavor.  The recipe below fills our blender and makes two large glasses.  It’s not necessarily low calorie (or low in sugar), but it’s definitely filling and you end up eating a ton of fruits and veggies. If your New Year’s resolution is to get more fruits and veggies in your diet, than this is an easy and yummy way to do it.

Green Breakfast Smoothie

1/4 cup quick oats

1/4 to 1/2 cup milk

1/4  cup vanilla yogurt, we just started adding Greek yogurt to up the protein

1 to 2 bananas, sliced and frozen (we slice several bananas and store in a baggie in the freezer)

1 large handful of fresh spinach, approximately 3 cups

1 whole orange, peeled

1 whole apple, cut into chunks, core removed

1 whole pear, cut into chunks, core removed

1 cup of frozen chunk pineapple

Juice from a lime, just squeezed in (if desired)

Sometimes we add in about 1 T of almond butter

Place quick oats and milk into the bottom of the blender first, and then add the rest of the ingredients. Blend together until smooth. Continue to taste and add what you think the smoothie is missing as you go.

Cindy

Raspberry Bars & Downton Abbey Ramblings

Posted in obsessions, other obsessions, sweets, things we like to eat by

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For all of you who somehow don’t know….Downton Abbey Season 4 premieres TOMORROW!!! Watch this for me real quick-

Is it just me, or isn’t that the most mysterious, non-helpful trailer ever? Talk about vague.

Anyway,  we were invited to a Downton Abbey premiere watching party – yay! We signed up to bring dessert and these raspberry bars seemed perfect to share on this momentous occasion. These. Are. Delicious. We’ve tried a lot of similar recipes (see Fresh Strawberry Oatmeal Bars) but for some reason these stand out as our favorite. There is a perfect amount of crumb topping and they are overall amazing.

I’m not sure if we’ve talked about it before on the blog, but we store all of our recipe clippings in large three-ring binders. When we try a new recipe, we decide if it’s a “keeper” or not, a.k.a. whether it has earned a permanent spot in a binder. This raspberry bar recipe is definitely a “keeper”.

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Raspberry Bars

2 sticks butter, softened
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 cup old fashioned oats, or rolled oats
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1 cup raspberry preserves, I used seedless
Sliced almonds, optional

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan. I just used the excess butter leftover on the butter wrapping, and smeared it around.

Add the flour, both sugars, oats and salt to a bowl in your stand mixer. Add in the butter and egg and beat at low speed. Stop the machine and scrape the bowl down a couple of times. Keep processing until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Keep 2 cups crumb mixture aside.

Press the remaining crumb mixture on the bottom the prepared pan. Spread the Raspberry Preserves over the top of the crust. Crumble the rest of the oat mixture over the preserves and then I sprinkled approximately 1/4 cup of sliced almonds over the top of that. I loved the addition of the almonds. They gave the bars a yummy extra texture and looked really pretty.

Bake until lightly browned, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool completely before cutting into bars.

Cindy & Jordan

New Year’s Eve Party Appetizer

Posted in extras, things we like to eat by

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These appetizers are amazing! We made them for Thanksgiving and they were a hit! I actually got the recipe from my friend Laura, but I have no idea where she got it. We make ours with Cambozola cheese, which is a flavorful soft cheese. Apparently it is a combination of French soft-ripened triple cream cheese and Italian Gorgonzola. But it’s made by a German cheese company. Go figure.

It sort of reminds me of Brie, but with a much stronger flavor. We normally buy Cambozola at Costco and we also found it at Safeway, but for a lot more money per pound. It is quite expensive, however you don’t need huge quantities of the ingredients since they are so flavorful. The appetizers are best served immediately. They are just so pretty, aren’t they?

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New Year’s Eve Party Appetizer

1 loaf of crusty French bread, cut into rounds

1 8 oz. container of raspberries

About 1/2 a pound of Cambozola, sliced into small wedges with a sharp knife. Cut straight out of the fridge (the rind on the outside is totally edible by the way).

A small handful of fresh basil, thinly sliced

Honey for drizzling

 

Place sliced cheese on top of pieces of bread and place in the toaster oven, or regular oven until melty. Watch it carefully- it should only take 2 or 3 minutes. Smoosh raspberries on top of melted cheese and then sprinkle a few slivers of fresh basil on each appetizer. Drizzle a small amount of honey over the top of each.

Cindy & Jordan

Leftover Ham and Potato Bake

Posted in breakfast, main dishes, things we like to eat by

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Raise your hand if you have leftover ham. Now raise your hand if you’re sort of tired of cooking.

I’m not completely sick of cooking, but at times like this I sure wish we had pizza delivery available. This super easy recipe came from my desire to use up leftover ham from Christmas dinner, and my desire for an easy dinner. I also had to consider the fact that we had 6 people to feed, 4 of whom are big eaters. We served ours with asparagus, salad and rolls.

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Leftover Ham and Potato Bake
1 – 32 ounce bag frozen hash brown potatoes, I used the southern style
2 – 10 3/4 ounce cans Cream of Potato soup
1 1/2 cups sour cream
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 to 1 1/2 cups cooked ham, diced
1 cup diced red and/or green peppers
4 to 5 diced green onions
1/4 tsp black pepper, more or less to taste

Topping
1 cup Panko bread crumbs
1 1/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 375*
Mix together all the ingredients, except the bread crumbs and the Parmesan cheese. Pour into a greased 9 x 13″ pan. Mix the bread crumbs and the Parmesan cheese together and sprinkle over the top of the casserole. Bake at 375* for approximately 1 hour, until golden brown and bubbly.

Cindy