Archive for February, 2011

Lemon Cheesecake

We’ve been super obsessed with lemons recently, so Tami made up this fresh dessert! Top with strawberries and chocolate sauce for an uber-decedant treat! Cut back on the amount of lemon juice for a more subtle flavor!

Crust Ingredients:

2 (generous) cups graham cracker crumbs
1 stick melted butter
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt

Cheesecake Ingredients:

16 ounces cream cheese
2 large eggs
1 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons lemon zest
6 tablespoons lemon juice


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Chicken Barley Soup

Adapted from Nourishing Traditions cookbook, using what we had on hand in the kitchen

Ingredients:

3 cups homemade chicken stock
3 cups filtered water
1 cup cooked barley
1 onion, finely chopped
5-6 stalks celery, chopped
2 cups cooked chicken

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Esalen Banana Coconut Bread

Straight from the Esalen Cookbook. Healthy, moist, sweet (but not too sweet) and yummy! Perfect straight out of the oven, just cool enough to handle with butter melted over it!

Ingredients:

5 tablespoons butter, softened
1.25 cups sucanat
2 eggs
1 cup mashed ripe banana
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 cup unbleached flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
chopped walnuts for topping (or any other type of nut, if desired)

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Baked Alaska

Laurie surprised us with this scrumptious dessert that she discovered on marthastewart.com. You can make the whole process easier by using a box mix and way more fun by using a creme brule torch to brown the meringue.

Lavender Lamb Chops

Ingredients:

1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons walnut oil
1/2 cup finely chopped white onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons culinary lavender
8 lamb chops
sea salt & ground pepper

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Snickerdoodles

All right. Here they are. The world famous (infamous?) cookies… they’ve been called snickerdoodles, sugar cookies and even the “crack” cookies. These are the cookies that people eat so many of they literally make themselves sick. We take no responsibility for stomach aches. If you can’t control yourself, don’t make them!

These cookies have literally been passed down from generation to generation… with no actual instructions, just the ingredient list, the temperature and cooking time. We’ve included some helpful tips to get the softest, most addicting cookies possible!

Ingredients:

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cup granulated white sugar
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
2 3/4 cup white flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

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Meyer Lemon Bars

Originally drooled over these on foodporndaily.com and then every so slightly adapted the recipe from kitchenrunway.com to our needs. Which simply means a little more lemon zest & juice!

Crust Ingredients:

1 C of unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ C sugar
2 C flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon Meyer lemon zest

Filling Ingredients:

6 extra large eggs, at room temperature
3 cups sugar
2 tablespoons grated Meyer lemon zest (4 to 6 lemons)
1 cup freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice
1 cup all-purpose flour

powder sugar for dusting

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Bacon Waffles

Surprise your sweetie this Valentines day weekend with the only way you can possibly make waffles better… with bacon! And brown sugar!

Adapted from joythebaker.com

Ingredients:

10 slices of bacon
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 grapeseed oil
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups buttermilk
(we made our own butter milk with 2 cups of milk and 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar)

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Upside-Down Apple Sour Cream Cake

From our guest baker/blogger Laurie. Adapted from a recipe she found on epicurious.com, we totally love her version–just the perfect amount of sweet. We were all talking about second helpings before we even finished our first slice! Yum!

Cake Ingredients

1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 Golden Delicious apple, peeled, cored, finely chopped (about 3/4 cup)

Apple Ingredients

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter
1/3 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
2 8-ounce Golden Delicious apples, peeled, halved, cored, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices

Find full instructions on epicurious.com

Split Pea Soup

Want to know the (not-so) secret ingredient? Bacon! Seriously… best split pea soup we’ve ever had!

Ingredients:

1 cup split peas
3 cups water
1 large garlic clove, minced
2 slices bacon
1 stem celery
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon celery flakes
1 tablespoon parsley flakes

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Andes Mint Brownies

These intense brownies came from our desire to fuse two love affairs: chocolate and mint!

The first iteration of these brownies started with a single bar of Lindt Dark Chocolate Mint chopped up super fine and mixed into the batter. While that version was pretty good, it just wasn’t minty enough. This time we not only found normal Andes, we found a conveniently pre-chopped up bag of Andes, which saved some prep time. So with mint mixed in and turned into a frosting, we’re finally satisfied with these brownies!

It’s probably the only time you’ll see a box mix on our blog; but Ghirardelli’s are so phenomenal there’s really no reason to waste time making brownies from scratch!

Ingredients:

Box mix of Ghirardelli brownies
1 egg
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup canola oil, butter, coconut oil or your prefered oil
1 bag chopped Andes Mints (can generally be found in baking aisle with chocolate chips)
1 box of whole Andes Mints

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Triple Chocolate Cinnamon Cookies

These are the kind of cookies that you eat and then you can’t stop talking about how good they are. They’re SO good. Really. It’s hard to explain how a cookie can be so good. Like, seriously. The only reason you’d regret trying them is because you can’t stop eating them. Because they’re SO good.

Originally seen on foodporndaily.com and then adapted from hotpolkadot.com.

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup demerara sugar
2 eggs
2 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups 60% chocolate chips
1 cup finely chopped semi-sweet chocolate

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Bison Burgers


Ingredients:

1 pound of ground bison
lemon pepper
salt
oregano

 

Instructions:

Knead together the ground bison and spices (to taste) in a bowl
Form into four patties
Grill 5 – 7 minutes on each side
Pile high with toppings and enjoy!
For a slow-carb version, wrap your burger in lettuce or collard greens