I love the farmers market!

I bought some goodies at the farmers market this weekend. Including two things I've never cooked with before - eggplant and okra! Look for some recipes with those ingredients soon. 

Summer Fruit Crisp

After an embarrassingly long hiatus, I'm back! With a summer fruit crisp! I've had a crazy busy past few months that left me little time to get creative in the kitchen and even less time to think about blogging any creations I did have. But with that "new graduate smell" slowly fading, I am ready to dedicate some time, energy, and love to my blog again.

I made you a fruit crisp. In individual portions. Someone recently pointed out to me that fruit crisp could really be a breakfast food. It's essentially just fruit and grains. Sure, it may have some extra sugars in the crisp, but really...it's like eating not-so-healthy cereal with fruit. Breakfast. So I put ice cream on mine to avoid any confusion.  I love this recipe because you could absolutely whatever fruit you wanted into it. I'm calling this one summer fruit crisp because it has peaches and cherries - distinctly summery fruits (especially in Nebraska where apples and bananas are just about the only fruits you can find in the winter).

Summer Fruit Crisp 

Ingredients:

• 2 fresh peaches
• 2 cups fresh cherries
• Sprinkle of sugar
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/4 tablespoon honey
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 400 F. Which I always forget to do. So don't forget.
2. Cut up your peaches and halve and pit the cherries. You can peel the peaches if you want, I chose not to. This is really just personal preference.
3. Combine peaches and cherries in a bowl and sprinkle with sugar, mix to combine. Don't go crazy with the sugar here. Fruit is naturally sweet, so the sugar really just serves to help make a little juice when you bake the crisp.
4. Divide fruit mixture between 4 ramekins. If you don't have ramekins, you can absolutely just throw all of the fruit into one baking dish!
5. In a new bowl, combine melted butter, brown sugar, flour, rolled oats, honey, and cinnamon. Mix well.
6. Sprinkle crisp over each fruit-filled ramekin evenly. Lightly press down into fruit. The measurements for the crisp are intentionally easy to double - if you like more crisp, go crazy! Double, triple, or quadruple the crisp to your liking!
7. Bake your ramekins in the oven for 20-25 minutes, or until you start to see the fruit mixture bubbling. Serve with ice cream if you are concerned about people thinking it is breakfast :) Enjoy!

 
 

 

For the record: I find the whole cobbler vs. crisp vs. crumble thing to be very confusing. But I'm pretty sure this qualifies as a crisp.

Martha Stewart's Glitter Ball Cookies

I'm a little premature with my January Martha Stewart Cookie Calendar cookie.  It's not quite January, but these cookies just screamed New Year's Eve to me.  The glittery look that the sanding sugar gives them makes me thinks of the big ball drop in Times Square.  I am not a huge fan of the fresh ginger, but I still like the cookies; my dad loves them, he's eaten three so far.  Fresh ginger is a matter of personal preference in the flavor department.  I might try them with ground ginger next time, just to see what difference there is.

Ingredients

- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened

- 1/2 cup powdered sugar

- 1/4 teaspoon salt

- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

- 2 cups + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

- sanding sugar, in assorted colors

- Creamy Ginger Filling

     - 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

     - 2 teaspoons finely grated, peeled fresh ginger

     - 1 cup powdered sugar

     - 1 tablespoon honey

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Beat butter, powdered sugar, and salt with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes.  Beat in vanilla.  Add flour and mix until just combined.
3. Shape dough into 3/4 inch balls.  Roll each ball in sanding sugar and place on parchment-lined baking sheets, about 1 inch apart.
4. Bake until edges are slightly golden brown or bottoms brown, about 15-18 minutes.  Rotate pans halfway through baking time.  Remove cookies from pan and let cook completely.
5. Prepare Creamy Ginger Filling by mixing all ingredients together either by hand or with an electric mixer.
6. When cookies have cooled, spread each with just enough filling to stick two cookies together.  Sandwich cookies together.

I hope you everyone has a safe and happy New Year! I'll probably be dropping some of these cookies into my belly while watching the ball drop tonight!

Mini Egg Bake/Quiche-Like Things

Okay...but really, I think I'll call these mini egg bakes.  Because, although they are quiche-like, they are missing the quiche crust AND I've found that there are many people who think they hate quiche and will therefore not try anything that even has the word quiche in it (my dad).  So, they are mini egg bakes in order to trick more people into trying them.  But really, they're super yummy!  And the combinations are literally endless with these little guys.  I made two different variations and I've got the recipe for each of these below.  One of the great things is that you can throw just about anything into these.  If you come up with some good combinations, be sure and post them in the comments!

Ingredients
Breakfast Burrito Mini Egg Bakes  (Yield: 12)

- 5 eggs

- 3 egg whites or 1 cup liquid egg whites
- 1 cup milk

- 1 cup ground breakfast sausage, cooked (I used Jimmy Deans precooked for extra ease)
- 1/4 cup scallions
- 1/2 cup shredded colby jack cheese
- 4 teaspoons of your favorite hot sauce
   Side Note:  I used Taco Bell packaged hot sauces, which I realize is kind of funny and probably completely anti-culinary, but I have two good reasons: 1) The little sayings on the packages make me chuckle and 2) When we make actual breakfast burritos at home, I always put Taco Bell hot sauce on them.

Ham and Broccoli Mini Egg Bakes  (Yield: 12)
- 5 eggs
- 3 egg whites or 1 cup liquid egg whites
- 1 cup milk
- 3/4 cup chopped up canadian bacon
- 1/2 cup colby jack cheese
- 1 cup broccoli
- dash of pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 F.  Line regular sized muffin tin with foil cupcake liners.
2. In a mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, egg whites, and milk.
3. Add all other ingredients listed to egg mixture and stir.
   
4. Evenly divide the mixture between the 12 liners.  (I used a 1/4 cup measuring cup for this and it measured out perfectly).
5. Bake in preheated oven until tops just start to brown, 30-35 minutes.  Remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.

New Year's Resolution involve counting calories? They're about 90 calories each, which obviously varies with what you put in them.

The great thing about these is that you can keep them in the refrigerator for 3-4 days or keep them frozen for a month.  Just microwave them for 30-60 seconds.

This is literally exactly what I ate for breakfast yesterday, times two.  Two of these egg bakes and little fruit are just enough breakfast for this girl!

My Very Merry Christmas

I've been a horrible blogger lately.  I've baked and cooked plenty, but have documented nothing and shared nothing.  It has been a busy past month, filled with school and work, but more importantly family, friends, and holiday festivities.  I had a wonderfully perfect Christmas.  It is perhaps going down in the books as favorite; although, there was the year I got the Barbie Dream House and cried when my uncle gave me a black backpack instead of a purple one.

I promise to try and be a better blogger in 2012; it would be my New Year's resolution if I believed in those.  My brother got me the Martha Stewart Cookie Calendar for Christmas, so my plan is to make each month's cookie and post it for you. (Plus, I got the Elephant Cookie Jar from Pier 1, circa blog post #1, so I can put all of my cookies in it!) I'm also going to try and do a Dinner Tonight/Dinner Tomorrow Night post every month. If I can do this, plus an extra random recipe and at least one feminist rambling every month, my blog will feel much more alive.  I'm planning on making some mini egg bake/quiche-like things tonight, so stay tuned for those. Hopefully I come up with a better name for them before posting!

Here are some pictures from my Christmas season.  I hope yours was just as merry as mine!

My New Toy

I bought a Keurig coffee maker online on Black Friday. It arrived in the mail and I immediately tried it out. I'm really enjoying it so far. I've bought several coffee varieties and am excited to try them all out.  But, this is not really why I'm writing.  It's related though.  Kind of.

You see, while I was strolling the aisles at my neighborhood Target in October, I found something.  I've been trying to slowly accumulate the things that I will want to have when I move in the Spring, which has really just become an excuse to buy anything in the home section of Target that catches me eye, especially if it's on clearance.  And so, I found an elephant coffee mug. There was really 0% chance it was not making it home with me, but I literally circled the store three times debating whether or not I should buy it. So, I brought it home and stuck it in a box downstairs that is full of things for when I move.

Then, as I was playing around with my new Keurig machine, I noticed that it's kind of finicky about what size mugs you can use.  I wanted a good, 10 oz mug to use, but most of those were too tall for the machine if you kept the drip tray on.  And then, I remembered that fabulous elephant mug.  I brought it up from downstairs and....it fit! Perfectly! It was a very exciting moment.  And now I have a completely valid reason to buy more elephant mugs from Target :)