Pear Salad

This is a popular salad that's popping up on menus at just about every restaurant I go to. I add grilled chicken to this pear salad for some protein and to make it a more filling meal but most any meat will work with this salad. It's also tasty without meat. The combination of the pear, nuts, dried cranberries, and blue cheese makes this salad so deliciously perfect!

Ingredients:

Mixed greens

Dried cranberries

Pecans (walnuts work well too)

Red grapes, halved

1 pear, thinly sliced

Blue-Cheese

Grilled Chicken

Dressing of your choice (I recommend this one)

Use the amount of each ingredient depending on your liking. Toss all ingredients together and enjoy!

It's a Bark Mitzvah!

(This picture was taken right after the bones were applied. Sorry for the wet look at this moment)

Melissa, one of my craziest friends, decided to have a birthday party for her Cockapoo, Zeus, who celebrated his 3rd birthday on April 25th! To celebrate his birthday Melissa hosted a "Bark Mitzvah" (even though his birthday had nothing to do with the age 13th). I was super excited because this was Rudy's first dog birthday party to attend and because I was in charge of making the cake! I've been dying to work with fondant for a while now but never really had the right occasion until the Bark Mitzvah!

I did a lot of research on fondant and a lot of brainstorming on the design of the cake. I seriously thought about this cake day in and day out! Do I want to do cupcakes? Do I want to do a round cake? Chocolate or vanilla? The thoughts kept following. Then I decided to reach out to the one person who knows cake very well! Yep, that's right, BECKY! After all, she has a degree in pastry arts. After asking Becky a million questions on fondant I finally decided what I was going to do. Just because I knew what I was doing didn't mean it was downhill from here! I was on the search for bone shape cookie cutters! I looked everywhere and had very little luck until I went to the Reading Terminal on my lunch break one day! I'm so lucky to have the Reading Terminal so close to my office because seriously you can find anything you're looking for there. I was able to get a bone cookie cutter in 2 sizes!

After doing some research online and talking to Becky, I decided that buying the fondant would be a lot easier than making it for my first time working with it. So I made a trip out to Michael's Arts & Crafts (Yes, another store that sells everything except a bone shape cookie cutter that is). I bought 4 lbs of fondant and brown fondant dye for the bones. I used the Magnolia Bakery recipe for the vanilla cake and their awesome butter cream recipe for the fondant 'glue'. After I made the cake and applied the butter cream icing it was time for the fondant fun to begin! It might sound silly to make a cake and use 2 icings but as I briefly mentioned the butter cream icing is the glue for the fondant.

Now it's time to roll the 2lb brick of fondant out to a nice round shape to cover the round cake. That's a lot of work! First you have to knead the fondant using cornstarch or confectioner's sugar, then it's time to roll it out. After placing the rolled out fondant on the cake it was time to die the remaining fondant brown and cut out the bone shapes. Dying the fondant was tricky and messy process. I needed to use a lot of the gel dye to get to this shade of brown. Once I was happy with the shade of brown it was time to roll it out and use the cookie cutters to make the bone shapes. To get the bones to stick to the white fondant you have to slightly wet the shape and stick it on.  Overall, this was a fun process and a lot of work! I'm happy I experimented with fondant. I think the next time I'm using fondant, I'll make cupcakes and a small amount of fondant on each cupcake (stayed tune), since I'm not a huge fan of the fondant flavor.

Philadelphia Cupcake is right down the street from my office. They make 'pupcakes' for dogs. I had to make sure I picked some of them up for the party! Rudy was lucky enough to have one at home before the party! You can tell he enjoyed it! He's too cute!

I must thank Nadya for her help with this long process! Thank you, Nadya!

Balsamic Vinaigrette

Making your own salad dressing is really easy and saves a lot of money too. I very rarely buy salad dressing unless I'm in a pinch. Balsamic vinaigrette is one of my favorite dressings. It works well on mostly all salads and works as a great marinade too. This is a really simple recipe especially since you probably have all the ingredients in your pantry.  This recipe makes 1 cup. If you're making a big salad or marinading meat or vegetables you might want to double the recipe. You can store the vinaigrette in the refrigerator in an airtight container for 1 week.

This recipe below comes from Sara Foster's Fresh Every Day Cookbook

Ingredients:

4 garlic cloves

Sea salt

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

1.Using a mortar and pestle or the flat side of a chef's knife on a cutting board, mash together garlic and 1/2 teaspoon salt to form a paste.

2.In a medium bowl, stir together garlic paste, mustard, balsamic and red wine vinegars. Add oil in a slow, steady stream, whisking until incorporated. Season with salt and pepper.

Don't forget to eat your brussels sprouts!

Brussels sprouts are a vegetable that you either love or hate. I happen to be a person who loves them (most likely because of my mother. After all, they're her favorite vegetable). They're not a vegetable that I buy often. So as weird as it may sound, it's like having a treat when I do get them. I typically roast brussels sprouts with pecans (as I did for a November Club a couple years ago) but I thought I'd try a different cooking method this time.  So I turned to Martha, since I'm usually never let down by her recipes. I found a recipe for seared brussels sprouts with vinegar glazed red onion. Sounds yummy, right? Trust me it was! The glazed red onion added a sweet flavor to the brussels sprouts. So if you're a person who doesn't like brussels sprouts because you think the flavor is 'too strong' try this recipe out. It's a nice balance of strong and sweet flavors.

Ingredients:

1 (about 10-ounce) basket brussels sprouts

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 small red onion, thinly sliced lengthwise

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Directions:

Trim outer leaves and stems from brussels sprouts, and discard. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil, and add salt. Meanwhile, prepare an ice-water bath. Add brussels sprouts to boiling water, and cook until tender but still bright green, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat, drain, and plunge into ice-water bath to cool. Drain well, and cut in half.

Heat 1/2 tablespoon butter and 1/2 tablespoon olive oil in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add brussels sprouts, and cook, tossing occasionally, until they are brown and crisp on the edges, about 3 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and transfer to a large bowl. Cover with aluminum foil to keep warm.

Add remaining 1/2 tablespoon each butter and oil to the same pan over medium-low heat. Add onions, and cook, tossing occasionally, until wilted and transparent, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add vinegar (stand back to avoid the fumes), and stir to loosen any brown bits on bottom of pan. Cook until vinegar is reduced and the onions are glazed, about 30 seconds.

Add onions to brussels sprouts, and toss well. Serve immediately.

Honey Wheat Germ Cookies

Tuesdays with Dorie is a group of food bloggers that bake the same recipe together every Tuesday and blog about what they baked. I'm not a part of the group; however, I follow what they're making just about every week. The recipes come from Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. The selections from the book all look so good. If I had more time on my hands and wasn't too concerned about my waist size I'd be baking these recipes a lot more often.

I had wheat germ on hand and wasn't too sure what to do with it until I stumbled upon this recipe. For some reason these honey wheat germ cookies don't sound like they're all that bad for you (ignore the fact that there's a stick of butter in them) which is somewhat good because they turned out really well and I can't stop eating them since they came out of the oven an hour ago. The honey flavor and the wheat germ work really well together. These cookies were really easy to make. The hardest part was waiting for the dough to chill. They're a perfect compliment for a cup of tea!

Ingredients: 

 
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup wheat germ
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. grated lemon zest
1 stick(8 tablespoons)unsalted butter, at room temperature, 1/2 cup honey
1 large egg
 

Whisk together the flour, 1/2 cup of the wheat germ, the baking powder and salt.

Working in the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl,run the sugar and lemon zest together with your fingers until the sugar is moist. Add the butter and, using the paddle or whisk attachment of a hand mixer, beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes, until creamy or smooth. Add the honey and beat for another minute or two. Add the egg and beat for about 2 minutes more, until you have a smooth, light , fluffy mixture. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients in 2 portions, mixing only until each addition disappears. Scrape the dough out onto a large piece of plastic wrap and wrap well. Chill the dough for at least 2 hours, or for up to 2 days.

Getting ready to Bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats. Put the remaining 1/2 cup wheat germ into a bowl. Remove the chilled dough from the fridge and, working with a spoonful of it at a time, roll the dough between your palms into 1-inch balls. Drop each ball into the wheat germ and turn to coat, then place the balls on one of the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch of space between them(these don't spread much). Use your palm or the bottom of a glass to gently flatten each cookie. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time, for 10 to 12 minutes, or until they are just firm to the touch. Transfer the cookies to a rack to cool to room temperature. Repeat with remaining dough. Storing: The cookies will keep at room temperature for about 3 days or wrapped airtight in the freezer for up to 2 months.