No Bake Cookies

It's hot. It's summer. I'm pregnant. I'm tired.

So, I thought I'd share a quick dessert recipe with you. These are delicious and pretty easy to make!

No-Bake Cookies

2 Cups White Sugar
1/2 t Salt
1/2 C Butter
1/2 C Milk
1/2 C Peanut Butter
3 C Rolled Oats
1 t Vanilla Extract
6 T Unsweetened Cocoa Powder

In a saucepan, combine sugar, salt, butter, milk and cocoa. Bring to a boil and cook for 90 seconds stirring frequently. Remove from heat and quickly add peanut butter, vanilla and oats. Use a spoon to make little dollops of mixture on wax paper. Cool until hardened and munch away!

Mom's Cooking

It feels sort of wrong to blog about food when you've gained 10 pounds over the last three weeks. Don't get me wrong- I realize it's a natural part of pregnancy and it's all gone straight to the kid in the belly. Still, with gluttony being one of the seven deadly sins it's hard not to sit back and think, "Should I really be writing about food right now?"

Anyway, my mom will be here in 16 days days and has told me to think of food I'd like for her to make. Yeah, man! Living 2,000 miles away from my mom makes me really miss her (and her cooking) every day. The question- which of her bunches of delicious dishes do I want her to cook??

So, this leaves the question: if your mom were coming to cook for you, what would you want her to prepare?

Think about it and leave a comment letting me know.

Dreaming, Wishing, Hoping...and Eating Pineapple

As our son's due date is mere days away I find myself mostly unable to focus on anything else. I know, I know- "a watched pot never boils." But I can't help it! A desire for relief from the discomforts and an uncontrollable desire to kiss some serious baby cheeks is occupying my thoughts. And while I'm preparing for my all natural birth and purposely avoiding induction, I can't help but wonder if some of these foods really do expedite baby's arrival.

Eggplant parmigiana? Pineapple? Balsamic vinegar? General spicy food? Licorice? Perhaps I can incorporate a little balsamic vinegar into something delicious (how about tomato mozzarella salad with a balsamic reduction?). But something (last night's experience of being up all night with heartburn might be that something) tells me to tread carefully in the food department.

Tea and toast for me!

Fall is in the Air

On the 4th of July I completely messed myself over the in the food department when I found a recipe for pumpkin pie parfaits. Dear Husband and I thought they looked so good that when he came home from work we jetted out to W-Mart to gather pumpkin pie mix, pudding, etc. to create our delicious dessert.

To save a lot of time (and your poor brains from reading such an extremely boring story) I'll just tell you that we couldn't find the seasonal ingredients in our poorly organized grocery store. We settled on some pumpkin pie sundae topping and threw together little sundaes with graham cracker crusted dollops of vanilla ice cream. We warmed the topping and drizzled- finishing off the sundaes with some delicious whip cream.

I tell you all of this merely because I feel I need to somehow explain how I got into such a food funk. All I want to eat is food you eat when September 21st rolls around! I want to make pumpkin pies, hot chocolate, savory soups, pork roasts, potatoes, homemade rolls, green bean casserole!

Those poor Starbucks baristas...it's only a matter of days before I start to harass them about when I can order a pumpkin spice latte!

Tomato Basil Fettuccine

I've had a very busy past couple of days being pregnant. As I near the end of this lengthy and mostly uncomfortable journey I find that I am significantly more hungry than usual. When I desire something to eat I often think on one thing and that is the thing I must eat. So, when I began to crave fresh basil I made a family favorite to eat along Parmesan chicken.

Tomato Basil Fettuccine

• A couple of cups of cooked fettuccine
  
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Clove of minced garlic (Note: We are garlic addicts...I recommend adding garlic to your taste)
  
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
  
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
• 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Saute' onion, garlic and olive oil together. Add tomatoes and warm them in the olive oil mixture. In a separate bowl, toss fettuccine, olive oil mixture, fresh basil and grated Parmesan together. Enjoy!

Originally posted Tuesday, July 6th at 9:40 AM

I made the aforementioned balsamic reduction in October 2009. It seems silly to remember a time in which I made a sauce but it was the beginning of the expansion of my somewhat limited palate. I also recall the timing because we had a month of delicious culinary exploration before and abrupt interruption in November 2009: I found out I was pregnant.

I had no idea how much my tastes would change! A month and a half before fall had rolled in and I was braising applewood tenderloin and was experimenting with all sorts of bottles of olive oil. Then there was the positive pregnancy test and next thing I knew I was craving Big Macs and Egg Nog.

This led to a very disappointing Thanksgiving spent in a packed Denny’s eating anything but the meal I had started planning mid-October. I hated the smell of garlic and suddenly no matter what butter I tried it just tasted sour. (I should mention here that we were ECSTATIC about adding a family member and if I hadn’t promised myself I’d keep on the topic of food we’d be talking about my favorite subject…the baby.)

However, as the months passed on it opened my eyes to a new aspect of the food world- nutrition! I certainly had no idea that avocado was so packed with folic acid or that lemons could help prevent cancer of the mouth!

So, pregnancy has been less of an interruption of the foodie interest after all. It was more just a detour that taught dear husband and I about the importance of what we put into our mouths.

Meanwhile, I’m dying to try a salmon tartare after this boy is born. Any day now!

It Just Sounds Gourmet: Balsamic Reduction

Originally posted Monday, July 5th at 2:04 AM

While I am certainly no Julie Powell, I am most definitely a lover of all things (well, most) culinary and love to write about it. My foodie tendencies began while watching last season’s Top Chef with my husband. Every week we ate the same things: taco salad, frozen dinners, who cares and Chinese take-out. We both would eat our average (read: burned) pork dumplings from Canton Chinese down the road and stare at some gnocchi dish saying, “Why can’t we eat like that?”

It was that attitude, along with an impressive swish of any given television chef’s hand with the phrase “with a little bit of a balsamic reduction”, that led to me searching all over the place for an easy way to make a reduction sauce.

So, I set out to find the easiest set of instructions I could find. Bullet points, layman’s terms, maybe a picture…and our eyes (mouths) were opened to the deliciously refined sounding and tasting “balsamic reduction.”