 My better half and I spent a 2 solid years trying to purchase a new couch. A ridiculous amount of our lives were devoted to this task, in my opinion. We each had our own criteria for the piece of furniture that would become the centerpiece of our living room for years to come. 🛋 One of us wanted beautiful and practical (ie- stain resistant🍷) - the other was more interested in napablility. 😴 You can probably guess who wanted which. 😅 Needless to say, we ended up in goldilocks scenario. Some were too soft or too light, others were too hard or too short and some just weren't conducive to napping. 😂 If you've ever worried that you and your partner are too in sync - just commit to making a furniture purchase together.🤣 Or build a house together - or tackle a room remodel, redecorate a space together or plan a wedding.😬 Really any big decisions will bring out the differences between two people. If I'm being honest, the couch shopping experience made me question how we ever came to a consensus on anything. 😅  The fact is - we're different. In our tastes in furniture is different and our tastes in food is different. I like salads and vegetables and chocolate. He loves meat and fries and ice cream. He doesn't ever complain when I serve salads for dinner but I know he secretly wishes that his salad would somehow magically turn into a burger on his plate. Sooo - I came up with a meal that I could serve my way AND his way.
A burger and a burger bowl. #winwin Oh and since our twenty something girl who lives here but isn't always around to eat a full meal with us - I served the extra basil pesto with tortilla chips for her. If you've still got leftovers, stir that delicious pesto into an omelette or use it as a sauce for your favorite pasta.
Since I'm the author of this blog - It's all about me today.😅 I'm sharing my recipe and instructions for the amazing the Chicken Burger Bowl. I'm confident that you can deduce how to make this into a burger from here. 🤣 🍔 I hope that you enjoy this - any way you like. Chicken Burger Bowl with Avocado Pesto 1 lb. ground chicken ¼ cup minced red onion 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped 1/2 Tablespoon chili powder 2 teaspoons sea salt ½ teaspoon black pepper Avocado Pesto ½ cup basil leaves 1/2 cup fresh parsley ¼ cup pine nuts 1/4 cup olive oil Juice from ½ lemon ¾ teaspoon sea salt 1 large avocado, peeled and pitted Bowls A few handfuls of lettuce for each bowl Cherry tomatoes, cut in half A sprinkle of pine nuts, or your favorite nut
Mix together burger ingredients in a large bowl with hands.
 Add burger and avocado pesto to bowls.  Serve with roasted sweet potato wedges if you like. Have a great weekend!
Ciao!
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 It's strawberry season in Georgia! Who doesn't love strawberry season?🍓 I took my love of fresh picked strawberries to a whole new level this Spring when I carefully packed 50 of them into a backpack and flew them across the country on an airplane to my parent's house. 😅✈️ I was a little nervous about getting them through security and I can tell you from experience now that TSA isn't exactly thrilled about carry on bags filled with fresh fruit. 😬 Why go through all that trouble to fly fresh picked strawberries from Georgia to Ohio, you ask? The strawberries in Northeast Ohio won't ripen for picking for at least a couple more months, which means that fresh berries in April were quite a treat for the Ohioans.
Leave it to my mom to turn those prized berries into stuffed strawberry waffle supreme.😋 Just proof that my mom is the ultimate creative cook and that there are endless possibilities for a bucket of strawberries. I usually keep my strawberry recipes simple - a little melted chocolate or some fresh whipped and biscuits but I pretty much love strawberries any way. Inspired by my mom's epic strawberry breakfast creation, I decided to branch out and try a new way to enjoy these giant, juicy berries that I so carefully hand selected from the strawberry field last week. A little sugar, a squeeze of lemon, a dash of salt and a little time is all it took to highlight the natural goodness of this delicious fruit. If you're a fan of strawberries - you should try this sorbet - it's amazing. 🍧  Strawberry Sorbet 2 1/2 pounds strawberries, quartered 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup corn syrup 1 Tablespoon lemon juice 1 teaspoon salt
 Transfer mixture to frozen container. Press plastic against surface and freeze 6 hours.  Making strawberry sorbet has launched me right into summer mode. Is it time to open the pool yet?
Ciao!  I have skills. One of them is the uncanny ability to break off large portions of my teeth at the precise moment that my dentist office closes for the weekend AND when travel of town. 🤦🏻♀️ This has happened to me on more than one occasion and although I had the option of calling the dental emergency number when it happened to me again last month, I deemed my broken molar a non-emergency situation and powered through until I could get an appointment to see the dentist. 🤣 I have come up with my own coping techniques for when these unfortunate dental situations pop up. Even though I can't eat normally, I discovered relatively quickly that room temperature red wine and melted chocolate is the most gentle (and delicious) sustenance for my sensitive tooth with exposed nerves. 🍷🍫 And a weekend of chocolate and wine proved to be the pretty great. I wasn't mad about it. 🤣 #wineandchocolatetherapy  As far as I was concerned, there was only one flaw with my wine and chocolate plan - neither one appealed to me before noon.😅 Warm, soft, homemade cinnamon rolls to the rescue. Problem solved. Wine, chocolate and cinnamon rolls. Despite my broken tooth - all in all, not a bad weekend. 🦷 😂 Turns out, a full set of functioning teeth is not actually a requirement to fully enjoy homemade cinnamon rolls with creamy, cream cheese frosting. I've never appreciated a soft, warm, cinnamony muffin more in my life but it wasn't just me. There were a lot of oohs and ahhs from my family as well.  Cinnamon Roll Muffins Muffins 3/4 cup warm milk 3 Tablespoons sugar 2 teaspoons active dry yeast 1 large egg 2 Tablespoons butter, melted 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 1/2 cups flour Filling 4 Tablespoons butter, softened 3/4 cup brown sugar 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg Frosting 2 ounces cream cheese (softened) 2 Tablespoons butter (softened) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
 Bake 15-18 minutes at 375.  Allow the muffins to cool for 10 minutes before removing them from the pan.
 Spread the frosting over the warm cinnamon rolls and enjoy.  In case you were curious - I am now the proud owner have a shiny new crown on my broken molar and you'll be pleased to know that I am back to consuming are more healthy diet again.
Ciao!  Today marks the last day of Passover. A celebration of Jewish people being exiled out of Egypt. As the story goes, they packed and left Egypt in such a hurry that they didn’t have enough time to even let their bread rise and only were able to bring unleavened, cracker-like bread called matzah with them. To celebrate this exodus, Jewish people today continue to remove leavened foods from their diets during the Passover. Something that can make Passover dessert planning a bit of a challenge for even the most experienced baker. I love a baking challenge so when I was tasked with coming up with Kosher, flourless, desserts with no leavening for a sweet ending to a Seder dinner - I jumped all in. Flourless chocolate tortes, coconut macaroons, meringues, chocolate covered strawberries and chocolate toffee matzo squares were just a few of the amazing recipes that I came across in my Passover dessert search. It didn't take long before my head was swirling with decadent Passover dessert recipes and settling on just a few, proved to be a challenge.  Chocolate Matzo Mousse Cake in a nutshell is a no-bake, tiramisu inspired icebox cake made with Matzo crackers. It has the potential to be stacked 18 layers high or more, to create a stunning, Seder dinner centerpiece. I chose to make mine into more of a short stack cake. My goal for the Seder dinner desserts was to provide several small bites so guests could enjoy a few bites of each dessert. Four ingredient desserts are just perfect for busy dinners. Don't let the simplistic ingredient list fool you though. This elegantly simple dessert is truly extraordinary. With ingredients like espresso soaked Matzo, dark chocolate and whipped cream - who needs anything else?  Chocolate Matzo Mousse Cake 2 cups chopped dark chocolate 2 1/2 cups heavy cream, divided 1 cup strong warm coffee 12 matzo sheets
 Remove from pan with parchment and slice into squares.
Happy Passover.
Ciao!  After a weekend of overindulging in decadent Easter treats - it's time for a nutritional reset. Please tell me that I'm not the only one feeling that this week.😬 It isn't helping that my refrigerator is still stocked with weekend leftovers either. Spaghetti with clams, homemade focaccia, my mom's famous rolls, lots of cheeses, banana cream pie, lemon berry pound cake, coconut macaroon lemon squares and chocolate matza toffee squares just to name a few. And don't even get me started on the chocolate and candy from our Easter baskets. 🐣 The great thing about entertaining for the weekend is leftovers - the bad thing about entertaining for the weekend - leftovers. 😂 We have more than our share of desserts in the house right now but we also have a plethora of leftover fruits and vegetables from our weekend festivities. My goal is to snack on the fresh blackberries, blueberries and the two buckets of freshly picked strawberries that were leftover from the weekend instead of the chocolate bunny in the pantry that's calling my name. 😅  Last night, I was trying to come up with a "healthy" dinner menu for this week so I typed "healthy Spring dinners" into the Pinterest search bar. This Superfood Salad recipe was the first recipe to appear. With the exception of the kale and the blueberry goat cheese, I had all of the ingredients already on hand. 😃 Who doesn't love a healthy dinner option that uses up leftovers? Full Disclosure: My better half doesn't particularly like fruit in his salads - or goat cheese - so I grilled a chicken breast to put on top of his salad of lettuce and nuts. 🤣 He thought that his salad was great and I thought my Superfood Salad was amazing. #everyonewins  Superfood Salad 3 cups salad greens 1 cup strawberries, diced 1 cup blackberries 1 cup blueberries ¼ cup shelled pistachios, roughly chopped 2 tablespoons pepitas blueberry goat cheese, crumbled Dressing ¼ cup plain greek yogurt 2 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice 1 teaspoon mustard 1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil ¼ cup fresh mint leaves, packed ¼ cup fresh parsley leaves 2 Tablespoons fresh oregano leaves, packed  Process dressing ingredients in the blender.  Arrange greens and salad ingredients in a bowl.  Serve dressing with salad.  The fresh mint, parsley and oregano for this herby dressing all came from my garden. I'm normally a vinaigrette kind of person - a balsamic vinaigrette to be exact - so this green goddess type dressing was a real change. It was DELICIOUS! Even if you don't like fruit in your salad, like my better half, you owe it to yourself to try this salad dressing. It's ridiculously good.
Ciao! |
