Avocado

This fruit is something that I had to acquire a taste for. I went from hating it to finding it acceptable in some forms, to seeking it out in some forms, to just straight up liking it.

Over the weekend, I bought a couple of avocados and I’ve already used one to make my own guacamole. It was so good that I ate the whole bowl in two sittings.

Want the recipe? Well…I didn’t use exact measurements…

I’ve taken to eyeballing spices, which I should probably stop doing if I plan on sharing it with you.

If you’re alright with winging a recipe, you’ll need one ripe avocado, salt, pepper, garlic powder, a fork, a sharp knife, and a bowl. And also this video that teaches you how to get into the flesh of the avocado.

Cutting into an avocado for the first time can be fairly daunting, but it really isn’t that difficult. Use a sharp knife to cut it in half length wise, you’ll be able to tell when you hit the seed. Then, twist the avocado to separate the two halves. In the video, there’s a nifty to way to remove the seed and make pretty avocado slices. I just scarped it out with my fork into the prep bowl, including the half with the seed.

Once you have your avocado flesh in your bowl, mash it up with your fork. Then, add your seasonings. I suggest you start out with a little, maybe a teaspoon of each? After you’ve stirred those spices in, taste it and see if you need more spices.

If you want a more precise recipe, here’s classic Mexican guacamole from Avocados of Mexico.

Give the avocado another try, or a first try. And tell me how you prepare it!

Something else that I’ve made with avocados in the past–it been a while so I’ll have to make it again before I can share how I make it–is egg salad. Avocado is a great replacement for the mayo that typically goes in egg salad.

(I like my egg salad best when it’s fresh and warm and I put it on tortillas instead of bread).

Here’s a recipe that I might use next week minus the onions.

I want to make some more guacamole this week too and I might even give avocado toast another try as I mentioned before.

First Attempt at a Frittata

Adventures of a Cast Iron Skillet

Since Grandma got me a cast iron skillet, I’ve been really excited about trying it out as my friend easily discovered after simply looking at my Pinterest account. The first thing that I did was use it when we had a rare beef night on Saturday.

Meijers had these little beef filets wrapped in bacon on sale two for $4. I knew this wouldn’t be something Kevin would want so I bought the two little steaks for myself and a pound of beef along with a can of sloppy Joe makings for him. I also bought a Vidalia onion to go with my steak after Mom pointed them out and told me they were super tasty and only around for a limited amount of time. Per the website, they’re around from “late April through mid September.”

Anyways, I carmelized the chopped up tear-inducing onion in my cast iron and threw my mini steak on the George Foreman grill. The onion slices were wonderful! They had a sweet flavor, less of an onion sharpness than you might be used to experiencing. The bites of steak that weren’t fat were really tasty. I’m going to leave it at that.

And Kevin couldn’t tell the difference between the Meijers’ brand, low sodium sloppy Joe mix and the Manwich brand I usually get–small victories!

Anyways, I think the mistake I made with my cast iron was that I didn’t “wash” it right away with an oil laden cloth as the care instruction said, instead waiting for the next day. That next day being frittata day, I should have reseasoned the pan before using it.

Frittata

I’ve seen a lot of these dishes both online and in some of my cookbooks and they seem to be a good staple dish to learn. So I decided to give it a go.

Some recipes call for making it exclusively on the stove while others call for a combo of stovetop and oven. I decided to do the later so I could use my cast iron.

I decided to heat up a little bit of olive oil in the bottom of the skillet because I figure it wouldn’t hurt to try to help the eggs not stick. After it had heated up, I put my leftover onions, some baby spinach, and a bunch of pre-cooked, diced ham into the skillet, making sure that these ingredients were warmed up.

At this point, I realized that I’d need to preheat my oven if I had any hope of using it, so I set the dial at 400 degrees.

In a separate bowl, I beat six eggs with a splash of milk and dashes of salt and pepper. I then poured this over my fillings. As you can see in the slightly blurry photo above, I realized I forgot the cheese (I had mean to stir it into the egg bowl), so I dumped some shredded provolone on top.

While the eggs cooked, I used a spatula to attempt to gently lift the semi cooked portions of egg up so that the rest could hit the hot pan and start to cook as well. Once it was mostly firm, I used an oven mitt to put the skillet in the oven. After the proposed five minutes, it still wasn’t quite done, so I put it back in the oven for three more minutes.

This time, my frittata was cooked through.

Sadly, it didn’t come out of the pan in one, pretty pie shaped piece like the picture that I had seen. I don’t know if it was because I hadn’t cleaned my skillet properly or because I didn’t cook it correctly, put too much milk in it, put too many fillings in it…I’m not sure.

But, thankfully, it did turn out super tasty and I didn’t burn it. It might not be what I imagined, but at leat the end result was a tasty pile of eggs and fillings.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 6 eggs
• 2 tbs milk
• salt and pepper, to taste
• ham
• caramelized onions
• spinach
• provolone

Note

A frittata is a very versatile thing. Feel free to experiment with any number of different filling combinations.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Heat filling components (excluding cheese) in your oven safe skillet. If your fillings are still raw, cook them in this phase
3. Beat eggs, milk, and seasonings in a medium bowl, pour over filling mixture in skillet; add cheese to top of mixture in skillet or mix in with your eggs before pouring in skillet
4. Using a spatula, periodically lift egg mixture as it sets to make sure all of the egg gets cooked
5. Once eggs have mostly set, use an oven mitt or pot holder to transfer skillet to the oven to cook for 5-10 minutes, until the eggs are cooked through

Sally’s Baking Addiction

Sally‘s blog is probably the first foodie blog that I started seriously following. Besides Facebook and Twitter, I also try to check her website at least once a day to see what wonderfulness she has in store for her readers. It’s really hard not to fall in love with this website with its delectable looking recipe and gorgeous photos to accompany Sally’s wit and words of wisdom.

Her blog and the fact that she’s able to make a living off of working with it is truly an inspiration.

Besides a plethora of sweet treats–cakes, cookies, brownies, pies, etc.–Sally’s Baking Addiction is also home to snacks, savory meals, and healthy options.

In the latest of her posts that I read, for example, Sally shares her tips and tricks to making the perfect Chicago Style Pizza. This is one of her extremely detailed recipes in which she includes step by step pictures to help you follow in her footsteps. She always finds a way to make what seems to be very complicated into something you can picture yourself doing. I would show you at least one example of said pictures, but they’re hers and it wouldn’t be right. So follow the links!

Something that I’ve really been wanting to try to make off of her blog are her scones, particularly the Triple Chocolate Scones Supreme! Just looking at the pictures of these makes me want to run to the kitchen…

And, besides the pizza I was already talking about, I’d like to make the Pretzel Crusted Chicken Bites for dinner one night! I’m sure that my husband and I would love them, maybe with some mashed potatoes on the side?

I’m also looking forward to tackling the Cake Batter Chocolate Chip Cookies this year. I almost made them at one point in 2014, but I wound up not having time for Sally’s instructed dough chilling. I contemplated simply making them and cutting out the dough chilling, but there’s just something about Sally’s teaching that makes you want to follow her every word.

There’s a lot of science that goes into Sally’s baking and she manages to explain it in a way that all of her readers will understand. And I’m sure that this makes her cookbook a great read! Yes, it is on my wish list.

The point of this post is that you have to check out Sally’s Baking Addiction because I adore it and because your life will greatly benefit from her amazing recipes!

Super Easy Peanut Butter Cookies

First of all, Happy New Year’s Eve! I can’t believe that the year has gone by so quickly.

Tonight, my husband and I may or may not be going to a party. This is dependent on whether or not the party planner moves the party again. Just in case, I decided to make something last night to bring with us. I got home at about 8:30 pm, so I wanted something quick and simple that I could do before bed.

So I thought I’d do something with the 30 oz roll of Pillsbury peanut butter cookie dough that I had in my refrigerator. I remember making and having Peanut Butter Blossoms in the past, but I don’t have any Hershey’s Kisses in my apartment.

I do, however, have a bag of mini Reese’s cups and a mini muffin pan. I like mini things.

I’ve seen these before, but I wanted to make sure that I made them correctly, so I did a Google search and found a recipe for them on food.com.

Stormy’s Recipe shared by Karen=^..^=

Ingredients

• 18-24 mini Reese’s cups
• 1 (18 ounce) package of refrigerated peanut butter (or any variety of cookie really) cookie dough

Directions

1. Place unwrapped peanut butter cups in freezer before starting. Note: this step didn’t happen for me until after my cookies were in the oven, so they had less time to be cold. I would suggest you actually do this step to help with the process.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. Using a miniature muffin tin, place a 1 inch ball of dough in each cup. Note: since I had the big package of cookie dough, I cut it in half. Then, I made a bunch of slices out of the half, cut those halves into fourths, and then simply plopped each fourth in a muffin cup.
4. Bake for 5 minutes less than what the package directions say. (This usually turns out to be 7-8 minutes)
5. Remove from oven and leave in the pan.
6. Remove candy from freezer and carefully press one into each cookie. Note: I made half of these with a cluster of chocolate chips in the middle instead of peanut butter cups because my husband didn’t like the idea of the later.
7. Remove from tins after they are almost cool and then place on racks to cool completely. Note: it apparently takes longer than the time I waited to scoop them out of the cups. I used a spoon to do so and wound up with at least a few that I had to immediately throw in my mouth to avoid a mess. I did not mind throwing cookies in my mouth.

I am planning on making these again, probably in the near future considering the fact that I have half a package of peanut butter dough waiting for me in the refrigerator. I also have these cookies on a plate and covered in foil in the fridge because when my bedtime rolled around (10 pm), I didn’t feel like sitting up even longer to wait for the chocolate to finish setting.

These cookies are filled with the savory, sweet goodness of peanut butter with a core of rich chocolate and a bunch of added peanut butter. And this recipe is such a great vessel for so many other things. I’m picturing using a variety of different refrigerated cookie dough and candy combinations.

Is this something that you’ve played around with before?

Thoughts

I know that I haven’t been nearly as good at up keeping this blog as I have been with IBW, and I’d like to change that.

This blog is now going to be reviews on a little bit of everything and anything, as opposed to whatever it was I was originally doing. Book reviews? Quotes? Recipes? Randomness?

The first thing that I like to do when I return to a blog, especially in the scenarios where I have a new concept, is to change the theme.

So, what do you think of the theme? And the concept?

As the heading of the website says, if you have anything you want me to check out, let me know. Also, if there’s anything you want to share your opinion on, let me know.