Breakfast

Nature's Pride 100% Whole Wheat Bread toast, lots of natural creamy peanut butter, and banana slices, mm mm mmmm.

(once again I am not being compensated in any way by Nature's Pride, it is merely what I happen to use. Thank you)

Simple Peanut Butter Granola Bars

This is one of my favorites, and one of the easiest, of my recipe finds. A big problem with a lot of granola bars is that they are secretly full of crap and bad for you. These are wholesome, healthy, and suuuper yummy! I got extremely excited about eating these warm the first time I made these, but I ended up not being a fan (not to mention they were a little overcooked--I adjusted the cooking time the second time I made these, which will be the time you see in the recipe). But, once cooled, they are extremely good, and once made they are great to just wake up and eat a granola bar for a speedy breakfast. Another HUGE perk of these is that they only NEED 4 ingredients. I knew they would be healthier if I'd opt for certain add ins, but I also knew that I'm broke and that that would have to be saved for a later, more lucrative, period in my life (I did put the chocolate chips in, however, I am me after all). And, I always impress people when I tell them I made my own granola bars. So now you can impress people too!

Lightened Up Spinach Artichoke Dip

I don't much like green vegetables. We don't get along. Which is why I was so annoyed when my best friend, Alex, would insist we share Spinach Artichoke dip whenever we would go out to eat at T.G.I. Friday's. To my surprise, I liked it-and grew to like it more and more the more I ate it. I was so proud of myself! I liked something healthy! Yay! Then, a year or two later, I found out-actually not so good for me. Well, sheesh, what's the point of eating green things if they're not even good for you?! Figures. Enter this recipe. I found it back when finding recipes was an occasional thing, and not yet an obsession, on Kraft's recipe website. It is supposed to be a makeover of the very dip I fell in love with at Friday's. Healthy Spinach Artichoke dip! Yay! But-would it taste good? Answer: yes!!! Yum! It is one of my favorite things to make now, and I hope it becomes that for you too!

Lightened Up Spinach Artichoke Dip (Recipe Makeover)

from Kraft Recipes

Super Chocolate Oreo Crunch Brownies

These brownies are pure, sinful bliss. I was first introduced to them when I was catering. To make money, while I'm still a newbie actor, I'm doing promotional modeling and occasionally catering. During one catering event (through Mayan Woods Catering), Chef Paul had what he called "Triple Chocolate Oreo Crunch Brownies". They were thick, decadent, frozen brownies with hunks of dark, milk, and white chocolate, oreos, and marshmallows in them. At the end of the night there were tons of leftovers so I took some home. I was so in love with those brownies I immediately started thinking of how to re-create them. When I had another opportunity to work with Chef Paul, I asked him, and he gave me a a general run down. I believe it was only a week later that I made these. I have some confessions: I was lazy/don't have room for a lot of ingredients, so I used boxed brownie mix, I don't really use white chocolate, so I decided to pass on it this time (but that does not mean I won't use it next time or that you should not use it), and I believe this was something of a work in progress. I used a 9 x 13 pan and I think the brownies were just a little too thin to support all the add-ins, it made them extra gooey, so (even though they are still AWESOME) next time I will use a smaller pan so the brownies are thicker, and hopefully they'll hold together better. And because of the goo-factor I really do advise freezing them, it's the only way to keep them from being a mess, and for some reason (and I know this is shocking as I tend to like my desserts warm and gooey) they are just better cold. Ok, enough anticipation, here's the recipe (please feel free to toy around with it, this is not one of those you need to follow to the letter):

Making lemonade!

I'm not actually making lemonade. But I AM taking these "lemons" and making lemonade in the form of this version of oil pasta.

This was my lunch yesterday, and today. I used whole wheat linguine this time (something I'd been nervous to try-turns out tastes just as good! So I'll probably use that from now on), and put some of the cut up chicken breast from my botched attempt at delish.com's Chicken alla Milanese in it. A thoroughly lovely meal! Oh, and yesterday I made some extra insane brownies. I'll share those with you later ;).

(Note: I don't advise trying to make that recipe from delish.com, I think it may have been wrong. 1 cup of parsley just does not seem right, as my poor chicken can attest.)

Failure

Well, folks, one of the saddest things that can happen while cooking happened today. I tried a new recipe (for "Chicken alla Milanese"), and it was not good. It tasted extremely strongly of parsley and it just was a disappointment and a failure. And worse, it was a waste. I wasted food, time, and money. To try to at least get something out of it, I scraped the parsley mixture off the chicken breasts and will save them to try to put the chicken in something else (such as making a Campbell's Select Chicken Noodle soup more chicken-y, like I ended up doing for my lunch). It's times like this I really can't wait until Michael moves here, because even if he doesn't like it, he'll eat it anyway. Anyone else have recipe failure happen to them? Sucks, huh?

Linguine con aglio e olio d'oliva

I have been eating what my family calls "oil pasta" for as long as I can remember, from Christmas Eve's Feast of the Seven Fishes with all of my Grandpa Blogna's family, to learning things to cook for when I moved out to NYC . It's a recipe I learned from my mom, who learned it from my dad's mom, who learned it from grandpa's mom (my great-grandma Helen Blogna-maiden name Porrini). I don't even have this recipe written down anywhere, I just know how to make it-so bear with me on this recipe. It's basically just linguine with olive oil that is cooked with garlic-it's Italian name is linguine con aglio e olio d'oliva (linguine with garlic and olive oil). It is extremely good, easy to make, and goes great with a lot of different things, or used in different variations. And-BONUS-it makes my hands smell like garlic!

Linguine con aglio e olio d'oliva "Oil Pasta"

The Most Delicious Thing You'll Ever Eat AKA Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie (UPDATED PHOTOS)

Before I decided to just jump in and do this blog, I sort of waded in the shallow end by doing mini blog posts through notes on facebook. Thusly, I will have my first few recipes I put on here be the same ones I put there. I'm going to tell you right now "you're welcome" for this recipe. It's amazing, it's ridiculous, it's The Most Delicious Thing You'll Ever Eat! I thought my eyes would bug out when I first saw this recipe on How Sweet's blog. Chocolate chip cookie + pie!?? So, it didn't really take me long to tackle the recipe and bask in the wonder of it's yumminess. I eventually learned that this is some sort of adaptation of a Kentucky Derby pie? But I think that uses bourbon? I don't know, all I know is that since I ate all of it....I miss it. I genuinely miss that pie. And my waistline won't let me make it again so soon. *sigh*
Disclaimer: this is a very rich dessert, especially when eaten warm, ideal if you love chocolatey goodness. If you're not such a fan of the richness, it probably would be pretty good to you served cold maybe?
Alright enough! Here it is:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie

from How Sweet It Is

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup (which equals about 16 tbsp) butter, melted and cooled 
• 1 cup chocolate chips (I used 60% dark cocoa Ghiradelli chips...mmm)
• 1 unbaked pie shell (The recipe called for a regular unbaked crust, but I used KeeblerReadyCrust in graham cracker (and later homemade graham), I'm sure anything would be good though-use your preference!)

Preparation:

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F
• In a large bowl, beat eggs until foamy. Then beat in flour, sugar, and brown sugar, until well blended. Then blend in melted, room temperature, butter. Stir in (with a spoon, etc.) chocolate chips. (The consistency will not be like regular cookie dough, and it won't taste that awesome, so don't be disappointed. Just wait, the pie will be worth it.)
• Pour in to pie shell. Bake for 50-60 minutes.

Let it cool for a bit before cutting it, or it'll fall apart. Or just eat it falling apart, no judgement here. You can eat it warm and gooey and chocolatey like me. Serve it warm with ice cream and let it get all up in that pie like HowSweet, or serve it cold, like Michael probably will when I make him eat some. No matter what, just attempt to keep control of your drooling, I know I am right now.....I really do miss that pie.


Note: I am not, in any way, being compensated by anyone mentioned in this blog (Keebler, Ghiradelli, even HowSweet). I am merely telling you what I used and liked, all of my promotion of them is just from genuine love :)