Croisant French Toast

Like I said last week, now that the weather is nicer Lilly and I are venturing out more often. A couple of weeks ago we went to a breakfast place, Kitchen, that Lilly had been curious about based on it's Yelp! page. And seriously it was well worth it - the walk, the wait, ect. It was so good. A tiny little hole in the wall type place with one guy running the whole show, and the food was super delicious. I ordered the croisant french toast, because both Lilly and I were curious about it, and neither of us had ever heard of, or thought of, using croisants as a french toast bread (though apparently it is a thing). So feeling a bit inspired the next time we were at the grocery store we got some croisants. 

I sliced them into thirds so that they were about the thickness of bread (and for those of you who may know me well, miraculously didn't cut myself or anything in the process! ...I may be a tad accident prone). I then used a casserole dish to scramble up the eggs and milk and what not (ie: a touch of vanilla and brown sugar), because well, frankly that's what I use when I make french toast, since it has a flat bottom and is wide enough that when I soak the bread in the egg mixture it can actually lie flat in it. (did you like that run on sentence right there?)

Basically as you can see I just made french toast as one always would more or less, just using croisant slices instead of normal bread. Nothing too hard or crazy here kids!

Now I will say that it was not nearly as good as the french toast I got when we went out to breakfast that morning, but damn, it may well be some of the best french toast I personally have ever made (and trust me, I've made more than my fair share of french toast over the years!) ... Breakfast. The most important meal of the day. See you next Tuesday!

Moss Terrarium

Now that the weather is starting to get nicer and spring has finally arrived Lilly and I have begun to venture out of our apartment a bit more (well, at least to places besides Savers, Target, and the grocery store). You may remember from my post about decorating for the holidays a big glass jar that Lilly got with the intentions of turning into a moss terrarium, well with the spring weather that project has finally come to fruition. We've been hiking around a state park not that far from where our apartment is, and it has lots of moss. So of course Lilly decided to grab a bit (shh! it's a secret), along with some rocks and dirt to finally make the terrarium of her dreams. 

She even found this cute little flower that I have my suspicions about how long its going to last. We'll see, it is adorable, so hopefully it makes it, however, it looks rather delicate :/

Right now it's living near a window to get some sunlight, though we're not really sure if it needs much sunlight at all to survive? But we figure at least the flower probably does. Below you should also note that on these walks in the woods we discovered that Lilly is so strong she can lift entire fallen trees! ;) Hopefully the weather stays nice and we get out on more excursions in nature, because as much as I love sitting around indoors all day, I'd really rather be outside. See you next Tuesday!

Apple Raspberry Pie

Ever since I watched Pushing Daisies (an excellent show btw) a few weeks ago I have been itching to bake a pie. Perhaps it's because I haven't baked much of anything for the past little while, and maybe it's because I've never really made a complete pie by myself.  But mostly, I just wanted to eat some pie! Now having never made a pie before, I figured I should find a recipe, and settled on using this one. 

I froze the butter for about 15 minutes and then I cut it into the flour using two butter knifes, something I've only ever done before to make scones (maybe this summer if you're lucky I'll post about my strawberry scones, they're delightful). 

Once I added the water I mixed it a bit with the two knives and then used a very high tech device called cling wrap to cover the dough as I mixed it with my hands (the cling wrap served the sole purpose of keeping my hands clean). Once it was mixed I balled it up in the bottom of the bowl, covered it with the cling wrap and threw it in the fridge and went to the gym (not even joking, I knew I'd be eating pie that night, duh). When I came home from the gym after hopping in the shower for a bit of a rinse off and attending to my email, I prepped the apples. I cored, peeled and chopped up three big gala apples. 

By now the dough had been in the fridge for a couple of hours. I pulled it out of the fridge and started to get it ready for filling :)

 

I peeked in a few cabinets to check for a rolling pin, which I didn't think we owned anyways. Apparently I should have looked harder, because according to Lilly we do own one, and it's not that hard to find. Oh well. I ended up using a wine bottle to roll the dough out, which worked just as well. After I put it in the pan I trimmed it with my kitchen shears! Which is only really exciting because my nana got me (and every other member of our family) them for Christmas and I hadn't yet had a good reason to use them. So that was exciting. 

The into the bowl with my cut up apples went a bag of frozen raspberries which had thawed, a cup of sugar, a quarter cup of flour, a splash of vanilla, and a nice dusting of cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, the whole lot of which I stirred around until everyone had become well acquainted with one another. Then into the pan with the crust it all went (as pictured in the first picture of this post). 

Now my one complaint about the dough recipe is that there was almost enough to cover the top of the pie too ... just not quite enough. So I got a little creative and made it look nice(ish). It then went on a journey into a sweltering 350*F oven for 45 minutes. 

The number one question I walked away with is "how do you know when a pie is done"...you can't stick a toothpick in it. Hind sight 20/20, it could have used a little more time, the apples were ever so slightly undercooked and the crust I think would have benefitted from more time as well. Did it make it any less delicious? Perhaps. But damn was it good. I can only imagine how mind blowingly awesome it would've been if I had baked it just a bit longer. It got gobbled up, and apple raspberry is a winning combination in my book. We (being Lilly, a few friends we had over, and I) were so eager to try it that I did not even think to take a picture of it before it was cut into. But that's okay, because I was eating pie. Delicious pie. Do yourself a favor, bake a pie, and I'll see you next Tuesday!

Chickpea Hash Browns

It was late at night, Lilly had gone back home so I had the apartment to myself, and having eaten dinner hours ago, I was hungry and wanted something fried. Now being the sensible person I am, I figured it wasn't a smart decision to pull out some of the fries from our freezer and cook them up (they were on sale at Target, that's why we have them I swear!) I knew I should have something a little more nutritious than that. But damn, I just wanted some good ole fried ...something. That's when an idea struck me. I got out a few ingredients and made what I think is one of my more brilliant concoctions (it's also vegan and gluten free to the best of my knowledge, so this recipe is pretty baller if you ask me). 

I drained and rinsed a can of chickpeas and mashed them up to a nice pulp. Then I shredded one potato into the bowl and mixed it up. 

I chopped up half and onion and mixed that in too. Then I seasoned it with garlic powder, season salt, and curry. I added more of each after tasting the first one I cooked up, and I also dusted just a little cayenne pepper into the mix too. 

I had a pan of olive oil ready to go, so I took a handful of my mixture, balled it up and flattened it a bit, just like a mini hamburger, and fried it. I turned it over when the side facing down was a nice golden brown and let the other side reach the same point. 

After letting them blot a little on a paper towel and cool down so that I didn't scald my mouth off with them, I had the best late night snack ever. It was everything I wanted, which it's rare that I can successfully pull that feat off, since I almost never know what I want to eat when I get the late night munchies, and more importantly, if I do know what I want it's usually not easily available to me when I want it. This however, was a total and udder late night snacking success. Somewhere between a falafel  a hash brown, and a crispy fried taste of heaven. Okay, that last part was a bit of an exaggeration, but you know what I mean. I high suggest you try this, and I'll see you next Tuesday!

Guilty Pleasures

Let's face it, everyone has their guilty pleasures in life. They may change once in a while (or frequently), and we know that something about them may be wrong, but oh, do they feel so right. These are my very current top 5 guilty pleasure in life. 

Instagrams of Food

I think everyone on instagram is guilty of posting pictures of their food. It's a pretty universal guilty pleasure of instagram users, but, as a photographer, instagram in general is a huge guilty pleasure. I love it. But I know there's something a bit odd about using a cellphone to mimic the look of film. But, you know what? Who cares! And in honor of this guilty pleasure, all of the photos of this post will be instagrams (admit it, you're excited).

Noodles

I. Love. Noodles. Now noodles in general don't seem like much of a guilty pleasure, but my great love and minor obsession with ramen noodles, well, I categorically list that as a guilty pleasure, because I'm not eating them because I can't afford food that's, let's say a little less processed, I eat them because I want them. I crave them. Also this summer Lilly made the mistake of introducing me to sesame noodles at the take out place she goes to in her home town. I was skeptical. Who wants noodles that aren't even hot, right? Wrong. They were amazing. And I crave those noodles sometimes, and have to settle for lesser noodles. It makes me sad. But once I'm eating noodles in general, I forget some of that sadness. 

Pretty Little Liars (or Guilty Pleasure TV in General)

I started watching this show six days ago. I am obsessed. I have a problem. I'm on episode 8 of season 2. That's the 30th episode!!! Once I finish this episode I will have watched 21 hours of this show... IN SIX DAYS. That means that since I started watching it, it has comprised almost a sixth of my life. That's insane. I eat, sleep, go to work and watch this show apparently. Though to be fair I only really watch it when I'm home alone and when Lilly's already gone to bed and I'm still up. And believe it or not, I have actually done productive things like errands, and the dishes, in the past six days as well. Maybe I should sleep more? But guilty pleasure TV is a beast unto itself. I only tend to feel guilty about it if it's a show that's clearly targeted at a slightly different demographic than I fit into and I watch it obsessively. I do watch other shows that I'm sure people would consider guilty pleasures (can I get an Amen! for Glee? a Hallelujah! for Smash? ...anyone?), but those I tend to watch as they're on, and not get sucked into them for, you know, a sixth of my week. (It should be noted that Lilly's guilty pleasure TV show is Hart of Dixie). 

Cookie Butter

You've never had cookie butter you say? Go out to Trader Joe's right now and get some. You'll thank me. Your diet won't. Lilly does not consider this a guilty pleasure because "it's so good. And it's only a guilty pleasure if you feel guilty about it." ...She's right this stuff is soooooo good. But it's also a spread that's made in part with crushed biscuits. ie: crushed cookies. It's great on ice cream, toast, or my personal favorite: on a spoon. Seriously. 

Rum and Coke (or Root Beer) Float

Thank you Chunky's Cinema Pub for the menu item Captain Morgan's Root Beer Float. (BTW - Chunky's is one of my favorite places to go, and is in its own right a guilty pleasure. I feel bad for all those people who don't know the joy going out to dinner and a movie at the same time. And their food is actually pretty damn good for pub faire). This is an adult treat that I'd like to think I would've discovered on my own had it not been introduced to me, but I'm glad I didn't miss out on all those years it would've taken me to figure it out on my own. 

Having revealed my top guilty pleasures currently in life, what are yours? I'd love to know :) and, as always, I will see you next Tuesday!