A-mazing lemon blueberry bread

Yeah, I said it. This bread is one of the most delicious things I've ever made. (And I've made a lot of delicious things.)

For my juice cleanse, I bought close to 20 pints of blueberries. Annnnnnd definitely didn't use them all. I got a ridiculous craving for something sweet this evening, and decided a lemon blueberry bread would do the trick! I chose this recipe because I didn't want to wait for dough to rise.

It was reluctant to come out and I didn't want to ruin the loaf before I could take a picture, so sorry. This is all you get.

The Most Delicious Lemon-Blueberry Bread Ever.

adapted from Eat Yourself Skinny!

6 Tbsp. butter, softened (not melted!)

3/4 c. sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

zest from 1 large lemon

1/2 c. nonfat milk

1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1 tsp. baking powder 

dash of salt

2 pints blueberries

Glaze:

juice from 1 large lemon

3/4 c. confectioner's sugar

Preheat oven to 350* F. Cream butter. Add sugar, eggs, vanilla, and lemon zest. In a separate bowl, combine your dry ingredients, and then mix into wet mixture. Add milk. When everything is combined, gently fold in blueberries. 

Grease/spray a loaf pan, and toss your bread mixture in! Bake for 55 - 60 minutes (until toothpick comes out clean). 

Allow your bread to cool for about ten minutes. While you're waiting, whip up the lemon glaze! Remove the bread from the pan and drizzle glaze on top. Enjoy! 

Zucchini & feta macaroni!

I've noticed several different broccoli mac & cheese recipes pop up on Pinterest lately, and thought I'd give one a go... only to find that the broccoli in my fridge had passed its prime. So I dug through my crisper drawers looking for the next best thing, and found something even better!

Zucchini.


I love zucchini. I could eat it for nearly every meal and never tire of it. It is so versatile and delicious. And so that is how, armed with the contents of my kitchen, I set out to create a somewhat-healthier mac & cheese today.

Zucchini & feta mac & cheese


8 oz. pasta, uncooked
2 small zucchini, chopped
1 oz. feta
2 oz. shredded colby jack
1/4 c. nonfat milk
1 tsp. ground mustard
Worchestershire sauce
garlic powder


Bring a pot of salted water to a boil, and dump pasta in. Top with a double boiler or colander, and steam zucchini while pasta is cooking. (8 minutes.) Drain pasta, but do not rinse. Return pasta to pot, and dump in zucchini. Mix mustard and milk together, and pour over pasta. Toss in cheeses, garlic powder to taste, and a few shakes of Worchestershire sauce. Mix until combined. Top with cracked black pepper and serve!

"Hide the Cucumber" Salad

I had a girlfriend over for dinner Sunday night. I was doing my thing in the kitchen, using up some of the leftover veggies from my cleanse, and decided to make a cucumber salad.

I'd chopped up the cucumber and started in on the tomatoes when she informed me she's not the biggest cucumber fan. Whoops.

So I got to play hide the cucumber! Here's what I came up with.

Hide the Cucumber Salad

1 cucumber, chopped

1 (10 oz) container grape tomatoes, halved

juice from 1/2 lemon

crumbled feta, to taste

oregano, to taste

Mix it all up and enjoy! 

Jalapeno avocado quesadillas

I was recently inspired to put avocado in my quesadillas, so I finally gave it a go today.

This was the result.

Jalapeno-Avocado Quesadillas. 

And they were delicious. 

2 tortillas

1/2 avocado, sliced

6 - 10 slices of jalapeno

shaved manchego

Put a little butter in the bottom of your skillet and heat it up. Then put the tortillas in to warm them slightly. Cover one tortilla with sliced avocado, jalapeno slices, and manchego, to taste. Enough to hold your quesadilla together, but it's a unique cheese so if you're not familiar with it, don't go overboard. Cook on high for approximately 3 minutes per side. Slice and enjoy hot!

Last day of the cleanse!

Day five, and the final hour is upon us. I'm enjoying my carrot/apple juice at the moment, as a matter of fact!

I have also concluded that if ever I should be proud of myself, it's today. Not only have I (almost!) completed five days of juicing, but after work today, I thought it would be a good idea to head to Costco and get some sprouted grain bread (for my chocolate french toast in the morning!) and some non-fat Greek yogurt, just because I like having it around the house.

More than $100 later, I made it out not only alive, but not having sampled anything in the store. And oh, boy, was I tempted. The first demonstration booth I came across was an outside vendor sampling their five different gourmet cheesecakes. Brianna, Spartan juice warrior. Self-control of steel.

Or something like that. Only one of their cheesecakes had chocolate on it. I might have been more tempted if I'd had chocolate dangled in front of my face.

Anyway, more juice recipes.

Juice 6:

• 1 (6-oz) container blueberries
• 1 (6-oz) container blackberries
• 1 orange, peeled, with pith removed

Adds a little extra "body" to the blueberry/orange one I did before. 

Juice 7:

• 1 pear
• 1 (6-oz) container blueberries
• 1 (6-oz) container blackberries

This one was breakfast this morning. Holy delicious!!

Juice 8: 

• 4 - 6 carrots
• 1 apple

Yum! The one I made last night had 4 larger carrots. This one I'm drinking now has six carrots because I just decided to use up the bag. 

And so for the last five days, I've been living off these eight juices (and a few mistakes). I've been incredibly surprised at how tasty most of them were. (The most notable mistake involved cucumber. That one was not at all tasty.) But of the recipes I put up, I think I would try all of them again, and the breakfast ones I might continue and add into my usual breakfast repertoire. 

---

And since I left this up all evening rather than posting, I am SO pleased to tell you I made it the entire five days! And I broke my fast with something healthy - an avocado and a handful of pistachio nuts. I needed some crunch and some healthy fat. I'm going to guzzle down some water and head to bed. You might be able to catch a new recipe or two from me tomorrow! I don't think I'm going to do the chocolate French toast (I forgot to get eggs at the store today), but I definitely have something up my sleeve for lunch. 

Thanks for stopping in, and thank you to those who have followed me through this last week and cheered me on! I really appreciate it. :)

Juicing, Day 3

Day three is over! Only two more to go. :)

Breakfast usually means two juices, because I can't pick just one.

Breakfast #1:

• 1 mango, peeled. Can't put the pit in there. 
• 1 6-oz. container blueberries
• 1 apple

Delish. My favorite. 

Breakfast #2:

• 1 orange or grapefruit
• 1 6-oz. container blackberries

Also delish. 

During the day, my "snack" juices usually involve carrots and celery, with a ratio of about 2:1, respectively. I didn't put any kale in my juice today. Oops. 

All this healthy stuff running through my veins now has prompted me to look a little further into the Paleo diet, though. I might make more of an attempt to eat Paleo / Clean throughout the year. I also think I'm going to try to meal-plan. I often get pressed for time and end up only eating veggies for dinner. I could probably use a little forethought in my life. 

In that vein, my weekend is probably going to look a little something like this:

Saturday.

Breakfast: steel-cut oats with fresh blueberries

Lunch: Avocado quesadillas

Dinner: (hopefully) Kale & ricotta stuffed shells, to use up some of the extra kale from this week that I'm sure I'll have. 

Sunday.

Breakfast: I've been eyeballing this baked oatmeal for the last few days. I would use blueberries instead of strawberries, since I have 13 containers of blueberries in the fridge right now. 

Lunch: Maybe a Greek salad of sorts. I have plenty of cucumber that needs to be used and that sounds really tasty. 

Dinner: A soup of some kind. I'm thinking about this Coconut and Red Lentil Soup. But by red lentils I really mean green, since I bought a bunch of green ones today. 

... Most of that is decidedly not Paleo, and not much of it is Clean either. But making more of an effort to eat protein is a huge step for me, since I'm usually a snack-on-veggies kind of girl. (And before you get any ideas, my kind of veggie is a marinated artichoke heart. I'm not that healthy.) 

Anyway. There will certainly be an update at the end of my cleanse! So far, so good. I'm surprisingly not hungry, and drinking probably less juice than I should be, even. I crave gum less now than I did the first two days. I never noticed a decline in energy, but the fact that I'm still up at 2AM when I'm hardly consuming anything is probably notable. Day three is definitely the easiest so far. 

The first day of school comes early in the morning, so I should probably crash. Thanks for stopping by! 

Juicing my way into 2012.

I'm home, and the new year is here!

One of my resolutions for the new year is to lose the nearly-45 lbs. I've put on in the last 9 months. So I decided to make that a two-part goal, and made another resolution to complete a 5-day juice cleanse.

Today is day one.

I unintentionally fasted until about 4:30 or 5 o'clock this afternoon, because I was completely unprepared. I got off the plane yesterday morning and basically went straight to work. I didn't feel like going grocery shopping after I got off work at 9:30 last night, and I ended up sleeping in a little this morning and then running some other errands before heading to the grocery store.

I spent about $45 and got the following:

• 3 mangoes
• 4 (12 oz) bags fresh cranberries
• 4.65 lbs. organic gala apples
• 4 cucumbers
• 3 lemons
• 2 bunches red leaf lettuce
• 3.3 lbs. navel oranges
• 2 bunches organic spinach
• 6 lbs. carrots
• 4 grapefruit
• 3 avocados (for coming off the cleanse) 
• 1.3 lbs. broccoli crowns
• 1 bunch turnip greens
• 3 bunches kale
• 2 (6 oz.) containers blackberries
• 2 (6 oz.) containers blueberries
• 4 bunches celery

My first juice this afternoon was a little sweet. I was actually surprised by how tasty it was! It's something I might make for myself even when I'm not cleansing. The apple juice definitely lightened it up quite a bit. (That's it to the left.) This one made just shy of 8 oz, I believe. 

Juice 1:

- 1 apple

- 1/2 lemon (peeled, without pith!)

- 1 carrot

- 1 kale leaf

This next guy to the right is my second concoction of the day. I was surprised, when I cut out the apple, how much juice I lost. 

Juice 2:

- 1 celery stalk

- 1 carrot

- 2 kale leaves

- 1 lemon wedge (without pith, again)

This one tasted a lot like V8 to me, minus the tomato, obviously. It was pretty tasty as well! I rarely (read: never) crave V8 juice, but as a homemade replacement, I'd take this any day. It made 4 oz. of juice, so I'll need to double the recipe from now on. 

I'm going to make another glass of Juice 2 before I head to bed, to stave off any midnight cravings. One of the things that has surprised me the most is that I am not all that hungry, but my mouth and brain are desperately craving something to chew. I broke down and have been working on the same piece of gum for the last hour and a half. It's sugar-free and curbed the war going on in my brain, so I'm not too upset about it. 

I hope to update daily with my other strange concoctions, and I have several recipes to post from my vacation when this madness is over! 

Ginger Chocolate Dream Cookies

These are a wonderful twist on your regular chocolate chip cookies. Everyone I've given them to has raved about them and most have asked what that sneaky special ingredient is. A few days after I brought these into work for the first time, we had a mandatory 6AM meeting. Management tried to spice things up a little bit with a game of sorts - one interesting fact about each employee that you had to match with their name. Mine was "makes delicious ginger chocolate cookies."

I first had these tasty gems when I unexpectedly moved in with someone who became one of my best friends earlier this year. This recipe was given to her at her bridal shower by a friend of hers from high school who called them Sweet Dream cookies. I altered the recipe a bit and then changed the name, since I think that name is a big overused.

So without further ado, Ginger Chocolate Dream Cookies!





1 c. butter, softened
1 1/2 c. packed light brown sugar
2 Tbsp. vanilla
1 egg, room temperature
1/2 tsp. salt
2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 - 12 oz. bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
powdered sugar

Cream butter, then add the sugar, vanilla, and egg. Combine all dry ingredients and mix into wet mixture. Fold in chocolate chips. (I used the miniature ones and think they're easier to work with than the regular size. Plus they're cute!) Refrigerate dough until firm. While dough is in the fridge, preheat oven to 375*. Lightly grease baking sheets. Roll 1" balls of dough in powdered sugar and bake 12 minutes.


So yummy!!

As mentioned in the last post, I received a dozen delicious cookies each from Tiffany at Strudel & Streusel, and from Claudie at Bohemian Kitchen. Update: my third dozen have arrived! Huge thanks to Melissa at Orlando's Food Trucks. 

As soon as finals are over and my brain has time to recover, I'll deep clean the house and find my elusive camera cord. It will be some time before the weekend, because my sister and her new fiance are coming over to have dinner with Prince Charming and me on Saturday.

Speaking of Prince Charming, he was so wonderful this morning and made me a tasty finals breakfast before my Java exam. (I wish it would have been on the coffee instead of the programming language!) Yummy breakfast sausage, some spicy hash browns, biscuits, and eggs with spinach and pico. I've never had eggs like that before, and was pleasantly surprised!

My last final exam is tomorrow afternoon, and I have Wednesday off work, so look forward to a feta bread recipe before the weekend!

Huge thanks again to Lindsay and Julie for organizing this swap! If you are interested in participating next year, you can sign up here to get notifications. And it's not just a US event, so if you're overseas and interested in doing a little extra holiday baking (thinking of you, Veru!), there were several different countries participating this year.

Celebrating the end of the semester!

One of the reasons I've hardly had time to breathe lately is because the end of the semester is nearing! Yesterday was the last day of classes for the year, so I decided to treat myself. I so rarely have the time to spend in the kitchen now (especially with finals this week and next) but I finally finished up all my obligations and decided to make dinner at 11:30 last night.

My favorite meal - both to make and to eat - is chicken piccata. I am and have always been a huge Italian food fan. Please excuse the awful phone photo. I took a few on my camera that is now dead, and I can't find the charger cord anywhere. (I feel like I've lost my mind with how busy I've been. I seem to misplace everything!)


I didn't even get to sit down and eat it at the table - I stood at the bar with my computer and finished up some Organic Chemistry nonsense. I was so glad to finally have some tasty homemade food that I didn't even care, though. I poured myself a glass of sauvignon blanc and was in heaven.

Chicken Piccata for one

1 chicken breast, trimmed 

flour

fresh ground pepper

EVOO

1/2 lemon

approx. 3/4 c. dry white wine (sauvignon blanc)

1/4 c. chopped marinated artichoke hearts

1 handful capers, rinsed

Slice your chicken breast into two cutlets. Season with fresh cracked pepper and dredge in flour. Cook in a skillet with EVOO on high heat for approximately 3 minutes per side. Before turning the chicken, juice 1/4 of a lemon over your meat. Then use the other 1/4 immediately after turning. After both sides are cooked thoroughly, pour your wine into the skillet. It should rise almost halfway up your chicken. You may need to use a little more depending on the size of your pan. Toss the artichoke hearts and capers in with the wine and let everything simmer for a few more minutes so the chicken can soak up some of the flavors, turning once again. Spoon the sauce over your chicken to serve! 

I served mine with Tomato, Spinach, and Red Bell Pepper rotini from Decio Pasta, a local company that I can never resist at the farmer's market. And of course I had to top it all off with a glass of wine. 

My cookie exchange cookies went out today. I apologize for the delay, ladies! My stand mixer has been acting up since Thanksgiving. I thought I would be able to make it work for a little longer, but was sorely disappointed when I went to bake a few days ago and was proved wrong. I had to run to the store yesterday morning for a hand mixer so I could finish these babies and send 'em out. 

I also got my second dozen exchange cookies in the mail today! The first ones, Holiday Fig & Date Cookies from Bohemian Kitchen, arrived on Monday. They didn't make it until midnight. So yummy! The second ones were Chocolate Clotted Cream Fudge Cookies from Tiffany (Streusel) at Strudel and Struesel! It's now 5 o'clock and there's not even a crumb left. It's probably a good thing I don't have a scale in the house... and that I just bought some new pants, two sizes larger than the rest of my closet. 

Sadly, I do have some crazy studying still left to do. Organic Chemistry final is Friday, my programming final is next Monday, and Physical Chemistry is Tuesday, so you probably won't see much of my face (other than the recipe reveal on Monday!) until late next week. I bought a huge block of feta at Costco today (my treat to myself for nearly being done with classes!) and I'm craving some feta bread. We'll see what it turns itself into! 

My apologies

Yikes; it's been a while!

I made all kinds of goodies for Thanksgiving dinner... and then didn't take photos. And since I hate posting recipes without photos, I didn't put 'em up.

I've had what feels like a zillion new wines lately. And again, photos were few and far between. I'll put up a few wine reviews here shortly (I attended a Champagne class last week and have some new favorites!), but I have been slacking there as well.

I got my first box of cookie exchange cookies in the mail today! The packaging was super cute and made me feel a little inadequate. So to the wonderful ladies who will be receiving my cookies, I apologize for the disappointing packaging. I also should not admit to eating all 12 cookies by myself today. Oops!

I've been travelling quite a bit for work lately. Rock Bottom Brewery in San Diego - good burgers, but mediocre beer. (Their red is very thin/weak, and their winter wheat is nothing to get excited about.) The Wine Encounter in San Diego - their flights are a little spendy, but paired well. And I guess they have half-priced flights for happy hour on certain days, which would be an awesome deal. (We had their World Tour flight - reds from Argentina, France, and Italy. They were all pretty tasty.) I found a gem in town, too. Pita Jungle, here in Tempe. Everything on their tapas menu for happy hour is either one or two bucks, and it is all excellent!

And a quick review for you, since I realized I haven't talked about my go-to cooking wine yet.

Image from www.chilean-wine.com

Santiago Station Sauvignon Blanc. It is from Chile, but in the New Zealand style. Definitely citrus-y. But my favorite thing about it is that it's only $3.99. Almost every reaction to the price... not a favorable one. Fear not, though! This is not your Barefoot/Pacific Peak. It is a surprisingly drinkable wine. I served a glass of this with dinner last night, and my house guest/couchsurfer commented on how tasty it was. It's probably not going to be anyone's new favorite drinking wine, but for someone who does a lot of cooking with dry whites, it is perfect. I use this most often for chicken piccata. I also use it in my crockpot chicken kiev. When you're using a bottle and a half of wine to make dinner on a college student's budget, a $4 bottle is much better than my favorite $15 bottle! They have changed their labels since this photo was taken, and I couldn't find any with the new label. It looks almost identical, but is green instead of gold.

And with that, I'm off! My finals are over mid-next week, so hopefully I'll have a little more time to spend in the kitchen, and actually take photos this time! Thank you for being so patient with me. :)