wafoodie

I wish I could take credit for this amazing flavor combination, but sadly I cannot. This wonderful recipe comes from How Sweet It Is, and while the thought of chocolate and cheese together might sound off putting to some (i.e. Dustin), I promise it is delicious. Dustin was a convert after we grilled these up on the panini maker. He’s beginning to learn to trust my judgement in the kitchen.

Roasted strawberries are delicious, and the roasting in oil and salt really bring out a savory side to the strawberries. Coat the strawberries with oil and salt and roast in the oven at 375° for 20 minutes.

Add a mild Brie and dark chocolate to some lightly buttered bread (we used a really good honey wheat bread from a local bakery), then put the sandwich on the panini maker and let it grill until the cheese and chocolate become all melty. The two sort of blend together and become a creamy and heavenly dark chocolate delight.

While I was out of town, I had Dustin go shopping for me. One of the things I asked him to get was lemons. When I arrived home, I noticed Dustin had bought an entire bag of Meyer lemons, not realizing there was any difference. After seeing these lemons sit in the fridge, lonely and unused for quite some time, I finally searched out a recipe for some lemon poppyseed muffins, replacing the regular lemon with Meyer lemon.

These muffins were perfect for breakfast because they weren’t too sweet, and they felt really bright because of the lemon— the perfect way to start a morning, bright and early.

I ended up not even making the glaze because we decided we wanted to keep them more like muffins and less like cupcakes since we were eating them for breakfast throughout the week, but I bet the glaze really kicks these muffins up a notch.

As a kid I was never a huge fan of white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. It was chocolate chip cookie or bust for me. But as my palette has grown to love and appreciate all kinds of nuts, I’ve found macadamia nuts in cookies to be heavenly. I’ve learned when presented with a tray of cookies to eat the white chocolate macadamia because it’s a lot cheaper to have the ingredients on hand for the other kinds of cookies than it is to have all of the ingredients for white chocolate macadamia nut cookies on hand. I almost had a heart attack when I saw how much a little tub cost at Whole Foods. But we have found many uses for macadamia nuts— these cookies, on top of French toast with pineapple, and even as a delicious homemade trail mix snack with a little bit of salt, honey roasted peanuts, and some dark chocolate M&Ms.

I tried this recipe from Messy Witchen I found through foodgawker, and my dough was really dry, so I might have done something wrong. The dough was hard to work with, but I did my best with what I had and the taste was phenomenal! I did tweak the recipe slightly by replacing boring butter with brown butter because yes in fact, I am obsessed, and will not make cookies without it unless I am completely strapped for time. The rich, nuttiness of the brown butter goes so well with brown sugar based cookies and, of course, any type of nut (and chocolate).

White chocolate + macadamia nuts + brown butter = pure deliciousness. We polished off the entire batch, and every single calorie was absolutely worth it!

• 3 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (plus more for sprinkling)
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 cup butter, in small squares + 1 tablespoon, melted
• 1 cup parmesan cheese (plus more for sprinkling)
• 1 cup low fat buttermilk
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 1/4 cup pesto
• non-stick cooking spray

1. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, pepper, and garlic powder in a large bowl.
2. Cut butter into flour mixture until mixture resembles a crumble.
3. Stir in applesauce, buttermilk, and pesto until everything is just incorporated.
4. Fold in the parmesan cheese.
5. Divide dough in half, roll into a ball and press down.
6. Cut the dough into 8 triangles.
7. Spread melted butter, sprinkle salt and remaining grated parmesan on top.
8. Bake on cookie sheet sprayed with non-stick cooking spray in oven at 450° for 10 minutes or until brown and flaky.

I know it hasn’t been that long since I’ve made chicken pot pies, and I’ve made a vow to not repeat recipes. But I promise this is not a repeat. These chicken pot pie muffins (the original post refers to them as cupcakes, but that sounds too dessert-y to me) are quite different, and they looked so darn adorable in the pictures, I had to make them even though Dustin isn’t a huge chicken pot pie fan, and they were recently on our menu. Come on, individual pot pies cooked in a cupcake pan was too hard to resist. And Dustin did like them!

On one of our few beautiful Seattle days, Dustin and I met some of his coworkers to play doubles tennis. We lost after a ridiculously long tiebreaker set. Every time one duo was about to win, the other team came back, but it was a ton of fun. I made these muffins that day during the afternoon, played tennis, came home, and reheated them, so they were the perfect dinner to eat after a workout without having to do any cooking when you are tired and want instant food gratification.

We had a fabulous time getting outdoors and moving around on the tennis court. The dreariness of this winter has definitely made us realize the need to appreciate the beautiful weather we are going to get this summer. We are going to get out there and play lots of tennis, take Bonnie on lots of long walks to the park, and of course picnic and hike in the beautiful mountains that surround us!

I’d only had a savory scallion pancake once before, but I really enjoyed them. I’m probably biased to like them by the word pancake in the title even though these pancakes aren’t sweet or covered in maple syrup.

I found a very basic recipe online and followed it exactly, frying these pancakes up on the stove.

We served these scallion pancakes alongside baked orange chicken for an at-home Asian takeout dinner.

Orange chicken is another of my favorite Chinese foods. I love the complex combination of citrus, sweet, and spicy. I hate the fried aspect of the dish and not knowing exactly how many calories those Chinese restaurants put in that orange sauce. The best way to remedy these problems? Make it at home, healthified.

First we decided to bake the chicken—faux frying if you will by dredging small chunks of chicken in flour, egg, and Panko breadcrumbs. We cooked our chunks for about 20 minutes at 400° with a thin layer of sauce (we did add more at the end to make them extra saucy.

As for the sauce, I basically followed this orange sauce recipe, and it was quite good— a balanced blend of all the flavors I like in orange chicken.

This meal took quite a bit of coordination, but our efforts were well worth it in the end. We had a delicious Chinese meal with rice, topped with chopped scallions, served alongside homemade scallion pancakes.

The day we arrived in Seattle on our visit last spring, we stopped at an Italian restaurant called Barolo right by our hotel downtown. I had this fabulous creamy pasta with smoked salmon off of a prix fixe lunch promotional menu. It was my first taste of the Northwest, and I still think of this pasta to this day.

I wanted to develop a more healthy version of this creamy dish using Greek yogurt instead of heavy cream. We made the sauce by combining a little bit of butter with some minced garlic and shallot. Once the shallot pieces were translucent, we deglazed with a splash of vodka to add a little bit of crispness to the dish. Next we added a cup of 2% fat Greek yogurt for a creamy texture, and a few splashes of half and half until the sauce thinned out to the desired texture over medium heat. We actually ended up adding a little bit of nonfat milk in the end to smooth it out a tad more without adding anymore fat.

Next we added dried sage and oregano along with our protein, some chopped smoked salmon (approximately 1/3 of a pound) and about 1/2 of a cup of frozen peas (thawed) and let the mixture cook for a few minutes. We poured the smoked salmon and sauce over some whole wheat pasta.

We served the pasta with a white wine and consumed everything on our patio on a sunny evening. The pasta doesn’t look super beautiful because the yogurt made the sauce pretty chunky, but the flavors were nice. Not quite as delicious as the pasta from Barolo, but definitely a much healthier, at-home option.

Passover is long gone, but we still had matzo (matzah?) leftover, which I know for Dustin means just one thing— fried matzo or matzo brei as I’ve been seeing it called on the Internet.

Matzo soaked in water or milk, then cooked in the frying pan with eggs is a great base for some delicious breakfasts— both sweet and savory. We made both kinds— one with cinnamon and sugar and the other with green chile and cheddar. Both were excellent.

Dustin and I are the perfect complement to each other in this instance— he prefers savory and I prefer sweet. Thus, we split 75% savory, 25% sweet for Dustin and 75% sweet, 25% savory for Erin. No fighting in this house.

For the sweet, we eyeballed a mixture of brown sugar, vanilla sugar, cinnamon, and the tiniest drop of vanilla extract in a little bowl before we spooned it over the matzo and egg mixture. For the savory, we added some of the green chile that D’s parents sent us in the mail (you’ll probably be seeing lots of recipes with green chile soon!) and shredded cheddar until it was melty then topped with a sprinkling of salt and pepper.

This was a perfect and surprisingly very filling way to start the work day. I couldn’t even finish my portion and was more than satisfied until lunch.

We are officially back from Jamaica, and back to real life after wedding festivities in Texas, a mini break in Washington,  and our honeymoon in Jamaica. Everything about the wedding was such a blur, it seems as though it didn’t really happen. But indeed now we are married, which is pretty cool to say. We were told we would feel different, but so far it all feels the same, maybe a little happier, and more use of the words husband and wife :)

In honor of our trip to Jamaica, you should drink the fruity concoction we created. It all started when we were trying to figure out what to do with approximately 1/2 cup of fresh, cubed pineapple leftover from another meal. We decided to blend them into a drink. What better to blend with pineapples than a shot of Malibu coconut rum and a shot of Midori Melon liquor?

Once we blended everything together we added some sweetened, flaked coconut and garnished with pineapple. When we began drinking our fruity mixture, we realized we had unintentionally created a green, melon-infused, piña colada that went down way too easily. All of a sudden the name greeña colada rolled out of my mouth, and the name stuck. We’ll definitely be busting this recipe out this summer for a nice cool down and reminder of how much we enjoyed our tropical post-wedding escape!