Banana Pie Pops

First off, my "pops" lost their sticks. Technicality.

I've been obsessing over this blog post from Luxarie: http://luxirare.com/float/

OBSESSING I tell you. How neat are those?

Mike closed one night over the weekend so I found myself home on a rainy night without much to do so I tried to recreate the banana pie pops.

I think I was mildly successful. Overripe banana, mashed, with cinnamon and brown sugar. I cheated with a ready made pie shell that I rolled flat. My sticks didn't stick so we basically have little mini-pies. (I also added some turbinado sugar to the tops so they look pretty.)

I'll put up a real recipe once I get the process down. I'm also taking pie-filling suggestions. (Beware if you come to our house or invite us for dinner... you'll probably get pie pops!)

Fancy Grill Dinner

Mike and I recently got a grill. Yay! Hopefully this means I'll come home to some home-cooked meals!

Mike insisted we grill steaks for our first grill dinner. Here's our first grill dinner, fancy style!

grilled steak with oven roasted potato wedges and salad

someone insisted he needed ketchup for his potatoes...
does this take our "fancy" dinner down a notch or just enhance our fanciness?

Blackberry Champagne Cupcakes

For a second treat to take to Nibbe's cupcake party, enter the blackberry champagne cupcake from Darjeerling Dreams.

I tweaked the recipe just a bit... instead of cutting part of the cupcake out and filling the middle with blackberry jam, I just swirled it into the cake batter to get dark colored streaks through the cupcakes (plus I thought this would be much simpler). I also left the icing ingredients off my shopping list so I substituted with fluffy vanilla icing from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. (And topped with sugar I dyed purple!)

I also won the door prize at Rachel's! Banana cupcake mix. Yum!

Jalapeno Tequila for Mitzi's Bday

Some months ago, Mitzi ordered some kind of drink with jalapeno tequila. She really liked it and since then I've been looking for recipes to file away for her birthday.

Enter the spicy-cool blood orange jalapeno margarita recipe. Doesn't that sound awesome!? I love drinks with blood orange... yum.

Back to the gift. I bought some tequila, sliced up a jalapeno and dropped it in the bottle. I wrote the recipe for the margarita on a little card, tied it to the bottle, and hello, birthday gift!

photo from the kitchn

Maple Bacon Cupcakes

I made mini maple bacon cupcakes (thanks to Vanilla Garlic's blog) to bring to Nibbe's afternoon cupcake party. I think they were a hit... definitely a surprise to all as they ate the salty and sweet cupcake. (I'm sure it goes without saying that Mike liked them... they are made with bacon after all.)

I think I would have liked a little more maple flavor... or maybe I'll add a dash of cinnamon next time! I have run out of icing but have a couple of cupcakes left that I think I'll dip into maple syrup... just to make sure they don't go to waste ;)

Baked Apple Streusel Pancake Bars

The second part of the post-photo brunch was the baked apple streusel pancake bars! (recipe from The Kitchn) These tasted good and were simple to put together but I think in halving the recipe the bake time or some of the items didn't bake quite right. As you can see below, my cinnamon topping sunk right to the bottom! I'm going to try this recipe again though... we all enjoyed it! Mike also topped his with some maple syrup which was a nice addition!

Florentine Bake

Our friend Shellie was nice enough to pose for some photos for Mike this weekend. After they were finished with the photos, and as a small thank you, I made this florentine bake with baked apple struesel pancake bars (coming in a few days). (Ann has posed too but her cooking has to wait until Lent is over!)

I really liked this baked dish filled with eggs, cheese, spinach and potatoes. (Since there were only 3 of us, I halved the recipe.) The original recipe from Pioneer Woman calls for a layer of sausage but I omitted it. This was plenty filling and I didn't miss the sausage at all. I also didn't add extra cheese to the top and broil it. It was also easy to put together. I got up around 9, did all the prep work and popped it into the oven. Then, Mike, Shellie and I went out to take pics and came back about 15 minutes later to a finished dish!

Orecchiette with Sausage, Broccoli & Caramelized Garlic

After a week of lots of tex-mex, Mike was begging for pasta. I'm kind of tired of the marinara/spaghetti sauce routine so I chose this sauceless pasta (and new recipe for us) from Serious Eats. I made some recipe changes...

1. I increased the ingredients to accommodate a full pound of pasta (which is the full box in most cases; I didn't see the need to leave 4 ounces of pasta in the box).


2. I also think I was short on the amount of broccoli once I cut the majority of the stems off... I'm still learning to like broccoli and just avoid the stems altogether. Bonus point - broccoli was in season (aka better quality/taste) in Texas in March! (We made this just in the nick of time during the first days of April.) Instead of preparing the broccoli as written, I tossed the florets with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted it in a 325 degree oven for about 14 minutes.


3. I also substituted spicy Italian turkey sausage


4. And omitted the thyme.

The only other "change" was that I actually cleaned out the fat rendered from the turkey sausage before proceeding with the rest of the cooking process. It just looked to fatty and not appetizing. If you encounter this, just pour out the fat you don't want in the pan and start with fresh olive oil.
Pretty good! Its a nice method of cooking things too... probably would be easy to use whatever ground meat you have on hand (or go meatless and add some crushed red pepper for spice) and a nice spring vegetable like broccoli, broccolini, asparagus... you get the idea.

Houston Weekend

Mike and I took off to Houston last weekend to visit my bestie, shoot some photos, attend a wedding and visit with our wedding photographer turned friend Julie (oh and eat and sleep too). I'm sure you can guess that we planned 100 things into our short weekend... not even realizing we were coming into town during a golf tournament and the men's final four! Not to be discouraged, we edited our plans and got down to business...

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(1) & (2) guava margaritas and brisket tacos thanks to el tiempo (3) & (4) a stop at laura's very local bar, rose's garden where we dropped in on an april fool's fake wedding reception and were offered sausage (that's what she said) and politically incorrect wedding cake then spotted this iguana (a real one that has been stuffed, ick) (5) lunch in cancun via juan mon's international sandwiches (such a cool idea, maybe nibbe could pull it off?) (6) & (7) antique shopping and gawking off taft (8) wiener dog (9) pulled pork taquito brunch at cedar creek (10) photoshoots


just a note... the hubs and i celebrated 6 months of married life yesterday!

Cupcake Fever!

After sadly missing a cupcakes & champagne party in February I'll finally be able to make some stellar cupcakes for another friend's cupcake party this weekend...

But the BIG question is... what cupcakes to bring??

I've decided I want to bring both a sweet and savory cupcake... I've basically settled on the savory cupcake - a vanilla-maple-bacon cupcake. The sweet is up in the air... do I go classic with vanilla cupcakes from Magnolia, out on a limb with champagne cupcakes with blackberry filling and mascarpone cream from Darjeeling Dreams or go with my stand-by favorite cupcakes from Giada - mascarpone cupcakes with strawberry glaze?

I'll post recipes and pics next week! Whatever I choose... I'm sure I'll happily eat them all :)

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(1) Magnolia Vanilla Cupcake - All Things Cupcakes (2) Blackberry Champagne Cupcake - Little Bitty Bakes (3) Mascarpone Cupcakes with Strawberry Glaze - Food Network

White Chocolate & Cranberry Granola

I experimented with this recipe as a possible favor for our wedding guests. (It was good but we ended up going with s'mores.) My best friend was a taste tester and requested more granola for part of her birthday gift. I made a batch and packed it in cute mason jars to bring to her when Mike and I went to Houston last weekend.

The granola makes the house smell so good... warm vanilla and cinnamon. I make the recipe as is and add in a large handful of dried cranberries and another large handful of white chocolate chips. (I didn't have them on hand but I think throwing in dark chocolate chips in place of half of the white ones might be good too!)

Chicken Fajitas (Marinade)

Last weekend I made a quick marinade for chicken fajitas with onions and peppers. The marinade is from Pioneer Woman (!) and was originally meant for beef. It was really good, super easy and I had most things on hand.


Just a note, one small can of chipotle peppers is probably twice as many as you need for the marinade. I use what I need and then freeze the rest in a freezer friendly tupperware container to use later (maybe in butternut squash enchiladas). Chipotle peppers can be spicy... if you don't like spice but like the smokey taste, just cut the peppers in half from stem to bottom and scrape out the seeds.


(look below at the cool color of the marinade!)