Sweet(s) Sunday

Sunday was a day of sweets...and golf.  Kevin and I played in the Barton Creek finals at the golf club, so I had to make our new favorite breakfast so we could start the day off strong.  And of course I had to finish the day with dessert (since neither of us won), I have to make sure I eat well rounded meals right?!?!?

For breakfast I made our new favorite item, Double Berry Puff Pancake.  This is EASY, would be fun to make with kids and is super delicious!!  We will probably have this at least once a week.  I don't think we will ever be sick of it!

I make this exactly as the directions say.  I leave it in long enough to get dark brown with a crisp on the edges.  The side view when it comes out of the oven is awesome.....

When I serve Kevin his piece I add powdered sugar and whipped cream (to add additional nutrients of course).  I eat my plain because it has plenty of it's own flavor.  Actually, I do add some fresh blueberries and raspberries on the side of mine. 

This is reason #2 my cast iron skillet was TOTALLY worth it!!!!

For dessert I made Monster Cookies, which is basically every cookie into one.  It is a bitefull of oatmeal, peanut butter, chocolate chip and m&m cookies. 

They came out nice and gooey and delish.  The recipe makes a lot of batter, about 90 small cookies worth of batter.  I can't keep my hands off of these guys.

Since there was no way my waist line needed 90 cookies, I decided to bring a big bag into the office.  Some of the guys I work with brought ice cream back from lunch......here is the heavenly result......

Monster cookie sandwich with cinnamon ice cream in the middle.  Obviously, it was a great afternoon in the office.  Off to the gym I go......

Light Appetizers

On Saturday we were headed to the Angel's verses Tampa Bay Ray's baseball game.  We decided to have Jim & Jeri over for some appetizers prior to the game.  I keep wanting to try new things, so why not just keep inviting great friends over?  I thought we were having 9 people over so I bought way too much food.  I ended up not putting out the fruit or the cheese and crackers.  Instead I went for 2 cooked items.

First, I made Mini Buffalo Chicken Balls, which I have made before.  They are really good because they are easy to make, don't require a lot of ingredients, and you can make them as spicy as you would like.  Next time I think I'm going to make them as spicy as possible.  You just dump in all the ingredients and mix with your hands, yes the texture is slimey and not all that enjoyable, but the end result is worth it.

I've made these once before and I cooked them longer last time.  I would add a couple minutes to the cook time (if you have my oven) so that the outside gets nice a crispy.  The bottoms were not as crisp as the first time I made them.  Next time....

[I forgot to take a picture of the finished product.]

Second, I made Bacon- Wrapped Scallops with Spicy- Cilantro Mayonnaise.  These were AMAZING!!  And the sauce was AWESOME!  I have never cooked scallops before so I was a little nervous....especially after seeing Gordon Ramsey yell IT'S RAW! every week on Hell's Kitchen!  I thought I wouldn't cook them long enough or I would overcook them, but nope.  They were perfect.  The only downfall was that I wish I had made about 20 more! 

The sauce for these was so I good, I could probably add it to every meal I eat.  (In fact, I'm adding it to my vegetable soft tacos that I'm making tonight.)  I couldn't find chili paste so I used chipotle paste instead....honestly, I could have licked the bowl clean it was so good.  The spice of the sauce with the bacon and scallops was heaven in your mouth. 

Note to self, next time make twice as many scallops!!  A+++

Homemade Pesto Pizza and Skillet Cookie

Last Thursday I decided to make Grilled Pesto and Goat Cheese Pizza.  I've always wanted to make pizza on the grill because I feel like the crust would get nice and crispy and because I love the way grilled food tastes.  I also love pizza with pesto sauce so I thought this was a great opportunity to make pesto sauce from scratch, which was a first for me.  It was much easier than I thought. 

I didn't have pine nuts because my grocery store didn't have any, so I used walnuts instead.  It came out so yummy!!  I iwsh I had made more to keep.

I got everything I needed and was ready to grill.  I also wanted to add some chicken so it would be a little heartier for Kevin.

We headed outside to grill, only to find out the propane tank was empty.  NOT awesome at all!  There goes my excitement over grilled pizza.  :(

We had to eat obviously, so I had to resort to the oven.  By the time we figured all this out, the dough had been sitting out for a while and had become very soft and limp.  I normally like thin crust pizza (because you can eat more without getting too full) so we cut the dough in half and I made a pizza to my liking (tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms, pesto sauce, goat cheese, and chicken) and a pizza to Kevin's liking (same as mine except I added onions, cilantro and parmesan cheese).  They both came out delicious. 

The Italian's pizzas aren't round, so why should mine be?  This is the way the dough wanted to go. 

Unfortunately, I still haven't been able to try grilled pizza...but this was a very successful and yummy dinner. 

With a light and yummy dinner, of course we also had to have a fresh dessert.  I went with Skillet Chocolate Chip Cookies.  It's like a Pazookie at BJ's. 

It was so easy to make and came out amazing!  I wasn't sure if the cheap cast iron skillet I purchased was worth it, but this dish confirmed my purchase!  I added french vanilla ice cream and whipped cream and it was heaven.  I definitely slept well that night.

Asiago Portobello Mushroom Burgers with Roasted Red Peppers andBalsamic Glaze

Tried these burgers tonight and they were very yummy and so simple to make. Even Kevin liked them. The balsamic sauce wasn't quite as thick as I would have liked. I think I had the heat too low. Next time I'll use high simmer. I also had huge mushrooms so I should have gone with large English muffins verses the regular sized ones. But they were still good.

First time I've ever roasted red peppers. Boy were they tasty and easy!

I found this recipe at www.howsweeteats.com.

I'm trying to figure out how to blog more and post these about meals I've cooked and attach links.  Why can't I figure all this out?  I'm normally not technologically inept!  Hmmm.....

I also want to figure out how to post from my iphone.  Shouldn't there be an app for that?