I'm spending my first day of vacation watching Paula Dean and taking notes for Thanksgiving which is right around the corner. I'm baking a pecan pie and my girlfriend is taking a break from her kids and coming over for "tea".

But before I sign out for a few days I figured I'd leave you with the most awesome Tomato Basil soup recipe. It was SO amazing. We can't get over it, might have to do it again this week :)



Very simple, I swear.

Melt 1/2 a stick of butter and a 1/4 cup of olive oil in a med casserole.
Add 2 med onions and diced garlic in it. Add a hot diced pepper, depending on how spicy you like it.
Let them sautee together
Add 1 large can of whole tomatoes (with basil), use a good brand like an organic one not a cheap one. I like this brand; Muir Glen organic. PLUS 1 can of small whole tomatoes. You can double the recipe if you want a lot of soup. This serves like 4 with no room for seconds.
Add a handful of fresh basil and like 1 tbsp of dried basil
Add 1 regular can of chicken broth
Simmer for like 15 min and then put all ingredients in a blender (do it small batches at the time, because it'll EXPLODE all over the place, trust me on this one)

Put blended mixture back on stove top, bring to a boil and slowly add about 1 cup of heavy cream. Bring to boil. I added like 1/2 a cup of grated Parmesan cheese this is when I taste it to make sure it doesn't need salt/pepper. Simmer until cheese is melted and then serve with fresh croutons and more Parmesan cheese or asiago on top.

It was soooo good, next time I'm going to double it so people can have seconds and I have left overs for work :)

OH HAPPY DAYS!!!

The Holidays are a skip and a beat away and I'm so in the mood, you dont understand. I have this entire week off which I'm supposed to clean and work on my writing. Let us see where this takes me. I'm excited because Vanessa & Robert (my cousin and her husband) will be staying with us for the Holiday and V and I get along like peas and carrots. I'm close to all my cousins but Vanessa is the closest to me in age, she's fabulous so I'm excited that we'll be together for a few days. My ex and her husband are best friends so that's going to be interesting when the boys want to hang out, I'm hoping they take it elsewhere.

Anyways, I'm excited about Thanksgiving I have a lot to be thankful for most especially for the best roommate this side of the Atlantic, she really is. She lets me play in the kitchen and eats everything I make, she doesn't cook so it works out well for us! Last night I went into a frenzy... I needed to make my sweet potatoes before they went bad. So I pulled out a pork tenderloin (thank you, God for pork, sfm) and conjured this up. May I say (without being conceited) that it was AMAZING. We're having left overs tonight - yum yum!

Ok, pics -












I made Pork Tenderloin in a Beer Cream Sauce & Sweetened Sweet Potatoes. Yeah, delish. But wait - that's not all! I also made a Flourless Chocolate Torte. It was sinful.



Yeah....

So recipes!!

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Now for the flourless cake... I got it all from my new TV girlfriend Laura Calder, check out her Craggy Chocolate Cake. It's great for those of you who are living a gluten free diet since it's got no flour. And may I say, bless you all cause I dont know what I would do in a gluten-free world. I <3 Gluten.

Now... how many more days till Harry Potter?? We're having a Harry Potter marathon this weekend, I'm sooo excited! Yiyi said I could start decorating the house next weekend for Christmas. I know it's premature, but you know? So what?

In honor of Halloween I bring you this post.

My favorite sort-of-ghostly poems:


The Highwayman
by Alfred Noyes
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and for another one...


The Unquiet Grave
Anonymous
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Yesterday for the Jersey Shore reunion our party was smaller but our appetites were just as big :) I made a variation of stuffed shells and - wait for it - BLOODY CAKE!!

Pictures, pictures!!

For the stuffed shells I followed this recipe from Giada (aka. skinny bitch that can cook) Shells with Crispy Pancetta & Spinach

And here is the result. It was fantastic, I'm having the leftovers for lunch =D










And now for the BLOODY CAKE!!

Because I had another box of red velvet mix from my previous adventures in the world of mediocre cuisine - aka. The Cake Balls and I needed an excuse to use and abuse my new box of food coloring I bought from Amazon (these things are AMAZING), plus I had these ghostly sprinkles I had scored at Ross some weeks ago for like $1.50 in clearance I was able to pull this off. Made two cakes in square pans and I did a large batch of cream cheese frosting - recipe here. I split the frosting in two, colored one half bloody red by mixing some red and black and I made one charcoal by just adding the black alone. I added the dark red between the two cakes and I covered the cake in the charcoal, sprinkled the little orange ghosts on top and VOILA! The cake bleeds delicious cream cheese frosting. Masterpiece.
















NOM NOM NOM

I wish everyone a Happy Halloween! A preview to my makeup for my costume. Guess who I am? :P

It's my roommate's 30th bday today and I've made her something special. We're going to be celebrating for 2 days so I should be properly exhausted by Sunday :)

But I wanted to show you all what I did for her b-day. Instead of baking her or buying her a cake, I made cake balls which are, honestly, some of the best stuff I've ever put in my mouth. ;)

Food porn!!



Baked a from the box red velvet cake and made some cream cheese frosting, the recipe is here http://www.frostingrecipes.net/easy-creamcheese.html




Paused to make myself an Amaretto Sour =D






You have to crumble the cake and mix in the frosting and roll the mix into balls. This mix is so awesome that I ate it on its own =/
















Dip into melted chocolate and VOILA! Get creative! :)




Here is the formal recipe:
Mine are not as pretty as hers but that's OK, I can try it again :)
http://www.bakerella.com/red-velvet-cake-balls/

The best homemade French fries. EVER.

So I found a new little obsession and that is Chef John's youtube channel called Food Wishes, I tried doing last night his recipe for French Fries and I must say that it was AMAZING. I tossed them with some homemade seasoned salt and spicy garlic ketchup and they were devoured. Perfect period food, a bit time consuming but really awesome.

That's all my cooking right now... I say this as water boils for my cajun boiled peanuts... but nevermind ;)

This has been one of those weeks when I can tell you it's been at least days before I've turned on my computer.

The good: "Pillars of the Earth" was AWESOME, "Entourage" was AWESOME (OMFG, Eric/Sloane = LOVE, they're engaged!), I didn't break a leg bowling (YAY) and things are not bad with the doctor. He was over last night and I got minimal sleep but still surprisingly relaxed...

The bad: All this socializing has left me on the broke side of things, I've hardly shopped! =/ And I am quite tired. I think tonight since Mr. Doctor has a night shift I will be catching up on my Zzzzsss

I can't wait for tomorrow's Jersey Shore party!!!

Shrimp Greek Salad

Ingredients:
A dozen shrimps, peeled
Lettuce, enough for a 2 full servings
2 med tomatoes
1 cup of crumbled feta cheese
1 small red onion
1/2 a large cucumber
1/2 a lemon
4 pepperoncinis
Good Seasons Greek Vinaigrette

Season the shrimp with salt, pepper & some lemon and just grill.

Toss the rest of the ingredients together with the grilled shrimp and add as much dressing as you like. Simple and AMAZING.

I just did this for lunch and me & my roommate and we were very satisfied.

Yes, dessert is always THE BEST! I made this for our weekly Jersey Shore party where upon placing it in the coffee table it was absolutely ATTACKED, VIOLATED AND DISMEMBERED! I was lucky I got this picture of what it was before (especially my brother) gulped it down.

I researched a lot of recipes for this but finally came to one that I adjusted for what I liked. I should warn you all, I didn't measure... I was doing it all by eye.

Ingredients:
- 4 cans of refrigerated Pillsbury's biscuits (they're at Walmart for like less than $3, for the pack)
- 1 3/4 cups of white sugar
- 3 tablespoons of Cinnamon
- 2 sticks of butter or 1 full cup (REAL BUTTER, PEOPLE!!)
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla
- 1/4 brown sugar

Melt the butter and add the 3/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup brown sugar and vanilla - bring to a light boil (or you can microwave the hell out of it) Put the liquid mixture to the side.

Mix one cup of sugar & the cinnamon - dip cut up biscuit sections in this and arrange in a heavily greased bundt pan. I paused half-way through and poured some of the liquid mixture over it, then layered the rest of the biscuits on top. Pour remaining cin-sugar mix on top and the rest of the liquid mixture.

Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes.

I should warn you, place your pan on top of a cookie-sheet or something because sometimes it spills over and this will prevent a gooey mess in the bottom of your oven.

You have to flip IMMEDIATELY so please be careful when doing it, dont get burnt. Flip onto a large plate, be careful the liquid caramel will be all over the place so do this over your sink. It'll look majestic when served, dust some powdered sugar on top for presentation. If you have kids this is a fun thing to do with them, I think I'll do this with my goddaughters when they come over next time.

This is also a GREAT breakup food, ngl.

And now gif love for those of you who also love watching Vinny/Snooki on JS.

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Recipe: Kalamata Olive Spread





Ingredients:
1 cup of pitted Kalamata Olives
3 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoons of capers
1 lg handful of fresh parsley
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

Place the garlic cloves into a blender or food processor; pulse to mince. Add the olives, capers, parsley, lemon juice, and olive oil. Blend until everything is finely chopped. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

For the toasted bread I just got a baguette, sliced it fine. Mixed a teaspoon of herbes de provence and some salt in a small little dip bowl. In a grilling pan drizzle some olive oil, bring to med-high and wait until hot. Then place the little sliced bread on grill and sprinkle the herbs & salt mix over it. Toast on both sides. Serve and be pretty! Very vegetarian friendly :)

And I'm off cause I still have people at the house :)

Are you the person who always orders the table-side guacamole but never make it at home? Or perhaps you judge a Mexican restaurant by their guacamole? Then you need to do this:


I have been making this guacamole for a few years now and I've made converts of people who claimed to hate anything green and mushy. I learned it from one of my sorority sister's mom who was born and raised in Arizona and lady could really cook tex-mex.

The amount of ingredients all depends on taste. Some people like it FULL of tomatoes, others not so much, so customize this as you like. To make a batch like the one in the picture:

Ingredients:
- 5 small avocados
- 1 large steak tomato, diced
- 1 large lime
- 1 med red onion, diced
- 1 fresh jalapeño, diced
- a handful of fresh cilantro (must have this!!), chopped finely
- salt & pepper
- garlic powder (can use fresh garlic if you have at hand, finely minced)

The basis is very simple: peel & seed avocado and placed in large mixing bowl. Squeeze half your lime into it; mush to your liking with a potato musher or a fork. You can leave it as chunky as you like it. Then add the rest of the ingredients, adding salt, pepper & garlic powder to your liking. Make sure you squeeze the rest of the lime in there, the lime juice is what keeps it from getting brown. People never add enough salt, imo, so make sure you salt it well. Serve with some chips or for taco night and I promise people will love this, I have to do this by request now because so many people love this guacamole. I usually get some extra lime wedges to decorate and dice more jalapeños on the side for those who like it EXTRA spicy. I think the reason it's so good is the fresh ingredients in it, your veggies should be nice and fresh and then it taste delicious.

Wine suggestion: Skip the wine and serve super cold Bud Lite Lime or Coronas.

I've been meaning to try out this recipe posted by Atlantis Home on lemon bars and I finally had the chance to last night. Yiyi, Alex & I went shopping for a dinning room set and we found one, Yiyi's choice. We ended up getting this one on our 7th shop American Signature Furniture store: Dinning Set. It's not too big cause we dont have like TONS of space but it's large enough to fit 6 people and it's the counter height one which we were really really looking for! So it arrives on Tuesday & her dad is coming over to set it up for us. I also left with something. I just couldn't leave it, you'll see how precious it is! The Perfect Cocktail Table. It's perfect for our living room, for parties, board game nights, etc. It arrives next wk, SO excited!

So last night we decided to let the boys win out and let them pick out a movie. They picked 'The Departed' and it just happened than more than half of the ppl in the room hadn't watched it and of course I own it (just to watch Mark Wahlberg be an asshole). We picked up a bunch of movie candy, a huge pack of beer and wine and I got to the kitchen and made my lemon bars. 3am they finally leave and this photo below is all that is left of my precious lemon bars. They were attacked. So I can vouch that they are AWESOME.



Here is the recipe that she posted, I followed it to a T.
AUNT GAIL'S LEMON BARS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

CRUST
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup of butter (1 stick)
1/4 cup powered sugar
Add sugar to butter, then flour. Mix well. Press evenly into 8" square pan. Bake 20 minutes.

FILLING
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
a little lemon zest
Beat all ingredients together, and pour into baked crust. Return to oven and bake 20 minutes longer. Do not over bake. Let cool, then dust with powered sugar and cut into squares.

If you have a large group of people coming over or you're taking this for a large party I suggest you make 2 batches. They're too good and people will love them up. If you like more jelly-to-crust ratio then I suggest you double the filling amount because these are a lot of crust but that's where the buttery goodness is IMO ;)

Have an awesome week everyone!!