Dinner From The Heart.....

Love comes in many forms and when it's in the form of food - I'm happy, happy! This is the meal I made for the hubs, my daughter and my mom for Valentine's Day - and I got 'hearts' in wherever I could! Individual heart-shaped meatloaves (perfect becasue I LOVE meatloaf!), heart-shaped breadsticks, my special mashed tates with heart-shaped butter and a new broccoli dish that I knew we'd all love!

I think making a meal, such as this, extra special comes in the details. Like these heart-shaped butters. I just cut a pat of butter from a little-cooler-than-room-temperature butter and used a very small, heart cookie cutter to cut out the shape. After all were formed, I covered them and put them in the fridge until I was ready to place them into the piping hot mashed taters.

I bought refridgerated breadsticks (garlic ones...but the come in plain as well), twisted them as instructed, then formed them into hearts too! Once they were baked, I brushed each with hot, melted butter. Did I meniton there was no dieting in sight on this Valentine's Day?!

I DO have to say I make a bitchin' meat loaf (recipe to come at a later date), but instead of making one large one that would normally be served in slices, I took a good handful of the meat mixture and molded it into a heart shape, chilled them, then baked them on a sheet pan for about 40 minutes. With the tangy and delicious, red glaze, the look perfect for Valentine's Day!

Look for the recipe for this to-die-for broccoli recipe to come soon as well. I'll do a step-by-step on this one. I can hardly wait to have it again. I combines both roasted broc as well as flourettes that have been cooked with cream and garlic (then creamed with an immersion blender). The flavor is incredible!

I can't believe I forgot to snap a pic of this heavenly dessert before I scooped off the first serving! This is called Coure la Creme and it is the silkiest, creamiest, lightest & fluffiest thing you'll ever eat! It's super easy - and although it does call for a certain heart-shaped, ceramic mold, the mold isn't a must - which means everyone can have the opportunity to create this wonderfully light dessert that's served with raspberry sauce. It was the perfect ending to a LOVEly Valentine's Day dinner.

I hope your Valentine's Day was fillled with love!

Happy Valentine's Day Cookies!

It's almost Valentine's Day! And I LOVE making pretty, sparkly Vanlentine's cookies!

My daughter and her BFF get their very own, monster-sized cookie, 'cuz love them monster-size!

The rest get all kinds of icing, sprinkles and sugars to please everyone else I love!

Yummy.......

Hello sweet, sugary calories!

Valentine cookie jewels :-)

A tasty, good afternoon's project and a LOVEly treat for your the people you love!

Have a sweet-n-lovely Valentine's Day! I send much love to you!!!

Kung Pao - Flavor Wow!

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"Oo la la! Le Toast Frenchais!" As Spoken by Darlene Conner

I love the TV show Roseanne - well, the older episodes, mostly. Those are the fun ones, when the kids are younger (before they 'jump the shark and win the lottery) - and my favorite one is where Roseanne has gone home to help her mom after her dad has had a heart attack. While she's gone, Jackie comes to stay at the house to help Dan take care of the kids and upon seeing french toast on the table one morning, Darlene exclaims, "Oo lala! Le toast frenchais!" I love it!

Anyway... I like giving my babydoll a hot breakfast and this morning, after deciding to make my toast frenchais, I thought, why not post it?! Some poeple don't really know how to make french toast and my daughter swears by mine so.... here we are ;-)The ingredients are simple, eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon.......

......and a pinch of salt.

Whisk it all together with a fork.....

Then, grab your bread of choice - which in my case this morning, was plain old, week old, white bread left over in the bread drawer. Melt some butter in a pan over medium heat.

Place the bread in the egg mixture and use a fork to poke the bread to help it soak up the sweet, eggy gooodenss.

Flip it over and do the same to the other side......

...then lay it in the hot pan and listen to it sing!

Then slide in a friend 'cuz it's just better that way.

After about 2 minutes (when the toast has browned nicely on the bottom and dry to the touch), flip each slice over to cook another minute or so on the raw/wet side. Mmmmmm....look how golden it is....

Sprinkle on some powdered sugar - my daughter likes it that way :-) Then pour on yer hot syrup. You MUST warm the syrup....you wouldn't serve hot mashed taters with cold gravy woud'ja?! That's crazy talk!

Mmmmm...it's hot, crispy and tender....just the best.....!

But the other best part? Having my daughter say, "Thanks, Mom...that was sooo good!" :-)

My true pleasure, baby - I love you!!!

French Toast

Ingredients:
1 pat of butter
4 slices white bread (stale-ish)
2 eggs
2 Tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 Tablespoon sugar
pinch of salt

Directions:
Whisk all ingredients except the bread in a shallow pan or pie plate. Melt 1 pat of butter in a skillet over medium heat. Place 1 to 2 lsices of bread (whatever fits) into the beaten egg mixture and poke at bread with fork to help absord mixture. Flip slices over and do the same to the other side. Lay slices into melted butter in hot skillet and cook approx 2 minutes or until cooked-side of bread is golden and dry-ish to the touch. Turn slices over and cook an additional 1 to 2 minutes. Plate and serve with warmed syrup, powdered sugar and butter if desired.

Quinoa - Super Keen....

Quinoa (pronounced Keen-Wa.....not quin-o-ah), is becoming all the rage! An awesome source of fiber, I first heard about it a year and a half ago or so but hadn't tried it until this last weekend. I wanted to find a good recipe that incorporated lots of flavor rather than trying it more plain and possibly not liking it when liking it is exactly what I wanted to do! You can find quinoa in the bulk or health food sections of many stores by the bulgar and brown rice etc. The tiny 'pellets' are about the size of two sesame seeds and when browned before adding liquid, smell a little like popcorn! Yum! The recipe I found had a Mexican flair and was a great along side chicken fajitas.

The recipe was pretty basic....quinoa, onion, cilantro, garlic, black beans, frozen corn and chicken broth (called for veg. broth but I only had chicken on hand), as well as olive oil, salt, pepper, cayenne and cumin.

I began by adding the olive oil to a med-high heated pan. I added 1 teasopoon of butter just for a hint of it's taste.

I then added the quinoa - and guess what? Just as I began typing this post, I remembered that I'd read you should rinse your quinoa before cooking it! Yikes! Oh well, I did like the end product anyway...but next time, I'll try rinsing first.

I stirred the quinoa in the oil/butter now and again for about 5 minutes till it smelled flavorful and was nicely browned.

Onions and garlic were added next and cooked for an additional 5 minutes or so.

My camera didn't capture it as well as I'd have liked....but it's getting some nice color here....

Next up came the broth and seasonings & spices - I stirred until well combined...

..then brought it up to a boil...

...then covered it and simmered it on low for 20 minutes.

After the 20 minutes, it had soaked up all the yummy goodness and was light and fluffy.

The frozen corn went in nest (mine had been sitting out since the cooking began though, so it wasn't hard-as-a-rock frozen). Note: when you add in the corn, turn the heat up to at least medium as after the quinoa simmered on a low, it wasn't super hot so you'll need to crank it up a bit to heat the corn thoroughly.

Stir the corn in for a few minutes, then add the black beans and cilantro and stir until heated through - about 2 or 3 minutes.

Once well combined and hot....serve! I had a nice pic of the finished dish in a pretty teal bowl but for some reason it didn't turn out...so there's no 'presentation picutre' for you. But...you get the point of it all anyhoo, right?

My husband loved this dish (fifteen yeaf old daughter...not so much....go figure)...I liked it alot but would've liked it hotter (temp-wise) as I'd transferred it to it's serving dish a few minutes too early before our fajitas were ready. Just know that you wanna keep it hot in it's pan until you're actually ready to serve and eat.

We'll have it again - I'm looking forward to trying it with other flavors besides Mexican. It was less toothy that brown rice and as quick to cook as white rice. Quinoa was a keen change from the everyday!

Mexican Quinoa with Corn and Black Beans

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon vegetable oil

1 teaspoon butter
3/4 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
3/4 cup uncooked quinoa
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste (1/4 teas. of each)
1 cup frozen corn kernels
2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

Heat oil and butter over medium-high heat and add quinoa, stirring for five minutes until it begins to brown. Add onions and garlic and cook/stir for an additional 5 minutes. Pour in broth and seasonings, then cover and reduce heat to low - simmer 20 minutes. Add in forzen corn, and increase heat to medium - cooking until corn is heated through. Add black beans and cilantro then cook additional 3 minutes until dish as a whole is steaming hot. Serve immediately.