The Cupcake Truck

Once upon a time, in a magical land called Travelers, where there is a giant red umbrella and a sea of perfect white rocking chairs, there exists a special vehicle. It is unlike every other vehicle because this truck, my friends, is not just a truck.

It's a cupcake truck.

Yes, my friends, there exists a truck that produces delicious, delicious, custom cupcakes. And in Travelers land, these cupcakes have clever names. Perhaps you would like a "Travelers Championship Chocolate." Or maybe a "Peanut Butter Birdie." I personally had "Red 'Umbrella' Velvet" with white chocolate cream cheese frosting. It was delicious... but not as good as the cupcakes I had  at Georgetown Cupcake in DC last summer. My mouth waters just thinking about it.

The Cupcake Truck is based out of Hamden, CT, and you can look it up online at www.cupcaketruck.com. And Hamden isn't so far from the Bronx... so maybe it will come somewhere near us.

I can't wait to update you all on the (hopefully) amazing food I find in Europe!

Love and cupcakes,

Courtney

Dangerously Good Peach Sangria…and other summertime indulgences

Hi Girls!

Sorry for not posting earlier. I wish I had a legitimate excuse for not posting other than a typical bout of summer laziness. But, truthfully, isn’t that what summer is all about?

Besides laziness, I do have a somewhat legitimate excuse for not posting more frequently; I have spent quite a bit of my free time getting to know the most recent love of my life.

His name is Liam and he is the blonde haired, blue eyed, 22 month old son of our new neighbors. He looks like a cherub and is too adorable. I want him.

I thought I would pass along a picture cause I know how much we all like babies!

Such a cutie.

In others news, Mike and I are breaking up so I may begin my quest to have blonde children. Seriously, though..this kid is just too cute. More pictures to follow.

Speaking of sweet, I know, I you are all going to love this sangria recipe. It’s the best I’ve ever had. It’s lighter than your typical red wine based sangria recipes and a little sweeter.

What You Need:

1 (750 milliliter) bottle of dry white wine

¾ Cup of Peach Schnapps

6 Tablespoons of frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed

¼ Cup White Sugar

One Pound of White Peaches, pitted and sliced (I used frozen peaches that I thawed)

¾ Cup Seedless red grapes, halved

¾ Cup of additional sliced fruit (I used strawberries and frozen raspberries)

1 Bottle of Spritzer(I used Diet 7-Up, but anything carbonated will work)

I know this looks like a lot of ingredients for Sangria, but TRUST ME, it comes together pretty quickly and it is absolutely worth any trouble.

How To Make It:

In a large pitcher, combine white wine, peach schnapps, lemonade concentrate and sugar. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Add sliced peaches, grapes and additional fruit.

Now, take a deep breath because you are one step closer to summertime happiness.

Refrigerate the sangria until well chilled, at least 2 hours, to blend the flavors.

How To Enjoy:

When you are ready to serve, pour ¾ of a glass with sangria and top it off with your spritzer of choice. Make sure to give it a good stir to mix it all up. Top with some sliced fruit and you’re ready to go.

The best way to drink this sangria is surrounded by half-naked European soccer players, but I’ll try to be understanding if that’s not possible!

I hope you enjoy the sangria recipe. It’s a wonderful party drink and simply perfect for summer!

Much Love,

Diana

Penne Pasta with English Peas

Well, I guess its time someone stop being a slacker, and post some recipes or something. Once again, no pictures from me, mostly because I'm too lazy to stop every two seconds while I'm cooking and take pics and my little sister (who will be my photographer later this summer) is off gallivanting in Italy.

And since she's gone, I can make pretty much whatever I want for dinner and not worry about her silly eating habits (love you J.J.!). So, for dinner the other night, my mom and I teamed up. One the menu was pan-seared lamb chops, a nice salad (made with veggies from the Farmer's Market), and a pasta dish created by moi!

This week was pretty much the only week for English peas at the Farmer's Markets in Oklahoma (its flipping hot here, supposed to be 102 today, so they have a very short season, apparently). My mom bought a huge bag of shelled peas and left me to figure out a way to incorporate them into dinner. I thought, "Pasta dish!" and took it from there.

Ingredients:
About 2 cups shelled English peas
1/2 onion, chopped
About 1/2 cup of whole wheat penne pasta
1+ cups part-skim ricotta cheese
Chopped fresh mint (a few tablespoons)
Chopped fresh parsley (samesies)
Veggie broth
Salt and white pepper to taste

How I did it:
First, I washed the peas. This is a very important step, and must not be overlooked. Since the peas were locally grown and not shipped from South America, the chances that they carried e. coli were slim. I, however, do not like to chance these things. Then, I chopped half an onion. I added some olive oil to a hot pan, and sauteed the onions until they were translucent. Then, I added the peas. I smashed some of the peas as they were cooking, because I felt they needed to know who was boss.

While that was going in the pan, water was boiling for pasta. I cooked the pasta according to the directions on the package. Cooking pasta pretty much speaks for itself. When the pasta was done (al dente, please), I drained it and added it to the pan with the peas and onions. I let that cook for a few minutes more, while I readied the next step.

I took a little more than half a 16 oz container of ricotta and mixed it with all the fresh mint we had in the refrigerator. About two tablespoons? I don't measure, so I don't really know. Then I chopped up some parsley (about the same amount as the mint) and added that to the mix as well.

Next, I removed the pasta and peas from the flame. Then, I added the ricotta mixture, mixing it in to coat the pasta, and adding veggie broth to thin it out a little. I meant to save the pasta water, because I know its perfect for these things, but of course I forgot, so I thought peas are veggies, vegetable broth will do.

After this was all mixed in, I served immediately, as God intended pasta covered in ricotta cheese to be served. None of this "waiting around for it to congeal" nonsense.

The verdict: Yummy! Although, next time, I will either use less of the ricotta mixture, or more pasta, because I think it was a little too much. Still delicious, but it tried to hide the peas, who were supposed to be the star of the show, those poor little delicate guys with their week long growing season.

Maybe you all in more forgiving climates have a longer season for English peas. If so, I recommend buying them and eating them. Fresh peas are so much better than frozen, and lightyears better than canned. Also, eating local is the way to go. Farmer's markets are cheap, freah, and have produce of incredible quality. There is one every day of the week somewhere in Tulsa, so I'm pretty much addicted.

That's all for now, get to cooking, ladies!

With love and local-vores,

Andrea

Apologies

I'm very sorry that I'm being a slacker with this site.

I will make up for it.

Someday.

I made dinner WITHOUT A RECIPE the other night... Andrea, you proud??

When You're Broke

So, since everyone else has posted something here, and I haven't been able to, I'm going to post two meals that Jen and I have made. Note that these meals aren't interesting or creative in any way, I just don't want to be left out.

The first meal Jen and I made was based on the odds and ends left to us by friends. Here is a list:

1.) 1/3 box of whole wheat pasta
2.) leftover tomato sauce made by Andrea
3.) a can of sweet peas with low sodium (this comes into play later)
4.) spaghetti
5.) grated parmesan cheese
6.) salt
7.) the willingness to believe that this meal would be good

So I go over to Tierney with my pasta, tomato sauce, sweet peas, and positive attitude. Jen takes one look at my pasta and decides we don't have enough. Which is funny, since I have tons of boxes of pasta in my room but decided that the leftover one would be more than enough for two people. I was wrong. So Jen gets her pasta and then we start the extremely complicated cooking procedure.

1.) Boil water. DON'T WATCH THE POT OR IT WON'T BOIL! Trust me.
2.) Add pasta to water. Stir sporadically.
3.) Drain the peas because Jen says there's too much water in them. Watch Jen add salt because she wants me to die from the heart attack I was avoiding by buying low sodium peas.
4.) Put tomato sauce in microwave. Turn microwave on (this is a really key part of the operation). Repeat process until sauce is hot.
5.) AFTER EVERYTHING IS COOKED mix them all together.
6.) Add the grated parmesan cheese.
7.) Eat. This is the part where the willingness to believe the meal is good comes into play. It actually was too.

Okay, so the second meal Jen and I made was breakfast this morning. Once again, not a complicated meal. Here is what you need:

1.) 1/3 pack of Bacon (courtesy of Courtney)
2.) 4 Eggs (bought at Tiger Mart at 10 pm after drinks at Howls)
3.) Salt (Once again Jen is trying to give me a heart attack)
4.) Pepper
5.) Whole wheat bread (aren't you proud of me Diana?)
6.) Peanut butter and jelly stolen from the RHO

So I am in charge of cooking the bacon. Which is awesome, cause I love cooking bacon. There are three reasons I love cooking bacon.

1.) I like my bacon well-done. And when I say well-done, I mean almost burned. So I like having control over how cooked the bacon is.
2.) There's an element of danger in cooking bacon, because of the spitting liquefied fat. As you all know, I like a little danger in my life.
3.) I get to sing the bacon song. This is the bacon song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBE_T-K8nhY (I promise you will enjoy it)

You have to cook the bacon until it's three sizes too small. Like the Grinch's heart.

Jen scrambled the eggs. She added salt and pepper, which was good cause we had no ketchup to add onto them. I was hoping to finally try eggs sunny side up, but we don't have a spatchula so I couldn't. That will be an adventure for another day.

After we cooked these, we set up some bread with jelly and peanut butter on it. Everything was really good, except the jelly was sugar free so it didn't taste nearly as good as normal.

I know you're all really jealous of me and Jen right now.

Grilled Pineapple and Chicken Skewers

Hey Ladies!

I figured that I should probably get my act together and post something to combat all of the wine drinking and tanning I’ve been indulging in since yesterday.

Last night’s dinner came right out of our pantry. Not wanting to run to the store, my Ma and I found 3 chicken breasts and a Tupperware container full of diced pineapple in the fridge. Inspired by a recent Pioneer Woman recipe we decided to marinate the chicken in teriyaki marinade and a ton of garlic. After letting the chicken marinate we chopped it into bit sized pieces and skewered it with the pineapple. Then we brushed the skewers with bbq sauce and grilled em up!

I know it was a good meal because the men in my family (who are immediately turned off by any kind of fruit and meat mixture) were sneaking extra pieces of chicken!

Yum, Yum, Yum. My apologies for the lack of pictures..or measurements of any kind. This recipe is pretty self explanatory and you can use whatever you have on hand.

If I hadn’t been finishing my 3^rd (Let’s be honest, 5^th) glass of wine as I was making dinner I probably would have marinated the chicken for at least an hour and I would have used a tangy/Asian style bbq sauce. But, such is life.

Hope you enjoyed the recipe.

Much Love,

Diana

Pantry Dinner

Friday night, my last night in the Bronx, Heather came over and we scoured the kitchen for any and all left over food to make dinner. (I took a few pictures, but none of the end product--because I was too hungry to think about it--so I'm omitting pics from this post)

In addition to the approximately 100 unopened containers of chicken broth that we found deep within my kitchen cabinets, we found more than enough to make an absolutely delicious meal--with no recipe, which is my favorite way to try to cook.

What we found:
1 frozen chicken breast
1 box rotini pasta (whole wheat, the only way to go)
About 1/4 cup Balsamic vinegar
4 red potatoes
1 onion
And Garlic. Lots of Garlic.
(Plus some home-made tomato sauce I had made out of more left over ingredients on Wednesday)

This and some spices was all we needed to make a delicious, delicious meal.

I let Heather take care of the potatoes--she sliced then really thin, sliced about half an onion (also really thin), and then drizzled them with oil. We added salt, black pepper, and at Heather's suggestion Chili Powder. Popped them in a 400 degree oven, and waited for goodness.

While the potatoes were cooking, I took care of the chicken. Since we only had one breast, we decided to cut it up into bite sized pieces (which also reduced the cooking time). I also chopped up the rest of the onion, and smashed up a few cloves of garlic. I threw the onion and garlic in with some oil and then added the chicken. I let the chicken brown a little, and then discovered a little bit of butter left in my fridge, so, of course, I added that. To season the chicken, I added some salt and pepper, and a bit of dried basil. When the chicken was cooked through, I added the remains of a bottle of balsamic vinegar (probably about 1/4 cup), and let that reduce into a sauce. And Voila! Ready to serve.

We didn't time our dinner perfectly, and although the chicken and pasta were finished quickly, we still had to wait a while on the potatoes--which was alright, because they were pretty freaking delicious.

So, in conclusion, pantry dinner = Total Success. Heather will back me up on this.

With love and bison from Oklahoma,

Andrea