These carrot cake blondies are lightly spiced and topped with a rich, sweet frosting flavored with bourbon!
These blondies came about for one reason.
I had carrots to use up. You probably know this if you read about those Cauliflower Potato Enchiladas with Chipotle Carrot Sauce I posted recently.
This frosting came about for another.
I was out of dairy. And I couldn’t think of anything other liquid in the house that would be good in it…besides bourbon.
These naturally dyed eggs with black rice, purple cabbage, and red beets are easy to make and produce beautiful eggs for hunting or decorating!
I’m trying to remember the last time I dyed eggs as an adult.
I can’t.
I don’t have anything against Easter eggs. I think I just got tired of the super bright magenta and yellow colors that started feeling a bit unnatural. Because, well, they were.
Naturally dyeing eggs is nothing new. A little Internet search will give you plenty of results. But it is new to me, so I thought I would share my experiences.
I didn’t set out to get every color under the sun. I wanted to narrow in on pinks to blues to purples. And it turns out I used one ingredient to color the eggs that, thus far, I haven’t seen used in any of the posts I reviewed.
These vegetarian cauliflower potato enchiladas are baked with a rich, smoky sauce made with roasted carrots, tomato paste, and chipotle peppers. It’s comfort food with the bonus of plenty of veggies!
I’ve passed by them a million times.
I buy a lot of vegetables there – spinach, Brussels sprouts, kale. But that bag of baby carrots at Costco is huge even for that store. I always knew there would be no way we could finish them before they went bad.
But I was desperate. I needed some carrots and I had zero desire to add another stop to my afternoon.
So I bought them, and then I told everyone about it on Instagram.
These miso chocolate chip cookies have a delicious sweet and salty flavor. They are made with white whole wheat flour and loaded with dark and milk chocolate chips.
Every now and then, I buy miso to make a broth for soup or a noodle dish. Then it ends up sitting in the fridge forever and goes bad on me.
So when I bought some again a couple weeks ago, I vowed that I would use it up.
Zeroed in on savory meals and side dishes, I was flipping through a recent issue of Rachael Ray Everyday and saw a suggestion to add it to chocolate chip cookie dough for a sweet/salty twist.
A simple meal, this spinach garlic, and tahini soup is pureed in a blender before being simmered, then served.
I was checking out at the supermarket the other day when the conversation turned to the food I was buying. This happens all the time. It usually starts with a comment about me cooking or eating healthy foods.
Comments like these don’t make me proud of myself or happy. As a former health professional, they always sadden me a bit. That’s because they mean that the foods in my cart stand out to the cashier as being very different from the foods the majority of other people are buying.
But this conversation went a step further to a comment I had yet to hear.
This recipe for Spanish Fideos, a toasted pasta dish, comes from the new cookbook by the Editors at America’s Test Kitchen, Just Add Sauce.
I mentioned that inspiration has been a little low in the kitchen lately. I don’t think I’m alone, if I can believe what my social media feeds are telling me. Everyone seems to be in a bit of a creativity drought.
To help solve it, I’ve been turning to my cookbook shelf. It’s not quite as heavy as it once was. I am a lot better at keeping around only the ones that inspire me and that I at least plan to cook from in the very near future.
While I’m a little more selective these days, if a book offers me something that I’m not yet familar with or a special look at food that can change the way I cook, I’ll dig in.
This time around, that something was sauces.
My February in photos shows a little bit of what I’ve been up to this month! I hope you enjoy the images!
You might have noticed that it’s been a slow month around here in terms of recipes. If I’m being completely honest, it has a lot to do with a lack of inspiration. I’m feeling a huge drought in cooking creativity. I wish I could blame it on the winter blahs, but in Central California I’m not quite sure you can still use that excuse.
So instead, I’ll blame so few posts in February on focusing on other things like a few client projects and our first trip to Joshua Tree National Park. Some of my favorite photo highlights follow. I hope you’ve had the best February and if spring hasn’t already come your way, I hope it gets there soon!
I’m fairly certain that I have never made a brookie.
I’ve heard of them before, sure. But for some reason, last week when I was trying to think of some kind of chocolate dessert I could make for the blog that was Valentine’s Day-ish, the thought of a layered dessert led to a brownie, led to a cookie, led to a brookie.
I have a history of grand layered dessert ideas failing me. Orange slices on cakes tend to get swallowed from view when baked. And fillings or layers? Let’s just say they are a lot like socks in the dryer. They exist when I place the pan in the oven only to mysteriously disappear when the timer buzzes.
So needless to say, I wasn’t quite sure how these would turn out.
Last Wednesday, I sat down at my computer and saw the date. January 31.
No joke, my first thought was – I have to start using the oven more!
Let me explain why this is a perfectly logical thing to exclaim in your head when one lives in California’s Central Valley and sees that it is the end of January.
Basically, we are in spring right now. It’s pretty amazing. And it will only last a few more weeks. Soon we’ll blink and 100 F will be back. Once it does, we pretty much have to kiss the oven good-bye until October.
I’m not complaining, but I am preparing myself and trying to remember to take advantage of these cooler temps.
More foods that require baking must ensue.
Some might call it cauliflower fried rice, but since there is no rice in it (and I hate putting words in quotes) I prefer fried riced cauliflower. It’s not the prettiest dish you will ever eat, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t delicious. Not to mention super simple to throw together.
I was just reading an article last week about ugly food.
It was about all those delicious dishes out there that will never win a photo award no matter how talented the stylist.
It got me thinking about how this little tidbit influences what I put on the blog.
I tend to throw together some really tasty and really ugly meals every week. Before I finish cooking, I think, hey, I need to put this on the blog. It’s so good.
Then I stand there staring at it in my bowl.
