Monkey Bread

After swim meets in college, the parents would often provide the swimmers with home-baked treats. During my sophomore year of college I lived with 5 other swimmers which meant that on swim meet weekends we were bombarded with sweet treats from our well meaning parents. I was first introduced to Monkey Bread (or as we called it “Monkey Balls”) when one of the other mothers left it at our apartment post meet. Although I have never made this myself until now (for a boating weekend with friends), I still have fond memories of that gooey goodness consumed over a good game of post-swim meet game of tetris with the roommates.

MONKEY BREAD

Ingredients:

* 4 cans refrigerated biscuits
* 1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon
* 1/2 cup butter
* 1 cup white sugar
* 1 cup brown sugar, packed

Pre-heat oven to 350. Pull your biscuits apart and rip into smaller pieces (roughly 4 per biscuit). Try not to eat too much of the raw biscuit dough, like I always do! Mix your biscuit bits with the cinnamon and white sugar and pack into a buttered bundt pan. In the meantime, heat the brown sugar and butter together until melted, and pour over the top of the biscuit mix in the pan. Bake for about 45 minutes, let cool, and invert onto plate. Enjoy!

Reference: www.brokeassbride.com

Bullet Hole Cookies

When I was in college, we would frequently head to the cafe in the student union building after swim practice in the evening. Some of the usual dinner options choosen by my fellow swimmers and me were the pizza bagel, the TBLT (turkey, bacon, lettuce and tomato), veggie burgers and sometimes even their cheese fries--hey, we were collegiate athletes training from 2-3 hours each day! However, no matter what we choose for the main course, we always finished off the meal with 2 or 3 of the Bullet Hole (sometimes referred to as "the butthole") oreo cookies. Just last week one of my friends from college emailed me with the link to a recipe for these fabulous cookies. I made them last night and it took me right back... they did not disappoint!

Recipe - Makes 20 - 30 cookies*
Adapted from AllRecipes

Ingredients:

* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
* 1 cup packed brown sugar
* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
* 1 egg
* 1 egg yolk
* 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
* 20 oreos, crushed (I used double stuff!)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended.
4. Add in the crushed oreos. Beat on low speed for just a few seconds to break up the oreos in the dough.
5. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.*
6. Bake for 14minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted (important--you want them to be chewy and not crisp if you are looking for authentic bullet hole taste!). Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.**

* I got 30 cookies but I made mine a lot smaller. I scooped by rounded tablespoons. 1/4 cup seemed way too big.
** I baked them for 14 minutes and they were perfect. Chewy, but not underbaked.

Beach Time!

Mr. E. and I are enjoying some R & R here at the Jersey Shore. As the saying goes "Life's a Beach" and that is truly the case when we find the time to drive the 9 hours to NJ to relax with the sun, surf, family, friends and fresh fish. His family has been coming here for almost 90 years and so this place is truly a place of comfort where life is slow and not much changes from day to day or year to year.
Yesterday while Mr. E's grandmother and I were enjoying some time on the porch leisurely reading our books and enjoying our second cups of coffee, we noticed a wee bit of smoke funneling out of car in the parking lot across the street. The smoke quickly dissipated but not before the police and fireman came out in full effect. Sigh, just another slow day at the beach.
For dinner last evening we enjoyed fresh local scallops in a chive butter sauce with my own special creation comprised of gifts from a friends organic farm and the bounties of our local CSA. I decided to try something different and came up with my own creation comprised of what we had in the fridge--vegetarian zucchini boats.

INGREDIENTS:
2 large zucchinis
2 onions
1 large garlic clove
3 pieces of stale or toasted bread
2 T olive oil
1/4 c. chopped fresh parsley.
3/4 disc of Boursin garlic herb cheese or 1/2 c. of any cheese on hand (cream cheese would also be lovely)

1. Preheat the oven to 325 and grease the bottom of a glass dish large enough to hold the four boat halves.
2. Cut the zucchini in half length-wise and hollow out the insides to make a boat. Keep the hollowed out zucchini as it will be used for the insides of the boat.
3. Slice the onions and mince the garlic.
4. Heat the olive oil in a pan over med-high heat. Add the garlic and saute for 1 min. until fragrant.
5. Add the onions and the zucchini innards to the pan and saute for 7 minutes or until soft and cooked through.
6. Add the cheese and parsley to the onion/zucchini mixture.
7. Fill the boats with the vegetable/cheese melange and fill up the four boats.
8. Bake in the oven for 55-60 minutes until the zucchini has softened.

Gardens

Mr. E. cleared out a small area of dirt next to our apartment and planted our first vegetable garden. The plants smell wonderful and we are so excited to reap the rewards of his hard work in a few weeks... The first photo is of peppers and brussel sprouts, the second photo is eggplant and the third photo is of our killer tomatoes!

Lemon Meringue Pie

A few months ago we were all obsessed with March Madness, including me and Mr. E. We both filled out a bracket and whoever lost had to do something for the loser... If I won I wanted a hand and foot massage from Mr. E and if he won, he wanted me to bake him a lemon meringue pie. For those of you who don't already know this, I am not a big fan of lemons and limes other than as a spritz or slice in a beverage (refreshing!). I think that the worst desserts out there are ones than involve these two fruits i.e. Lemon Meringue Pie and Key Lime Pie-yuck! I know that I am definitely in the minority here but what this means is that Mr. E NEVER gets to eat these desserts because I will not make them, nor will I share them if he orders one at a restaurant. Therefore this was a pretty big bet for the two of us... well, unfortunately I choose Memphis to win it all so I was eliminated pretty early on in the tournament and so today's post is on Lemon Meringue Pie...my first and only time making these sweet treat.

PS. I would be happy to make this for my love for his birthday but he loves fresh fruit pies homemade by his wonderful mother each year...Oh, and if you really want the recipe, let me know.

Mmm.... Strawberries

We live in a small town surrounded on all sides by farms.... miles and miles of farms. Summer is the best season in our town for many reasons but also because of the bounty that our farms provide. I have been searching for a pick-your-own ORGANIC strawberry farm (the pesticides reside in the skin of the fruit so any fruit or veggie that you consume from a non-organic farm will have a larger amount of pesticides if you plan to eat the skin on the fruit or vegetable). Unfortunately I could not find a local pick-your-own farm but I did find a farm about 10 minutes down the road from us that had organic strawberries. Strawberry season can be short and I was just so impressed with the beauty of her fruit that I bought 6 quarts... Now what am I going to make will all those berries....

PS. If you would like to find a pick-your-own farm near your home, check out this website http://www.pickyourown.org/

Homemade Pasta

I know, I know... I have been MIA for nearly two months and one of my friends here in O-town actually missed my posts... how lovely!!
Well it has been a busy month and Mr. E. and I just returned from a 10 day trip to Italy. One of our favorite foods from the trip (besides the Mascarpone and Nuttella gelato every night!) was the homemade pasta and I just knew that I had to learn that skill upon our return. After some investigating (thank you sister-in-law Mrs. E.), i was encouraged to purchase the Prago pasta machine which latches onto your countertop and costs quite a few Benjamins less than the KitchenAid pasta attachment. I decided that this weekend would be the perfect time to break out the pasta machine and learn the ancient art of making pasta.