Mason Jar Smoothies

One Christmas during my college years, I received a Magic Bullet as a gift. I loved that thing. It was so convenient and compact and most importantly quick and easy clean up. Somewhere along the way, my dear Magic Bullet has got lost in the shuffle. Between graduating from college, moving home for a few months before moving to Kentucky for a year to volunteer and then uprooting my entire life and restarting it in Michigan, goodness only knows where that darn contraption has ended up. Every once in a while, I get a hankering for a smoothie but then I think about having to clean up my blender and I and my lazy self usually decide against it. However, I recently discovered an amazing trick that can turn my ordinary sized blender into a Magic Bullet of sorts that serves up individual sized smoothies in a to go cup. Seriously amazing. And all you need is a Mason jar. 

Om Nom Nom

You simply take the bottom part of the blender with the blade and screw it on top of your deliciousness-filled Mason jar. (I was skeptical that it would fit, but it really does!) Then you flip it on to the motor portion and blend away. I made a Peanut Banana Oat Smoothie that was absolutely delicious. I used 1 medium banana, 1 Tablespoon of Better 'N Peanut Butter (an amazing low fat peanut butter sold at Target), 3/4 to 1 c of skim milk, several ice cubes, and a couple spoonfuls of old fashioned oats. Once everything is well blended, not only do you have a quick and delicious smoothie but it is already in a lovely glass jar. And the clean-up is oh so quick. I'm telling you this discovery has changed my entire breakfast life. 

In other exciting news, Kevin and I spent our Valentine's Day having our second edition of the Chopped Challenge. This time in honor of the Hallmark Holiday we decided to do a Red & White theme for our food choices. Just like last time, we each individually chose an ingredient and then picked two ingredients together. We ended up with white asparagus (mine), canned dark sweet cherries in heavy syrup (Kevin), steak, and French bread. The cherries were definitely the difficult ingredient not only because they didn't quite match everything else, but also because they tasted absolutely foul. They were not sweet at all, just all sorts of nasty. Kevin came out the winner this time with his take on a Steak and Swiss with a Sweet Cherry Dressing, but no thanks to his absolutely foul Lemon Cherry Asparagus. Although my presentation was much improved from last time, the lack of seasoning on my steak lost me the competition with my Sliced Steak with Grilled Asparagus and Parmesan on top of a Crostini. The score now stands 1-1...until next time in the Chopped Kitchen.

The Ingredients and Our Final Dishes

Easy English Muffins

For any person who knows me halfway decently either through this blog or in real life, you have probably realized that I enjoy things homemade way more than their manufactured counterparts. From my wedding cake topper to my laundry detergent, I like to do things with my own two hands. The reasons behind this are various, but include the lessened cost of doing things yourself and the comfort in knowing exactly what is going into whatever it is you are making. 

I recently have been trying to carry this homemade concept over into my cooking as well. I love the idea of taking foods that are considered store bought staples and finding ways to make them at home. I have tried this with a few food items (hummus, tortillas, pickles, and pasta) with varying levels of success. Recently, I decided to take on a new food makeover - English Muffins. I found a recipe for them on Pinterest where I spend entirely too much time looking at recipes, crafts, workouts, and home decorating ideas that I will probably only ever complete a small portion of. 

Now I know some people are not the biggest fan of English Muffins, but I personally don't mind them at all. I usually have at least one package in our freezer. I use them in place of bread for sandwiches and we sometimes make mini pizzas with them when we are lacking inspiration for dinner. 

The finished product making its debut in my breakfast

I wish I could say that they came out exactly as I imagine or at least as good as they looked in the pictures. However, they were thinner and more dense than store bought muffins. They were absolutely delicious in their own way, but not quite the same as their store bought version. It was almost like they needed a little baking soda or something to make them fluff up or perhaps I made a mistake with the yeast or kneading. Despite the differences, I think I'm definitely going to stick with the homemade version with perhaps a few adjustments as it was not very complicated to make and even passed Kevin's taste test. He actually said they had a 'donut-like' sense to them which I have no idea how that is, but I guess that means he didn't notice the whole wheat-ness of them which I always consider a success.

In case you are interested in trying your own hand at this I have included the recipe I followed (with a few adjustments of my own):

Homemade English Muffins

Adapted from myfairbaking.blogspot.com

• 1 cup of milk
• 3 tbsp butter (I used a little less)
• 3 tbsp honey
• 1 cup warm water (105-110 degrees)
• 1/4 oz of yeast
• 2 tbsp cornmeal
• 5 cups All Purpose Flour (I did half whole wheat flour in mine)
• 1 tsp of salt

Directions:

The Baking Process in Progress

• Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water, mix lightly and set aside for ten minutes to foam lightly. 
• In a small saucepan, heat the milk, butter and honey until the butter is melted. Let cool lightly.
• Combine the yeast mixture and milk mixtures gently. 
• In a large bowl, sift 3 cups of flour. Stir in the milk and yeast. Sift the remaining flour and salt. Stir until cohesive.
• Knead the dough for 3 minutes on lightly floured surface or until lightly elastic. Let rest for 5 minutes.
• Meanwhile, cover two cookie sheets with parchment and lightly sprinkle with cornmeal. 
• Flour your work surface lightly and roll the dough out until it's a 1/2 inch thick (don't roll too thin) and then cut into circles to make your muffins. 
• Gently place on the cookie sheets, sprinkle the tops with cornmeal and cover with a dry, light cloth. Let sit in a warm place for 45 minutes or til nearly doubled in size. 
• Heat a heavy bottomed skillet on medium low. No grease necessary.
• Gently place a muffin in your hand and shake lightly to remove some of the corn meal. Place into the pan and repeat til the pan is full. Don't let them touch each other. 
• Cook for 8 minutes on low per side or until browned well. Flip and cook again. (I found that you have to cook them longer than 8 minutes to really cook them all the way through the middle.)
• Let cool lightly on a wire rack.

Happy Baking!

You've Been Chopped

Yesterday, Kevin and I were excited to have an entire day off together which can sometimes seem like a rarity in our busy lives (although with me now working nights we do see each other much more often which is lovely). Since we had a whole day to ourselves, I decided to break out one of the ideas I had from our date night jar that I made Kevin for Christmas. The jar consists of Popsicle sticks painted one of three colors each representing a different type of date: dark blue means more expensive/planning ahead involved, regular blue means average cost/moderate planning, and light blue is nearly free/stay-at-home/little-to-no planning involved. This way when we are plum out of ideas for what to do with our free time we have a little help and we can pick from each category based on how much effort we feel like putting into the days activities. 

Some of you may not be aware of this, but Michigan has been absolutely freezing lately. I'm talking single digit numbers here and with the wind chill its even been in the negative. Miserable. Especially for someone like me who is always cold. I generally wear leggings under my sweatpants to keep from being absolutely frozen. I say all of that to say that there was slim chance of getting me to want to venture outside for any sort of adventure so I decided to stick with a stay-at-home/basically free date - our very own Chopped Challenge.

Our Individual  & Shared Supply Stations

I have recently been watching a lot of Chopped on the Food Network; the concept for this show is pretty interesting. For those of you who have never watched,let me fill you in briefly. The show consists of a cooking competition between four contestants. There are three rounds - appetizer, entree, and dessert - with one contestant being eliminated each round leaving a winner after the dessert round. The twist with the show is the mystery basket that the contestants open each round which holds usually three different ingredients that they must incorporate into their dishes in creative and innovative ways. Usually these ingredients are not well known like an exotic fruit or perhaps not ones you would associate with fine dining such as canned pasta. The chefs have very limited time to come up with an idea for what they are going to make with their mystery ingredients, execute the dish, and get it plated before the timer goes off. 

Kevin 'The Iron Chef' in the heat of the battle

I thought it would be a lot of fun to have our very own version of Chopped and so we decided to modify the rules a little to make it work in our tiny apartment kitchen. We each got to individually pick one of the ingredients and then together picked a third ingredient which gave us a 'mystery basket' of turkey sausage, blueberries, and wheat thins. We were not allowed to use the internet to look up recipes before or during the challenge. We decided that we would have thirty five minutes to make an entree and split up our limited counter space and cookware and each took one half of the stove-top to make everything as fair as possible. And then the cook-off began! Kevin kept a running commentary like he was on Iron Chef for most of the time (he's never actually seen Chopped so he was a little confused which show he was on). 


After thirty five minutes we were left with a sink overflowing with dishes and two very interesting creations. Kevin made a 'Penne, Italian Sausage, & Broccoli Casserole with Crushed Crackers & Mozzarella Cheese Topping in a Blueberry White Wine Sauce' and I made a 'Sweet and Savory Feta & Sausage Cinnamon Cracker Crepe with a Balsamic Blueberry Reduction'. We each tasted both dishes and then graded them on a scale of 1 to 5 (with one being the worst) in four different categories: plating, creativity, taste, and use of the ingredients. Kevin won by far in plating as I barely managed to get my food on the plate before the timer went off and the blueberry sauce on top did not drizzle down the way I planned but rather just sort of plopped very unappealingly. Taste was a toss up - blueberry overwhelmed both the dishes in a not so pleasant sort of way (although Kevin plans on eating the leftovers from his today - brave man). After the points were tallied and averaged, I ended up coming away with the win by just half a point due to my creativity in the use of the ingredients and the originality of the dish. 

My Crepe Creation & Kevin's Pasta Dish

I cannot wait for our future Chopped Challenge rematches and according to this interview conducted after his devastating loss interview neither can Kevin Patrick aka 'The Iron Chef'. Bring on the re-match!