Napa Cabbage Salad with Cashews

I love this salad. I could eat the whole bowl by myself for a meal. I serve it all the time with seafood because of the salty freshness in the dressing. My mom and I used to pick at any salad that was leftover after dinner right out of the bowl and this was always my favorite (although there wasn't usually leftovers!).

Cashew and Napa Cabbage Salad

Serves 4: about 154 calories per cup of prepared salad

1/2 cup cashews, slightly chopped

4 cups Napa cabbage cut into small pieces

4 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Salt and Pepper

1. Toss cashews and cabbage in a large bowl. 

2. Drizzle olive oil over the salad first (this will keep the vinegar from wilting the cabbage). Drizzle with the vinegar and toss again. Season with salt and pepper. 

Mac and Cheese Grilled Cheese

Mac and Cheese Grilled Cheese - that's right, we combined the two gooey, cheese everyday staples into one terrific sandwich. I made our favorite mac and cheese on Thursday night and saved a cup for leftovers (I had to hide it from Matt and Jason). 


Then on Saturday I did the normal grilled cheese routine where I buttered one side of 4 pieces of Texas toast, put one down, topped with a slice of sharp cheddar, top with 1/2 cup mac and cheese, another slice of cheddar, and last piece of toast. Make sure the skillet is hot so that you can get a nice crunchy golden brown on the outside while the inside is warm.

            Result? Delish - you don't really notice the noodles necessarily but what you do bite into is a extra creamier inside once you crunch through the golden toast. We just might have to make some more "leftover" mac and cheese soon. Definitely worth doing.

Breakfast Burger

 Breakfast Burger from Cuisine at Home: This was a ground pork and breakfast sausage mixed patty on top of a biscuit, with a maple bacon gravy, a fried egg, and flat tater tots!

         Result? Good, but not great. I have to be honest. I am one of those people that doesn't want my syrup anywhere near anything except French toast, pancakes, or waffles. To me it just doesn't belong on my meat. So, I'd definitely make this again but I'd rather just use a regular gravy rather than the one they made with the "hint" of maple. But either way, just use your favorite gravy and add a little maple syrup if you want.

Breakfast Burger:
12 ounces ground pork
12 ounces breakfast sausage
6 biscuits
6 eggs
about 24 tater tots (plus more for snacking of course!)
about a cup of your favorite breakfast gravy


1. Pulse the ground pork and sausage together until just mixed. Form into 6 patties. Grill or saute until well done.
2. Meanwhile bake both your biscuits and your tater tots. Keep warm.
3. Fry or scramble 6 eggs. Keep hot.
4. Stack your burger: bottom of biscuit, burger patty, spoonful of gravy, tater tots, fried egg, top of biscuit. Serve and eat while warm.


** Optional: Go run 7 miles to work this off!

Lemon Blueberry Cake with White Chocolate Frosting

My mom recently called me to tell me that I have completely dropped the ball on the blog and on the cookbook so I better getting moving. So, a good thing to start with is our 3rd anniversary! Matt is a wonderful husband and sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers at work today. Everyone was jealous which of course is half the fun. :) We went to The Penguin for dinner - just to satisfy Matt's love of penguins. It was a really fun place and my steak was excellent. I have tried to make a peppercorn sauce for steak before and I swear I just can't find a good recipe. I wonder if they will give me theirs... probably not. At any rate, it was delicious and to Matt's chagrin I got a photo of him out front. 

Even though we will never enjoy my mom's Lemon Blueberry Cake with White Chocolate Frosting more than we did on our wedding day, I've decided that we should have it every year on our anniversary. So, after a long hiatus of making this cake, I made it on Tuesday. The flavor was good and it was pretty but one of these days I'll actually have to buy regular cake pans. Since I didn't have it, I used a spring-form pan and had to cook it at a lower temperature for longer. It baked, but it was too dense. Luckily, that frosting is literally finger-licking good so it doesn't matter much! And of course, there's always next year!

Lemon-Blueberry Cake with White Chocolate Frosting

Cake:

3 1/3 cups cake flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups sugar

1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 teaspoon lemon zest

4 large eggs, room temperature

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk

2 1/2 (16 oz) cups fresh blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350.

1. Butter and flour two 9-inch cake pans and line the bottom with parchment paper.

2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together. Set aside.

3. Beat butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add sugar 1/3 cup at a time, beating between each addition. Beat in lemon juice and zest. Add eggs one at a time, blending well between each addition. Continue to beat until well blended. Alternate adding the sifting ingredients with the buttermilk in 3 additions, beginning and ending with dry ingredients.

4. Fold in the  berries and transfer batter to the prepared pans. 

5. Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.Let cool.

Frosting:

11 oz white chocolate

12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted  butter, room temperature

2 tablespoons freshly squeeze lemon juice

1. Melt the white chocolate in a double boiler over lightly simmering water, stirring often. Remove and stir until smooth. Let cool to lukewarm.

2 Beat cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Beat in lemon juice followed by the white chocolate. 

3. Spread 1 cup of frosting on top of one of the cakes and put the second cake on top. Frost the entire cake with the remaining frosting. Garnish with lemon slices and fresh blueberries if desired.

Originally printed in Bon Appetit Magazine.

Valentine's Dessert

On the left: chantilly cream (a heavenly light and sweet cream) with a raspberry drizzle. My mom used to make this for Valentine's when we were kids. I didn't really remember it until I tasted it but it was really good and SUPER SUPER EASY. Beat cream cheese, vanilla, and sugar. Separately beat whipping cream until firm and then fold into the cream mixture. Very light, very tasty cream. Heavenly!

In the middle: a chocolate espresso cake dome filled with a blackberry mousse and a blackberry cream drizzle on top. Although we agreed that it was the prettiest of the three it wasn't as deliciously tasty as I'd hoped. Good though...

On the right: a meringue cookie with a pastry cream and strawberry compote. There was also a chocolate drizzle on top. Although it wasn't very pretty, it was tasty. Although, it takes a little work and we've had it before. If I were to pick just one to have again, it'd be the chantilly cream.

Valentines Dinner

I unfortunately work late every Monday night so Matt and I are going to celebrate Valentine's out of order. Tonight (Sunday) we made a new steak dinner with a very nice bottle of wine we bought in Napa Valley. The steak was marinated in a chimichurri sauce for 4 hours. It was made of fresh oregano, fresh parsley, fresh cilantro, jalapenos, and some basic things like salt, oil, vinegar, etc. Matt grilled them and they were really good. I loved how deep the marinade actually penetrated. I must admit that I was slightly skeptical because it was so chunky and I'm used to liquid marinades but it worked beautifully.

We served it with an ancho chili risotto cake that was very tasty. Although, I used WAY to much oil and they didn't get to cook long enough before they started to fall apart. May we'll try again some other time. I really don't care to fry things though.

Matt doesn't know it yet but I've planned quite the dessert. I plan on posting a picture in a little bit so I'll write about it then.

Superbowl of Food

I cannot believe how much food we had at the house for Superbowl.
Our Menu:
Smoked Brisket, Jalapeno Cheddar Sausage, Chicken Wings, Meaty Rotel Dip, Strawberry Pecan Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette, Stuffed Peppers, Baked Potato Salad, Chicken Bacon Ranch Buns, Mexican Cornbread, French Bread, Chocolate Cookie Towers, and Creamy Lemonade Pie.

What People Brought:
Goat Cheese with Blackberry Pepper Jelly, Cream Cheese with Crab Meat and Cocktail Sauce, Pizza Hut's Dunking Strips, Cheesy Bread Puffs, Ranch and Spinach Dip, Chips, and 2 Raspberry Pies,

Favorites?
Our friend Chelsea's Baked Potato Salad is so good. You bake the potatoes and cube them. Mix with sour cream, Ranch powder, real bacon bits and cheese. Sooo tasty.

The Chocolate Cookie Towers were definitely a hit. The dough was WEIRD - sticky and not very floury. But you chill it and roll it out. Although I was very skeptical about if they would turn out right or not they literally melted away in your mouth. So imagine 5 of those layered with a chocolate pastry cream (basically a highly decadent chocolate pudding) and homemade whipped cream. Yum Yum Yum

Last but not least was the Lemonade Pie. I've already made it again for my parents and sister (I'm writing from Little Rock right now). It's a vanilla wafer crust with a hint of mint. Fill with a whipped cream sweetened with sweetened condensed milk and a slight lemon flavor. Then swirl in the blueberry sauce and freeze. You should really try this recipe. It was pretty easy and very tasty. It will be perfecto on a hot summer day.