April 2011

Vanilla Bean Butter.

[Today is the last day to enter Heather's Raffle for Life and bid on my better-than-crack brownies for a great cause!] Look! I made you vanilla butter for your morning muffin. You can make vanilla butter too. Just smash a stick of butter with the contents of one vanilla bean. Then spread it on something fancy like warm maple bacon scones or hot blueberry muffins or steamy pancakes. Or even use it for cookies. It just may be the best invention ever. Vanilla Bean Butter makes 1/2 cup (can easily be doubled) 1 stick butter, softened 1 vanilla bean Combine softened butter with the contents of one vanilla bean and mix. Easy! Can be stored in the refrigerator in a seal tight container or wrapped in plastic wrap. Butter for life!

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Mocha Almond Fudge Cookies.

Nuts in cookies. Cookies with nuts. Few things in life make me cry like biting into a warm, chewy cookie only to chomp down on a rock hard nut. Clorox and rubber gloves. Empty wine bottles. Baked goods without butter. Compromise. Broccoli. (And yes, I’ve tried roasting it.) Cookies with nuts are lumped somewhere in that list. So are brownies with nuts. Its not that I don’t love pecans and walnuts and peanuts. It’s just that they have a time and a place. And inside a cookie is not it. Trust me. But I made some cookies that sort of changed my tune. Think ice cream. Mocha almond fudge ice cream. I really don’t like nuts in ice cream either but, well… I made these anyway. Don’t like coffee? Well neither do I. If you’re thinking it seems like I threw together a lot of ingredients I don’t like to make these cookies, you’re right. You’re always right. Bottom line? I like these cookies the way I like Brussels sprouts with bacon. The way I like inhaling beer bubbles. The way I like sand in my swimsuit. Not ideal from the start, but ending with a [...]

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Things In My Fridge.

Yum. Yes. Why? Why not? Leftover. Always. I’m hungry.

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Toasty Parmesan Chickpea Salad.

Were you wondering how many packages of bacon I have in my fridge right now? Because the answer is four. Four packages. One less package than I had yesterday. Sometimes I can be a bit excessive. Would you still be my friend if I told you I buy butter in bulk? How about if you saw the purple tie-dyed scrunchy I wrap my hair up with when I wash my face at night? Or the catastrophe that I call my closet? Or even worse, my makeup drawer, dusted with bits of glittery Midnight Cowboy? That’s an Urban Decay eye shadow by the way. I don’t hoard burly men wearing cowboy hats in the middle of the night inside my dresser drawers. Or the fact that I made a strawberry peach crumble and ate the entire thing in 24 hours? Or what if you knew that I forgot to shower for two days? Wrong? Mr. How Sweet thought so. I didn’t mind. How about if I told you that I toasted these chickpeas in bacon grease? Good? Bad? Indifferent? Appalled? Raise your hand if you believe that bacon should be rewarded with a national holiday. Twice a year even. I’d [...]

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Single Lady Dinner.

Mr. How Sweet is at the Pens game tonight, so I made something for dinner that he wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. Please pick your jaw up off the floor. Since seeing this caprese salad on Kristen’s blog a few weeks ago, I have been dying to make it. I covered it in syrupy blueberry (!!) balsamic reduction, which is by far my favorite flavor. What? Do you think I have an obsession with blueberries? After eating rabbit food that filled me up about as much as a glass of water, I dug in the fridge and found the leftover filet we had last night along with sweet potato fries. Guess it really doesn’t matter if Mr. How Sweet is here or not.

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Dark Chocolate Blueberry Muffins.

Did you ever have a diary? I did. I think I got the idea from the Babysitter’s Club books. You can tell I read many classic novels as a child. Anyway, this diary of mine. I wrote in it a lot. I’d write in it every single day. And sometimes when I was done writing in my diary, I’d doodle big hearts on the inside cover with a boy’s name in them. David, Doug, Don, Dwight… clearly I liked boys whose names began with the letter D. One diary was a hot pink and purple squishy plastic. Stereotype city. It had a lock and a key, which I just thought was cool. I stashed the book underneath my mattress and the key somewhere in my desk drawer, which I frequently lost, so my brothers couldn’t find it. It was chock full of top-secret news, like what I really thought about Judy Blume’s Forever. I don’t have a diary anymore; instead I have this little page on the internet that most people over the age of 60 don’t “get” and an impulsion to take pictures of my food and talk to my computer screen about them. I don’t tell [...]

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Seven Things.

1. I’ve been making a simpler and healthier version of the tiramisu french toast for a snack. Whole grain bread, mascarpone mixed with expresso powder, vanilla and honey, and topped with strawberries. It’s not as good as the real thing, but still delicious. 2. Still trying to figure out how to say “mascarpone.” And wondering why I don’t sound like a complete sexpot when I say it like Giada does. 3. And why don’t I look like Giada when I cook either? Not fair. Note: must buy Wonder Bra. 4. Yes, these are what you think they are. Trader Joe’s mini peanut butter cups. Sad day. But not really. I picked them right back up. 5. I may have contracted a serious life-threatening disease from eating something off my floor. If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, send help. 6. In keeping with tradition, Mr. How Sweet made these pancakes Sunday. They literally were the best pancakes I’ve ever had. Maybe because I was so hungry? Or because he put exactly 12 chocolate chips in each one? Or because I just ran 10 miles? Just kidding. I will never run 10 miles. Ever. I’d probably [...]

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Baked Parmesan Spaghetti.

Beneath the peanut butter cups, bacon cupcakes and jelly beans, I found the desire to make this baked spaghetti. It was a miracle really. But I wanted to make you dinner. Yes, you over there… on the other side of that screen. See, I don’t really love spaghetti, but most people do. It’s the whole tomato sauce thing that I’m not so keen on. But you most likely love crushed tomatoes pureed into oblivion with garlic and spices. Am I right or am I right? If you don’t, you’re gonna have to do some pretending. Since youre coming for dinner and all. I’ll make sure to have other delicious things on the table too. Like toasty garlic bread that is glistening with melted butter and freshly grated parmesan cheese. And wine. Do you like red or white? And maybe even rum. I like to mix it up. And salad. Lots of salad. Mainly because I won’t be eating any of it. I made it for you. Just for you. See? I like you. I really like you. Baked Parmesan Spaghetti serves 4-6 3/4 pound whole wheat spaghetti 1/2 onion, chopped 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 1/4 pounds [...]

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Monday TJ’s.

I have a little Trader Joe’s problem. Let’s just call it an obsession. I took a little poll on Twitter and Facebook asking if you’d still like to see my Trader Joe’s grocery runs, and the answer was a resounding “yes.” I assume this is because the rest of my life is such a complete snoozefest. It is true that going to Trader Joe’s is about as exciting as it gets here. Since I only go about once a month, I loaded up as usual. That guy I live with is constantly moaning that we “have no food” or we “don’t have anything for dinner” or we “have a packed fridge but nothing to eat.” If he says that at all this week, he is absolutely out of his mind. These are Mr. How Sweet’s breakfast staples. The pitas are for me. And me only. I don’t know how these got in my cart. Someone must have dropped them in there by accident without me noticing… Snacks. My favorite on-the-go snack. Mr. How Sweet’s snacks. Yes. I said snacks. This is what he eats as a snack. So excited to find the new [...]

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Tiramisu French Toast.

I have very important news. I bought some bread. It was not whole wheat. It was delicious. And fluffy. Soft and pillow-like too. Then I invested in some cheese. Not just any kind of cheese. Mascarpone cheese. Which I can never spell. Or say. And for the shocking finale, I picked up some butter. Sweet cream butter. Butter. It’s what I walked into the kitchen some 20 years ago and found my brother eating, fingerful by fingerful, perched on the kitchen table. True story. It’s what I live and breathe by. [I say that like you haven’t noticed. ] And it’s also what this French toast took a bath in last week. Now that is a bath I’d like to have. You probably weren’t expecting such a decadent breakfast on a Monday morning. You probably weren’t expecting to have to change your breakfast plans rightthisminute and make a pit stop at the store so you could make this morning treat. Today. Today, I tell you. It is a must. It’s just your basic build-it-yourself French toast. It’s easy. No rules. No fancy stuff. Soak, fry, spread, fork. In that order. No excuses. Tiramisu French Toast serves 4 1 loaf challah [...]

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