OMG...I love this stuff

What is it I love? I am so in love with Chobani greek yogurt. While the hubby was away a couple of weeks ago, I headed to Whole Foods to do some browsing. I picked up a couple of things I have never tried, including a container of Chobani. Now I like greek yogurt, but I have never had Chobani. Slightly less expensive than Fage, though still pricey for yogurt, making this great treat an occasional indulgence.

Until the other week. While browsing Costco, I found Chobani in a pack of 16. So delicious and now less than a dollar a carton, making this indulgence available a little more often.

Break out of the yogurt rut, and indulge in some greek yogurt. Not only is it better for you (mroe protein, less sugar) but now it is more affordable as well!

Yea!

Vacation Eats!

Every year we head down to Florida for a little vacation. We are so blessed to have lodging down there that is free for us to use. This year we stayed with Alex's parents for four days and then headed to my parent's condo near Tampa. While we are in Tampa we always head to the grocery store and buy food for all our meals but one. We head out to eat one night and the rest of our meals are made in the kitchenette. This year I went with a Ina theme, taking three recipes out of her cookbooks that seemed light and fresh and they were delicious!

The three recipes that graced our table were:

Summer Garden Pasta

Cobb Salad


Caesar Club Sandwiches

Also on our vacation menu were vanilla yogurt parfaits, roasted chicken (aka from the deli), frozen pizza, and Carrabba's for our dinner out.

Tasty Thai Slaw Salad

I am always in need of side dishes for meals that we have. I usually just look in the crisper and decide what would best suit the main entree. We always have romaine in the crisper, along with green onions and celery. In the past, I have made a pickled celery salad that we both really loved, so I expanded this recipe to include some other ingredients. So the other night when we had our Thai Chicken with Cashews, the perfect side dish was created, quickly and very easily. The salad tastes sweet and sour with just the right punch of spice. It's clean and delicious.

Thai Slaw Salad

1 C very thinly sliced romaine

1 T chopped scallions

1 stalk of celery, very thinly sliced

2 dry red thai chilis, thinly sliced

1 T sugar

2 T white vinegar

2 T rice wine vinegar

3 T chopped cilantro

Mix all ingredients together and let sit as long as possible, an hour up to a day, to allow flavors to meld.

Peasant Pasta...for you and me

This was a delicious meal for a quick and easy, throw together under 30 minutes, dinner. Yum. I found this recipe a couple weeks ago on Good Eats'n Sweet Treats. This looked perfect. With our supply of meat in the freezer dwindling, and italian sausage still remaining, I knew we would have this for dinner.

The ingredients are very simple, versatile, and delicious. Paired with some bread and a caesar salad, dinner was on the table in 30 minutes flat and it was so yummy:)

Peasant Pasta

from Rachael Ray

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan

1/2 pound hot Italian sausage, available in bulk at butcher counter or, 2 links, casings removed

1 pound sweet Italian sausage, available in bulk at butcher counter or, 4 links, casings removed (I just used 1 lb. of hot italian sausage total)

3 to 4 cloves garlic, chopped, optional

1/2 cup chicken or vegetable broth

1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes

1/2 cup heavy cream

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

24 leaves fresh basil, torn or thinly sliced

1 pound penne rigate pasta, cooked to al dente (I used rotini)

Grated Italian cheese, for passing

1. Heat a large, deep skillet over medium high heat. Add extra-virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan. Add sausage meat. Crumble sausage meat as it browns. Add chopped garlic to the pan. When all of the crumbles have browned evenly, deglaze the pan drippings using chicken or vegetable broth.

2. Stir in crushed tomatoes and bring the sauce up to a bubble, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Stir cream into your sauce, this will blush the color and cut the acidity of the tomatoes.

3. Season with salt and pepper. Stir peas and basil into your sauce to combine. Toss hot drained penne rigate in pan with the sauce, then transfer pasta to serving bowl.

Yield: 6 Servings.

Time for bread again!

So here it is Monday already! I love Mondays...I am off of work and it is my day to get everything situated around the house, bake, and clean! I love it. There is nothing more refreshing than a Monday evening, sitting down at night and admiring a job well done:)

So on Friday I mentioned having Mondays be my bread making day. I love this new resolution...fresh baked bread, the smell is amazing.

I always used to be one who thought that bread making must be difficult. But now that I have gotten the hang of letting the yeast bubble and utilizing my handy stand mixer, I think it may be one of the easier things I make!

So today in an attempt to bring some variety into the bread making, I chose to make a cinnamon swirl loaf and a garlic swirl loaf. Both were so delicious. I used the same base for both but chose to fill and shape them differently. They are so, so good and so easy!

Cinnamon Swirl Bread (adapted from Williams-Sonoma)

see adaptations at end for garlic swirl

Ingredients:

1 Tbs. active dry yeast
3 Tbs. granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups warm water (105° to 115°F)
1 cup warm milk (105° to 115°F)
3 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted
1 Tbs. salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
6 to 6 1/4 cups bread flour, plus more as needed
3/4 cup golden raisins (i omitted we don't care for raisins)
3/4 cup dark raisins (i omitted)

For the filling:

2/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar mixed with 4 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
(i cut in half b/c only one loaf was cinnamon- 1/3 C with 2 1/4 t)

Directions:

In a bowl, sprinkle the yeast and a pinch of the granulated sugar over 1⁄2 cup of the water and stir to dissolve. Let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater, combine the remaining 3/4 cup water, the milk, butter, the remaining granulated sugar, salt, egg and 2 cups of the flour. Beat on medium speed until creamy, about 1 minute. Add the yeast mixture and 1⁄2 cup of the flour and beat for 1 minute. Add the raisins, then beat in the remaining flour, 1⁄2 cup at a time, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Switch to the dough hook. Knead on medium-low speed, adding flour 1 Tbs. at a time if the dough sticks, until smooth and elastic, about 4 minutes. Transfer the dough to a greased deep bowl and turn to coat it.

Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until doubled in bulk, 1 to 1 1⁄2 hours. Lightly grease two 9-by-5-inch loaf pans.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board. Divide the dough in half and roll or pat each half into an 8-by-12-inch rectangle. Lightly sprinkle each rectangle with half of the filling, leaving a 1-inch border on all sides. Beginning at a narrow end, tightly roll up each rectangle into a compact log. Pinch the ends and the long seam to seal in the filling. Place each log, seam side down, in a prepared pan.

Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until the dough is about 1 inch above the rim of each pan, 1 to 1 1⁄2 hours. Preheat an oven to 350°F. Bake until the loaves are golden brown and pull away from the sides of the pan, 35 to 40 minutes. Turn the loaves out onto wire racks and let cool completely. Makes two 9-by-5-inch loaves.

For one garlic swirl loaf:

Swirl Ingredients:

4 T butter, softened

1 T garlic, minced

2 tsp parsley

1/2 tsp oregano

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

Combine butter, garlic, parsley and oregano and spread evenly over top of dough, leaving 1/2" at end to help seal loaf. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over top of butter mixture. Tightly roll dough up into cylinder shape, pinching and tucking ends to form a tight seal and pinching seam to seal.

Bake as directed above.

Fresh Bread right out of the Oven!

There is nothing like fresh bread right out of the oven. Yum! Just the smell, the taste...it's so good! I have decided in the new year I would like to make our bread as much as possible. We are not huge bread eaters, but what we do eat we enjoy thoroughly. I'd like to try all kinds of things...foccacia, bagels, english muffins, pretzels, etc. Those are more the things we love.

But to start out, I tried a recipe for white bread out of my KitchenAid stand mixer cookbook. It was good, not great, but good for a first timer. Fresh, smelled great, and tasted good as well. It was perfect under the broiler with butter alongside stew, okay for toast, and yummy right out of the oven. So every Monday or every other, depending on how long it lasts, I will be making bread. Next up...whole wheat!

Basic White Bread (KitchenAid Recipe book)

1/2 C low-fat milk

3 T sugar

2 t salt

3 T butter

2 pkg. active dry yeast

1 1/2 C warm water

5-6 C all purpose flour

1. Place milk, sugar, salt and butter in small saucepan. Heat over low heat until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Cool to lukewarm.

2. Dissove yeast in warm water in warmed mixer bowl. Add lukewarm milk mixture and 4 1/2 C flour. Attach bowl and dough hook to mixer, turn to speed 2 and mix about 1 minute.

3. Continuing on Speed 2, add remaining flour, 1/2 C at a time, and mix about 1 1/2 minutes or until dough starts to clean sides of bowl. Knead on speed 2 about 2 minutes longer, or until dough is smooth and elastic. Dough will be slightly sticky to the touch.

4. Place dough in greased bowl, turning to grease top. Cover, Let rise in warm place, free from draft, about 1 hour, or until doubled in bulk.

5. Punch dough down and divide in half. Shape each half into a loaf (roll out dough to 9x13, roll up jelly roll style starting from shorter ends.) place each in a greased loaf pan. Cover. Let rise in warm place, free from draft, about 1 hour and until doubled in bulk.

6. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pans immediately and cool on wire racks.

Carmelitas...muy deliciosa!

I first tried a carmelita bar at my first christmas cookie exchange as an adult, three years ago. They were so delicious. Leaving the cookie exchange with the recipe in hand, I knew I would be making these again...soon! I've made them in the past and haven't blogged about them, but this time around I remembered my camera and quick took a pic.

I have seen other recipes for similar bars using caramel ice cream topping. I would think these would be great as well, but I love caramels, so we usually have a bag in the pantry and we luck out when we need to make carmelitas!

Here is the recipe I used...thanks to that mom who made them for the cookie exchange...they are amazing!

Oatmeal Carmelitas

32 kraft caramels, unwrapped
5 T of milk
1 C all purpose flour
1 C oatmeal, uncooked
3/4 C brown sugar
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1/2 C butter (melted)
1/2 C chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1. Melt caramels and milk in the top of a double boiler. (i used the microwave in 45 sec. increments.) Stir until combined, set aside.
2. Combine all remaining ingredients except chocolate chips and caramels in a separate bowl. Stir until all butter is incorporated and mixture is crumbly.
3. Press half of the oatmeal mixture into the bottom of a 8" of 9" square pan (i line it with foil)
Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.
4. Remove from oven, top with caramel mixture. Sprinkle chocolate chips on the top. Top with rest of oatmeal mixture, pressing firmly. Bake for another 12-15 minutes.
5. Let cool and when still warm cut into pieces.