As we approach summer, and I try to lose my baby weight, I’ve tried to become a bit creative/healthy with my lunches.  One of my favorite sandwiches is the grilled asparagus sandwich I found on Pinterest.  I basically have it once a week, and this week, I felt like shaking it up a bit.  Why not try it out on a salad?  I’ve actually made the salad twice this week, once with a hardboiled egg, once with a fried egg.  Both were amazingly delicious!  

To start, get yourself to your local farmer’s market and buy a mix of lettuce.  I just bought a pound and a half of romaine, butter, and red leaf lettuce.  Chop it all up together and put some on a plate.  Take your asparagus and snap off the ends.  Snapping off the ends, rather than cutting them, naturally removes to woodiness that is not fun to eat.  Drizzle the asparagus with olive oil, salt and pepper, and place on a heated grill pan.  Do not have a grill pan yet?  I am in love with mine.  It’s an amazing tool to have in your kitchen.  Anyway, put the asparagus on the pan and cook until you have a nice green color and a few grill marks.  Slice them up on the diagonal and place on top of the salad.  

The other toppings are up to you.  I love peppers, especially red, orange, and yellow, and they just make the salad look pretty.  Dice up some red onions and put them on top as well.  Then comes the egg.  When I used a hard boiled egg, I topped the salad with a vidalia onion dressing.  If you chose the fried egg, just bust that baby open and use the yolk as your dressing.  Top with some pepper, Muldon’s flakey sea salt, and some shaved parmesan reggiano cheese.  I definitely enjoyed my runny yolk egg.  Nothing beats that warm, creamy “sauce.”  Make yourself this delicious spring salad and enjoy the bounty of the season.  Enjoy!

Hey there food lovers!  Its been a while.  Life has been quite crazy here.  We all have had quite an adjustment with baby girl, but things are finally getting back to normal.  I have so many things to share with you from the last 8 weeks, so be on the look out for some new posts.  

Today, I will talk morning buns, a treasure I discovered at the Tartine bakery in SF.  The morning bun is similar to a cinnamon bun in that you roll it up with goodness inside, but different because it uses croissant dough, adds citrus and is tossed in sugar, after it gets caramelized while baking. 

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Today I had the amazing privilege of baking a cake for dear friends to reveal the gender of their newest baby!  Up until today, I have never attended one of these parties, but they are getting more and more popular.  If I had amazing will power, it would have been fun to do for one of our babies, but I have no will power!  Her ultrasound was yesterday and she had her doctor’s office call me with the good news.  

For the cake, I baked a delicious vanilla layer cake from the Primrose Bakery cookbook.  Its a simple cake, with lots of butter and eggs.  The recipe calls for the use of 8 inch pans but I only had 9 inch, so I doubled the recipe.  This actually left me with enough batter to make a about 12 cupcakes.   

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There are times when I cannot get enough bananas to eat.  I’ll eat 2-3 bananas a day.  That kick will last maybe two weeks, then I’m left with those three bananas that I just can’t bear to choke down.  Banana craving over, browning bananas staring me in the face every day.  I used to go with the obvious and make banana bread, but then, as I looked through my Ina Garten, How Easy Is That, book, I found a banana cake recipe!  Oh sweet and delicious banana cake, with a smooth cream cheese frosting.  

The very first time I made this cake, I definitely left out the baking soda, leading to a dense cake with an underdone texture.  Because I need perfection, I made the cake again the following weekend and redeemed myself.  Since the baby was born, I’ve had three bananas hanging out on my banana hook, dying to be turned into cake. Since I’ve been feeling pretty good since the birth of my newest princess, I decided to go for it!  

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Hello there my dear readers.  It has been quite a few days since I’ve posted and if you have not heard, my newest little princess is here!  She was born on Sunday, March 25 at 2:38pm.  We had a crazy weekend, including lots of emotions, crazy cravings, and finally, the birth of our baby girl!  

Life has been pretty interesting.  It has been quite an adjustment going from two kids to three.  Balance is important, but not sure we will ever figure it out!  Big brother and big sister are doing well, they sure love their sister.  

Of course it did not take me long before I wanted to bake!  Lets not forget this is my food blog.  For a while now, I’ve been drooling over the “crispy cakey” chocolate chip cookies from the chocolate issue of Food Network Magazine.  I have a few chocolate chip cookie recipes I usually use, but this one intrigued me.  I love a good cookie with a crispy outside but fluffy inside. 

Little lady number 1 was my cookie assistant.  She helped me measure out all of the ingredients.  The recipe was quite typical, though used a little extra baking soda to help with lift and called for a hotter oven to bake the cookies faster.  The faster bake time allows for the outside to be crisp and the inside nice and fluffy.  The end result?  Well, I’ve already had 4 cookies, and I’m trying not to go back for more!  Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

While we lived in San Francisco, I found it hard to find new mom friends.  I’d hang out at the playground with the nannies and on a rare occasion, meet a mom who stayed home just like me.  Luckily one of these encounters was with Shauna Sever; you may know her as, The Next Door Baker.  During the time of our friendship she began writing a marshmallow cookbook.  Marshmallow cookbook you ask?  Oh yes, all kinds, from a simple vanilla to a maple bacon and even a margarita mallow!  Marshmallow Madness is a book you must add to your collection.  Not only is it well written and easy to follow, but it is probably the cutest cookbook you’ll ever own.  

For a while I’ve been preparing to make marshmallows, building up my supplies that are absolutely necessary, such as unflavored gelatin and light corn syrup.  Since I’m still pregnant, I figured why not try out a recipe today.  Salted caramel was the winner!  I made caramel last week for the banana cream tarts and had enough to use for this recipe.  First, I whipped up a batch of vanilla marshmallows.  Then, quickly, I split the “batter” to make caramel ones, and then swirled the two together.  The marshmallows need to rest in a baking dish for 6-8 hours before they are ready to eat.  By the time we had finished our dinner, the mallows were ready!  The salty, sweetness of the caramel combined with the vanilla was a perfect union of flavor.  It was hard not to eat the whole lot of them.  Get the book, make these perfect puffs of flavor and enjoy!

For some time now, my dad has been on ancestry.com trying to learn more about our family history.  What I know of my heritage is that I’m, 50% Russian Jew, 25% Slovak, and 25% euro mix.  Part of that mix is British Isles, but not sure if its absolutely at all from Ireland.  Good thing on St. Patrick’s Day, anyone can be Irish!  Fun fact, St. Patrick’s Day was created to celebrate the arrival of Christianity to Ireland.  St. Patrick used shamrocks to describe the Holy Trinity to the polytheistic population of Ireland.  Typically St. Patrick’s Day was celebrated in church, wearing green, and lifting lenten food and alcohol restrictions for that day.  Desiree over at Honey Dearest makes chocolate stout cupcakes with irish cream buttercream to celebrate this holiday.  Since we were finally invited to a St. Patty’s Day party, I decided to join her for this new tradition!

My darling children, or “wee bairns”, love to help me whenever they can in the kitchen.  Now that they are getting a bit older, I’m more willing to let them help, but at 4 and 2 and a half, it can still be a challenge.  Each one gets a turn to help measure and dump ingredients into the bowls.  Its a great little activity when I actually have the patience to let them do it.  They especially LOVE sampling all that they have helped create.  This recipe was a bit tricky though, what with the beer and Bailey’s.  The kids did get to sample the cupcake, but with some homemade whipped cream on top, rather than the Irish cream laced buttercream. 

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For quite some time now, since our move back to the East Coast, I’ve been wanting to try out my skill in making Tartine’s Banana Cream Tart.  While in SF, we lived about 2 miles south of Tartine.  I’d load the kids up in the stroller, hike up Guerrero, then park my self at a table with a giant latte and usually a morning bun.  On a “special” occassion I’d reward myself with the banana cream tart.  I mean, I did just walk 2 miles, pushing a stroller, up hill….  Plus, I had to walk walk 2 miles back home too.  If you are in San Francisco, you MUST get yourself a banana cream tart.  At least share it with a friend!

This tart was challenging but fun to make!  There were a few different parts that needed to be made and then put together to create this perfect masterpiece; pastry dough, caramel, pastry cream, and whipped cream.  Be ready for lots of pictures.  I shall now take you on my delicious journey.  

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Hi, my name is Jessica, and I’m a Pinterest-aholic.  That’s right kids, it finally has happened.  My pinning is under control, but I can barely wait a day or two to try the newest recipes I find!  To keep myself organized, I’ve created a “Recipes to Try” folder, so then I can keep track of what I’ve made and liked, and what I have made and disliked.  For example, the “guaranteed” crispy sweet potato fries, they were not crispy.  In fact, they were quite soggy and chalky.  They came off my list.  The pineapple smoothie, thats a keeper!    

Picture from Taking time for Mommy

Yesterday I saw a recipe for a roasted asparagus sandwich on a baguette.  Now, I’m an asparagus newbie.  Until about a year ago, I would never have even tried the stuff.  In California I was introduced to some amazing ways to prepare it and fell in love!  Its one of my favorite veggies to make.  When I saw this sandwich, I was pretty psyched! 

This morning I stopped at the grocery store and picked up some thin asparagus and a fresh baguette.  The sandwich also includes pickled red onions, a hardboiled egg, dijon mustard, and dill.  I also added some pecorino romano cheese and some Muldon’s flakey sea salt.  My first step was to make the hard boiled egg.  Once I had taken the egg off heat, I began making my asparagus.  To prepare the asparagus (about 5 pieces), I snapped off the woody ends, tossed them lightly in some olive oil and garlic and then put them on my grill pan.  You’ll want to keep them on a medium to medium-high heat and move them every now and then to make sure you get some good grill marks.  I cooked them for about 6 minutes. 

When the egg was done, my asparagus grilled and my onions pickled, I began to build my sandwich.  It was AMAZING.  Pretty sure this is my new favorite thing to eat.  If you were sitting next to me while I was eating this sandwich you would have thought I was eating the most decadent dessert I’d ever tasted.  This never happens with me and veggies.  Looks like my Pinterest addiction worked out in my favor this round.  Try something new and put this sandwich in your belly.  Seriously.  

Grilled Asparagus Sandwich

**Update:  Made this sandwich again for dinner, and this time when I pickled the red onions, I also added shredded carrots.  It added a little something extra to the taste of the whole sandwich.  The hubs loved it and thinks next time we should try it as a pizza!  I like where he’s going with this.

In honor of the beautiful weather, I have decided to do a smoothie post!  There has been a pineapple smoothie floating around my pinterest boards.  Luckily I had some fresh pineapple recently cut up in my fridge and a banana laying around ready to be used.  I made just a few modifications to the recipe.  Enjoy!

Strawberry Pineapple Smoothie

- 1.5 cup diced pineapple

- 1.5 cup frozen strawberries

- 1 banana

- 1 cup plain Greek yogurt

- 1/2 T sugar

- 3/4 cup water

Toss all ingredients into your blender and blend well.  Pour into two glasses and share one with someone you love :).  (If you aren’t 37 weeks pregnant or sharing with a child, go ahead and replace that water with some sparkling wine!)