Zucchini Pasta

Oooh this is delicious. I got this recipe from my mom a few months ago and it has become a favorite! I could eat it at least once a week. And it's so easy. Go out and get some zucchini and make it.

Printable Recipe

INGREDIENTS

Rotini pasta - about 14 ounces

1 tablespoon butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

1-1.5 pounds zucchini - shredded

4-5 large garlic cloves - crushed

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper to taste

1 cup grated parmigiano reggiano cheese

DIRECTIONS

1. Cook pasta according to directions.

2. While pasta is cooking, heat butter and olive oil in a large skillet (I use cast iron) over medium heat. Add shredded zucchini, crushed garlic, red pepper flakes, and salt & pepper to taste.  Cook for about 5-7 minutes, stirring frequently.

Note: you can cook the zucchini for as long or as little as you like, depending on your taste. I like mine cooked until soft so I usually cook for 7 minutes.

3. While pasta is cooking, reserve about a cup of the pasta water and set aside. A glass measuring cup works best. Just be careful, it’s hot!

4. Drain pasta and put into a large bowl or back into the cooking pot. Add cooked zucchini mixture and stir into the pasta. Start by adding about 1/4 cup of the pasta water. Add all the shredded parmigiano reggiano cheese and stir. Add more pasta water, little by little while stirring, until you have reached the desired creaminess.

5. Serve on a large plate and garnish with more shredded parmigiano reggiano.

Nom nom!

Chive Flowers!

I just got back from Ohio where I was visiting my family. My dad is growing chives. I had no idea they have such beautiful flowers.

He is also growing asparagus. Unfortunately, those are the only two things he is successfully growing because the deer eat everything. I mean, everything. The deer love the asparagus but my dad has it fenced off so they can't get to it. Thank goodness.

He used to have flowers all around the house and a huge garden. Because they are tearing down forests in surrounding cities, the deer are foraging for food in people's yards and gardens....and eating everything. Such a shame really. They are just innocent hungry animals that have no choice.:(

On a lighter note, if you like these pictures, I have them for sale here. They are high quality prints on canvas. All pics are taken and edited by moi. :)

The Perfect Mojito

I enjoyed my first mojito of the season yesterday. Rob and I started our porch planting and of course, mojitos are a perfect accompaniment. I realized I’ve never actually posted my recipe for mojitos. I have posted about Lingonberry Apple Mojitos, which is almost exactly the same as this recipe. But I wanted to give the original mojito proper credit. Nothing says warm weather and sunshine like a delicious mmmmojito!

Printable Recipe

INGREDIENTS

8 mint leaves

2 ounces of simple syrup - Printable Recipe for Simple Syrup

2 ounces of light rum

Fresh lime juice from 1 and a half limes, strained to remove pulp

4 ounces cold club soda

Ice

DIRECTIONS

1. Place mint leaves in the bottom of a tall glass. Add simple syrup and lightly smash mint leaves with a muddler.

2. Pour in rum, lime juice, and club soda. Top with ice and stir. 

Iced Lemon Bundt Cake

I baked in my new kitchen for the first time last night. Loved it! It's much more conducive to baking, cooking, and general socializing. I adapted this recipe from the lovely Ina Garten. Her show kills me. She's always having these fabulous dinner parties with some fabulous friend who she usually puts to work. Not gonna lie, I'd barbeque some pork chops if she told me to. It would be a fabulous trade-off for the opportunity to sit on her back patio and have a grand time with her whilst enjoying her fabulous foods. Anyway, this cake is deliciously lemony and perfect for spring.

Printable Recipe 

INGREDIENTS

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup whole milk at room temperature

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice + 4 tablespoons

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter at room temperature

2 1/2 cups sugar

4 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk at room temperature

Lemon zest from 6 large lemons

1 tablespoon of honey

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a standard sized bundt cake pan with butter. Coat with flour and shake out the excess.

2. In a large bowl, sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In a small bowl, combine whole milk, vanilla, and only 1/4 cup of the lemon juice. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, cream butter and only 2 cups of sugar with and electric hand mixer. Mix it at medium speed for 3-5 minutes. Continue mixing and add eggs one at a time, mixing well in-between each egg. Add lemon zest and combine with mixer.

4. Add your flour mixture and milk mixture alternately to butter mixture, a little at a time, until all are combined. Pour the batter into the greased cake pan and even out the top with a spatula.

5. Bake for 45-55 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean. 

6. In a small pan over medium heat, combine the remaining 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup lemon juice, and 1 tablespoon of honey until sugar is dissolved. Reserve the remaining 4 tablespoons of lemon juice for the icing. 

On a side note, I have an addiction to honey. I love it. I could eat it 10 times a day. This is one of my favorite kinds: 

yummmmmmmm

7. Once cake is done, allow to cool on a cooling rack (with a tray underneath) for 10 minutes. Remove cake from cake pan but be careful as it may still be hot! Evenly poke about 20 holes in the cake with the wooden skewer. Spoon lemon juice/sugar mixture slowly and evenly over the cake. The tray below will catch any additional mixture that is not absorbed. 

8. For the glaze, start by pouring only 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice into the confectioners’ sugar. Stir and keep adding lemon juice until you get a smooth consistency. Spoon evenly over the cake. Again, the tray below will catch any glaze that runs off. 

Ohmygoodness! Yum!

Changes

It really has been ages since I blogged. The banner that I had up was my snowflake banner. Yikes! It is now updated and fresh and summery looking. Ahhh. I want to say a big fat thank you to anyone who still reads this and/or checks back to see if I've posted anything. Smooches to you.

I recently moved and as everybody knows, moving is stressful. I hadn't moved in almost 5 years so my brain conveniently erased all memories of moving. As soon as I packed my first box, all the lovely memories came flooding back. Packing and me, we are not friends. But, we have been in our new place for over a week and are unpacked and settled and ready to resume some normalcy.

I've realized lately that I really miss blogging. It really is a stress reliever at times. I also miss baking, which I haven't done in ages. I think Rob misses it too. So tonight, I shall bake in my new kitchen for the first time!

In my blogging absence, I have been spending a lot of time taking and editing photos and posting them on Instagram. I have found a great community of people on IG. It's become somewhat of an addiction. Here are a couple photos, taken from my rooftop:

Western sunset

Eastern Skyline

This move is a first of hopefully many changes for me. It's time for me to do different things in life and I'm looking forward to what the future holds.

If you like the pictures above, you can purchase those and some of my other photos here.

Now I just need to decide what to bake tonight...

Vanilla Cupcakes with Lemon Icing

I made these last night. I need to improve upon the recipe a tad before I post it. They really weren't bad by any means but they weren't perfect. I like PERFECTION. I am so critical of my baking sometimes to the point of ridiculousness. Argh.

I don't know if there's really a point to this blog post. I was feeling the overwhelming urge to post something since I haven't posted since December. I was originally going to post my recipe for biscuits that I made during the holidays but I somehow deleted my pictures. D'oh! How does that even happen? I remember emailing them to myself (I think!) and then deleting them from my phone. Why did I delete them? D'oh x 2! Now I can't find them anywhere. Not in my sent mail, not in my inbox, not in my trash box (that sounds naughty) or even my handy dandy flash drive that I sometimes put pictures on. Fail. I had two different kinds too; garlic-rosemary and garlic-cheddar. Le sigh. I guess I'll have to make some more.

Yummy Balls

Get your mind out of the gutter people!

I am talking about some melt-in-your mouth amaretto and rum balls my friend Iwona made me. Look at these! They are even more delicious than they look. Oh and that rum packs a punch...mmmhmmm.

I have my ups and downs with this blog and I am consistently inconsistent with my posting. I sometimes feel defeated or overwhelmed when I haven't posted for a period of time. Other than that, this blog has brought good people into my life (you know who you all are!). Thank you everyone who reads this blog and thank you Iwona! Your balls are delicious. 

These are a few of my favorite...ornaments

The post title says it all. I'm feeling quite festive and cheerful so I figured I'd share some of my favorite ornaments. Happy Holidays!

Sprecher Brewery

I swear I feel like Zane Lamprey lately with all these blogs about wine and/or beer. I still have things to post about my Michigan Winery tour. I blogged about my first and second stops and still have five more. Oh boy. Eventually they'll show up.

Since my Milwaukee visit is fresh on my mind, I thought I'd blog about my visit to Sprecher Brewery. I've been there once before and enjoyed it. The tour is $5 and you get four samples and an etched glass.

The tour isn't terribly exciting. Although I love this painting inside the brewery:

I also love this, my tickets to free samples:

Slurp slurp.

Hoestly, I'm most excited about their sodas. I'm not a big soda drinker but we did pick up a few bottles for the occasional soda craving. Yum x 10.

If you are ever in Milwaukee, check out Sprecher Brewery!

HI!

It's been ages since I've blogged! I swear I say that all the time. Times have been busy but I've got a lot to say and share so more posts coming soon. This week has been amazing. It was Rob's birthday this past Saturday and we went to Milwaukee for a little weekend getaway. Lot's of fun as usual. Tori was playing in Chicago on Rob's Bday and since we were in Milwaukee we (obviously) didn't get to see her. BUT...I was able to attend Tori's taping of the Rosie Show Monday. Amazingness on so many levels. I'll be devoting an entire post to that experience. I'm still on cloud 9.

So much happiness. :D

PS...I snapped the above picture outside the Hi Hat Garage in Milwaukee. Delicious mimosas and bloody mary's and brunch foods.

Hipstamatic: Chicago Style

I wanted to share some pictures I've taken out and about in Chicago with my Hipstamatic app. I take more pictures with this app than I do with my regular camera. These are some I've taken over the past few weeks. Enjoy, and happy 11/11/11!

View of Chicago from the Planetarium

View of Chicago near Buckingham Fountain

Takin' a break..oh yes.

Lakeshore Boulevard

Someone sit next to me please.

The alley next to my house

Morning sunrise while waiting for the train. Beautiful.

Michigan Wine Tour...Second Stop: Tabor Hill

Whoa. I'm so behind with the wine tour postings. Seven wineries in two days and so far I've only blogged about one! I'll be honest, after so many tastings things start to blur. But this was only our second winery so I was still coherent. Actually, I was coherent the whole time, really. Yes, really! Samples in general aren't very big and I weigh 225 pounds so it takes a bit for me to feel the vino. So bring it on!

Am I making any sense?

Okay so, obligatory vineyard pictures to follow. But first I'd like to say again how beautiful the weather was for mid-October. I was wearing shorts!

I loved Tabor Hill. It was truly picturesque. My only complaint is that their tasting room was tiny and there were a lot of people packed in trying to sample wine. We were told they were in the process of expanding. Hallelujah! Wine lovers rest easy tonight.

 Pretty, pretty vines

 Wine and food. Mmmm!

 More pretty, pretty vines

Tabor Hill had a complimentary wine tour. I love a good tour. Rob snapped this photo of me. Notice our lovely tour guide in the bottom left corner. I can't remember her name. I blame my age, not the wine. Ha....ha.   

 Wow those things hold a whole lot of wine....

My Bumpy Pumpkin Update!

My carved pumpkin! I did a drawing years ago of a sleeping moon. I always wanted to carve something similar on a pumpkin. My pumpkin was not nearly as detailed as my drawing but I'm happy with it.

Sleepy Moon Pumpkin

The original Sleeping Moon drawing

So, not quite as detailed like I said. I mean, it would have taken me 7 hours to replicate that drawing so it's close enough!

Rob got creative and decided to carve the back of the pumpkin. Ha ha. The back was really bumpy and he made a scary face. A friend of mine said the pumpkin had split personality. I think she was right!

Scary!

My Bumpy Pumpkin

Some of my Facebook friends may have seen this yesterday. I searched high and low for a pumpkin but it's nearly impossible to find one in the city this close to Halloween. I was super lucky to rescue this pumpkin. It was the last one at the store. No one wanted him and he had no other pumpkin friends. Sad face. So, I adopted him and carried him home a mile and a half in the rain. It was quite a bonding moment. This pumpkin and I...we are close now. Happy face.

I can't wait to be creative and carve it and make him look extra special. :D

Michigan Wine Tour...First Stop: Round Barn

Rob and I recently went on an extended wine tour through Southwest Michigan. They call it the Napa Valley of the Midwest. Conditions are great for growing because it it east of Lake Michigan. The temperature of the lake moderates the climate and weather, creating excellent grape-growing conditions.

We visited a total of seven wineries in just a couple of days. Yikes! I think my tongue is still numb from all the wine. We had perfect autumn weather. It actually couldn't have been more perfect.

Our first stop was Round Barn Winery. The tasting room is actually in the big round barn.The ceiling looked like a work of art!

I took this wine tour seriously. Very seriously. I want to expand my knowledge of wine and truly mature my palette. Can you hear the sophistication in my words? Or maybe a little bit of drama? Hey, I'll be honest, I just wanted to try a lot of different wines! And I actually did learn quite a bit along the way. I learned that I really like wine. Ha! Here I am sitting outside on a beautiful day enjoying a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. Mmmmmm....

Let's zoom in on that light fixture behind me. I loved it! I want one for my house even though I would have no idea where to put it.

And now, the obligatory picture of the grape vines! Ehhh, I guess if you've seen one grape vine, you've seen them all.

Stay tuned for more upcoming wine tasting adventures! Sluuuurp.