Baking Edition: Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Last week's baking edition was Double Chocolate Chip Cookies, inspired by Beantown Baker. I often use her recipes as they feel very "home-y" and quite simple. I pretty much used her recipe, found here, with just minor changes based on my personal liking.

 Yummy...

This recipe is supposed to make big cookies but I personally like smaller cookies. You don't feel as guilty eating them lol. Also, they're good for portion control, and just light snacking when you're between meals.

What treats do you like eating?

♥B

May the Fourth be with you...

Happy Friday everyone! This has been yet another busy week, swamped with work, family stuff and just the "little things" like errands and chores. It's unbelievable how much time doing dishes, laundry and just general cleaning actually takes! Among the haste, Hubs always manages to make food that looks like it belongs in a food magazine. I'll talk between the pictures ;)

Lamb in a red wine reduction sauce

Roasted garlic and herb potatoes

Sauteed vegetables on the side

Over here in my part of the world, the weather has increasingly become warmer and nothing gets me more excited than summer. Why? Because that means it's camping season! Hubs and I loooove going camping and barbecuing when it's warm. We find excitement in preparing all the food and bringing our trust portable grill out with our daughter to enjoy the weather. I predict this summer will be no different!!

I think it's amazing that Hubs has the skills to make food of such variety, both in textures and tastes. I'm totally opposite when it comes to cooking since I feel like such a novice in the kitchen/cooking department. BAKING HOWEVER... That's more my neck of the woods. We sure can make a great feast pairing our cooking and baking skills together :)

Chicken Hash Open Face Sandwich

This open face sandwich is something I totally love for brunch (and of course Hubs knows that hehee). It's sauteed chicken, potato, onion and carrot dredged in this delicious mushroom gravy over a crispy piece of toast. Doesn't that sound delicious? Well, it tastes better than it looks!

If you would like recipes for any of these, please feel free to email me at belleplusmel@gmail.com. I tend not to write out the recipes as often anymore on the blog post because it comes out very long. If you have questions about substituting any ingredients, feel free to ask as well! I often find that when you're recipe researching, you are almost always guaranteed to be missing one or two ingredients... At least I do. I like to look for recipes based on what I've already bought on my weekly grocery trip so I do end up substituting ingredients in most recipes.

Anyway, I hope within your busy schedules, you're able to find some time to cook yourself a good and hearty meal at least once a week (or have someone do it!).

 

♥B

Food!!

Hubs had an extra day off this week so he decided to spoil me with a nice dinner. I only take credit for slicing the potatoes though. He literally made everything else. So what was for dinner, you ask? Here it comes... *drum rolls*

Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Chicken with Scalloped Potatoes!  

The Preparation

diced veggies, scalloped potatoes, stuffing, and bacon wrapping

The Finished Product

And of course, a peek inside :)

 

♥B

Baking Edition: Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake

Happy Sunday Mel and everyone!

I bought a new toy this weekend...

They're mini springform pans :D! These babies are about 4" in diameter making it perfect for smaller sized cakes. I have regular cake pans but find that between Hubs and I, we struggle to finish an entire cake before it goes bad. Thus, I came across these smaller sized pans that I just had to get. For anyone watching their waistline but not willing to give up sweets, this is a great way to portion out your dessert servings too  ;)

For my weekly baking, I chose a chocolate swirl cheesecake to make. Cheesecake is my absolute favourite type of cake because of how creamy and dense they are. This recipe was my own creation but used the swirl technique from Zoe Bakes - she's a great blogger and always has good recipes to offer! I did make a minor *noob* mistake that caused my crust to not be as crispy but the flavours were there at least.

Preparing the crust!

WARNING:
The following pictures might make you hungry...

Okay, I'll admit I'm a little lazy to post the whole recipe here.

But if you would like the recipe, please feel free to email me at belleplusmel@gmail.com and I'll happily share it.

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!

♥B

Chill Day

Let's try less words, more pictures!

Omlette that hubs made with red pepper, mushroms, asparagus and parsley

Our sushi lunch when we got lazy hehe

Chicken Teriyaki

Shrimp and Yam Tempura Roll 

California Roll

Red Dragon Roll

Hope everyone's having a good weekend!

♥B

Baking Edition: Lemon Poppy Seed Loaf

I've been having quite a rough time recently, and have pushed my weekly baking aside. Today sort of pushed me over the edge so I just set time aside for myself for some baking therapy hehe. I won't go into detail or even a smidgen of what's been happening because then I feel like I'd just be spreading the negativity. Instead... why don't I just show you my baked goods? =D

Today, I delved into a classic...

Lemon Poppy Seed Loaf!

Hubs loves this bread and he bought the necessary ingredients for me on our last grocery trip. How sweet! This turned out soooooo good. The loaf itself is buttery, but with the glaze on top, it just made it sweeter and even more lemony lol. I figured I wouldn't post the recipe in this post since I got it directly here off of JoyofBaking. I seriously love this woman for trying baked goods. She has a bible of recipes on her website showcasing over 100 different things that you can try. I tend to modify recipes to my liking but this Lemon Poppy Seed Loaf did not need any modification.

 Top of the loaf, with lemon sugar glaze :)

Look at the beautiful flecks of black and yellow from the poppy seed and lemon zest

YUMMMM.

As always, I hope you guys will try this recipe one day. The baking process may not cheer you up a much as it did for me, but eating it sure will. Have a great weekend!

Just one more picture... hehe.

♥B

Island in the Sun

Today was so fun! It was ridiculously warm outside today and we had to take advantage of it, duh. Hubs, baby and I headed downtown for a day of walking, shopping and eating. I didn't get to take as many pictures as I wanted to mostly because I was stuffing my face with food lol. But I'm going to say this is quite a pic-heavy post compared to my previous posts. Look how gorgeous it was today!

We went shopping and decided to buy shoes.

Matching shoes :) I know, we're so corny. Take a look at our purchase!

 His: Converse PC2 in Black/White (similar here)

Mine: Converse All Star in Black (similar here)  

My AS on me. Teehee. They're sooooooo comfortable it's unbelievable!

 

To end the day off before hubs went to work, he spoiled me with chocolate. But not just the regular chocolate from convenient stores... Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. YUUUUUM.

I wish I remembered the exact names of these things but I think the white ball is a cheesecake chocolate bomb, and the flat chocolate piece is a chocolate and caramel pretzel mogul. There was also another one that I quickly shovelled down my mouth right outside the store and it was a banana cream pie white chocolate bomb. It was soooooooo gooooooooood omggg. Then hubs bought some chocolate almond brittle for take-home. He really knows how to treat a woman ;)

To end the day...

DINNER: 

Grilled Chicken with Mushroom Sage Gravy

Garlic Bacon Mashed Potatoes

Garlic Pan-fried Asparagus

Goodnight!

♥B

Spring-ing

Wow it's been a while since we both updated! As you can imagine, we're busy enjoying the spring weather outdoors. I went out with the family today and it seriously felt like summer already. Anyway, Saturdays mean prepping food for the week - things like baking, or pre-cooking and freezing food. Today it means CHICKEN STOCK/BROTH! If I'm lazy, I tend to resort to chicken cubes which are in fact high in sodium and probably a bunch of other things that aren't necessary to one's body. Instead, I make my own! It's a nutritious alternative to store-bought stock or broth because you control what goes into the stock.

Ingredients: fresh parsley, celery, carrots, onion, tomato, garlic and raw (bone-in) chicken

That's all. You literally put all that in one pot and cover it with cold water. Let it boil and simmer for at least 4 hours so that all the ingredients can really flavour the water.

No, seriously... Just throw it all in one pot. It's so easy you could probably do this blindfolded.

So hopefully, it'll inspire you guys to make your own chicken stock as it really is healthier. If you're a vegetarian, you can just omit the chicken and you get vegetable stock!

* * *

What else to do while you wait for chicken stock to boil for a few hours?

Finger paint!

 Essie - Chinchilly (3 coats)

Happy Saturday everyone!

♥B

Happy St. Patty's!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! A great excuse to get trashed for most people, but since hubs is working and we've got no one to watch the little ones, it's a stay-at-home day for me. I'm sure most people did their nails green so I jumped on the bandwagon.

Nails: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Green with Envy

I hate how hard it is to capture the real colour of nails in photographs. From the left, I shot that at night. Second picture from the left, that was during the daytime. Both look like two completely different shades. But the best way to describe the true colour of this would be "celery". Yup, I was chopping celery earlier today and realized that it was an identical match. This was about 3 coats with top and base coat.

As for dinner...

Chinese Ginger Beef on Rice

Hope everyone's getting completely wasted tonight!

♥B

Temporary Gluttony

Doesn't it feel so good when someone else makes a delicious meal for you? Yes it does! I'm a sucker for comfort food, and of course hubs knows that. Being the wonderful chef that he is, he loves to take comfort food to the next level and try to keep it nutritious at the same time. Most of the time it is much healthier than eating out so I don't complain!

This was Monday's dinner: Mac and Cheese... Or is it?

Well, it sort of is! It's penne and cheese. Looks great doesn't it?

This may be one of the less nutritious ones, but hey,

we can all be gluttons sometimes!

Of course we can't complete a meal without fruits...

Strawberries and sugar.

I know what you're thinking, "you're crazy for dipping strawberries in sugar!".

JUST TRY IT ONCE.

Thanks for reading :)

 

♥B

Baking Edition: Choco Muffs

Saturday evenings are usually my dedicated baking days since hubs is at work and baby is asleep by then. It's something I try to do every weekend to fill my house with goodies. I love to bake because I know what goes into what treats I'm eating and I can control the amount of ingredients that goes in each baked good. Plus, it's ridiculously therapeutic!

Today's treat is Chocolate Chip Muffins. Just like chocolate chip cookies, there are probably about a million recipes out there that claim themselves to be the best choco muff out there. But you never know until you try. This recipe was adapted from a coworker but I did make some changes to suit my taste. Also, they didn't brown on top as much as I would've liked them to mainly because I forgot to adjust my oven rack so please make sure your oven rack is in the middle rather than the bottom!

Classic Chocolate Chip Muffin

2 cups AP flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 cup whole milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup unsweetened chocolate chips

1. Preheat your oven to 400F. Line a muffin tray with paper liners or lightly oil them.

2. In one bowl, add the flour, both sugars, baking powder and salt. Mix well.

3. In another bowl, whisk together egg, oil, milk and vanilla.

4. Add the whole bowl of dry ingredients to the wet bowl and mix with spatula. Make sure that it's mixed just enough to incorporate the wet and dry ingredients. It's important that you DO NOT OVERMIX a muffin batter because it overdevelops the gluten in the batter and comes out very tough. You want your muffins light, airy and fluffy.

5. Now take it to your muffin tray and fill, fill, fill! Typically it's recommended that you fill each muffin cup just up to half or a teensy bit over. However, I like my muffins with a nice poofy crust, so I filled it to the top. It's totally up to you!

6. Bake for 20-25 minutes and then let it cool in the tray for about 5 minutes before you indulge.

This makes about 12 medium-sized muffins.

However, if you only fill your cups halfway, I'd say this makes about 18 medium-sized muffins.

Yuuuuuummmmy.

♥B

Another Long Day

I had to go downtown for a training workshop early in the morning. Grabbed myself a little pick-me-up.

SURPRISE MEL!

I ordered one of Mel's fave by the way. Caramel Macchiato. YUMMMMMM.

It definitely hit the spot when I needed that morning boost.

Got home this evening to make one of my comfort foods. I wasn't going to post the recipe since I hardly think this is authentic to the real thing but I guess this is just my adaptation of it. Mel wanted to know how I made it so I decided to post it. Plus, the recipe is easy peasy.

Minced Pork on Rice
1 lb ground pork
1 cup of julienned carrots, cut into matchsticks
1 small white onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp of sugar
1 tsp of chinese five spice
1/4 cup light soy sauce
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp chinese cooking wine
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp cold water
2 stalks of green onion, sliced
2 eggs

Cook some rice however you would usually make it. I use a rice cooker.
In a small pot, bring water to a boil and gently submerge two eggs in for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, take out of water and run it under very cold water for a few seconds. This helps the shell come off a lot easier, trust me. Set these gorgeously peeled hard boiled eggs at the side.

Brown your ground pork on medium-high heat and season with salt and pepper.
Add carrots, white onions and garlic and saute for about 5 minutes with the meat.
Add chinese five spice, soy sauce and chinese cooking wine and cook for another 10 minutes. Now, add the 1/2 cup of water and put the hard boiled eggs to soak in the sauce. Bring to a simmer and cover with lid for about 15 minutes.
Remove the lid, add the green onions and let the water boil out some more.
Mix the cornstarch and 1 tbsp of cold water to make a cornstarch slurry. This is used in many asian dishes to increase their viscosity and thicken the sauce.

Then, serve with rice and you're done! Notice how I didn't have to use any salt besides on the meat? Quite healthy!

Hope you enjoyed it. Time for me to catch up on my hockey and basketball games. Goodnight :)

♥B

Shrimp Salad.. yummy yummy

I decided to get a bit crafty with some leftover ingredients which were: shrimp, celery, avocado, cucumber, spinach, and arugula.. all tossed in a light mayo seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne, dill, and a squeeze of lemon! It's as simple as it sounds and quick to prepare. 

1. Chop vegetables while boiling an egg and shrimp

2. Dice shrimp and egg to desired size (I kept mine in chunks so you don't lose all that goodness with the other ingredients)

3. Dress your salad and eat as a sandwich or even on it's own! ;)

♥M