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Summer Treats: Cheese Fried Zucchini

Date: August 8, 2011 • By • Comments 2

There is nothing I love more about summer than fresh vegetables (especially since I’m a vegetarian). For as long as I can remember, my dad has always planted a garden that produces fresh vine-ripened tomatoes, flavorful eggplant, the largest and tastiest zucchini and summer squash and cucumber after cucumber, well into mid-October. Sadly, this year living in the city, I haven’t been able to take full advantage of my dad’s famous garden (I used to want to open a roadside stand to sell our extras because we couldn’t eat the veggies fast enough!) although my mom did bring me a few cucumbers from the garden when she came to see my show last week.

Zucchini and Summer Squash are probably two of my favorite vegetables and even though this treat isn’t the healthiest, it’s so much better with fresh veggies, and is quick and easy to prepare.

Need (serves 2-3):

1 mid-sized zucchini or summer squash

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup flour

your favorite cheese(s)

vegetable oil

Directions:

Wash zucchini or summer squash. Trim ends and cut into circles or slices (whatever your preference). Beat eggs in one bowl and put flour in a separate bowl. Dip zucchini slices into beaten eggs, remove from bowl and let excess drip off. Immediately drop slices into flour and coat. Heat oil in frying pan and when warm, place zucchini slices into oil. Cook each side of zucchini until golden brown. Remove from oil and immediately sprinkle with your favorite cheese; cheese will melt onto zucchini as long as it’s still hot. Cool for 1 minute and enjoy!

 

What are your favorite vegetables to enjoy in the summer? How do you like to eat them?

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White Peach Sangria

Date: August 3, 2011 • By • Comments 0

Who knew Sangria was so easy to make? I certainly didn’t. As one of my favorite summer (okay, all year round, but especially summer) beverages, I’m always lusting after its crisp refreshing taste, but hate the store-bought versions. A few weeks ago at dinner with my cousins at Sambuca, we ordered their special pitcher of white peach sangria–my first time ever drinking white sangria! To my surprise and delight the sangria rivaled the red I remember drinking in Madrid last year and I vowed I needed to go back for more…soon!

White Peach Sangria yum!

Well, no return to Sambuca necessary, although, I definitely would dine there again. A few days ago, browsing Pinterest, I found a way-too-easy-to-be-true recipe for white sangria—with any fruit you desire. I already had white wine, so all I needed was some Fresca and some fruit to make it happen. I whipped up a batch yesterday afternoon and by 8pm, the fruit had sunken to the bottom (absorbed the wine and Fresca…yum!) and was ready to drink. By the pictures, you might be able to tell I’ve enjoyed it—I only made half a pitcher, but it’s already half gone and I can’t wait to make more, especially when I have company over!

What you need:

-A big pitcher

-1 bottle of your favorite white wine (I used Sauvignon Blanc)

-3 cans of Fresca soda

-Your favorite fruit (I used peaches)

Directions:

Pour entire bottle of wine into pitcher, pour all three cans of Fresca in. Cut up fruit into thin slices or small pieces, so it can easily absorb liquid and the liquid can absorb its flavor (remember osmosis from chemistry? The juices into the fruit go into the liquid and the liquid in the pitcher goes into the fruit–that’s what makes it so yummy! The thinner the slices/smaller the pieces, the more easily this happens.) Stir carefully (the soda will still be carbonated, so if you stir too much or too quickly, the pitcher may overflow). Refrigerate and let sit for several hours until fruit sinks to the bottom…voile! Your homemade sangria is ready to drink!
Seriously the easiest thing I think I’ve ever made and so delicious!

What are your favorite summer drinks? Do you make them at home?

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Frozen S’mores Parfait

Date: July 25, 2011 • By • Comments 0

After spying a picture of a frozen s’mores parfait on Pinterest a few days ago, and photoblogging about it, I decided it was time to recreate my own version of The Wannabe Chef’s creation. I’m not a huge fan of bananas–in fact, I think they are decidedly my least favorite fruit, and I love fruit, so I decided to omit those, and just using plain pudding seemed too indulgent, so I decided to use some inspiration from my favorite trifle to make my parfaits.

What you need:

-Three, 6 oz glasses

-1 package of Jell-o Chocolate Instant Pudding (regular or sugar free)

-1, 8 oz tub of Cool Whip or Cool Whip Lite

-A few tablespoons of your favorite hot fudge

-3-4 Graham Crackers (crushed and for garnish)

-3 teaspoons of Marshmallow Fluff

First, I rimmed my 6 oz glasses with some melted Trader Joe’s Gourmet Chocolate Fudge, then dipped the rims in the Honey Graham Crackers I crushed. Then, I mixed up one package of sugar free Jell-o Instant Chocolate Pudding, with 2 cups of cold skim milk. I separated the pudding into two halves, mixing one half with 1 cup of Cool Whip Lite. I layered the pudding/Cool Whip mixture almost to the top of the glass, spread a thin layer of graham crackers and topped with 2 teaspoons of the plain chocolate pudding. Top with 1 teaspoon of Marshmallow Fluff and garnish with graham crackers. Freeze for 2-3 hours. Makes three individual-sized servings.

 

S’mores are such a quintessential summer treat! What’s your favorite way to enjoy them?

 

 

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Homemade Tazo Passion Tea Lemonade

Date: July 24, 2011 • By • Comments 0

I’ll admit when it comes to my coffee, I am a lazy man’s dream–Starbucks, please make me my latte…or sometimes I buy the canned Caffe Mocha from Trader Joe’s and stash it in my fridge to grab on my way out the door. But my tea–a whole other story. Especially Starbucks’ famous Tazo Passion Tea Lemonade, a mixture of passion tea and lemonade. That stuff is freaking addictive and you can’t deny it. When I first tasted the pretty pink drink in 7th grade, it only cost about $1.75 for a Venti as they mysteriously concocted it from pre-made bottles behind the counter, making it so that you could never figure out how to recreate it. A few weeks ago I wasn’t in the mood for coffee when I got to Starbucks, so I ordered an Iced Venti Passion Tea Lemonade…to my shock and awe, it cost me $5.61 for an iced tea! Starbucks, have you completely lost it? There is no espresso in this drink, I’m sure of it!

I made it my mission when I got home that day to recreate my favorite drink, Iced Tazo Passion Tea Lemonade and somehow I managed it perfectly on the very first try. In fact, it actually tastes better than Starbucks’, probably because it’s fresh and isn’t coming out of a box. So save your money, pull out a pitcher, and get mixing.

What you need:

-A box of Tazo Passion Tea (sold at grocery stores)

-Enough of your favorite lemonade mix to make 2 quarts (I like Country Time powdered mix)

-A 3 quart pitcher

-Lemons (optional garnish)

-Excitement that you’ll never pay outlandish amounts of money for this drink again! Whoohoo!
To make:

-Prepare 1 quart of lemonade mix in pitcher with cold water and stir

-Boil 1+ quart (some of it will boil off, so you need a little extra in there!) of water in a tea kettle. Pour 1 quart of water into measuring cup and steep 5 Passion Tea bags in it. Allow to tea bags to steep for 10-15 minutes. Remove tea bags.

-Pour hot tea mixture into lemonade mixture in pitcher and stir.

-Prepare the second quart of lemonade mix in measuring cup with cold water. Stir into tea and lemonade mixture in pitcher. Refrigerate for 10 minutes to cool the hot water from the tea. Pour and serve with a few ice cubes in glass. Garnish with lemon, if desired.

Enjoy!

What do you think of this recipe?

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7 Days to Go & Recipes to Try

Date: July 23, 2011 • By • Comments 3

Well, first off, let me say hello to all of my new readers—this weekend was pretty major for me thanks to College Fashion including me in her Hautelinks of the Week, which made me surpass my normal amount of monthly visitors in only 2 days! I am forever indebted to her for including my DIY Sparkly Ombre Glitter Nails and bringing all of you to me! Things are crazy hectic for the next seven days for me, starting at 10am today, now that I basically have rehearsals with tech, orchestra and the whole kit and kaboodle here in the city for Sweet Charity which opens off-Broadway in New York City this Thursday, July 28th. As per before, you’re all invited to watch me star as Charity and you can purchase tickets here!

I’m going to try to blog as much as possible and keep you all in the loop with my comings and goings, but please forgive me if it’s a slow week!

In the meantime, my pal Brooke is enjoying a fabulous vacation in Europe and asked me to guest blog for her, which I graciously accepted, sharing one of my favorite recipes, my Chocolate Raspberry Trifle, which you can read about on her blog Just B!

My most recent and most exciting discovery of the week, however, is Pinterest! I’m more than a little obsessed–I spent four hours pinning last night! Pinterest is like a virtual inspiration board, and instead of having to organize magazine clippings, and papers and everything, you do it online, borrowing inspiration from other peoples’ boards and sharing your boards with your friends.

Of course, the easiest inspiration to become obsessed with are the amazing food pictures on Pinterest, my mouth waters just looking at them! I’d rounded up a few pictures of recipes I am just DYING to try:

Frozen S’mores Parfait from The Wannabe Chef

 Chocolate Drizzled Strawberry Shortcake Kabobs from My Own Road

Capri Sun Fruit Punch Pops (aka the prettiest popsicles ever) from Kitchen Daily

Hopefully, those will hold you over until I get some time on my hands to do some of my own baking! I promise to post my homemade Starbucks Iced Passion Tea Lemonade recipe this weekend though! (It is BEYOND good–you will never spend a dime at Starbucks for it again!)

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Homemade Waffle Cones

Date: May 21, 2011 • By • Comments 0

Waffle cones are something I don’t indulge in often, even though I want them every time I eat ice cream. It’s hard to resist the tasty, crispy treats and until recently I never thought about making them at home.

Rolling the cones

A few weeks ago, I was perusing Macy’s and since getting my own place, I’ve been shopping for things from my new home nonstop. I happened into The Cellar where I was instantly attracted to the old fashioned sundae glasses and banana split plates, which were paired with the ice cream makers and …a Bella Cucina Waffle Maker. I was stunned by the simplicity of this little machine. The thing that inspired me to buy it, however, wasn’t my affinity for waffle cones or ice cream: it was on sale for $8.99. I immediately asked the sales girl if there was something wrong with it and she assured me that they were a big hit, but were left over from last year (who cares!) she told me if I didn’t like it, I could bring it back no questions asked.

The chocolate chip and plain cones

I finally tested out my new toy and made…get this…chocolate chip waffle cones! They were a little bit of a project but are super delicious!

I used the following recipe and garnished with some Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food and Mint Chocolate Cookie! Yum! Can’t wait to make them with some homemade ice cream soon!

Double Chocolate Chip Waffle Cones

1 ounce unsweetened chocolate

2 tablespoons butter

2 eggs

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons Swiss Miss Milk Chocolate Hot Chocolate Mix (any Hot Cocoa mix will do!)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup of water

 

1. Melt chocolate and butter in a small microwave safe bowl. Stir to combine then set aside to cool for 5 minutes.

2. In a medium-sized bowl, beat the eggs and salt with a fork until well-blended.

3. Using an electric mixer, beat in sugar until the eggs have lightened in color slightly, about 1 minute.

5. Stir in the melted chocolate, vanilla extract and butter.

6. Add the flour and hot cocoa mix, stirring slowly until dry ingredients are moistened. Beat another 15 seconds to incorporate the flour and remove all the lumps.

7. Spoon 1-3 tablespoons of batter into the center of the Waffle Cone cooking plate. Bake for 1 minute or until golden brown.

8. Using a flat, firm plastic spatula, quickly remove the waffle from the Waffle Coner Maker onto a clean cloth towel. Use the towel to help lift, roll and shape the dough into a cone. Remove the cloth and hold the cone a few seconds to set its shape.

9. Drop a mini-marshmallow into the bottom of the cone to prevent ice cream from dripping out.

10. Extra chocolate coating, jimmies, M&Ms, nuts, candies, etc.  for decoration are optional.

11. Place on a wire rack to cool and harden (for faster eating, I stuck mine in the fridge for 5 minutes!)

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Spring Tie-Dyed Cupcakes

Date: March 21, 2011 • By • Comments 1

I’m not going to lie to you: on the outside, these are undoubtedly the ugliest cupcakes I’ve ever made…but on the inside, they’re really pretty…and most importantly: they’re delicious!

Inspired by BLDG 25, Free People’s blog, I created these superfab tie-dyed cupcakes, just in time for spring today (and we’ll try to pretend there isn’t snow in the forecast for NYC).

Tie-Dyed Treats

Except, that I was a little overzealous. Their recipe says to use a yellow cake mix from a box and of course, I am an expert cupcake baker, why would I ever use a box?! Instead I used this recipe and I tried to halve it, because I’m going to visit my parents in a few days, and I have no use for 24 cupcakes.

I created the recipe to a “T” and then divided the batter up to color it. I filled each color on top of an another until the cupcake tins were about 3/4 full.

Here’s the hitch: I only had the tin cupcake cups to bake in, and no actually muffin tin, because apparently it’s at my roommate’s boyfriend’s apartment.

So this new recipe, spread width-wise in the oven as much as it could, and then upwards…rising much higher than expected and overflowing the edges of the cups, therefore, making these the ugliest-on-the-outside cupcakes!

I used a homemade tie-dyed buttercream to match…which also ugly-ifed as I frosted. I just used one stick of butter to 16 ounces of confectioner’s sugar and blended them with an electric mixer. I added a few drops of each color of food dye and only mixed them in a little, since I didn’t want the frosting to turn brown…but once I put it in a bag to pipe it on, it all mixed together.

But the insides of the cupcakes are BEAUTIFUL! And perfect for spring…

Happy Spring!

xox,

E

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Pink Heart Tuile Cookies

Date: February 13, 2011 • By • Comments 0

The name “tuile” is a french word meaning “tile” and when presented in rows are supposed to resemble the curved tiles on the tops of buildings. In their traditional form, a tuile (petit four style cookie) is a flat cookie which has been set over a curved surface while freshly baked and allowed to cool, giving its characteristic curved-tile shape.

This version of the tuile is a bit altered…for one, it’s shaped like heart and naturally because it’s a heart and it’s Valentine’s Day, it is also pink (I used two drops of red food coloring to achieve the color). I used this recipe to create these crunchy, sweet and delectable (also impossible to stop eating!) cookies.

These cookies are probably one of the easiest things that I’ve personally ever made, with the exception of the fact that I should’ve listened and made a heart-shaped template to create my hearts. Instead, I created each heart by hand spreading the batter on the Silpat with a spoon, which took much longer than I anticipated. Because these cookies are so thin and almost translucent, I assumed the batter would be thin and watery, but instead it had a very frosting-like viscosity, which made it hard to DIY the shape. I’m not upset though, since each cookie turned out a different size and a bit of a different shape, making them very whimsical.

I also overcooked my first couple of batches–in my oven, I literally only needed 3 minutes–and I tried them at 5 and then at 4 minutes, but both turned them brown.

I’d absolutely make these again in a heartbeat! They’re a sweet treat to curb any craving and you probably have all the ingredients to make them in your house! (Confectioner’s sugar, all-purpose flour, 2 egg whites, butter, vanilla extract, and red food coloring).

Happy Valentine’s Day!

xoxo, E

 

 

Source info: Pastry Sampler

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Healthy Superbowl Recipes: Turkey Chili

Date: February 6, 2011 • By • Comments 0

I’ll leave you with one more recipe before you start cooking for your indoor-tailgate…Turkey Chili. Chili is not something that I know too much about, but you definitely could use soy meat to replace the turkey in this recipe if you’re a vegetarian. (Guaranteed your guests probably wouldn’t even notice.) This recipe is easy–cook as directed and then toss everything into a Crockpot! You’ll have forgotten all about it while you’re busy cooking all the other great recipes David Kirsch gave us to have a healthy Superbowl party, and all of a sudden it’ll be time to serve!

TURKEY CHILI

Double this recipe, making a big pot of the stuff at the beginning of the week. Whenever you are rushed and don’t have time to prepare a more elaborate lunch or dinner, serve up some leftovers. The chili always tastes better the second time around.

 

· Nonfat cooking spray

· 1 pound lean ground turkey

· Salt

· Pepper

· 1 cup peeled and grated carrot

· 2⁄3 cup chopped onion

· 2⁄3 cup chopped celery

· 1 clove garlic, minced

· 2 teaspoons chili powder

· 1 teaspoon paprika

· 1 teaspoon ground cumin

· 1⁄8 teaspoon ground cayenne

· 1 141⁄2-ounce can chopped plum tomato in juice

· 1⁄2 cup low-fat, low-sodium chicken broth

· 1 bay leaf

 

1.  Heat a 3-quart nonstick saucepan over high heat and coat with cooking spray.

2.  Add the turkey, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, breaking up the turkey into pieces, until browned.

3.  Remove to a bowl, and cover with foil to keep warm.

4.  Reduce the heat to low, and add the carrot, onion, celery, and garlic. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes, until the vegetables begin to soften.

5.  Add the chili powder, paprika, cumin, and cayenne. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute.

6.  Increase the heat to medium, and add the tomato, stock, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil over high heat.

7.  Reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer for 15 minutes, covered.

8.  Add the browned turkey, and simmer for 5 minutes more.

9.  Remove and discard the bay leaf before serving.

 

Makes 4 servings. Per serving: 240 calories, 23 g protein, 15 g carbohydrate,

10 g fat, 3 g saturated fat, 4 g fiber, 8 g sugar

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Healthy Superbowl Recipes: Tuna & Shrimp Kebabs

Date: February 6, 2011 • By • Comments 0

Gameday is finally here, and if you’re not prepared for the party I have a few more quick and easy recipes that’ll keep your partygoers satisfied without over-indulging. Fitness Guru David Kirsch gave us two great recipes for Healthy Fat-Free Homemade Hummus and Roasted Red Pepper and Almond Dip last week and today I have a few more you can whip up just in time for the kickoff!

TUNA AND SHRIMP KEBAB

This is a really fun party dish packed with protein and can easily be adapted to serve more people.

· 1/2 small eggplant

· 2 medium shrimp, peeled and cleaned

· 1/2 medium-sized, yellow bell pepper

· 1/3 cup water

· 4 ounces skinless tuna steak, cut into four 1-inch cubes

· 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

· 1 teaspoon chopped fresh dill

1.  Preheat oven to 400°F.

2.  Cut eggplant in half lengthwise, then cut diagonally into 1/2-inch pieces; set aside.

3.  Cut pepper into quarters; remove seeds and stem. Cut each piece in half.

4.  Bake peppers and eggplant in foil packet for 20 minutes. Remove and cool.

5.  Place peppers and eggplant on skewers.

6.  Place tuna and shrimp on skewers, alternating tuna then shrimp.

7.  Place all skewers in a large shallow dish.

8.  Combine water, Dijon mustard, and dill in a small bowl. Mix well and pour over kebabs. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes. Remove kebabs from marinade; discard marinade.

9.  Spray grill rack with nonfat vegetable cooking spray. Place kebabs on grill. Grill tuna/shrimp skewers 2 to 3 minutes each side and veggies 4 minutes on each side.

Enjoy!

Who are you rooting for in today’s big game, the Packers or the Steelers?

 

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