We’ve been having some technical issues, sorry! I’ll post a quick recipe.
Do you like to eat at P.F. Changs?
Me too.
I’m not saying these lettuce cups are exactly like the ones you get there … but they’re a great substitute.
I’ll link you to the recipe: http://www.eat-yourself-skinny.com/2012/03/asian-lettuce-cups.html
Annnd, I’m looking for a turtle cookie recipe… I just ate one and now I must make them and share them, virtually, with you.
Peace, Love and Changs!
So my Mom is a rock star in the kitchen.
She made me pimento cheese and I want to share it with you.
See the pictures I just took? They’re now in my belly.
This would be an awesome recipe for the holidays when you’re having company … good with any cracker, veggie or pretzel. Oh yes, and sandwiches.
This recipe straight from Southern Living – what would we do without them?
1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
1 (4-oz.) jar diced pimiento, drained
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. finely grated onion
1/4 tsp. ground red pepper
1 (8-oz.) block extra-sharp Cheddar cheese, finely shredded
1 (8-oz.) block sharp Cheddar cheese, shredded
Stir together first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; stir in cheese. Store in refrigerator up to 1 week.
Peace, Love and Pimentos!
Stayin’ up late. Baking a cake. Watching the news?
You?
Okay. It’s almost too late for cakes. Baking that is. And it’s definitely too late to take a decent picture of one.
This cake is way better than it looks in this picture that I absolutely had to ‘spruce’ up with what’s on my dining room table. Otherwise it would have looked like a brown blob on my brown table. Ew.
I’ll tweet pictures of it tomorrow from a very important meeting… Where I get to make the snacks and the breakfast muffins for everyone. Oh and fruit, because there must be fruit.
Cake
Starts with 1 box chocolate (gasp! I know)
2 eggs
1 15 oz can cherry pie filling
1 C Sugar
1 Stick butter
1/4 C Evaporated Milk
6 Oz Semi Sweet Milk Chocolate chips
1. Mix eggs, cake mix and pie filling. Pour into a greased 13 X 9 pan. Bake at 350 for about 25 – 30 minutes or until a fork inserted in the middle comes out clean.
2. While the cake is still hot, in a sauce pan warm sugar, butter and evaporated milk over low heat. Then bring to a boil for one minute. Add chocolate chips. Pour over cake.
Smell. Devour.
Here are some pics of Big H’s first B-day. We had fun! 
A little blury but we had a hayride… it was awesome. I think the adults liked it as much as the baby!
Can’t take credit for this pumpkin. It was borrowed. How ’bout that tin foil in the picture? Jez.
Peace, Love, and One year olds!
(P.S. She really doesn’t even look like this but it’s the best pic we got of her all day. She’s very busy)
I’m having problems.
I have zip lock bags strewn across my kitchen and uncooked oatmeal dumped on my floor. My child has one shoe on and one in her mouth. My normally well-stocked and organized kitchen looks like Super Storm Sandy made a personal visit through my kitchen. Ok fine, my house.
Speaking of Sandy, it doesn’t seem right to write a blog post about my “problems” and not mention our friends in the Northeast. Many of you know of my love affair with NYC. A self proclaimed “New Yorker at heart,” I stayed up well passed my 8pm bedtime to watch live reports of Manhattan go dark from the storm while following #Sandy on Twitter.
I even saved a few of the posted pictures to my phone… just incase it comes up in conversation and I need to show someone the half lit skyline. I care. I love that city. In my dreams I live there.
So here I am with my problems: unable to get organized, meal plan and take advantage of Big H’s new trend of sleeping through the night. See, we’re renting a house while we build and although we’ve been there for almost 3 months… we’re still not quite settled. Half our stuff is still in the detached garage where it will stay until we move and I spend the nights walking around the house peering through the blinds with my cell phone programed to 9-1-1, convinced a burglar is breaking into that door over there. No! It’s that door! Poor Picky Pants. I’m tired the next morning, running ragged to CrossFit – oh and did I eat breakfast? Lara Bars have become a Wise house-hold staple. So have salads on the To-Go menu.
When I think of my fellow New Yorkers (Yes, I know they’re really not my fellow New Yorkers because I’ve never really lived there except in my head) I shrug and say to myself: someone else would love to live in your shoes, oatmeal on the floor and all. And sometimes, it’s okay to wish I lived in half-dark-Manhattan, away from WIFI and TV and errands and cooking. Not really, that’s probably never okay.
Anyway, Baking Season is upon us! I’ll get it together, I really will. Just as soon as I unload the china in its boxes in the dining room …
Peace, Love and Praying for #Sandy victims!
Football
Jeans
Boots
Crunchy Leaves
Rainy Days
Slow Cooker Meals
Squash
Pumpkins
Cool weather
Just a few things I’m thankful for today.
My baby turns one this month. HOLY COW. We made it! We, I’m talking about all three of us I suppose.
So thankful I have an even bigger reason to celebrate the season!
Need some recipes?
Here you go:
My all time favorite
For my sweet tooth
Savory
Traditional
Lazy Pumpkin Lovers
Entertaining
I really love you. Mean it. 
Peace, Love and Pumpkins!
Do you remember when I posted “Squash Pizza Dough?”
This recipe is two-thousand-and-twelve times better. Only because this one doesn’t have any flour in it.
1 head of cauliflower can make 3 ‘personal’ pizzas. I took pics in a major hurry while doing exactly 14 other things. Oh, and I lost the natural daylight in the kitchen by the time I took them.
So, if I’m being real, the pizzas didn’t look much better in person than they do in these pictures. But you should totally make them.
*Next time I’ll use a cookie sheet. I think they’ll bake better than using a 9 inch pie pan. So don’t do that.
* I’ll also try to flip the pizza in the cookie sheet to get both sides slightly browned/crispy.
1 head of cauliflower
3 C Shredded mozzarella
3 eggs beaten (separately, will explain below)
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp crushed garlic ( I used more )
1/2 tsp garlic salt
Olive Oil
Toppings of choice. (I used ricotta cheese, pesto and shredded chicken)
1. To “rice” the cauliflower wash and chop into smaller chunks. Put in food processor until it resembles rice. Do not puree.
2. Put in microwaveable bowl and ‘cook’ for 8 minutes.
3. Preheat Oven to 450, spray a cookie sheet with non stick spray
(It can totally be square, round is prettier)
4. FOR 1 small pizza: In a medium bowl stir together 1 beaten egg, 1 cup of cheese and spices.
FOR 1 huge pizza (3 servings) beat three eggs and add to all the riced cauliflower and 3 cups of cheese and triple the spices.
5. Pat the dough until desired thickness. NOTE: cauliflower is pretty wet so pat it pretty thin so it’s not mushy.
6. brush with olive oil and a dash of salt if desired before baking. Bake 15 minutes.
Top and Enjoy. Here’s the coolest thing about this recipe: You can eat all three pizzas and not feel like disgusting.
Peace Love and Pizza!
I ate lunch with someone famous while in NYC.
You would totally know him.
It’s Mario Batali. You know, from The Chew.
And Otto (pronounced Oh-tt-Oh, long O)
And Babbo. And Eataly.
And a million other restaurants/shows/specials/brand of food.
Here we are, dining together … ahem.
Yea. We really didn’t eat together.
I have something to admit to you: I didn’t leave the restaurant without slipping him a stalker-ish piece of paper that said I liked to watch his show. Oh. And that I have a food blog. #bigfan #feellikealoser #stalkerish
But THEN he made my night by tweeting this:
#Feltlesslikeastalker #lesslikealoser #stilllikeaweirdo
As if we hadn’t had enough Mario Batali for the day, I had already planned on heading to Otto for dinner in Chelsea that night. #coincidence
The hostess sat us at “Mario’s table.” #nolie (like the table where he normally sits while eating at his restaurant)
This is the second time I’ve been to his restaurant and it’s amazing from the grissini, to the wine to the salads and of course pizza.
Pizza Bianca: Olive Oil, Sea Salt
Pane Frattau – Tomato, Pecorino and EGG. YUM.
Dear Mario, if you ever need anyone to fill in on The Chew, I’m your girl. Sincerely, the girl that slid you her used table mat and wrote her blog on it. She is really original. Courtney Wise
In other news Big H started pointing while I was gone. (And not sleeping through the night yet again. But that’s old news, right?)
Oh. And here’s My Mom, Godmother and me in Washington Square after Otto. It was our last night.
Peace, Love and Mario’s pizza. And NYC.
Are you a keeper or a thrower?
I’m normally a thrower. If I haven’t worn something in 6 months, it’s out.
If we haven’t used something in a year, it’s out.
If we haven’t eaten something in 3-4 days, it’s out…that’s just sanitary I suppose.
Unless it’s chocolate. Never throw away chocolate.
Another thing I can’t seem to ‘discard’ is pictures I’ve taken over the year. Each blog post, I snap pictures and then scroll through all my old ones to get to my new ones.
It’s organized chaos. Or just plain crazy. But it’s totally me.
I mean, you never know … one day I may need to post about:
Purple Potatoes in NYC:
Have you ever played the game “Smile as big as you can?” No I’m not kidding. I made it up and am doing it in this picture.
My favorite Christmas, having my family up from Georgia. Bloody Mary’s and Grown up Grilled Cheese is a must-do if you haven’t tried it yet. Oh and there’s the red velvet cake I made and omitted the sugar accidentally. It was so gross. And hilarious.
Oh hi, it’s me, blogging. Showing off my new hair color.
Cran-Cran Mimosa. Cheers!
I’m really good at self portraits. Of my eye ball.
There’s PP’s head. And Big’ H is in the middle.
And, here we go, the best meat balls in America … from Italy.
Bari, Italy to be exact.
See? This is why I don’t discard pictures. You just never know!
Don’t judge by these pictures. I must have been snapping them with a molar-teething-baby on my hip while saying “No, don’t touch the raw meat!”
Mom’s Meatballs
1 1/2 – 2 lb ground chuck
Salt, Pepper to taste (don’t taste it silly, it’s just a saying)
1 egg beaten with small amount of milk
Bread Crumbs (to make paste with)
1 bud of garlic crushed. Add an extra for fun.
1/2 a bunch of fresh Chopped Parsley ( if you want to use the whole thing, go ahead)
1. Add egg mixture, garlic, parsley and enough bread crumbs to make everything stick together into a bowl.
2. Throw out your spoons and take off your rings. With your hands make fairly big meat balls. If they’re too small they will be hard once baked. You should be able to get 12-15 meatballs from this recipe.
3. Lightly brown these meatballs in olive oil in a pan. Just to get the outside brown.
4. Put onto a baking sheet lined with foil and bake 350 for about 25 – 30 minutes.
** If you’re fancy insert a clove of garlic into center of meatball, then fry and bake.
** If you’re even fancier put a tiny piece of fresh mozzarella cheese in the center, then fry and bake.
After they are baked, stick them in your spaghetti sauce that’s simmering on your stove for a few hours. There’s nothing better than walking into a fresh-spaghetti-sauce-smelling house. For left overs buy some fresh bread and make a meatball sub.
I’m going to get a lot of inspiration this week. I’ll be in NYC. Follow me on Twitter for fun tweets and eats
Peace, Love and old pictures.
I am a … dancer
Singer
Holder
Rocker
Late Night Feeder
Entertainer
Comforter
Stroller Runner
Bike Trailer Peddler
Feeder
Rhymer
Rapper
Knee Slapper
Teacher
Oh. And exhausted.
So, because you’ve guessed by now that I’m a mom. Of a teething baby. Who is irritable. But adorable. Chocolate, of course, is the only thing that can console me. Now, that is a lie. But let’s reminisce about these bad boys and get baking.
New recipe. Next time. Promise.
Peace, Love, Hugs, Kisses
I’m craving crisp air and crunchy leaves.
Apple Pie and Pumpkin Spice.
Jeans, boots and sweatshirts.
Oh, Fall. I heart you big.
Here’s a Turkish bread recipe you can make year round. The yogurt dip makes it summery but the texture could totally make it fall-y.
It’s called Pide … pronounced pee-duh.
Duh. Just kidding. I totally called it Pide the first time I looked at it. Don’t do that. Pee-duh.
Get fancy, bake some bread for your family. They will love you.
Here’s the recipe, I’m linking you to it since I didn’t change one single thing.
Peace Love and Pee-duh
