Chicken Cordon Bleu

Knowing how broke I am and how little there is to do when one is broke, my father literally insisted that I purchase and prepare dinner for Bryan tonight and assured me he would reimburse me for the cost on Monday. On the condition that I spend at least $25. He suggested a few venues and meal options and with my moms help we settled on Chicken Cordon Bleu, with Muenster, Swiss cheese, and Prosciutto. She sent me the recipe she uses via email shortly after, and a few hours later it was done! We had it with a side of pasta with pesto, a glass of wine and our favorite chocolate mousse for dessert. Thanks, Dad!!

-Kelly

Coffee Cake and Carrot Soup

I love Coffee Cake! It is the perfect breakfast (right after Peach Bread). Not too sweet or rich. And the version I just made is stuffed with Blueberries, Raspberries and Blackberries! If I hadn't eaten the entire thing in 24 hours I'm sure it would have made an excellent breakfast!

We have jars and jars of turkey stock in our fridge from our Thanksgiving feast, and I decided to make use of them and Invent-A-Soup! Stock, Heavy Cream, Onion, Spinach, Carrots and Sweet Potato Soup, to be exact. Yum!

-Kelly

Chocolate Orange Tart and Sweet Potato Fries

I was looking for cheap chocolate desserts to make this weekend, and i stumbled upon this amazing Rich Chocolate Tart Recipe. I had plenty of time to spare so I decided to make the crust instead of buying it, which proved to be more difficult but also more rewarding than i had imagined (A big thank you to our roommate Erica for letting me use her Starbucks tumbler in lieu of a rolling pin) 

I decided to spice it up by using a few tablespoons of orange zest, which was a great idea. I can't WAIT to make this again. It was incredible.

Since Thanksgiving we have been craving more sweet potatoes, and so we decided to make some Sweet Potato fries with our Pork Chops last night! We sliced them up, put them on a greased pan with salt and olive oil, and baked at 450 for 20 minutes. I drenched mine in vinegar and devoured them.

-Kelly

A Whole Foods Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year, by far. This year was extra special, because it was Bryan and my first Thanksgiving together! I am lucky enough to have a Whole Foods Thanksgiving feast purchased for me annually by my awesome mom and dad, and this year was no exception! 

We started off with Grapefruit Mimosas, followed by Tangerine Grape Mimosas. Delicious!

For Breakfast Bryan made a twist on Eggs Benedict; Toast, Poached Eggs, Bacon, and the most delicious Hollandaise ever!! Unfortunately we ate this before it could be photographed.  Oops!

 Dinner:

Stuffing

Sweet Potatoes with Brown Sugar and Bacon

Cranberry Sauce

-Kelly

Juice, Continued

Today we made Cucumber Spinach Ginger Tangerine Juice! We used Persian cucumbers and organic spinach. It was delicious!

Then, in celebration of the holidays we decided to make Spiced Apple Pear Cider! We used Honeycrisp and Granny Smith apples, Red Bartlett pears, cinnamon and nutmeg. This was even MORE delicious! 

Later on this afternoon we decided to make fresh red grape juice! Bryan thinks it looks disgusting but it was incredible.

-Kelly

I Will Never Buy Juice Again

My wonderful mother sent Bryan and I the most perfect gift yesterday, a Salton Deluxe Fruit and Vegetable Juicer. She thought it was a food processor, which we have been looking for, and sent it to us. After trying all day to figure out what it was, Bryan finally got home from work and told me it was a juicer. We immediately peeled the rest of our tangerines and threw them in, creating the most delicious juice I have ever tasted. Until today. I spent about an hour in the produce section of Trader Joes debating which items I should juice. I ended up getting more tangerines, a few apples and oranges, carrots, spinach, cranberries, lemons and limes. 

My first experiment was spinach, carrot, tomato and apple juice. IT WAS AMAZING. It looked like vomit but it was so so delicious. Next I made carrot tangerine cranberry lemonade, pictured below with lemon and lime juice.

I am so excited to come up with new ideas for juices, so let me know if you have any ideas and I'll post pictures of how they all turn out!! Thanks again, Mom!

Tangerines!

Since lemon bars and lime bars have been such a big hit lately, we have been brainstorming all of the different kind of bar-combos that are possible. Bryan came up with Ginger Tangerine bars. We bought the tangerines yesterday, and Voila!

For not having a recipe, these didn't come out too bad! I think that A) I could have used more ginger and B) the flavor of tangerine isn't as strong as lemon or lime, so they weren't as flavorful as usual. All in all, not bad!

Since we have SO many tangerines i decided to make Tangerine Meltaways, a recipe i found on technicolorkitchen.blogspot.com. These would have been completely delicious if i hadnt kept them in the oven a bit too long, burning the bottom and giving them a half crunchy-half smooth texture. i will definitely be making these again, regardless. The zest gave them a lot more flavor than the bars. They are so tiny and adorable!

-Kelly