el Binny's

Binny's is a local Chicago beverage shop. And by beverage shop I mean a place to buy wine and other sorts of alcohol-related drinky-drinks. I signed up for a Binny's card. It's kind of like a preferred shoppers club card. When certain wines go on clearance, you just hand over your card to the cashier and then, wham! bam! You get big discounts. I went through a phase of drinking cheap-o vino. But no more cheap wine! I got a $50 bottle of wine for $15! Yes, I did. Okay, you might think $15 is cheap, but it's really a $50 bottle. Binny's will no longer be carrying it and that's why it's on deep deep sale. It's a 2003 mix of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot from the Colchagua Valley in Chile. Zane would be so proud of me.

Oh and I must add...the Binny's store that's closest to my house is in a castle. Yes, a castle! I'll take photos next time I'm there which I'm sure will be soon.

Three Sheets

There's a show I started watching a few weeks ago called Three Sheets. I love this show! I might be borderline obsessed. It's hosted by Zane Lamprey and as Wendy Williams would say, "He's a friend in my head." Totally. We would so get along. I'm sure I'd be on his speed dial and he would text me daily. He'd send me funny pictures of his monkey Pleepleus. We would probably go out on all night drinking binges and high five each other a lot. What a great friend....

So the premise of the show is this: My buddy Zane travels all over the world to different countries and explores the unique drinking culture each place has to offer. I would classify this show as educational. I learn so much from it. They should show it in grade school really. Ha! The show also has these ridiculous sound effects. Like when someone is drinking something you hear "glug glug glug". It makes me laugh almost every time. The show has been on for 4 seasons and there's a bunch of episodes I still haven't seen. Thank goodness for DVR because I can record all the ones I haven't seen. I feel like if Zane ever needed a co-host, I would fit right in.

Stuff It! Stuff It! Stuff It!

So for the Christmas bird stuffing I used my mom’s recipe. I love this stuffing. I could eat it as a meal with just a little bit of gravy. SO good!

INGREDIENTS

1/2 bag of Pepperidge Farms Cubed Herb Seasoned Stuffing
1 bread stuffing loaf
Handful of parsley
Handful of celery leaves
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
4 tablespoons margarine
1 small white onion
1/3 cup chicken stock

DIRECTIONS

Clean your bird and rinse it out. I like to stand it up on the counter and make it dance around for a minute. It makes it taste better. In a large bowl add 1/2 bag of the herb-seasoned stuffing, about 7 ounces. Take the bread stuffing loaf and rip off little pieces slightly larger than the size of a matchbook. Lightly wet them under a stream of cold water (they will get a little mushy don’t worry) and put each piece in the bowl. Use the entire bread stuffing loaf.

Finely chop the parsley and celery leaves until you have a handful of each then dump them in the bowl. Add eggs, salt, pepper and poultry seasoning.

In a skillet on medium heat melt about 4 tablespoons of margarine. Finely chop the onion and sauté in the skillet for just a few minutes. Do not brown the onions or my mom will yell at you.

Add the onions and chicken stock to the bowl of stuffing stuff and stir well.

Take stuffing mixture and insert into hole. Put some under the skin too, that’s what I did here. Cook your turkey according to the directions and you will then have the best stuffing you have ever had ever!

The Christmas Bird

I stuffed a big bird for Christmas. Unfortunately, sometimes food doesn't photograph well and I'm not too happy with this picture of our bird. But it was so good!

Mom's Sugar Cookies

Moms always seem to have the best recipes. My mom has always made these around Christmas and she’s had the recipe for years. It’s simple but delicious. I recently had a potluck lunch at work so I decided to make them.

Normally when I’m baking I take a lot of pictures for blog purposes. This time I only took two pictures total. One was good and the other was…well, not good. And would you believe I accidentally deleted the good one?! And of course I did it the next day when all the cookies were gone. I’m making more in a few days and I’m replacing the picture once I do. Ha! So there!

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS

Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl. Blend in egg and vanilla and mix well. In a separate bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Mix well and add to butter mixture little by little until well mixed. Once mixed, chill dough for 1-2 hours.

Once the dough has chilled, take about 1/4 of the dough and roll it out until it’s roughly 1/4 of an inch thick. You’ll need to rub your rolling pin with flour and sprinkle some on the counter so the dough doesn’t stick. Now use your most favorite cookie cutters and cut out as many shapes as possible. I used a bunch from my cookie cutter stash.

Place cookies one inch apart on a non-greased cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees F for 8-10 minutes.

La-la-la let’s make icing….

INGREDIENTS

4 tablespoons cream cheese (softened)
2 tablespoons butter (softened)
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS for ICING

With a mixer on medium speed, blend cream cheese and butter. Pour in the milk and vanilla. Slowly add powdered sugar a little at a time until you reach a good icing consistency (a little on the thicker side).

Once the cookies have completely cooled, frost them and sprinkle with colored sugar.

The not-so good looking photo that will soon be replaced :)

Decorating

Rob and I did our Holiday decorating last weekend. I like the simplicity of our decorating. We put up a tree in the living room and a few other decorations around the house. Aside from the tree in the living room we put up a small tree in the dining room with no decorations and a strand of evergreen with white lights along the length of the dining room window. Here's a photo of our tree and some of my favorite decorations:

The tree in the living room

Two happy snowmen

Betty

 

One of two ornaments we purchased in Santa Fe

 

Peace

Carrot Cake Birthday Cake

Rob's birthday was last week (Happy Birthday!!) and this past weekend I made him a carrot cake. I made this same recipe last year for his birthday but this time I wanted to make it a little bit healthier. I used mostly whole wheat flour for the cake and for the frosting I used non-fat cream cheese. Unfortunately I forgot an important ingredient...the oil. I didn't realize this until it was almost finished baking so there was nothing I could do about it. Ooops. Surprisingly though, it tastes pretty good. It's just slightly dry. But I recommend that if you're making this recipe it's probably best not to forget the oil.

INGREDIENTS

2 eggs
1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups grated carrot
2 tablespoons orange juice

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

DIRECTIONS

In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.

In a separate bowl beat together the eggs and sugar until creamy. Stir in the vegetable oil, carrots, orange juice and vanilla and mix well. Combine with dry ingredients and mix.

Heat oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 9 inch baking pan. I love parchment paper for recipes like this. You can do this and it's super easy to get the cake out. Pour mixture into pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.

This particular time I made it in a loaf form using a standard bread loaf pan. If you do that, keep it in the oven another 5-10 minutes when baking.

Now it's frosting time!

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup fat-free cream cheese softened
4 tablespoon margarine
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS

Mix the cream cheese and margarine. Add the vanilla then add the powdered sugar little by little while mixing until you reach the desired consistency. Wait until the cake has completely cooled then frost.

Instead of doing the typical "Happy Birthday Rob" on the cake I decided to make little carrots. I just mixed some of the extra frosting with food coloring and put it in little plastic Ziploc bags and snipped the tips and tah-dah....

Birthday carrots!

Peanut Brittle

My dad makes the best peanut brittle ever. And lucky me, he always makes it every time I visit. He could make millions with his recipe.

mmmmmmmm

Happy Thanksgiving!

gobble gobble

No Pudge!

Sometimes I'm in the mood for easy baking. I heard about this brownie mix from a friend. It's FAT FREE! I like fat free foods but they usually taste like crap....not this one!

This mix can't get any easier to make. You don't even have to add eggs! All you have to do is mix in some fat free vanilla yogurt and bake. If you are not a whiz in the kitchen then these are perfect for you. They are fool-proof! And they surprised me. They taste really good. You can find retail locations here.

Guilt-free yumminess!

They were so yummy I ate them all before I remembered to take a picture. Maybe next time.