Spanakopita

To say I love Spanakopita would be a severe understatement.
Αγαπλώ η σπανακόπιτα
(yes I have greek on my computer and yes I know how to use it!)

My family goes crazy when I make it, I’m lucky to even get a piece most of the time.

Last night I was home all night for the first time in a while so I decided to make dinner. I just made grilled chicken with some whole wheat pasta, speghetti sauce and a salad. and as an appetizer (or “meze”) I made the spanakopita.
I always use frozen spinach, its easy and I really don’t taste a difference. Not realizing though, I made broccoli and threw half of my feta in the bowl with it before I noticed it was not spinach. SO! when life gives you broccoli and feta…make broccoli and feta triangles?
I made traditional triangles (which I was not able to get a photo of because they disappeared so quickly) with my broccoli version of spanakopita and made pie-spanakopita with the regular spinach and feta.

As far as a “recipe” goes, I really don’t have one. I’m very “old school” when it comes to cooking, I throw stuff in until it taste good basically. My spanakopita is very very basic, I got it from my great aunt and uncle who used to own a restaurant (of course they did – they’re greek aren’t they?).

My kinda-sorta recipe for Spanakopita

1 packages of frozen spinach
8oz of feta
garlic powder
sea salt
pepper
melted butter
Phyllo

Preheat oven to 350F. Follow microwave directions for spinach. Add feta and chop at the feta until its a broken up and evenly mixed throughout. Add garlic, salt and pepper to taste (I used TONS of garlic always).
If making triangles, simply fold into triangles (good folding instructions are at Judicial Peach) lay on parchment lined cookie sheet and brush each with melted butter. If making pie, lay 4-5 layers of phyllo on bottom of large casserole dish, brush with butter, top with even coating of spinach mixture and more phyllo. repeat until all mixture is gone and end with phyllo and brush with butter.
Bake triangles 7-10 minutes, bake pie for around 15 minutes.

I don’t want to hear any excuses about not trying spanakopita.
hate cooked spinach? guess what! I DESPISE cooked spinach with a passion
afraid phyllo is hard to deal with? don’t be, just take your time and you’ll be fine

I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t like this stuff, and I’ve made spanakopita for my entire family as well as all of the staff at the restaurant I used to work at and my bible study group – you have to be crazy to not like this stuff.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Frank travels a lot for his job. At least every other week I’m taking him to the airport and occasionally he’ll be gone for weeks at a time. I always mean t o make him snacks to take for when he gets stuck waiting for the plane or working all day without taking a break but the last few times I forgot (I’m a such a bad girlfriend!) but I finally remembered last night and decided just to make some just plain ol’ basic chocolate chip cookies (good thing theres a tv right next to our kitchen so I could bake/listen to the world series at the same time or else I don’t know if he would have gotten any cookies.

So I just use a little variation of the recipe my mom has always used and it goes a little something like this:
My Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 stick of butter, softened
3/4 cp of Brown Sugar
1 egg
1 cp of whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp of baking soda
1/2 tsp of cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp of vanilla
however many chocolate chips make you happy (about 2 small hand fulls for us)

Cream together butter & sugar.
Beat in egg.
add 1/2 cp of the flour and mix until just combined.
add baking soda, cinnamon and salt and mix in.
add rest of flour and vanilla and mix until just combined.
use spatula to mix in chocolate chips.
Chill in fridge at least 10-15 minutes.
bake at 350F until done (I have no idea how long this is…10 minutes maybe?)

The first batch came out how I love – flat and crispy but not over-baked.
I quickly realized that with a full house of people I would need a second batch so I threw together some more batter.

The second batch came out nothing like the first. They were still very good but they held their shape and didn’t flatten out like the other ones. They still had a bit of a crisp to them and tasted good but you would never guess they were made with the same recipe.

The second batch cookies

I was trying to think of why this might be.

I had decided to skip the chilling in the fridge and just bake them right away, could that have been it?
or do you think maybe I might not have measured correctly and there was too much flour in the batter?

anyone know?

Butcher & Singer with a side of Zocalo

After a lovely afternoon of laying around at my grandparents house me and Frank decided to go up to Philly for some “grub.” So I tried to make myself presentable and threw on a dress and switched all my stuff over to a different purse. It wasn’t until half way there I realized I forgot my camera. tsk tsk. oh well.

We decided to re-visit one of our favorites from the past – Butcher & Singer

Whether you like stephen starr or not, you have to admit, the guy really does have a knack for making you feel like your somewhere else completely. You feel almost like you walk right into a 1920’s steakhouse and it successfully makes you want to have a glass of whisky and a big ol’ cigar (well, not really, but you know what I mean). The high ceilings, the decor and crazy chandiliers, even the all out black and white tailcoat waiters attire. The best though would have to be a tie between the painting of dogs having drinks at a bar or the incredibly quirky ladies’ and men’s rooms signs on the restroom doors. It’s a fun experience and the food is really quite good.

Like I said, this was actually our second time going so we already had some things in mind to try this time.
To start I got a french onion soup. Besides forgetting it was topped with cheese and having to screape it off to try to save myself from severe stomach pains later, it was very good soup. The broth was to die for – delicious
The first time around Frank had Filet Mignon with Mashed Potatoes (both very good), this time he switched the filet for the porterhouse. I actually tried a piece because of how good he said it was, and I have to agree. I’m not a huge steak fan in general, but it was so tender with a lot of flavor and almost perfect in my opinion (although I’m not steak-expert like Frank is).
I actually decided to go with the same entree as last time, which was the Butcher salad. It’s a fairly basic salad although it had strips of salami in it and little bits of cheese (which I forgot about). I remember be in love with it last time we went but it was fairly disapointing this time. I know! It’s just a salad – what could possibly go wrong? I have no idea what changed but it didn’t seem the same at all to me. I did have a side of mushrooms as well and they were good.

Last time we went we shared the chocoalte cake which was phenomenal, I remember. But this time we decided to wait to have dessert so Frank could get his favorite chocolate cake in the entire world (which is actually technically a torte) and I could see my old friends at the restaurant I used to work at when I was living in west Philly.

Zocalo is a really authentic mexican restaurant with some truly delicious food. Now you might think I’m just saying that because I used to work there and I still have friends there, but really – I do not like mexican food but I always enjoyed my meals in the back room or shoved in a corner of the kitchen at Zocalo. It’s been there for over 20 years now and the head chef/owner has worked there since it opened and just bought it over a few years back, and his wife is right from mexico so it’s stayed true both to it’s past as well as being just really authentic.

If you go during dinner please for goodness sakes do not ask for a taco. This is not taco bell, its a restaurant. I highly recommend one of the Molcajete Cuanajo or the Cochinita Pibil (really though, everything is great and I’m not just brainwashed to say that). As for desserts the chocolate torte is phenomenal and the Holjadre de Chocolate (or just “the chocolate puff pastry”) is also a favorite of everyone who tries it. My favorite drink there is definitely the Tamrind margarita and second favorite is a paloma. I gotta give it to their fabulous dinner bartender (who just happens to be a BFF lol) she’s been doing it a while now and is great at it (and I’m really not just saying that – I swear!).

in review – go. try it. love it. and say hi to gabby for me.

Yoga and Vegetable Soup

As I’ve said before I haaate the fall and winter. I don’t do col by any stretch of the imagination. If I had to find something I liked about those two seasons the only thing I could possibly come up with is soup, chilli and a cup of hot tea every morning (and even those aren’t enough to make me run screaming as soon as the temperature drops below 75).

At least one morning a week I spend chopping up vegetables and scouring the house for chicken broth (which was no where to be found today) putting together some sort of random soup. I don’t even use recipes with either my soup or chilli, I just go with the flow. throw in whatever happens to be laying around. Today just happened to be a onion-garlic-celery-potato-carrot-corn-green beans-and chicken tortellini type of day. Deeelish. I try to always have some leftovers in the fridge. On days when I’m eating at home or at the office I usually get a total of absolutely no vegetables and soups and chillis are a tasty way to get those.

I started doing yoga about a year and a half ago or so. The place where I was staying at the time had a woman come in once a week and give yoga classes. My group of course would act silly and annoy the heck out of our teacher by constantly falling over or breaking out in laughter during her weird “meditation” tapes. But I did manage to develop a love for it. One of my little secrets is that I would love to become a yoga teacher someday. I can’t afford classes right now, but one day…

Wedding Weekend

I don’t think most people realize how draining weddings are even when it’s your job to plan them. Even with a couple of weddings under my belt and only assisting on the ceremony and reception (this particular wedding had an after-party as well) I was still completely exhausted with feet and back aching not just that night but the entire day following. Even Judy, who’d been coordinating weddings and huge events for years now with hundreds and hundreds on her resume, she says she feels the same way after afterwards:
completely drained.

Even with the sore feet and necessary 24hour nap following, I love helping coordinate everything. There’s a definite rush to it and seeing everything come together beautifully in the end is an amazing feeling.

I didn’t meet Lisa & Rob until their wedding on saturday but was involved in helping with the planning on their wedding for months and even designed their menus for the reception. They are such an amazing couple. Even with all of the things they went through during their planning process they are such great people and could not have been better people to help their wedding-day dreams come true.

I just wanted to share a few of the photos that the super talented Adrienne from Element Photography got.

The ceremony and recception were both held at Marsha Brown’s Restaurant in New Hope, PA. The restaurant used to be a church which made it so interesting and unique.

You’d never guess I was running around fixing tables as guests were coming up the stairs, huh?

I am becoming a semi-professional candy-bar designer from all these wedding recently.

Don’t you love this photo Adrienne got of the couple? so cute.

Green Monster

So I’ve noticed that these “green monsters” are really big on a lot of the more healthy cooking/yoga type blogs I’m always poking around. I’ve been intrigued for a while but didn’t try one until today.

If you don’t know what a Green Monster is, it can vary a lot but almost always has the same few ingredients : Spinach, banana, Peanut butter (or any other nut butter) and some milk. You can always add protein powders or other fruits and such but that’s the basic jist of it.

In mine I had : Spinach, oats, AN Peanut Butter, Banana, Soy Milk, and a few frozen blackberries and a little frozen watermellon

The Verdict

Honestly? it was okay. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t nessasarily good either. It seemed to have a few too many flavors going on all at once.

I think I’ll keep experimenting with them and let ya know if I come up with anything good.

Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Apple Buttercream

I was sooooooooooo excited to find out this month’s cupcake hero ingredient – PEANUT BUTTER (or any kind of nut/soy butter). But I thought Peanut Butter?! Peanut butter is good with EVERYTHING! I automatically thought of some of the basic staples, PB&J (been done before – over and over again!), Peanut Butter and chocolate (also super delicious but constantly overdone as well). hmmmmmm.

So I got to thinking about my favorite ways to eat peanut butter and DUH! PEANUT BUTTER AND APPLES (the best snack EVER!).

It was so basic and so simple and after some thorough google-searching I found no recipes or anything like this done for a cupcake, so it was a no-brainer. I decided to go with a basic peanut butter cupcake recipe and try my hand at “inventing” an apple buttercream.

The end result was delicious. The actual cupcake held its shape and didn’t crumble all over the place as you bit into it, it was definitely peanut buttery-y but not over the top, it was just enough. I also made it with whole-wheat flour and all-natural PB, YUM!

The icing – there were a few problems. I am amerture-baker as they get and probably shouldn’t even attempt “inventing” things but I’m just that kind of girl :-) anywho, I LOVED the flavor of the icing, so good! but it was not as…stable? as I’d have liked it to be. You had to just kind of slap it on top – not much for looks, and I love pretty cupcakes so that was a little annoying.

all in all though, it was rockin’

Pumpkin Pie Waffles

Ever since I can remember my two favorite ingredients have been cinnamon and pumpkin, so naturally pumpkin pie has always been a favorite (I have even been known to only scrape the pumpkin innards right off the crust, leaving a nice little empty pie crust). I also love love love waffles. I have them several times a week for breakfast and typically try to make them with my own whole wheat batter (sorry bisquick!) unless it’s a busy morning, in which case I’ll grab an ego (so blah).

SO you can bet that I was beyond excited to find the Pumpkin Pancake Recipe on Frugal Foodie’s blog (did I mention I’m IN LOVE with this blog?! I’m sure you can’t tell being that this is only the second day/blog in a row that I’ve made something using one of her recipes). For some reason my waffle-love does not carry over to pancakes so well…I mean, they’re okay, but I’ll always pick waffles in the end. So I decided to make them into Pumpkin Waffles!

They were super fluffy and sooo much more delicious then my plain ol’ whole wheat waffles. I had plenty of left over batter so I decided to make the whole batch and freeze ‘em for the week to come – YAY FOR DELICIOUS BREAKFASTS! It’ll be great for thursdays when I have to be out the door by 7:30 am to make it to class on time.

My only change to her great recipe in the future? maybe a little more pumpkin and cinnamon (I have an addition, and will soon need to go to therapy for it – I swear!)

SNACK ATTACK! Cinnamon Raisin Bars

I’ve been a big fan of Quakers Chewy snack bars for a few years now, always tossing one in my bag for a afternoon snack when I’m at school or work or wherever I find myself. But I have to admit….there’s a few ingredients on the back of those wrappers that I am just not sure what they are. In addition, I’m fairly certain they are made with either butter in making them and like I said in my last post, I’m trying to stay away from dairy as best as I can.

I was super excited give a go at making my own and was super excited to find a great recipe on One Frugal Foodie (who just happens to be the author of Go Dairy Free) for Banana Oat Snack Bars.

I’m happy to say they are SUPER yummy. They are chewy and perfectly sweet (all without adding any butter or sugar!). I cut them into nice little bars and wrapped em up so they’re all set to be thrown in my bag and chowed down on in the middle of Art History.

They leave me thinking of al the possibilities for these little guys. I will definitely be making more and am already scheming about what kind of flavors I want in the next batch. I’m thinking some pumpkin will be involved and I suppose we’ll see what else!

No cheese, please.

When I was really little I was completely lactose intolerant. I’m not sure what happened, but at some point I kind of “grew out of it” leaving only a distaste for milk and a slight stomach pain after having dairy-rich foods. While all the other little kids would have milk and cookies, I would have my cookies with…water. Not incredibly appetizing. Oh how I wish alternative milk’s were as popular when I was little as they’ve slowly become over the last five years.

Anyway, at one point I got really quite good at staying away from dairy in its various forms, but especially lately I’ve been slipping. I would have the occasional bowl of ice cream or a piece of pizza or other dairy-heavy indulgences. Last night was the wake up call I needed. We had that ultra-lovely meal at Union Trust Steakhous and I eyed that cheesecake on the dessert menu when Frank reminded me of all the milk it’s packed with, but I threw caution to the wind and ordered it anyway. By the time he dropped me at my doorstep I thought I was going to be sick, and I know it had nothing to do with the culinary talents of the pastry chef, but rather my own digestive tract screaming at me once again.

So I was poking around online today to find a few others with very similar stories to mine. HeatherEatsAlmondButter talks about all the health problems she had growing up and how with each subtraction of dairy from her diet these things seemed to magically disapear. After I read that I thought back to when I finally switched over to soymilk about 2 years ago and how I have gotten sick a lot less. So I’ve come to the realization that it’s time to get a little more serious. I know there will still be small traces of dairy here and there but no more cream-based soups, no more dairy ice cream (DANG I wish soy ice cream was cheaper!) and no more cheesecake (unless I happen upon dairy-free versions of these guys).

Frank jokes he gets enough dairy and cheese for the both of us anyway. I suppose opposites really do attract :-)

My body does not handle dairy well, and if there’s one thing I believe it’s that every body knows what’s good and bad for it.

You just have to listen to what it’s trying to tell you.