Power Blueberry Muffins

Muffins. Funny word.

I'm a big fan of muffins, but not of how awful they are for you. I know, I am all over the place, posting the recipe for cookie cake pie while condemning a perfectly innocent, also delicious, breakfast food. Although I'd like to cater to my audience (cookie cake pie has the most hits), we can't survive on white flour and sugar alone.

So I set out to make a healthy muffin. What resulted wasn't inedible, it just ended up as a blueberry loaf that tasted okay after one bite, but went drastically down hill from there. I adjusted some ratios from the recipe and ended up with a pretty great muffin.

Roll Up (Part 1)

So here we are in beautiful Cape Cod, enjoying a vacation away from the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles.  While we are here, my mom insisted on teaching me how to make her pie crust and roll up, because she was sick of being made fun of on the blog.  What resulted was the epitome of cooking with your mother, lots of butter and sugar, no real clear cut measurements, and cooking times that changed on the fly.  I wasn't planning on posting this video, but it was too hysterical not to share.  Thanks to videographer / editor extraordinaire Matt Jones and photographer Jordan Finley!!


Also take off your white wig and stop judging the utter disrepair that is our kitchen.  We had just finished making dinner and sometimes I'm like a tornado in the kitchen, and well, that generates a lot of dishes.

Wedge Salad (cuz I'm feeling uppity!)

I'm typically not an advocate of iceberg lettuce.  I think I was scarred as a child by getting giant chunks of the core in bad school lunch salad. If I am going to make a traditional salad (which is rare) I typically go for romaine or baby spinach. After all, I've always been told the darker the green, the more nutritional value. (I also grew up pronouncing crooked as crookerd, so you'd probably do well to research that before quoting me at your next dinner party.)

So I will buy and eat iceberg lettuce if it's in a wedge salad, but that is pretty much its only use in my book. In my previous life as a meat eater, wedge salad was mainly a vehicle to ingest as much blue cheese dressing and bacon as possible, typically to get my arteries ready for a giant slab of red meat. Since I've reformed and realized that we only get one body, so we best treat it right, I've tweaked the idea of a wedge salad.  End result is a healthy salad, that through the magic of greek yogurt, has enough protein to stand alone as a meal. 

Also, I use fake bacon in this recipe.  Processed food is processed food, even if it is vegetarian. I know some food purists don't go for the fake meat products, all the power to them. I try to avoid processed fake meat, but sometimes I'll eat it, in moderation. If the idea of using fake bacon makes your stomach turn, then you can skip it.  In fact, I am a giant advocate of skipping everything that makes your stomach turn.

Party Like A Pro: Watermelon Tomato Salad

Mmm hipster watermelon

And we're back. Apologies if you were disappointed with the complete lack of posts, things just got crazy busy. I continued to cook, Jordan kept snapping pictures, I just never got around to writing about it. So I've got a bunch of images and posts waiting to be written. Then I kept procrastinating because I didn't know where to start, finally found this recipe and it was the clear choice. Great story, right? Anyway, here we go, back on the horse!

I've always been intrigued by the idea of watermelon in a salad, but strangely had never had it. I was looking for a quick meal to make one Saturday afternoon and found this recipe on epicurious. I tweaked it of course,  the end result is a great summer salad that isn't potato salad. Note: I don't like potato salad, it almost always has too much mayonnaise and after the bacon incident I have absolutely no interest in eating it in the future, sorry Jordan. 

Party Like a Pro: Spinach and Artichoke Dip

This is one of those recipes that has thousands and thousands of ingredients. Ugh I know. Before you balk and click away, the payoff is that it isn't terrible for you and you don't feel like you want to die after eating it. A similar dish going by the same name at Applebees has almost 1600 calories....but I bet their recipe is much simpler. So when push comes to shove, I'll deal with a ton of ingredients if the payoff could lead to less inches around the waist.

I work in an office of fellow foodies, so potlucks occur on a monthly basis. Aside from being delicious, and relatively easy to make (yes, even with all the ingredients), it's also made in a crock-pot...which makes it a winning potluck dish. You can phone in the dipping hardware and buy some pita or tortilla chips, but I prefer crostini. Just slice your favorite type of bread, brush with olive oil and broil for a few minutes. While its still hot, rub with a little fresh garlic...delicious and more impressive than chips. 

Strawberry Pie

Like many food bloggers, I have my parents to thank for my love of cooking. While I've talked about my mothers baking ability, I don't think I've stressed the fact that getting a recipe out of her is sometimes an exercise in futility. She isn't deliberately derailing my attempts to replicate her food, it more seems that she has made things so many times that she doesn't think about it. Hence the reason I have never been able to replicate her "roll-up" which is an annoyingly simple desert consisting of pie crust, "a few pads of" butter, "maybe a half cup" of sugar and "about 2 tablespoons?" of cinnamon. No one has ever been able to make it like she can, and now we know why.

Okay, gushing for moms everywhere aside...here is my favorite of her deserts (that I can replicate). I promise to not say "now its either 1 cup of sugar or 1 cup of water....hmm" like she did the first time she told me this recipe. (Also I wouldn't say that because I cut out a lot of the sugar...the strawberries just don't need it). If you have the time, allow the pie to cool overnight, but it should setup in about 3 hours.

Mashed Potatoes with "Gravy"

Ah mashed potatoes, the quintessential comfort food. A close second would be macaroni and cheese, but there are too many variations of macaroni and cheese, it can sometimes be a giant let down. Although you can do tons of things to mashed potatoes, when you see "mashed potatoes" listed on a menu or posted on a food blog, for the most part, you know what you're in for.

I've always loved mashed potatoes, but have become further enamored since becoming vegetarian. I used to mostly fill up on the sides at the holidays anyway, now I have an excuse to take a "big boy" helping of mashed potatoes. Combine this recipe with some stuffing and maybe a green bean casserole (I have a post coming soon, and it doesn't involve a can of condensed soup), I doubt you'll miss the meat. Also a note on the type of potato, I like russet potatoes even if google tells me it's not the ideal choice for making mashed potatoes.