…Archive for the ‘recipes’ Category…

Barbeque Beans

This is hardly a recipe but it’s one of my favorites, so I thought I would share. I know I’ve said this before but I love cannellini beans because they take the flavor of whatever you’re seasoning it with and also it’s so soft and buttery. YUM.

Since I don’t eat a lot of meat but LOVE barbeque sauce, I often eat cannellini beans sauted with sauce. It’s also really cheap and easy to put together and great with some veggies. Next time you’re strapped for time, give this a try!

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon canola oil
1 can cannellini beans
1/3 cup barbeque sauce

Directions:

Heat up oil in pan on medium-high heat. Add beans and let them get a little color and crust on it.

Add barbeque sauce and enjoy!

It’s great with some veggies and sweet potato fries

I’m getting hungry just looking at this picture, although I realize it’s not going to look appetizing to most of you… Trust me, it’s delish.

Lemon Hazelnut Tiramisu

I hope to never see another hazelnut in my life. Just kidding. I love you, hazelnut. You are just so high-maintenance. Even more than me. Which is almost impossible.

For New Years, I went to Kim’s apartment to celebrate and gorge myself on surf and turf. Yum. I like going to Kim’s place on Saturday nights and eating gourmet meals. I even keep a pair of stretchy pants there in emergency situations (ie: eating too much – which happens more often than it should…). You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.

Anyway, I wanted to make some special to ring in the new year so I went straight for a Giada recipe. I’ve been wanting to make her Lemon Hazelnut Tiramisu for a while now and figured this was the perfect occasion. I also had a lot of ladyfingers in my pantry so this went right along with my cleaning out the pantry project. It also called for a healthy amount of Frangelico, which made it even better Who doesn’t love a boozy dessert??

I went to Fairway and pondered for a while over whether I should get the blanched hazelnuts or the hazelnuts with skins on it. I went with the latter, because it was $2 a pound cheaper and BOY DID I REGRET IT. Definitely one of my biggest regrets of 2011. I spent almost an hour peeling the skins off. According to Giada, you can toast them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes and when they’ve cooled slighty, you can roll them between your hands and they will theoretically skin themselves.

Not…really. However, I made another Giada dessert that required hazelnuts (recipe coming eventually) and this time, I toasted them for 12 minutes and then wrapped them immediately in a dish towel and rubbed them. I would say, I got 80% of them skinned, as opposed to 65% percent using the original method. All of this to say, if you have the option of getting already skinned hazelnuts, GET THEM. The $2 extra is worth the hassle and 30 minutes, trying to toast and skin them.

Here’s the Frangelico. If I didn’t cut off the picture, you would see that the bottle is in the shape of a monk. Awesome.

He and Mrs. Butterworth should become friends. Yum.

I obviously have a lot left over, so I plan on putting it in my hot chocolates. I will let you know how that goes

And here are the hazelnuts that took me forever to deal with.

Oh, I guess I should post the recipe…

Ingredients:

Lemon Syrup:

• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (from 1-2 lemons)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup sugar

Tiramisu:

• 1 1/2 cups whipping cream
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• 1 (15-ounce) container mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup hazelnut liqueur (recommended: Frangelico)
• 48 soft or hard ladyfinger cookies
• 1 cup lightly chopped toasted and skinned hazelnuts
• 1 lemon, zested

Directions:

In a small saucepan, combine lemon juice, water, and sugar over medium heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 2 minutes, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Take the pan off heat and let cool.

In a large bowl, cream together remaining sugar and mascarpone cheese for 30 seconds, using an electric mixer.

Whip your heavy cream is another large bowl until light and fluffy – about 5 minutes. Add cinnamon and 2 tablespoons of the sugar. Continue to whip until it holds soft peaks.

Add a third of the whip cream mixture into the cheese mixture. Then, using a rubber spatula, fold in the rest of the whipped cream. Set aside.

So here’s where I stopped documenting the process because you have to get your hands dirty and I didn’t want sticky syrup all over my camera. (it’s already encrusted with flour – ick) But it’s straight-forward

Place the Frangelico in a shallow bowl. Dip a 1/3 of the ladyfingers in the syrup and line a 13x9x2 inch serving dish or any other hefty dish with them. Spoon any leftover Frangelico on top.

Spread a 1/3 of the mascarpone mixture over the cookies and top with 1/3 the hazelnuts. Pour the lemon syrup in a shallow bowl (you can use the Frangelico bowl). Dip another 1/3 of the lady fingers in this mixture and place on top of the hazelnut layer. Add the cream mixture and hazelnut layer.

Repeat one more time  with lemon syrup-dipped ladyfingers. If you have leftover lemon syrup, pour that over the ladyfingers. Add the lemon zest on the very top layer.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours or preferably overnight, so that the flavors really marinate. Supposedly, you’re supposed to remove the tiramisu from the fridge an hour before serving but I don’t have that kind of patience.

It’s light and refreshing and a perfect summer dish. The hazelnuts add a different texture but I think that if you don’t want to spend the time and money preparing the hazelnuts, it would be good without

I especially love that this is a make-ahead dish that can feed quite a few people. It’ll make a comeback in the summer for sure.

Bacon Pea Pasta

I’m not going to lie to you – this is a boring recipe, but darn good. I’m finally paying attention to the bag of frozen, organic peas I’ve had in my freezer since… a VERY long time ago. I’m actually not a big fan of peas (they’re too sweet for me) but if you pair them with bacon, they really balance out the saltiness of it.

This pasta takes all of 15 minutes to make so it’s definitely a weeknight meal

Ingredients:

3 strips of center cut bacon
1 cup frozen peas
2 servings of whole wheat spaghetti
2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

Directions:

Cook pasta according to the directions on the box. You can use any kind of pasta!

Also cook peas according to package. Usually you just throw them in boiling water for 4 minutes. Heat a pan on medium heat and add bacon that’s been cut up in bite-sized pieces. Add peas.

Heat until everything is fully cooked and heated through. Add pasta.

Sprinkle cheese on top.

Devour.

Yum.

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