Jalapeño Cheese Bread

I bought a massive jar of jalapeños from Costco for three dollars and have been putting them in absolutely everything.
This bread is basically like the biscuits I made earlier in the week but at the same time sooo different.
I love making yeast bread because I feel like I'm doing a science project when it rises, except I get to eat it at the end!
This was a very simple recipe from Tasty Kitchen and it came out as a really flavorful bread that was super crusty on the outside but very soft and fluffy on the inside, made better by the fact that it was full of cheese and double the jalapeños the recipe called for! It didn't even make it 24 hours.

Roasted Veggies!

I went to the farmers market in the Strip District of downtown Pittsburgh early this morning with my friend Michelle. Before 8:30am we were already shopping away at all the cute little vendors and shops they have down there. God bless her for allowing me to drag her out of bed that early on a Saturday!
We came across this produce market that had all kinds of awesome mostly local fruit and vegetables for insanely cheap. I got all the stuff here for just over ten dollars!!
I came home and threw it on a cookie sheet with some salt pepper and olive oil and roasted it at 400 degrees for almost an hour.
Included here are baby bell peppers, sweet peppers, whole cloves of garlic and onions. They came out so good and made my apartment reek with the most wonderful roasted garlic smell.
I made some multigrain brown rice and some chicken and served it all together. Needless to say it was a hit with my lunch guests, Michelle, my other friend Michelle and her bf Andres!

Kielbasa and Wild Rice Stuffed Acorn Squash

I don't think I had ever had acorn squash before this dinner, but I saw them at the store and thought they were cute, so i figured they must also be delicious... Right?
I cut the squash in half and took out the seeds and roasted them in the oven for five years (or maybe more like 45 minutes but I am very impatient). Meanwhile I sautéed some sweet onion and some turkey kielbasa sausage. I used turkey because the beef kind is a little intense and really fatty so I like to use anything that comes in a turkey version... Plus cooking beef scares me for some reason.
After the onions were translucent, I added wild rice with water and my favorite ingredient ever, Better Than Bouillon. It's like chicken stock paste so that you don't need to keep giant cartons of stock or bouillon cubes around. They are better than those... Obviously..
Everything cooked until the water was absorbed in the rice and then I scooped it into my ever so slightly too crispy acorn squash. It was fantastic and I felt very fancy eating them! I also discovered acorn squash are in fact delicious ;)

Maple Apple Granola

I love Groupon. It lets me do exciting this for cheap that I would normally never want to pay that much to do! For example tomorrow Chris and I are going on a canoeing trip for the morning. What a fun thing to do in the middle of the week!

Obviously I had to make a snack to bring along so I decided to make granola! It was really simple, just oats, rice crispy cereal, an apple, maple syrup, some cinnamon and a tablespoon of oil! Baked for two hours at 225 degrees and presto! A snack fit for canoeing down the river!

<3 Hannah

Roasted Veggie Egg Bake

Like I had said before, visiting my friend Kelli's grandparent's dairy farm in western New York was a total blast. I came home with so many goodies! One of which was two dozen eggs hatched by their Amish neighbor's chickens!

Obviously since I had the cheddar cheese too I had to make an exciting egg dish. I roasted a bunch of veggies, chilis and jalapeños in the oven until all beautiful and delicious looking. I added the eggs and some milk and baked it. The last minute or two I threw some cheese on and turned the broiler on to toasted it all up. Helloooo breakfast for three days!!

<3 Hannah

Veggie Pasta

I made this pasta for the orientation event for the new grads in my program. Seeing as the first semester is over half way over I guess it's time to post this pasta!

I was so excited to make it because of these adorable little baby peppers I found and thought were so cute. They kind of got lost in the 10+ other veggies I put in there which included things like zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, tomatoes, edamame, corn, onion, broccoli, and a bunch of other yummy things. I mixed them in with a bunch of spicy seasonings, whole wheat pasta and Parmesan cheese!

Dark Chocolate Mint Cookies

These cookies I made as a congrats to Chris for being awarded a grant for a conference he is presenting at in a few weeks (yay Chris!).

I melted a massive chunks of one of those one pound extra dark chocolate bars from trader joes with some mint extract and added it to the cookie batter. Then I rolled them in granulated sugar and then powdered sugar to give them a really good crunch! It went really good with the insides which were really dense almost fudge like.

Apple Spice Muffin Blobs

I went apple picking just outside New York City and before I ate all the apples I picked I thought I should make something with them! Besides I was totally in fall mode and got a couple lumpy squashes and mini pumpkins and wanted to show them off!

I made these "cookies" but they really tasted more like muffins but they were little lumps so I wasn't sure what to call them. They have apple, whole wheat flour, cranberries and oats in them and I substituted the oil for apple sauce so the only fat came from the one egg I used to bind it all together.

For being a healthy muffin they were still pretty excellent!

<3 Hannah

French Onion Soup

I made this soup because Pittsburgh was freezing cold and rainy for days straight and I wanted some soup! French onion is pretty much my favorite soup ever (besides my dads chicken noodle of course). I mean you can't go wrong with any soup that has onions and is topped with crusty bread and cheese!

After letting the onions and garlic sauté for seriously an hour, I plopped them in a pot with some low sodium beef broth and red wine and them them work magic for a really really long time (never start making soup for dinner when you are already hungry, you will end up drinking the wine that's supposed to go with the dinner and eating the bread that's supposed to go on top of the soup).

After the soup was FINALLY done, I put some french bread on it and some provolone cheese (I'm too poor for asiago or gruyere..) and popped it in the broiler and hoped that my bowls that said "not intended for oven use" didn't crack! All turned out well and the soup was bomb.

<3 Hannah

German Sand Cookies

These cookies were sooo good. Even though I messed them up a lot. They are essentially shortbread cookies but the very important delicious difference is that you CARAMELIZE the butter first!! Omg. What a difference.

I was too lazy to try and wrap them up in plastic and refrigerate them for an hour so I froze them for five minutes and used a glass as a cookie cutter. I'm sure that doing that is all kinds of wrong but I didn't care.

Since you can't move the cookies until they are completely cooled off, I had to leave them on the hot tray. This caused them to continue cooking and get reallllly hard (I have since purchased parchment paper to avoid this problem in the future). They were still delicious.

<3 Hannah

Molasses Spice Cookies

Yesterday I was in the Christmas, uh I mean thanksgiving, oops actually Halloween(?) spirit. I turned on my favorite Johnny Mathis album and got to baking!

I saw the molasses at the store and was unable to resist buying it after staring off into space at Walmart for a minute or so imagining all the wonderful possibilities. These are a recipe from the Pioneer Woman.

Any cookie that's final step is rolling it in sugar so they have a lovely cracked sugar crust is my favorite.

My plan was to bring a big plate of them to class so I wouldn't sit and eat them all (I honestly would have). When I told Chris this, he secretly stole back half the plate of cookies I was planning on taking to class!! Shame! :)

Cheesy Jalapeño Biscuits

This past weekend I went with my friend Kelli to her grandparents dairy farm in western New York. Besides being pretty much the best weekend ever, filled with cows, barn kittens, and delicious food you can only get in Belfast, I picked up a giant block of extra sharp New York cheddar cheese. I have spent the last few days making anything I can put cheese in.

These were biscuits with chunks of cheese and pieces of jalapeño in them. I made them to go with some vegetarian chili with some onions and obviously, more cheese. I didn't make the chili but it is Trader Joes vegetarian chili and anyone who has had it knows that it is so good it's ok!

Mocha Cupcakes with Espresso Buttercream Frosting

I made these little pieces of heaven for Chris' birthday in September. Words do not even describe how delicious they were. I have to say though that I think what really made them good was the dino sprinkles on top, but maybe I'm just biased! ;)

The recipe was pretty simple, make a basic chocolate cake from scratch and add a half cup super strong coffee. Then for the frosting, again a basic buttercream with a tablespoon on Starbucks via to make it seem like "espresso". Pipe onto cupcakes, cover with sprinkles, eat five without stopping, then send the rest of them in secret to your boyfriend to surprise him at work on his birthday. Easy cheesy!
<3 Hannah

Whole Wheat Honey Oat Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Well I am a little behind on posting! Jeez you would think I was a grad student who commutes seventy miles to school while working and doing an internship or something.

Anywho, I am currently working in a study abroad office and every Thursday for staff meetings the women in the office take turns running the meeting and it's their job to bring a snack. So of course I just show up with additional treats every Thursday I can with something to complement what they are bringing!

A few weeks ago I made this yummy bread! It's a whole wheat flour yeast dough with cinnamon, honey, oats, and raisins (enough ingredients for you?). I made it in a spring form pan I got in the sale section of ikea. The pan is cute, it has heart imprints on the bottom but they didn't come out on the bread :( it was ok though because the bread was so good!

Venison Roast and Quadruple Chocolate Cake

The long lost sister is finally blogging! Poor Hannah has been blogging all by herself in this sister blog. My roommates and I enjoyed a Venison roast with potatos and carrots with a quadruple (yes, quadruple) chocolate cake for dessert which tastes even better after another victory with our undefeated flag football team.

We began by placing the roast in the crock pot with some water, onions, lemon pepper and a small amount of water. This venison came from a poor deer that someone in Kassie's family shot so we could enjoy it for dinner!

After it cooked for a few hours, we added the carrots and potatos.

Ta-da! Venison is definitly an aquired taste...

So this is just a triple chocolate cake I bought in a box BUT I added more chocolate chips to it so it is now QUADRUPLE chocolate :)

Liz did a great job mixing the lumpy batter
Choco-enhance! It was delicious.
- Kelli
Ps. Fall is beautiful!