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.