Compost Bars

I am premeditating an identity crisis (maybe just a mild one) because school is almost over! I know I am amidst finals and up to my eyeballs in question banks and Scantron bubbles, but I must stop for a minute and confess…I am honestly going to miss this. I have been a student my entire life thus far and a student is what I know how to be. I am aware that the studying itself is not about to end (oh no, I have a few more years of that coming) but I am going to miss being purely a sweat pant clad, coffee-wired, book-absorber. Party’s over. Time to put on real clothes. Time to be on time (I am not even positive I am capable of this yet).  Time to succumb to authority with an alert smile at 7 am in a hospital nearby. I think I will look back with fondness on this student thing. I kind of miss it already.

For instance… I know it will soon not be so easy to take “study breaks” like this:

Compost Bars 

½ cup butter

½ cup sugar

¼ cup & 2 tbsp brown sugar

½ tbsp molasses

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

¾ & 2 tbsp cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup chocolate chips (or use any kind of chips: dark chocolate, peanut butter, white chocolate, butterscotch, milk chocolate)

¼ cup old fashioned oats

1 ½ cup crushed snack foods (I used ¾ cup pretzels and ¾ cup shredded coconut but you can use anything salty- potato chips is current fad I think)

1 tbsp dry coffee grounds

In a mixer, cream butter, sugars and molasses on medium high for 2-3 minutes until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and mix on medium-high for 8 minutes.

Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix on low speed for 30 seconds or just until mixed in (do not overdo it). Add in your favorite baking ingredients (chocolate chips), oats, and coffee grounds. Mix briefly on low. Add in the snack foods last, mix as little as possible so that you do not break them all up.

Cover and refrigerate the dough for at least an hour.

Heat the oven to 400F. At this point, you can either scoop the dough into individual cookies, or be really quick and dump the entirety of the dough into a brownie pan (9” x 9” is what I used) and bake for 10-12 minutes (8-10 if you are making individual cookies).

Allow to cool before cutting or consuming (if you can). 

Baby pies and Caramel ice cream

In a recent conversation with a friend’s mom, the concept of nature vs. nurture popped up. She mused at the fact that one could raise 4 children in the same household under the same rules and they all turn out so differently. You just cannot instill in a child the burden to detail and the weight of angst, yet the resourcefulness to still somehow survive without you at their side past the age of 18. There must be something to the minds we are born with, the purpose we are dealt.

Often when my nature starts to antagonize me, when my mind starts to squirm uncomfortably in its responsibility, I start to wonder…how would my brothers deal with this moment?  And that usually serves to lighten my mood…

Here's a super quick, easy dessert I fed Mrs. G when she came over to chat and meet our child Quimby who is kind by nature and playful by nurture (okay, he is a dog). 

Baby Chocolate Pies with Caramel ice cream

1 pie crust

2 tbs butter

½ cup discos (or other dark chocolate)

¼ cup brown sugar (on the shy side)

¼ cup cocoa powder (also on the shy side)

Dash of salt

1 egg

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Fit pie crust to 4 miniature tart pans (spray with cooking spray well first!) then bake for 10 minutes. Tip: poke holes in the bottom of the crust with a fork. Another tip: If you do not have pie weights, fill these little crusts with dried beans while they bake.

Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees.

Melt butter and chocolate in a glass measuring cup in your microwave in 30 second segments (stir in between) until just melted (takes about 1 minute total). Add in brown sugar, cocoa powder and salt and stir vigorously. Add egg and again stir vigorously. Your batter should be shiny and smooth. Pour batter into cooked pie shells. Bake for 7 minutes. Gently remove baby pies from their tart pans and serve with a scoop of caramel ice cream on top (or whatever ice cream you love). 

Post traumatic test disorder.

No, not post traumatic stress disorder (that’s a real thing).

Post traumatic TEST disorder.

And so I made these. 

Restorative Oatmeal Cookies

1 stick butter, softened


2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed


1 egg


½ teaspoon vanilla extract


¾ cup all-purpose flour


½ teaspoon baking soda


½ teaspoon ground cinnamon


½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups rolled oats


1 cup dark chocolate discos (or use 1 cup of chocolate chips)

¾ cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

Cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla in a mixer until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together. Stir this into the butter/sugar mixture. Stir in the oats, chocolate and pecans.

Chill the dough for about 20-30 minutes in the fridge. After chilled, scoop dough onto cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes. They may look gooey but obviously this is a good thing. Let them cool then eat them up!

what's not been going on around here lately

I feel like we have been living in a cave over here lately, but more of a really cool cave (like maybe the Batcave). At night, we get a little more lively: Callie balances the act at the other end of the table per usual, things start seeming a little funnier, distracting videos are shared, and eventually it’s time for the winding down glass of wine after a hard day’s work. husBen recently discovered the kitchen and has become quite the drink master, bubbling up ingredients like brown-sugar blueberry simple syrup to fully express his creativity in the cocktail (and we are thankful for this new found hobby). It’s more of an art, you know. Life I mean.

Ben is starting to study hard and I am reminded of the reasons I married him daily. I still recall the time he came to visit me when I was home for the summer after freshman year. I was teaching swim lessons in the back yard, so immediately upon his arrival he was bossed into tasks in the kitchen with Myra. I knew he gained my mother’s approval after that visit by proving that he was not lazy. Mind you we were just friends at the time, months away from even a first kiss. Hard work pays off!

Ben-original Blood Meridian

2 oz. Bourbon or Rye Whiskey

3 oz. Barritt’s Ginger Beer

1 twist of lemon

2 dashes of Rose’s Grenadine

Build on ice and mix.

My fav Tom Collins

2 oz. Gin (original calls for Old Tom Gin, but any gin gets the job done)

The juice of 2 whole freshly squeezed lemons

3 oz. Club Soda

Build on ice and mix. (If you like, add a dash or two of Rose’s lime juice)

flourless chocolate cake

As a freshman at Baylor, I lived in Collins dormitory on 8^th street. There were about 800 too many girls packed in there and only one kitchen per floor, so luckily my big brother Miles lived just a few blocks away. I would go over to his house to cook sometimes and occasionally even feed his hungry roommates. Once when all the boys were at their frat meeting, I was there by myself making monkey bread and I set off the fire alarm (I guess butter spilling over the edges of a bundt pan into a hot oven will do that?). I panicked a little and ripped the fire alarm right off the ceiling. Fixed that problem.

Yesterday was a similar scenario...

I was making a 5-ingredient chocolate cake for a dinner party Ben and I were supposed to go to and the air started getting smoky, kind of like a dream. I think Ben and I both entertained the thought that the fire alarm might go off (our mini-residence can heat up pretty fast) but were too involved in whatever we were doing to actually get up and do something about it. Then of course it went off, in all its loud glory, to warn us of no real problem! It scared the daylights out of Quimby so Ben saved the day/our ears by pulling it off the ceiling. Good work husBen!

Don’t worry, the cake turned out just fine.

Flourless Chocolate Cake


Adapted from: Gourmet

4 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened)


1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter


3/4 cup sugar


3 large eggs


1/4 tsp salt


1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 375°F and butter an 9-inch round spring-form baking pan. Line bottom with a round of wax paper and butter the paper.

Chop chocolate into small pieces. In a double boiler (or just in your microwave in a glass dish) melt chocolate with butter, stirring, until smooth. In the bowl of a mixer, whisk sugar and eggs. Add in chocolate/butter and mix until smooth. Sift in cocoa powder and salt and whisk again until just combined. Pour batter into pan and bake in middle of oven 20-22 minutes, or until top has formed a thin crust. Cool cake in pan on a rack 5 minutes and release from spring-form. Dust with powdered sugar (sift some on top) for fancy’s sake and serve!

i like it by the pound

I fell in love again….with another chocolate. I have also kind of fallen in love with the people behind it.

Mark and Meaghan moved to Houston about a year ago from Pittsburg where Mark’s family has been making chocolate for generations. He still works for the company, Edward Marc Chocolatier, from a home-base here. I have really started to love these two new friends. And I have really started to love their chocolate too. I suggested to husBen that we buy a box (now sold very stylishly at Saks in the Galleria) and he agreed. Next time I talked to him, however, he had already ordered a box from Mark directly (to be over-nighted from Pittsburg)…and a 4 ½ pound box at that. I guess I always have liked my chocolate by the pound.

Really this chocolate is phenomenal. It makes you close your eyes and want to savor it slower. It makes you stop and appreciate the moment.

Mark and Meaghan sent over a few more little treats today (maybe to help me get through the study weeks ahead) so I just had to share (visually at least)!

study snacks

caramel marshmallow coated in milk chocolate;
dark chocolate vanilla sea salt caramels;
straight dark chocolate

check them out at http://www.edwardmarc.com/ !

waffled things

Why is it easier to believe that God once allowed His own son to die then proceeded to raise Him from the dead in order to save humanity than it is to believe that He can calm my anxiety right now?

Consider too that praises are sung about God’s ability to move mountains. How absurd is that? Mountains? They are huge. And old. That could throw off a whole landscape. Yet, I confess to believe that He could move one if He so desired.

So why in my angst do I pride myself in the hugeness of my personal burden?  Why do I think the severity of my problem will be mitigated by a churchy-laden offer of prayer? Who am I to clench such a thought that God cannot wipe away by His death on the cross? Right, like I hold the single load He just cannot bear…unlikely.

But lets not forget that, for the most part, the mountains stay just where He put them in the first place and that hospitals exist for a reason (God no longer seems to be making every lame man walk). Now before I am pegged as heretical, let me just say that I believe medicine’s ability to heal a person is a lesson in God’s means/methods rather than a testament of His inability. I am okay with a doctor’s or sometimes a friend’s role in advocating God’s power, as if to say “Hi, I am your means. How can I affirm the existence of God for you today?” Sometimes I just need their genuine reach into my ill perceptions to re-adjust what pieces of it they can (Healer in the guise of a friend).

With this confession of anxiety comes the mantra I have found myself repeating with monkish fervor throughout the recent days:

Do not be anxious about everything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds, in Christ Jesus.  Phil 4:6-7

Tests ahead, followed by finals (could you tell?) but I will still try to cook and post...for sanity's sake.

Waffled Sandwich 

makes 4 sandwiches

1 package puff pastry

12 slices prosciutto

spinach

fresh mozzarella or goat cheese

waffle iron 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Bake puff pastry sheets flat on a cookie sheet for 8 minutes each. Slice each sheet into fours (so that you can make two sandwiches out of each sheet- a package comes with two puff pastry sheets). 

Heat up your waffle iron and spray with cooking spray (i used olive oil). Prepare your sandwiches: on top on one "slice" of puff pastry, layer prosciutto, spinach and cheese and top with other "slice" of puff pastry. place onto waffle iron and shut the lid. allow to grill for about 4-5 minutes or until nice and crispy. Serve hot!

well that changes everything

Seven Stanzas at Easter

by John Updike

Make no mistake: if he rose at all
It was as His body;
If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,
The amino acids rekindle,
The Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
Each soft spring recurrent;
It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
Eleven apostles;
It was as His flesh; ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes
The same valved heart
That-pierced-died, withered, paused, and then regathered
Out of enduring Might
New strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
Credulity of earlier ages:
Let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
Time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day.

And if we have an angel at the tomb,
Make it a real angel,
Weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in
The dawn light, robed in real linen
Spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed
By the miracle,
And crushed by remonstrance.

Ahi Burger

teriyaki marinated seared ahi tuna, wasabi mayo,
pickled ginger, and arugula on a toasted sweet onion bun

We seem to be on a burger kick lately, and since I normally limit my red meat intake to about twice a year (it's just not my body's favorite challenge), I wanted to join in on this bandwagon on my own terms. This "burger" is awesome. Get yourself some fine pieces of ahi and you will not regret the speed with which you wolf this creation down. 

My little brother Spencer, came to Houston for Easter so we hit up Bernie's Burger Bus to introduce him to the food truck culture currently trending here in Houston and in most cool cities for that matter. Perhaps as a demonstration of his might, he ordered The Detention: two applewood smoked bacon grill cheeses used as the buns, two signature beef patties topped with Texas cheddar, and tipsy onions....and he ate the whole thing. Impressive, little brother, impressive.

Ahi Burger
Didn't exactly follow a recipe on this so here we go...
Marinate awesome quality ahi tuna steaks in Teriyaki sauce for about 3 hours. Spread each bun (I used sweet onion poppy seed buns) with butter and grill in your skillet. With one swig of olive oil on high heat, sear your tuna steaks and cook according to your preferred wellness (I like them rather raw myself). Mix wasabi paste with mayo (you will just have to taste this to get the proportions right). Spread wasabi mayo on toasted buns, top with seared tuna, pickled ginger and arugula. Share with someone you like!

Roasted Bell Pepper and Fontina Penne

I did not grow up eating macaroni and cheese. In fact, my first experience with the stuff was in college when one of my roommates really loved "cooking" it, in all its orange powdered glory. Then I discovered this recipe called Man Mac that I would mass produce for Ben's fraternity when I had to feed them (sweetheart duty, a false honor perhaps). Man Mac is cheesy penne, a dressy pasta, but for technicality's sake, still mac 'n' cheese. Who knew?

Ben and I attended the SPCA Gala at the Houstonian last Friday night as guests of my Aunt Susie (who may love dogs more than humans). Oh boy, did we feel fancy in our flowing gown and black watch plaid tux! SPCA volunteers from the animal shelter were walking around with puppies, trying to win everyone over in their cocktailed up, galavanting moods, hoping someone's heart would be soft enough to adopt a new family member right there on the spot. Despite our fancy costumes, I think Ben and I really just wanted to squat down on floor and roll around with these pups, scratch their bellies, and chase them through the foyer of the ballroom. Actually, we kind of did indulge this desire a few times throughout the night and a) I lost a silk sash from my dress amidst the fun and b) we almost came home with a beagle mix named Shiloh. 

I guess being all fancied up cannot hide the true nature of a person...or of a dish.

Roasted Bell Pepper and Fontina Penne aka Mac 'n' Cheese

2 red bell peppers (+ olive oil, salt and pepper)

1 lb penne pasta

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp flour

1 cup heavy cream

½ cup milk

1 ½ cups grated fontina cheese

spritz of lemon juice (because that just livens things up!)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice red bell peppers into 1 inch chunks, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast them on a cookie sheet in your oven for about 40 minutes (stir once halfway through). Meanwhile, boil pasta according to package directions (salt your water!). In a separate big pot, melt butter over medium heat until bubbling. Sprinkle flour over and stir until well blended and smooth (about a minute or two). Pour in milk and cream and keep stirring until thickened (about two minutes). Add fontina and stir until melted and smooth. At this point, taste your sauce and add salt and pepper accordingly. Pour in boiled pasta and roasted red bell peppers and stir with a spoon until all components are covered in cheesy goodness. Spritz the pot with lemon juice and stir just to incorporate. Serve right away!

Serves 4 (or husBen 4 times I hope)