To get you prepared for Memorial day we are posting some classic American meals this week! First up: ribs. You might say to yourself, “Okay D&E were still in college, how the heck can we afford to buy ribs let … Continue reading
Whew. Between graduating, packing, moving across town, unpacking, and Erica starting a new job, we’ve been pretty busy. Taking time to cook has been our goal the last few days (we just moved on Saturday and have been slowly unpacking … Continue reading
So when we were in Paris over Christmas, we discovered the most amazing vegetable – the leek. Now, we had had leeks in dishes or soups before, but they never really stood out to us. Until. One of the best … Continue reading
Oh hello there! Miss us? Sorry we haven’t posted in 2 weeks; last week was our birthday week so we decided to take a break and this week we have been incredibly busy – registering our car in Pennsylvania (yes, Erica is … Continue reading
Okay, so we really like cinnamony-sugary-sweet things. And by we, we mean Erica. So when we (actually we, not Erica-we) stumbled across an easy recipe to make homemade cinnamon sugar donuts (or doughnuts if you prefer), we knew we had … Continue reading
Before you run away because of the scary title of this post, here us out. Just because this meal has a fancy French name for it doesn’t mean that it is complicated to make. Difficult pronunciation≠Difficult recipe We first stumbled upon this recipe … Continue reading
So not to simply post everything that’s popular on Pinterest, but this recipe deserves the attention – Pioneer Woman’s Cinnamon Toast. We never knew we were making cinnamon toast the wrong way our whole lives!!! Pioneer Woman is truly an American hero for opening up our eyes to the real way to make this – so thank you!
Obviously this is supposed to be a breakfast recipe, but we decided to try it out late Monday night. We normally read together every night before bed (you probably either find this cute or weird) and our latest read has been the entire Chronicles of Narnia series. We’re about halfway through – on Book 4: Prince Caspian. Erica grew up on the books so it’s fun to read them together now, 15 years later! Anyway, we wanted a snack and figured what’s better than delicious cinnamon toast late at night? Nothing, except maybe some of Declan’s mom’s cake.
You probably have all of the these ingredients already – so do yourself a favor and make this right now. For whatever meal you happen to be needing: breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack!
1. Preheat your oven (or toaster oven!) to 350F.
2. If you need to soften your butter, microwave it for 10-15 seconds but make sure it’s not melty. We used about 1/2 stick (4 tbls) for 5 pieces of bread.
3. Add your cinnamon, sugar, and vanilla (start out with only a few drops) to taste. Use a fork to mash everything together until consistent.
4. Spread the butter mixture onto the pieces of bread and go out all the way to the edges so the bread won’t burn. Place the slices on a foil-lined baking sheet for easy clean-up (particularly useful late when midnight snacking).
5. Bake in the 350F oven for 10 minutes.
6. Switch the oven to broil after the 10 minutes and place the toast under the broiler for 1-2 minutes. The toast will go very fast, so don’t leave the oven now!
7. Once the top is nice and brown and bubbly, remove from oven. Slice and enjoy!
-D&E
Need dinner in fifteen minutes? Need to impress someone? Just want something different than the pasta and marinara you make all the time? This recipe is awesomely yummy and can be finished in no time at all! Browned butter is nutty and complements the gnocchi well.
We love sage, but any dried herb would do well here – whatever you have on hand. If you don’t have dried sage but aren’t sure if it’s worth buying, it is delicious on any kind of chicken or pork! If you’re like us and love gnocchi too, try our other recipe – Sweet Creamy Gnocchi.
1. Place a large pot of water over high heat to boil.
2. Melt the butter (it goes faster if it’s sliced) over medium heat. Keep stirring the butter over the heat as it goes through three stages – melted and kind of foamy, no more foam, and finally turning golden brown in color. It’s important that you keep an eye on it so it doesn’t overcook! It goes from brown to black quickly.
3. As soon as you see the golden brown color, remove from heat and pour into a bowl to stop the cooking process. Stir in your teaspoon of sage.
4. By now the the water should be boiling, so add your gnocchi to the pot. Cook according to the instructions on the packaging; most gnocchi take 2-3 minutes to cook.
5. Drain the gnocchi and return to the pot. Add your butter and sage sauce and taste. Add any salt and pepper (if you used salted butter you most likely won’t need any additional salt).
6. Serve and enjoy!
-D&E
Erica really likes salads. She orders them at restaurants, makes fun ones at home with lots of toppings, but sometimes lettuce just gets boring. We have the solution! Instead of using lettuce as the base for a salad, why not… broccoli?
Broccoli is full of all sorts of good stuff – like vitamin C, fiber, and antioxidants. It’s fun to mix up your veggie side dish routine and try something different. This recipe was really what we had on hand, so any variations would be just as delicious! If you try it out with any different ingredients, let us know if the comments below!
1. Make sure all your veggies are washed and dry. Chop to whatever size you like.
2. Mix everything and add your dressing! It’s best to add the dressing over each individual portion, so the rest can be refrigerated and saved for later.
3. Serve and enjoy!
-D&E
Happy pi day! Being engineers and loving math, we think that today is a great day! But sadly, today’s recipe will not be a pie. 
We have yet to make one – but this will be our new goal for next year’s pi day!
Today’s recipe does involve baking though… These muffins are really yummy and the recipe makes a dozen so you will have enough for about a week or so of breakfasts! They’re also not super sweet, which we liked for breakfast muffins (these aren’t cupcakes!), but you could always add a teensy bit more sugar to your tasting. Feel free to play around with this recipe (we’re thinking of adding zucchini next time?) and let us know how it goes!
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Combine flour, sugar, spices, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, oil, and vanilla together.
4. Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir until just combined. This will seem kind of dry, but it’s okay – the carrots add a lot of moisture.
5. Add the carrots and stir until evenly distributed.
6. Divide the batter between 12 muffin cups and bake at 350 for 28-30 minutes.
7. Let them cool and store them in an airtight container. For breakfast, try microwaving them for a few seconds to warm them up! Enjoy!
-D&E
The one food we have the trouble with in the kitchen is pizza, yes pizza! We can never seem to get the crust crispy enough or the cheese bubbly enough or, you get the drift. Of all the college staples pizza, dear readers, has eluded our mastery.
Until now.
This past weekend we unlocked the secret to making tasty pizza. First we trashed (not literally)all the traditional ingredients found in pizza – marinara sauce? Yeah right, how about some caramelized onions. Pepperoni? Only for babies, why not some sweet apple chicken sausage. Mozzarella cheese? Okay, well that’s alright.
Next we made our own pizza dough instead of using a store bought pre-made dough. Here is a link to the recipe we used which was super easy: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/master-pizza-dough/detail.aspx
Finally, we topped it all off with some fresh arugula for a little extra bite. In the end, we had to force ourselves not to eat this entire pizza in one sitting! We hope you like it too.
Warning: This pizza is highly addicting, proceed with caution!
1. Pre-heat your oven to 400F.
2. Sprinkle a pinch or two of cornmeal over your pizza stone or pan and roll out the pizza dough to cover the surface. Roll in the edges to create a crust (we brushed some olive oil over ours and sprinkled some garlic powder yum!)
3. Bake for 5 minutes to get the dough a bit crispier.
4. Remove from the oven and evenly spread the caramelized onions.
5. Sprinkle the cheese and top with the slices of sausage.
6. Bake for another 15 minutes or until the sausage begins to brown.
7. Remove from the oven and top with a handful of arugula.
8. Slice, serve and enjoy!
-D&E
