Recipes
Just in time for Easter: Peepshi
Peepshi. Photographer: Robyn Lee
“What do you call the love child of Easter and Japan?” Using little Peeps marshmallows, Serious Eats came up with “Peepshi.” How adorbs are these?? This cute dessert doesn’t require any wasabi (just Peeps, Rice Krispies Treats, and Fruit by the Fruit!). For the full recipe, check out their page HERE.
Submit your recipe and win $1,000 in groceries from Post!
Apple crisps using Post Grape Nuts
There hasn’t been a more perfect time to bring out your inner-chef: Post is hosting a contest from now until March 17th inviting you to create a healthier recipe using on of their cereals. You can win up to $1,000 in groceries and have your recipe featured on postnatural.com. Yours could be worth $1,000 in groceries! Submit your original recipe containing Post Shredded Wheat, Grape Nuts, or Post Raisin Bran as an ingredient. To get those creative juices flowing, check out my earlier post on Tipsy Parson’s mouth-watering recipes using Post cereals.
Click here to enter the recipe contest! Good luck!
x
Shy
Recipe: A kinda Vegan Italian Sausage Cheesesteak Sandwich
I love when people send me pictures of their food (it happens way more than you think) because that means they’re excited to EAT. My friend Sana recently sent me a picture of a cheesesteak concoction of her own:
Sana's homemade cheesesteak sandwich
When I asked her to send me the recipe, she graciously agreed. Below is her version of the meal:
“Kinda Vegan Italian Sausage Cheesesteak Sub”
By: Sana Jafri
Sana’s disclaimer: Unless you substitute this with soy cheese, it’s not totally vegan.
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 5 min
Ingredients
1 Sweet Vegan Italian Sausage with Tomato and Basi (from Tofurky)
1 White Vegan Bun (Trader Joe’s brand, I think)
2 Sliced Baby Bella Mushrooms
2 Slices of Red and Yellow Bell Peppers
1/4 Sliced White Onion
A pinch of Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 slice of Trader Joe’s Pepper Jack Cheese
Steps:
1. Sautée onions in olive oil until soft
2. Add sliced veggies (mushrooms and bell peppers) and sautée for a few more minutes
3. Add chopped vegan italian sausage to veggies
4. Add cheese, sautee until melted, gooey yummyness
5. Lightly toast bun
6. Add mixture (veggies+vegan sausage) on bun
7. Send pics to your friends to make them jealous
8. EAT!
Gift Guide: Spice Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Buttercream
Spice cupcake with salted caramel buttercream
If you are particularly strapped for cash this season or simply want to give something that warms the heart (and tummy), I suggest firing up your oven and start baking! Presentation is key, as is flavor. My choice was to make (Non-Pumpkin) Spice Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Buttercream for loved ones this year. I took a recipe from my favorite database, Tastespotting.com, and tweaked it to my liking. (Basically, I dumped the pumpkin part of this recipe because using it in baked goods grosses me out).
Molten Chocolate Lava Cake
A messy re-enactment of the Molten chocolate lava cake from our dinner night
Back to the little dinner we hosted, when my roomie and I were thinking about desserts, we kept going back and forth between making cheesecake (her favorite) to having a molten chocolate lava cake with ice cream for the grand finale. We decided the molten chocolate lava cake would not only be easier (and who doesn’t love chocolate lava cakes??), but since we were cooking so much that day, the easier option would let us actually spend time with our friends too. It was actually surprising how easy it is to make. You can get the cake mixes, fill 2/3rds of a muffin cup with the cake mix, then top it with melted bittersweet chocolate. The melted chocolate simple seeps in the middle. We paired it with a scoop of Kulfi Pistachio-Cardamom ice cream from Adirondack Creamery (although, I have it pictured above with the toffee/vanilla Barkeater ice cream!).
It really helped to look up as many how-to videos as I could for all the recipes we made. I found this one the day before, and although it’s not how we ended up making our cakes, it’s still shows how easy it is to make these cakes. I even used her butter/sugar tip which allowed the cakes to slip out of the muffin tray with no problem. Check it out:
Recipe: Chicken with Mushroom-Dijon Gravy
Yesterday, I told you guys about the goat cheese crostinis with grape salsa appetizers we made for dinner. When we were deciding on the main dish, I knew I wanted to make something with chicken. I became really nostalgic about my college days at U of I (where, BY THE WAY, the university may be located in boo foo Illinois, but they had some of the most delicious food there…I’m definitely going to do a top 10 of the food I miss there *sigh). ANYWAY, they have this one restaurant in Champaign, IL called Cheddar’s…and OMG. It probably had 98% to do with why I was fat in college, because if I wasn’t there for their Cookie Monster dessert (I’ll tell you more about that in a later post), I was definitely there for their honey-dijon chicken. I know I was going to be cooking for other people, but I may or may not have selfishly decided I wanted to resurrect that dish.
I ended up finding a similar Chicken with Mushroom-Dijon Gravy recipe from Rachael Ray, so I knew I was in good hands. It was pretty easy to make too. So here are some things they don’t spell out, but I looked up enough chicken recipes to figure a few things out on my own: First, lay out the raw chicken breasts on a long piece of plastic seran wrap, that’s long enough so you can fold over the end of it and cover the top of the chicken completely as well. Then pound the chicken and stretch it out a little (I used a rolling pin to do this). I then took a tray, mixed pepper, salt and fresh thyme, and covered the chicken with it. Then, I put a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a sauce pan and waited until it was warm to begin cooking the chicken.
Cooking the chicken breast
