Bacon – yum! Jalapeno – awesome! Parmesan Cheese – fabulous! How about combining them and baking it into a muffin. A-ha, now that I got your attention, I have saved this recipe here. Yes, My Foodgasm Journal has now migrated to The Urban Mrs. So, hurry check it out and while you’re there, don’t forget to drop a line or two! I’m looking forward to read your comments there.
I did not realize taking classes and working fulltime would turn me into a zombie. If you’ve been there, you must understand what I mean. When I first signed up for classes, I was so excited and ready to jump in, regardless the ‘advisor’ had brought up the issue of having tons of research and mount ful of homework. Work itself is quite demanding and sometimes it requires me to travel. Just like last Thursday when I had to work from our branch office. It took me 2.5 hours to get there, well that’s because I used public transportation (bart, caltrain, bus, and car), however it’s much easier since I could beat the carpool lane. I ended up spent about 6 hours on the road. Long story short, I did conquer East Bay, South Bay, and downtown SF in one day and took me 17 hours (work plus school). I literally collapsed by the time I reached home and wished for fairy god masseuse to appear. But, I guess it’s all paid off since that same Thursday, I received my award – more like ‘employee of the year’. I was surprised when they called out my name during the meeting, along with one other guy, to receive this award.
During those quiet time on the train, I decided to read some magazines I brought from home. I’ve been neglecting those magazines since Summer, so it’s time to catch up on some articles and I spotted so many awesome recipes. I was so inspired to make brownies since I’ve never tried this before – and it’s just a perfect excuse to celebrate my awesomeness achievement, right? Originally, I was about to add melted rolo on top. Who doesn’t love rolo? Too bad, I burnt all of them, hence I had to change to plan B, but I still love it!
Ingredients:
Topping:
Directions:
Combine the remaining pretzel with flour, baking powder, and salt.
In a mixer, combine the melted butter and brown sugar.
Add the eggs and vanilla.
Add the flour mixture and mix well.
Add ripe banana to the mixture, and mix well.
Light spray the muffin pan (I use mini cupcake pan) with baking spray. Scoop the batter in the pan, scatter the remaining pretzel on top. Bake in the preheat oven at 350° for 15 minutes, then broil for another 2-3 minutes, until the crust on top are lightly brown. Let cool.
For the topping: On a double boiler, fill bottom of double boiler with water and place on low heat. Place chocolate chips in the top of double boiler over hot water and let it melt. Do not cover. When most of the chocolate is shiny, stir until smooth, then remove. Mix with butter or cooking oil to make it drippy.
Once it is smooth, drizzle the melted chocolate on top of brownies and sprinkle with sea salt.
Adapted: Food network Magazine
Confession – I always fall for sea salt, any kind of sea salt. I have sea salt for cooking, baking, or even drinks, but mostly on sweets because I always think sweets and savory make a perfect duet. Just like Ross & Rachel on Friends, or Joey and Pacey on Dawson’s Creek, or Doug and Carol on ER, or Meredith and Derek on Grey’s Anatomy, or…ok, I better stop here or the list won’t stop.
Few weeks ago, a fellow blogger, Stephanie, shared about her trip to Canadian National Exhibition where she tried NutellaBBLT for the first time. Curious, I googled what’s all about. Turned out, Nutella BBLT is quiet famous there. It was Bacon Nation who created the menu and I went insane because of this. Literally! I remembered it was weekdays when I read about this and I couldn’t wait for weekend to come so I could spend more time in the kitchen making this.
So that weekend, I decided to make it happen and I was swoon. Who would have thought adding nutella to it? It was so brilliant that I craved for more last weekend. But this time, I just prepped it on the table without telling Frederick the secret ingredients. Now, Frederick is the kind of guy who prefers something ‘normal’ when it comes to food. So, I was quite surprised to find the fact that he loves it! In fact, I didn’t ask for his opinions, and he suddenly said, “it’s so good!”.
Just to make breakfast more fun, I also made pear and choco sea salt sandwich. I got this choco sea salt when we went to Portland. Choco sea salt is smoked sea salt, blended with dark chocolate to create a rich and versatile seasoning. It really gives a savory twist to any desserts. So, enjoy!
Serves: 1 of each
Ingredients:
Directions:
1. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil, arrange the bacon on the rack. Bake in the preheated oven until crisp, about 20 minutes
2.Toast the bread
3. Spread the nutella on each slice of toasted bread
4. Arrange 2 slices of bacon, lettuce, tomato, and top with another layer of bacon
5. Bring the two pieces together to make a sandwich and enjoy!
For Pear Choco Sea Salt:
Everyone, please welcome Lindsey of Pasdedeux Blog. She’s a new friend whom I met over Baking Penpal this month. Isn’t it fun to meet someone who has share the same interest and you can taste their creation?
When I signed up for September Baking Penpal, I didn’t expect this secret ingredients, CINNAMON, came in this early. Somehow, I always associate cinnamon with apple or pumpkin, which leads to a conclusion: Fall and I still wished for Summer days (more light days). I have to admit I was having hard time over this one because errr…I don’t find cinnamon appealing (other than cinnamon roll, of course). But, I was surprised when i received her creation. It came in a big heavy box – I suddenly felt like Christmas morning all of sudden. She wrapped the bread so nicely and neatly that it did not fall apart when I unwrapped it. Not only that, it smelled so so good that I could not help myself but took a bite at 10.30PM.
I’m so glad to be part of this Baking Penpal because when I crave for more of this bread, I can contact Lindsey to bake more bake more myself. Yes, recipe is included and here I share it with y’all.
Apple Cinnamon Bread
Makes 1 loaf
Prep time: 20 mins
Total time: 1.5 hours
Ingredients:
Topping:
Directions:
If you’re curious about Baking Penpal, Bakin’ Friends is all about connecting bakers, bloggers, foodies, and people who just like sweets! We’re in the business of baking and making friends!
Each month we will be baking goodies, with a secret ingredient, to send out to one another. I’ll let you know at the beginning of the month what secret ingredient we’re using. It might be chocolate, it might be maple syrup, it may be bacon, whatever it is though you’ll be required to use it (unless there’s an allergy to the ingredient) in your baked goody.
On the 6th of each month you will be paired up with a Bakin’ Friend. You’ll contact your newly appointed Bakin’ Friend to see if they have any allergies or dietary restrictions and you’ll also get their mailing address. Then you’ll bake your goody and have it in the mail and on its way to your new Bakin’ Friend by the 16th of each month. You’ll of course want to include the recipe for your baked goody so that your new friend can recreate the yummies at home! How cute would it be if we all did our recipes on vintage recipe cards, just sayin’!
Then, on the last day of the month we’ll post about who our new Bakin’ Friend is, what they baked, and how they used the secret ingredient. (This group right now is only open to US and Canadian residents. US residents will be paired with US residents, and Canadian residents with Canadian residents)
Are you ready to make some new friends? Then send an email to stephsbitebybite(at)gmail(dot)com with Bakin’ Friends in the subject. Emails MUST be received before the 2nd of each month so that I have time to get all the match ups done. Please make sure to include your full name, your email address, your blog name and URL (if applicable), and whether you live in the US or Canada.
So, why wait? Because I might send up my baked goods to you.
I used to love Fall and Winter so much. Yeah, you can say that I love cold weather and I’m completely agree with that. One of my dreams is actually living in place that gets snow each year. I’ve been dying to live in New York since 12 years ago and recently nagging to move to Seattle so I can play with snow and go on a vacay to Canada. Of course, Frederick rejected my brilliant idea right away since he loves tropical weather.
However, I recently fell in love with Summer., especially ever since I came back to SF because the weather is always breezy. Not only that, Summer is also the best time to have fruits like peach, apricots, and all kind of berries. Gulp, I wish we can have those fresh fruits all year long. It must be lovely, don’t you think?
But, the list does not stop right there. One of the biggest reason why I love Summer is more daylight. I love how it is still bright when I leave work and it just seems I am more energized to do things. That includes taking pictures. Yes, I am one of you who enjoys natural light for taking pictures. So, to end Summer time, here’s German Pancake with your favorite Summer fruits.
½ cup all-purpose flour, sifted
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
½ cup milk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons melted butter
¼ teaspoon salt
Mixed Berries, syrup, whipped cream, powdered sugar-for serving
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9-inch oven safe skillet with butter and set aside.
2. Gradually add flour to beaten eggs, mix with a fork. Stir in milk, vanilla extract, butter, and salt. Pour batter into prepared skillet.
3. Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Cut into wedges and serve warm with berries, syrup, whipped cream, and powdered sugar.
It’s good to be back! Though I did not go on vacation, but I’m happy to be here. Last week was a disaster. If you follow me on Twitter, you might read that my computer was infected with virus. I had no idea how it happened, but my laptop was working fine in the morning and started to crash right after my early meeting. First, I thought I had problem with my network (it happened just two weeks before that), but then the network was fine. So, my next guess was the docking station but that was fine, either. Feeling helpess, I finally reached out to my I.T. technician but since I work remotely, I had to wait the next day for them to come. That part I could handle. They tried to virtually got connected with me but it did not work. The most devastating part was when I lost my desktop files. All my sweat, tears, and blood for months suddenly dissapeared.
Devastated, I went home and I just needed something to cool my brain. LOL. So, I decided to make this granita and it just happened I had all the ingredients at home. Lucky, huh? The next day, the I.T. guy came in and took a quick look on my machine. It took him more than usual to fix my machine and pretty much he had to restore everything back. Good news is I now have a brand new machine, but the bad news is all my saved items in my browser are gone and I have to start all over again. The best news came in two days ago when all my desktop files appeared on my screen. I was so happy and saved them right away! Yeah, lesson learnt, but yay for that!
Ingredients:
Directions:
People always tell when you get along with someone, that person will eventually inspire you. And that’s exactly how I feel when I met Frederick. He, of course, has inspired me to grow in all aspects of my life, and that’s not it. He even shared his love for ice cream. Though I’m a sweet tooth, I’m not fond of ice cream and tend to pass the aisle each time we go shopping. But somehow, my love for ice cream has grown. Not sure when it started or how, but I’ve fallen in love with ice cream and currently learning to make our own favorites.
This time, we make coffee bourbon ice cream. Funny that we both don’t drink coffee as often as we eat ice cream, but one time, SIL came to our place and left a bag of kopi luwak. Feeling grateful, we decided to give it a try. Turns out, this ice cream is fabulous and also good for milkshake and you can use the recipe here. So, voila and enjoy!
Ingredients:
Directions:
What’s your ideal breakfast? For me, it has to be quick and easy to digest. Honestly, I really enjoy breakfast and it’s part of my daily schedule. However, it is hard for me to have a proper breakfast since…I prefer to spend extra hours minutes under the blankie. I know that’s just something that I need to re-consider.
Anyways, our breakfast during weekdays are very typical and predictable, toast. And frankly, I’m getting bored though I consider myself as a carb person and I love bread. So, I was thinking of having muffin to make our mornings a bit colorful and *ahem* since I just got a new muffin pan.
I’ve been eyeing on this recipe for quite some time and I know Stephanie has mentioned how good it is, so I was ready to give it a shot and love it so much. In fact, I’ve made this numerous times and it never failed me. I, however, made slight adjustment on the last batch because I ran out of sugar so I used 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/3 cup of honey, plus adding 1 tbs of cocoa powder. And again, the recipe works wonderful!
Banana Crumb Muffins
source: slightly adapted from allrecipes.com | KitchenFrolic
Ingredients:
for the muffins:
for the topping:
Directions:
for the muffins:
for the topping:
yields: 10 muffins
I’m so happy to introduce you my new friend, Alex from Yums and Loves. We met through Bakin’ Friends, an online community that connects bakers, bloggers, foodies, and people who just like sweets! I really enjoy being part of this group. This month’s secret ingredients is oatmeal and I was jumping ups and downs when this package arrived. Not only this tastes amazing, but it also comes with recipe. That means I can bake on my own when I crave more of this and of course, share the recipe with you all.
Bakin’ Friends is definitely a fun way to make new friends. I hope you can participate so we get a chance to know each other better. In case you’re wondering about this penpal, check it out here.
Carmelita Bars
Makes one 9×13 pan
Ingredients:
Directions:
