Parchment Meals, Revisited

So I know I've already blogged about this once, but seriously, I cannot get over the amazing-ness of this parchment meal that I recently made. It's from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine, and she made it on the Today Show recently too. Now I know I vowed to be my own person and not just another Martha wannabe, but what can I say? The woman is a genius, or at least she has geniuses working for her, so I just have to share her recipe with you! It's incredible!!!

Ingredients:

1 large mango

2 chicken breasts

1 piece fresh ginger (about 1"), peeled and cut into matchsticks

1/3 cup fresh cilantro leaves

1 medium jalapeno, thinly sliced

salt and pepper

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Peel the mango and slice into bite-sized chunks. Divide the mango chunks in half, and place them in the center of 2 large sheets of parchment paper. Top the mangoes with chicken, ginger, jalapenos, and cilantro. Drizzle 1/2 a tablespoon oil over each packet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bring the edges of the parchment up to meet in the middle, and then fold them over, creating a seam. Twist the open edges, sealing the packets shut. Place packets on a cookie sheet and bake for 18-20 minutes. Once they're cooked all the way through, slide the contents of the parchment packets onto plates and ta dahhh! YUMMO!

Fashion, Fashion, Fashion!

So the Fall 2010 New York Fashion Week has just wrapped up and every season at this time I scour the Internet to see what came down the runways to fill my fashion-curious brain. I've always had a bit of a time finding a good site, full of all of the goods, but I just saw a commercial for Full Frontal Fashion which is a Sundance Channel website that features everything fashion! This site is very comprehensive and is full of photos, videos, and articles that will catch you up on what is coming from designers next season. Check it out!

For a more focused view of what is happening in the fashion world, also see my friend Cara's blog, Bangs 'n' Cupcakes, for her fav pieces, which are always amazing! She has incredible taste!

Magnolia Bakery Gloriousness

Ok, so I have these terrific friends here in Nashville who always make Magnolia bakery cupcakes for people's birthdays- they are so delish! So I always thought that the Magnolia Bakery cupcake recipe was super secret, since there was so much hype around them, and since they're so good. Turns out the recipe is all over the Internet, which is great, cause now I make them for friends' birthdays, and everyone loves them! So I thought I'd share the recipe here so that you all can make them for someone's special occasion! Tell them they're the Magnolia Bakery's cupcake recipe and your friend will feel really special and happy you made them for her.

Word to the wise- DO NOT SUBSTITUTE any of the ingredients. I thought I could get away with using all purpose flour in place of the self-rising flour- NO DICE! My poor friend Leah, who's birthday was last week, suffered the consequences (ok, so it's not like they're terrible if you use only all purpose flour, but they are so much better if you follow the recipe exactly!).

Cupcakes:

• 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake papers. Combine the flours in a small bowl and set aside. Cream the butter until smooth in a large bowl, using the medium speed of an electric mixer. Add the sugar gradually and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated but do not overbeat. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended. Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about three-quarters full. Bake for 20–25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cupcake comes out clean. Cool the cupcakes in the tins for 15 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

Icing:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 6 to 8 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Add 4 cups of the sugar and then the milk and vanilla. On the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes. Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the icing is thick enough to be of good spreading consistency. You may not need to add all of the sugar. If desired, add a few drops of food coloring and mix thoroughly. (Use and store the icing at room temperature because icing will set if chilled.) Icing can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

New Year's Smezalution...

When the year turns, everyone starts talking about resolutions- go to the gym, eat healthier, blah, blah, blah. Well I say, "New Year's Resolution, New Year's Smezolution!" And I also agree with the experts on weight loss and eating healthy, diets are a joke- for me (trying to lose baby weight), what works is picking some fav food options that you can make on at least a semi-regular basis....oh, and they have to be healthy food options that taste AWESOME (so that you'll actually want to eat them more than once in your life). Thought I'd share a couple that are DELISH and super easy considering how good they taste!

The BEST Caesar Salad Recipe.....

Don't be discouraged- I know this looks like a lot of ingredients, but after you buy them once, you'll have them at home for when you want to make this amazing dressing (guests are always amazed when you serve this dressing and then you tell them you made it from scratch!)

Put all of the following into a food processor or blender and puree together:

• 3 cloves garlic (minced)
• 1 tbsp anchovy paste (I know this sounds gross, but it gives that real Caesar salad taste, so don't skip it)
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp hot sauce (such as Tabasco)
• 1 large egg (nuke it in the microwave for 8 seconds- enough to zap any salmonella, but not long enough to cook it)
• 1/4 tsp mustard powder
• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar

After these ingredients are pureed together, gradually drizzle in 1/4 cup olive oil while the processor or blender is running to emulsify the oil into the rest of the ingredients. Toss the dressing over 2 bunches of romaine lettuce and toss in 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan cheese (have more for topping too), and 1.5 cups of croutons. Add some grilled shrimp, chicken or salmon and you have yourself a delish homemade dinner that is filling but easy on the waist line!

The "I have all of this random food, and don't know what to make with it" Recipe:

The solution= dump some tasty vinaigrette on it all and roast it up! This is another option that can work out on a regular basis and can be super healthy. Last night I found myself with no plan for dinner, but with a bunch of random veggies and some chicken breasts and no idea what to do with them. So I decided to toss them in an easy vinaigrette dressing and roast them in the oven. I had cherry tomatoes and chicken- so I whisked together about 3 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar, and 1 tbsp Dijon mustard (eyeball all of these and season to taste- toss some fresh cracked pepped in too), tossed the tomatoes and the chicken in the dressing, dumped them on a rimmed baking sheet and popped them in the oven on 350 for 25 minutes. At the last minute, I laid a slice of Swiss cheese on top of the chicken breasts to let it melt in the oven. I whipped up a box of whole grain rice mix (such as Near East brand), popped some of the whole grains on the plate and topped with a chicken breast and some of the tomatoes, and called it a dinner. It was really good too! You could do this with just about any random set of veggies you have left over in the fridge, such as carrots, squash, zucchini, bell peppers. Be creative and enjoy!

Arrested For Neglect

Well, I wasn't but I should be...I was so excited about this blog when I started it, and look what has become of it! So disappointed with myself...to my credit, I did have a baby, but last night he slept from 9pm to 6:30am, so I find myself with the energy to get going here again! It might be a tall order to ask you all to come back around and start reading again, but please do! I promise, I'm in it now for real!

Not to get all "baby stuff" on you, but.....

Well, since I have a bun in the oven, everything around our house has sorta of gone baby on us...I mean, there is an actual crib in our house- WHAO! So exciting! So of course I had to get all hyped up about making the baby's bedding.....at first I thought, "ugh, this is going to be much too much of a hassle, I should just buy something." Well so then I started looking around on websites, and instantly became obsessed with Serena & Lily - their 3 piece crib bedding sets are adorable! Great fabrics, so cute, etc., etc. Well, the not so cute thing about them is the price- like seriously, $580 for crib bedding? You've got to be kidding me! So that wasn't gonna happen.....and since I have this lovely fabric store here in Nashville, Textile, which carries THE CUTEST fabrics, I knew that if I could figure out how to make the stuff, I'd have something just as adorable as Serena & Lily for at least 1/2 the price. TA DAAAA! This stuff was way easier to make than I anticipated- don't get me wrong, it's a big project, and you have to be ready to spend some time on it, but I am so happy that I went for it, and I know all of you over-zealous, (and especially first-time), expectant gals out there can do it too! I'm not going to get in the nitty-gritty step-by-step on this stuff, but I want to generally share how I made all of this.....so take a look at the pics below....

You'll need 8 pieces of fabric to make the body of your bumpers- 2 pieces for each bumper. You'll also need any piping and other trim that you want to use to embellish the style of the bumpers. Finally, you'll need something that will serve as the ties that will attach to the crib itself. Here I made my own ties to match the fabric I bought, but you can also use any ribbon you like. For each bumper, I put one tie on each of the four corners, and then 2 set of ties on the top and bottom of the long bumper as well. This way you'll use the corner ties from adjacent bumpers to tie onto the crib posts.

Once you have all of your pieces ready to go, you need to assemble the bumpers from the inside out. So lay one of your pieces of fabric down, right-side-up, then start to place all of the other pieces where they need to go. Any piping or trim you're using will lay with the rough edges lined up with the top of the pieces of main fabric. Same goes for the tie pieces- they will all be placed so that the ends of the ties that will go around the crib bars will be in the middle of the body piece of fabric and the rough ends will be placed right on the edges of all four corners (and in the case of your long bumpers that run the longest length of the crib, you'll need a set of 2 ties on top and bottom to tie around the middle bars of the crib). Once you have all of the pieces situated like so, lay the other piece of body fabric right-side-down on top of everything else, then pin together. Then you're ready to sew it up. Sew all around all four sides, leaving only about a 6-8 inch opening on the bottom edge of each bumper so that you can stuff them. Once you have it sewn up leaving the stuffing hole, turn the bumpers right-side-out. Then stuff!

Finally, sew up the 6-8 inch stuffing hole by folding the edges inward and pinning in place. Tip- if you've chosen to use any piping or trim, use a zipper foot to sew around those sides, which makes the machine work easier. Good luck!

Baby Shower Favors

I recently co-hosted a baby shower for one of my friends, and straight off I volunteered for favor-making duties- I just love this kind of stuff, so I snatched up that responsibility right away. I wanted to make something that the gals would take home and actually use...now, I'm a big bath person, so this sounded especially great to me. I just rounded up the following materials and put together little bath salt favors with a cute baby theme!

• Unscented bath salts as well as scented bath salts (pick your fav scent, and check Marshalls or TJ Maxx for really great deals on giant jugs of this stuff- I mixed the two together as the scented ones were a bit overwhelming, so I toned them down with the unscented)
• Glass apothecary jars of various shapes and sizes from Hobby Lobby or Michaels
• Ribbon of your choice (here I used blue in honor of the soon-to-be-born baby boy)
• Plain round white stickers (found these at Office Depot, seriously think they're meant to be yard sale price tags!)
• Stamps of your choice
• Ink pad in color of your choice

So I just mixed the bath salts together to make a lovely smelling mixture, then I filled each of the glass jars with the salts. I finished off the cute favors by gluing a piece of ribbon around the jar (hot glue gun works best), placing a white sticker where the ribbon ends came together, and then stamping the sticker with something cute and fun. That's it! This is an easy way to make super cute favors- perfect for baby showers, wedding showers, birthdays, or any special occasion where you'd like the ladies to leave with something lovely! Have fun!