Creamy Broccoli Crock Pot Soup

Let's cleanse our our bellies after gorging ourselves on white trash bars, and get some veggies in our gut!  P.S. white trash bars got me over 300 blog views!!! Amazing chart of blog views below, had to brag about it, sorry.

This broccoli soup is super easy and totally awesome because it cooks in the crock pot.  You can find the recipe at Pinch of Yum.  She calls it broccoli cheese soup, but I think that's a bit of a misnomer because the cheese is just a topping at the end.  It also really doesn't need the cheese because it's crazy delicious on its own.  You can make your own decision on the cheese inclusion.

The ingredients all get dumped into the pot and in the words of my beloved Ron Popeil you just "set it and forget it!"

In the final moments, a game changing decision was made to add some fresh spinach we wanted to use up.  I will admit it was a welcome inclusion even though it was not my idea.

If you've got a crock pot, hop to it!

White Trash Bars

Yep, these are called white trash bars.  The name of these bars is just as eye catching as slutty brownies and to be honest with you, that's exactly what drew me to them.  Another thing that drew me to them? They are ridiculously simple.

Take this odd set of ingredients seen above and mix it all together and bake for 15 minutes! Amazing! That means dessert is ready in less than a half and hour (these are a breeze to prepare).

Cookies and Cups suggests frosting these bad boys, but we felt that was totally unnecessary.  These bars are super sweet and leave no need for frosting.

If you make these, I suggest that you don't mix them in the pan like she says to do.  I followed that direction and mine stuck to the pan quite a bit,  I think if I had mixed it in a bowl first this might not have happened.  Also her's are wayyyyy more attractive than mine, but I'm hoping mine are just as delicious.

Yeaaaa these are just about gone already.....mmMmmmmMmm

Spaghetti with Broccoli Cream Pesto

Ok, let's start out by saying I didn't put any cream in this.  I wasn't about to go to the store to get  8 tablespoons of cream.  I apologize for the false pretenses this post is filed under.  But I promise you, it's still great even without the cream.

Spaghetti with broccoli cream pesto comes from Smitten Kitchen.  For my version I used frozen broccoli florets instead of fresh because that's what I had on hand.  Since I didn't have cream, I used whole milk.  I also doubled the recipe because I think we all know that you should never make less than a pound of pasta. Ever.

Check me out, garnishing dishes with fresh parsley.

This recipe is fantastic! I bet it's also a sneaky way to get your kids to eat their broccoli, shhhh.

Espresso Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

I used this recipe for espresso chocolate shortbread cookies from Smitten Kitchen.  This was my boyfriend's Valentine's Day treat, even if there was nothing very valentine-y about it.  Much to my surprise I found this awesome bag of Tollhouse chocolate chips that had red chips in the mix, voila instant Valentine's day charm!

Amazingly enough, I followed this recipe exactly.  Even down to the idea of rolling the dough out while it's in a Ziploc bag, which by the way is genius and you should all try it.

These came out awesome!  I sorted out some red chocolate chips and melted them to drizzle over the cookies and make them look more festive.

Then I did this fantastically cheesy and badly lit photo shoot with some roses I got from a student.

Oh and in case you wanted to know how awesome my boyfriend is, he gave me a batch of homemade rainbow cookies! I am beside myself getting to bring home the massive tray of these and have half a mind to hide them under my bed so that no one else can sneak one.

Hope you all have a lovely Valentine's Day filled with delicious treats!

General Tso's Tofu

Even since I ate some General Tso's tofu at Kashiwa a few months back, I have been longing to eat it again.  Found some General Tso's sauce at Trader Joe's (well my brother did) and decided to give it a go myself.

I used this recipe for crispy fried tofu, patted some corn starch to the tofu slices to add an extra crispy-ness when I stared frying.

I poured the sauce on the tofu slices when they were plated so the tofu kept its crispy exterior.

I served this up with some green beans and baby corn, I felt compelled to douse these with General Tso's sauce as well.  Of course, rice was also a part of the meal.

I was really amazed by how crispy the tofu gets, it was really quite delicious.  Not anywhere near as delicious as what I was served at Kashiwa, but still a tasty dinner.

Yes, I have found a way to make tofu unhealthy.  Success!

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

Friday we got a pretty serious snow storm.  So serious that even though we opened school for half a day, only 1 kid showed up in my class.  I got a nice early start on dinner because of said snow storm early dismissal.  That meant, Crock Pot time!

I though this dreary winter storm day required a nice warm bowl of soup so I chose this recipe for baked potato soup.  I didn't use cream of chicken soup because I didn't have any.  Instead I threw in some milk, butter, and flour to make it creamy.  I also didn't have the frozen shredded potatoes, so I shredded my own potatoes.

I added some grated some cheddar cheese and scallions to the finished soup, some bacon crumbles would have been spectacular.

More snow might be on the way, so get yourself some baked potato soup.

Herb and Cheese Waffles

We recently got a waffle maker for the house and I must say I was quite excited to experiment.  After our first batch of plain ol' waffles, I was ready to let loose.  I made these savory herb and cheese waffles for dinner one night.

Here is the herb and cheese line-up.  I can't believe I didn't see the song reference here and add in some sage! Dammit!

I served these waffles up with some scrambled eggs and fruit.

What else can I do to a waffle?  I've got a box of Bisquik just waiting for me to use! Can I make some other wacky things in a waffle iron? Pinterest tells me I can make hash brown, cinnamon rolls, brownies....we'll see about all that.

Super Bowl Feast!

Do we need an introduction? Should we just drool over gratuitous junk food pictures?  Most likely.

Round one: vegetable dumplings (to represent San Francisco), guacamole, tortilla chips, and someone brought a sad crudites to the table and we all pretended to eat it (there was some onion dip to try and trick us into eating it)

Round two: crab cakes (to represent Baltimore) and spinach and cheddar cheese bread.

Round three (yes there's even a round four): tomato basil artichoke cheese dip with rye and pumpernickel bread

Round four: peach shortcake (happy birthday dad!)

Happy Birthday!

I initially intended on making peanut butter cup chocolate cake mix cookies, recipe found at cookies and cups blog, but I hit a bit of a snag at the supermarket.  When I went to purchase the miniature peanut butter cups I discovered that each and every bag on the shelf contained peanut butter cups that were melted together.  After a lot of pacing throughout the aisles I decided to use peanut butter chips and Kit-Kats.  I am a MAD scientist!

The ingredients, missing from the photo are oil and eggs. So simple right?

This is the cookie dough that prompted me to ask, is it possible to have too much filling and not enough dough?  The answer is probably not.

Behold the freshly baked cookie! Don't you wish it was your birthday?

Basil Fettuccine with Creamy Lemon Yogurt Sauce

I got more awesome pasta at Fairway!! This shit is good.  Seriously good.  So above and beyond regular dried pasta.

I found this recipe for pasta with zucchini, tomatoes, and creamy lemon yogurt sauce that I thought would go spectacularly with the basil fettuccine I got at Fairway.  One note about the recipe: it calls for 8oz of pasta for 4 people.  That has to be one of the most ridiculous recipe statements I have ever laid eyes upon.  Let's get real and make this with a pound of pasta.

This is a tasty, simple, week night meal.  I was a little worried about the yogurt being over powering, but it's not at all. Excellent dish. Go make it.