New York here we come!!!

I am so pumped about our future trip to New York. I think this would be a great place to spend lots of money. Yummy!!!!!!

http://www.nycbestbar.com/stumble/menu_food.html

A Sweet Life

I've been trying to take up the hobby of scrapbooking between school, Chase, and everything else.  Needless to say, I've not had much time.  I actually have another blog that I plan to add my projects to once I actually have time to work on them.  In the mean time, here is something that I am currently working on.

I purchased a Photo Stand by 7 Gypsies.  The idea is to create a hanging scrapbook of sorts.  This is my coverpage for the stand.  Not the best work, but it's as creative as I can be given the few hours of sleep I have under my belt these days, not to mention limited time.

I chose the brown paper with pink crowns for the simple fact that I am partial to both colors.  So the combination just made sense to me.  And, when I see these two colors together, I automatically think of ice cream.  Hence, the theme.  I LOVE the episode of I Love Lucy when she and Ethel are working in a candy factory and get into a bind when the conveyer belt turns out candy too fast.  When I visited my local scrapbook store, I found the piece at the bottom of the page and decided it was a must for my project; as was the cupcake.  I made the flower next to the ephemera of a woman out of old dictionary pages and Prima flowers.

I hope to complete this project soon, as this stand is going on my desk at school to show off pictures of my family and friends.

A yummy way to cool down without guilt.

This place is awesome!!

http://www.paciugo.com/

Sopapilla Cheesecake

Not sure where this originated but I got it from my mother-in-law.

2 cans crecent rolls
2 8oz bars of cream cheese (softned)
1 1/2 c sugar
1tsp vanilla
1/2 stick butter (melted)
Cinnamon and sugar for sprinkling

Layer 1 can of crecent rolls in the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Mix cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla. Spread mixture over crecent rolls. Place the second can of crecent rools on top of the cream cheese mixture. Pour melted butter over the top and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Bake in @ 350 for 30 - 35 minutes.

Hey, Did I Ever Tell You I Might Be Famous?

Famous?  Not really.  If only fame could be captured by having a recipe posted on the Real Cajun Recipes site...  I've been meaning to post the recipe here.  I have concocted a knock-off to the Copeland's crawfish ravioli dish. 

Ingredients


1/2 stick butter or 1/4 cup margarine
1 cup to 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 small yellow or white onion
1/2 medium to large bell pepper
3 cloves minced garlic
1 green onion, coarsely chopped
Cajun seasoning to taste
Pinch nutmeg
1 pound cleaned crawfish tails
1 box breaded cheese ravioli (found in the frozen food section) or 1-Package fresh cheese ravioli
Parmesean cheese to garnish


Directions

Begin by preheating oven to appropriate temperature marked on breaded ravioli package. -OR- If you are using fresh ravioli, bring salted water to a boil in pasta or "soup" pot.

In a heavy bottom saucepan, melt butter/margarine over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, and bell pepper. Saute until onions are clear. Add crawfish tails and stir. Saute for 3-5 minutes until tails begin to curl. Add heavy whipping cream, Cajun seasoning and nutmeg. Stir to incorporate. Allow to simmer for ten minutes over low to medium heat. Meanwhile, boil fresh ravioli, or bake breaded ravioli according to package directions.

If sauce seems to be too thin, use a thickening agent such as flour, Wondra Quick Mixing Flour for Sauces and Gravy (preferred), or as a last resort, corn starch. Sauce should be thick in consistency similar to that of an Alfredo sauce.

Once ravioli is ready to plate, check for consistency and seasoning one final time. (Remember not to exceed fifteen minutes crawfish cooking time; otherwise, they may become tough.)Plate ravioli in stacked circular pattern, ladeling crawfish cream sauce over ravioli. Garnish with chopped green onion and parmesean cheese.



**Most good Cajun cooks never measure ingredients. We all rely on the three most important cooking senses: sight, smell, and taste. These measurements are extremely rough and may need to be adjusted to fit your own taste.

Recommended Sides Garlic bread or homeade rolls are an excellent complement to this dish. Also, try serving a green salad with a sweet onion dressing or vinegrette.

This is NOT a fat free recipe.  (In fact, not many of mine are...) But, it sure is a wonderful dish. You could easily substitute shrimp, crab, etc. in place of the crawfish.

White Hot Chocolate

So, I apparently have some sort of disorder that makes me crave foods that you normally associate with Winter time.  For instance, this evening, I cooked a huge pot of chicken and sausage gumbo.  (Had to turn up the air conditioner.)  Now, I'm really wanting something hot and sweet.  I like hot chocolate, but I've been dying to try this White Hot Chocolate recipe that I saw on Paula Deen's show last year.  I may attempt it soon. I'm even thinking of how can convert that into "cold" White Hot Chocolate.....

At any rate, here's the recipe:

Ingredients


•1 cup white chocolate chips

•1 cup heavy cream

•4 cups half-and-half

•1 teaspoon vanilla extract

•Vanilla whipped topping, for garnish

•Mint leaf, for garnish

Directions

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine white chocolate chips and heavy cream. Stir continuously until white chocolate chips have completely melted. Stir in the half-and-half, and vanilla extract. Stir occasionally until heated through. Pour into mugs and top with a dollop of vanilla whipped topping and garnish with mint leaf.





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Salmon, pasta, and chutney oh my.

This was very simple since and quick.

Ingredients:

1 bag ricotta stuffed spinach pasta
2 teaspoons olive oil
1/4 cup of any mild cheese to finish

Salmon-
ground salmon (1/4 lb per patty)
salt, to taste
black pepper, to taste
1 egg
juice of one lemon, to sprinkle over salmon

Mix ingredients excluding lemon juice and place in fridge for thirty minutes.


Chutney-
1 cup whole kernel corn
1/2 cup diced fresh pineapple
1/3 medium red bell pepper
1 diced fresh carrot
1/2 cup of water
black pepper

I cooked all three parts of the dish at the same time since each part only takes a few minutes to cook.

First, start water boiling for pasta. Once water has come to a boil, add pasta. Pasta will only take about 4 to 5 minutes to cook. After draining cooked pasta, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with cheese.

While pasta is boiling, form salomon cakes. Heat a skillet on medium high heat and add a little olive oil to prevent the salmon cakes from sticking. Once salmon cakes are in the skillet drizzle each with a little lemon juice (save a wedge or two to serve with the dish).

You will also need to heat a skillet (medium Heat) to sautee the chutney ingredients excluding the water. Sweat veggies adding water as need to prevent burning. Once veggie are soft, remove skillet from heat and you are ready to fix a plate full of yummy treats.

Life and Happiness...whatever that means.

I'm just having one of those days after not being able to sleep last night. I'm not even blah, I'm just here.

So, I've had way too much time on my hands lately and not enough to do but I'm not complaining about being bored. I know many special people in my life that could use time to themselves. I've just being thinking alot about life and what I thought my life would be like at this age.

I'll be thirty-three in October and have only achieved two of my goals from childhood. I have met a wonderful man and have been married to him for over eleven years. Although I am in school to hopefully become a nurse and have wanted to be a nurse on and off my entire life, I feel like...well I don't really know how I feel about much of anything anymore. I feel like I'm at a point in my life that I've become numb to so many things and don't know how to feel like myself anymore. I don't know if that makes any sense but it's just how I feel. While I still get depressed on and off, it isn't bad like before we moved to Texas. I love living here and don't regret moving, although I do miss me friends and family. It's just a weird feeling. I've just gotten to the point that after feeling guilty for so long I don't want to deal with guilt anymore and I guess feeling numb is how my mind deals with it.

Anyway, after many hours of personal reflection I have come to a confusing conclussion..well more really more like questions about life. At what point in your life do you give up on what seems to be unobtainable dreams and goals? How do you stop feeling guilty about things you really do not have control over?

I know I have so much to be thankful for but other than being happily married, I don't feel like I have much to show for the almost thirty-three years of my life. I'm done sulking and rambling on.

Just a few final thoughts. How do you know if you are happy? I would love to know the answer to that question. I would even settle for knowing where I should start when looking for happiness. I just want to feel whole and feel happy with my life. Sorry for being a downer today.

I'm Dreaming of...Christmas

If you know me, then you know I L-O-V-E Christmas!  It is my all-time favorite holiday.  As I cruised some of the Blogs I regularly visit for scrapbooking, I found this recipe and thought that I should post it here. ( It is courtesy of Paper Jewels)

Supplies:
marshmallows
almond bark, melted
leftover candy canes (or starlight mints)
lollipop sticks

Directions:
Melt the almond bark in a double boiler.  Crush the candy canes/mints by placing them in a plastic storage bag and pulverizing them with a meat tenderizer or rolling pin.  Be sure to cover the bag with a folded dishtowel as to not burst the bag.  When the candy is melted, place a stick in each marshmallow and dip in almond bark melt (be careful--marshmallows can melt), then dip in crushed candy cane.  Place on wax or parchment paper and cool in refrigerator. (As soon as they are firm, seal in a zip top bag to keep the marshmallows soft.) 

Now Paper Jewels is one craft chick.  She then designed a box to hold a packet of cocoa and the marshmallow pop.  Here is the link for the directions.

Can't wait for it to get cooler.  And BTW, if you are a teacher at my school, you'll likely be receiving these throughout the colder months as part of the Whale Done initiative.

The Demise of the Soap Opera and Life as I Remember It!

I flipped the channel to 60 Minutes last night so as to not miss my weekly dose of reality television, Big Brother.  (Just because my life isn't real enough?)  I instantly recognized the characters being showcased.  It was the faithful cast of The Guiding Light.  There they were, Josh, Reva, Lillian, Beth, Phillip, Alan, Alexandra, all of them.

It's been nearly a year since the show went off the air.  I remember watching The Guiding Light since I was old enough to remember watching t.v.  I remember when Beth fell in love with Lou Jack and out of love with Phillip and back in love with Phillip before the end of a week.  I remember when Reva took a nose dive off a pier and proclaimed her love for "Bud" or Josh.  It was a little sad seeing the actors talk about their characters with such passion and commitment.  This was truly the last soap opera that I watched faithfully when I was not at work for holidays or the summer. 

Now, As the World Turns is next on the chopping block, leaving us with just The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful.  I like Y & R enough, but B & B  can take a long walk off of a short pier.  It's the sad ending to many years of story lines and drama.  I wonder what they will put in the place of ATWT?  Hopefully not another game show like Let's Make a Deal.  Don't get me wrong, I like Wayne Brady, but that show is rediculously, well, rediculous. 

I've said all of that to say this...Life as I remember it from growing up is drastically changing.  It is leaving.  Simple daytime dramas are exiting to make way for faster-paced talk shows, syndicated programming, or the dreaded info-mercial.  As a child, I remember hearing older generations say, "When I was your age, I remember listening to the radio for our favorite program."  I likely rolled my eyes and thought something along the lines of "Gees, were you born before electricity too?"  Now I know the feeling.  I accidentally mentioned remembering when the Internet was started in class one day.  My students gasped and looked around the room; as if to say, "Do you think her arm will fall off from dry rot?"

The times, they are a'changing.  Whether it's for the good or not, I'm not certain.  This I do know, life is getting easier and easier for these generations, and they are getting lazier and lazier.  They literally don't know how to use a telephone book, dictionary, and heaven forbid they encountered a card catalog in a library...why it must be sent here from the aliens!  Maybe we should return to simpler days of soap operas and the good ol' Kool Aid commercials.  We turned out perfectly fine, thanks to the likes of our parents, Josh and Reva Lewis, and of course good ol' Bob Barker who reminded us to, "Help control the pet population, have your pet spayed or neutered!"

Takes Too Long But Tastes Great Broccoli and Pepper Quiche

Ingredients

1 frozen pie crust

Filling:
4 large eggs
1 1/4 cups fat free Half and half, can use cream
1/2 cup chopped blanched broccoli
1/4 cup chopped blanched red or yellow bell pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons melted butter, cooled
1/2 cup grated Gruyere
Can use Feta to finish dish before serving

I also strongly suggest having a bottle of white wine while preparing this dish!

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Crust:

Poke a few holes with a fork at the bottom of the dough. With the same fork press around the edges to finish. Bake for 5 minutes, until the pie shell begins to feel firm.

Filling:
Mix together eggs, half and half, broccoli, bell pepper, salt, and black pepper in a medium size bowl. Chill for 35 minutes. Pour 1/3 of the mixture into the partially baked crust. Bake for 10 minutes.

Sprinkle half the Gruyer cheese over the slightly firm egg mixture. Pour the rest of the egg mixture into the crust. Sprinkle with the remaining Gruyere cheese. Cover with foil and bake for about 20 minutes, until puffed. Remove foil and bake for 10 minutes or until brown.

Serve hot or at room temperature. You can finish the dish with a sprinkle of Feta for added texture and contrasting flavor.

Dying for a GOOD Cheesecake!

Last night, I finished baking my husband's early birthday cake.  I leveled it, filled it, and iced it.  I looks and smells good.  But it's just not calling to me like I thought it would.  I didn't quite understand why, until it dawned on me...I'm Jonesin' for a cheesecake!  Not just any cheesecake.  Not the one that you grab out of the freezer section and defrost, not the one from the Wal-Mart bakery case that has a few varied slices.  A real, hard-core, thick, fattening, dense, creamy, rich cheesecake.  I have absolutely no idea when I'll have the time to make one.  But, I will.  And when I do, oh my! 

Of course, you have to have a great recipe for the ultimate cheesecake.  So, I ventured on-line and found the recipe for Junior's Cheesecake.  Junior's is touted as being the number one rate cheese cake in NYC.  I will definately indulge in one when go next year.  But for now, I'll have to experiment in my own kitchen.  Here's the link.  IF I get time to make one, I'll be sure to post the pics and an update of how well the recipe turned out.

Junior's Cheesecake Recipe

Pasta Salad and Peace

This evening's menu consisted of a super easy Seafood Pasta Salad.  The original recipe came from the Kraft Foods website.  But, because I'm never satisfied with most recipes I find, I gave it a little spice.  So here it goes...

1 box mini Farfalle

2 bundles asparagus

1 pound cleaned and deveined shrimp
1 pound bay scallops
1 can lump crabmeat
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 can Italian diced tomatoes
1 can whole black olives
1 tbsp. chopped fresh basil
Kraft Light Zesty Italian Dressing OR Hidden Valley Ranch Farmhouse Originals Creamy Parmesan
Parmesan cheese to garnish

Begin by sauteing shrimp and scallops in a heavy bottom saucepan.  Midway through the cooking process (3 minutes), add minced garlic.  Season with Old Bay seasoning and/or Tony Chachares if available in your area. Cook seafood for approximately six minutes; until shrimp are firm and pink.  Follow directions on pasta packaging to prepare, add asparagus last five minutes of boiling time until al dente.

In a large bowl, combine the lump crabmeat, tomatoes, olives, and basil.  Add the pasta, asparagus, and seafood.  Toss to combine.  Add dressing and cheese to taste!  Enjoy!

********
While having dinner, Melanie texted a picture of the queche that she prepared for dinner.  I had just taken a picture of my dish to text to her as well!  That's when the idea of a Blog hit me.  Since she now lives in Dallas, and I in Lake Charles, I figured this would be a great way to communicate and share our experiences.  This is my first official posting, and I hope we accumulate readers who may become inspired to do the same with family and friends.  Welcome to Food and Friendship!

Our Story

Many years ago, two girls from the same small town met and developed a friendship that would stand the tests of time, life, and miles. This Blog is a place where they share their stories, day, and least of all, recipes.

Caprese Pie and a Corona

1 pie crust
1 teaspoon softned butter
2 - 3 medium tomatoes, thickly sliced
2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 1/2 cups mozzarella
1/2 cup parmasan
1/2 cup mayonnaise
ground red pepper to taste
salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grab a drink. It has probably been a long day.

Poke a few holes in the bottom of the pie crust with a fork to allow air to escape while baking. Next, rub the bottom of the pie crust with the softned butter and bake for 5 minutes. After baking for 5 minutes, remove the pie crust and allow it to cool for 10 minutes.

While the pie crust is cooling, combine the cheese, mayonnaise, red pepper, and garlic powder.
After the pie crust has cooled, place a single layer of tomatoes in the crust. Next, lightly salt the tomatoes and sprinkle the chopped basil. Using a spatula, spread your cheese mixture over the tomatoes completely covering them. Place in the oven for 20 minutes. Dish is best served warm.