Breakfast for Dinner

After a long time away, I have a new post!  This is the perfect way to use your corned beef leftovers from St. Patrick's Day.  Corned beef hash served with poached eggs.  Matt and I had it for dinner tonight, and it was fantastic.

The leftovers.

Sour cream is essential to the mashed potatoes.

Mixin it up.  Lovely caramelized onions in there too.

Poaching the eggs and frying the hash.  A lovely sight!

The finished product, with a dash of Sriracha sauce and Lizano salsa.

What can I say?  It was simply delicious!  And we have enough left over for later in the week!  The eggs on top are from our chickens, of course.

One of my favorite parts about this meal is the surprise ending... a Sin-Dawg from Dave's Killer Bread out of Milwaukie, OR.  We are HUGE fans of this company and their bread.  Just delicious.

Yum!

So that's all for now!  

xoxo
Franny

Vacation Eats

So I have just returned home from a relaxing vacation on the Mendocino Coast, and the lovely city of San Francisco.  So many things to see!  I was gone a total of six days, and I could have used another few!  The first leg of the trip was with my family in Sea Ranch.  We had many delicious meals.  The very first one was this:  baked egg with sauteed spinach and a delicious piece of bacon.

When my younger brother Dan showed up, he brought the pasta press mom got him for his most recent birthday.  He had a ravioli recipe that he learned at a cooking school in Italy that included potato, parmesan cheese and pancetta.

Preparing the noodles.

Pressing out the dough.

The freshly made pasta was so tender!  An incredible dish.  Thanks Dan!!

The next leg of the trip was to San Francisco to visit my dear friend Emily!  Many culinary delights awaited me.  The ferry building and Saturday farmer's market are something to behold.  You may remember my first visit to the ferry building a few months ago.

So many types of food!

Farm fresh!

We had scrambled egg, tomato and bacon on a baguette for brunch.  Delicious!

Squat and Gobble was great!  What a name!

Decisions, decisions!

I had a delicious pesto chicken crepe.  Wonderful!

We finished off the evening with a trip to Nubi, a fantastic frozen yogurt place.  I had chocolate and peanut butter with lots of candy bar and other toppings.  So delicious!!  I want more!  It's been hard to think of anything else since!

I heart Nubi!!

All gone!

Oh how I wish I could have just another day of vacation!  Although it might be good to get back to routine... still, I don't know.  I sure loved traveling around and sampling all those good eats!  Till next time I guess!

xoxo
Franny

Baking Bread

I made some zucchini bread today, and it turned out pretty good!  Just kind of looked up an online recipe, and made the first one that appealed to me.  Here's the link to the recipe I used.

First, you gather up your ingredients:

I got the squash at the Arcata Farmer's Market.

Next, the shredding of the squash and the mixing together of dry ingredients.

The smell of baking sweet zucchini bread filled my little apartment.  It was a wonderful vanilla cinnamon mix, and I happened to be roasting some pecans at the same time (for our house salad, of course).  I have to say that's one of my favorite things about baking... the way the house smells and the kitchen warms up.

Baking.  About 30 minutes in.

The finished product!  The first bite fresh from the oven is soooo good...

So that's the post for the day.  We had a pretty wonderful sausage, sauerkraut, and potato dinner with our house salad.  Simply delicious!  And way cheaper than going out to eat.  A nice Sunday, and a perfect way to finish the weekend!

xoxo
Franny

Chicken Chipotle Tacos

This is one of my favorite meals.  Matt is a chicken chipotle taco master.  I crave these tacos... the chicken is cooked perfectly, the spices are delicious.



The chicken.



The beans.



Bien Padre flour tortillas.


I didn't know this when I moved here, but Bien Padre is an Arcata based company.  We've been eating Bien Padre tortillas my whole life! 


The beautiful finished product.  Topped with fresh lettuce from my
back porch container garden.

 A totally wonderful meal. 

xoxo
Franny

Summer Food

I've got some catching up to do!  First, would love to show you some of our grilling pictures... we had burgers the other night and they were delicious!  Nothing like meat on the coals on a cool summer evening!



Look at the size of those burgers!



I want one right now.

On a little side note, my tomato plants are doing pretty good.  Well, three out of four of them are doing good.  The grape sized cherry tomato plant is doing great, and I just ate the first ripe tomato from it last week.

Tiny tomato.

So the other night Matt made spaghetti with meatballs, and it was really really amazing.  I mowed through mine.  I pretty much can't wait till he makes it again (hint hint?).



I love Matt's sauce!



The more cheese the better!


Today, I did some baking for a potluck.  Matt was making chili, so I thought it would be fun to make cornbread muffins.  I added some shredded cheese, and stuck a little jalapeno in the top for some spice.  They turned out great!



Muffins are the best.

 That's all for now!

xoxo
Franny

Home Cookin

The girls, hanging out on the porch

Tonight it was all about home cookin... Matt is the most talented cook I've ever had the pleasure of eating with.  Our meals are heavenly! 

Tonight we started with our "house salad."  Red leaf lettuce, pear (or apples), gorgonzola, balsamic dressing, and toasted pecans.  I love this salad.  I crave it.  I think about it while I'm at work.  What a combo!

We've perfected our salad.

And then... the main course.  I got some nice looking pork chops from the store.  Matt cooked them in this amazing combination of capers, butter, and marsala wine.  Oh my goodness.  Such a rich wonderful flavor.  I am a lucky girl.



I'm a fan of the meat and potato meal.

  The combination of the fresh sweet salad with the savory pork and potatoes was just delicious.  I'm going to be thinking of this meal for a while!  I love my chef!


xoxo
Franny

200 cupcakes

I love making cupcakes.  Any time I am asked to provide dessert for a group of folks (work functions, birthday potlucks, etc.) I usually end up making some cupcakes.  And they're always a hit! 

This particular event was a friend's wedding.  The bride specifically requested fun-fetti cupcakes for the event.  So I worked with a friend to bake over two hundred of those little guys. 

I used my mom's Kitchenaid mixer (and her kitchen) to make my half of the cupcakes.



They smelled soooooo good...



The location was a beautiful redwood grove campground.  Perfect!



We made a full sized cake too, for the newlyweds.  The bride sampled it by taking a nibble out of the side.

It was a really fun afternoon... everyone had a good time, and the dinner was delicious. Roast pig, mashed potatoes, veggies... I should have taken pictures of that but I was too busy eating it!  I'm looking forward to finding another reason to make cupcakes... I've been bitten by the baking bug!

xoxo
Franny