mmmmmmmuffins

i made these little beauties last night - banana nut chocolate chip muffins. pretty much the easiest and tastiest muffins i've ever made from scratch.

1/2c butter, softened
1c sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2c flour
1tsp baking soda
1/4tsp salt
1c mashed bananas (about 1 or 2 bananas)
1/2c each of chopped walnuts and mini chocolate chips (optional)

mix butter, sugar and eggs. fold in flour, baking soda and salt (sifted together). add bananas, nuts and chips.

bake at 350 for about 15-20 minutes.

and TA-DA! muffins :)

i eat them with milk at night or with some delicious fruit for breakfast.

hope you have a yummy day!

étouffée + happy friday

in honor of my saints winning the first game of the season last night, i'm going to share my mom's shrimp étouffée recipe. i recently made it for the first time and surprised myself at how delicious it was! i guess i was so afraid of messing up one of our favorite traditional recipes that i thought it would somehow be bad, but it turned out delicious and i can't wait to make it again!

amy's shrimp étouffée:
1 cup each chopped onion, bell pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 stick butter
3 T flour
2 oz tomato sauce
8 oz water
2-4 oz wine (optional)
Tony's seasoning & Tobasco to taste
2 lbs shrimp

sauté onion, pepper and garlic in butter until wilted.  add flour and stir in thoroughly.  pour in sauce, water and wine, stir. add seasonings to taste.  cook on medium-low temp for about 10 minutes.

add shrimp, stir, cover and cook on medium for 15 minutes.

serve over hot rice. 

and voilà!

lastly, serve with a side salad and some warm french bread!

a couple of notes: for the wine, my mom suggested white but i used red since that's all i had handy and it was still very tasty. also, if you don't have tony's (shame, shame...just kidding) you can use any kind of cajun spicy seasoning. also, i like to use long grain white or jasmine rice for this, even though i'm a big brown rice fan. 

and you know what? i think i'll post a new recipe from my mom's family cookbook or the marshes to mansions cookbook every time the saints win a game, what do you think of that??

y'all have a great weekend!!

xoxo

it might have been a tuesday...

well the good news is my knee swelling and pain is completely gone.  i'm not sure if i just twisted it or something but i'm just going to go with it unless it happens again, then i promise to go to the doc :)

how are you lovelies today? me, well i'm still dreaming of fall. i woke up on saturday morning and it felt like fall - not because it was cooler or anything, but it just felt like fall was upon us. it may have been something in a dream, but who knows. anyway, it was a rude awakening to learn that it would be 106 degrees that day (yuck!)...and thus, it is still summer in texas. on the bright side, the rest of the week we will only be in the low 90's! hooray!

the first thing i want to do when we get a real cool front is cook some jambalaya! it's been far too hot, even in our apartment, to even think of cooking something that isn't simply something quickly sauteed or a grilled cheese sandwich. then maybe i'll go for a bike ride. i miss my bike, it's been too hot! what about you? what's the first thing you'll do when it cools down??

hope you all are having a lovely beginning to your week :)

(photo)

the feast

so there it is, in all the feasting glory. we steamed as many crab legs as we could fit into our pot, and boiled some corn and purple peruvian potatoes separately in some "slap yo mama" seafood boil. we put paper bags on the coffee table, settled in for the new true blood episode, and went to town! i believe there were 2 measly potatoes left over when all was said and done.

but of course our little rox was hoping for more :)

so there it was, the feast that made me full right on into the morning and pretty much until dinner!

cake time

inspired by gabby's delicious looking post, i decided to try my hand at this vegan chocolate cake.  i must say it was delicious! stephen enjoyed his with come caramel ice cream and i just topped mine with fresh strawberries. i did the same thing as gabby and used regular sugar, which i guess can sometimes not be considered vegan, but close enough for me.

here is my little delicious piece:

yum!! have you ever tried vegan deserts? what did you think? i'm not by any means vegan (um hello, cheese?!) but i would definitely make this over and over because it was so incredibly simple and tasty.

a cake for kings

remember when i told you i was baking a little surprise for the super bowl? well here it is!

i made my very first king cake from scratch...it was absolutely delicious, if i do say so myself. i used this recipe with a little tweaking and i have to say that i was surprised at myself.  until now i hadn't made any kinds of bread from scratch - what with all the rising and waiting and punchind and whatnot. i have to say that it was quite therapeutic! anyway here are a few photos of the creation:

 

  

  

i would definitely use this recipe again to just make the bread. 

yum! happy mardi gras!

on days when i'm stuck at home

i tend to bake.

yummy white chip chocolate cookies

 

happy friday everyone! hope you have a lovely weekend!

xo

son of a gun, we'll have good fun on the bayou

well, here it is folks, my very first homemade jambalaya! i ended up cooking all day on saturday, this and another surprise i'll show you soon.  i cooked and refrigerated overnight, and then put it in the slow cooker sunday morning. it was hot and ready by game time.  it was so hard to resist eating it before, it smelled SO good! turns out it was much easier than i thought and everyone loved it. stephen is even eating the leftovers, and he NEVER eats leftovers.

voila!

oh and thanks to hank williams, jr. for the title :)

the trinity

yesterday i texted my mom "for the trinity, yellow onions?" she texted back: "yes - i like sweet ones when i can find them." i chuckled.

no "the trinity?" or "what?" this is the base of all cajun cooking: onion, bell pepper, and celery. only in although many forms of cooking have a starting foundation, but only a cajun-cooking family recognizes "the trinity" as such.

for the superbowl this sunday, in honor of the saints, i shall attempt my very first jambalaya. it's my mom's recipe and i'm equal parts excited and terrified. there is also a special dessert in store but i'm going to wait and surprise you with that one (in hopes that it turns out well). wish me luck!

(photo)

cheesecake!

we are hitting the road this morning, heading to tulsa for family time and thanksgiving! stephen and i made a delicious white chocolate pumpkin cheesecake last night.

first layer, just cheesecake topped with white chocolate chips

then the rest of the cheesecake batter mixed with the pumpkin mix

and top it off with more white chocolate chips

and voila!

ready to bake, set, devour. i'll give you a full report on whether or not it was delish.  hopefully it will live up to the hype!

we will also be making our new favorite broccoli gruyere gratin (using this recipe, so delicious!).

what are you making for thanksgiving??

drop something

so november is (already) here...oh wait, i mean it's already the middle of november! where does the time go?  at any rate, this means lots of holiday cooking and baking for us, and lots of this scene from roxy:

patiently awaiting for us to drop any little morsel on that floor. and lots of us tripping over her in our tiny kitchen. this weekend i'll be baking the first of hopefully many delicious desserts for thanksgiving and christmas! hope you enjoy your weekend.

xo