2010 December

Weeknight Eats and Treats

December 31, 2010 by Marci 6 Comments

Sweet and Salty Chocolate Bark

After I made the Cake Batter Bark and realized how easy it is to make early and serve anytime, I wanted to try a new flavor for a New Year’s Eve party. I used white and dark chocolate again, and then the toppers were Craisins and slivered almonds to add a little salty to sweet. You could also sprinkle on a little sea salt. Chocolate and salt is an up and coming trend.

Ingredients:

6 oz Lindt Dark Chocolate (you can use Nestle chocolate bags too)
12 oz Lindt White Chocolate
1 T yellow cake mix
small handful Craisins
small handful slivered almonds

Instructions:

In a microwave safe bowl, melt the dark chocolate for two minutes, stirring every 20-30 seconds. Consistency should be smooth like liquid. Spread in a parchment paper lined baking dish that can fit in your freezer. Freeze for 30 minutes.

In a microwave safe bowl, melt the white chocolate for one minute, stirring every 20 seconds. When the consistency is smooth, stir in 1 T cake mix until dissolved. Pour on top of dark chocolate and smooth out.

Add craisins and almonds and press into the chocolate. Freeze for another 30-60 minutes.

Remove from freezer and let sit for a few minutes before breaking. Crack into small pieces and freeze again until you’re ready to serve.

One batch doesn’t make a lot, probably about 20 small pieces.

Dinner Two Ways

Jeffrey and I are different eaters, and instead of compromise, we adapt our meal plan. Lately I don’t like chicken and have found easier alternatives like using tofu, beans, or cheese to get protein. For this dinner, we shared a big pot of pasta, then dressed it our own way.

My bowl had spinach, pasta, tomatoes, onions, olives, and Parmesan cheese.

Jeffrey’s bowl had chicken, pasta, tomatoes, onions, olives, and cheese.

With little extra effort and only one extra pan, everyone is happy and we got a home-cooked meal for two.

Instructions:

In a large pot, bring water to a boil. Cook pasta as instructions on box say. We used Fusilli.

In a separate pan, sautee yellow onion in diced pieces with olive oil. When starting to get translucent, add 2 diced tomatoes and cook together. This turned into our sauce. Let simmer together for a while. Add olives and basil before it comes off the heat for two minutes.

In a separate pan, sautee chicken to your liking (or use grilled or prepared chicken).

When the pasta is ready, drain and add back to the pot. Pour tomato/onion sauce on top and mix well.

Now get your two bowls ready. Add pasta mix to both, chicken to one, and sauteed spinach to one.

We served ours with Alexia Garlic Bread.

A blogger cook-off:

Check back on Monday for a recipe challenge between a few food bloggers. We are all using the same ingredient and will showcase it in different ways. Here are the other blogs to check on Monday. Our recipe for this challenge is kale.

Candy Bark

Filed Under: Dessert · Tagged With: Dinner Two Ways

Double Chocolate Banana “Ice Cream”

December 30, 2010 by Marci 5 Comments

Chocolate + Banana tastes both healthy and decadent. In ice cream texture, you think you’re really indulging. I combined two ingredients into one recipe that will tickle your taste buds and have you thanking the genius who came up with blending frozen bananas (not me, her name is Gena). It’s a healthy dessert, I think. You just try it out and decide.

If you’ve missed other posts of banana ice cream flavors like peanut butter and jelly, click to the recipe page and see a section for them at the bottom.

Double Chocolate Banana Ice Cream

Ingredients:

2 frozen bananas, in pieces
1 T Peanut Butter & Co. Dark Chocolate Dreams
2 T Nestle semi-sweet morsels

Instructions:

In a food processor, whirl the bananas until chalky.

Add the peanut butter and morsels and whirl again until like ice cream consistency.

Scoop with ice cream scooper and enjoy!

Mmmm. Can you believe it’s just bananas?

**Book Review: Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin**

I like to read and savor books, especially by authors I follow. I have read each of Emily Giffin’s books, but she doesn’t write them as quickly as say, Jodi Picoult. I waited about six months to read this one, just because I had others I wanted to read first. When I finally got around to “Heart of the Matter,” it was over within 5 days. It wasn’t the best book I’ve read this year, just a good light read best for when you don’t want to think too much about a story.

The book was about two women who don’t know each other. They live outside Boston, each have young children. There are few other similarities to the women. Their lives converge one night in an accident that puts one’s husband in the middle. The story is told back and forth by the women about differing points of view mostly related to the husband.

I liked getting to know each family and thought the voices were easy to follow and different enough from each other. There was not too much of a climax to the story or cliffhanger to the end, but it was good enough that I wanted to read more and see what happened. I also liked looking into each woman’s life. Giffin makes her characters relatable, not superior to readers in my opinion. I am certain that traits of both women can be seen in everyone’s life, which makes her a great writer.

I don’t think this book will be made into a movie, it’s not a favorite of the year, but it also wasn’t boring or confusing. Go and buy it when you want something easy going to read.

Blog updates:

I have made some small changes to my site. If you look at the top toolbar, I added a Books and Travel tab. I also moved the Recipes page next to About so it’s easier to find. I update that page each time a new recipe is posted on the homepage.

Filed Under: Books, Dessert · Tagged With: Books

Top 10 of ’10 Part 2

December 29, 2010 by Marci 7 Comments

This is Part 2 of my Top 10 memorable moments of the year. Scroll to yesterday to see Part 1.

Writing a column and news stories for CultureMap. I started writing a column in August for CultureMap, a local digital magazine, and it has been really fun to share my stories with an audience larger than my blog. I have really enjoyed writing for publication and have even gotten to meet some food celebrities like Bobby Flay and Tyler Florence. Click here to see all the stories I’ve written.

Watching friends get married. We love weddings, and we love to travel. This year we went to Birmingham and Dallas for weddings, in addition to some local ones.

Solo trip to Foodbuzz Fest. Now really, going by myself to San Francisco to meet blog friends sounds kind of creepy and dorky, no? It was like a flashback to high school BBYO conventions of meeting people from around the country and becoming fast friends. A great weekend with making new friends in a beautiful city! Click here to read all the recaps.

Becoming a better cook. I have experimented with more foods and recipes this year than any before. I’ve cooked with tofu for the first time, lots of new grains and vegetables, and even tried to create my own baked good recipes from scratch. Trying new things in the kitchen is a lot of fun, and a good way to not get bored with eating at home.

Training for and completing my first half marathon. This was truly an accomplishment of the year. I enjoyed the training part and loved the long run routes I created. I liked spending a few hours on weekend mornings running, recovering, and having lunch somewhere. It felt great to increase miles and enjoy cooler weather outside and see some pretty neighborhoods. And setting a hard to reach goal and checking it off the list was pretty awesome too. Click here for all the posts where I talked about the race. It was a big part of the last six months!

What were your highlights of 2010? What are you looking forward to in 2011?

Filed Under: Thoughts · Tagged With: Thoughts

Top 10 of ’10 Part 1

December 28, 2010 by Marci 7 Comments

**My latest story for CultureMap is part of a end of year series called The Year in Culture. I wrote about the importance of eating local and how it’s exploded throughout Houston this year. Click here to read.**

It’s time to start thinking about 2011 and closing the book on 2010. Since my birthday is in early January (6th), I always get excited for the new year, even though all the holidays are over, the gyms are too crowded, and it’s just plain January. I like that the new calendar year and a new year for me start at the same time. But before we get to January, here’s a look back to some of my personal top moments of the year.

Since I started my blog at the end of April, the first third of the year isn’t documented on the blog. So I’ll summarize those stories and add a picture if I have one.

Taking home Lily. I had been talking with a local shih-tzu breeder since August 2009 and we took Lily home in April 2010. She is also a January baby, so I found out she was born and would be ours last January. We had a fun mini nesting and adjusting time getting ready for Lily. And looking back, she was so tiny and has grown so much–more than double her weight and size since we got her! In people years, she is about 7 years old, so she’s now a cute kid and not a baby. And that’s just how she acts!

Starting a blog. Sometime at the beginning of 2010, I started reading healthy living blogs. I really don’t even remember how I found these blogs or which blogs I started reading first. It didn’t take too long for me to want to write my own. I have enjoyed the challenge of learning how to blog, the new skills I’ve learned about social media, blogging, and photography, and making new blog friends.

Completing 5 races this year! I didn’t want to overwhelm this list with races, but here they are in groups. The first 10K was last February, the Rodeo Run in Houston. The course kind of boring, but it was a big accomplishment to finish! I also had my first experience with following a training plan, by Hal Higdon. Then I did a second 10K in May in Dallas. That was great too. The other races were a 5K, an Aquathlon, and a Half Marathon in Dallas.

Overcoming the pool. I have never been a swimmer. The only lessons I’ve taken were when I was a young kid. But summers in Houston and sweating from stepping outside the house made me want to jump in the pool. It was a nice break from humidity and sweat, and I enjoyed it over the summer as a supplementary workout. To give my swimming a purpose, I signed up for an Aquathlon (swim + run) in the middle of August and completed that. It was fun and I got more acquainted with the pool. Now I just need the bike to be a triathlete! Maybe one day…

Traveling to new places. We sure do travel a lot, and we like to explore new cities too. This year we visited my sister in Chapel Hill (new to us both) and I went to Cabo for my first time.

Stay tuned for Part 2…But in the meantime, what were your highlights of the year?

Filed Under: Thoughts · Tagged With: Thoughts

Happy “Ours” in Seaside, FL

December 27, 2010 by Marci 5 Comments

While in Destin, we took a drive to a cute little beachfront town called Seaside. In the summertime, Seaside is so crowded with families, dogs, bikes, and just lots of things to do and see. In the winter, it was pretty dead.

This grassy knoll below is packed with kids in the summer, and they have movies and concession stands. No one out on the grass yesterday.

We took a little walk through the neighborhoods and brought the camera along to show you what a cute place this is. If it looks a lot like a perfect utopian community, it is. It was the setting of Jim Carrey’s The Truman Show about a perfect utopian community.

It was also very chilly even though we’re in Florida. In the 40s and windy!

Working on our camera self-timer skills.

The houses all have names and tell where the family is from, and then one had a cute flag. The title of this post, Happy “Ours” was the name of one house we saw. People are really clever with more names that I forgot.

A bridge from land to ocean. The pelican statue on top has a fish in his mouth.

Look at those houses in the back, beachside.

We really didn’t see another person. No one to take a picture of us!

Long arms are helpful.

After we had enough of Seaside (it was cold!), we kept going to see Alys Beach and Rosemary Beach. Both little town squares were so pretty and peaceful. But it did feel like a ghost town since we know what it’s like in the summer. We ate lunch at a place called George’s which was wonderful.

How pretty is this place?!

I actually think I like the beach in the winter more than the summer. It was so quiet, peaceful, and not hot. We had no major plans and just really slowed down. There is a yoga lesson in here about slowing down, but just ignore that and try to appreciate going slow.

The picture above would be pretty desert like in the summer, but I think knowing it’s winter makes it nicer. And look at these fun Christmas decorations of the restaurant? How cute is that?

That’s it for our tour of Destin and surrounding areas. See you back in Houston.

Did you go anywhere over the weekend?

Filed Under: Travel · Tagged With: Travel

Christmas Holiday 2010

December 26, 2010 by Marci 14 Comments

Even though we don’t celebrate Christmas, we sure enjoy observing the quiet day off. Sometimes we take wonderful family trips to Paris, sometimes we go to Las Vegas and ignore the holiday because Vegas never sleeps (2008), and sometimes we chill out at the beach.

Jeffrey and I went to the panhandle of Florida with white sandy beaches, although too chilly to get in the water. It was so nice to have nothing to do, nothing to sightsee, and no where to go. And yes, it was nice to not have a puppy bark in the 6 a.m. hour to go outside. Lily went to Dallas to bother my parents and sister.

I have been here twice since I started the blog, once in June, and once in September. It’s funny to look at the same place in the summer, and also compare the quality of pictures with the new camera.

This time, we cooked, shopped a little (3rd largest outlet mall in the country!), read books, walked, and watched movies.

We are thankful for Santa’s holiday too.

Food pictures:

We are lucky to have a full kitchen, so we go to the grocery (Publix is the best grocery in the country!) and stock up to eat at home. I bought a box of Irish Steel Cut Oats packets, which I haven’t had before. The packets are pre-spiced, which was helpful so I didn’t have to buy cinnamon, honey, vanilla, etc. I combined one packet with 1/3 C water and 1/3 C milk. Then topped it with blueberries and a teaspoon of peanut butter. It wasn’t the most filling packet of oatmeal, which is probably why I don’t like packets. But it was tasty, and the peanut butter helped with staying power.

Another breakfast was one I have at least 4 days a week, but it looks prettier with the ocean in the back. And layered in a wine glass.

Fiber One, Kashi Heart to Heart, Blueberries, and Vanilla Oikos. This is my favorite breakfast.

My favorite wraps that I can’t find in Houston anymore are called Flat Out Wraps, Light. They are 90 calories, gigantic and very soft. So good! For lunch one day, I stuffed one with Boar’s Head turkey, Jarlsberg Swiss Cheese, lettuce and hummus. I had an apple and carrots on the side with peanut butter. PB is so good with carrots if you haven’t tried that.

And for dinner one night, we cooked a simple but elegant dinner. When we’re at the beach, I don’t really want to spend too much time in the kitchen, and I don’t want to buy a lot of ingredients that we can’t use up. We bought grouper, potatoes, corn on the cob and snap peas. We cooked them up to look like this.

For the grouper, we seasoned with olive oil, salt and pepper and cooked it stovetop for about four minutes per side.

The potatoes were sliced thin but not all the way down, then rubbed with olive oil, salt and pepper too.

And the corn boiled away until tender, and I added the snap peas near the end to get soft.

Besides food, we played around outside too. The beach looked so eerie without hundreds of people on beach chairs like the summer. But the water was so calm and clean.

We practiced our jumping.

And our cartwheels.

And then we rested too.

We couldn’t leave our computers at home.

Relaxing with wine.

And we saw beautiful sunsets each afternoon. At 4:30 p.m.

Tell me you don’t want to move here.

And how cool are those clouds? Until next time!

Filed Under: Breakfast, Dinner, Hanukkah/Xmas, Lunch, Travel · Tagged With: chicken, Hanukkah/Xmas, Oatmeal, Travel, vegetables

Twas the day before Christmas…

December 24, 2010 by Marci 2 Comments

Merry Christmas Eve. I’m in sunny Florida, where are you?

Here is a preview of a recipe I have coming next week. It’s a new flavor of Banana “Ice Cream.” I’m pretty sure you’ll like it.

Look at those raspberries! This was my pumpkin loaf with scrambled eggs and fresh berries. But the berries were the highlight of this picture.

And this was a little baking goof. I baked this Blueberry Cinnamon Loaf in an aluminum loaf pan for easier traveling to take on our vacation. I also wanted some better pictures than the ones I took the first time. But the loaf pan is a little bit smaller than a normal hard loaf pan, and it flooded over the sides. I was glad I put a baking sheet underneath or I would have had an even bigger mess to clean up.

It just made some extra crispy parts for easier snacking.

After all that, I forgot the loaf in the freezer! I kept reminding myself all day to grab it when we left, but I forgot. Fail!

Next time I would fill the aluminum pan and a smaller mini one also.

Where will Santa find you this year?

We’ll be looking at the ocean.

Filed Under: Breakfast, Hanukkah/Xmas, Lunch, Travel · Tagged With: Baked goods, Hanukkah/Xmas, Travel

Christmas 2009 Vacation Lookback

December 23, 2010 by Marci 7 Comments

Last year, my family went to Paris for Christmas! I had never been before, and we spent a week walking around, touring museums, and pretending we were locals in our rented 3-bedroom apartment. It was such a wonderful family trip. If I had a blog last year, I would have written a lovely recap with beautiful pictures, but instead, I made a scrapbook.

Here is a look back through pictures.

We stayed in an apartment in the Luxembourg Gardens area. We loved going to the little corner grocery stores, the patisseries, boulangeries, etc. Christmastime was pretty quiet in the residential areas, but the city was beautiful.

Day 1 arrival. We walked and walked and here we’re over the Seine.

Sunset near the Champps.

Bevo, is that you? Jeffrey found you.

Thanks for jumping in our picture, Shelley.

My name is Marci, I will spew out random facts about Versailles over the next 12 hours. I carried a Rick Steves guide book with me everywhere we went. It was very helpful and incredible accurate!

We climbed the Eiffel Tower. It wasn’t so bad!

A food blogger in the making…Shelley and Jeffrey attempt snails.

We didn’t really like the food of France. Except for wine, French fries, bread, and pastries.

The Modern Museum, Musee d’Orsay

Starbucks serves pancakes?

We did a Champagnery tour of Taittenger in the Champagne region of France. It was really neat to learn, similar to wine making, but bubblier.

We only got a few family pictures of all 5 of us. Here was one.

Our Paris trip was very memorable and we had so much fun. And I like being in winter during winter. I really like scarves, boots, hats and heavy coats. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Filed Under: Travel · Tagged With: Travel

Reviewing the Holiday Treats

December 22, 2010 by Marci 2 Comments

If you’re looking for something easy, fun, kid friendly, and really good to bake for Christmas or New Year’s, here are some of the treats that have come through my kitchen this holiday season.

Remember to look at this post that I wrote before Thanksgiving for other Fall/Winter related foods. They apply to December too.

For more recipe ideas that might be a little lighter, or more savory, check out the recipe page!