Thank You Cookies

Do you have someone to thank?  Do it with cookies!

I made these cookies for our administrative assistants on my team:

The system we are implementing at work is a cloud system.  Meaning our data will be delivered to us via the internet, so that's what the little clouds represent.

For variation, you can say thank you in different languages.

I also made some cookies for our former Boy Scout Committee Chair.  She is getting the Heart of Gold one because she truly has a heart of gold.  She remained as the Chair long after her son became and Eagle Scout and aged out.  She handled most of the business by herself and we don't know how she did it!  We miss her dearly.

 

These were so fun to make.  Of course, I say that about all of the cookies I make!

Below is the technique I use to flood cookies with scalloped or intricate edges.

I fill two piping bags with the same color but with different tip sizes.  I use a #2 to outline the cookie and then a number #3 to flood it.

 With the smaller tip, I pipe the edges and then fill in the pattern.

Then with the bigger tip, I fill in the cookie.  This is called flooding.  The reason I use two bags is that you have to pipe the edges and immediately flood the cookie if you want it to be seamless.  Otherwise, you will have a visible mark between the edge and the rest of the cookie.  So I don't recommend piping the edges on all of the cookies first and then going back and flooding them.

Have a great Sunday!

XOX

Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins

I love fresh blueberry muffins.  This recipe is my own spin on the traditional recipe.  My surprise ingredients, sour cream and buttermilk make these muffins so moist, they practically melt in your mouth.  I like that they are also not very sweet.  Here is the recipe.

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons sour cream
1/4 cup cooking oil
1/4 to 1/2 cup milk
1 cup fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Line muffin pan with muffin or cupcake cups.

In a bowl combine dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Make a well in the center.

In a separate bowl combine the other ingredients: egg, buttermilk, sour cream, and oil.  Add to flour mixture and stir.  Slowly add just enough milk until you get a thick, lumpy batter consistency.  Not too runny.  Stir in the blueberries and spoon in to lined muffin pan.  Fill cups about 2/3 of the way.  Sprinkle the tops with granulated sugar.  Bake about 20 minutes.  If you are making large muffins like I did, baking time will be about 10 minutes longer but begin to watch them at 20 minutes.  They will be done when tops are golden and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Enjoy! 

Colorful Bean Salad

 I love Summer!!! Although, it is not technically Summer yet, aren't you just loving these longer days? I love to come home from work and still have at least a couple of hours of daylight. Even if I don't do anything different and it is all mental, there is something less bleak about folding laundry in natural light. Well you know that it is mental. Technically, it has to do with how the brain reacts to natural light and our circadian rhythm and all of that but you are on the wrong blog if you want to really get technical about the effects of natural light on our brains and health. Last week, I put up valances on my kitchen windows and the next day, I brought them down. Even though they only covered the top third of our windows, it just felt dark and sad. I love our bare windows and all of the natural light that they let in. I spend so much time in my kitchen; cooking, working, reading, folding laundry and just hanging out, and one of my favorite things about it is how bright it is. Luckily for me, or better yet, the neighbors, our kitchen windows face the backyard.

One of my other favorite things about warmer days is that you get to eat a lot of salads.  I see quite a few salad postings in my future. This bean salad is one of my favorites.  If you have black and garbanzo beans, then you have the base of the salad.  Add anything else your heart desires and it will be so good and nutritious.  Every time I make this, it is a little different but always yummy.  This weekend I picked up some golden beats so I decided to use them in the salad.  Usually, I buy the cooked beats from Trader Joe's and save myself the trouble of roasting them.  Mainly because they are so messy and they get red everywhere.  It's like seeding pomegranates.  There is just no way around the crime scene-ish effect.  But golden beats don't make that kind of mess.  You've never roasted beats before?  You're in luck because I'm about to give you a play-by-play:
 

Aren't these gorgeous?

 

Step 1:  Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Step 2: Cut off stems and wash the beats really well.  You may have to use a potato scrubber.

Step 3: Line a heavy cookie sheet or roasting pan with foil paper and place the beats on the foil.
Step 4: Drizzle with olive oil and add kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

Step 5: Cover the beats with another layer of foil paper and seal edges
Step 6: Roast in oven for about 45 minutes, until a fork can easily be inserted.  The roasting time will vary depending on how big they are.  So start checking them at about 30 minutes.

Step 7: When the beats are cool enough to handle, remove the peel.  You should be able to rub the peel off with your fingers.  If that doesn't work, take the blade of a knife and rub the peel with the edge of the blade.

8. Once the beets are peeled, you can slice them or dice them and enjoy.  I tossed them in my bean salad.

Here is the recipe for the bean salad:

1 cup cooked and drained black beans*
1 cup cooked and drained garbanzo beans*
1 cup diced roasted beets, per above
2 tablespoons diced red onion
2 hard boiled eggs,diced
1 small tomato, diced
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
2 tablespoons sun flower seeds (unsalted)
zest and juice of one lemon
1/4 cup dressing**
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

Toss all ingredients together.

* for the bean recipes, click here.
** for the dressing, I usually make a quick viniagrette: 1 part extra virgin olive oil, 2 parts rice vinegar, 1 small diced shallot, 1 tablespoon dijon mustard, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, salt and pepper.  Put all ingredients in a jar and shake until well combined.

But if you are in a hurry and you don't want to make the dressing, Girard's Light Champagne dressing is wonderful in this salad.  Since I went through the trouble of roasting the beets, I used good old Girard's.

Enjoy!

Summer Dinner

Grilling is a year-round activity in Southern California but during the Summer, when the days are longer, you want meals that don't take a lot of prep or cooking time so that you can truly enjoy the additional daylight doing other fun stuff.

This is a meal that we recently put together and became an instant favorite!  One we will repeat many times during the Summer.

For the recipes for these dishes, please click on the dish below and you will be taken to my recipe site:
Tandoori Chicken
Avocado and Spinach Salad
Roasted Potatoes
Enjoy!!

Easy Sunday Night Dinner

This Weekend was one of the most relaxing weekends I have had in a long time. With the boys gone camping, my mom came over to spend the weekend at my house.  We got together with my cousin, Lorena, and aunt Felipa and had one of those weekends we used to have.  Growing up, my cousins always lived either on the same street or very near our house, so we were always together.  It was 4 of them and 4 of us kids, exactly 4 boys and 4 girls.  You can imagine, we had some great times.  On Saturdays, once the housework was done, my mom and aunt would take us girls to the mall and we would spend the entire day there.  For those of you who don't like to shop that may sound like torture but I come from a long line of shopoholics and that was such great fun!  At the end of the day we would go out to eat then come home and try on the things that we bought and just relax and talk.

Now that we are all married and have children of various ages, our get togethers consist of birthday parties and holidays.  I love to see and spend time with my family during these occasions but I really miss our leisurely and unhurried weekends.  In recent years, we have tried to continue this tradition; at least once a year, we go to The Grove with my nieces and shop and eat.  It's really fun but it still not as relaxing as it was then.  But this weekend had all of the makings of those long Saturday afternoons of my youth.  Maybe it had to do with knowing that when I got home there wasn't going to be a hubby asking where the remote is or a son wanting to know what's for dinner.  I knew that they were enjoying their own type of fun in the dessert while Lorena, her daughter, and I and our moms enjoyed our mall adventure.  In keeping with our precious memories, we went to our local mall.  We had a late lunch then came home and -we didn't try on what we bought- we oohed and ahhed over our spoils and we talked and talked until the wee hours of the night.  Oh, I don't know if I have mentioned it, but Lorena is my neighbor again!!  She is now living a few streets down from me, which also makes getting together a little easier now.  I'm so excited!

Alas, a mom's job cannot be neglected too long.  This morning, my mom and I tackled some stuff around the house before the boys came home.  We were like weekend warriors.  I finally cleaned out and reorganized the pantry and some of my kitchen cabinets. I think I now have a good amount of stuff to put together a decent yard sale.   My mom cooked black and garbanzo beans for me.  Yay, mom!  I love to have cooked black beans and garbanzo beans on hand to use in salads or other dishes during the week but I really love to eat them the day they are cooked, just like that.  The boys are now home and each are in their bedrooms catching up on their sleep so I made myself a bowl of these delicious beans, chopped in some grape tomatoes and settled in to watch To Rome With Love.  The perfect ending to the perfect weekend.  Ciao!

P.S. For the recipes, please visit my previous post here.