honey chamomile syrup

We had some club soda left over from the pink punch I made and I didn't want it to go to waste. I searched for drinks including club soda and came across one for a honey chamomile drink. We had honey and chamomile tea so I decided to go for it.

The recipe called for about 1 cup of honey and two packets of tea. I put that mixture in a mason jar and put it in the fridge to cool. Once that was cool I mixed some of the honey chamomile syrup with some club soda and my drink was complete. I squeezed some lemon in too.

I did not like it. I think maybe I just don't like club soda.

Creation #6 = fail

apples + crisp

The same night we had french onion soup my mom asked me to make some apple crisp. That was totally fine with me. I love apple crisp but I had never made it before. It is so easy! I don't know if I just used an easy recipe or if it is just easy to make. I was very surprised.

I cut up a bunch of apples we had lying around and poured on the crisp. That was basically it. It went in the oven and came out smelling delicious! I think it's a dessert you have to have with ice cream. It's good with whipped cream too.

The apples could have been cut smaller. They weren't as soft as I think they should have been. Other than that it was quite yummy.

Writing about this reminds me of the cheesecake I had for my birthday. We went to the cheesecake factory and I got the dutch apple caramel streusel cheesecake. It was so good.

I hope your mouths are watering.

Creation #6 = success!

feeling french

Both Kaela and Catherine are learning french and Catherine needed to make a french dish. I found a recipe for french onion soup and me and catherine made dinner together.

We had most of the ingredients already. The only thing we had to buy was cheese and beef broth. We had french bread leftover from the paninis. The recipe called for both swiss and gruyere cheese. I've never had gruyere cheese before. I went to Harris Teeter to get it and almost couldn't find it.

The first big step was to caramelize the onions. This was a bit tricky. The recipe said to have the heat on medium-low for 20 minutes......that didn't work. We turned up the heat and after a while they finally turned brown. Now we could get our soup going. From here it was pretty easy. After mixing the broth and a few other ingredients, we poured the soup into six ramekins. The gruyere was sprinkled on top of the soup and then a slice of french bread was put on top of each. Swiss cheese was then put on top of the bread. Into the oven they went!

They turned out better than I expected. I have only had french onion soup once at a restaurant. I don't think Catherine had ever had it. She asked, "why is the bread so soggy?".

 

It was yummy though. I would make it again.

Creation #5 = success!

a pink drink

While flipping through a magazine I came across a recipe for this punch. I've never really made any sort of mixed drinks before so I thought I would try it. I decided to make it to go along with my eggplant paninis. According to the recipe the drink needed to chill for at least 2 hours before serving. All it is is pink lemonade concentrate mixed with Cran-peach juice. When you are ready to serve it you mix that with club soda. I didn't even know cran-peach juice existed.

Surprisingly, I didn't really like it. Kaela and Catherine did though.

Creation #4 = partial success

eggplant paninis!

This next creation is one of my favorites I have made so far. I first thought about making these eggplant paninis when a friend gave us an eggplant from her garden. I had no idea how to eat an eggplant. I've never had one before. It sat on our kitchen counter for close to a week before I decided that we should make something with it. I found a recipe for eggplant paninis and it looked delicious! When I saw that the recipe called for pesto I knew I had to make it. Our garden is full of basil so me and my mother made a bunch of pesto. Pesto is also something I love. It really isn't difficult to make. It just became difficult when we tried to make about 10 cups of basil worth.

For these paninis I had some help from my lovely mother. I had previously frozen the eggplant so that it wouldn't go bad before we were ready to eat it. Mom grilled up the frozen eggplant while I prepared the rest of the sandwich. We had to create our very own panini maker.

It worked well. There is not too much to tell about this meal. I pretty much just followed the recipe. I think I am starting to enjoy hot sandwiches better than cold though.

The bread was flattened to a good bite size, the cheese was melted, and everything was superb. I was a little nervous Kaela and Catherine wouldn't enjoy these but they loved it and ate their entire sandwich. I will most definitely be making these again!

Creation #3 = success!

thoughts on plantains

I was at BJs with my mother and she sent me to get some fruit. I think I had a little too much fun with that. Have I mentioned that I love fruit? I basically picked up every type of fruit I saw. Well....I came across plantains. They look just like bananas so I assumed they were a fruit. Seeing as I love fruit, I grabbed a plantain as well. About three days later I went to eat my plantain. I was going to eat it just like a banana. As I was peeling it open mom asked me if I could eat a plantain like that. I didn't know. I just thought it was going to be like a banana. Before I took a bite, she looked it up on her iphone. I feel like most times when we don't know something we look it up online. What did people do before the internet? Life must have been so much more experiential. Come to find out, thanks to the internet, green plantains (the type I was about to take a bite of) are used solely for cooking. You can only eat black (ripe) plantains raw. Wow, that sounds so contradictory. Anyways, I decided to put the plantain in a ziploc until I was ready to cook something with it.

I decided to fry the plantains and have plantain chips. Then I saw instructions on how you could make mini plantain bowls and put salsa in them. So I went with that. I sliced up the plantain into about 1 inch thick slices. On the stove I got a frying pan and put a good bit of oil in it. The amount of oil I had to use kind of grossed me out. The plantain slices had to be completely covered in the oil during the frying process. Thanks to my mom who has a nifty thermometer I knew exactly when the oil was 375 degrees and could begin frying. I fried the slices for about 5-10 minutes, took them out, and let them cool for a couple minutes. I smashed one of the slices to make a chip and with the other pieces I made a little hole in the middle of it. Once all of the slices had holes in the center, I put them back in the pan and fried for about 5 more minutes. I took them out again and waited for them to cool. I grabbed the pineapple salsa we had in the fridge and spooned a bit into each of the holes. My plantain creations were complete.

 I was hesitant to try one because of the frying process. I just couldn't see how it could taste good after being immersed in oil twice! It actually tasted pretty good. It tasted kind of like a french fry. It was definitely yummier with the salsa. Kaela, Catherine, and Mom tried them and like them as well. I probably won't be  making these again anytime soon just because I don't think it was worth all the oil. But I am glad I didn't waste the plantain after finding out I couldn't eat it raw (like a banana).

Creation #2 = success!

Berry Brownie Pizza

I am home from my summer in Speculator, NY and have started to cook and bake wonderful creations. The first one I made since I have been home was a dessert pizza. It was so yummy I have to decided to share it with you.

I found the recipe in a life:beautiful magazine. I simplified it and instead of making the brownie base from scratch I just used a brownie box mix we had. For the cream cheese frosting I used 4 ounces of softened cream cheese, 4 tablespoons of softened butter, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and 2 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar. Then for the top I put on blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries.

 With the help of Catherine I sprinkled confectioner's sugar on top. Aaaandd voila! Serve it up.

Everyone thoroughly enjoyed this treat. Catherine said, "Amy you know you're going to have to make this again in a couple nights, right? Because this is the kind of dessert I would like on a weekly basis." I ended up making it again for some company we had over and they enjoyed it too!

Creation #1 = success!