Pistachio Cupcakes

My guy and I went to the opening of an art gallery in a little town in the foothills not too long ago. We hadn't seen our friends Dave and Michelle for a while so when Michelle suggested we check out her Aunt's opening and have dinner we were game. Why not? Something different, something fun. A nice little Saturday night. At the gallery opening they had an hors dourves table with lots of yummy little bites, our favorite being these tiny pistachio cupcakes. A portion of our dinner conversation then, of course, included Michelle and I trying to figure out how one would go about making these little morsels. Enter the internet. I found a recipe here that turned out pretty good. I made up my own version of a cream cheese frosting to go on top, though, because that's what those tiny little bites of happiness had on them. 

Just to be clear. I consider myself to be a pretty good cook. I can find my way around the kitchen with usually quite tasty results, no problem. However, I have never, nor will I ever profess to be an accomplished baker. Nope. So, yeah. This recipe called for a cake mix. It's not completely "from scratch". Whatever. It was easy and tasted good. I'm guessing it was the club soda that made these babies so incredibly light and fluffy?  

The recipe has you use the cake mix, 3 eggs, 1 cup canola oil, a package of pistachio pudding, and a cup of club soda. I used my KitchenAid stand mixer (which I LOVE) to mix everything up. Slow speed for 30 seconds and then on full/fast for 2 minutes. When it's done mixing, the batter is all fluffy and airy.

I am a big fan of cream cheese frosting. Our wedding cakes (yes, there were 2. I'm from Texas. That's how we do it.) both had cream cheese frosting. The wedding cake was layers of Italian Cream and Carrot Cakes with cream cheese yumminess and the Groom's Cake was German Chocolate with chocolate cream cheese frosting. Ahhhhh-mazing! But enough about that. The cream cheese frosting recipe I have in my trusty book is my mom's and it's incredible. But it also calls for a crazy amount of butter and I just wasn't feeling it. So, I stayed pretty true but just left out the butter. I used the whole package of cream cheese, 2 tbs orange juice, 2 tsp of vanilla and then I just added the powdered sugar until it tasted right. Again, I just set the KitchenAid loose with it. Then, I poured it into a ziplock bag and stuck it in the freezer to cool while the cupcakes finished baking and cooled.

Once everything was cool, I snipped off a corner of my frosting bag and did a pretty simple decorating job.

Since I'm a detail girl I figured I'd make the cupcakes pretty by sprinkling some pistachios on top. I don't know if you can get already shelled pistachios. You probably can, but I had unshelled in the pantry so there ya go. I shelled them, peeled off the skins, crushed them up a bit and dusted them on top of each frosted cake. I think they were a nice touch!

Dreaming of Biscuits



{Picture courtesy of this site, where I found the recipe I'm going to try out first. Looks tasty!} 



For some reason I have recently found my self thinking a LOT about the biscuits we used to get every Tuesday morning in the cafeteria at the boarding school I went to for highschool. Biscuits and gravy day was the one day I'd actually get myself out of bed and head to breakfast....otherwise, no dice. These biscuits, though, were amazing- super soft, pillowy and fluffy. The tops were just barely golden and the insides yummy and moist. I always skipped the gravy and went for butter and honey instead. Yummmmm. These are the biscuits that I now judge any other biscuit that I come across, usually only to end up disapointed. I'm tired of dry, crunchy biscuits. So. I've been cruising around on recipe sites in search of a good recipe. I found one to start the experimenting with. Stay tuned to see how it goes!

Sun Tea Summer



{Tazo Blackberry White Tea/ Lipton combination. Totally cute glasses were a Christmas gift from my
baby sis. She ordered them from Fishs Eddy in NYC. More on them another time.}

 A lot of my favorite memories of summer growing up center around my Grandma Mary Jane. She is one of the most amazing women I know and I am so honored to have learned so much from her. I didn't realize most of those lessons at the time, but as I get older I realize more and more just how wise she is.
Grandma introduced me to sun tea. Now, her go to sun tea was usually Red Zinger, an amazing blend of herbs, hibiscus and peppermint. And bright red in color. I have looked high and low around here and can't find that particular tea anywhere. I think I'm going to have to resort to ordering it online. I have to have my Red Zinger. Until then, I'm having fun trying out some flavor combinations of my own. Right now I tend to favor a mix of Tazo flavors and a little bit of classic Lipton.
The first thing you need to have great sun tea is a lot of sunshine. Luckily, we don't have a problem with that around here! Second, a good container. I found mine at Target. I prefer plastic seeing as I do have two dogs in the backyard that sometimes tend to get a bit rowdy. I personally don't feel like cleaning up shattered glass...Also, a spicket is a nice touch. Not completely necessary, though.
So. How to make sun tea. It's so easy it's almost embarrassing. Fill up the container almost to full. Throw in some tea bags- I usually use 4-5. I like my tea strong and with lots of flavor.
Put the lid on and then set out in the sun for anywhere from 2-6 hours, even longer if you want it stronger. Enjoy!


{Tasty mix. Tazo African Red Bush & Lipton}



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I learned the hard way that when washing the container it's best to NOT remove the spicket. It just doesn't seal the same afterwards and you could end up with a puddle of iced tea in your nice clean fridge. Not my idea of a good time. I just fill the container with enough hot soapy of water to fill above the spicket, swish it a around a bit and then drain it out through the spicket. Works pretty well. Now, time to order that Red Zinger.....

Sweet, Sweet Summer Indeed!

I hate getting the mail. Seriously. I hate it. So much so that it usually ends up that when we actually DO get the mail, it's a humongous pile of crap with a few interesting things mixed in. Or bills. Lots of bills....So. When my magazines come in it's a happy trip to the mail box. My magazines being Food and Wine Magazine and Bon Appetit. I also came across this lovely issue of Martha Stewart's Living while in line at the grocery store. The pasta recipe pictured on the front had me at "tomato". Yummmm. Once these babies come in, I take my time going through them and inspecting all the new recipes and stuff. This ususally takes me a few evenings and then once I'm satisfied, I rip out the pages of all the yummiest looking ones and save them. More on what I do with all (and there are a lot) of these later...enter my ocd/type A tendencies.

Green Bean & Tomato Salad

I love summer and all the yummy fresh veggies that are available in our area. I "borrowed" this salad from a spot here in town called Camp 4 Wine Bar. D and I stopped in there a few weeks ago to enjoy some tasty paninis and salads for lunch and the owner, Damon Robbins, brought out samples of the latest salad he's been working on. I, of course, paid very close attention when he told us what was in it! I tried recreating it at home and I have to say it turned out pretty good! Here's what I did:

Ingredients:

About a pound fresh green beans, trimmed and cut into 2-3 inch pieces

2 large tomatoes

Feta cheese

3 fresh basil leaves

Dry sherry

Olive Oil

Red wine vinegar

Salt

Pepper

To start, I placed the beans in a steamer basket in a pot and steamed them until they were just barely cooked. Still nice and crunchy. Once they were done, I immediately placed them in an ice bath to "shock" them, or stop the cooking process. While those were cooling, I got the tomato yumminess going. Cored, seeded and chopped the tomatoes. Minced the basil. Mixed this all in a bowl with a cap full of Dry Sherry (Damon actually said he used Sherry vinegar. I didn't have any of that so I improvised...), about a tbs of olive oil, a couple shakes of the vinegar and some salt and pepper. To serve, I made little piles of the beans on each plate and then settled a hefty scoop of the tomatoes on top. Finished off with a little crumbled feta and voila! Delicious....on a side note, I picked up the tomatoes and the beans at my favorite fruitstand. You cannot beat the freshness and flavor of veggies fresh from the farm rather than sitting in the grocery store. I've gotten to where I just don't eat tomatoes when they're not available at the stand because they're just not worth it. No taste. Mushy. Yuck. Oh, and I got the basil from my own lil backyard herb garden! Yumm!