Hallmark Cards Inc asked me to create a Thanksgiving recipe for their blog, Think.Make.Share. Below are some photos I took to help inspire the illustrator who worked on the post and the link to the recipe. If you like a sweet pumpkin pie with a little gooey honey goodness then this is the pie for you!
http://www.thinkmakeshareblog.com/thanksgiving-dessert-ginger-pumpkin-pie/
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is almost here! Being the Star Wars nut that I am, last year when The Force Awakens came out I decided to make the internet famous Princess Leia Cupcakes.
Hold on to your buns– they were fantastic. I’ll warn you, the strands of icing hair was a wee bit time consuming, but as you can see totally worth the cuteness.
Princess Leia Cupcake’s Step-by-Step Transformation:
I did take the extra step of making my own cupcakes from scratch. Box cupcakes are easy-it’s true. From scratch cupcakes are easy too and they taste SO much better. The quality of the cupcake is richer. Yes, you might have to measure a little more, but just break out the baking soda and do it.
I used Real Simple’s basic yellow cupcake recipe.
If you need a little extra girl power on your plate this holiday season or are throwing a Star Wars party, go for the cupcakes! Come December 16th, I know I’ll be baking up a batch.
To say I love pancakes is the food understatement of the century. Pancakes are my soulmate.
My workplace has one of those 1950’s style cafeterias and every Thursday morning they serve pancakes. When the layoff vultures were circling this year, my first instincts were:
1) Holy crap.
2) Email the cafeteria for their pancake recipe.
They could take my job, but they couldn’t take my pancake joy. Thankfully, the layoff vultures flew away and I got to continue my Pancake Thursdays in the Crown Room cafeteria.
Out of gratitude, I started taking pancake portraits of all of Thursday breakfasts and posting them to Facebook. Just because a pancake has personality doesn’t mean I’m not going to eat it’s sweet, sweet face.
I am a Crown Room pancake expert. I can tell, by taste, when there’s someone different working the griddle. Yeah, it’s intense. I’ve decided the key ingredients to the fabulousness of these pancakes are: Gold N’Sweet pan spray and, of course, the buttermilk.
Behold– for prosperity’s sake–The Hallmark Cards Crown Room Pancake Recipe:
Ingredients:
Canola Oil 2.72 Ounce
Milk Low Fat Buttermilk .5 Gal 1 Pound + 8 3/8 Ounce
Eggs Easy 2/20# 4.32 Ounce
Flour All Purpose Bulk 13.76 Ounce
Baking Powder .8 Ounce
Sugar Gran Bulk 1.28 Ounce
Salt .32 Ounce
Baking Soda .16 Ounce
Directions:
Pancake On, People.
Hold on to your brunch biscuit, people.
Recently, I posted this photo of me and a giant breakfast bowl swimming in gravy.
And I got several comments about the lack of decent vegetarian gravy recipes. This my food friends is the real deal veg gravy. Trust me because I pretty much ate all that AND had the gravy on mashed potatoes the night before. It was a gravy drenched weekend.
So, where did I eat the BEST vegan biscuits and gravy?
My favorite of all veggie restaurants, The Chicago Diner. If you’re ever in Chicago– just go. Seriously. I’ve gushed about this place before and you’ve gotta eat there. Everything on the menu is a vegan/vegetarian dream come true.
Yeah, but it’s brunch time, HERE– I need a veggie gravy recipe now.
Luckily, I’ve bought all their cookbooks and below is the recipe for ultimate gravy goodness. Eat hearty and enjoy every last lick of that plate.
The Chicago Diner’s White Sage Gravy from The New Chicago Diner Cookbook
Yield: 4 Cups
Vegetarian Gravy Ingredients:
1 cup vegan margarine like Earth Balance
2 cups minced onion
1 cup rice flour
2 tablespoons vegetable bouillon dissolved in 1/4 cup soy milk
8 cups water or vegetable stock
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons fresh chapped sage or 1 teaspoon dried sage
1 tablespoon dried marjoram
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast flakes
1 tablespoon white pepper
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
How to cook gravy:
Cooks’ Note: You can easily thicken up a too-thin gravy by slowly adding 1 tablespoon of flour or nutritional yeast flakes, but be sure to whisk vigorously and constantly while adding it to avoid lumps.
5 years ago I saw the movie Waitress for the first time. I liked it. I wouldn’t say I loved it, but it did make me want to make a pie from scratch–AND that one pie did change my life.
It made me wake up at dawn to practice my pie crust every week. It made me give pie away to others. It made me work with my hands, my brain, and most importantly, my heart. It made me look at my world in a whole new way, through my tastebuds.
It made me want to live a whole pie life–AND I do. Any time I doubt who I am, or why I exist, all I have to do is make a pie and remember when I decided to actually start living and licking all my pie plates clean.
What was the pie that changed my life forever? The Falling In Love Chocolate Mousse Pie from Waitress. It helped me fall in love with cooking, no telling what it might do for you?
Recipe:
Falling In Love Chocolate Mousse Pie
Ingredients:
9 inch baked pie crust
1 14oz can of condensed milk
2/3 cup of water
1 4 serving package of cook and serve chocolate pudding
1 oz. of unsweetened dark chocolate
1 pint of whipping cream
How-To:
In a saucepan, combine condensed milk, pudding, water and mix well.
Over medium heat, add chocolate and stir until melted. Whisk the mixture until it thickens.
Remove from heat. Cool then put in fridge to chill throughly (an hour is good).
Stiffly whip cream using a mixer.
Fold whipped cream into chilled pudding mixture and beat until smooth.
Scoop into pie crust. Put it in the fridge and chill until set.
I’ve got new pie recipes on Hallmark’s think.make.share blog! I like to think of it as a deconstructed American flag, but feel free to think of it as individual blueberry and cherry pies. Private pies at public parties are the best–always enough dessert for everyone.
Check out the link for the recipes!
http://www.thinkmakeshareblog.com/fourth-of-july-mini-pies-stephanie-young/
You know when you eat something like almost 20 years ago, forget about it then out of the blue, remember it?
That’s what happened to me and frozen grapes.
I randomly tried some in college at a friend of a friends house and remembered thinking, “Oh, these taste like candy, BUT they’re grapes.” And promptly never had them again.
Until one day last month I found my self with unchilled glass of white wine and I thought, “You know what would chill this right up? Frozen grapes.”
All you do is buy some grapes. Wash them up. Pour them in a plastic bag. Freeze them over night.
Plop them in your favorite glass of vino.
Not only does it chill your wine out, the grapes get a little boozey and that isn’t hurting anything.
I have a little pie hobby and it was recently featured on Hallmark’s Think.Make.Share blog (Yay!)
http://www.thinkmakeshareblog.com/mothers-day-strawberry-pie/
If you’re looking for a trustworthy strawberry pie recipe– check it out! It’s great for all the special people in your life– especially you. I also give some crust tips, because as we all know, crust can be oh so tricky.
It’s the time of the Peep again!
I saw this in a magazine last year and decided to make it — needless to say it was a little past Easter when I finally got around to Peeping up some cupcakes (but you know Peeps, they keep for, oh, eternity). I’m not a huge Peep fan, in fact, I’d say I am a mild Peep fan. However, the second it’s added to a cupcake, I’m all in. The cute factor just gets me…
These were Lemon cupcakes with homemade chocolate frosting. I loved the idea of the citrus and chocolate and the lemon with the yellow Peep. All you do is make any cupcake you are craving, ice it like normal and then, drumroll please….you stick the Peep on top. It totally stays! I call that Peep-tastic! I did add little chocolate chips around the Peep to make a subtle nest, but you could go all out and add…
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…and I can’t find a single vegetarian version at any of my favorite Thai restaurants? I wok it myself. Here’s an adapted recipe from Rachel Cooks Thai. I took out the chicken and the oyster sauce, so it’s all-veg, and all-good.
Veggie Thai Basil Fried Rice
Ingredients:
3 cloves garlic, chopped finely
1 Red Thai chili pepper, OR if you can’t find one- a jalapeno – chopped finely
A half a block of uncooked tofu (garlic flavored tofu if you can find it) – crumbled
1/4 cup red or green bell pepper slices
1/4 cup white onion slices
1/4 cup Chinese long beans, cut into 1” pieces, OR if you can’t find any- fresh green beans
1/2 cup Thai basil leaves
1 Tablespoon of hoisin sauce
1 teaspoon of tamari sauce
2 teaspoons of soy sauce
2 cups pre-cooked jasmine rice- make it a day or two early and let it sit in the fridge!
3 Tablespoon of canola oil
Optional: a 1/2 cup of broccoli florets. I add them to most of my asian-influenced dishes. A little extra broccoli never hurt anyone.
How-to:
Take your cooked rice out of fridge and pour in 1 tablespoon of canola oil. Use your fingers to spread and coat the rice. This will make your rice a little crisper.
Pour the rest of the oil to the wok.
When the oil’s hot, add the tofu crumbles and cook until golden and little crispy.
Next, add the garlic, chili pepper, long beans, (broccoli), and bell peppers. Stir fry for 2 minutes.
Pour in all the sauces and cook for 2 more minutes.
Add the onion slices and stir fry until translucent and still a little firm.
Rice time! Combine with the rest of the ingredients in the wok. When the sauce and rice are throughly mixed, let it cook for 3-5 minutes. I like my Thai basil fried rice a little on the crispy side, and this extra cooking time helps with that.
Last step- stir in the basil then let the dish rest for a minute or two.
I added a few cashew nuts on the side for a nibble of something salty. Enjoy!
Hearty Eaters 
