Hannah's summer pasta salad

Ingredients:

• Bow tie pasta
• Broccoli 
• Tomato
• Chopped black olives
• Creamy italian dressing
• Onion

Cook the pasta in a pot of boiling water and steam the broccoli in a different pot. Drain the noodles and coat in olive oil so they do not stick together. Now put the broccoli and the pasta in the fridge to chill.

Chop up a tomato and onion and slice the olives.

You will not use the whole onion, seeing as it is just there to add a little kick.

There are no measurements for the olives and tomatoes because it is a personal choice how much you would like in your salad. You can use any vegetable you like but these are my favorite for this recipe.

Once the pasta is chilled, add the broccoli, finely chopped onion, diced tomato and sliced olives. Stir together and slowly add in the creamy italian salad dressing. Add until all of the pasta and vegetables are coated evenly.

NOTE: Must add salt and pepper to taste.

Now your summer pasta salad is ready to serve and certain to leave people asking for more. <3

Enjoy.

Hannahxox

Hannah's stuffed mushrooms wrapped in bacon.

Ingredients:

• 8 whole fresh mushrooms
• Spinach (I used trader joes frozen spinach)
• Shredded Mozzarella cheese
• Ritz Crackers
• Onion
• Minced garlic
• Butter
• Bacon
• A BBQ

So amazing!!!

Start up the bbq so it is ready when you are.
Chop one half of and onion and sate' with a tsp of minced garlic.
Add 1 1/2 cups of the frozen spinach to the pan and stir until all the ice is gone and the spinach is soft.
Mix in half of a sleeve of finely crushed ritz crackers and mix together.
Turn the heat to low and mix in 1 cup of mozzarella cheese.
Keep stirring and folding until it becomes one mixture.
Turn off the heat and stuff the mushrooms.

(I would hope you have been smart enough to take out the stem and clean the mushrooms before you started this process) ;) hahaha

Wrap the mushroom in bacon and stick a tooth pick half way through to hold the bacon in place.

Close the bbq and cook until the bacon is exactly how you like it.

Hannahxox

Hannah's new and improved ramen noodles

This is one of my favorite recipes because it it super tasty and extremely cheap.
You will need:

• 2 Beef ramen noodles
• Chopped veggies of your choice (I chose zucchini, onion, mushrooms)
• Olive oil
• Soy sauce

You might be tempted to use a different ramen flavor.... I highly discourage it.

Bring water to a boil and throw in your ramen noodles without the seasoning packet.  You're going to let it boil for  a few minutes but you don't want it to be soggy.  Keep an eye on it.  A little stiffness in the noodles is not bad.

In the meantime, stir fry your veggies.
In a medium sauce pan, on medium heat, use 2 tbsp of olive oil to coat the pan.  Pour in the vegetables and stir occasionally.  Pour in 2 tbsp on soy sauce to coat the vegetables and give them flavor.  Open up the ramen sauce packet (you will only need one) and sprinkle about a quarter of it over the veggies.

Next, drain the noodles and add it to the pan with the vegetables on low heat. Mix them together and add the rest of the flavoring packet to the combination.
NOTE: If you arent keen on too much salt then just flavor the noodles slowly with the remaining seasoning until you are satisfied with the flavor. The whole packet might not be necessary.

Hannahxox

Hannah's cheese stuffed hamburgers.

Get your BBQ ready because summer is here.

I will be sharing a few of my favorite BBQ recipes with you in the next few days. 

Starting with the ultimate crowd pleaser. A huge juicy hamburger stuffed with cheese.

Ingredients:

• 3 tbs worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 of an onion (chopped)
• 1/4 cup of ketchup
• sliced cheese of your choice
• 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef

Mix all ingredients together in a big bowl.
Form big patties about the size of your hand.
Make sure you have an even number of patties because you will be doubling them up.
Take one slice of cheese and rip it into fourths and place them in the center of one patty. Once you have your favorite cheese covering the center of your burger, take another patty and set it right on top and seal the edges. The cheese will melt and spread, coating the whole inside of your delicious burger.
I know this hamburger seems too huge to eat right now but you have to remember that it will shrink to almost half of its size while it is cooking.
Now that your burgers are ready to cook, its time to get that BBQ going and make the whole neighborhood jealous.

-Hannahxox

Mashed potato martinis

This is perfect for any kind of cocktail party or event. Its colorful, pretty, and definitely delicious.
All you need to do is fill the martini glass with mashed potatoes and top it with anything you would like.

In this picture:

• sour cream
• cheese
• chives
• bacon
• pepper
• artichoke pesto

-Hannahxox

We're out of Eggs

I was so hungry this morning and I haven't gone grocery shopping in a while so I made breakfast out of left overs. Best breakfast ever :]

Things I used:

• Left over white rice from some Asian place my mom went to.  
• 1 hot dog
• onion
• Frozen bag of California style vegetables.

First: I heated up a small saucepan with a little olive oil inside, chopped up a few onions (just enough for me to eat) and I threw in some rice with about a tablespoon of water (the rice absorbs the water so that when the rice is heated up its not hard, it tastes like the first time you cooked it).
Second: I tossed in some frozen vegetables- yes, frozen- and diced one hot dog.

I let all this sit in the pan, stirring occasionally on medium heat, while heating a bagel in the toaster.

This meal took me about ten minutes, maybe even less.  I paired it with an onion bagel and strawberry Yoplait yogurt. I admit my eyes got bigger than my stomach but it was delicious non the less.

-Alyssaxo

Our Fruit and Nutella Egg Rolls

What's something different yet familiar that I can have for dessert? Man it'd be great if it was fun too.
Fruit and nutella egg rolls of course! 

Time: including prep, about an hour.
Cost: $10.00 (not kidding)


What you need:

• strawberries
• 2 mangos
• 3 kiwis
• 1 lime
• honey
• vanilla extract 
• Tajin Chili Powder (optional and can be found at any mexican market, we went to Jons)
• 1 egg
• Wanton wraps
• Nutella

[CLICK ON PICTURES TO MAKE THEM LARGER]

make the sauce

1st: Wash, peel, cut and dice your fruit.  Once that's done it's time to make the sauce. We don't care for exact measurements so we eyeballed the honey; looked like a tablespoon but you can put as much or little as you'd like. We added about 4 pinches of the chili powder (just for a sweet kick) and squeezed two halves of a lime.
As we stirred, the consistency wasn't where we liked because of the honey so we nuked it in the microwave for exactly 3 seconds and it was perfect.   
      

add-fold-roll

2nd:  Use the back of a spoon or your finger to spread a very small amount of Nutella (you don't want the hazlenutty cocoay goodness to overpower that sauce you just made) in the center of your wrap. Then place the fruit. You can really stuff it or make them nice and small. To roll it: You're going to fold it like a burrito. Fold the top and bottom over the fruit just a little bit to tuck it away. Then start from either the right or left side and fold it over all of the fruit, tuck, and roll. 

coat the rolls

3rd:  Beat one egg in a dish and coat your rolls with it. This will seal them. Once all of your rolls are covered put them in your fryer. We pan fried them for this tutorial but a fryer will give you the best results. 

Tada!

Perfect summer treat.

Alyssaxox

Hannah's Saucy egg and cheese muffin

What a perfect way to start the day. Avocado sauce, havarti cheese, and a fried egg all on a delicious english muffin.
This recipe is short, easy, filling, and EXTREMELY decadent.

Avocado mixture and fried eggs

Depending on how many muffins you plan on making will determine how much avocado and how many eggs you use. I probably didn't need to tell you this but you never know. 

Avocado sauce: I used 3/4 of an avocado and a big table spoon of mayo. When you mix the combination together, leave a few chunks of the avocado in the bowl because you don't want to lose that avocado flavor in your sandwich. I added a few pinches of Tigan chili powder for a little kick.

Fried egg: I used just enough extra virgin olive oil to coat the pan and I fried the egg on both sides until the yolk was only a little runny in the center, which took about 3 minutes on each side.

English muffin: Toast it.

I dont like to sit around and wait for the cheese to melt once I put the egg on top of it, while the rest of the food tends to get cold so I had the oven pre heated to 400. After I assembled the muffin, (muffin, cheese, egg, avocado, muffin) I placed them on a pan and threw them in the oven for 3 minutes or until all of the cheese was melted. Then it was ready to serve.

If you want other ideas to add to your muffin for embellishment, I would recommend some arugula, grilled onions, or sliced tomato.

Easy, right?

Just wait until you taste it. This will definitely be a new favorite for you and all of your friends. 

The scrumptious end result

Hannah's chicken stuffed bell peppers

EATING ON A BUDGET

20 dollars later.....

I picked out the brightest and BIGGEST bell peppers because, as everyone knows, I think I am capable of eating 6 pounds of food. After finishing the recipe, I wished I had chosen smaller ones. 

The whole process took me an hour because I don't think things through while I cook and I tend to do things a little out of order. I will be giving you the right way to cook this and it should take about half the time.

Unfortunately, there will be no recipe for the mashed potatoes because I used those fake flakes that you dump out of a box.

Note: Im not one for measurements. I go by the way it looks, tastes and smells so try to read between the lines.

Preheat the oven to 400 and have the bell peppers ready in a dish with their tops off ;) 

and their seeds scraped out.

Sauce: 9 oz can of tomato and basil sauce and heavy whipping cream. Use the whole can of tomato sauce and add the cream until the sauce it a nice creamy tomato color. Sprinkle in some basil and pepper for tasting. Cayenne pepper if you want a little kick. You don't need to heat this mix up because it will be boiled in the oven later.

Stuffing: In a large sauce pan saute about a half of an onion until soft. Add 2 cloves of chopped fresh garlic and let it simmer for 1 minute. Add the ground chicken and stir occasionally until completely browned. You can add corn, like we did, or any veggie of choice. Mix in about 2 cups of rice and pour in about a half cup of sauce. You can add more until it is all completely covered. But you do not want it to be soupy. Now for the best part....... cheese, and lots of it. I chose parmesan. I put almost a cup inside and stirred until it melted. If you let it sit then it will burn.

Now pile the stuffing into the bell peppers and pour the remaining sauce into the bottom of the dish and over the bell peppers.

The easy part is over. Stick this baby in the oven and now endure the worst part.... waiting. Give it about 20 minutes and when you take it out, you will have a definite crowd please and perfect family dinner. Sides to this dish aren't even necessary.

Enjoy!

I know I sure did!

-Hannahxox

Easter Krispies

Fun and so easy.

I made these for Easter (obviously) and you could too.

Melt marshmallows in a small pot with a teaspoon of butter [you can use any rice krispie treat recipe you'd like]. Mix the melted marshmallows with rice krispie cereal and stir. Once it's stiff enough apply some butter to your hands and dig in. Get your hands in there for about a fist full of the scrumptious treat and shape it into an egg. This part is easy and really fun.

Once they're shaped to your liking, roll them in any topping you like. I used rainbow sprinkles and crumbled Oreos.
To crumble the Oreos, I scraped off the cream filling with a butter knife and put it off to the side. Then I took the naked Oreos- put them in a ziplock bag- took the back side of a butter knife, and smashed the cookies. The bag is used to keep from making a huge cookie mess.
I poured the cookies out onto a cookie sheet and rolled half of my eggs in that. Then I took the left over cream filling and rolled them into little balls to place onto the treats. A little embellishment.
For the sprinkle covered eggs I just poured some out onto a paper plate and rolled the left over half of treats on that.
Tada! Done.

For decoration, I took a left over egg carton, cut off the top half (the part that closes it) and stuffed the divots with grass I had from the easter baskets we made at church.

This only took me about a half hour. If you can do it faster or hell, even better, do a little show and tell in the comment box below :] I'd love to see.

Alyssaxo

Alyssa's breakfast

Cheerios with a tablespoon of honey.
Cinnamon raisin swirl toast with butter.
And my favorite combination, wheat thins with cream cheese on top.

Open for Business

This is a blog ran by two friends.
Alyssa&Hannah.
We will be blogging our food adventures through baking and cooking recipes and creating our own masterpieces. We will master the art of pouring, stirring, baking, mixing, sauteing, boiling, stir frying, buying, and best of all, eating.... a lot.
We will document our attempts at creating something new and delicious, food we encounter along the way at fancy restaurants and cute hole in the wall eateries.