North Lime Study Blitz

Studying our new favorite coffee shop in Lexington, North Lime Coffee and Donuts. The donuts here are the best in Lexington! Check them out!

I'm currently enjoying some Swell Season, heated air, and a peanut butter honey donut. Mmmmmm...

Roadtrip Snack To Remember

Hello friends and loved ones. This morning I made one of the greatest purchases of my young life. David and I went on a little road trip this morning with our friend Simon and all Lexingtonian foodies know that a Lexington-roadtrip can't be complete without a $5 box of doughnuts from Doughdaddy's. Essential.

So naturally on our way out of town, we stopped for gas at the lovely Doughdaddy's station and I entered to purchase one of said boxes. I took a quick survey of the box pile and then began my search. I dug and sorted through hose boxes like it was my job, and it was looking grim until I uncovered the last box in the pile. I am not exaggerating here. It was beautiful. I inside this box were all the Doughdaddy's flavors that David and I adore, in perfect portions to share equally.

Blueberry, Blueberry Cream Cheese, Buttermilk, and Buttermilk Cream Cheese. Real. Life.

But oh these aren't your regular doughnuts. They're cake doughnuts. So, SO bad for you but mind-bogglingly delicious. I don't understand how they're so good and I don't really care. Some things in life are better left in secret.

So in my giddiness I had to share. Thank you for basking in this glory with me.

STAPLE DINNER: Black Bean Quesadilla Bake

So I have done it again. I know I've been MIA for the past couple weeks but this will be the last time that happens.
...I hope.

I have moved again, this time to an even BIGGER KITCHEN! (insert evil laugh here). Therefore I have been scurrying to try and put together my house/room. Plus school starts on Wednesday so I've been trying to deal with that emotionally as I will no longer have as much free time to cook delicious meals and spend shameful amounts of money on food to feed my friends. But nonetheless, my cooking will continue and hopefully I will refine my pitiful abilities to put together a meal.

Sooo I decided to christen my kitchen with a Collegiate Contessa Classic - Black Bean Quesadillas. The planets were aligned for this one folks. My fiancé's mom had given us a fresh jalapeño pepper a few days before and David had given me two cans of black beans the previous week. If that's not destiny frankly I don't know what is.

So let's get cracking. I added a few more ingredients to this one than I normally do, but please feel free to add some extra pizzaz to it yourself. Add your favorite salsa or veggies or obscure cheese. It's too easy.

Ingredients:

1 can of black beans
1 can of corn
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 jalapñeo pepper
Shredded cheese (I used Mexican blend but your favorite classy cheese is fine)
Soft tortillas





Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Get ready for action.

Open tomato can and drain about 3/4 of the juice into a small bowl. Chop up jalapeño and place in a bowl with cheese, drained black beans, corn, and tomatoes. Mix it up. Now you have the insides of your quesadillas! Yippee!

At this point in the process, I realized that I left my can opener at my old house (rookie mistake) and my lovely fiancé, David volunteered to run to the neighbors and ask for a can opener and make friends (if your reading this, thank you Chad!).

While you're preparing this, it's probably a good idea to heat up the tortillas in the oven for about 3 minutes. You just want them to get a little soft, making them easier to roll. NOTHING - I repeat NOTHING is worse than watching a tortilla rip mid-rollup. It's like watching a cat get hit by a car. Just look away. 

After the tortillas are soft, place a heaping spoonful of the quesadilla-insides onto the middle of the tortilla. Roll up the quesadilla, folding in the edges as you do so. Place quesadillas (I made 4) in a greased baking dish - 8x8in usually works well for 4-5 quesadillas.

3. 

1.          2. 



Pour tomato juice and a little bit of leftover insides on top. Heap on cheese!

Bake for 20-25 mins. 

So good! We devoured these. I hope you do too!

Now what? ... Nachos!

If you only make a few of these, you'll probably have a good deal of leftover insides. In order to remedy this dire situation, you can make nachos as an appetizer to complement your quesadillas. I know, right? This is what happens when I get horribly distracted and leave the tortillas in the oven for too long, creating crispy tortillas.

Simply cut your tortilla rounds into triangles, and place them on a cookie tray in the oven for 5-10 minutes. It would be a good idea to do this when you bake the tortillas for the quesadillas. Next, place chips in an oven-safe dish and pour your leftover quesadilla-insides over the chips.  Bake this delicious mixture in the oven for about 8-10 more minutes.

Angsty Protein Shake

The other week I was feeling super angsty after a dramatic phone conversation. So naturally, as soon as I got back to the apartment, I ran to the kitchen to let my emotions out by cooking. You can see how this is becoming a problem (financially and psychologically).







In a frenzy, I grabbed the first ingredients that suited my fancy and current sweet/chocolate craving. Thank goodness I had chocolate protein powder and my roommate had some cherries in the fridge that were on the brink of death. God was watching out for me that day.




Luckily for me, this angst gave birth to a fabulous protein shake, perfect for quenching my hunger and raging emotions after my morning run/phone conversation.

So here you go, all the goodness, with no guilt for you, my readers. Here is my chocolate-cherry protein shake.

Ingredients

1/4 cup cherries
1/4 cup ice cubes
1/4 cup soymilk
1 scoop chocolate soy protein powder
1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder

Chop up cherries.

Add all ingredients to blender and blend to your heart's content.














VOILA! Easy peasy cherry-squeezy. So next time you're feeling moody, head for the shake instead of the ice cream or chocolate bars, my friends. This shake is just as rich and will keep you fuller for much longer.

Egg-Sausage Casserole (less dairy haha)

Sooo... since the egg-sausage casserole was such a hit at the BFD party (yes i made an acronym, its gonna catch on), I thought I would share the recipe with you all since I'm a good friend like that. And so I remember it to make later.





I got the recipe from Mama Fred and it originally had cheese in it but obviously I had to take that out. You can add cheese if you have an insatiable dairy craving. Trust me, I understand. Otherwise I think it tastes fine without it. Plus, its probably a lot healthier.

Also, this recipe is a great way to get rid of you eggs if you suspect fowl play.

...that just happened.

Anyways, I encourage you to add whatever mixins you desire for this recipe to spice it up!

Vamonos!

Ingredients

1 lb sausage
4-6 slices of bread, cubed
6 eggs
1 cup soy milk or almond milk - UNSWEETENED
1tsp salt
2 tsp turmeric or mustard powder
1 tsp pepper
1/2 cup chopped peppers (optional)




- Brown sausage in a skillet over medium heat. Remove from heat.


- Meanwhile whisk the eggs and add the soymilk, salt, pepper, and turmeric.

- Grease a 9x13 baking dish and place bread cubes and sausage (and peppers if you wish) in dish.












- Pour egg mixture over top.

- Let sit in fridge overnight.

Oh, hello 3 cartons of almond milk in the fridge. That's right. My roommates are awesome and we have 3 cartons of almond milk. Cause we live on the edge.

Ta-dah!

- When ready, bake for 30 minutes at 375 or until just a small amount of juice comes out when you turn the dish on it's side.





Devour with friends or alone while watching your favorite sitcom.

Breakfast for dinner party!! ...finally

I apologize for the late post on breakfast for dinner but its been a busy week. I've been trying to get used to working and such.

Buuut here are some photos of our wonderous breakfast for dinner night that included doughnuts, pancakes of all varieties, fruit salad, egg sausage casserole, and of course, peanut butter.

It was a lovely evening for all. I highly recommend group dinner parties cause then you can eat as much as you want and feel no remorse because everyone else is eating lots too!

Ta-da! Here is the pheNOMenal fruit salad that Scott made! It was delicious and we devoured it. As far as ingredients go, I don't know what to tell you all except that he pretty much just took all the delicious fruit in Kroger and chopped it up and threw it together.

But seriously, it had bananas, strawberries, mangoes, apples, and kiwi in it.

LAAAAAAA!

...that was me singing. Because it was so delicious.

Next in line, Doughdaddy's $5 for a dozen doughnuts. Oh my lanta these are so good. Let it be known that if you are ever having a bad day, a breakup, a traumatic life experience, etc... these doughnuts will make it all better. We drove 20 minutes to get them and I am forever grateful that we don't live closer to this place.

If we did, I would probably weigh about 250 lbs right now... and probably work there. 

And now for the pancakes!!!











Delicious apple-cinnamon-walnut pancakes that is.











And last but not least was my egg-sausage casserole. I got the recipe from my momma but adapted it a bit since my roommate couldn't have dairy. It was still delicious though!

 Twas great fun! We ate a lot that night and made beautiful breakfast for dinner memories. 

The End.

P.S. Stay tuned for the (dairy free) egg sausage casserole recipe!

Sorry Friends!

I apologize for going MIA for a bit these past few weeks. Ive moved into a new apartment! Whoo! So you know what that means! Lots of cooking adventures and trying to organize things and get acquainted with my lovely new roomies.

But never fear loved ones! New posts will be coming soon! Tonight, we are having a "Breakfast for Dinner" party, so recipes and photos for that will be up shortly. 

For now, here is a lovely photo spread I have dedicated to my new kitchen. It features a huge sink, a functional oven, and a dining room table. And I only have to share it with 2 other people! Oh dorm kitchen.... I'm sorry to say you will not be missed. 

Here is a view of the kitchen in all its glory. 

Here are the burners that do not have little crumbles of food beneath them from semesters before.

 Here are the glorious cupcakes my roommate Rachel made (recipe to come soon... sorry we ate the batter too quickly for me to snap pictures).

 Here is our fabulous kitchen table. Notice the awesome cupboard in the back. I got it for $25 at a yard sale. Beast. I know. It will soon house all kinds of delicious baked goods and ingredients.

Finally, here is good ole Grandfather Coffee. As you can see, he's made a friend. She might be a but young for him, but we'll see where this relationship goes! 

Thank you for enduring the tour of my kitchen. I'm very excited to start sharing with yo all the beautiful creations that are birthed from this special place. 

Vegan Whole Wheat Pancakes.

So this morning when I got back from a very short morning jog I was famished. And famished for only one thing - PANCAKES. You know what I'm talking about. Today was perfect for the little guys. I had just exercised, the air was a little humid and cloudy because of the storm coming in. Oh yeah baby.

Only one problem. Well several problems actually... I had no eggs... or butter... or vegetable oil.

VEGAN PANCAKES IT IS! I said. haha

And luckily I love experimenting with food so I was up for the adventure as always. Did the prospect of failure frighten me in any way? No. Way. This is the beauty in living on your own. If you cook something disgusting, you're the only one who knows and pays the consequences.
However, this time I wished more people were there, cause these bad boys were pheNOMenal.

Allrightie enough chat. Lets cut to the chase folks.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup good whole wheat flour
2 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup soymilk (i used vanilla flavored, but regular is fine)
1 tbsp water
1 tbsp honey

See! So easy! I had all of these on hand!


First, place a nonstick skillet on the stove over medium heat.

Then, mix all the dry ingredients together (flour-salt).

Today this involved opening my brand-new bag of whole wheat four. It was just so beautiful and innocent-looking, I had to take a picture.

Next add in the soy milk, water, and honey.












Finally, mix in the flaxseed. This stuff is so good for you! Flaxseed is low in carbohydrates and has tons of fiber to help you stay fuller longer.

Pour the delicious concoction on the skillet and wait until small bubbles start to appear in the batter. 

Flip!

Cook other side for about a 1-2 minutes more then place on separate plate. 

I was feeling adventurous today, as I have already stated and had some leftover pear in my fridge that had been wasting away since I used half of it yesterday. It needed to be put out of its misery. Soo I closed my eyes (not really though, don't do that, its a bad decision) and did the deed. I put the pear into beautiful cubes. He would have wanted it that way.

Now stir the cubes into the rest of the batter and pour the remaining batter onto the skillet. Repeat the flipping process.




Now you could stop there. You could be satisfied with your lovely little pancakes sitting there all happy and ready to be enjoyed. And thats fine. However, that's not what I chose. If you don't have syrup, like me, you can try to make your own using a simple syrup recipe. This is different from regular syrup (especially cause I put pumpkin in mine) as it is super sweet!

Pumpkin Honey Simple Syrup. 

For starters, I just want to explain a simple syrup. Its equal parts sugar and water heated over the stove until the sugar becomes gooey and some of the water evaporates. Its used in fruity drinks and cocktails a lot of the time. The important thing to remember is that you're going to get about half of the amount of water you start with. A key factor that in my absent-mindedness, I forgot.  So I only had a little but it sure was good. 

Here is what I recommend. 

Ingredients

1 cup water

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup canned pumpkin

3 tbsp honey. 

Mix water and sugar over medium heat in a small pot. Stir continuously and watch closely. Don't let the sugar start to brown! 

When the sugar-water begins to bubble, add in the pumpkin. 

When mixture has thickened to desired syrup consistency, remove from heat and stir in honey.

Pour over your pancakes and enjoy!