Power bowls of yumminess

I am so sure I didn't invent this "recipe" but love it and could eat one of these every day. Lately, to save time, money and make my meal prep quicker- I cook a batch of quinoa every Sunday, then on Tuesday or Wednesday make either a batch of pasta or a batch of brown rice. This was dinner on the night that I had just enough of the quinoa left and plenty of rice- it's been a massive help in my meal planning and getting dinner ready fast so we can eat all together more often

Here is what you will need (serves 4)

 1 cup dry quinoa (prep according to package)
1 cup dry Brown rice (prep according to package)
1 avocado, chopped
1 mango, chopped
1 cup shelled steamed edamame (you can buy this frozen, hullo easy fabulousness!)
1/4 cup pickled ginger chopped
a handful of kale "microchips" (from THIS POST)
Dried seaweed sheets (one package, you'll have leftovers- or skip this if you are not down with the dried sea weed!)
sesame seeds
Soy/ wasabi or ginger miso dressing  (you can buy ginger miso salad dressing, it's yummy....or, what we did, was mix a bit of wasabi in some low sodium soy sauce and drizzle it over everything!)

For each bowl, mix 1/2 cup cooked, cooled quinoa, 1/2 cup cooked, cooled brown rice- 1/4 avocado, 1/4 mango, 1/4 cup edamame, some ginger, sprinkle w sesame seeds & kale chips serve w seaweed sheets as an option.

Blueberry Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ok, there has been many a dinner recipe here lately, so I thought I'd mix it up, and sweeten it up a bit! This is a light and almost cake-y muffin that has a very mild flavor so it is really all about the blueberries! I added just a small handful of the chocolate chips for fun, but not too many so they took over the blueberry-yumminess. I think these would also be excellent with the addition of a bit of lemon or orange zest~



Makes 12 giant, 18 medium muffins

1 C. Milk
1 egg
1/3 c veg oil
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 c sugar
1 T. brown sugar
small pinch of salt
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
1/4 cup/ one good sized handful mini chocolate chips
slivered almonds to sprinkle on top

Pre-heat oven to 400 and line a muffin tin with paper liners.
In a medium bowl sift the flour, baking powder and salt-set aside.
In a large bowl, blend the egg, oil and milk until mixed.
Add the sugars and mix for 10 seconds
Using a spoon or spatula slowly stir in the dry ingredients, but don't over-mix, just get all dry ingredients incorporated into milk/egg/oil/sugar mix.
Fill muffin cups about half full and bake for 20-25 minutes.
Let cool 5 minutes in the tin and sprinkle with raw almonds then move muffins to a cooling rack.

I love blueberries with honey, and these are very mildly flavored muffins, so you get a lot of blueberry goodness- I put some butter and honey on these and LOOOOVED it~

Angel Food Cupcakes

With all the heavy eating we had planned for the 4th of July weekend, I struggled to think of something that would be sweet and desserty at the end of the day with out being too heavy...so I thought angel food cake would be light and still substantial enough for our sweet tooth after a long day of bike riding in the sunshine...

I came across The Cupcakery Blog , where Wendy had highlighted the Angel Food Cake recipe from the Buttercup Bake Shop Cookbook, which was, as promised, easy to prepare.

We are talking MAJOR egg whites here...2 cups, which is about 14 eggs worth...Wendy suggests just purchasing the carton of egg whites (which I didn't do this time, but that would make it even easier, so I will do this next time...)



This made 24 mini cupcakes and 12 regular size…

1 cup cake flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
14 egg whites (2 cups)
1 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat the oven to 375° degrees and line the muffin tins with paper wrappers.
In a medium bowl, combine flour with one cup of the sugar. Sift these together three separate times. ( I am pretty sure this is essential, so you will need a sifter for this recipe…) Set the sifted whatnot aside and put remaining sugar in a separate cup for later use.
Pour the egg whites into the bowl of a stand mixer and use the whisk attachment, mix on lowest setting for about 1 minute. Then add cream of tartar, vanilla and salt.
After another minute of beating, turn the mixer to medium speed and gradually add the 1/2 cup of remaining sugar. Stop and scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula after all the sugar is added. Resume beating until the whites are stiff but moist. (This should take about 5 minutes.)Transfer the egg whites to a large bowl. Sift the flour-sugar mixture over the whites and gently fold until all the dry ingredients are mixed in. Using a ladle, fill the cupcake liners about ½ full, or a little less than ½ full.
Bake about 8-10 minutes, but not any longer to prevent the bottoms from burning.
Cupcakes will be done when a toothpick comes out of the center clean. Remove cupcakes from the pan and place on a wire rack. Cool completely before frosting.
I made these and took them (un-frosted) with a big bowl of fresh strawberries and a container of Cool Whip to our HB 4th of July gathering at Jeff & Lia’s and they made a great late night (meaning 9pm) sweet treat!

Key Lime Blackberry Tart

Key lime anything makes me feel like summer all over. It's fresca and yummy and tart and I LOVE IT!! Instead of going full-on pie with whip cream, etc...I thought of how delish this filling would be topped with sugar-tumbled blackberries. Yup, it rocked.
I don't know if just assembling what is pretty much a key lime pie in a tart pan is what makes it a tart, but in this case, it does for me! I highly recommend you try this ASAP~ it's a perfect summery desert, especially after dinner featuring a GLORIOUS SALAD and grilled goodness!!



Serves 12-14
20-30 key limes (about 3/4 c juice)
1 1/2 T zest
2 cans sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tsp sugar


1 1/4 c crushed graham cracker
1/2 stick butter, melted
2 T sugar 1 T brown sugar

2 pt fresh black berries
1 key lime for garnish

Preheat oven to 350-degrees. Grease a tart pan and , mix the crumbs, sugars and butter in a bowl, evenly moistening the crumbs and sugar. Press the graham cracker crust into the tart pan & bake 8 minutes...let cool. You can also just buy a crust, but I like a super thick crust and it always tastes best when you make it fresh!!
Mix the lime juice, sweetened condensed milk, lime zest, sour cream and sugar in a medium bowl with a hand mixer (or stand mixer with whisk attachment).
Pour key lime filling into cooled pie crust. Bake at 350 for about 8 minutes, but don't let the top brown at all. Cool to room temp, then place some plastic wrap over the top so it doesn't form a skin, refrigerate for 1-2 hours or until chilled thoroughly.
Toss the blackberries with a few teaspoons of sugar in a medium bowl, and pour over chilled tart.

Mango Flank Steak Tacos

This was an improv dinner that turned out better than I could have imagined. The steak was amazing, this marinade rocks the heezie.
We made this after work and work-out and still ate before 8pm, it was fabulous. This will be a go-to recipe for us from now on, easy to make in large scale for get togethers too!!

Mango Flank Steak Tacos
By Beth & Nate
Serves 4

1 lb flank steak
1 mango
1 lime
1 tomato
1/4 red onion
Fresh cilantro
Kosher salt
Soy sauce
1-2 T fresh grated ginger
garlic powder
crushed red pepper


Chop the mango into little cubes, toss them in a medium sized bowl...put the flank steak in a freezer bag and throw the mango core and a a few of the mango cubes. Add soy sauce, a lil less than 1/4 cup, ginger a few dashes of garlic powder, the juice of 1/2 a lime and a pinch of crushed red pepper. Seal the bag and massage it all together- let marinate 30min-1hour.
Dice up the tomato, onion and cilantro and toss with the mango. Add a pinch of salt and juice of 1/2 a lime. Toss together, cover & refrigerate 1 hour or more.
Grill marinated flank steak on medium heat for about 3 minutes each side...longer if you prefer medium to well meat. Take the meat off, add tortillias and grill for about 1-2 minutes. Add steak to tortilla, top with salsa and additional onion or cilantro if you'd like~ YUM!! Amazing taco heaven.

Tuesdays With Dorie~ Devil's Food White Out Cake (w/ Cherries)

This was supposed to be dessert on Valentine's Day....but we BOTH got SICK! :( After spending a horrible New Year's Eve with the flu (again, both of us) we were really looking forward to a fun Valentine's Day. Well...then the bronchitis and sinus infection moved in and we spent the better part of last week battling off the germies! Fortunately, by Sunday, I was feeling back to myself again and had everything on hand to make this week's TUESDAYS WITH DORIE selection~ Devil's Food White Out Cake, the big, beautiful cake that is pictured on the books cover! A big thanks to Stephanie of CONFESSIONS OF A CITY EATER who chose this week's TWD recipe!



Head on over to Stephanie's blog to drool over her version of this amazing cake, and be sure to stop by the TWD BLOGROLL to see everyone's creations! I was really happy with the cake recipe,even though I spaced out on the directions...I got out 2 sticks of butter to bring to room temp and didn't CUT the one stick, and when they got room temp I threw both of em in!! AND I ended up using only 1/4 c boiling water instead of 1/2 and I used 9-inch pans. All went well there, lucky me! This was the first time I'd made frosting like this before and it came out fabulous- I have a sugar headache right now, but it was delicious!

Goat Cheese Bites

I made a variation of these last year for our holiday sweater party and think that you pretty much can't miss with fig & goat cheese!
These are a simple and beautiful appetizer that freezes well and can be made ahead, and heated up as the party moves along! I love the fig preserves at the holidays- but these are great with marmalade or other preserves to reflect different seasons.



Makes 60-70
12 oz goat cheese
8 oz softened cream cheese
one egg
3 boxes of frozen puff pastry
2 jars of fig preserves

Let the puff pastry thaw on the counter. Using a hand mixer combine the goat cheese, cream cheese & egg. Using a small biscuit cutter (about the size of a silver dollar) cut circles out of the puff pastry sheets...place a circle of puff pastry in a greased mini-muffin tin, add a scoop of cheese mix, top with a dollop of fig preserves. Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes or until cheese and puff pastry is golden.
You can freeze these and then just re-heat them at party time! :O)

Tuesdays with Dorie~ French Pear Tart

HAPPY NEW YEAR TWD!! I am so excited to be part of TWD as the group celebrates a whole year of baking fabulous recipes from the book "Baking; From My Home to Yours" by Dorie Greenspan.

I've been thrilled to be a part of this awesome group and could not think of a better way to kick off a new year - a second year of TWD - than with this delicious French Pear Tart. In addition to the excitement of the French Pear Tart itself, this weeks pick was one I've been looking forward to, because it was chosen by Dorie Greenspan!!
Visit Dorie's site to see the real deal, and the TUESDAYS WITH DORIE BLOGROLL to see everyone's tarts ;o)



I loved this recipe because it was perfect to pace out over a Sunday morning.
I made the crust first, then while it froze I made the Almond creme. (Thanks to Dorie suggesting in the recipe that the creme can be made ahead~)
Then the crust cooled and the creme fridged while we had lunch, after that, I poached pears and baked it up! My knife skills are a work in progress, but I think I did an ok job to be improved upon next time!

This tart is beautiful and INCREDIBLY DELICIOUS- Nate and I both love this tart and would make it again

If you don't already own Baking; From my Home to Yours...run on out and buy it, you will bake more in 2009 than ever before! WOOOHOO!!



Tune in next week for Savory Corn & Pepper Muffins~ I can't wait!

Tuesdays With Dorie~ Black & White Banana Loaf

YAY! I'm back!! We took a little vacation up North to visit Nate's best friend Charlie and had an incredible weekend with him, his wife Molly (who makes the best Bloody Mary I've ever had in my LIFE) and our first experience at the Oregon Brewers Festival. (more to come on that...)

So, though be it late, this marks my return from vacation, and return to TUESDAYS WITH DORIE

This weeks TWD recipe was chosen by Ashlee of A YEAR IN THE KITCHEN visit her site for the recipe if you don't have the fabulous book Baking~From My Home to Yours...You can also go to the TUESDAYS WITH DORIE site to see EVERYONE'S creations~



I LOVE banana and LOVE chocolate, though I've never made a bread combining the two flavors. Because I didn't want to eat the whole loaf myself, I opted to bake some muffins which was fun and easier to share with Nate's office!!

Thank you Ashlee for an awesome pick of yet another delicious Dorie recipe that I will no doubt make again!!

Tuesdays With Dorie~ Double Crusted Bluberry (Bluecherry) Pie (s)..

It will still be Tuesday for about an hour here in LA, so I made it! YAY!!
I couldn't resist this weeks TUESDAYS WITH DORIE pick, brought to all of us by Amy of SOUTH IN YOUR MOUTH! Amy chose Dorie's Double-Crusted Blueberry Pie, from "Baking; From My Home to Yours" By: Dorie Greenspan, a fabulous baking group that is baking and eating our way through this SENSATIONAL book. My copy is now pretty evenly coated in a very thin layer of sugar, flour and a few vanilla extract stains here and there. Hop on over to Amy's blog if you are still waiting for your book to be delivered or if you're at work and need the ingredients for your grocery list before heading home. She has the whole breakdown, a beautiful pie and a great story!



Back to the pie....or in this case pieS. I decided to make mini-pies instead of one whole pie. This makes it a little easier for Nate and I to stay on our health kick and share the pie love with our co-workers. While we were grocery shopping this past weekend I came across disposable "pot-pie" pie tins and figured that would be perfecto!

I picked up a whole mess of fresh, giant blueberries, and got to pie makin'!
First I made the double crust (a double batch of Dorie's go-to pie crust that is the BIZOMB.) The only change I made is using the plastic "dough" blade on the food processor....



While the dough was chillin I cleaned up my flour mess and gathered up the filling ingredients. I could find one of the containers of blueberries, but where the heck was the second container?? I tore the fridge apart, checked my grocery receipt (rang up for TWO containers of blueberries) and had no luck turning them up. I was not giving up on the pie making (and was not going back to the store) so took some filling liberty on this recipe.
I used 1 pt of fresh, delicious blueberries and about 1 to 1 1/2 cups fresh cherries, pitted (we drove to Tahoe last weekend and scooped the cherries up on our long Sunday drive home through the farm lands of Cali).
I kept everything else about Dorie's filling recipe the same (and crossed my fingers!)



I rolled out the first disc of dough and it made enough crusts to fill 5 of the lil pot-pie tins (which I buttered BIG TIME!).
Then I tried to be as even as possible with the filling.
I rolled out the second disc, used one of the un-used pot-pie tins as a stencil and cut out my top layer of crust, sealing each little pie up~




I baked the 5 pies 25 minutes before lowering the oven temp a bit, but then for about 35 minutes- so in the end the same cooking time.



These were a HUGE hit!! The flavor combination was absolutely beautiful, and the pies were adorable! Nate and I cut one in half and shared it (perfect amount of decadence)then he had a little more...




These were fun to just dig into with a fork like we did at work today! I loved it as Blucherry Pie, but think it would be brilliant with just the blueberries~

This recipe was DELICIOUS and a most definite keeper!

PS the other container of Blueberries was in my freakin trunk! (I'll check there SOONER next time!)...

Tuesdays Wtih Dorie~ La Palette's Strawberry Tart

This should be called BEST, EASIEST TART EVER!!! What a perfect recipe to kick of summer with some fresh strawberries and a sweet crumbly crust!!
This weeks selection for TUESDAYS WITH DORIE comes to us from Marie of A YEAR FROM OAK COTTAGE, thanks for a fabulous selection Marie!!

If you have not visited Marie's blog, click the link above and go check it out! Visit often, you'll get totally addicted!! :)

I've been "away" for a bit, so before I get knee deep in tartiness, let me give a little blurb of catch up!
While I do have a slightly "consuming" job, that as I have mentioned, has nothing to do with baking, frying, glazing or whipping anything, I only have to travel for said job twice a year. Both of those trips, however, are a whole week long, and take almost two weeks of long hours and big tasks to prepare for. The good news is I have returned from the second of these two annual trips, just in time for summer, and ready to get back in the kitchen!!
On top of that fun time consumption, we are proud to announce the newest member of our family! This past Saturday we adopted AURTHUR an 18-20 month old red/tan weenie pup!! WELCOME TO OUR SWEET LIFE AURTHUR!! (I will do a separate, non-food-related, weenie post soon!)



AND, last but certainly not least, this post marks the first photos taken with my NEW CAMERA!! WOO HOO!!! Not that there was anything wrong with my old one, it was just time for a little upgrade and a few more mega pixels! Click HERE. to see the camera if you are interested...

WHEW- Now, onto the TART!



As I mentioned many words ago, this was super simple and VERY delicious!
For the recipe, you can visit Marie's blog or, as I always say, GO GET THIS BOOK.
CLICK HERE for a link to purchase Baking; From My Home to Yours by; Dorie Greenspan.

I actually recommended this book to several people I met on my business trip, because I have found it so much fun to bake from and know it will be a true "keeper" in our family for many years to come. AND the recipes are written out in a way that I've been able to follow them pretty well, which means so would most people :)

This tart consists of just a few very simple components;
1. A sweet tart crust (easy-peasy)
2. The best strawberry jam you can find (although I used preserves)
3. Fresh delicious strawberries

The rest is up to you! My husband said that he wanted to try it with pudding, so we made some mini-tarts. Also, I do not own an actual tart pan- so I used my 4 porcelain creme brulee dishes and made 4 little tarts! We did two as per the recipe (except for the preserves substitution) and the other two had a layer of banana pudding between the jamminess and the strawberries.



This is a "endless possibilities" recipe, no doubt!...Here's and update, this is a pick of Nate's tart with the pudding~

A Tale of Two Cakes; Daring Bakers CELEBRATE!

This truly, is a PERFECT cake. As I have mentioned before, lemon deserts are not my favorites, but OOOooohhh-BOY! This cake may have finally won me over to the dark, lemony side!!! Although, as the title indicates, this perfect cake was ever so delicious, I did have to go two rounds with baking this layered delight. First let me tell you what this cake is all about...



This month's DARING BAKERS challenge comes to us from MORVEN. She made a FABULOUS pick and for our March 2008 challenge, she brought us, "Perfect Party Cake" from Baking: From My Home to Yours, By: Dorie Greenspan. WOOOO-HOOOO! I am familiar with this FANTASTIC book, from my participation in another amazing group, Tuesday's With Dorie. Dorie's recipes, details and writing style make this cookbook a pure delight and an absolute must-own for anyone who finds baking an essential joy of life.



So, that brings us to MY Perfect Party Cake. I made this the Saturday before Easter to take to our family feast. Well, actually what I did was go out to an incredible dinner with Nate on Saturday night. Then I came home and passed out on the couch and if it was not for Nate waking me up and reminding me I was going to be SUPER stressed if I had to do the whole thing before we left to head to our Easter celebration. Begrudgingly, I got up and started making the cake; TAKE ONE.



Fortunately as I mentioned above, I love this book. I find Dorie's recipes, and more importantly they way she words everything makes the instructions easy to follow. I love it, no matter how obvious it may seem, when a recipe will TELL ME HOW LONG TO WHISK THIS THING!! So I stared in on the 2 cake layers. I had heard about other DB'er having trouble with their cake rising. Dorie had suggested it was the TYPE of cake four and recommends if you have a problem with the rising, to substitute the All Purpose Flour/Cake Flour substitute. "1 cup cake flour= 1 cup all purpose flour minus 2 T."



The cake recipe was a breeze and in no time I was pulling them out of the oven. They weren't super-flat, but they weren't risen completely either. But, now it was late, I was sleepy, and I wrapped the 2 cooled layers up and decided I'd "make it work" on Sunday morning before we left.



TAKE TWO: I woke up early enough, and this cake was not 22-steps of crazy to make, so I gave it another go, but using organic cake flour this time (why not, right?)...well, the only difference there, was part of the allure of this PERFECT Party Cake is the beautiful snowy-white cake, frosting and coconut, offset by the yummy bright raspberry filling between layers. What I ended up doing was using two layers of the four-layer cake from the first batch, and two from the second. There was some sticking during the cooling process, and some rough roads during the slicing the layers in half...**I have since learned a slicing layers in half trick that I am looking forward to trying!** This time I used the toothpicks-all-the-way around and a big super-sharp serrated knife. When I got to Easter and was telling the tale of my baking adventure, Mom and Nana said to use dental floss to divide cake layers. Very interesting!!



This was the first recipe I've made where a layer of cake is cut in half to create a beautiful four-layer cake. I only had raspberry preserves that did contain seeds, so I used those, and the buttercream came together beautifully. This buttercream frosting recipe is AWESOME, I think it was some of the best frosting I've ever made!



I didn't run into any problems assembling or decorating this Perfect Party Cake, and even with tons of candy, and a table full of other cakes and deserts, this one still got eaten up!! As Dorie suggests in the forward to this recipe, I will be putting a marker on that page and coming back to Perfect Party Cake time and time again!!



For the Recipe visit
Morven's Blog and if you haven't already, and you love to bake, get this book!
Baking ~ from My Home to Yours By: Dorie Greenspan.

Scallop Cabbage Salad

Well, not the prettiest photos I have ever taken, but definitely a delicious, healthy dinner that we both loved!!
We're trying to get in a healthier groove, so after a trip to one of our favorite Japanese markets here in LA, we came up with this veggie-packed Sunday dinner.

Scallop Cabbage Salad
For 2
By Nate & Beth

1 pkg (3-4 individual) Sushi-grade large scallops
Low-sodium soy sauce
1 orange, sliced into 1/4s
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/2 sweet white onion, peeled & chopped
1/4 chopped green cabbage
1/4 chopped purple cabbage
2-3 radishes sliced
Chopped or shredded carrots
1 T olive or sesame oil

Toss together chopped cabbages, radishes & carrots.
In a large skillet on medium heat olive oil, add onions and garlic and stir for about 5 minutes or until onions soften a bit. Add a tsp of soy sauce and the juice of 1/4 of the orange. Sautee about 7-10 minutes and let juices combine and onion/garlic mix caramelize a bit. Very lightly season scallops with kosher salt on both sides and add to pan, and squeeze the juice of 1/4 orange over them. Cook 4 minutes then flip, squeeze another 1/4 orange over and cook another 4 minutes. Stir and simmer everything another 2-3 minutes. Divide cabbage mix between 2 salad bowls, and use a slotted spoon to pile the garlic, onions and scallops on top. Drizzle the extra juices over the salad and serve with an orange slice on the side! (you can also use a little salad dressing if you want, or top with sesame seeds).