Jambalaya & Baked Banana French Toast

Jambalaya & Baked Banana French Toast

Charla taught me how to make Jambalaya based on her recipe (which I’m sure she adapted from somewhere but I'm still giving her all the kudos :).

2 Tb. olive oil

8 oz. sausage (I usually get turkey andouille)

~ 8 oz. chicken, cooked

1 large onion

3-5 cloves garlic

1/2 tsp. dried thyme

1/2 tsp. parsley, dried or fresh

1 1/2 c. boiling chicken stock

1 1/2 c. white rice

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

1 tsp. hot sauce

1 14 oz. can tomatoes

1 green bell pepper

2 Tb. white wine

Heat oil in saucepan. Add sausage and brown. Add chicken and onions, cook for about 3 min. Add garlic, thyme, and parsley. Stir well, then add stock, rice, cayenne, and hot sauce. Add bell peppers and tomatoes with juice and break up with a spoon. Bring mixture to a boil, stir well, cover and simmer gently 15-20 min. Stir, add white wine and cook another 5 min. 

Charla was very good at walking me through everything but I’m not sure if I could do this again without Charla, or without getting totally overwhelmed and frustrated. However, I am feeling more comfortable in the kitchen and tackling recipes with more than four steps or ingredients.

Also, the basics of doing this meal project, such as cooking chicken and sausage was really useful. I also learned how to appropriately cut vegetables and chicken and it’s these basic cooking skills that are really necessary to learn.

As always I had a fun time and the food turned out really delicious! Success! Next time I would cut down the quantity being made since Ansell and I ate jambalaya basically everyday for 5 days straight.

Baked Banana French Toast

Before being baked

I am a huge breakfast fan and my latent cooking skills always shine when I do breakfast. I found this amazing recipe from Bakerella’s awesome website and couldn’t wait to try it! I wasn’t disappointed!

This is a fairly simple breakfast food that has a few things that make it a favorite:

   * It is in a contained baking tray which makes it

o   -Easy cooking and cleaning

o   -Reduces possible burning

o   -All pieces were warm when we ate since it was all cooked together

After the oven time

   *It involves bananas. I love bananas baked in breakfast stuff.

*It needs to chill so it’s perfect for making the night before.

*Look how photogenic it is!

This is such a winner!  Will definitely make it again!

Ansell's Spanish House Party

Spanish House Party

Ansell invited a few friends over for a Spanish themed party. In total we had about 12 people and it was a great mix of company.

BAM!

Ansell made all the Spanish tapas himself. Here is he working on a Spanish omelet.

In total he made:

Grilled pepper sticks

Serrano ham with various olives on baguettes

Chorizo and Manchego, Tuna and tomato with anchovies, salmon and cream cheese with olives and cream cheese with guava paste on crackers. Shiva brought along peanut butter cookies.

Toasted bread with garlic and tomato, potatoes with aioli, deviled eggs (I did those!), Spanish omelets, and various olives.

One of our friends Jessie and his girlfriend brought along a baguette with Brie and homemade olive spread and sweet date spread.

Brian made an amazing pastry dessert with Brie and sugared walnuts.

Haysel made a delicious stiff flan that I didn’t get a picture of unfortunately.

We heard and exchanged some interesting stories while we ate. 

Mock fights broke out and champagne runs were made.

Then we smoked the hookah and Ansell showed our group some hookah tricks.

If you get a toilet paper tube, dip it into dish soap, then blow hookah smoke through it you can make smoke bubbles.

It’s fun to see how long you can keep the bubble in the air until it bursts.

It was a great night and a great success! Can’t wait to have another one… as long as Ansell still does the cooking!

The Look! Hippy Chic

  

I used the Glacial Grove Collection from Meow Cosmetics for this look. 

Woodlands was the eyeliner, Thicket on the eye, with Icebound as the brow highlight. I dusted the Gold Aurora from Meow Cosmetics over the whole eye for extra shine.

Earl Grey Tea and Pear Loaf…Attempt

Earl Grey Tea and Pear Loaf…Attempt

I’d been wanting to tackle some of the recipes I found on a favorite food blog After Apple Picking. I really like the author’s recipes and they strike my warm fuzzy British baking feelings. Of course I wanted to do the recipe that involved tea first.

Spoiler: Our final product will not look like this.

I knew I couldn’t tackle baking alone and would need help. So I enlisted the help of the tea-loving and sweetly southern Charla who is also a cooking guru (thank goodness). This wouldn’t be possible without her as she brought along half the ingredients and the knowledge.

Here we are all set up and ready to go. I taped the recipe on the cabinet so it was in easy sight and would stay clean.

We used two mixing bowls one for the date and tea mix and one for the flour and sugar mix.

 

Cooking intensity!

Then the two would be mixed together.

Unfortunately we made our first mistake here. We didn’t blend the dates, baking soda, and tea together before putting it in with the flour and pear mix. This caused the final mixture to be really soupy.  (At least this is what Charla told me. I really had no clue what was going on pretty much the entire time. I mean...the poor women had to teach me how to stir properly!)

Charla tried to save it with more flour to make it thicker but it never achieved the consistency that was needed.

We then put it into the oven to bake for 50 minutes and had ourselves a little tea and snacks.

I adore this butterfly embroidered tablecloth I found in Annette's stash.
It comes with matching napkins. 

However, unbeknownst to us the next mistake was occurring (which was totally my fault). I read 170 degrees on the recipe but didn’t read the Celsius part. So, instead we baked it for 50 minutes at 170F…yeah that did basically nothing. So we tried again at the correct temperature. After another hour it still wasn’t done but we were tired of waiting so we got it out.

The crust looked good but the consistency was all wrong. Ansell called it Busted Pudding Bread. It wasn’t loaf like at all, more similar to bread-pudding, but it was still somewhat tasty and you could see the potential. I would definitely try this recipe again.

The Aftermath! I got to watch two episodes of South Park while cleaning dishes.
Oohh the guilty pleasures!

The next Charla and Teal project is Alfajores. Yum!