Brunch with the Girls

This past weekend, I went to my friend Erica's house for brunch. Erica and I met through work, but she's since moved onto another position. We have a fairly tight knit "lunch bunch" at our office, so as people come and go, we usually stay in touch. Once every month or so, she and I try to meet up with another one of our former colleagues, Bethany, to eat catch up and reminisce about the good ole days. This time around, Erica invited us over to her house, along with one of her current co-workers, where she put on a fabulous brunch.

I didn't get a chance to take pictures of the spread, but trust me, it was good! She served a sausage and egg casserole, fruit salad, chocolate croissants, spiced bread and mimosas. I told her that I would bring something for dessert, not realizing that we would be eating chocolate croissants, but it actually worked out well. I made Peach Melba Shortbread Bars, which were the perfect afternoon snack for us. We went over there at noon and stayed until nearly 5 o'clock!

Since the bars seemed to be a hit, I thought I would share the recipe with you. These are the perfect treats to prepare the night before (unlike what I did), and since they don't need to be refrigerated they hold well for a few days as leftovers.

I found the recipe in Southern Living Magazines, which is one my new fave subscriptions.

Peach Melba Shortbread Bars

Servings: 12 - 24
Prep Time: 20
Cook Time: 60

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup cold butter
1 cup peach preserves (I used peach-mango preserves)
6 tsp. raspberry preserves
1/2 cup sliced almonds
Powdered sugar for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine first three ingredients in a medium bowl. 

Cut in butter with a pastry blender until crumbly.

Lightly grease an 11 x 7 inch pan. Reserve one cup flour. 

Press remaining flour mixture onto bottom of prepared pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or until lightly browned.

Spread peach preserves over crust in pan. Dollop raspberry preserves by 1/2 teaspoonfuls over peach preserves. Sprinkle reserved 1 cup flour mixture over preserves. Sprinkle with almonds.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool 1 hour on a wire rack. Cut into bars. Garnish with powdered sugar.

I waited to put the powdered sugar on until I got to Erica's house, mostly because I only let the bars cool for about 30 minutes. I was running a little bit late (shocker, right?) because it took me longer than expected to make them. See, I didn't know what a pastry blender was when I decided to make the bars, and it turns out, I don't own one. I had to take a timeout halfway through making them to Google "alternative to pastry blenders" and finally settled on using the food processor. I think the clumps turned out a little large, but it seemed to work out just fine. But my lack of owning a pastry blender, isn't the point of this post, so I digress ...

The buttery goodness of the shortbread, combined with the tart jam, crunchy almonds and sweet powdered sugar, made for the perfect combination. 

Get a pastry blender and make them. You won't regret it! :)

P.S. This is what a pastry blender looks like.

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Protein Packed Dinner Omelet (and my best attempt at running ...)

Spring is definitely springing around here, and the weather couldn't be more appropriate. I woke up this morning to pouring rain and by the time I got off the metro in Crystal City the rain subsided and the temperature was up to the low 60s. From there the weather stayed nice all day, so I enjoyed an outside walk back to the metro after work. Jesse and I worked a little late tonight, so by the time we got home I had missed my Monday night dance class and was NOT looking forward to going to the gym. I begrudgingly put on my gym clothes, knowing that I really needed to workout after such an indulgent weekend (more on that later this week). I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do - treadmill: bleh, weights: bleh, eliptical: no thanks - when Jesse said that he was going to run outside. Perfect, why didn't I think of that?! I'm not exactly a runner (not exactly = not at all), but getting outside sounded like the perfect answer to my gym blues.

Jesse took off running and I started out with a nice fast-paced walk, while listening to Adele on Pandora. After a few minutes of taking in the fresh air I decided to give jogging a try. I switched the station to B.o.B. and set out. Like I said, I'm not a runner so I didn't want to push myself too hard, but rather keep a steady pace for as long as I could. I turned on RunKeeper, my favorite pacing/tracking app for running, and after five minutes the automated voice came over my iPod announcing my running stats. I honestly didn't listen to what they were because I was just happy that I made it five minutes without feeling tired. Five more minutes went by and then another five and I was feeling strong. I started to think that I might be able to go 25 minutes without stopping! That's when it started. Drop ....... drop .... drop ... it started out slow and then out of nowhere it was POURING! I was so bummed because the cool raindrops actually felt really good, but I knew I had to get home. I took the house key with me when we left because I was just planning to go for a brisk walk around the block and planned to get home well before Jesse. On top of that, I didn't want the rain to ruin my phone! All in all, my 15 minute jog was the perfect energizer to get me going tonight and even though it got cut short, I'm much more motivated to get out running again this spring. Maybe running isn't so bad ...

Rushing back to save Jesse :)

I'd have to say that the best thing that came from my jog was an idea for dinner. After getting back in town late yesterday afternoon, I never made it to the grocery store. With Drew and Jesse's input, I came up with a surprisingly good Sunday dinner last night - pasta bake and homemade garlic bread (a post for later this week), but I really had nothing planned past that. Usually when I run, all I think about is how much further I have to go before I can walk again, but the combination of the beautiful weather and keeping a slow pace helped my brain to wander. And leave it to me to think about food while I'm working out!

For tonight's dinner I was able to use several of my leftover ingredients from last week to create a power dinner omelet. It was spot on!

Power Dinner Omelet

Serves: 2

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

4 large eggs

2 tbsp. water

dash of parsley

sliver of butter

1/4 cup mushrooms, roughly chopped

3 Tbsp. scallions, sliced thin

1/4 cup cooked chicken breast, diced

1/4 cup black beans, drained and rinsed
1/3 cup cheddar cheese
salt and freshly ground black pepper





Start by chopping the mushrooms and sautéing them in the omelet pan with a sliver of butter over medium heat. Drain and rinse the black beans, and dice up the scallions and chicken. When the mushrooms are browned, remove the pan from the heat.

Crack four eggs into a bowl and add the water and parsley. Beat until thoroughly mixed.

Return the omelet pan to medium heat and spray with cooking spray. Once heated, pour the egg mixture into the pan. Swirl the eggs around the pan to partially coat the sides of the pan.

As the eggs cook, continue to swirl the pan. After about three or four minutes, tilt the pan while using a fork to gently pull the omelet away from the edges, allowing the uncooked egg to get underneath the cooked portion.

When the eggs are mostly cooked, add half of the cheese to one side of the omelet. 

Continue by adding the chicken, mushrooms, scallions and black beans on top of the cheese, and then finish with the remaining cheese. Using a fork and spatula, close the omelet and turn the heat to low. Cover with a lid for an additional 2-5 minutes to allow the cheese to melt.

Divide the omelet down the middle and serve with toast (or leftover garlic bread!).

It was such a filling dinner and the perfect protein-packed meal after a good workout! But the best part of the meal was walking away from this mess to let Jesse clean it all up ...

... while I made split personality Banana Bread - half chocolate chip, half plain!

I'll post the recipe another day because it's time to go enjoy a slice of this yummy goodness! :)

Sunday Breakfast: Weekend Waffles

Preface: Last week was an unusual one for Jesse and me. He had surgery on his ACL and his parents stayed with us from Wednesday night to Sunday morning. Needless to say, after a long weekend of care-taking and entertaining the injured hubs, I didn't have time to plan a proper Sunday dinner. That being said, Drew still came over and I made pasta, chopped salad and semi-homemade garlic bread and we all watched Shutter Island while eating ice cream sundaes! I guess I could show you guys how I make garlic bread, but since I didn't take any pictures, I'm going to show you another favorite weekend meal of ours, which I made Sunday morning - waffles!

After moving out here, I quickly learned that Jesse likes home cooked breakfast on the weekends. We spend all week eating things like cereal and bagels, so by the weekend it's nice to have something like eggs and toast. I started out just scrambling eggs, then slowly but surely (and I mean slowly) I mastered over-easy (known to some as dippy eggs). After awhile, I started working on pancakes and waffles, but just used boxed recipes.

In the last year, I decided to get daring and started playing around making homemade waffles. The motivation to switch to homemade came when we got married and received a new waffle maker as a wedding gift. (When we first started making waffles, we used Jesse's parents' old waffle maker - the one they used since around the time Jesse was born.) Then for Christmas this year, I was pushed to a whole new level of motivation to use my own recipe because my parents bought us a professional double waffle maker. It's real serious business!

I started out with a recipe I found online, but something about the flavor wasn't quite right and the texture seemed to be a little off. I experimented with a few other recipes, but they didn't seem to have the flavor and texture I wanted either. But finally, a few weekends ago, I came across an almost-perfect recipe on bigoven.com. I tweaked it just a little and poof, perfect waffles!


My (new) Weekend Waffle Recipe

Serves: 3 (or 2 people with enough to freeze for leftovers)

Time: 15 - 20 minutes

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 egg yolks
1 3/4 cups milk
1/2 cup canola oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
butter and real maple syrup


1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Turn waffle maker on to desired heat setting.

2. In a medium mixing bowl stir together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder and salt.
[you can use a whisk for this, to minimize utensils used :)]

3. Separate the yolks from the whites into two separate bowls.

[I totally forgot to take a picture of this step, so here is a play-by-play of how to separate egg whites: Crack the egg in half and slowly let the whites drain (read: ooze) into a small bowl. It helps to pass the yolk back and forth between each half of the shell to help the draining process. When only the yolk is remaining in the shell, drop the yolk into a separate small bowl.]

4. Slightly beat the yolks. Add the milk, oil and vanilla and lightly whisk together.

5. Using a hand mixer, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. This takes about 2 minutes (Note: Using a hand mixer takes about 10 minutes off the prep time. Trust me, I tried it by hand the first time - big mistake!)

6. Add the wet mixture (not the egg whites) to the dry mixture and lightly whisk until the two are combined, most of the lumps should be gone.

7. Gently fold egg whites into mixture, leaving a few fluffs of egg white. Do not over mix.

8. Spoon batter into the waffle iron, being careful not to overfill it. Wait for the light to turn on or off (depending on which way your iron swings) before removing waffles. This part is a true test of patience.

9. Serve with butter and real maple syrup. As extra waffles build-up, lay them on a large cookie sheet making sure not to stack them on top of each other and place in a 250 degree oven to keep hot and crisp.

I hope you enjoy these weekend waffles as much as we do :)