Food Heaven!!!

Well!!!
Another great week gone by!!!
Princess Amanda was home for a week and it was excellent to hug her again!!!
She will be coming home for 4 glorious months at the end of April!!!

We ate some great food (mainly desserts to talk about!)
I made the chocolate brownies from Whitewater Cooks - even EASIER & BETTER than before!!!  I just mixed by hand - less clean up & worked out great!  I knew to take them out at the earlier time and when I served them you could still see oozing chocolate chips and a little moister - warm with the ice cream - I'm going to have to make them again soon!  Happy Valentine's Day!
Amanda's guy Brian surprised us (I don't like surprises - except for this one!!!)  with his family's shroud in secretiveness - let me whisper in your ear "PEANUT BUTTER PIE"!!!  Yummmmmm!   Peanut Butter Perfection!!!

One of many great things happened during the week - Amanda cooked dinner for the 5 of us!!!  Quite an undertaking!!!  And she made it on Tuesday night while I was at my body class during dinner prep time!!!  What a great event to come home to!!!  Burgers with the most amazing veggie topping of onion, garlic, red pepper, spinach and kale!!!  You don't use any condiments just veggies sauted and warm!!!  Fantastic!

We had my BFF's Pizza on Monday night - Fantastically delicious, amazingly easy, happening regularly now folks!  Get used to it!!!
Whole wheat flat-breads (each person makes up their own pizza)
Pizza sauce homemade or other (other was a little can of Primo Pizza Sauce)
Toppings - what ever floats your boat - mine had thin slices of red onion, zucchini, black olives, baby spinach, crumbled feta cheese and a little mozzarella.  Not too much of anything so it's not to thick and heavy.  In 400 oven for 8 - 10 mins.   We used pizza stone but also could just use perforated pizza tray!

I also made Tony Danza's Quick sauce and meatballs along with his everyday salad.  Actually, I made this meal twice since I last blogged!!!  Way too good!  Nothing beats Tony's balls... hold me closer Tony Danza!!!   The guy can cook!!!  I used Panko instead of breadcrumbs and quite moist!  It's great to be Italian - even just for a day!!!



Amanda & I went downtown shopping on Friday - I of course bought a cookbook - what else would you go all the way down to Robson Street to buy?!?!
The book is by Clotilde Dusoulier and it is called Chocolate & Zucchini.  I have been browsing for this book for over an year!!!  Finally bought it and it was on sale!!!  Life is great!
There is a recipe for Chocolate & Zucchini cake - which will be happening as Amanda has wanted a good recipe for this for a while now!

I'm going to make the Yogurt Cake first - just as soon as I've worked off all the excess weight gain from last week!!!

Great book to read - I always love a cookbook where the author writes an intro to each recipe with family memories etc.   and this one is delightful!!!
I went to her website Chocolate&Zucchini.com and as we speak I am making Clotilde's Basic Granola Formula and it smells like a winner!!!

One other thing I made this past week is Chives' Buttermilk Biscuits by Craig Flinn.  They are from the book Fresh and Local.  I got it out of our local library.  They are fantastic - and I substituted Buttery Becel for the butter.  Easier on my heart!!!  I also divided the recipe as these are best warm - ok - here's the recipe - divided.

2 cups unbleached white flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp white sugar
1/4 tsp salt
8 Tbsp butter  (I used Buttery Becel)
1 1/2 eggs (I used 1 whole egg and 1and a bit Tbsp Simply Egg Whites)
1/2 cup and 2 Tbsp buttermilk

Mix flour, bp, sugar and salt well in a large bowl.
Use a fork or pastry cutter, cut butter into the dry ingredient mix until mealy in texture.
In a small bowl, beat eggs into buttermilk.
Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in beaten eggs and buttermilk.
Using a fork,  combine wet and dry quickly, thoroughly, without over mixing.
Onto a baking tray (I put down parchment paper)  drop dough in balls making 9 - 10 biscuits.  I didn't spend to much time worrying about roundness as I didn't want to overwork the dough.
Bake in a preheated oven at 400 until golden brown.  (about 12 to 15 minutes).