Cranberry Orange Vodka Martini

And it's really just that.

Double and 2/3 shot cranberry juice
double shot of vodka

shaken with two ice cubes

pour in martini glass.

Take a big sip to make room.

Drizzle orange juice down the center of the glass so it sits on the bottom.

It stays separate as you drinking it with cranberry vodka on top and orange for your bottom lip.

Mexican Pizza

So we all love pizza, but I had an itchin' for some Mexican.
Why not combine both?

First off. Instead of buying one of those 99cent taco seasoning packets, I figured I'd make my own:

1 tablespoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

This is good for 1lb or 2 of meat.

But the actual Mexican pizza went like this.

Ingredients:
1-2 pounds ground beef depending on how beefy you want your meat layer
taco seasoning
1 1/2 cup chunky-style salsa
1 pre-made pizza crust (I do the Boboli ones)
1 1/2 cup shredded Nacho, Taco or Mexican cheese blend. You know those ones they have out there.

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Put a Boboli crust or premade ready to use crust on a cookie sheet. Bake crust for 4 minutes to get it going.
  
• Brown ground beef, mix in taco seasoning.
• Spread salsa on heated crust, followed by taco meat and cheeses.
• Return to oven, bake additional 7-12 minutes, or until edges of crust are golden brown and cheese is melted.

I serve it with sour cream on the side, if that's your thing.

Apple Carvings as an art form

A while back, one of my students who clearly was skipping another class at this point, comes into my classroom after lunch. With him is an apple he just HAD to show me. He had bitten a face into the apple and was quite impressed with himself. He requested if we could do that as a project during one of the class periods I had his class. Although his class overall is typically disruptive and undeserving of a dime of my money, I agreed. (Probably because I have them three times a week and needed something new to do anyway) So I went to Stop & Shop a Friday morning of 2-3 weeks ago and bought 2 bags of apples....

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bars

Not gonna lie, I'll give credit where credit is needed.
The following recipe....which just came out of the oven 10 minutes ago was inspired by many:
http://thatwinsomegirl.blogspot.com/
and an elementary school friend really named Laneen.
As soon as I stumbled upon the recipe with help from both of them, I went out immediately and got what I needed. It goes a little something like this:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bars

Crust:
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2/3 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325°. Butter a 9″-square baking pan. (I used a springform pan because I just moved and that's all I could find) Line pan with parchment paper, leaving enough to extend over the sides. Butter the parchment paper.

Combine graham cracker crumbs and butter until crumbs are moistened. Stir in chocolate chips.

(I bought normal sized ones and chopped them up a bit)

Press crust mixture into bottom of pan and 1 inch up sides. Bake for 6 minutes. Set pan on counter to cool.

Cookie Dough:
(I cheated and bought a roll of cookie dough pre-made, you know, the ones that apparently now have salmonella if you eat them raw..but if you wanted to make it from scratch as I usually would, it goes like this..)

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used miniature)

Using an electric mixer , mix butter, brown sugar, sugar, salt, and vanilla extract at medium speed until smooth. Decrease mixer speed to low and add flour. Mix just until incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips. Shape into teaspoon size balls. Chill while making cheesecake filling.

Filling:
10 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar just until smooth. (which I didn't have, so I used a wire whisk instead)

Add egg and vanilla extract, beating just until blended.

Pour batter into baked crust. Drop cookie dough balls over the top of the filling.

Bake about 30 minutes, or until set but still wobbly in center. Transfer to counter to cool.

For chocolate topping, melt 1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips in a double boiler or in the microwave (I melted them in a ziplock bag in the microwave). Add about 1/2 tablespoon of butter if necessary to make chocolate smooth. Drizzle over top of bars. Once the pan feels cool to the touch, chill the bars completely in the fridge overnight before cutting.

(Not sure if we can wait that long)

Using the edges of the parchment paper, remove bars from pan. Cut into bars and serve.

The beginning

So I guess you could say that I've started a "blog" like everyone else out there and although mine will mostly incorporate food, it's no Julie & Julia by any means. I'm not going to go into lengthy detail all about me, I just simply want to put my food out there. Chances are you'll hear about Larry from time to time. He's my amazing boyfriend whom I've moved in with as of yesterday. The following is a collection of some of my past creations:

Garlic Lamb from Easter

Macaroni and Cheese with Cauliflower

Strawberry-Apple Pie prior to baking

Cheesecake...obviously

Vanilla cupcakes (from scratch) with Homemade Buttercream Frosting

Sorry their recipes aren't available, but I'm sure I'll revisit some and you can get them then.