Christmas Cupcakes!

Tomorrow I have a Christmas party with my lab mates at my boss' house, so I decided I would make some chocolate and vanilla Christmas cupcakes. I had made the chocolate cupcakes a couple of times already so I knew they would be delicious, but I never made the vanilla cupcakes so I was excited to try them. I took the recipe for the chocolate cupcakes from Bostonist, and the recipes for the vanilla cupcakes and the buttercream frosting from Joy of Baking.

The vanilla cupcakes came out perfect, but as always, when I baked the chocolate cupcakes they did not raise as they should but rather overflowed... They always do that and I'm not sure why. Perhaps the recipe should call for more baking powder, so next time I will add more to see if that makes a difference. I would love for them to raise and become all round like the vanilla cupcakes did. To make them more Christmas-y, I added red or green food coloring to the buttercream frosting so that I could have red, green and white frosted cupcakes. Well, that was the plan at least. I ran out of red food coloring so those came out rather pink, and the green frosting did not come out as intense as I wanted, but I thought they still looked good. I also added Christmas candies on top and sparkles to complete the look. My favorite part about making cupcakes is always decorating them, so I had a lot of fun doing so.

I think I will do some more during the holidays! So cute and so delicious!

Recipe for chocolate cupcakes:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, RT

1 1/4 cups granulated white sugar

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Recipe for vanilla cupcakes:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, RT

2/3 cup granulated white sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

Recipe for Buttercream Frosting:

2 cups confectioners sugar (aka icing sugar), sifted

1/2 cup unsalted butter, RT

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 tablespoons milk

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

It had been a couple of days that I realized that the bananas on my counter were not going to be eaten. Since I hate wasting food, I decided to make a banana bread with chocolate chips. I love bananas and I love chocolate (who doesn't ?!), so the combination could only be successful in my opinion.

The recipe I followed came from the website Recettes du Québec, from a certain person named Boubouu, and it was oh so delicious. The recipe was easy to follow and quite straight forward, and at the end of it all the bread was moist, delicious and tasted just the right amount of chocolate and bananas.

Recipe:

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cups butter

3/4 cups brown sugar

2 eggs

3 or 4 over-ripe bananas

Chocolate chips, to taste (optional)

Definitely try it out if you love banana bread, or bananas and chocolate!

Shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo with Broccoli

Today I tried something new but quite simple: shrimp fettuccine alfredo with broccoli. I had seen it in a magazine and thought I would try it out. Obviously, it is just your normal fettuccine alfredo plus the added bonus of huge delicious shrimps and broccoli. I had a long day so I was excited to come home and cook this excellent meal.

Although it was quite excellent and tasty, I had one disappointment: the alfredo sauce. I didn't feel like buying the pre-made sauce so I made it from the Knorr Alfredo sauce envelope. Albeit their sauce envelopes are usually very good, this one was a miss. I followed the directions exactly but the result was a liquidy sauce at best. It think the recipe on the back calls for too much milk, thus the reason for the very liquid texture of the "alfredo sauce". It was quite a disappointment since it's what ties the whole dish together, but I was still able to appreciate the goodness of the shrimp-broccoli-fettuccine. Next time I make this dish, I will definitely buy the real stuff for the Alfredo sauce. It will be a much better outcome, of that I am sure.

Recipe:

Fettuccine pasta

Alfredo sauce

Shrimps of preference

Broccoli

Salt

Chicken Noodle Soup Deliciousness

I am a novice at making soup and as such I started searching for a simple yet tasty-looking chicken noodle soup recipe, my all time favorite soup. I found such a recipe on the website Recipes from Home Online, a website run by a mother of 10 named Florence. I rarely use spices when I cook since I did not grow up with them, and although this recipe had many I still decided to give it a try.

I was a newbie at using and mincing garlic, but I managed and threw it all in the pot along with the spices. The only sad news was that I overestimated the amount of leftover chicken I had, and as a result my "chicken" noodle soup did not have that much chicken. To compensate I added some leftover turkey, but next time I'll make sure that I have enough meat. This recipe was delicious and so easy to follow! There was a little something missing, but that's probably just salt and pepper. Apart from that, the soup was excellent and I was very proud to have made it all by myself (with the help of the wonderful recipe of course!). I will definitely be doing this recipe any time I feel like delicious chicken noodle soup, which is often. Plus, I had tons of leftovers! Miam...

Give it a try!

Recipe:

2 cups of chicken meat, cubed (Note: turkey can also be used)

2 tablespoons of olive oil

3 garlic cloves

1 large onion, chopped

1 tablespoon of dried parsley

2 medium carrots, sliced

2 celery ribs, sliced

1 teaspoon of dried thyme

1 bay leaf

8 cups of chicken broth

1 cup of egg noodles

Sea salt and pepper to taste

Welcome Food Lovers!

Welcome fellow food lovers! I have decided to create a food blog for two reasons: I love to cook and I love food. It's as simple as that. Although I am no experienced cook or even someone that has been cooking for decades, I do have a passion for cooking and perhaps even more so baking. It was always the case even when I was younger, but it developed even more this past summer as I moved out from home by myself to study in another city. Hence, I had no choice but to cook for myself, which I do not mind a bit (quite the opposite!). Since my family never really cooked with herbs, oignons, spices, and so on, I have been for a couple of months now experiencing the joy of trying many recipes that I had never done with things that we had never used at home. I have had many delicious recipes come out perfectly, all due to recipes that I gather mostly from the Food Network, from the blog Joy of Baking or from the Recettes du Québec. These are wonderful websites that I use often to find any recipe that I desire. As such, many of the recipes I will demonstrate on my blog come from these websites.

As a Grad student, it is often tempting to come home after a tiring day and make a Kraft Diner in less than 10 minutes instead of making an elaborate meal. Albeit I do like KD once in a while I usually take the time to make myself something that will take longer but will taste oh so much better. Tonight as I came home late and was very hungry, I resisted to the urge of making some KD and instead made a delicious honey-glazed chicken with Uncle Ben rice (my all-time favorite!) and boiled carrots. While my carrots were boiling, I was fiddling around last-minute to find a good recipe I could use for the boneless chicken breasts that I had. I found one that sounded quite good on Food Network from the chef Bobby Flay so I gave it a try. When I mixed in the honey and balsamic vinegar, I was doubtful that it would turn out good because the consistancy seemed too liquidy, but I still continued on with the recipe. After having cooked the chicken breasts until golden on both sides, I coated both sides with the honey glaze and continued cooking. When all was said and done, it smelled good, so I couldn't wait to taste it. To my amazement, it tasted even better! It was oh so delicious. The sweet of the honey and the acidic of the vinegar were just perfect. Mmmm. I will definitelty do this one again.

Recipe:

1/4 cup honey

3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

3-4 boneless chicken breasts*

Olive oil

Salt and pepper