Cookies on a rainy day...

This long weekend has been awful. It's been cold and wet all weekend. I watched about two seasons of Gilmore Girls and ate a lot of junk food which was fine with me. I made some popcorn last night and ended up eating two hand fulls and forgetting about it. I didn't want to waste it so I decided to make cookies and put the popcorn in. I didn't have much cookie stuff kicking around so I made due with what was around. My moms boyfriend gave her a bunch of pecans and my auntie gave us some Kisses that I used instead of chocolate chip cookies which I didn't have.

Here is a recipe I found online that I kind of followed:

www.tasteofhome.com

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch salt
• 2 cups popped popcorn, lightly crushed
• 1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

• In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; gradually add to the creamed mixture. Stir in the popcorn, chocolate chips and pecans.
• Drop by tablespoonfuls 2 in. apart onto greased baking sheets. Bake at 350° for 13-14 minutes or until golden brown. Remove to wire racks to cool. Yield: 2-1/2 dozen.

I also had some other random chocolate kicking around so I melted it down and threw it on top. The chocolate ended up having caramel in the center so it didn't melt very nicely but it still tasted good!

-Marielle

New food

Hey I haven't really been cooking that much lately and I've been sick so I haven't been in the mood to write about anything. Thankfully the past two day have been kind of productive. I wrote two recipes for the website I write for Girl About Town. Here is what you can expect to see in the next few months!

Tangy fruit and nut quinoa

Oatmeal banana and blueberry pancakes(Already shown in previous entries)

Blue cheese burger and coconut mango burger.(Already shown in previous entries)

Cast iron skillet breakfast

I hope you all get a change to check them out! Enjoy!

-Marielle

Pizza? Again?

Yes! Pizza again! For someone who isn't a huge fan of it, I've been craving it a lot. I've been thinking about making a pizza with beets and sweet potatoes so I decided to just do it already.

I started with an herb oil. You can add any herbs to this but I added basil, rosemary, thyme, savory and also garlic, salt and pepper. Add enough that it gets a little thick in consistency. 

You can use any kind of root vegetable but I used a beet, carrot and sweet potato. 

The ideal way to slice these vegetables thin would be a mandolin but not everyone has one. I have a really old grater that has a fixture for it that can slice vegetables thinly and fast so that is what I used. I know some triangle graters are able to do that as well so that might be your best bet. 

I places everything pretty far apart but I suggest laying everything down pretty close together so you can get a good thick layer on the dough.

I had pre-made crusts which made it really easy for me to make. I put it in the over for 15min at 425F
Before putting the pizza in the oven drizzle a little olive oil on it and season with salt and pepper.

Butter the edges, drizzle balsamic reduction on top and grate a little parm on there too. Then you're set! 

I ate half of this pizza as I was editing pictures so you can bet that it was pretty good. 

-Marielle

Make Do With What You Have

I'm not a huge fan of pizza from pizza places but I love pizza that I make at home... not to toot my own horn. I think the main reason I don't like pizza from delivery places is because they always put way too much sauce and cheese on them.
I love making pizza at home with pretty much whatever I have in the fridge. No tomato sauce? No cheese? No big deal.

Tonight I made a pizza with BBQ sauce, shredded carrots, spinach, mushrooms, garlic, a LITTLE bit of cheese, pepperoni, balsamic reduction and s&p. It was awesome!

What do you put on your pizza when you make it at home?

-Marielle

Bacon on a cupcake. SERIOUSLY!

I have to say that cooking is my favorite thing to do BUT I do also like baking a little. The only thing I don't like about it is that you have to be so exact with certain things otherwise things can go really wrong. Honestly.. I think either baking SODA or baking POWDER should change their names. It can sometimes make things confusing especially when you read recipes fast(woops).

About once every few months I go on these big baking marathons but recently they have been more frequent which seems to be fine with my family. It's good that I live with people to eat it all. Tonight was by far my longest. I made one dozen muffins, two dozen cupcakes and 47 cookies. It's half I didn't want to go to sleep and half that we need baking around the house because it's the holidays!

This is a cupcake I decided to make tonight. It is a chocolate cayenne cupcake with cayenne glaze and candied bacon on top. The recipe will be on Girl About Town next month.

Oatmeal, cranberry, raisin and sun flower seed cookie and raisin and banana muffin. Both of these can be found on Google.

All the cookies.

Cupcakes and muffins

The whole batch.

What do you like to bake?

-Marielle

Remembering my favorite meals

Growing up in a Japanese family we often went out for Japanese food, had it at Winnipeg's Japanese Cultural Center and my favorite was New Years day. New Years day my dad's side of the family would get together and eat tuna sashimi, inari, futomaki, vegetable tempura, teriyaki chicken and chowmein. It was probably my favorite meal besides my grandma Sasaki's Christmas dinner.

The last one we had a few years ago was out of this world. In Sasaki tradition we of course had WAY too much food. Here are some pictures from that night.

My uncle Chris cutting the tuna for sashimi.

My uncle Les making the inari.

Me making maki.

All the rolls.

My auntie Sandy's beautiful setup. 

Another view of the table.

My uncle Ian set up the sake.

My uncle Chris also made soba.

Inari and rolls together.

I believe my dad made the chicken.

The whole family together. From right to left: Auntie Lee, late uncle Fred, uncle Chris, uncle Les, uncle Ian, sister Danielle, cousin Cam, Dad and myself. I believe my auntie Sandy is taking the picture.

What was your favorite family meal while growing up?

-Marielle

Girl About Town

Hey guys! I have been doing a lot of cooking for a website called Girl About Town that is going to launch VERY soon. I'll put up some pictures and then when the website starts up you can get the recipes there. Enjoy!

Click the pictures to see the larger versions.

Donburi 

Roasted Vegetable Pizza

Thai Peanut Stir Fry with Noodles

Roasted Walnut and Fruit Pancakes

Yam and Roasted Vegetable Mash

Chili

Corn Chowder

Gaucamole Bites

Brown Butter Mushroom, Thyme and Feta Pasta

Broccoli, Parsley and Carrot Coleslaw 

BBQ Roasted Potates

Enjoy!

-Marielle