Breakfast Update

I'm still loving the banana smoothie/shake breakfast thing and so is the boy! My latest combination is chocolate banana: 1 cup milk, 1 frozen banana, and 1 scoop chocolate Instant Breakfast/Slim-Fast. Nice and chocolately and you get an extra boost of vitamins.

A New Breakfast Routine

As a kid I hated breakfast and as an adult I still kind of do. Don't get me wrong, I love, love, love breakfast food and eating a scrumptious breakfast on the weekend is no problem. I just can't eat food right after I wake up which poses a problem on school/work mornings when you have to get your butt out the door. I literally grew up on Instant Breakfast Shakes. Except for that period in high school where I had a Coke every morning (I know my parents were horrible right?! Or I was a lovely teenager...) I can handle some soupy oatmeal but it can't be thick at all. And now I have these yummy breakfast shakes that I'm experimenting with.

I made my first one yesterday and stuck to the recipe. It was delicious. I really loved the combination of peanut butter and cinnamon. Today I swapped the peanut butter for Nutella and omitted the cinnamon. Still yummy but the Nutella flavor isn't strong. In an effort to be more healthy I omitted the added honey/sugar the second time around and really couldn't tell. I'm thinking the next step would be to throw in some Instant Breakfast mix? The shake is pretty filling too. I had one before I left for work and wasn't hungry for lunch but still ate by regular granola/fiber bar at school and wasn't dying for my after school snack on my drive home like I normally am. So success in my book!

Banana Breakfast Shake

(from the Mother Unit)

Ingredients:
1 banana, frozen (freeze without the peel)
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon peanut butter (or Nutella!)
1 tablespoon honey (or sugar)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (I just did a couple good shakes)
Directions:
1. The night before peel a banana, wrap in plastic wrap and stick it in the freezer.
2. Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend. If you want a thicker shake you can add in a couple ice cubes.
3. Add whip cream, it's always better with whip cream.

Banana-Nutella Shake

Pumpkin! And more Pumpkin!

It's a very pumpkin weekend. Fall is here in full force in our apartment! BAM!

Apple Cider, Pumpkin Waffles topped with frozen Bourbon Pumpkin Pie Milkshake and a sweet fall tablescape. Breakfast of Awesomeness.

I have a slight obsession with leaves/trees, especially maple, which includes but is not limited to kitchen wares, jewelry, my photographs and household decorations. I just love a good leaf. And a good deal. These plates were a dollar at target three years ago. Anyway, my morning went like this:

1. Get up to make some pumpkin waffles in order to use up the leftover half can of pumpkin but wait! There's no brown sugar because someone has been sneaking it for his oatmeal and didn't tell me we were out. Alas, there is not an extra bag in my under the cupboard baking stash from BJs. And yes, I have a maple leaf shaped brown sugar bear. See the above paragraph on leaf love.

2. Next step, make your own brown sugar! Use 1 cup white sugar and 3 tablespoons molasses. It's not as sweet as store bought but it works in a pinch.

3. Set up the waffle station and get cracking! Look at that steam. I was told out apartment smelled like Christmas once I started.

4. Serve in an awesome fall fashion and eat up! I totally got brownie points for serving them up with the left over bourbon pumpkin milkshakes.

Pumpkin Waffles

(adapted from the pumpkin waffle blog)

Ingredients:
1/4 cup light brown sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup pumpkin
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Directions:

1. Mix brown sugar and cornstarch, then mix in the remaining dried ingredients.

2. Separate the egg whites and yolks. Whisk the egg whites.

3. Mix the pumpkin and milk with the yolk, then add the melted butter.

4. Add the yolk/pumpkin mixture to the dry ingredients, mix well.

5. Stir in the egg whites.

6. Heat up your waffle iron and commence making the apartment smell like Christmas!

*I halved the recipe because I only had a half can of pumpkin to use. It worked out perfectly for us and resulted in 6 cute waffles.*

Alcohol + Milkshake = Great Idea

I love fall and finally got my hands on the last two cans of pumpkin at Whole Foods. That stuff is like gold....goopy gelatinous gold. To help us get through the Phillies dismal performance I whipped up a batch of these bad boys and man oh man, after one of these I didn't care as much....or I was semi-comatosed on the couch during the 8th inning.

Bourbon Pumpkin Pie Milkshakes

(adapted from how sweet it is)

Ingredients:
2 cups vanilla ice cream
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup cream or half and half
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (or vanilla bean paste!)
2/3 cup pumpkin
1/2 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1/3 cup graham cracker crumbs
2-3 ounces of bourbon
cinnamon sugar for rimming the glasses

Directions:

1. Rim your glasses, I used our martini glasses because they don't get used enough and they looked beautiful.

2. Throw it all in the blender!

They were insanely rich. My favorite part was getting the little chunks of graham crackers. We didn't finish the whole batch so I froze it and used it to top our pumpkin waffles the following morning....because alcoholic ice cream at 8 in the morning is completely okay.
Side note: I love how dark and spooky and halloween-y this picture is.

They don't have heat delays in baseball?

It's hot, we've been social and out late, there was a dinner party. Needless to say we've been avoiding our kitchen and have relapsed into our college ways of easymac and grilled cheeses. To survive the heat I had this one night for dinner:

Butter Toffee Milkshake with Nutella Graham Crackers

I have also continued my epic baseball eating quest (Schmitters, Dollar Dogs, and Cotton Candy...Check!). The upside of Saturday's game was that I finally got some yummy crab fries. The downside was it was 100 degrees and we melted, even in the shade. Each of us had a 1.5 liter bottle of water that was consumed before the game ended. Everyone was drenched and no one had to use the bathroom (a record for me I'm sure!). 

Behold the most flattering picture of me ever! See the melty misery!

Trying to hide my sweat soaked face behind the crab fries.

In more exciting and non-food related news: Mr. Lawyer missed being hit in the head by a home run ball that bounced off the foul pole by only a foot! In fact you can see the foul pole behind me in both pictures. The lady sitting next to him grabbed it. His defense was that he was holding a Schmitter sandwich and it was a Padre ball. At least he didn't try to use me as a shield.

Bits and Pieces

I must say that I make a pretty stellar vanilla milkshake. My chocolate ones aren't half bad either. I do tend to fail with strawberry. Mr. Lawyer says my vanilla milkshakes are some of the best ones he has ever had and I'm going to decide that it's not a boyfriend lie. My secret weapon?

Vanilla Bean Paste. It really does make a difference and it's so much better than vanilla extract. Not only is the flavor amazing but it adds little specks of vanilla bean that just up the game. Plus real vanilla beans are expensive unless they magically appear in your mailbox from some mystical tropical island (Hey Sandy!). Back to the milkshake. I have no exact recipe and wing it. It really depends on my mood. Sometimes you want a thick slurpy milkshake that requires a spoon and sometimes you want a smooth one that you can drink through a straw in 10 seconds so the milk to ice cream ratio varies. The good thing is that milkshakes are very forgiving you can add more milk/ice cream to fix it and not only do you reach your desired consistency but you also have more milkshake (and how is that a bad thing?!) I always add a good dollop of Vanilla Bean Paste. It's always awesome.

Vanilla Milkshakes

(the kitchen of Jenni)

Ingredients:
Vanilla Ice Cream
Milk
Vanilla Bean Paste
Directions:
1. Add your desired amount of ice cream and milk to blender and blend.
2. Blend in a good dollop of vanilla bean paste.
3. Enjoy one amazing milkshake.

I whipped up some vanilla milkshakes last night for our impromptu gathering and sous chef Amanda plated Nutella Graham Crackers (because Nutella is always a good idea). Now Nutella Graham Crackers tastes an awful lot like s'mores. Then Amanda made the amazing decision to dunk them into the milkshakes. S'more heaven.

And that's why we didn't have dinner last night.

Girl's Night In!

With Mr. Lawyer out of town Amanda and I decided to have a totally out of control girl's night complete with fancy martinis, ice cream sundaes/milkshakes, a wonderful tv show and....college basketball (which Amanda watched just for me so thanks! Also, boooooo SU! So sad.). We are also working our way through all of Trader Joe's frozen appetizers which we seem to have at all of our gatherings. This time we had Chicken Shu Mai (dumplings) and a four cheese flatbread (we have also had the mushroom and truffle flatbread, crab cakes, and the spanakopita). We had an insane amount of toppings for the ice cream but best of all were the espresso martinis! Even though I didn't have any coffee beans to use as garnish which totally ruined the night! Ha. So they weren't that pretty but SU was stressing me out.

Espresso Martinis

(Serves 2)

Ingredients:
7 oz vodka (Stoli coffee-flavoured vodka is a good choice)
1/2 oz Kahlua
1/2 oz espresso
4 coffee beans, for garnish
Directions:
1. In a cocktail shaker, shake vodka with crushed ice for about 30 seconds.
2. Add Kahlua and espresso and give another couple of shakes to combine. Let stand for a minute, to fully chill through.
3. Strain into 2 chilled martini glasses, and add 2 coffee beans to each glass.

The following pictures were taken by Amanda!

Garnishing the martini glasses

Our Trader Joe's Dumplings

Holy Toppings! (I took this one)

And my evil milkshake with glowing red demon eyes. It was delicious.