Tried It Liked It Tuesday: The most amazing brussel sprouts ever!

These are good. Reeeeal good. I'm pretty sure I could eat them every single night. Yes, brussel sprouts. I didn't like this veggie until about a year ago. I just had to figure out how to prepare them and now I love them. Give them a try. Really, I think you'll love them, too!


Roasted Brussel Sprouts
adapted from Cookie + Kate

Ingredients
1 lb brussel sprouts, rinsed, tips cut off, halved
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup pecans, chopped and toasted
1/3 cup feta
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp maple syrup

Instructions

 

Preheat your broiler.

 

Set a 12-inch cast iron skillet over medium-high heat on the stove. Let it heat up for about 2-3 minutes.

 

In a medium bowl, toss the prepared brussels sprouts with about 1 tbsp olive oil and salt. Toss well, so that the sprouts are evenly coated in a thin layer of oil.

 

Put the sprouts into the pan and rearrange them so the flat sides are face down. Let them cook for about two minutes.

 

Toss the cranberries into the pan and transfer the pan to your broiler. The pan will be heavy and hot so use oven mitts for both hands (trust me, I burned my fingers when I forgot this little tidbit).

 

Let the brussel sprouts broil for about 3-5  minutes. The tops of the sprouts should be browned and the bottoms carmelized. Remove from oven, again using oven mitts.

 

Toss the brussel sprouts, cranberries, chopped pecans, and feta in a medium sized bowl. Season with salt.

 

 

 

 

I've made this several times and no two times have been alike. I've used cherries instead of cranberries, walnuts instead of pecans, and no nuts since we were out. I plan on trying this with gorgonzola soon!

Enjoy!

Tried It, Liked It Tuesday: Homemade Pesto

I love pesto. It's great on pizza, pasta, paninis...basically anything that starts with a "p." We have so much basil growing, so I looked up on Pinterest how to make your own pesto and freeze it for use later in the year. Oh, and I used my food processor for the first time. WHY did it take me 3 years to use it?! It's amazing! Here's what I did.

Homemade Pesto

adapted from The Secret Life of a Chef's Wife

Please note that I only had 2 cups of basil although the recipe called for 4 cups. Therefore, I basically divided the recipe in half.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups fresh, rinsed basil
• 1/2 cup pine nuts
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan
• 1/4  tea­spoon kosher salt
• 1/4  tea­spoon black pepper
• 1/2 tea­spoon sugar
• 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• addi­tional olive oil if needed

Directions:

Cut, rinse and dry your fresh basil. Place the basil in the food processor and pulse until basil is lightly chopped. Add in the pine nuts and garlic cloves and continue pulsing. Add in the parmesan, salt, pepper, and sugar. Finally, drizzle in the olive oil pulsing continuously. You still want the pesto to have some texture and not be completely liquidy or a pasty so don't overpulse.

Thanks to the internet and youtube, I learned how to correctly cut basil. Let me tell you, my basil grows like it is on crack. Snip off the stem of the basil where two more stems are growing out. I'm about to cut the basil directly below my fingers in this photo.

I then scooped the pesto into an ice tray to be frozen and used for another time. I'm planning on just popping out a couple of the "pesto cubes" and placing them in a ziploc bag or tupperware container to let them thaw when I'm ready to use them. Oh, and I did a little taste teste before I placed the pesto in the tray and let me just say, YUM!

Does anyone have any good recipes involving pesto? If so, please share!

Tried It, Liked It Tuesday: DIY Wood Painted American Flag

Here's a little DIY craft just in time for the 4th of July. You still have time to make this!


DIY Painted American Flag
adapted from Crafty Butt

Supplies:

• 1 rectangular piece of wood (mine was about 8x11)
• 50 star stickers
• red, white, blue spray paint (I used acrylic paint for part, but recommend spray paint)
• painters tape or masking tape
• sand paper
• tape measurer
• pencil
• primer spray paint (optional)
• paint brush (if using acrylic paint)

The How-To:

Sand the wood to help the paint stick better. If you're using primer, then spray a coat onto the wood and let it dry. Spray 1-2 coats of white paint on the piece of wood.

After the paint has dried, figure out about how wide each stripe will be. For me, each stripe ended up being about 0.6 to 0.7 of an inch (8"divided by 13 stripes). I made little pencil marks along the side. I then taped off a square for the star section of the flag. One thing to be aware of is that there are 7 shorter stripes that line up with the square with the stars and 6 longer stripes below the square. Make sure you take this into account when figuring out the size of your box for the stars. Make sense? Just look at the flag and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Start placing the star stickers into the box. I did my best to line everything up, but I didn't care too much about perfection. I did 5 rows of 6 stars first. Then, I did 4 rows of 5 stars inbetween. The pictures below show you what I did.

Next, I used the blue paint and painted right over those stars. I really do think that spray paint would be better/easier here, in which case you'd want to make sure that you cover the section where you'll be painting the stripes. Make sure you let the paint dry completely. I didn't wait long enough and when I taped the stripes down, it tore up some of the blue paint. I had to go back and fix this and it was annoying.

All right, you're almost there! Now, tape off the stripes that you want to keep white. Don't forget to protect the blue square and stars, too. This took some fenagaling of the tape because my stripes and the tape size didn't match up, but again I wasn't going for perfection. I then used my paint brush to spread on the red paint.

You can either leave your flag as is, or make your flag a little more rustic. You can choose one or all of these options. First, you can take a tea bag that has been soaking in hot water and rub it all over the flag to give a faded yellow color. Pat it dry. You can also take a hammer and hit all over the wood to add some dents and knicks. Finally, you can sand the flag to give it a more distressed look. Just make sure the paint is completely dried before doing any of these options!

Happy 4th of July!!!

Tried It, Liked It Tuesday: Sweet Orange Vinagrette

Since I have about 50 million (slight exaggeration) things pinned on Pinterest, I'm going to make an effort to actually make some of these things! If I like it, I'll share it with you.
Here's the first "Tried It, Liked It Tuesday" post. It is a variation of an orange vinagrette that I used to accompany the beet salad I made (recipe also below).

Sweet Orange Vinagrette
adapted from Taste of Home

Ingredients

1/2 cup canola oil (used olive oil instead)

1/3 cup orange juice

3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 green onion, finely chopped (didn't use because I didn't have it)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon white pepper (I used black pepper)

Directions:
Mix all ingredients together and whisk until well blended. Viola! It's seriously that easy and homemade dressings are always much tastier than store bought. This was the perfect flavor to drizzle on this tasty beet salad.

Red Cabbage and Beet Salad

Ingredients:

• red cabbage, chopped
• mixed lettuce in a bag
• 3-5 steamed and peeled beets, sliced (bought mine at Trader Joe's)
• sliced oranges
• chopped pecans
• crumbled feta

Directions:

Toss all ingredients together and drizzle with dressing of choice (possibly the sweet orange vinagrette??). Enjoy!