Taras Kitchen Online Blog

Recipes for Game Day

taraskitchenonline — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:57:31 +0000

Who is going to win this year’s 2012 bowl? Four teams remain on the road to the Super Bowl. Let’s see how the Patriots, Niners, Ravens and Giants play their way to the championship! While we are at it lets also get into the Game-Day spirit with winning game day recipes.

Here are some of my favs that I love to make for my game day get together:

For other great game day recipes visit these sites:

We all know that Super Bowl Sunday is not just about the game –but it’s also about the food.

Though most game day dishes are super unhealthy, but oh so damn good, there is hope yet.

Here are some of my favorite Super Bowl friendly recipes with a better for you spin on the bad for you classics, that you can’t do without!

Healthy Super Bowl Dishes

Healthy Super Bowl Appetizers/ Sides

For more, healthier ideas visit these sites:

Enjoy!

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Filed under: Cooking, Game Day Recipes, Recipes, Sides Tagged: game day foods, game day party, game day potluck, Game Day Recipes, healthy game day recipes, superbowl recipes

Nutella Hot Chocolate

taraskitchenonline — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:00:10 +0000

So its been snowing up in Seattle, blizzard style but not really. Just seems like a blizzard because we are not used to it here in the NorthWest. Lot’s of working from home days this week, which I love and also which drives me crazy being stuck in the house. While I am working and being stuck I was thinking of what kind of beverage would be great today. I had coffee at 5:30 am and that did nothing for me. Then went to my 1st love, tea with milk and sparkly blue and purple sugar and that was surprisingly not hitting the spot. Then I thought hot chocolate…thats it! But when I looked for some, I ran out of swiss miss so decided to make a homemade version. I was reaching for the powdered cocoa and then I saw the bottle of Nutella and then it was all over!

I had never tried to make it before and didn’t have a recipe in any of my books so I just winged it. And Oh My Goodness… it’s freaking GOOD.

Custom flavored just perfect for me heaven in a glass mug! YUM!

Here’s the scoop:

Nutella Hot Chocolate

Ingredients

1 cup milk (2%)
2 1/2 TBSP Nutella
1 TBSP Cocoa
Sm pinch of salt

Directions for Cocoa

In a small sauce pan over medium heat, whisk all ingredients together until well blended and hot.
Pour in a cup and top with homemade whipped cream and a sprinkle of cocoa.

Homemade whipped cream

1 CUP heavy whipping cream
1/2 TSP caramel sauce or enough to slightly flavor/sweeten the whipped cream

You can use the mixer or whip by hand. I choose to mix by hand.

In Mixer: Pour all ingredients into a bowl and start to beat. Start off on low and gradually work your way up to high until whipped cream consistency.

By Hand: Place all ingredients into a bowl and whisk with a wire whisk. Continue to whip until whipped cream consistency.

Filed under: Beverages, Desserts, Holiday & Parties, Recipes Tagged: hot cocoa, hot drinks, nutella, nutella hot chocolate, whipped cream, winter drinks

2 for 1: Orange Cranberry Scones and Parmesan Scones

taraskitchenonline — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:57:52 +0000

Seriously delicious, very soft and perfect with tea!

I woke up super early because I couldn’t sleep (too many things on my mind) and well I was dreaming about having scones for breakfast. In fact I walked 10 miles in the snow to get it… well no, not really it was 2.1 miles but it felt like 10 since it was soooo cold and far!

I usually like to make two separate batches. One of savory and one batch of sweet scones. Today I just made one batch and split it in half. Really I would usually take the rest of the surplus scones to work but since I am rather snowed in, one batch seemed plenty. One half was orange cranberry scones and the other was freshly grated parmesan cheese scones. Both equally mouth-watering.

I adapted the recipe from the CIA’s Cream Scone recipe.

Ingredients (Makes approx 20 small or 16 large scones)

3 cups flour

½ cup sugar

2 tablespoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup of cranberries (halved)

2 tablespoons of orange zest (or in my case I couldn’t find said zester so I thinly sliced some of the peel)

1 cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese (use more or less for your taste)

2 tablespoons milk

Directions

Cut two 10-inch circles of parchment or waxed paper. Use one to line a 10-inch round cake pan. Reserve the second piece.

Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together into a mixing bowl. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. Add the cream to the flour mixture and stir by hand just until the batter is evenly moistened.

At this point I divided the dough into two mixing bowls. In one bowl I added the cranberries and orange zest and the other I added the fresh parmesan. mix both until it form a ball.

Flour your hands a little and place the dough into the lined cake pan and press into an even layer. Cover the dough with the second parchment paper circle. Freeze the dough until very firm, at least 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Prepare a baking sheet by spraying it lightly with cooking spray or lining with parchment paper.

Thaw the dough for 5 minutes at room temperature; turn it out of the cake pan onto a cutting board. Cut the dough into 10 equal wedges and place them on the baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Brush the scones with milk and sprinkle with the sugar (optional).

Bake the scones until golden brown, 30–40 minutes.

Cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes then transfer to cooling racks.

Serve the scones warm and with tea!

My other Variations:

Dried Cranberry Orange Scones Add one cup of dried cranberries, orange zest to the dry ingredients just before blending in the cream. Follow the remaining method as stated above.

Ham, Cheddar, and Scallion Scones Add one cup of medium-dice ham, one-half cup of medium dice Cheddar cheese or I use english cheddar (yum!), one-half cup of sliced scallions to the dry ingredients just before blending in the cream. Follow the remaining method as stated above.

Tara’s tip: Freezing the dough for longer, say 12 hours, seems to make them fluffier. Not sure why but its seems to be the case everytime.

Filed under: Baking, Breads, Holiday & Parties, Holiday Menus, Mother's Day, Recipes Tagged: cranberry and orange scones, parmesan scones, scones, tea and scones, tea breads

My 2012 Resolutions…

taraskitchenonline — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 07:59:34 +0000

Resolutions…

Tis the season for making and then inevitably breaking well-intentioned promises to get in better shape, eat healthier, and stop procrastinating (my biggest one). So what is the key to succeeding? I’d say baby steps and to think small.

Here are my Top 5 resolutions…

Eat more veggies and drink MORE water. I started ordering from an organic service a few years in hopes to get more fruits and veggies in my life. I usually have it delivered every other week and although its been great! It feels much like one of those Iron Chef competitions. You don’t really know what you are going to get and then are challenged to cook with it. I like it! I used to get by on half a cup of water (plain glass of water) a day or even a week. However, I do drink coffee, tea, ice tea, chai tea and oh, did I mention tea? This year I made a great start and I get in about 2 glasses a day which is a huge improvement for me but not nearly enough to be healthy. I will say that one of those cups, I end up spilling on my work desk, so maybe its more like a cup and a half. This year my goal is 4 cups a day (with no spillage) in addition to my mandatory tea and less coffee.

Add more cardio. There was a time when I was dancing (ballroom) 4-5 times a week to get some cardio in, then with the economy the way it was, not having a vehicle at present, cut backs were made. I’m thinking I’ll be adding some free alternatives like walking for 30 mins to an hour a few times a week and then maybe to once a day. A few years ago, I started adding 5k races to my cardio events. Just like last year, Ill make a goal of completing 3 by years end. I also want to ease back into dancing a few times a week versus last year once a week.

Limit procrastinating. My middle name! Those who know me, know me to be a super busy person with an insane social schedule. Once I put something on my calendar then I am pretty good about following through. So where is the procrastination issue? It’s mainly in the areas of things that I need to do for myself like sorting my place, old un-needing things and generally taking care of things that should be done. I want this to be the year I organize myself and things that have been falling through the cracks so I will be adding my own things to my social calendar and creating deadlines for myself help get me in order. By doing this I will be able to enjoy more baking, teaching classes and so much more! The first step will be to schedule more downtime to be able to have time to organize myself which I think was much of the issue!

Get more sleep. There really is not enough time in the day but in keeping up with the above resolution this will be key for me. I have been getting more sleep ( 6-7 hours a night) a few nights a week and it really improves my mood and productivity. The days of 4 hour nights are hard to let go of but I have seen the results so it helps.

Stop stressing. For many of us last year was a year or non-stop stressing for a variety of things with work, health and financial among the top items. As the year came to a close I began to seek out things that could help me with de-stressing. Some things I found to work was taking 5 minutes to sit and breathe in and out in slow steady breaths when I found myself amped up. Although this might be a good exercise to do daily when you wake up. Another of my favorite de-stress routines includes meditating. Although, I seem to only manage to get this in once a week, this lil bit helps me heaps! I can’t even imagine what daily meditating for 15 minutes would do for me! Whatever this year brings to my life I know I am armed with some great tools/options for keeping on top of stress.

There are a couple more that Id like to add but think it just might be too great to take on at the moment and those are cutting back on carbs and less Starbucks. It’s all about thinking small and taking baby steps to the changes we want to succeed at. However, we will see how I do.

Whatever your resolutions for the new year 2012? I wish you good luck in your adventures!

-Tara

Filed under: General Tagged: new years resolutions

What’s New for 2012?

taraskitchenonline — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:03:25 +0000

How are you ringing in the New Year?

Filed under: General Tagged: New years eve, new years resolutions

Cookies Across America – Cookie Decorating for Charity

taraskitchenonline — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 23:00:38 +0000

Cookie Lovers Unite! Make a difference by baking cookies.

In December 2010, Allrecipes.com launched Cookies Across America to encourage our community of home cooks to bake and share cookies with people in need. On 12/10/11, I was fortunate enough to be invited to a cookie decorating event for charity.

Allrecipes.com Headquarters in Westlake Center hosted a Cookies Decorating party on Saturday, December 10th, 2011 from 10am-12pm, inviting the Allrecipes.com community, local bloggers, and cookie lovers, to drop in and decorate cookies that was donated to the Pikes Place Senior Center. This event was geared for all who want to give back by spreading a little Christmas cheer this holiday. season.

Early Saturday morning I headed down to Seattle near Westlake to AllRecipes.com HQ. When I arrived I was greeted by the organizer Ivory and given instructions on how to proceed. Cookies were laid out (4 per person) and ready for us, along with Hot Cocoa and treats to nibble on. All the tables had icing tools and sprinkles of all sorts to decorate your cookies with. When I arrived it was quite busy with a troop of girl scouts and other folks and family and friends. I found an empty seat next to a couple of cookie decorators and went to town.

The hosts were walking around making sure there were plenty of icing and supplies and were nice enough to give us extra cookies to decorate if we finished our set. I think I ended up decorating 2 dozen cookies by the time I finished as they kept bringing me more and more.

It was a fun time, meeting and chatting with new folks and decorating cookies for a good cause. I hope to be invited back next year!

To learn more about Cookies Across America and participate visit… http://allrecipes.com/features/cookies-across-america/

Check out some of my photos from the event:

Click to view slideshow.
Filed under: Baking, Cookies, Holiday & Parties Tagged: cookies accross america

Cookie Exchanges -2011

taraskitchenonline — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:55:57 +0000

Cookies (baking and eating) are one of the most favorite Holiday traditions among families. It is also quite a lot of work to bake and decorate them. And if you are like me, one who makes about 12 different types of cookies, it’s a multiple week-long process. December is usually very busy for me baking up dozens of yummy treats to share with family and friends.

This year though, I had a buffet of other Holiday events, I had to trim down my Cookie To-Do list to accommodate everything. I managed to only attend/host two Cookie Exchanges, teach three cookie decorating classes and bake only six different types of cookies. I am sure this sounds like a lot going on but it’s very much a slim down version of my usual schedule.

I do love cookie exchanges as it allows me to share my cookies and also taste some amazing cookies I may not have had before, or would try normally. Plus you get to take home a variety of cookies! Who can complain about that?!?!? Not I!

This year I made traditional decorated sugar cookies for both exchanges.

Let’s visit this years cookie exchange events…

Cookie Exchange #1 – The Work Cookie Exchange

I was so very excited when I heard that there was going to be one at work. I had heard that we had a lot of wonderful bakers at work and was looking forward to the sampling. When the group got together, I was very surprised that we had zero duplicates of cookies and there were 12 of us. Everyone did such a fantastic job with the variety of bar cookies, traditional cookies and creative ingredient cookies. I sampled every one and can honestly say I loved every single one! This rarely happens. Someone even made a date cookie and I absolutely do not like dates. However this cookie bar was a perfect balance of cookie and dates (not overwhelming) which really made me reconsider dates and possibly figs in general.

Tara's Sugar Cookies

Cookie Exchange #2 - My Baking Group Cookie Exchange

I organize a Holiday baking group with Meet-up.com and I usually hold an annual cookie exchange. This year was the 3rd one. Again, variety of cookies, whats not to love right? This year was my favorite one to date. Not only did we have a great variety the socializing, exchange of cookie tips and horror stories and other chat was just a riot. I usually host these at my home but this year I held it at a local Starbucks that had a meeting space available to the public. Coffee and cookies… YUM!

The unique thing about this cookie exchange is that I also set-up a table filled with frosting cookies and decorating tools so that participants could decorate cookies. These cookies would be taken to a local shelter, senior home or church. I believe there is something special about receiving baked items especially when it is a surprise and not expected. I wanted to pass this feeling on to others.

Click to view slideshow.

For recipes or questions about any of the items posted, please send me an email at tara@taraskitchenonline.com.

Happy Holidays!

-Tara

Filed under: Baking, Cookies, Desserts Tagged: cookie exchange, cookie exchanges, decorated sugar cookies, Holiday Cookie exchange, holiday traditions

Holiday Baking time

taraskitchenonline — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:25:49 +0000

Cookies, Cookies, Cookies!

The baking has started! Yay!

I never get tired of baking up cookies and treats or decorating them. It’s always so much fun and relaxing for me. However, I won’t lie, its definitely a lot of work but that is a minor side effect of baking for me.

I am really looking forward to baking and giving cookies & treats as gifts this year. I have a few new recipes to try out. Stay tuned for more about it and recipes to go with it.

I am also hosting my annual Holiday cookie exchange this weekend. I absolutely love tasting and recieving homemade cookies from other bakers. I can’t wait!

Do you give baked treats for the Holidays or are you attending a cookie exchange this year? Something new this year, I am making and decorating cookie for a cause with AllRecipes.com and Taste of Home. (more info on that coming soon)

What are YOUR top three favorites to bake up?

-Tara

Filed under: Baking, Cookies, Holiday & Parties, Holiday Menus Tagged: cookie exchange, cookies, holiday baking, holiday cookie, holiday cookies, homemade cookies, taste of home

Holiday Dinner Menus

taraskitchenonline — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 05:44:50 +0000

Holidays are a time for getting together with family, loved ones and friends. This usually revolves around some kind of meal whether it is breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner.

Here are a few examples of Holiday Menus that are most popular.

Healthy Christmas Recipes (click for recipes)

Horseradish-Crusted Beef Tenderloin
Rack of Lamb with Warm Apple & Lentil Salad
Roast Pork Tenderloin with Prunes
Slow-Cooked Povençal Beef Stew
Winter Squash Risotto
Game Hens with Brussels Sprouts & Chestnuts
Spiral Stuffed Turkey Breast with Cider Gravy
Roasted Fall Vegetables in Cheddar Crust
Vermont Cheddar Mashed Yukon Golds
Citrus Ginger Cake with Spiced Orange Compote

Traditional Menu

Honey Glazed Ham
Parker House Rolls
Christmas Cookies
Green Bean Casserole
Mashed Potatoes
Apple Pie
Pumpkin Pie
Roast Turkey
Candied Yams
Cranberry Sauce

Soul Food Christmas Menu

Honey Baked Ham
Collard Greens
Macaroni and Cheese
Potato Salad
Corn Bread Dressing
Giblet Gravy
Candied Yams
Sweet Potato Pie
Red Velvet Cake
Pecan Pie

Christmas Brunch

Cheese Strata with Ham and Tomatoes
Baked Ham with Spiced Apples and Pears
French Toast
Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese Frittata
Petits Pains au Chocolat
Dutch Babys/Oven Pancakes
Sour Cream Coffee Cake
Pumpkin Spice Bread
Strata with Spinach and Gruyère
Champagne Cocktail

Vegetarian Christmas

Mulled Cider
Bruschetta with Caponata
Mushroom Soup with Chestnuts and Roasted Fennel
Herb Cheese-Stuffed and Fried Eggplant “Steaks” with Braised Radicchio, Fennel, and Escarole
Butternut Squash, Apple and Onion Galette with Stilton
Roasted Red Onions with Butter, Honey, and Balsamic Vinegar
Rice Pudding with Vanilla Bean, Orange and Rum

Filed under: Holiday & Parties, Holiday Menus, Recipes Tagged: Christmas Brunch, christmas dinner, christmas dinner recipes, christmas recipes, healthy christmas dinner menu, holiday dinner menus, Recipes, Soul Food Christmas Menu, traditional christmas menu, vegetarian christmas menu

Top 10 Thanksgiving Cookbooks

taraskitchenonline — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:00:20 +0000

It is that time of the year again for family and friend gatherings starring your favorite fall ingredient of turkeys, cranberry sauce, stuffing or succotash. The million dollar question…What to make for this year’s Thanksgiving dinner? Even though the Turkey day has his traditional dishes, I am always on the hunt for the perfect addition to the already perfect menu of Turkey, Stuffing, Breads, Pies, Veggies and oh I need to stop here I am drooling thinking about it all. I have read through many Turkey day cookbooks and have found a few that have great recipes in them and I am happy to share them with you.

My Top List of Thanksgiving Cookbooks to date.

TKOnline’s TOP 10 Thanksgiving Cookbooks

1. Thanksgiving: Festive Recipes for the Holiday Table

2. Thanksgiving 101: Celebrate America’s Favorite Holiday

3. The Thanksgiving Table: Recipes and Ideas to Create Your Own Holiday Tradition

4. How to Cook a Turkey: *And All the Other Trimmings

5. Betty Crocker Complete Thanksgiving Cookbook

6. How To Cook a Cheap and Easy Thanksgiving Dinner

7. Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving Recipes and History, from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie

8. Vegetarian Times Complete Thanksgiving Cookbook

9. How to Cook the Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner

10. Thanksgiving & Christmas: Top 200 Recipes (Allrecipes Tried & True)

Click Here to see more Thanksgiving cookbooks or visit BuyCookbooksOnline for more cookbooks.

If you have a book you’d like to recommend for great Thanksgiving recipes please send me an email!

Filed under: Fall, General, Recipes, Thanksgiving Tagged: thanksgiving cookbooks, thanksgiving meal, TOP 10 Thanksgiving Cookbooks