Sundried Tomato Basil Bread

I have been searching the world over for the perfect tomato basil bread. This one, cold very well be it. It's been a lengthy process to make this bread and it was well worth it. To get the best taste of tomato I opted for dehydrating tomatoes instead of buying sun dried tomatoes. It has been a full day affair but my house smells yummy and the bread.. oh divine!

Sundried Tomato Basil Bread

• Prep Time: 2 hrs
• Total Time: 2 hrs 15 min
• Serving Size: 1 8 x 4-inch loaf

Ingredients

• 1 cup warm water
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 1/2 tbsp chopped dried basil
• 1/2 cup chopped sundried tomatoes
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

Directions

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water in the bowl of stand mixer. Add 2 cups of the flour and all other ingredients to the batter and mix with dough hook until just combined.
2. Add remaining flour a little bit at a time until dough no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl.
3. Remove dough from bowl and place in a clean, lightly-greased bowl, cover and let rise until doubled. This will take approximately 1 hour.
4. Punch down risen dough and shape into an oval, stretching from the top of the loaf to underneath the bottom. Place shaped loaf in a lightly-greased 8 x 4-inch loaf pan, cover and let rise until doubled. (about 30 minutes.)
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Bake 15-20 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely on a wire rack before slicing.

'A boy broke my heart last night.. again' Smoothie

My friends are not going to be surprised that this same boy broke my heart again. It happens so often its almost sad. I wish he could just wake up and decide that this is where he belongs, but that would just be too easy. So I woke up in a funk and I am determined to not eat cookies and brownies and ice cream all day. I'm trying to lose weight and even though I am sure I will be baking a batch of something sweet later today, I need to still keep my focus.

Enter my breakfast today. Sweet sweet smoothie. I almost reached for the processed breakfast sandwich in my freezer but then I was like, NAH! Grabbed my chocolate protein, a banana, and an orange and made some tasty beverage.  The orange you can either do one of two things with: peel and blend or peel and juice. All depends on whether you like pulp or not. I have never been a fan of pulp so I busted out my juicer. For those of you who don't have a juicer, there is nothing quite like freshly juiced vegetables and fruits. You will find yourself avoiding buying juices after a while because its much tastier to have a natural fruit or vegetable juice without added sugar and ingredients you cant pronounce.

Anyway, it's a tastier treat and is hitting my chocolate craving. Just what the doctor ordered.

Chocolate Banana and Orange Smoothie
aka 'A boy broke my heart last night... again' Smoothie

Ingredients

• 1 banana
• 1 medium orange
• 1 scoop chocolate protein powder
• 1 cup water 

Option 1

1. Add water and banana to blender and blend. While blending, pour in protein powder.
2. Peel and juice orange with juice. Add juice to blender. Blend well and drink. 

Option 2

1. Add water, peeled orange, and banana to blender and blend. While blending, pour in protein powder.
2. Drink.

Minty Chippy Blondies

I had a super hankering for blond brownies (aka blondies) yesterday. I also found this bag of mint chocolate chips in my cabinet and decided to combine the two. Unfortunately I was not able to get a super great picture because when I tried to remove my blondies from the pan, they kinda fell apart and stuff because I was to excited and didn't let them cool enough or whatever. You get the idea.

Make them for yourself and you will know. Oh you will know the wonderfully delissshhhness that is blondies.

Minty Chippy Blondies

Ingredients

• 6 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup of mint chocolate chips (or you can substitute regular chips, butterscotch, or whatever flips your lid)

1. In a  large mixing bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well. Beat in vanilla. 
2. Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Gradually add to the creamed mixture until blended. Stir in chocolate chips
3. Spread into a greased 11x7 baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Beef and Spinach Lasagna

Excuse the terrible cell phone food porn. I wish my camera was not missing. I am totally obsessed with this lasagna. OBSESSED! I went back and forth between what I wanted to have for dinner. Whether I should order out or just make this lasagna. I decided on making lasagna and I am so glad that I did. I totally was craving this. You know when you have a bad day and you are just craving a comfort food. This day, this food. Spot, hit. Haha. Sorry I'm so corny. I'm sharing the 'diet' version of the lasagna. I didn't make the 'diet' version this time. So feel free to do the 'diet' lasagna or not. Either way its yummy noms.

Beef and Spinach Lasagna

Ingredients

• 1 lb lean ground beef
• 1 medium onion chopped
• 2 jars of 26oz meatless spaghetti sauce
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 package (10oz) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dried
• 2 cups ricotta cheese
• 2 cups (8oz) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese, divided
• 9 no cook lasagna noodles

1. In a large skillet, cook the beef and onion until meat is browned. Drain.
2. Stir in the spaghetti sauce, garlic, oregano, and basil. Bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer 10 minutes.
3. In a large bowl, combine spinach, ricotta, and 1 cup mozzarella.
4. Spread a thin layer of meat sauce in a greased 13x9 baking dish. Top sauce with 3 noodles. Spread layer of sauce over noodles and spread to cover noodles. Layer with half of the spinach mixture. Repeat layers. Top with remaining noodles, sauce, and mozzarella.
5. Cover and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until bubbly. Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting.

Serves 12
Nutrition Facts: 1 piece equals 281 calories, 11g fat (6g saturated fat), 50mg cholesterol, 702mg sodium, 26g carbohydrate, 3g fiber, 20g protein.

Recipe and Nutrition Information from The Comfort Food Diet

Knit Night

Tonight I went to my first knit night, a 3 hour knitting affair in *gasp* public. Honestly, it went quite well. Of course it has been well over 2 years since I have knitted anything more than a scarf so my stirrup sock pattern looked like mumbo jumbo to me. Luckily there were plenty of people willing to help re-teach me purling and such. I am such a noob its silly. I somehow found it to be so relaxing, even though I stitched and un-stitched the same 3 rows for almost 3 hours. (Why yes I had a long day at work...) But I finally ended the evening with my socks hem complete and two rows into the neck of the sock. Success!
Don't shake your head! Haha!

I hadn't been into the yarn store ever and was impressed. I pass it frequently as its relatively close to my long term ex boyfriends parents/his house. I of course fell in love with these expensive skeins of yarn. Oh so beautiful. I would love to just buy a $42 skein of hand dyed, multitexture, multifabric, multiawesome yarn and make a $42 scarf. I'd wear it every day. Truly. There was this one skein I held most of the night because I wanted it so bad. It reminded me terribly of India in that way that only a textile can bring you back to a fond memory. Pay day is Friday. I have a feeling I will be making a $42 scarf soon. Even if its just for the memories I will make and remember each time I look at it.

Oh I am SUCH an emotional train wreck. And I mean that in the best way possible...

Ginger-Carrot Soup

If you don't care for ginger and don't really like carrots, you might want to stop reading now.

Tonight I decided I needed a soup. One I haven't enjoyed in a long time. Enter ginger-carrot soup. The ingredients listed below are as the recipe calls for them. I have a bad habit of never measuring things for soups or stews. I usually just grab 2.5lbs of carrots, 1/2 a large onion, and 2inches of ginger root. Tonight I also substituted the vegetable broth with chicken broth because it was all I had and I was entirely to tired to run to the store. I truly tasted no difference. Also I omitted the sour cream topping because I didn't feel it was entirely necessary, and my lazy butt didn't have any. =]

This is such an easy soup to make and it reheats well. So I doubled the recipe and I'm freezing 3/4 of it. Since I am a single lady, I do this with a lot of stuff so I essentially have a freezer full of frozen foods I can reheat whenever. Cheaper than frozen dinners, healthier, and tastier too.

CAUTION: When you are blending, please please please be careful. If your blender doesn't seal well and you don't wait a little bit for your mixture to cool you might have an explosion of gingery carrot goodness all over your kitchen! Since I doubled my batch, when I got to the second blender-full I got lazy and didn't wait for my mixture to cool a little bit before attempting to overfill my blender. So even though my blender has a great seal, I made a mess.

Ginger-Carrot Soup

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 cup yellow or white onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoons ginger, peeled and grated
• 3 1/2 cups carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, ground
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Reduced fat sour cream and chopped green onions for topping (optional)

 

Directions

1. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook until tender and translucent. Add grated ginger and cook until fragrant.
2. Add carrots, broth, nutmeg and salt and bring to a boil.
3. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook 15 minutes or until carrots are fork-tender. 
4. Allow mixture to cool approximately 5 minutes. Carefully pour (or spoon) mixture into a blender and puree, adding water as needed to thin the mixture.
5. Pour soup into serving bowls and top with a dollop of sour cream or yogurt and chopped green onions, if desired.

Happy Birthday to me..

Yesterday was my 25th birthday. Yay! I had a surprisingly relaxing and good day. I got to go out to eat at one of my favorite Italian restaurants and completely pig out. Unfortunately, my blackberry decided this would be a good time to go on the fritz. I had to upgrade the operating system and lost ALL contacts that I had been collecting for the past 10years. I am super bummed out about this. Actually I am still in shock and disbelief. In any event, I have no ones contact information anymore. So please feel free to email me your contact information to: creationsbycate@gmail.com

I am asking for emails not texts because I think I am finally going to make the switch from my blackberry bold 9700 to an iphone 4S and I don't want to lose my contacts twice.

Thanks!

Green Smoothies?

I'm not sure how many of you have heard about green smoothies/drinks but I am a pretty big fan. I never thought I would be because honestly, I don't like to eat my greens. I'll admit it. For the longest time you couldn't pay me to eat lettuce unless it was buried in a cheeseburger or drenched in Caesar salad dressing and cheese. But the older I get the more I seem to change my taste buds and food choices. I also seem to be having a terrific time keeping my weight at a reasonable number. Its unfortunate that I can no longer eat all the junk food I want and not gain a pound.

Right now my weight has peeked again. I'm at that point where I'm not the heaviest I've ever been but my current pants are getting tighter and I am refusing to go up a size. Down is the only direction my pants need to go. So I decided to get back into the only thing that seemed to help me, adding more greens to my diet. I am not the type of person who likes to sit there and enjoy a salad. I have never been that way. Maybe it's because I'm a New Englander and everything has got to be faster paced. Or maybe it's because I'm always on the road. Either way, liquifying my greens makes them easier and faster for me to consume. And I definitely consume more in a smoothie than I would in a salad.

I first started doing green smoothies when I was on a huge semi vegetarian raw vegan sort of kick. (If you are ever interested in exploring that lifestyle more thoroughly I highly recommend reading Living Raw Food by Sarma Melngailis. Truly delightful.) Obviously I have come to terms with the fact that I can not devote myself entirely to that lifestyle because I love to nom on chicken and beef. But I can incorporate elements into my life. The Green Smoothie is one of the things I am going to work to incorporate into my diet more. It's surprisingly filling, tasty, and gives me the extra boost of energy to get through the day. Sure in the beginning my coworkers were like, "what are you drinking?" But once they saw the benefits in my skin and weight the stopped with the comments.

You can add to it whatever you want. The one in the picture above, which I must admit was my first one in a long time was the following items:

• 2 cups fresh spinach
• 1 banana
• 1 scoop chocolate protein powder
• 1 cup water

Throw it in the blender. Blend well and drink. The faster you drink it the more nutrients you get from it, because as you will notice, the bright green color will turn brown if its left out. You can mix and match whatever you want in the drink and find a combination that works well for you. Dark greens are the ones most rich in nutrients and work best in this type of drink. (Kale, spinach, cilantro, etc) You can add things like agave nectar or honey to it to sweeten it up if you need to, but I find most fruits you add do the trick. Cilantro has great benefits for your health and is fantastic to add in this drink. But it's all up to your personal taste. Trial and error.

Don't be surprised if the smell of the first one you make is kind of startling. This was the first one I had made in a while and let me tell you, I was a little taken a back. I don't usually add protein powder but figured why not this time. I promise you, it was not as disgusting as it probably sounds. My mom loves to add mangos to hers and I really love adding pears or apples.

If you try it or have tried this before, what's your favorite things to throw in a green smoothie? I'll share some more of my smoothies and I'd love to try your combinations so feel free to leave them in the comments below.

Take care!

12 Things to do in 2012

I decided I'd do a short list of things I'd like to do in two-oh-one-two. Feel free to share some of your goals in the comments. =]

1. Bake more
2. Join a local knitting group
3. Take a lampwork class
4. Eat a vegetarian diet for a month
5. Start a hydroponic garden
6. Get a tan
7. Go to local art galleries more
8. Use food coloring like it's going out of style
9. Lose some weight
10. Use more holistic remedies 
11. Read more
12. Eat less processed food.

Chicken Stuffing Bake

Pardon the terrible cell phone picture but this is by far the best chicken dish I have made in a long time. It's super easy and reheats well. Also it combines my favorite things: chicken, cheese, and stuff. I mean come on, who doesn't love stuffing. I got the recipe from a diet cook book, but I don't always use the reduced fat ingredients. So feel free to fatten it up or down. Also I find it really doesn't matter if your broccoli is cooked before or not. It will soften up enough when you bake it, but please do rinse it well.

Chicken Stuffing Bake

• 1 can (10-3/4oz) condensed reduced-fat reduced-sodium cream of mushroom soup undiluted
• 1 cup fat-free milk
• 1 package (6oz) stuffing mix
• 2 cups cubed chicken breast
• 2 cups fresh broccoli florets, cooked (uncooked if you like it on the crunchier side)
• 2 celery ribs, finely chopped
• 1 1/2 cups (60z) shredded reduced-fat Swiss cheese, divided

1.  In a large bowl, combine soup and milk until blended.
2. Add stuffing mix with contents of seasoning packet, chicken, broccoli, celery, and 1 cup of cheese and mix.
3. Transfer to a greased 13in x 9in baking dish.
4. Bake uncovered at 375degrees for 20 minutes or until heated through.
5. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top and bake for an additional 5 minutes or until cheese has melted.

Yields: 8 servings
Nutrition facts: 1 cup equals 247 calories, 7g fat (4g saturated fat), 42mg cholesterol, 658mg sodium, 24g carbohydrate, 3g fiber, 22g protein
From Comfort Food Diet

Moving..

As some of you may know, in my home I have my studio where I make my jewelry and other such items. This past week I decided it was time to move it to a larger room. So needless to say my house is in shambles because I'm switching my guest room to my new studio room and such. I am hoping to have it all done by today but who knows! I just can't wait to have it all set up again and begin making all kinds of new stuff.
So I have not forgotten about you already, just simply in the middle of chaos.
=]

Happy New Year!