Easy Marshmallow Sprinkle Pops

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Easy Marshmallow Sprinkle Pops

I made these originally as an idea for some serious, let’s call it, flair, for my sprinkle cake so it could have serious sprinkle bragging rights, but they seemed like such a good idea, I made a mountain of these puppies. While I know I used the correct spelling of flair when describing this cake adornment, I could have easily used the word “flare” like “oh my gosh with chocolate dipped marshmallows this cake is on fire!…in a good way” can ya say, #cakesolarflare?

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Polenta Gnocchi

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When life gives you bad polenta, make polenta gnocchi! I tried a different polenta recipe this week and it resulted in well, very po’… POlenta….Yeah, it’s the only time in my love affair with Polenta where I ever made this pun because my polenta this week was this bad…I’m not saying there was not user error but honestly, under-done onions aside, the ratio of liquid to cornmeal was so off because I followed a bad recipe and my polenta was watery and flavorless…SO, after I had my own dinner portion there was so much left and all I had to look forward to was leftovers which tasted like they were left over for real reasons.

“LOVEFORGNOCCHI”might be hard to put on a vanity plate, (and it’s probably taken) but if it were possible I might actually order this license plate. Gnocchi seems comforting when very things are…I mean, potatoes which are kind of like pasta covered in red sauce, which has more vitamins and fewer calories than pasta? I mean, do I have to go into details?

Well, I made this simple recipe, added some Asiago (because ASIAGOLOVE is another vanity plate I would order), heavily salted the water knowing how unsalted my polenta was, and VOILA! Polenta which was bad, became polenta gnocchi which is good…This polenta has no potatoes and well, of course, polenta, but it reads super similar. My gnocchi had some basil and some garlic, so adding more was an awesome no brainer!

I seasoned the gnocchi more with basil and powdered garlic, added an extra egg because eggs seem smaller these days and prayed to the Italian pasta gods, and well, the proof is in the pillowy goodness of my finished product.

Ingredients

1.5 cup of cooked polenta

0.25- 0.5 cup of asiago (grated finely with your microplane)

0.80 cup of flour

salt (generous amount for cooking water)

2 eggs

additional seasonings (possibilities include powdered garlic, spice basil, rosemary, etc)

Plan of Attack

Serving Suggestion: covering in marinara and grated Asiago

Serving Suggestion: covering in marinara and grated Asiago

Mix all the ingredients together in your massive mixing bowl. Using your hands, knead the dough , integrating all the ingredients.

Mix all the ingredients together in your massive mixing bowl. Using your hands, knead the dough , integrating all the ingredients, including preferred additional seasoning.

Put on a pot of heavily salted water at your highest setting. With heavily floured hands and a heavily floured surface, roll the gnocchi into logs (or as we in children’s craft speak say- medium logs)….Roll them until the logs are about 0.5 inch in …

Put on a Medium stockpot of heavily salted water at your highest setting. With heavily floured hands and a heavily floured surface, roll the gnocchi into logs (or as we in children’s craft speak say- medium Snakes)….Roll them until the logs are about 0.5 inch in width and cut into individual gnocchi with your coldest knife. When the pot of water is at a rolling boil, add your initial batch of gnocchi, when it rises to tHe top, remove and place the next batch in…With this recipe I made three batches of gnocchi…

*i was recently bitten by a snake (yes, i know this an awfully ridiculous thing to happen to a person) so i Was internally resistIng calling them this, but everybody who has played “play doh” with a toddler knows what “make your snake” means! If it makes it easier: “make your medium snake and cut it into pillows”

When the gnocchi float to the top of the pot it is done and this homemade polenta past cooks very quickly so keep your eye on the pot. Fish them our with your ladle of ravioli strainer and put aside in a colander over ra bowl so the excess liquid dr…

When the gnocchi float to the top of the pot it is done and this homemade polenta past cooks very quickly so keep your eye on the pot. Fish them our with your ladle of ravioli strainer and put aside in a colander over ra bowl so the excess liquid drains off.

Serve hot and covered in pesto. gorgonzola and sage, or marinara. I have been working myself through this gnocchi, and sautéed some in butter to go with my egg scramble with breakfast so I suggest to your the world is your gnocchi oyster!

Serve hot and covered in pesto. gorgonzola and sage, or marinara. I have been working myself through this gnocchi, and sautéed some in butter to go with my egg scramble with breakfast so might I suggest your the world is your gnocchi oyster!

Tomatoes and Pearl Couscous with Whitefish (Single Pot Smoky Fish with Tomato, Olives and Couscous)

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Tomatoes and Pearl Couscous with Whitefish (Single Pot Smoky Fish with Tomato, Olives and Couscous)

Making sauce is kind of like making edible art and those of us who take the process seriously have our own little sweet spot of a flavor pocket. This perfect marriage of fish and the deep sweetness of tomatoes is honestly a very special combination which is enhanced by the multilevel flavors introduced by inclusion of olives and anchovies. Made according to my recipe source, this savory sauce is easy to make and pretty fool proof. Unfortunately I did not have the correct kind of olives so my sauce was slightly too briny so I ended up having to add some sugar, but when cooking sauce I think this kind of stuff always happens. Sometimes tomatoes from your garden are especially sweet and sometimes not so much (no matter how pretty they are) so tasting as you go always needs to happen.

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Chicken Salad with oranges and herbs

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Chicken Salad with oranges and herbs

This recipe makes clean bright salad which can served with lettuce leaves or traditionally on bread or in a wrap. The oranges I used were a little past ripe but the juiciness added to the decadence of the dish. In the future I would season the chicken breast better, but I know others don’t cook with salt as much as I do )ahem, my sibling Maura) and this dish as is, was super good. It is surprisingly addictive and in the spirit of complete disclosure, I learned this recipe by accident when I was learning to breakdown a chicken.

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Handmade Milk Chocolate Truffles

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Handmade Milk Chocolate Truffles

This recipe would be fun to make with children who are at the age of a little self control, because there’s a bunch of temptation to just eat ganache a truffle at a time. Decorating them is fun and requires some creativity, and this recipe honestly is super simple. It is key to use high quality chocolate, and to let it firm up as ganache for a sufficient amount of minutes in the fridge before forming into balls. I love the decadence of ganache and I used to make a signature pie in which it figured prominently, and these are little balls of this pie. In truth I did not eat them because I have some health stuff which means I can’t always eat sugar, even in sm quantities, but I will next time.

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Southern Coconut Pecan Cake→

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Southern Coconut Pecan Cake

After I waded through runaway pecans, drips of cream of coconut and various kitchen accoutrement which seemed like good ideas to use at the time, I was relieved to see my hard work produced two decent looking cakes and some convincingly appetizing coconut custard filling. I had to cool the cakes in the fridge and the custard in the freezer, but when I packed the cooler, with the partially assembled cake I was cautiously optimistic. Since I was on a time crunch, I decided to frost the cake at my parents and also to assemble the frosting there, and this made my cake a success.

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Lentil and Arugula Salad with Turmeric Yogurt and Avocado

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Lentil and Arugula Salad with Turmeric Yogurt and Avocado

This recipe tasted very crisp and clean (even though it has some dairy), and I love how easy it would be to add other ingredients depending on what you have in your refrigerator or pantry. Greek yogurt, for people who don’t cook with it, is honestly some kinda protein packed revelation and I gravitate always towards the tang of all things tangy, rejoicing in their tanginess.

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Simple (and Healthy) Chicken Sausage and Peppers Kebabs

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Simple (and Healthy) Chicken Sausage and Peppers Kebabs

While I make it for myself in the traditional way, this pairing offers some of the Italianumami-goodness without the grease and without the guilt. You could cook it and then serve it in sandwiches, eat it as a bowl on its own, or do as I did with the leftovers, and make yourself a Mexican/Italian fusion burrito by serving it hot with shredded cheese and salsa in a tortilla. However you eat it, this version of S*P, as my dad calls it, is cooked more quickly than the traditional.

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Easy Crockpot Herbed Shredded Chicken

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Easy Crockpot Herbed Shredded Chicken

Honestly, when I posted this, I posted under the hashtag #mykitchenjudgesmewheniusemycrockpot, because I used to have a mad love affair with my crockpot until my life exploded and people made me feel very embarrassed about my adoration of protein cooked at a measured pace. Crockpot love is nothing to apologize for- you can make simple vegan minestrone, tender beef and cheesy macaroni while you tend to all the things which need tending.

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Homemade Pappardelle with Basil, Herbs and Olives

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Homemade Pappardelle with Basil, Herbs and Olives

This recipe combines briny goodness of olives, the herbal abundance of spring and the comfortable decadence which comes when pasta is married to butter. Homemade pasta is slightly tricky because it be sticky in a hot kitchen (or in proximity to somebody super hot like me in my oversized corona clothes), and the only way to truly know it’s cookedness, (another made up word) is the tested process of removing from pot only as soon as

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