Happy Birthday OREO!!

I was surfing around Pinterest and I found this great recipe from a blogger Handle the Heat. First of all for as long as I can remember there are always Oreo cookies in my house.  My dad I think know has a secret addiction to them.  Most of the time we have just the original Oreo cookies but lately there has been an influx of different varieties
Coming soon "Cookies and Cream Cheesecake Cupcakes"
Cookies and Cream Cheesecake Cupcakes
From Martha Stewart's Cupcakes
Makes 30 (Note: I halved this recipe and it was very easy, 30 of these cupcakes would surely be the death of me)

• Ingredients:
• 42 cream-filled sandwich cookies, such as Oreos, 30 left whole, and 12 coarsely chopped
• 2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten
• 1 cup sour cream
• Pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each lined cup.

2. With an electric mixer on medium high speed, beat cream cheese until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Gradually add sugar, and beat until combined. Beat in vanilla.

3. Drizzle in eggs, a bit at a time, beating to combine and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in sour cream and salt. Stir in chopped cookies by hand.

4. Divide batter evenly among cookie-lined cups, filling each almost to the top. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, until filling is set, about 22 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Refrigerate at least 4 hours (or up to overnight). Remove from tins just before serving.

It's that time of year....

It's garden time!! I started last week getting my pots and dirt already for planting vegetables and herbs. I ordered a bunch of seeds from Penny's Tomatoes, I just got them so I put them in little peat pots to germinate.  If all goes well this year I will have tons of tomatoes. I will update this blog within a few days, hopefully I will post some pictures too.

Simply Awesome Chocolate Chip and Banana Muffins

I love banana's.  Most of the time I'm eating them with peanut butter and Nutella.  Today I wanted to make something that I could have for breakfast or even a late night snack.  I found this recipe on the web but I changed it just a tad.

Chocolate Chip and Banana Muffins
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 1/2 cup butter melted (unsalted)
2 cups mashed overripe bananas (I used 3 big ones)
3 eggs
2 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsps. of baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup of chocolate chips (coated in flour)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two 6-cup muffin tins with liners.  I had extra batter so I did another 6 cups later.  In a large bowl, combine the sugars, melted butter, bananas, and eggs; mix well.  In another bowl combine the flour, baking soda and salt.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet and whisk until the batter is evenly moistened.  Stir in the chocolate chips.
Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, bake for about 25-28 minutes, until a toothpick is inserted in the center and comes out clean.  Let the muffins cool for about 10 minutes, before turning them out on a rack to cool.

Serve with ice cold milk! Enjoy!

Recent Comments/ New Job

I just wanted to thank everybody who left comments on my blog, it makes me happy that people are actually reading this.  Oh by the way I am WORKING now... I am a teachers aide/assistant/lunch helper/diaper changer.. I'm having a lot of fun teaching the little kids, mostly the 2 year olds.  Not too fun is getting sick from the many germ refrigerators that I play with each day.  I've been getting colds more often that I can even remember and I think I had some sort of flu last week... So back to making chicken soup or Jewish penicillin this weekend definitely!!!

POM Glazed Pork Chops

About a week ago I received a case of  POM Wonderful 100% pomegranate juice, I was so happy I got in the kitchen and started to cook again.  I decided to make glazed pork chops.  I know that pork and fruit go pretty good together so I wanted to give this a try. I served this with roasted cauliflower.


4 center cut pork chops

1 8oz bottle of POM wonderful 100% pomegranate   juice
2 garlic cloves
2 tsp finely chopped rosemary
1/4 orange juice
2 TBS brown sugar
a pinch of red pepper flakes
salt and pepper
olive oil

Heat olive oil in the pan, season the pork chops with salt and pepper, brown the chops.  After brown, add the POM, garlic, rosemary, orange juice, brown sugar and lower the heat to medium.  Cook the pork in the sauce until the internal temperature of the pork is 170 degrees. Take out the Pork chops and let them rest, Bring the sauce to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, add red pepper flakes.  Continue to simmer until the sauce reduces to about half.  Enjoy.

I'm Thinking...

I'm thinking about changing the name of my blog to something like "Unemployed and blogging".  I've been unemployed for over two years now, I'm educated, street smart and probably smarter than some of the people who try to fix my computer over the phone. I hate to say that but it's true.
 I love to cook, read recipes, and other food blogs.  I think blogging makes me happy and I'm really going to work harder to update this page more often.  I'm also addicted to Twitter. That's all for now.  I'll be cooking soon and posting pictures.