I’m trying extremely hard to get into Pinterest, but it seems like no matter how hard I try…I just end up forgetting that It’s there! I really want to “pin” things and do whatever else Pinterest allows…but I think I’ve hit my online limit. Has there been research done on how many social networks a single person can handle in their life? My guess is 3.

The good thing about Pinterest though is that for the 5 minutes I’m logged in it gives me some awesome recipe inspiration. After I saw a picture of some cream puffs…I was seriously not going to rest until I had eaten my fair share. has there been research done on how many cream puffs a single person can handle in their life? My guess is at least 10.

As many of you that follow my blog know…I’m Gluten Free by choice…so I set out to create a gluten-free pate a choux recipe to make these cream puffs. I have made a traditional pate a choux ever since I first stepped food in the kitchen! I actually won one of my first culinary competitions by making fried doughnuts out of a pate a choux dough. Making it gluten-free though…seemed just a little too easy. Weird…I know…but if you just substitute a gluten-free A.P. flour for the regular flour, you pretty much have a gluten-free cream puff! So I set out to really challenge myself. How do I make these Dairy Free too?

While I was testing this recipe…it scared me a couple of times. The best part about not being sure about a recipe turning out…is when the recipe turns out perfect. I was so excited when the Pate a Choux came out of the oven looking…freaking gorgeous…and both of my pastry creams turned out AMAZING. You have no choice…you have to try this recipe. You’ll never even miss the gluten or the dairy! (Okay you do have a choice…but I know you’ll be sucked into the cream puffs magical trance just like I was)

Below is the recipe for the Gluten Free and Dairy free Pate a Choux…as well as two flavors of Dairy Free Pastry Cream! Enjoy!

Gluten Free and Dairy Free Pate a Choux

Ingredients

1/2 cup grape seed oil
1 cup almond milk
1 tbsp. agave nectar
pinch of kosher salt
1 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour
4 large eggs

How To

Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees
Combine the oil, almond milk, agave, and salt in a medium-sized saucepan. Using an immersion blender, electric mixer, or a whisk…try to mix the oil into the almond milk. It won’t ever completely come together..but don’t worry! It will still turn out just fine!
Bring the mixture to a boil. Then reduce the heat to medium and dump all of the gluten-free flour in at one time. Using a spoon, just stir it until the dough comes together. Then let it cook for another two minutes, stirring it to make sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan.
Transfer the dough to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, or to a work bowl with an electric mixer standing by. Mix the dough for a minute or two and let it slightly cool off. Then start adding your eggs…one at a time. You can add the next egg once the other is completely mixed into the dough.
After adding the eggs the dough will be nice and ribbony…which means it’s ready to bake! Using a 2 tbsp. ice cream/cookie scoop…dish out the dough onto a greased cookie sheet. This recipe makes about 16. You can also pipe out you cream puff dough into different shapes if you’d like!
Bake for 18-20 minutes without peaking in the oven…then open the oven door about 5 inches, and leave it open with the pate a choux still in the oven for another 5 minutes.
Once they come out of the oven…use a knife to slice a small hole in each puff to allow the steam inside to escape. (make the slice on the side of the cream puff) then allow them to cool for about 20 minutes before filling with pastry cream!

Dairy Free Pastry Cream

Ingredients

5 egg yolks
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
5 tbsp. corn starch
2 cups almond milk
Option #1: 1/4 tsp. whole vanilla bean paste.
Option #2: 2 tbsp. Nutella

How To

Bring the almond milk to a boil in a medium-sized saucepan.
whisk the egg yolks, sugar and cornstarch together in a big bowl until it’s nice and smooth. (add the vanilla bean paste to the egg yolk mixture now if you’ve chosen to make a vanilla bean pastry cream)
Take the almond milk off of the heat and temper the egg yolks by pouring bout 1/2 cup of the hot milk directly into the egg yolk mixture. Whisk constantly and furiously during this time to make sure you don’t end up with scrambled eggs!
Pour the remaining hot almond milk in with the eggs, and continue to whisk pretty furiously for one minute.
Transfer the mixture back into the saucepan and continue to cook it on medium heat until the pastry cream is nice and thick, almost frosting consistency.
Once your pastry cream is beautiful, it’s time to put it into a container, and then into the fridge to cool.
It will take about 30 minute for the pastry cream to cool…but once it’s ready, just slice your pate a choux rolls in half, and fill them with the pastry cream! (if you want to turn your pastry cream into a Nutella pastry cream, just mix in the 2 tbsp. of Nutella in after it has cooled)

Serve these babies for breakfast, lunch, dinner….or I guess dessert.

Tweet me with questions! I hope you enjoy these as much as I did!

Let me know what you think in the comments.

The Nugget Addiction with a side of Green Ketchup

February 17, 2012

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Chicken nugget addiction….It affects over 60% of children under 10 years old. I’ve witnessed this sight many times in my life. It’s almost like McDonald’s/Burger King/KFC have injected a secret love potion into each nugget that just keeps kids constantly requesting more and more. (I just made up that statistic for dramatic effect)

(Read this crazy article about a chicken nugget addiction…Click Here)

Here’s the obvious question…What do we do about this addiction? Nugget Rehab? possibly…but the absolute best solution is:

Make your own chicken nuggets.

Why?

You know what’s inside of them
They are HEALTHY
They are gluten-free
they only take 30 minutes

You can find my Chicken (or turkey) nugget recipe below. It seems like ground turkey is easier to find in the grocery store…and it’s a bit cheaper…so feel free to make these chicken nuggets into turkey nuggets! (is it just me or does saying “turkey nuggets” out loud sound weird…)

Before I reveal the recipe to you though…Let me talk a little bit about my condiment of choice.

Remember when Heinz came out with that green ketchup? Seriously….I LOVED that stuff as a kid. My mom wouldn’t buy if for me that often, so when I did get my hands on the green slimy stuff…man I went all out. My hotdogs were loaded! Was the reason I liked it so much because it resembled slime? I mean as a young kid…slime was pretty cool. So that’s a possibly. But all I know is that I was attracted to this green ketchup concoction, not because it tasted good…but because it was just plain awesome and weird at the same time. So I was thinking yesterday…and I decided that I want to experience this feeling again.

The window of opportunity to buy this product was short. I can’t remember if my mom came to her senses and stopped buying it for me, or it all got shipped off to the world of forgotten and failed condiments first. But I’m going to bring back green ketchup…by making it healthy.

Green Ketchup will live on!

Ingredients

1/2 lb ground dark meat chicken or dark meat turkey

1/2 lb ground white meat chicken or white meat turkey

1/2 cup chopped yellow onion

1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper

1 tbsp. olive oil

2 cloves of garlic, grated

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

2 eggs

2 tbsp. milk

1/2 cup rice flour

How to

Pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees
Sauté the chopped onion, red pepper, and garlic in the olive oil. It will take about 5 minutes on medium high heat. Transfer them into a small bowl once they are done and let them come to room temperature.
These chicken nuggets really come together using a food processor. If you don’t have a food processor you can just mix the ground turkey or chicken together with your hands. you’ll end up with more of a meatloaf consistency instead of a nugget consistency, but they will still taste amazing.
Put your cooled onion, red pepper, and garlic into the bottom of the food processor. add in 1 egg and then pulse about 5 times. Now add the ground chicken or turkey and pulse about 15 times or until it really comes together. The purpose of processing the turkey/chicken is to create…almost an emulsion with the meat. It will cook into nugget form and texture very easily…that is loved and recognized by kids! (and it’s healthy remember!)
Once the chicken or turkey mixture is ready, just transfer from the food processor to a bowl. Then in two smaller bowls, put the rice flour and the remaining egg. You’re setting up a little breading station for these nuggets! Whisk the egg together with the two tbsp. of milk and then get ready to make the actual chicken/turkey nuggets.
Using a tablespoon cookie scoop, or a tablespoon measure…form about 16, 2 tbsp. balls out of the chicken or turkey mix. You might want to spray your hand with a bit of non stick spray, because this can be a sticky job! But once you have the balls made, you can start the breading and baking process.
The best way to put a nice crust on the outside of these nuggets is to drop the first ball into the rice flour to get a very light coating on the outside. Tap off the excess and then flatten the ball into nugget form. (you can really shape these anyway that you would like) Now to continue “crusting” just place the nugget into the egg wash, covering the outside in a thin layer of egg…and them immediately transfer it right back into the rice flour for another light coating. Repeat this process with all of the nuggets!
Place all of the crusted nuggets onto the top of a greased broiler pan, a pizza pan, or a metal cooling rack on top of a sheet tray. You want a baking vessel that allows the dry oven air to hit the chicken/turkey from every angle to properly crisp them all! Then bake at 425 degrees for 20- 25 minutes, flipping them halfway through the cooking time.
Once these nuggets are beautiful and done…just let them cool slightly and serve!

But wait….You need ketchup right?

Ingredients for Green Ketchup

10 oz. golden (yellow) cherry tomatoes
2 tbsp. Agave Nectar
2 tbsp. Apple Cider Vinegar (with the mother)
2 cloves garlic, grated
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1 tbsp. tomato paste
1 6 oz. bag of spinach
salt and pepper to taste

How To

This ketchup comes together very easily! You can use a food processor or a blender. So to start just process or blend all of your golden cherry tomatoes and then transfer the puree to a saucepan. (I leave the skins and seeds in this ketchup, but feel free to strain the mixture before you put it into the pan.)
Add the agave, apple cider vinegar, garlic, onion powder, and tomato paste to the pan with the tomato puree. Stir and then bring to a simmer for about 10 minutes.
Once the mixture has cooked, let it cool slightly and then transfer it back into the food processor. Add all of your spinach as well as salt and pepper…and then pulse until the green ketchup comes together! Put it into a squirt bottle and place it in the fridge for a healthy and fun ketchup whenever you need it! I no longer miss green ketchup!

If you have any questions about these recipes, tweet me at anytime!

Tonight on my radio show

February 15, 2012

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Hitting the airwaves with me tonight is two amazing ladies. Michelle Kosmicki, an autism advocate, and Dannie Elwood from Behaven Kids. Michelle has a dream of creating planned autism communities. She’ll be talking about how most of us spend our lives planning all kinds of things…wedding, parties, meals, etc. But everything drastically changes when you have a child with autism. We’ll be learning a ton of information about what autism really is, and how you can potentially help people with this developmental disorder. Dannie on the other hand helps children with behavioral problems. Behaven Kids offers a range of behavioral health services that give all children and families hope and help, including the Specialized Day Program, counseling, child behavior coaching, training/workshops, parenting books and more.

Listen in tonight for this great show by tuning your radio to 89.3 KZUM, if you’re in the Lincoln Nebraska area, or you can always visit kzum.org to listen live from anywhere in the world. We go live at 6:30pm CST, and if you have questions for these ladies you can leave them in the comments, tweet me, or post on my Facebook wall.

Here’s a video of Michelle Kosmicki giving a talk at TedxLincoln

Here’s a video from Behaven Kids

The best gluten free lemon bar recipe ever.

February 15, 2012

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Happy day after Valentines Day!

Ever since i was little I’ve been consuming massive amounts of lemon bars. Okay, I’m exaggerating a little bit, but the point is that I love them and so does my whole family. I think it’s time for me to rise to the TOP of the lemon bar ranks, and this recipe will help me do just that.

How was my Valentines day you’re wondering? Is he just going to skip the whole subject? Well the truth is I’ve never been a huge V-day fan. We should share the love with everyone everyday of the year, right? I’m starting to like this cliché day more and more though, so maybe next year you’ll see a huge valentines day blog post with a big heart-shaped cake or something.

My Valentines day did end up being really great, and lemon bar filled of course. I started out by singing my uncle a great Heytell message. “I, I love you like a love song baby…I, I love you like a love song baby” (thank you Selena Gomez.) That’s what happens when you Heytell my mom, she just hands the phone to me and says “say something to your uncle.” I then proceeded to be accidentally late to school. (it wasn’t an accident…it was calculus) After that I worked worked worked…almost like it was a regular Tuesday, until it came time to hangout and go to dinner with my awesome girlfriend. We had very romantic mexican dive bar food. The best valentines dinner ever.

To be more festive I would’ve cut these lemon bars into heart shapes…but the sad thing is, they were gone before I really thought about doing that. These bars literally fly out of the pan magically into your mouth…again and again and again. (don’t tell anybody, but I ate one for breakfast, lunch and dinner.)

**disclaimer: I never said these were healthy. Please eat them sparingly if possible. I support eating healthy, but these lemon bars are an exception. (There are quite a few exceptions if you know me really well…you just have to make them very very rarely, that’s the key)

But anyway…Enjoy these! They are the BEST.

Ingredients

for the shortbread crust

16 oz. Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free Flour

8 oz. powdered sugar

2 sticks unsalted butter

1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

1 tbsp. lemon zest

for the lemon curd

2 cups fresh lemon juice (about 8 lemons)

4 egg yolks

8 large eggs

2 cups granulated sugar

2 sticks unsalted butter

2 cups heavy whipping cream

How To

Breakfast in Bed- Frittata with Spinach Pesto

February 10, 2012

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These days it seems like breakfast in bed is just something for the movies to overuse. We’ve grown to know the smell of coffee breath better than the smell of an egg being gently fried in bacon grease. Every time I stay at my grandma and grandpas, the very end of my dream…right before I wake up…is me sitting at the table eating a big plate of bacon and perfectly basted eggs. The older generation not only makes breakfast…but the smell penetrates into your brain while you sleep! It’s practically breakfast in bed right?

Even though most of the time I wake up too late to partake in my grandparents breakfast feast, Im still satisfied because the amazing aroma gently pointed my dreams in the direction of happiness. I wake up full…for about 15 minutes that is.

So how do we bring breakfast back to our generation? and better yet…how do we bring breakfast back to bed. (and not just in our dreams.) Do we need to wake up earlier? Well you might think so…But here’s my trick. And with Valentines day coming up next week…This trick would be something good to use. (hint hint) The recipe below is meant to feed two people. You, and someone you luuuuuuv.

First, you need to make a pesto.

Why? Because when you bring the person you luv something with a homemade “spinach almond pesto” on top…they are going to think you’re the best person ever. in their brain they are saying “OMG, he/she just took the time to make me something that’s super hard to make…they really really love me!” the thing they won’t know is that the pesto was super crazy simple.

Spinach Almond Pesto

ingredients

1 9 oz. bag cleaned spinach
1/2 cup toasted slivered almonds
2 cloves fresh garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

How To

In a food processor, combine all ingredients and pulse until combined. Yea…It’s that easy. You may have to add the spinach in two installments, and it will look like your adding a ton of spinach into the food processor…But trust me, it will process down to make you about 1 1/2- 2 cups of the pesto! Then just taste the mixture to make sure it’s seasoned nicely! Transfer the beautiful and healthy pesto into an airtight container and put it in the fridge until your ready to top the next part of this amazing breakfast in bed.

If I were you, I would make the pesto the night before while your getting the ingredients together for the:

Frittata!

My next step to help you bring breakfast back to bed, is to make a frittata. (basically an open face omelette.) You can put any kind of veggies into your frittata that you want, but feel free to just use my recipe too! The cool thing about this recipe is that you can prep everything the night before, and then quickly cook up a fantastic breakfast to bring to your luvvved one.

The- Goodbye coffee breath, hello frittata breath Frittata!

Ingredients

1/2 cup diced button mushrooms
1/2 cup diced yellow onion
10 grape tomatoes sliced in half
1/8 cup roasted red pepper, diced
1 tbsp. olive oil
3 large eggs
3 large egg whites
1/2 cup skim milk
(2 tbsp. parmesan cheese = optional)

How To

Prep your ingredients the night before you plan to make this breakfast in bed frittata. Dice your mushrooms, onion, and roasted red peppers. (feel free to buy jarred roasted red peppers) Then slice your tomatoes in half and store all of the vegetables in a zip top baggie until morning. You can also crack your eggs into a bowl, mix with the milk, and cover with plastic wrap. Place it into the fridge, and you’re all set for morning!
When your alarm does come…just slowly pull the covers off and jump out of bed. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees, and find a large skillet to make your frittata in. Over medium high heat, sauté all of the vegetable in a tbsp. of olive oil. Once the veggies are soft, about 6 minuets, pour the egg mixture into the pan. (Make sure to give the egg mix a shake before dumping it in)
Now give the future frittata a quick stir to make sure the veggies are distributed equally throughout…and then let it cook on medium high heat for 3-4 minutes. After that time is up, just place the skillet in the oven and bake for 10 minutes. (if adding the cheese, sprinkle it on with 5 minutes left on the timer)
So in less than 20 minutes you will have a fabulous frittata that you can serve to your luvved one. Toast up some whole wheat bread, or make some bacon/sausage and you have an over the top thoughtful breakfast in bed. Make sure you have a tray to take it to them on…you want to go all out right!? (don’t forget the flowers…)
When the Frittata does come out of the oven, simply use a spatula to help you move it onto a cutting board. Sure…you could just slice it up…But why not use a heart cookie cutter?

By making the pesto, and preparing the fabulous frittata, you’ll wow anyone, whether it’s breakfast in bed or not. This recipe is healthy…flavorful…and thoughtful. So what are you waiting for? Make it for your loved one on valentines day!

Just Like I’m trying to bring the spork back…I think it’s time to try and bring the tradition of breakfast in bed back. If you follow my Pesto and Frittata formula…you’ll be successful no matter what. So don’t leave breakfast in bed to the movie makers. Bring it into your own home!

Tweet me with questions. (:

Tonight on the Top of Lincoln

February 8, 2012

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Tonight on my radio show I have Clayton Chapman, owner and chef of The Grey Plume restaurant in Omaha, NE. This guy is a rockstar! The Grey Plume has actually been dubbed the “Greenest Restaurant in America” and I can’t wait to bring him to the airwaves tonight on 89.3 KZUM. If your in the Lincoln, NE area tonight around 6:30pm then turn your radio on over to 89.3, but remember you can always listen from anywhere in the world on Kzum.org!

If you have any questions you’d like me to ask Clayton, leave them in the comments below!

Find out more about the grey plume by visiting the links below:

Website

Twitter

Facebook

The podcast will be up on in a few days!

“Never eat more than you can lift” -Miss Piggy

February 7, 2012

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One of my favorite things to do is find fun and inspirational quotes, can you believe I’ve never come across this one before? Miss Piggy was THE celebrity…and sadly I’m about to admit that-

……I never watched the muppets. I know! Gasp! Some of you may think this is a crazy thing to claim, but indeed, I never watched Kermit and Miss Piggy. (i know they were hot for each other though)

“Never eat more than you can lift” is just pain hilarious. Inspirational? I hope not. Don’t take her advice. She was a pig after all. But as soon as I stumbled across this quote I had to share it with you.

The cook inside of me says “Make so much tasty food that no one will be able to move after they are done eating dinner” but then the health nut inside me says “Aren’t we trying to de-pig the world? don’t stuff your dinner guests”

…Then out comes the motivational speaker inside of me. Guess what he says? “You know, we could all learn a lesson from miss piggy. As humans we can only lift so much…so make sure that whatever you take on in life, or “eat”, just make sure you can carry the weight that comes with it.”

We all read quotes and apply them to our lives as we see fit. This post is actually meant to introduce you to my Tuesday Quote Day blog. Every Tuesday I’ll be sending out a quote to you. Maybe something funny, or inspirational…but the idea is to interpret the quote however you want. I’ll let the cook, the health nut, and the speaker inside of me dissect the quotes…but you let your mind dive right into the world of exciting quotes.

Because quotes…they just rock.

Snow Day…and Gluten Free Sponge Cake

February 6, 2012

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This snow day was highly anticipated, extremely needed, and sent everyone to the grocery store at the exact same time. You would’ve thought that none of us had ever seen snow before…probably because it was just 70 degrees outside like 4 days before it happened. I went from having a severe case of spring fever to singing christmas songs! (Not even kidding…ask my mom and my girlfriend, they had to listen) But the most appealing thing to me about this snow storm was the fact that I didn’t have to leave my house…for 1 whole day. I was SO pumped that all I had to do was sit around in my pajamas, stay warm, and make some food. We all know that I like food…so welcome to my heaven.

Let’s talk about snow day food here for a second though before I share my recipe with you. Normally I eat, cook and spread healthy food because that’s what I believe in doing…but not on a snow day. I rarely ever have a day where I get to sit at home and do nothing, so I decided to add “eat anything I want” to my list of things to do for the day. This was the FIRST and possibly the ONLY snow day of the season so I had to jump on this unhealthy opportunity! No, I don’t take “eat anything I want” days all the time obviously…but let me just say this: I really hope there’s another snow day soon.

The one thing that is slightly lame is the fact that this amazing snow day happened on a Saturday. I definitely can’t complain since I have the best senior year schedule ever…but I can’t help but feel like this day would’ve been so much better during the school week.

But anyway…below is a literally amazing cake recipe that you NEED to make the next time you have a snow day. For those of you in snowless places, just take a day to lock yourself in the house in your pajamas and eat this whole cake. Wait…just have a piece or two, the whole cake is probably a little over board.

My kitchen was the hub of all the snow day activity, and I might of gotten just slightly crazy during this cake making process…so enjoy!

Mocha Sponge Cake

For the cake

8 eggs, room temp and separated
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup Tapioca Flour
1 tbsp. Espresso Powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tbsp. Bailey’s. (My mom official snow day drink was Baileys and coffee…so I worked it into the recipe. Feel free to leave it out if you’d like)

For the chocolate filling

1 cup dark chocolate chips
1/4 cup whole milk, or cream (room temp)
1 tbsp. bailey’s

How to

Pre-heat your oven to 325 degrees.
Make sure all the eggs are at room temp and then separate the whites from the yolks. Put the whites into the bowl of your kitchen aid mixer, or just a big bowl with an electric mixer close by. (You can always go old school with a whisk)
Using the whisk attachment for your stand mixer, or the standard attachments for your electric mixer to whip the egg whites to stiff peaks. Once they are finished just set them aside and deal with the yolks.
Whip the yolks in a large bowl for about 2-3 minutes or until they are a lighter yellow color. Then add the vanilla extract and start combining your dry ingredients.
Combine the powdered sugar, tapioca flour, and salt in a small bowl. Make sure to sift the powdered sugar and tapioca flour if any lumps are present.
add the dry ingredients into the egg yolks in 3 installments. (1/2 cup at a time) and mix until well combined. Add the espresso powder and the bailey’s to the party and then give the mix a final stir.
Now it’s time for the egg whites! Gently fold the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture with a silicone spatula. Be extremely gentle and slow. You can do this in about 5 installments. (about 1 cup at a time.)
Baking time! Line a jellyroll pan or sheet cake pan with parchment paper. (You can use butter, coconut oil, shortening, or a non-stick spray instead of parchment.) Add the sponge cake batter to the pan and evenly spread it out. It will look like there isn’t enough batter, but trust me there will be!
Place the pan in the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Once that time is up, just open the oven door a couple of inches and leave the cake inside, with the door open, for another 5 minutes.
Take the cake out once the time is up and let it cool for 20 minutes.
Now you can flip the cake out of the pan and start the decorating process!

There are many ways you can serve this sponge cake. It’s delicious by itself…but of course chocolate makes it even better! So to make the chocolate sauce:

Melt the chocolate chips over a double boiler. (Use a glass bowl and a small pot with about 1 inch of water in it. Bring the water to a simmer and then add the chocolate to the bowl. Stir until the chocolate melts.)
Once the chocolate is melted, pour in the milk/cream and the bailey’s. Then your chocolate sauce is finished!

Once you have your chocolate sauce ready to go, it’s time to plate up some cake! to make the cake as you see it above, you just cut 3 squares out of the sponge cake and add a layer of chocolate in between them as you stack on the plate. It’s very simple, yet elegant. (and very tasty of course!) Then dust it generously with powdered sugar and serve!

But here’s where I start to get a little bit out of hand. Since it was a snow day I had to make breakfast when I woke up. Bacon was on the menu and I just happened to have some left over. So naturally…what do I do?Yes…I make a bacon, chocolate, and coffee sponge cake. (and those are bacon sprinkles on top) It was SO GOOD! The ultimate dessert, the ultimate breakfast, and the ultimate indulgence. Try it, I’m completely serious.

Or you can always roll up the sponge cake with the chocolate sauce inside. This was still amazing…even though some bacon would’ve been nice.

I had so much fun creating this recipe…that I almost forgot it was snowing outside. Until the powdered sugar came out to play. Powdered sugar really is the best ingredient to use on snow days. Man I have such a hilarious story involving powdered sugar. It will have to wait for another blog though.

Enjoy this recipe, enjoy the weather, and tweet me with questions.

Have you read my Julia Child blog?

Bon Appétit

Here’s your butter Julia!

February 3, 2012

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Sometimes I have dreams about food.

Shocking right? And most of the time they are crazy…which is why i don’t tell you about them. (I think I’ll just publish a “Tanner’s Crazy Dreams” book later in my life) Every once in a while though I have a dream that is not quite as crazy as the others and needs to be shared. Last night I fell asleep in Lincoln, Nebraska and woke up in the land of Julia Child.

As a 17 year old…sure I know who Julia Child is, but I never really had a chance to experience what she was all about. To be totally honest I thought she was boring when I first layed eyes on her TV show. CRAZY…I know. But there has been a change in the air.

Every day during the week I’ve started to watch “The French Chef” on the Cooking Channel. Her show puts me in a trance, ignites my passion for food, and sends me over a flavor rainbow with a huge pot of beef bourguignon on the other side. I DIDN’T KNOW HER MAGIC EXISTED. Sure, I knew who she was, I knew she was THE celebrity chef…but I didn’t know why she was who she was.

After being completely sucked into everything she has done…I’ve started to feel sad, and guilty, and in love. I feel like maybe I could’ve gotten to know her better before she passed away…even though I know that would’ve been a far off dream. Maybe I could’ve run into her in a french bistro, and asked her to sign my forehead. Who knows! But I think my feelings of guilt, sadness, and love all stem from me wishing I could meet her and follow in her footsteps…and somehow fall in love over a fancy dinner. I mean she’s just plain awesome.

So I finished sending emails last night and slowly fell asleep. My dream started like normal…Everything I was thinking about before bed started fighting to the death. The topic that came out on top received the high honor of supplying me with great entertainment for about 5 hours. Julia was obviously the winner with her big knife and chicken minions.

In my dream Julia received an email from me. (I frequently send out emails to amazing chefs asking for advice) While I slobbered on my body pillow last night…My new Idol hit reply. She asked me to come to her home. Not because she wanted to cook with me, or talk with me, but because she was out of butter and desperately needed me to bring her some. Funny huh? I remember arriving at her kitchen, which was the exact kitchen out of her show, and guess what happened? She wouldn’t say a word to me. I offered her the butter she desperately needed…and she just didn’t say anything. I didn’t know if I came too late, or made her mad…I was extremely confused, but became even more confused when she finally looked up at me and said “just keep chopping.”

“Just Keep Chopping,” What the heck does that mean? I wasn’t even chopping anything. I was just standing in her kitchen with the butter she asked for! I tried again to communicate with her, but from then on the only thing she would say to me was “just keep chopping.”

Sadly I don’t remember much more from this dream. The part that I do remember though really REALLY impacted me. The “just keep chopping” went on for quite some time I believe. Before I headed over to the radio station today to share my super bowl hot wings recipe…I googled quotes from Julia Child. I was thinking that it would be really creepy to see “just keep chopping” on the list.

No, I didn’t find it (that would’ve been crazy!)…but I did find this one:

“You’ll never know everything about anything, especially something you love.”
― Julia Child

So I decided to interpret my dream in this way:

Just keep chopping is Julia’s way of telling me to not give up. Lately I’ve been trying to really figure out the direction I want to go after High School…and what this quote tells me is that for the rest of my life I get to chase after my dreams. I WILL be on the Food Network, I WILL go to culinary school, I WILL speak to and inspire millions of people. And while I’m doing all of this I will continue to grow, and learn about what I love. Everything will happen the way it should. (even though I’m slightly disappointed I didn’t get to eat any of her food in my dream)

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Bon Appétit!

Fake Fried Hot Wings

February 3, 2012

Blog, Recipes

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I took a day and experimented with one of my favorite finger foods…CHICKEN WINGS!

Is the caps lock really necessary? YES IT IS.

With the Super Bowl coming up I figured that many of you needed a recipe to distract you from watching Madonna perform during halftime. These wings literally had me stuck in the kitchen until every last finger was licked clean of sauce. I’m not just talking these up either. They are crunchy, moist, sweet, and spicy all at the same time. My secret? White rice flour.

Enjoy!