Recipe : Almond Biscotti

Have you ever had a biscotti before? 

Well, usually when people bring these in and lay them out to share, I will avoid them. They are dry, and  crusty. 

I tried a scone once, that was gross.  And they look similar to a biscotti - dry, crusty.  My niece ate a scone once, she said it was good.  She is a kid, what does she know anyways?

At any rate, a lady at work brought in some Almond Biscotti back in December, and she came to my desk and said, "Please have one, I made these to share for Christmas."  I mean, what was I going to say? No?  Yeah right, so I took one.

Eventually I had some down time for some mindless eating.  Which would probably be why I am a chubster.  And I ate it.  It was mighty tasty!!

So tasty, that I asked her for the recipe.  And she sent it over.  I have been holding on to it ever since.

Until today! 

I made them.  They are just as delicious as I remembered.  Never you mind that I *might* have dropped a loaf on the floor.  Good thing I swept and cleaned the kitchen prior to starting any baking today.  I think I might make this a habit, for instances such as this.

The thing about biscotti, is you have to bake (and cool) them twice.  Once to firm them up, and once after cutting, to dry them out.

The recipe is pretty simple, the only really special things you need are the extracts.  Almond and orange extracts.  Oh, and the almonds, in the event you didn't have sliced almonds on hand.

Almond Biscotti

So basically what you do is you whip the eggs and sugar together, while this is happening, combine all the dry ingredients (including finely chopped almonds) in a separate bowl.  Once the eggs are a light/pale yellow color - trust me it does get there after about 5 minutes - then you start adding the flour mixture, slowly so it does not create a HUGE flour cloud.

After you get it all together, you plop it down on a flat floured surface and knead a little extra flour into it, and throw it in a couple of loaf pans, bake it, let it cool on a rack, and then cut it into slices, put it on a baking tray, cook for another 12 minutes, let them cool completely, and then BAM! You have biscotti that is perfect to enjoy while you are drinking coffee on a lazy morning.  You can find the recipe here, or check out my recipe page and see the other tasty morsels I have on there.

If you wanted to be real fancy, you could melt some chocolate and dip an end into it and let it cool, and enjoy with that little bit of fun too!

If you have tried the Biscotti Mocha at your local Caribou Coffee house, this tastes just like the crumbled biscotti they have on top.  I swear.  Super delish!

I am planning on bringing them to the nursing home. I am visiting the Hubster's Grandma B back in his hometown.  Taking a little mini-road trip, his buddy owns an Auto Shop, and is going to do an alignment on my car, and some other miscellaneous work, so I figured I could visit her while I wait.  When I was growing up, that's what you did.  When you happened to be in town, you stopped by and visit.

Generally you didn't call before you stopped in, and well, Grandma B doesn't really go out, so the chances of her being there are high, but I wanted her to invite me to eat lunch. So I called, and asked what time lunch was, she said 'dinner' was at 12, I said I would stop by around 1, she said, well you could come by at 12:30, I said sure not a problem (sad face).  Then she said, well would you like to have lunch here? I said, "If there is space at tehe table, I would be more than happy to join you." (SCORE!!)   She said she would let the staff know, that she would have a guest!

Hopefully it isn't gruel serving day.

***

Side note, I was at the gym for 2 hours today.  Yeah, for realz.  I did week 2 day 2 (W2D2) of the Couch to 5K program (C25K), a Body Works + Abs class, and some more treadmill and some shooting some B-Ball.  With the estimated calories burned on my LiveStrong.com Daily Plate, I burned approximately 864 calories.

And based on what I shoved in my face for the rest of the day, I still have 837 calories I *could* consume, and still stay under 1,134 for the day.

So basically a super win! :)

***

Manicure Monday : Easter Pastels

We are coming down to the last few days before Easter, and I decided I would jump on the trend wagon and sport a pastel mani this week.  Apparently I have an affinity for Revlon's Pastels.  Perhaps because they are affordable?  At any rate, these are all Revlon colors.  My toes are colored to match, but they are not the most beautiful feet to be eye ballin'. 

Do you have an Easter inspired Mani? I was going to put a bunny rabbit, or try to stripe a nail up like an egg, but just ran out of time.

Raspberry Jam on Toast- My Favorite!

Oh how I enjoy a laid back Sunday Morning.

Today I am enjoying it with a cup of coffee with buttered wheat toast topped with Raspberry Jam. Reason it's so small, is it's soo late today. I enjoyed sleeping in until 9 with the Hubster. It made me feel behind on my day. But, well, whatever.

I did contemplate making it Cinnamon Sugar toast, but decided on the Jam route instead.

Do you have a favorite lazy Sunday breakfast?

Lunch : Bagel Dogs!

So, something that I used to eat as a kid, and when I say kid, I mean 14 year old.  Were Bagel Dogs.  My mom got them from the Schwan's Man, when he dropped off our milk. Yeah, we had a milk man.  My mom was busy doing whatever work she was doing, and it was easier to make sure that we had milk in the house if we had someone drop it off.  I guess.

Either way.  Bagel Dogs. I came across a pin on the Pintrest, which brought me to Circle B Kitchen's blog post.

I made them and can cross them off the list of wish to re-create at home.  But I will never do it again.  I am sure the original recipe is fine, and it was probably more of user error or something.  But they were way too much work, and took way too long to make.  And I burned my little fingers.

So, for a true bagel, you need to boil it before you bake it.  All of my hot dogs fell out of their wrappers.  So once I thought they were boiled sufficiently, I took them out, and burned my fingers trying to put them back in their jackets, and getting them to seal up as they dried a little.

They don't look terrible, other than the not being too brown, they were chewy, the salt and seeds were delicious.  I didn't know what else to serve it with, all I could think about was Kraft Cheese and Macaroni.  And then I decided to bust open a can of fruit cocktail for good measure.  We also dipped the Bagel Dogs in traditional hot dog condiments.

I am putting this in the Fail column.

Have you made them and had better results?

Dinner : Crock-Pot Sesame Chicken!

OH MY GOSH!

Have you tried this?  It is so yummy! And it was quite easy.

I found the recipe on Pintrest.  The link matched up to chef in training blog.  She is gorgeous.  I followed the recipe as written, only thing I changed up, was I cut up the chicken while it was still chilled prior to putting it into the crock pot, so I didn't have to do it later when it was messy. 

I will also say, I took the sauce out of the crock-pot, and put it in a pan to try to reduce it.  COMPLETLY forgetting that I had the corn starch out for some reason.  Once I realized the err in my way, it was quick and easy.

I served it with some steamed broccoli, and some brown 'asian' rice from Uncle Ben's.

Again, it was SUPER delicious!  You should try it, and tell me all about it!

Dinner : Chicken Enchiladas!

Let me just say, I have never made Enchiladas before.

They were actually really easy!  I used some shredded chicken that I had made before by putting a bunch of chicken breasts in the crock pot, and then shredding it all and freezing in roughly 3 cup portions.

So, on my way home today, I grabbed some enchilada sauce, and cheese at the store.  I had tortillas, salsa, beans, and some taco seasoning at home.

So what I did, was I took the chicken, mixed it with some salsa, taco seasoning and finely shreded cheese.  I poured some enchilada sauce on the bottom of the pan, and then I took the tortillas, added about a quarter cup of filling, and rolled them.  Put them seam side down in the sauce, until the pan was full.  Then I poured the rest of the enchilada sauce over them, and topped with cheese, glorious cheese.

I put them in the oven for about 20 minutes, covered, and then took the foil off for about 10 more minutes

While they were baking in the oven, I made some 'mexican style' rice from the box, and threw some corn in those.

Served them with some sour cream, and devoured.

I would like to say, they are really filling.  We will have left overs for a few days.  I don't know if they will freeze well, but hopefully we will be able to eat most of them before I throw them away.

Manicure Monday : Light Pink

I have an interview on Tuesday!

I know, exciting right?  It is at the same company that I currently work, for a 'Project Coordinator' position, which is more aligned with my career goal of becoming a Meeting Planner with my current company.  It would be a very lateral move, but again, better aligned.

So with that in mind, I painted my nails a very muted light pink.  Profession, short nails, nothing flashy.

I would also like to say how I feel it is funny that people don't know the 'old school' way of handling follow up after an interview.  I had a friend that interviewed for a position.  After it, she was excited, and was like, well now I have to wait to hear if they like me!

Uh, correction friend.  You now need to bust out some thank you letters to these people. 

Do people now not write thank you letters/notes?  Really?

Breakfast : French Toast!

I enjoy my weekends.  I really do!

They give me time to make a tasty breakfast, and take my day at a slower pace.

Today I made a super simple french toast.

First, I started with the sausage patties, and put them in the pan.

Then I took an egg, a little milk, and some cinnamon, dash of vanilla extract, and whisked it all together.  Once  the sausage was about done, I soaked a piece of bread in the egg mixture on one side for about 10 seconds, and then the other side.  Making sure that it had soaked up all it could.  I took the sausage out and put it on a piece of paper towels, and then put the french toast in the pan.  Let it brown, and then flipped it over until it was done.  It was delicious.