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! :)

***

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?

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.

Fast Food Breakfast - At Home!

The hubster went holiday shopping last night, and decided to swing through the grocery store. Which is nice, but he went without a list, or an idea of what he wanted to eat for the week. We have proteins, but need the sides, and other items to make it into a meal. He sees that we need food.

I re-arranged the fridge after he through his haul in there, and saw he picked up some Kraft single slices, in addition to 3 packs of cheddar slices. Clearly he is in love with cheese.

I woke up this morning, and turned on my CBS Sunday Morning, I think they adequately covered the school shooting, wasn't appreciative of their choice about needing to ban all the guns.. But we are allowed to have our own opinions. I was hungry and remembered that I had a package a Everything Bagels in the fridge that I bought a week or so ago because I wanted one. And thought- hey he bought some ham luncheon meat, and those Kraft singles- PERFECT for a breakfast bagel sandwich!!

Once the hubster crawled out of bed, I asked if it interested him, he said yes, so I hopped to it! He eats about double what I do, so I doubled his meat. We got lucky, because there were only 2 eggs in the fridge. Not really sure what we are going to eat for the week.. guess I will put him on meal plan duty for the week.

Do you and your mate have a similar problem?

I fried up a couple of eggs in a silicone egg mold, and fried up some ham slices, unwrapped some kraft singles and put it all on toasted, buttered bagels, sprinkled a little garlic powder and ¡VIOLA! Magic fast food breakfast!

Breakfast and Dessert, not in that order.

Last week was a busy week at work.  I put in some over time, and almost wonder if there wasn't more work for me to do.

I got a massage during the week to.  I know that they masseuse always says, to let them know if the pressure is too much.  How are you supposed to do it 1 - without looking like a wimp.  And 2 - without sounding like you are dying.  I have no idea.  I would think if they paid attention to their clients breathing, they could figure out if they were massaging too aggressively.  There were a couple of times, where she was pushing through a muscle... and it was a little painful.  But I'm no wimp.  I made it through.  But here's the thing, I want to be sore the next day.  I am a freak like that.  I have had 3 massages now in my entire life, and I have never been sore.

But either way.  I had my last softball game of the summer season on Monday.  We won, barely.  Closest game ever for either of the teams I played on this year. 

On Friday Cook's Country emailed a recipe for Magic Strawberry Ice Cream.  It takes no special equipment, so I knew I wanted to give it a try.  On Friday night the Boyfriend and I went out to Tuttle's and had a pizza and a pitcher, and then went to Target.  He wanted to pick up the move Gangs of New York.  I had never seen it, and he thinks it's just great.  But when we were there, he couldn't find it, decided to pick up the Transformer's Trilogy.  And I had a light bulb moment, and picked up the stuff I needed for this 'Magic' ice cream.

When we got home the Boyfriend's dad called, and I ended up grabbing a beer, and going over to the neighbor's house, he was sitting outside.  The Boyfriend wandered over, we chatted it up for a bit, and then we headed back.  The Boyfriend could not find the remote for the DVD player, so gave up on trying to watch a movie.  He had to work the next day anyways.  So to bed we went.

On Saturday, I had lots of big plans.  I hadn't been out for a run in a week, and I have a chair reupholstering project that has been halfway completed for awhile now.  I didn't do a darn thing.  Other than the dishes, watch TV, and make the ice cream and get it into the freezer.

Making the ice cream was not hard at all.  It takes some pretty simple ingredients, and is ready to freeze in a matter of probably 10 minutes.

Get ready for magic!

The original recipe says to use a food processor, but my blender was already out.  When they say whip until foamy and then turn it up until soft peaks form.  They mean SOFT peaks.  I might not have been paying enough attention, and whipped the cream until stiff peaks formed.  I just googled it, and a blogger wrote about how to make butter.  Yes, butter.  I stopped at what he called the 'halfway' point.  So, when it says soft peaks.  They mean it.  They always do. 

Once I let it set in the freezer over night I scooped it out with a melon baller, because, well a photo with spooned ice cream isn't as pretty, and I do not own an ice cream scoop.

Magic Strawberry Ice Cream

You can find what I did here, or check out my other recipes I have tried here.  The end result wasn't bad.  But I can kind of taste/feel the buttery-ness of it.  I took the photo, ate a couple of the ice cream balls, and put them in a baggie back in to the freezer.  I am thinking I will drop them in to a glass of sprite or something - or maybe strawberry soda!

Once the Boyfriend got home from work on Saturday, he was whiney about working (he has been putting in 10 hour days, and 8 on Saturdays for the past few weeks), and tired, so we decided to make it a movie night.  He watched all 3 of the Transformer movies, had popcorn, and then went to bed. 

When I woke up this morning and started watching CBS Sunday Morning - which I absolutely love - I came across a pin to this page for a Honey Cloud Pancake on the blog by things{we}make.  I had left over strawberries, so I figured what the heck, I have eggs, milk vanilla, flour and honey.  So let's do this!

I gathered my supplies, and of course took a picture.

To make a Honey Cloud Pancake

This recipe calls for you to whip 1 egg white to peaks.  I did it by hand, it took a while, and I did take a break in between to mix the batter together. My end result didn't turn out quite like what I was trying to imitate.. but it still tasted good.


Honey Cloud Pancake

It did have an egg type texture.  I let it sit before I ate it, as I was frying up bacon, eggs and making toast for the Boyfriend.  I think that if I had patted the strawberries dry prior to putting them on the pancake, it wouldn't have been as bloody looking.  Either way, I may make it another time with raspberries or peaches.  Colorado peaches are coming into season soon - I can't wait!! (update: I just checked - it's time right NOW!)

The Boyfriend and I haven't done anytihng today, folded some clothes, washed the dishes, and now we are just being bums.  I will probably take a shower, and then paint my nails. (I might have spent $20 one morning on my way into work last week on nail polish at Walgreens).

Animation Domination starts in a couple of hours too.  Easy weekend here.  Hopefully this easy weekend set me up to start running in the mornings again the TC10Mile is coming up soon.. and.. well, I want to be able to say I ran most of it.

Do you enjoy lazy weekends?  What is your favorite thing to do on a Lazy Sunday?