Kitchen Sink Omlette for Two

A couple of Saturdays ago we were sipping coffee on the couch and Ina was making an omelette for Jeffrey on TV.... I have a love/hate relationship with eggs. I HATE scrambled eggs... I like sunny side up eggs but sometimes they gross me out...totally depending on my mood. I am meh about omelettes because I don't always love the texture... so yeah....eggs and I have a weird relationship...

Anyway, this Saturday Ina was making Jeffrey an "omelette for two" that she had in Paris or something and it looked delicious. Every weekend since seeing this episode we have made an omelette in this way using just whatever we randomly had either leftover from the week or that was about to go bad or was just sitting in the freezer. I've made these with potatoes, turkey bacon, boca "sausage" patties, etc etc... This particular Saturday we had mushrooms and onions...so a mushroom onion omelette is what we had..

So basically here is the method... make it however you want!
First I chopped up some leftover mushrooms and onions...

Then whisked up 4 eggs (this is for two people) and some milk....and LOTS of hot sauce. mmm

I sprayed the pan with nonstick spray, sauteed up the mushrooms and onions and then added in the eggs....

Let it sit in there for about a minute and then pop it in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes...

Take it out, slide it out of the pan, cut it in half and you have two perfectly delicious omelettes....

Enjoy!!

Omelette for Two (adapted from Ina Garten)

Ingredients

• Any ingredients you have on hand.. we used:
• mushrooms
• 1/4 cup chopped onions
• 4 extra-large eggs
• 2 tablespoons milk or cream
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• Chopped scallions, white and green parts
• 
  

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Spray an oven-safe pan with non-stick spray and saute up your mushrooms & onions.

Separately, whisk up 4 eggs with some milk and hot sauce and pour into the hot pan over the mushrooms and onions. Let it sit for about a minute then stick it in the oven for about 12-15 minutes depending on how firm you like your eggs....

Slide off the pan, garnish with the scallion...and enjoy your easy and delicious breakfast!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy snowy Valentine's Day!

I love Valentine's Day not really for the cards, flowers and candy....but more because I love everyone in their pink and red and it's another fun excuse to make crafty stuff and a fancy dinner with the one you love...
Tonight Rob and I are planning on making a fancy dinner at home... and I'm looking very forward to it :)

Luckily for me the one I love is willing to stay up late with me the night before Valentine's Day and help decorate Valentine's Day cookies.. Want to see them? They turned out pretty cute :)

Have a very Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Restaurant Review - Taste of Belgium

Yay! We finally got around to visiting Taste of Belgium over the weekend for Rob's birthday. He wanted mussels, fries and Belgian Beers for his birthday and that's what he was going to get! We have been here for beers and french fries twice, but this was our first time coming in for a full meal.

We showed up and were told it would be about a 20 minute wait so we grabbed a couple of belgian beers at the bar and chatted...

I hate waiting, but I will say that this place has plenty of room to wait. You aren't standing on top of people's tables or smooshed into some area near the cold front door..there is plenty of space around the bar to sit/stand and have a drink while you wait. We ended up waiting about 45 minutes (we were offered a seat the community chef's table, but chose to wait for our own table).

 Once we were seated we already knew what we wanted to get. The first time we ever tried escargot was on our honeymoon in Europe on a cruise. It was not something we would usually order, but on the cruise everything is included so we ordered some things that were different than our norm (knowing if we didn't like it, we could just order something else) and luckily ended up realizing how delicious escargot is. Anyway, we knew that's the appetizer we wanted.

delicious escargot

Oh man...honestly you might be able to cook a dirty boot in this sauce of butter, garlic and wine and I would probably eat it and ask for seconds, but thankfully for us instead of a boot we had these big and delicious pieces of escargot. After we finished them there was lots of bread soaking to soak up all the last drips of their delicious sauce.

We ordered another beer.....

Then we were ready for the main event, what we came for, what the birthday boy had been hankering for for a month...... the 2lb pot of mussels. There are four different flavors you can get...but we went traditional with the Provencal style.

Big meaty delicious mussels cooked in a sauce of tomatoes, white wine and garlic. I had all but given up hope finding delicious mussels in Cincinnati...so thank you Taste of Belgium for restoring my hope.

 Oh, and did I mention these mussels are served with a large plate of french fries with aioli on the side? Because it is....and they're great.

 As much as I like the fries, to me it's not eating mussels without some crusty bread to eat some more of that broth...we asked our waitress for just a couple of pieces of bread to sop up some of the sauce and she was happy to bring some out....

We ended our night with one of their famous waffles with some strawberries on top... mmmm

Happy Birthday!

I can't wait to go back...friends that have been there before are the chicken and waffles as good as the mussels? Because I think that's what I have to have next time.. mmmmm

Pizza Monkey Bread

Pinterest oh pinterest how I love thee...let me count the ways...

When the superbowl rolled around this year I knew I already had a pin board full of delicious choices to make for our small gathering, but this one was at the top of my mind...delicious, fun, easy and kind of impressive looking.... Pizza Monkey Bread!

Each of those little pull of pieces has a piece of  (turkey) pepperoni and a small piece of mozzarella cheese in it.... seriously..how fun is that?

You could make your favorite pizza crust and sauce...or make it quick and easy like us and buy your favorite pizza crust and sauce...

We whipped up some garlic butter

and brushed it on the inside of the bundt pan

Then broke off little pieces of pizza dough, flattened them and topped them with a piece of pepperoni and a piece of cheese...

Then pinched it into little balls painted each one with a dab of garlic butter and just started loading them up into the bundt pan.

Fill it up, bake and it will come out looking this....

Let it cool a little and flip it upside down on the plate

Look how fun!!

pull a piece off, dip in pizza sauce and enjoy with friends!

I want to try to make this sweet sometime....stuffed with baked apples and rolled in cinnamon and sugar...doesn't that sound good?

Here is the recipe: adapted from JasonandShawnda.com:


Ingredients

• 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 4 Tbsp butter
• 2 lbs pizza dough 
• Pepper jack cheese, cut into small cubes (you'll need ~48 pieces)
• 48 slices of Turkey pepperoni (from 1 package)
• 2-3 cups marinara sauce, warmed, for serving

Instructions

1. Heat garlic and butter over medium heat just until the garlic begins to brown. Remove from heat and let sit.
2. Lightly brush the inside of a bundt pan (or other oven-safe dish) with garlic butter.
3. Pull off large marble-sized balls of dough and flatten. Top with a slice of pepperoni and a cube of mozzarella.
4. Wrap the dough around the pepperoni and cheese, pinching well to seal.
5. Very lightly brush the pizza ball with garlic butter and place into the bundt pan 
6. Once a layer is down, sprinkle with seasonings...I used garlic powder and a few red pepper flakes, repeat this on every layer or so of balls that go into the bundt pan.
7. Repeat until all of the dough is used.
8. Cover and let sit for 30 minutes, while preheating the oven to 400.
9. Bake for ~35 minutes, until the top is very brown.
10. Remove from the oven and let sit for 10 minutes.
11. Turn out onto a platter and serve with warmed marinara sauce for dipping.

Restaurant Review - A Tavola

Yes! We finally got the opportunity to go to A Tavola (every other time we tried to go they were on a 2+ hour wait), so Saturday night when our group was hungry for dinner early, we headed that way for some of this pizza we have heard so much about... There was still a 45 minute wait at 5:30, but no one complained about going across the street to Taste of Belgium for some pre-dinner beers and pomme frites with aoili.

We were out celebrating THIS!!!!

They called us when our table was ready and we headed over to try the pizza.

We started off with some sliders and risotto balls.....

Wagyu Beef Meatball Slider & Eggplant Slider..both served on a Blue Oven  mini english muffin

Arancini- Fried Risotto balls served with pesto

At $5 a pop, the sliders are a little pricey but absolutely delicious. The beef meatball was extremely flavorful and I loved the pesto that was on both the eggplant slider and the arancini. The arancini was crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside....I would definitely get these again...

So bring on the pizza....for 5 hungry people we got 3 pizzas and ate every last bite...

Sausage & Panna: house sausage, panna, red onion, mozzarella, fennel pollen

I wasn't sure what Panna was, but I knew that this pizza was one of the creamiest pizzas I had ever had, if that makes any sense, and sure enough after looking it up, Panna is an Italian cream. A lot like heavy cream but thicker and less sweet. Whatever it is it needs to be on way more pizzas from here on out...

Fig & Prosciutto: fig jam, prosciutto, fontina, arugula salad

Claire suggested we get this pizza and I wasn't too sure about it as I am not a "sweet on savory" kind of person much. I don't particularly want jam on my pizza, but she said it was good and prosciutto would win a "what's the best meat ever" competition if I was the judge, so I agreed. I'm also just a little obsessed with arugula on everything, so that made the decision easy. It was just the right amount of sweet and salty with the fig jam and the prosciutto and in my humble opinion every pizza should be topped with an arugula salad, so this was a definite winner in my book.

Sweet Pea & Bacon: sweet peas, house bacon, fontina

This pizza was also good, but all 5 of us rated our pizzas in order and this came at the bottom of everyone's list (even mine and I picked it)- so this is probably the one that I wouldn't order again if I went back. But it was still really good..the peas were firm and still had some bite to them and the bacon was thick cut and you could really taste it in every bite....just couldn't quite compete with the first two.

salted caramel ice cream. mmmmmm

The five of us split this bowl of salted caramel ice cream to finish the night. It was no Jeni's Salty Caramel,but it was still pretty good. Ironically while I don't like sweet on my savory I love savory on my sweet.....if that makes any sense?

All in all this place really lived up to the hype. The service was great and the pizza was delicious...so we're already looking forward to going back..