Would you like bacon with that?

Although Jon has been vegetarian for forever, he still misses bacon. Unfortunately, he has had to put up with me and some friends teasing him about his forbidden love of bacon.

While at work today I was cruising the eBay daily deals and came across this:

The seller of this item feels that everything "Everything Should Taste Like Bacon". The best part of this quirky item is that it's vegetarian.

Although I am weirded out about the thought of bacon flavored mayonnaise, part of me wants to get this.

Tis the season for.. toffee

As usual every Christmas time I make toffee. It's a family recipe and everyone seems to love it. The only downside to this, is that each year my list of people that would like toffee seems to get longer and longer. This year I planned out making 6 batches. Hopefully that will be enough. If not, guess I go back to the store and pick up some more stuff to make a couple more batches.

I have a running list in my head of people who have mentioned they wanted toffee, but since my memory isn't the greatest some days. Leave me a comment if you want to be added to the list.

Here are some shots of my process. I got 3 batches done last night, then I was out of cookie sheets.

(get all of your ingredients together)

(start cooking in the electric frying pan)

(Melt the chocolate chips)

(once it turns the perfect shade of brown and smells wonderful pour into a cookie sheet)

(let set for a minute or two and then cover with melted chocolate)

Rooster

Back in early July Jon and I ventured down to Utah County to try out a new restaurant, Rooster.

It's a nice little restaurant. Emphasis on little though. We decided to sit outside and enjoy the nice weather.

We had already planned on ordering some dumplings, but took a look over the menu to see if there was anything else we wanted to try. The waiter sold us on the idea of trying their bubble tea. I'd heard of bubble tea but hadn't had it before. It's a milk tea that has boba balls in it. Boba balls are made from a mixture of tapioca and carrageenan powder. The straw for the drink was huge, maybe a half inch wide. I don't think Jon was sold on it, but I might get one again sometime.

For dinner we ordered the Rolled Rice Noodles with peanut sauce and hoisin, an order of Shrimp & Roasted Red Pepper dumplings and Veggies & Tofu dumplings. I tried both of the dumplings and thought they were great. Jon only had the Veggies & tofu but agreed that they were good. Neither of us were really in love with the rolled rice noodles. We both love sticky rice with peanut sauce and thought the rolled noodles might be just as good, but didn't think so in the end.

(We were so excited to dig in I forget to get a picture until we were almost done.)

For desert we got their Chocolate Lava Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream. It was *A-MAZING*! I checked their menu as I am typing this and found they don't have the lava cake with ice cream anymore. I wonder if they will substitute ice cream.


If you are in the area or looking for a new place to try out, I recommend it. Plus what can it hurt going to some place new?

Homemade Toffee

Every year I make several batches of homemade toffee to take into work, family events and holiday celebrations. However, after all of that is said and done there is always someone who says they wished they could have had a little extra to take home.

So, I am trying to take an inventory of anyone who might like their own personal batch of toffee this year. If you have never had my toffee, I think it's fabulous - but I might be biased. Also, I don't put nuts in or on the outside of the toffee.

If you want toffee just leave me a comment and I will make sure you are on my list.

Recipe: A la Bekah Pasta

While reading through one of my favorite blogs the other day I got the idea to make a pasta dish from scratch, minus the actual pasta of course. For lack of a better name I am calling it A la Bekah Pasta. For this recipe you will need the following

• Olive oil
• Butter
• Garlic
• White Onion
  
• Mushrooms (fresh not canned)
• Zucchini
• Chicken Broth
  
• Heavy Cream
• Plain Tomato Sauce
• 1 lb pasta of your choice
• Fresh Parsley
• Salt
• Pepper

To start you are going to need a large saucepan/skillet. Chop a small to medium white onion. Pick your size depending on your desire of onion in your dish. Now mince two cloves of garlic. Place your saucepan on medium heat and add 2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 tablespoons butter. Once the butter has melted a little, add the onions and garlic, letting them cook and stirring occasionally.

While that is cooking rinse off your fresh mushrooms. I used about 2 cups when I made my dish. Now put the mushrooms aside for a minute. We'll come back to them. Since we are near the sink, fill your pot for the pasta and put it on the stove to boil.

Taking a small to medium zucchini begin to slice it into pieces. I cut my pieces a little thicker because I then cut them into quarters. Once you have finishing cutting, gather your mushrooms and put it all into the saucepan. You are going to let these cook for a few minutes to soften them up. However, keep in mind that there are several other steps in this process, so if you like your veggies more firm than tender you aren't going to want to let them cook for long.

Add 1/2 cup of Chicken Broth. I used the vegetarian variety. Your creation should look something like this:

Find your trusty can opener and open an 8 oz can of plain tomato sauce, then add that to the saucepan. I hope you read my ingredient list at the top and noticed the heavy cream. It really makes a difference. Add 1 cup of heavy cream.

Stir.

Still with me?

By now your pasta water should be boiling or close to. Add your pasta to the water. While your pasta is cooking you are going to let the saucepan simmer, without a lid. You are also going to want to add any of your seasonings at this point. I threw some fresh parsley, pinch of salt, and fresh ground pepper into mine. The following day I thought some red pepper flakes might be nice for some heat. I'll have to try it nice time.

Funny thing... While I was making this dish I realized I didn't have any pasta when it came to the point of adding it to the water. Yeah, silly me. I had to leave everything on the stove and run to the store for pasta. I know, I know.. don't worry I made sure Jon was around to monitor the stove so I didn't burn down the house.

Ok, back to the recipe. Once your pasta is done cooking, drain it. I then just put the pasta into a serving dish and added the sauce over the top. After some quick stirring, ensuring not to break the pasta, it looked like this:

We added some grated parmesan cheese to the top of our servings and enjoyed. voila!

Stay Tuned...

to see what happens.

Fireworks, First aid and Food

Oh boy what a holiday weekend it was. I managed to start the weekend off just right while injuring myself during a craft project. Unfortunately, I couldn't have done something simple like burn myself with the glue gun. Instead I managed to cut open my index finger with a very sharp pair of scissors. This injury, although a clean cut, was deep and began to bleed profusely. Thankfully Jon was nice enough to drive me to the hospital and reminded me to keep my hand above my heart to limit the blood loss.

Being the evening of the 4th of July the emergency room was very empty. I was expecting there to be people waiting who had blown off a finger playing irresponsibly with fireworks. Nope, just me, the girl who cut herself with scissors.

After quite the ordeal to get my finger numbed so they could stitch me up, I got three stitches.


After the stitches they wrapped me up in a split that I get to sport for at least a week. This is because, once again, I had to make things difficult and cut my finger near the joint and in order to heal I can't bend it. This splinted finger has resulted in many jokes on my behalf from Jon and my coworkers.


The whole weekend was not all tragedy though. On Saturday Jon, his brother Jason and I all went to a new restaurant that opened on Oakley Utah. This isn't just any old restaurant, it's an original classic diner. This diner was originally manufactured in 1939 in Elizabeth New Jersey. It began it's restaurant life in Fall River, Mass. until 1953 when it was sold and moved to Middletown, Rhode Island. There it operated until 2006. Oakley Utah was then picked as the new home for the diner and it was transported cross country here to Utah.

It's a great little place and has great food. There is a very retro vintage style to the diner, but also has modern conveniences such as air conditioning and remote jukeboxes. The jukeboxes weren't up and running yet when we where there but they were cool non the less. They also make their own potato chips, which I thought were amazing. If you go there to eat, definitely get the chips.


For those I didn't get to personally say Happy 4th to, I hope you all had a festive holiday weekend!

In Search of...

Beignets. These are a french donut, commonly seen in Louisiana and absolutely delicious. There used to be a place in Sandy called Crescent City that made them. But this place has gone out of business and I am not aware of anywhere else that makes beignets. I have had a mad craving for these little lovelies rolled in cinnamon and sugar. If anyone knows where I can get some please let me know.

Krappy Cheese

Ode to the Kraft Single...

Oh Kraft single how I love your convenience of being pre-sliced and packaged.
You are absolutely delightful on my fried egg sandwich!

I am not quite sure what you are made of.
Although the package shows a glass of milk and says that you are indeed cheese.

I have other cheeses in my refrigerator
but your color and texture don't come close when compared.

However, I am still a fan!

Chili

Yummy!

A few weeks ago I made homemade chili. This is a recipe taken from a chili that Jon's mom makes, but I have made a few changes along the way. There is no actual written recipe just a list of ingredients that I combine to make this delightful dish.

* Kidney Beans
* Chili Beans
* Chili Mix (the hot kind)
* Diced Tomatoes (I prefer the kind with jalapenos in them)
* Stewed Tomatoes
* Tomato Paste
* Tomato Sauce
* Ketchup
* Brown Sugar (This cuts the acidity created by the tomatoes)
* Morning Star Crumbles (This is a vegetarian substitute for 1 lb browned ground beef)
* Cheese
* Sour Cream

I then combine all of these ingredients together, except the cheese and sour cream, in my crockpot. I can then let it simmmer for a couple of hours. We think it's great to serve with breadsticks.

Jon's Birthday

The 11th was Jon's Birthday. As I posted earlier I wasn't able to post any pictures until now due to laptop/camera malfunction. However, Jon was nice enough to download my pictures for me and give me a cd of them.. so here they are!

For Jon's birthday there was no cake, instead I made him homemade butterscotch pudding. The whole time I was making it I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out because I hadn't done it before. I don't think I have ever tasted butterscotch pudding before so I was nervous about that too. In the end though Jon said it turned out good.