Nana's Apple Pie

There are few desserts that are better than a homemade pie. Really think about all the desserts you've had in your life... are you thinking?... and in your top 5 favorite desserts, I'm betting that some relative's homemade pie that is always brought to a particular holiday or family occasion makes the cut. Of all the fruit pies, my top two picks are apple and strawberry-rhubarb, but strawberries aren't in season yet and as this was a birthday request, I went with apple this time.

Warm Butternut Squash and Chickpea Salad

I’m coming to you from a foreign kitchen again, this time from sunny and beautiful LA!! I found great tickets a few months ago and in the middle of another blizzard, decided I needed to peace out for my spring break- and this is the most relaxed I’ve been since school started. After spending a glorious afternoon reading outside in the sun, fighting the cat-in-sunshine syndrome, I decided to make my favorite squash recipe for dinner.

 Oh, yeah, and this was the view I had from the kitchen.

Scampi al Dragoncello and Stuffed Piquillo Peppers

I'm coming at you from a foreign kitchen this time. I enjoyed a very rare break and spent the weekend visiting friends in Columbia, MO. These recipes came from a cookbook my friend Cathy's client loaned her upon hearing that her visiting friend was a vegetarian. I know with my lentil soup post I promised to stop sharing recipes that aren't diet friendly, and truthfully this one isn't too bad. The pasta is quite healthy, and a little goat cheese never hurt anyone :) However, back to the culinary fun the night before: after contemplating canned vs. fresh tomatoes that were required for the vegetarian recipes, we decided that these shrimp looked entirely too delicious to pass up.

Lentil Soup

Now that I've successfully ruined everyone's resolutions with the past few posts, time to get life back on track (I'm heading to LA for spring break in two short weeks, this is no time for decadent cheesecake!). This is one of my favorite winter soups- thick and savory. I adapted this from the Joy of Cooking cookbook my godmother gave me for Christmas a few years ago. If you don't own this tome, you should. It's pretty indispensable if you ever branch beyond your comfort zone. I've used it as a reference many times and it has saved the day, or pie, more than once!

Sales pitch over, back to the soup. This is a great soup for seasonal transitions. It's hearty and provides a warm comfort while the weather hasn't quite committed to warmer temperatures, but not so much so that it induces hibernation. Anytime I have carrots, celery and an onion laying around my kitchen, I feel a strong need to make stew (these are the triad that start almost every stew or soup), and luckily I often have most or all of these ingredients already in my cupboard.

*Successful* Rosemary Focaccia Bread

I made bread! I made bread! I made bread! Sorry for the outburst, but after two previous fails at making bread, that is about what I sounded like as various steps of this recipe worked correctly this time (just ask my roommate, I'm sure it was amusing). I used one of the recipes I was working with the first time around, and I'm not entirely sure what made the difference, but something worked out this time and I had a beautiful loaf of chewy, delicious carbs.

Blood Orange Tart

Sorry for the lack of posting lately, nursing school is busier than I ever anticipated. Luckily, I have 2-3 previously made but never posted recipes, so you can expect a few more things throughout the weekend!

I'm a big fan of fruit-based desserts, especially when they're accompanied by a flaky crust. Unfortunately, there isn't much in season when it's January and you live in Iowa. The grocery store had blood oranges on sale last week, so I decided to buy a bunch and find delicious things to do with them. I was somewhat surprised at how few people around me knew about blood oranges (my afternoon snack baffled an entire row of BSN students, which was a little more attention than I was hoping for). In light of this lesser-known fruit, here's a brief background on them: they're a mutation of sweet oranges, slightly smaller and have flesh tinted red by anthocyanin, which is a pigment found in many flowers and fruits, though uncommon in citrus fruits. Alright, now that you know the why blood oranges are red - which I'm sure was at the top of everyone's must know lists - it's time to share how to make them into a delicious tart.

Cappuccino-Fudge Cheesecake

I found this recipe last November and have been eye-ing it ever since. SmittenKitchen posted this just a few days after Thanksgiving, which was entirely too soon for me to be enticed enough to go through all the work for something so decadent.  Three months later and approaching a birthday, however, it was time! Now that it's been completely devoured, I can say with absolute certainty that it's worth ruining any and all resolutions, just for a little bit. It's really that amazing.