Blueberry Muffins!

Hello there and Happy Sunday! I can't believe that it's already February and I can't believe that it's Super Bowl Sunday! Here's a special treat that you still have time to make for your game-day party. Enjoy!

Blueberry Muffins
from the kitchen of my aunt Anne 

1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup skim milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 and 3/4 cup flour, plus 1 tablespoon (set aside)
2 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup blueberries

Directions:
In a mixer, add butter and sugar and beat for two minutes, until pale and fluffy. Add egg and beat for one minute. Add milk and vanilla and mix until combined. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture to wet ingredients and blend only to combine. Do not overmix! In another small bowl, combine one cup blueberries with 1 tablespoon flour to coat blueberries and prevent them from falling to the bottom of the batter.

Fold blueberries into batter. Scoop 1/3 of a cup of batter into 12 lined muffin tin cups. This batter will make exactly 12, so if you end up having extra batter at the end, divide evenly among tin cups. Bake at 425 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Cool in pan for 2 minutes and then allow muffins to cool on cooling rack for 10-15 minutes.

Serve warm or cool, whichever you prefer. 

If there are any leftovers, be sure to store them in an airtight tin, where they'll keep for one week. 

Enjoy! :-) xoxo

Perfect Single Serving

Hello there and Happy Friday! I am SO excited for this weekend! I have 4 yoga classes lined up, two catch-up dates with good friends, and an international Skype session with my sister, so I'm pretty pumped! But, what I really want to share with you on this beautiful Friday are these precious gems...

...the perfect single serving chocolate chip cookies! 

So, I just checked out one of my favorite blogs, and I discovered a link to this amazing piece of work! Whoa. This girl is so smart! Who wouldn't want to make themselves a single serving of chocolate chip cookies?! Sometimes you just get a hankering for a homemade chocolate chip cookie (or two)...not a whole batch! So here's the recipe for the perfect portion of delicious chocolate chip cookies. I'm planning to try a healthier version of these at some point in the future, but for now, the original recipe will have to suffice. Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend! xoxo

I painted my nails!

In the spirit of my nail polish colors post, I decided to paint my nails! What do you think? This OPI DS Reflection was a gift from my sister and I love it! It's pink and sparkly and super pretty. I hope you enjoy it! Happy polishing! :-) xoxo

Crispy Baked Rosemary-Garlic Chicken

Hello again, friends! Lately, I've been feeling like I have so much blogging material that I want to share with you all! I was so happy to share the granola grabbers recipe with you, as well as the nail polish suggestions and now this delicious chicken recipe! I know, all of these blog topics might seem a bit random, but I hope they'll give you a sneak-peek into my diverse interests. 

I'll start with a story. It was Christmas Eve in New Jersey and it was a beautiful, cold, crisp day. I went into work (only a half-day) and my sister picked me up at the train station! My family and I love to make a delicious Christmas Eve dinner and some of our recent favorites have been vegetarian lasagna and a deliciously spicy chili dish from Cooking Light. This year, my sister threw out the idea of rosemary-garlic chicken and I was a total fan. My sister had seen Tyler Florence make this recipe on The Food Network earlier in the day and once she told me the ingredients, I knew it would be a hit! We stopped by Wegman's and grabbed all of the ingredients and then headed home. We went to Christmas Eve mass at 8pm and were home by 9:15pm and we ate by 10:30pm. It sounds kind of late for dinner, but that's how we roll sometimes. I feel like we were consistently eating at 10:30/11pm every night over Christmas break, so the timing of our night-before-Christmas meal was no different from our usual mealtime. 

We modified the recipe a bit by swapping in chicken breast for chicken legs. I've never touched a chicken leg in my life and I definitely don't intend to ever try one, so chicken breast was our friend for this recipe. So, without further ado, here's the recipe for the most deliciously moist chicken breast recipe you've ever eaten. My dad enjoyed these with honey, some enjoyed them with barbecue sauce, and I enjoyed them with yellow mustard! We paired these with sauteed spinach and a big salad and boy was this meal delicious. Happy cooking! 

Crispy Baked Rosemary-Garlic Chicken Breasts

Adapted from Tyler Florence's recipe for Crispy Baked Rosemary-Garlic Chicken Legs

2 lbs chicken breast

2 cloves garlic, minced

4 stems rosemary, leaves picked and roughly chopped

4 cups panko bread crumbs

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 eggs

2 cups skim milk

3 cups all-purpose flour 

extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350º. Wash and trim the chicken breasts of any excess fat. Mix the garlic, rosemary and panko together in a shallow-rimmed dish and season well with salt and pepper. 

Crack the eggs into another shallow-rimmed dish, add the milk and whisk to combine. Season with salt and pepper.

In another shallow-rimmed dish, add the flour and season with salt and pepper.

Taking one chicken breast at a time, dredge in flour, then the egg wash, and then coat well with rosemary-garlic panko bread crumbs. 

Place each breast on a baking sheet covered with aluminum foil and drizzled with olive oil. Fill the sheet with chicken breasts. It's fine to have the pieces touching each other. 

Bake at 350º for 45 minutes or until the coating on each breast turns a golden brown color. Remove the chicken from the oven and place chicken onto a serving platter. 

Enjoy with honey, barbecue sauce, mustard, or your favorite condiment. Enjoy! xoxo

A VERY special happy birthday wish and some fun colors!

Hello friends! First off, I want to send a huge birthday blessing to my grandmother, "Mamacita," as she celebrates her 100th birthday today! She's an incredible inspiration to me regarding the way to be a faithful woman of God, and I pray that God continues to bless and keep her safe all the days of her life. May she continue to thrive and live independently and be as happy as she is today for the rest of her life! I love you so much, Mamacita! :-)

Since this is a blog about pretty things, I feel the strong need to post about one of my favorite accessories: nail polish. Growing up, I went to a catholic school and was not allowed to wear nail polish. My heart would literally sink to my stomach on Monday morning while reciting our morning prayers and the pledge of allegiance when I'd gaze down at my praying hands and notice the bright red hue emanating from my fingertips. My teacher  would settle her gaze on me, seemingly at the exact instant that I had discovered my rule-breaking fingernails, and would see my frightened face and promptly summon me to the front of the class to obtain a half-used bottle of acetone and some cotton balls to remove the red pigment. I would walk to the back of the room and remove the polish, finger by finger, and fight back tears as I remembered the fun that my sister and I had  on Friday night while watching TGIF and painting our fingernails in the front room. She always did such a great job, and I never wanted to take it off! I would yearn for the days of summer when I could polish my nails to my heart's content, as long as I kept them short enough for my piano lessons! 

Well, thankfully, long gone are the days of forbidden nail polish! I absolutely love to experiment with different colors, as you've seen on this blog, but I do love a bright, charming, timeless red. My go-to color was discovered in Houston, while getting a pedicure with the same sister who would paint my fingernails on Friday nights. I fell in love with OPI Big Apple Red and have been hooked ever since. Some of my other red favorites are OPI Keys to My Karma and OPI You Rock-Apulco Red! which is super sparkly and perfect for the summer!

Big Apple Red

Keys to My Karma

You Rock-Apulco Red!

I find it so interesting that while I love red so much, so many people that I know venture well-beyond red and into the world of creams, nudes, purples, sparkles, and greens.

For instance, my cousin and I went to get pedicures last night and I got, surprise surprise Big Apple Red. However, my cousin tried a new-to-her OPI Sapphires in the Snow and it was absolutely smashing! It looked so pretty on her fair skin! I loved it and I really want to try it, but I just can't escape my love of red nails. Her pretty nails make me want to try it! How gorgeous is this? 

Sapphires in the Snow

And my mom LOVES these two Essie colors...they're so classically beautiful and look so delicate and dainty on her pretty fingers! 

Essie Imported Bubbly

Essie Limo-Scene

And my cousin Elena loves colors that are similar to this one...

Essie Sand Tropez

And my cousin Ana has recently been enjoying this color...

Essie Stylenomics

I have one sister who loves the "sparkle sparkle, shimmer shimmer" polishes, and a good friend who LOVES this sparkly OPI color, although it looked less purple and more clear when she wore it. I think it's so pretty and fun! 

OPI It's My Year

And I'll leave you with one final color to try! It's by Revlon and my mom, sister and I are HUGE fans of it! The color goes with everything and it's slightly understated, but dramatic at the same time. I feel like it's fun and flirty, but also serious and mysterious. It's definitely a great color to have on hand (pun intended)!

Revlon Stormy

Well there you go! I hope you'll enjoy trying our some of these beautiful shades! It's so fun to pick one up at CVS and then run home and try it out. All of these colors that I've featured are available at drug stores and beauty supply stores for less than ten dollars, so it's definitely an affordable splurge (if there is such a thing)! Happy polishing! xoxo 

Granola Grabbers

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Hello and happy new year! I hope you all had a very merry Christmas and that your new years are off to a great start!

So, I’ll cut to the chase.  I had a challenge and being the competitive individual that I am, I whole-heartedly embraced the challenged and I feel that I came out victorious in the end!

Here’s the deal. My dad encouraged me to “find a recipe for granola cookies.” What?! Was my initial reaction. I had no idea that people would want to put granola in a cookie and then eat it! I was flabbergasted, but curious, so I kept that thought in the back of my head.

Over the nice, long holiday break, I indulged myself in one of my favorite pastimes…reading cookbooks, specially baking cookbooks. I have LOVED my Dorie Greenspan Baking: From My Home to Yours since I first purchased it in 2009 at Homegoods and I’ve been a huge fan of every single recipe that I’ve made out of that book! The dark chocolate biscotti are like heaven on earth and the recipe that I’ll feature today was scrumptious!

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 While flipping through my book, I came across a “granola grabbers” recipe and I had to peel my chin off of the floor! What the heck?! Dorie has a recipe that features granola in a cookie?! WHAT?! I was SO excited to make these and I was so thrilled that they turned out so well.  The man who was behind the granola cookie request enjoyed two cookies fresh out of the oven (a record for him!). He has the greatest self-control of anyone I know and always limits himself to a bite or two of any freshly-baked cookie. I have no idea how we’re related! HAHA.

Anyhoo, the backstory is this. Every year, my aunt makes delicious granola (her secret recipe!) and gives it to all of her nieces, nephews, and siblings as gifts. Every year, I enjoy the granola, but there’s so much of it that come March, I still have lots of granola to work my way through. Therefore, a granola cookie requiring 3 cups of homemade granola is the PERFECT solution.

cute granola tin from my aunt! 

look at all those raisins and walnuts!

So, here goes. The perfect granola cookie recipe. I added more raisins because I love raisins. My sister suggested that white chocolate would be a delicious addition and I whole-heartedly agree. We didn’t have any on hand, but white chocolate is most definitely making its way into our next batch! I’m thinking that it might be best melted and drizzled on top of each cookie. I can see it now…white chocolate granola grabbers. Yummers!

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Granola Grabbers

adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Granola Grabbers Recipe featured in Baking: From My Home to Yours

Ingredients:

3 cups granola without fruit (mine had a few raisins and walnuts)

3/4 cup moist, plump raisins (I used dark)

1/2 cup shredded coconut, sweetened

1/3 cup wheat germ

1 and 3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup light brown sugar (packed)

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1 cup whole wheat flour

Instructions:

Pre-heat oven to 375º. 

Place granola, raisins, coconut, and wheat germ in a medium sized bowl.

In a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, beat butter on medium speed for 3 minutes. Add brown sugar and granulated sugar and beat for 2 minutes. Add egg and salt and beat for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula and beat for a 15 seconds to make sure that everything is incorporated. 

Turn mixer to low and add flour. Then add granola mixture and blend until incorporated.

Turn mixer off, remove paddle attachment and scoop cookies, by rounded tablespoon onto a lined (either by parchment or silicone baking sheet) cookie sheet. Bake for 11 minutes, or until tops of cookies are golden brown. 

Remove cookies from the oven and allow them to cool on cookie sheets for 2 minutes, and then remove them from the sheet and allow the cookies to cool on a wire rack.

Serve warm or cooled. Store in an airtight container for up to one week. 

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I hope you enjoy these cookies as much as we did! :-) Happy new year! xoxo

En route a un cafécito...

Happy Monday, amigos! I'm just getting ready to head out of work and wanted to stop by to say a super-quick hello! My plans for the evening include a cafécito and a leisure reading of Maricel E. Presilla's new book: Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America. How wonderful does this look? I'm also planning to enjoy a big bowl of soup for dinner since it's freezing cold and raining outside and then I'll head to the gym a little later tonight for a pre-bed run. I have a four mile run on my half-marathon training schedule, so I'm hoping that the cafécito and soup will be the perfect pre-run fuel! If only I could find a mug like this and a coffee shop that would serve me Cuban coffee in a Cuban mug. That would be wonderful. Much love to you all. xoxo