Grilled Zucchini Y'all

So, this weekend the boyfriend was grilling steaks. I asked him to grill the zucchini too, please. Now, he had a myriad of questions to ask about how I would be preparing this zucchini as he is not a huge fan (he find it can by a tad too mushy in texture). I told him I would brush it with olive oil, then dust it with garlic salt and pepper, he will grill it, then a light sprinkle of parmesan cheese would top it off. Miraculously, he agreed to partake in the grilled zucchini. I LOVED IT! It was so yummy I think I could eat it everyday. That's all.

Enjoy!

Green Chili, cheese, & olive chicken

I made green chili with cheese and olive chicken tonight.

I got the recipe from this great blog, For the Love of Cooking  loaded with delish recipes. I made one small change, I used fresh green chilies and roasted them on the grill instead of using canned ones. I get my chilies from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) which provides shared of fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables. Being part of the CSA has been great for me, it forces me to not only cook, but cook using produce I may not normally buy. If you feel like joining the Tucson CSA, or just perusing the website for more info, click here, Tucson CSA.

The verdict: good! I would probably add more green chili and more cheese next time, but I think that is just because I love both of those ingredients. Definitely serve this with black beans or something. I will make this again. 

Happy eating. 

Alright, it’s cake pop time. Yes, I am rather aware that I’m behind on this new (to my kitchen) trend. And this will not be a tutorial (although I will include the link to the tutorial I used),  this is more like me experience with making these treats.

I used the tutorial on Cake Pops Recipe. I used a pretty basic one, but if you feel adventurous this site has tons of different flavors and styles of cake pops.

I have made these suckers (pun intended) twice. I had a par-tay, and made them for that, but also made them a month prior to the party to get a feel for how it would go.

I like the recipe, and I think I finally found out what makes these babies really pop (yes, another pun, which was again intended).  So, the tutorial says that you need to add about half a container of icing, I found I needed ¾ to 1 container of icing. I personally love cream cheese frosting so I used it the first time I made these. I (and others) found the pops to be good, but very rich. The next time I made them I used a buttercream frosting, which was exponentially better in mine and others opinions. The buttercream allowed the pops to have a lighter taste and texture which was very lovely.

I would suggest, like the tutorial, to keep the cake balls to about 1 inch in diameter, this size seemed to be great, one bite and not too big/heavy so that the cake balls fall off the candy stick.

Next, I definitely recommend chilling the cake balls in the refrigerator overnight to firm up. I never tried it without doing this, but I am also a rather anxious person who assumes that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, especially when it is remotely related to me being in the kitchen.

Another tip, do not forget to dip the sticks in melted chocolate before inserting the stick into the cake balls. I happened to forget on half the batch for the party and believe me, we have more than a handful of casualties.

I got my melting chocolate from Michaels (craft store). The regular and dark chocolate melted perfectly fine in the microwave, but the white chocolate did not. I tried to elt the white chocolate in the microwave (because it said on the package I could) but it burnt. So the next time we used a double boiler to melt it and this worked great. Sid note: With the double boiler I needed an assistant (my wonderful boyfriend) because the chocolate needed to be stirred often.

I put my cake pops in the refrigerator to cool and then I would put clear candy wrappers around the pops.

The first day or work, which includes making the cake and the balls takes about 2-3 hours (this includes baking and cooling time). The next and final day takes about 1-2 hours, depending on how many pops are made.

Good luck and enjoy!!