Almost Famous Breadsticks

I served these breadsticks alongside the "almost famous" garden salad on Mother's Day. These breadsticks are meant to be just like the ones served at Olive Garden. They were very zesty and buttery and the texture of the dough was just perfect. The recipe makes a very generous 16 big breadsticks. The whole batch was gone in no time at all. I grabbed two and wrapped them up for my husband so that he could have a chance to try them! Sometimes you gotta be sneaky like that : )

The best part about these breadsticks is that they are very quick since they only require a 45 minute rising period. There is no second rising which makes them much quicker to serve. I would like to share that the dough did not rise very much at all. In fact, when I removed my kitchen towel and looked at the dough I was scared. I thought maybe I had done something wrong and the dough had not rose. They were only slightly puffy but I decided to go ahead and bake them anyway. I was so happy when they turned out so great.

The only change I made to this recipe was adding more butter. How can you ever go wrong with more butter? I wanted them to be extra special for Mother's Day! The breadsticks are brushed with a melted butter and salt mixture before baking. When they come out of the oven they look so moist and you can see all that lovely salt glistening on the tops. Then you top them with more melted butter, garlic salt and I also added Italian seasoning. The recipe does not call for Italian seasoning but I think this greatly improved the taste of the breadstick. They were extremly flavorful and zesty. I'm so excited to share this quick and easy recipe for breadsticks. I really hope that someone will try it and let me know what they think.

Almost Famous Garden Salad - Olive Garden Style

I have a subscription to the new TV Food Network Magazine and I can't tell you how much I love it. My favorite section of the magazine is the Almost Famous section. In the last issue they gave a recipe for soft pretzels that taste just like the ones you buy in the shopping mall. Imagine my surprise when I saw the most recent issue has the recipe for Olive Garden's salad and breadsticks!! I know my whole family (especially the women) love going to Olive Garden just for the salad and breadsticks alone. I knew instantly that I wanted to make this for my mom and mother-in-law for Mother's Day. I doubled the recipe and took a salad to each of them yesterday. We all LOVED this salad. It was the perfect lunch for us this year as we are all craving fresh and light salad dishes. Even the men enjoyed it!! I am really urging everyone to try this one. It's as simple as making a quick dressing in a blender and tossing it with some prewashed salad mix.

Blackberry Roulade For Mother's Day

I have been trying blackberry desserts lately in favor of my Mom. She loves desserts containing lime, lemon and blackberries. I found this recipe in Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook and it is not online. It is a basic recipe for a sponge cake that is baked in a 17 x 12 inch rimmed baking sheet for about 10 minutes and then immediately laid out on a powdered sugar covered kitchen towel. Once the cake cools it is filled with a creamy blackberry filling. The cake is then rolled back up and coated with more powdered sugar.

The filling was the easiest part of this recipe. It is simply 1 pint of blackberries smashed with a fork. I strained my smashed blackberry mixture to remove most of the seeds (Martha does not call for straining). Beat 1 cup of cream with 3 tbsp. powdered sugar and fold into blackberries. This is a lovely light purple color and delicious on its own.

The cake batter was a little frustrating make. For the first time, I didn't feel like the recipe was written clear enough. There was one list of ingredients and several steps and I ended up adding sugar to wrong mixture. There was an egg yolk mixture, an egg white mixture, and a dry mix that is folded together and baked. In the end, the cake turned out to be a dream to work with as far as rolling is concerned.

This is a huge cake that would easily serve 12-18 people. I cut the cake in half and took half to my mother-in-law and half to my mom. Everyone really enjoyed the light and airy aspect of this cake. They said it had a melt-in-your-mouth quality. My husband also enjoyed it and he doesn't even like blackberries. I didn't really know what to think of it. I realize that it is a "sponge cake" but it was very spongelike. It seemed like the cake was lacking flavor and was rather light and mild. Maybe this is someone's idea of a fabulous dessert, but I want my desserts to be sinful, rich, and decadent : ) I don't know if I would make this one again.

Cinco De Mayo Pizza

I just started baking breads and pizzas a couple months ago. I have been using this recipe for pizza dough and it always turns out perfectly. I've thought about trying a new recipe, but why fix what ain't broke?? We have really been enjoying homemade pizza and all the toppings that you can create at home.

For Cinco de Mayo, we decided to go with a Mexican-inspired pizza. I made the pizza dough and and rubbed it down with some chili oil. Then I layered it with refried beans, taco sauce, ground beef cooked down with taco seasoning, monterey jack cheese, olives, and jalapenos. This was one hot and tasty pizza! I really enjoy hot and spicy foods, but my mouth was really on fire! I was happy I had made some frozen chocolate bananas. They were the perfect dessert to help cool my mouth down.

PB & J Pancakes

Breakfast food is my all-time favorite. Maybe it's because we don't usually have the time for a hot breakfast everyday. Or maybe it's because there is such a wide variety of things to serve for breakfast. In fact, there are so many recipes for pancakes alone that it could make your head spin. I was craving pancakes the other night and I searched the food network for a new and unique recipe. I was planning on trying the Tyler Florence recipe that has been so popular lately, but I found this one instead. This is a recipe from Sunny Anderson's show, Cooking for Real.

I can remember watching this episode and thinking she was on to something with this recipe.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I don't know if I have ever been so impressed with a recipe before!! I was expecting them to be good, but they blew my socks off!!

The recipe is easy, quick and produces perfectly fluffy and golden brown peanut butter pancakes! The jelly syrup is pure genius! This is a wonderfully written recipe with the perfect balance of peanut butter flavor and just the right amount of sweetness in the syrup. The pancakes puff up in the pan and are so tender they will melt in your mouth.

I cannot tell you how much we enjoyed this recipe. Even my husband said they were a full blown 10, and he hardly ever says that. This means a lot coming from him, especially when there is no meat involved.

If you need more proof of just how good this recipe truly is, then check here. It has been rated 5 stars by 45 people on the food network website. If you like peanut butter and jelly you will not be disappointed.

Olivia's 8th Birthday Cake!!

I had big plans for Olivia's cake yesterday. Every year she wants a boxed yellow cake mix with chocolate frosting. This presents a challenge every year because a chocolate frosted cake is hard to decorate. This year I thought I had a great idea. On our recent trip to Disney World we purchased a huge Mr. Potatohead with all kinds of cute little parts. There were Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy parts. I wanted to cut the cake into a potatohead shape and decorate with potatohead pieces. Although Olivia loves to play Mr. Potatohead with her little brother, she did not like this idea. The reason why? A Mr. Potatohead cake did not match her Hannah Montana themed birthday party. She asked me if she could decorate her own cake and how could I refuse? It was her cake after all. Good thing I didn't have any sprinkles!! They would've been poured on the cake!

Chocolate Fondue and the Chocolate Fountain

My mom bought this little chocolate fountain on sale last year. She thought it would be fun for my daughter. We have tried working with it two times now and it has given us trouble each time. The first time we made a cheese fondue (the instruction booklet said the fountain would work with cheese fondue). Just yesterday, I made a chocolate fondue. This fountain is like the little engine that couldn't. It's little motor is running but it just can't pump the fondue through. We are about to part ways with it very soon! I'm wondering if anyone else has ever tried one of these? Have you had a good experience with one?

On the other hand, how can you go wrong with chocolate fondue? Does it matter to a chocolate lover when the chocolate isn't running smoothly through the fountain? Of course not!! We just scooped the chocolate out onto our plates and carried on. We had pineapples, strawberries, bananas, animal crackers, and pretzels. The bananas were my favorite!!

I think I might just purchase a regular old fondue pot. I'd love to hear everyone's comments about fondue and things to dip in fondue. Please share!!