Goat Cheese and Fig Crepes

I could seriously eat breakfast foods for every meal of the day... breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert... yeah that's right, breakfast food is darn versatile! This creation came about in two ways. The first is a jam I received from Steve Donner and his family out in CA. We did a mini jam exchange between the two of us. So awesome!! One of the jars he sent me was a white fig and pineapple jam... I was totally intrigued to try it and knew it would pair well with a nice goat cheese. Lucky for me the nice people at Il De France asked if they could send me a sample of their goat cheese. A... YUM! and YES PLEASE!!


You can use any type of crepe recipe you have on hand. I love my whole wheat recipe here. Once you've made up your crepe, sprinkle some crumbled cheese in the center along with a drizzle of jam, roll and slice into bite size pieces. Hold the mini rolls together with tooth picks and serve as an appetizer. Or if you're like me, just sit down with a fork and knife and chow down!


I also tried these with the apricot jam I made, another great jam/goat cheese pairing if you ask me! The creaminess of the goat cheese in contrast with the sweet of the jam was a wonderful combination.


What would you pair with some nice goat cheese in a crepe??

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Saucy Mama - recipe

OK I finally figured out what I wanted to make for the saucy mama recipe contest!! The wing sauce was calling my name from the moment I pulled it out of the box, so I knew I had to use it. Plus with my new fancy grill John bought me, I knew it had to be cooked outside on it! This meal is super easy to pull together. Even if you worked all day, this would be so wuick to toss together in time for dinner!

Healthy "chicken wing" breasts, hot sauce grilled corn, and lime chipotle coleslaw!

You know you're drooling, admit it.

OK first the chicken

Healthy "chicken wing" breasts
4 skinless boneless chicken breasts, trimmed of fat
1/4 cup Saucy Mama Hot Wing Sauce

Trim breasts of fat and lay out flat in a large bowl, pour sauce over top and using your hands coat all sides of the chicken. Let marinate in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes.

On a preheated grill, cook breasts until cooked through (time will vary on grill/thickness of breasts) Mine took about 5 minutes each side.

Next the corn!
Hot sauce grilled corn
4 ears of corn
4 light drizzles of Saucy Mama hot sauce

Using your hands rub the wing sauce over the naked corn on the cob (husks removed). Place on a preheated grill, cook for about 10 minutes, rotating to lightly cook all sides.

Finally.. the coleslaw, it doesn't get any easier than this!

Lime chipotle coleslaw!
1/4 head of green cabbage rough chopped
3 carrots sliced thin using a vegetable peeler lengthwise
(or the super easy method, grab a bag of the ready to go chopped coleslaw mix from your grocery store)
1/4 cup Saucy Mama lime chipotle marinade

Chop up the cabbage and carrots, or dump the bag of premade veggies into a bowl.
Top with marinade and toss to coat.
Chill until ready to serve.

Seriously that's it! And it's so good! I love the kick of the wing sauce with the kick of the lime chipotle dressing. Make them all together or with other family favorites :)

Chow!

And the best part... I still have 2 more bottles of the lime chipotle to give away!! So leave a comment for another chance to win!

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Pizza on the Grill

So this was my first attempt at pizza on the grill! As I mentioned before, John got me a kick butt gas grill for my birthday!!! How cool is that??

My mom laughed at me when I told her what she got me... she thought I was kidding...

"Steph don't you want some nice jewelry or something?? You really wanted a grill?"

Yes mom, yes I did :D

Dad seemed pretty amused at my gift, I think he was proud of my choice :D


I've heard about cooking pizza on a gas grill for a long time, and have always wanted to try. With John's kitchen under construction, this seemed like the perfect opportunity! For my first try I kinda whimped out though... I used flat out wraps as my crust. I'll try home made dough soon for sure though! The pizzas cooked up super fast and had a wonderful wood fired taste to them. Pile the toppings high and get grilling!

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Jam roundup!

I just want to give you all a huge thank you for taking part in this! I think it was a great success! We had 27 people from all over join in! I know for a fact new friendships were made through this, which is over the top exciting!



OK here is what people sent... at least what people wrote me back about what they sent (or what I was able to find on their blog- i'm sneaky like that)! (click on the images to see them larger) (Images were either sent to me or taken from your blog post or the post of the person who received the jam)

Darice who lives in CA sent Jen of Maple and Cornbread strawberry-kiwi jam, strawberry tarragon jam and lemon basil jelly

Jen of Maple and Cornbread (who picked all the berries she used in these!) sent me strawberry rhubarb (the first jam she ever learned to make as a girl), blueberry cinnamon, and spiced peach (picked from her father-in-laws tree!). How great is that!

I mailed Doug of Javaholic some strawberry jam, some cherry jam and some pumpkin butter!

Doug sent Jen of Beantown Baker Lemongrass-kaffir lime leaf-pepper jelly and a jar of Rosemary Peach Jam

Jen sent Sunshine of Eating on Tulsa Time some Rhubarb Raspberry Jam, and some Peach Bourbon!

Sunshine sent Diana of A little bit of Spain in Iowa Pineapple-Rhubarb Jam and Quadruple Berry!

Diane made her own pectin... no joke!! She sent to April of Abby Sweets some strawberry honey jam along with a jar of homemade pectin!

April (who was my first jam exchange partner ever last year!! woohoo!!) sent Cranberry, pear-vanilla, apple-cinnamon and sweet potato butter to Jeanne of The wrong Century (Jeanne does awesome crafts btw!).

Jeanne sent Tricia of Tricia Chaves some Strawberry Rhubarb, Strawberry, and Black and Blue jam!

Tricia sent Leslie Strawberry and Kiwi jam!

Leslie sent Krystal of The Special K Treatment some Strawberry Balsamic and a jar of Coco Banana! Very creative.

Krystal sent Beth a jar of Sirachi Jam.

Beth sent Becky some Raspberry Jam, and some Amazing apricot jam. How do I know it was amazing you ask? Because I made them both with her! This was Beth's first time making jam and she did great!

Becky sent black raspberry and some pineapple banana with a hint of strawberry to Steve.

Steve (who makes like 18 kinds of jam, mostly from fruit picked from his back yard!! so cool!!) sent my lovely roomie Steph some “Donner Family Farms” Cardamom-Plum and Dark Berry & White Fig Jams!

Steph (my roomie) sent Natalie of Natalie's Killer Cuisine a jar of Strawberry Rhubarb, Triple Berry and Apple Butter.

Natalie sent two jars of Tomato Jam! You got that right!!! To Lori of Lori's Lip Smacking Goodness.

Lori (who lives in Rochester but I've never met... yet!) sent green tomato jam andMargarita Strawberry Jam to Rebecca of Playful Noshings.

Rebecca sent Mike of Food Muse some delicious looking fig jam!.

Mike sent Christine of Sandwich Hoss some Quadraberry Jam and a jar of no-pectin Apricot Preserves.

Christine sent Megan of Megan's Cookin some strawberry plum jam, Peach jam with orange and ginger, and Blueberry-peach Jam (her posts are freakin hilarious btw!)

Megan sent Leslie of Spilling Buckets (another Rochestarian I have yet to meet!) some Lemony Peach Jam with Basil, Raspberry Chocolate topping, and a container of grill seasoning. Doesnt' that just sound interesting and tasty!?? Sure looks pretty.

Leslie sent Sieda strawberry lemon, blue berry, multi berry, and peach cinnamon!

Sieda sent to Jayme of Delectable Deliciousness some raspberry jam! yum!

Jayme sent sent Darice some (on the left) peach, raspberry, vanilla bean jam and (on the right) raspberry, strawberry, vanilla bean!

OK only two left! I paired them with each other since Jen of Piccante Dolce lives in Canada. Her partner was Shann. This way they were both shipping international and getting something international (only fair that way). I haven't heard from either of them so I don't know what they sent!

If anyone didn't receive their jam please let me know!!

That was seriously fun! Thank you again everyone and hope you join again next year!

PS Leslie of Spilling buckets was so inspired by this exchange, she's hosting a canning exchange! You can read about it in her post here, you have until Sept 4th to sign up!

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Smore please

Ok if you don't like smores... I don't know what to tell you. I mean even my sweet fiance who doesn't like to eat sugar can't say no to them! Even though we weren't tent camping, we still had a nice outdoor area complete with a fire pit! Smores HAD to be made! I mean it's a requirement in my book if you are camping :)

The most important part of marshmallow roasting is having some good red coals to brown your marshmallows over. It you just stick them in the flames they will just set on fire, or brown but not get all droopy and gooey inside!


I like to cook my marshmallows until they are so gooey they are desperately holding onto the stick, unabashedly threatening to dive into the flames at any moment! How do you like to cook yours??


Now that is one deflated marshmallow! Perfect if you ask me :) When making smores you also have to be prepared! I like to line up a bunch of graham crackers with chocolate all ready to go, assembly line style!

Want to know another secret I learned about smores while on vacation? If it rains one night and gets all of your firewood wet... you can totally make them in the microwave (this applies to "camping" not real camping though... LOL... The whole cooking part is not the same but pretty darn amusing. Especially when a certain someone sneaks out the camera while you are trying to enjoy your hot out of the microwave smore!



Can't a girl enjoy her microwaved smores in peace??

Place your graham crackers down and top with chocolate and two marshmallows. Microwave for about 30 seconds (keep an eye on them so they don't set on fire). They will get rather large and then deflate when you open the door. YUM!

I know, I know, the fire roasted are OBVIOUSLY better... but hey... tough times call for tough measures!

And after further ado... here are some more fun "camping" pictures :D

I have this tripod that you can wrap around a tree branch or pretty much anything, makes taking pictures of yourself much easier!

Along with this frog, we also saw a snake... and no I didn't pick it up and chase John with it... and yes I did try to do that to him before we were dating HAHAHA... it really is a miracle he stuck around ;)

He's happy because we finally made it to the top! That was a long ALL uphill rocky climb

I was threatening to jump off the side of the mountain... it looked more convincing from my angle :)

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Spiced Peach Jam - Two ways

We're back from camping!! I'll make sure to tell you all about it, (and thank you for all the comments on the pictures I uploaded during the week!) but first some more jam! Hopefully this holds you over until I finish the jam exchange write up. I'm just finishing going through the emails you all sent me last week while I was gone and getting it all together! Better watch out though you are all going to be craving some serious jam once you read it!


Now onto some more jam experiments. Take a look at this image, can you see the difference between these two jams? Both look tasty don't they?

Here's the secret, the one on the left is made with normal white sugar, the one on the right... well this was my first attempt using sucanat! I told you guys awhile back about Wholesome Sweeteners and one of the things they sent me was sucanat! It's a fair trade, 100% organic natural sugar cane. It has a more intense flavor (almost maple like) since it has more flavor you can use less of it to sweeten your jam. This was also my first attempt at using Ball No Sugar Pectin.

The sucanat is similar to brown sugar in color so the jam came out a little darker then the white sugar version (no surprise there really).


So the color is a bit darker... but how about the taste? The result... DELICIOUS!!! Hands down I liked the sucanat version better. I mean there was nothing wrong with the standard white sugar version, it's darn tasty, but the sucanat version was over the top good!

The great thing about both of these versions is that they are low sugar and you can totally taste fresh peaches! I can't stand jams that only have a hint of fruit flavor, these are full on fruit in your face jams! YUM!

How simple is this recipe?

steph chows spiced peach jam with organic sucant

5 cups peaches (chopped fine) skins and pits removed (about 9 medium peaches)
1 1/3 cups sucanat
1 cup no sugar added/low sugar juice (they suggest apple or white grape)
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 package ball NO sugar pectin

Here's a hint on how to remove the peach skins wicked easily. Place the peaches in boiling water for 30 seconds or so, then with a slotted spoon take them out and put them into a bowl filled with ice water. The skins will peal off super easy now!
Add chopped peaches, juice, sucanat and spices into a large pot, stirring constantly bring to a rolling boil.
Let boil for 1 minute (continue stirring).
Gently stir in pectin, continue stirring and boil for 1 more minute.
Remove from heat and pour into sterilized jars. Place lids and rims on, process in boiling water for 10 minutes.

Store for up to 1 year and enjoy the taste of fresh peaches all year long :) Or share them with your family in friends... you can totally make friends with this jam!


If you can't find sucanat by you, you can order it here. Otherwise, here is the tasty (just not AS tasty) white sugar version!

steph chows low sugar spiced peach jam

5 cups peaches (chopped fine) skins and pits removed
3 cups white sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 package sure gel low sugar pectin

Here's a hint on how to remove the peach skins wicked easily. Place the peaches in boiling water for 30 seconds or so, then with a slotted spoon take them out and put them into a bowl filled with ice water. The skins will peal off super easy now!
Add chopped peaches white sugar and spices into a large pot, stirring constantly bring to a rolling boil.
Let boil for 1 minute (continue stirring).
Gently stir in pectin, continue stirring and boil for 1 more minute.
Remove from heat and pour into sterilized jars. Place lids and rims on, process in boiling water for 10 minutes.

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Fighting Hunger

OK, so a really good organization contacted me the day before I headed on vacation. I know I'm normally a big goofball but this is a serious subject. They asked me to help get the word out about fighting hunger. I had until today to get that word out and I really wanted to! (sorry this is so under the wire!) I mean come on who's better to tell you about wanting to stop hunger than me?? I chow constantly, and couldn't imagine what so many people go through on a daily basis. Did you know that 31 million people in the united states will miss a meal today (1/3 of which are children)? I couldn't even imagine that. I mean I get cranky when it's been a few hours since I've eaten! (come on I know you do too) I can't even comprehend what the true feeling of going hungry means...

Here's the other thing, they are donating a box of cereal for the first 30 people who comment on this... so come on people leave a comment so some cereal will get donated!

ShopRite's Partners in Caring has been around for 10 years now! Over that time, they have donated over $20 million! They are dedicated to this fight, but they need your help too, head over to Partners in Caring to learn more about how you can help fight hunger!

Thanks for the support everyone!

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"Camping"

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Nature Baby

So I've been described as a nature baby. I love the outdoors!! Give me a tent and a campfire and I'm a happy girl. No running water? No problem!

Then there is my sweet fiance who I love dearly... tent camping... no way... no running water... major issue. LOL That's ok, I still love him :) He's a trooper and agreed to go "camping" again with me this summer. We are using his definition of camping though. We have electricity, walls, and running water... yup we're CAMPING! We found a place to stay in the Adirondacks via ADK by owner. If you are planning a trip and want to stay in a house/cabin this is the place to check out!


We'll be staying in a cabin on a private 15 acres of land! Running water, pond access, ADK chairs, hiking trails all included :) Can't wait to get out there! We'll have access to a full kitchen in the cabin too, so I'll be taking pictures of our adventures and posting as I can next week. I'll probably be a little quiet on the comments on all your blogs next week but don't worry I'll be back!

While we are there we plan on taking lots of hikes! The pictures below are a pretty good explanation of our last ADK vacation... even though I'm the "experience" nature baby... I kept getting us lost for some reason HAHAH But John always managed to find the trail again :)


Oh if you are wondering about the jam exchange write up... I'm waiting on some more pictures to come in while I'm away next week, so I'll post the whole shebang once I'm back!!

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