NEW POST AT NEW SITE

Hello all,

You can find my most recent post about my trip to San Francisco HERE.  

My new website is at dazzlefullife.com and is where you can find all new and old posts.

Mad love,

Kristy

THE NEW DAZZLEFUL LIFE WEBSITE!!!

www.dazzlefullife.com

Hello All,

If you’ve found yourself here then you should mosey on over to the new website at dazzlefullife.com where all new updates are being posted.  Eventually I’ll have this figured out where if you come to this site it will automatically direct you to the new site, but my brain is working on that still.  I love you all and hope you enjoy the new site I designed.

xoxo

Kristy

Flasher Mac: Broccoli, Bratwurst, and Mustard Macaroni and Cheese

I was minding my own fur clad business when walking home from work last night when I was met with the most unpleasant of surprises. While passing under the freeway I saw an elderly gentleman who I assumed was one of our friendly neighbors, who sometimes sleeps there, setting up shop and was surprised to find he was not setting up shop but had pulled down his knickers to flash his didley widley at me! Slightly disturbed and surprisingly violated I made my way home after calling my experience into 911. (Don’t worry, my wonderful co-worker Jen has now supplied me with the non-emergency line.) After locking the door tight, putting my pepper spray into my purse, and calling my mom I opened a bottle of wine and contemplated how I was going to erase the image that was so recently burned into my brain. The answer of course was in the kitchen. What I needed was some stove therapy.

After eying the blue box in my roomies cupboard I decided to pass on the easy route and instead opened her Macaroni & Cheese cookbook by Marlena Spieler. Reading recipes relaxes me, so I read the entire thing. Back to front, then front to back, mentally noting the recipes that were possible with the contents of my fridge. It was between the Broccoli Mac from the back or the Yankee mac in the middle. The note at the bottom of the Yankee mac had the brilliant idea of adding broccoli to it, so that was that. I used the recipe from the book as a base and went into the kitchen, turned on my Reba pandora station, and dove into the prep for my flasher mac.

^Lunch leftovers: The perks of making way too much food^

Pinteresting

Last week my roommate asked me if I was still blogging.  I replied yes, and realized I hadn’t had the time to finish any of the blogs I’ve started in the last few weeks.  Over the holidays I got to go on two epic foodie adventures that are both completely unblogged about.  I promise, I will eventually share the over-indulgent amazingness that were my trips to Ox and The Woodsmans Tavern, but until then I have something to share with you.  It’s more of an admission than a share.  I am officially addicted to Pinterest.  I know, I know, I’m late to the game.  But man oh man am I finding all sorts of inspiration on that time sucking site.   Since I haven’t had the courtesy to stay up to date on my blog posts  I thought I would share some of my favorite finds from Pinterest I’ve found during my weeklong Pinning binge.  And here they are in no particular order:

Cream Cheese Coffee Cake was pinned by my friend Penny and promptly whipped up for company that evening.  Penny was one of the lucky ones who got to try it, even though she was a bit miffed that I made it before she had a chance.  Just a little miffed, because she still got to eat this yummy breakfast/dessert/snack item.

I also learned how to get candle wax out of containers.  Technically, I haven’t tried this yet.  But around my house we are really into candles.  (I MUST GET RENTERS INSURANCE) We’ve tried freezing them, which worked okay, but took up a lot of room in our already stuffed freezer.  Since I’m going to try this in the future I went out yesterday and bought the yummiest vanilla candle in a beautiful vase, so I have something to try it on.  I definitely needed another reason to buy candles…

I just got Kissa Bear, my beautiful cat.  Now I’m looking for a piece of art so I can decorate her area like this.  My room is already pretty decorated so now I’m being inspired to find new places to get creative in my house.  Kissa is going to love her nook art.

Not only have I found myself staring at my Pinterest feed for long periods of time, I’ve also discovered another reason to scour the interwebs for things like the Pasha Skeleton Watch with Panther.  It makes me feel amazing to have a reason to cruise the Cartier site for a reason other than to make myself cry, but to share with the masses pretty dazzleful items I can only dream of owning.

If you haven’t gotten an invite to join Pinterest yet, give me a holler and I’ll invite you.  Then you can follow me into the abyss of addiction….:)

So, that’s what I’ve been up to.  I hope you are all having a wonderful new year and getting a lot more done than I am!  Keep your eyes peeled for the belated but complete posts on my foodie adventures from the past few weeks.  Until then, have a dazzleful day!

xoxo

New Dazzle: Kitchenaid

I guess you can trace my luck with kitchen gadgets back to the stockpile my Aunt Marylee had in her basement when I first moved out of my parents house. My mother and her sisters are garage sale masters and my aunt had been collecting used dishes, pots, pans and utensils for what must have been a very long time. I still have the set of fruit rimmed dishes she let me choose from the pile. That is where it started… And I’m afraid it will never end.

Here is the beautifully used Kitchenaid from my mothers kitchen which was today bestowed upon me. I’ll be using it for the first time to make rolls on Thanksmas. This is the mixer I grew up watching my mother bake with and I couldn’t be luckier to have a mom who likes to upgrade. Thanks, mom! Xoxo

Thanksgiving Repurposed: Part 2

I left off talking about my Thanksgiving Pizza. Since I had so much fun repurposing my Thanksgiving leftovers this year I had to do 2 blog entries. I’ll continue now with Potato Croquettes and my mother’s Cream of Turkey.

I’ll start with the Cream of Turkey I grew up eating. It was an after Thanksgiving staple in my house. I remember my favorite way of eating it was on toast. But I’m pretty sure it was also served with rice or some other carb that was lying around the house. But on toast it is like an open faced piece of creamy turkey bliss. And this is from a child that hated the dense whole wheat toast it was smothering. But I guess I learned early that anything can be yummy if smothered in a cheese sauce.

There’s another thing. I didn’t realize exactly how simple it was to make the cream of turkey my mom has been dishing up all these years. Technically all it consists of is a bechamel sauce with chunks of turkey mixed in. Seriously. That’s it. I call it bechamel, my mother calls it white sauce, my stomach calls is amazing. It’s all the same in the end.

So you take 2 tbsp butter and melt them in a sauce pan. Then you add one cup milk and stir together. Then add 2 tbsp flour. Once mixed add one cup shredded cheese. I used mozzarella because it was on hand, my mother recommends white cheddar. Slowly stir until all the cheese is melted and the mixture thickens, then add more cheese because you can. I was advised to double the batch. I didn’t and wish I had. It was easy adding a little of this and a little of that to get more sauce, but starting out by doubling it would’ve been easier. When I had enough sauce I mixed in about 1 1/2 cups of chopped up turkey. Et voila! Cream of turkey.

Now I know I talked about the classic move of toast smothered in cream of turkey, but I like to pretend I’m classier than that. So in an attempt to uphold my fancy pants I chose to use my leftover brown butter mashed potatoes to make potato croquettes as a carb base for the cream of turkey. Potato croquettes=pan fried breadcrumb coated mashed potato balls. So not only did the snob in me feel like I made something fancy, but I got to practice pan frying breaded carbohydrates. Another win/win situation.

To make potato croquettes you need about 4 cups of mashed potatoes. I added one egg and half of a finely chopped sweet onion to the mashers. I mixed it all thoroughly. I also added a half cup of buttermilk which probably wasn’t needed. It made my mashers a bit hard to shape into balls, so you will only need milk if you have super dry mashed potatoes. Then I took a large spoonful of the masher mixture and shaped it into a ball. Next I dredged it through a bowl with two whisked eggs and then coated the ball in panko breadcrumbs. I filled a frying pan with an inch of vegetable and heated until shimmering, then fried the croquettes in batches until golden brown, about 4 minutes on each side. Then I set croquettes on some paper towels to soak up the excess oil while frying up the next batches.

I then steamed some broccoli (because I suppose you need something healthy at a meal) and smothered the croquettes in the cream of turkey. Yeah, it was pretty decadent. There was some left over masher mixture which I threw in the fridge. I used it to quickly whip up some more croquettes for raclette a couple days later. You don’t know what raclette is? Just wait, you’ll see soon enough. 🙂

P.S.
I think I fell in love with pan-frying breadcrumb coated anything… Watch out, I think this may be dangerous.

Thanksgiving Repurposed: Part 1

I love Thanksgiving for so many reasons: turkey, family, friends, kitchen therapy, paid time off, finally being able to listen to Christmas music(in shared spaces), and last but not least, leftovers. Some people get tired of leftover, but not me. It can be the most exciting thing to have food that NEEDS used in your fridge. (Or annoying, but I try to look on the bright side of things.) And I’m not talking about eating a repeat of dinner or turkey sandwiches for days. Not that I didn’t eat those meals, but what I’m talking about is repurposing Thanksgiving.

See all that food in the picture above; it was for four people. Let’s just say I know how to plan for leftovers in advance. I was lucky enough to have leftover everything. (Except the Waldorf and lemon pudding salad… I let my mother keep those.) Last year I made a stuffing dumpling soup, a stuffing crust shepards pie, and a honey mustard turkey pizza. I recreated the pizza here, but added sage. That was just the beginning of a week of creativity in the kitchen.

Hello world!

Welcome to my dazzleful blog. I plan on sharing my life with you through recipes, restaurants, parties, and random dazzle I encounter. Follow me for some foodie adventures, some attempts at new recipes, and some dazzeful parties. I’m hoping I can find the subtle dazz that is everywhere in life and spread the joy with all of you!