Food Files

 One of the upsides (one of MANY!!) of visiting with friends and family is that I can see what other people eat.  There are always favorite foods you make for your own family and it is easy to get stuck in a rut.  I was able to see favorite meals from a lot of my favorite people and it has really jazzed up my food repertoire.

Like this wrap, for instance.  While I was at Helen's I saw how she would take leftovers and throw them into a wrap for a tasty lunch the next day.  Like leftover chicken or pork would get chopped up with some veg and VOILA!  Now did she invent the wrap, no.  But I totally never thought of it as lunch food ideas for myself until I saw her doing it.

So last night we had Chili's (which is the only American sit down food chain around these parts) and I had some left over chicken strips from my meal.  I re heated them, put them in a wrap with lettuce, ranch dressing, parsley, carrot stripes, shredded cheese and thinly sliced cucumber.  It tasted SO good and I am not normally totally keen on left over restaurant food, but this was the bomb.  Light and fresh and satisfying.  Thanks Helen for the inspiration!

 Like I mentioned earlier, I have been baking my brains out.  Two nights ago I made some Banana Nut Bran muffins, recipe HERE and they turned out SO good.  I couldn't even find some of my regular products (like I had to use All Bran Cereal for the bran and dried buttermilk powder for the buttermilk) and I left out the raisins and added some cinnamon.  Pretty much can't go wrong with a barefoot contessa recipe!  Then today I made some Molasses Cookies, recipe HERE.  I love these cookies, they are SO good!  Can you tell I have been on a molasses kick lately?  Rachel has the best recipes and I love trying what she puts on her blog.  Her Double Chocolate Cherry Chunk Cookies (find the recipe where through the link to the Molasses Cookies) are also another big time Radder Favorite.  And I may or may not have already made those earlier this week too.  Sigh.  Does it count that I am giving some of them away?  I mean.... It's not like I am sitting there eating batch after batch myself right?

Next up on the baking menu is making these cookies.  They are SO FREAKING GOOD.  Like seriously so amazing.  I got this cookie recipe book from my Mom when I was in high school and this was the first recipe that I made from them.   If you want to make them make sure to toast your almond slivers, really gives in a great nutty flavor and you bake them at 375 for 9-10 min.  The 2 TBS of Almond Flavoring seemed a bit much when I first made them, but they taste so awesome so make sure not to skimp on it.

The girls think they have died and gone to heaven because every time they turn around, I am pulling something hot and incredible smelling out of the oven.  I have been so excited to get my cooking binder and books back that when I flip through them I just keep thinking of more and more things that I want to make, so bake away I do ;)