So here it is – I’m outing myself – I am a single women in her 30’s who has absolutely no idea how to cook.  I have all sorts of excuses – I’m single, cooking for one is no fun, have you ever tried eating beef stroganoff 6 days in a row (seriously – no fun!) and the list goes on.  My dinners are often eggs (scrambled and sunny side down), hamburgers and baked chicken breast.

Lately I find myself thinking unthinkable thoughts – I actually want to learn a thing or two in the kitchen.  Now don’t get me wrong – I can’t see me ever aspiring to be a Kitchen Diva of the highest order.  I’m fairly sure that the Unkitchen Diva in me is healthy and strong but I’m feeling a pull to try something new.

Take today for instance – I made individual puff pastry frittatas – well sort of.  I tried making individual frittatas a few weeks ago – I would not term it a success.  They stuck to the muffin pan, deflated like a pricked soufflé and generally did not look pretty at all.  They were however edible, which is a vast improvement over some of my past experiments.  I decided to tackle them again but this time with a pastry type shell.  When I whipped open the oven door, as the timer was going off, I was very pleasantly surprised.  They looked pretty even!!

Right then and there I made a decision.  I would try new recipes this year and share my triumphs and more than likely failures with you.  I don’t know where I’m going with this.  I have no cuisine picked out, nor do I know how often I’ll be doing this but I have decided there are some rules.  I need to be able to break the recipe down into individual servings.  I hate wasting food – but also hate eating the same thing every night until it’s gone – so individual servings that I can freeze is a must.  The second rule is  - it has to look pretty!  Hey I’m a visual girl!! Other than that I’m fairly open.  I would love if you all had any recipes to share and will post my attempts at them.  Hopeful at the end of this I’ll learn how to cook some new dishes (and become a better food photographer – wow, so much to learn there!!)!

So here’s how I made the frittatas – 5 in all:

1) Rolled out 1 sheet of store bought puff pastry and cut to fit into an extra large size muffin tin.  I had enough for 5.

2) Cut up 1/2 a green pepper and 1/2 an onion. I tossed handfuls of each into the bottom of each cup. Note: I have tons of leftover diced pepper and onion – not sure what I’m going to do with them yet…

2.5) Put handfuls of shredded cheddar cheese into each cup.  Yeah… I forgot to do this.

3) Stirred/scrambled(??) 9 eggs with some salt and pepper.  Poured into each cup until almost full.

4) Stick in 350˚ oven for 40 minutes.  During this time turn on the oven light 42 million times to see if anything is really happening.

5) At the end of 40 min take them out (or here’s were you melt the cheese on top if you forgot to put it in) and cool.

Viola!

May you be surrounded by Love, Laughter and Joy!!

I love the flavor of lemon! My birthday cake when I was a kid was a yellow cake with lemon curd filling, white icing and coconut – ohh the sweetness!! (If anybody can find me that cake now – I’ll be your new BFF!!)  As I got older my cake became a lemon meringue pie – oh the love!

These cookies offer the same lemony delight I got from the cake and pie and have become a favorite cookie of mine to give away at Christmas.

1 egg

1 package lemon cake mix

4 oz Cool Whip (1/2 of a regular container), thawed

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1) Mix cake mix, Cool Whip and egg until well blended. This makes a really really sticky biscuit like batter. I alway use a wooden spoon to mix it all together – no idea why!

2) Ok here’s where the powdered sugar plays a huge role! Did you ever take a gymnastics class? Remember when you went to use the bars you would chalk up you hands? This is what you want to do with the powdered sugar – chalk up! This batter is so sticky if you don’t it will be like having warm pull taffy in your hands!! (not that I’ve ever made taffy but I was involved with an ad campaign where we photographed salt water taffy being made – powdered sugar was every where!!)

3) Now that you’re chalked up you want to pull pieces of the batter off – like drop biscuits (not that I’ve ever made them either!!). I have a plate covered in powdered sugar I drop the pieces on to the plate and cover them in sugar. Then I roll them in my hands to make a dough meatball – about 1 inch in size.

4) Take your dough meatballs and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350˚ for about 10-12 minutes. These cookies can be easy to over cook – you want them to be slightly browned before you take them out

5) When you remove from sheet they will still be soft and a little squishy. They get firmer as they cool.

6) Enjoy the lemony goodness with a huge glass of milk!!

* If you are more a fan of chocolate than lemon – you can substitute the lemon cake mix for a chocolate one*

I adore Mabel’s Labels! I first found out about them two years ago when my sister was showing us the new labels she had put into one of my nieces’ shoes. They were so cute, didn’t move and you could take them back out of the shoes when the kids out grew them! How cool is that?

Jump back to now and I had a sudden flash of inspiration. My 94 year old Grandmother is now in assisted living. She has only recently agreed to let them do her laundry instead of sending it home with one of us. Gram has had huge misgivings about this and has spent countless hours worrying that they are going to mix her laundry up with someone else’s. Every year it’s a struggle to figure out what to get her for Christmas. This year it dawned on me – Mabel’s Labels!!

Now the only question is – do I get her the same ones as my four year old niece (who was named after her) so they can be twinses or her own style? This is the label I’m thinking of going with:

I had such a blast playing with other photographers in Providence the other day. Just watching people work and think was so much fun. As my friend Dave shouted out in the middle of the day “This is better than Disney World!!”. Here are a few of my favorites.

Check out my new MacBook Pro! The last few months not just one, but both of my computers died – so sad, so painful. For a variety of reason I decided to go with the MacBook. My old computers were 4+ years old so no matter what I went with it would be amazingly faster than what I had. The set up process was painful – only in that neither of the old computers turn on – so I had to manually transfer everything from the backup drive – thank goodness for the backup drive!! I’ve also got a swank new external monitor for the big retouching work. Only problem is I think my new computer is sexier than me!