What do you do when you have an entire bunch of fresh organic dill weed delivered to your door step? Make dill butter of course!!! Just use one pound unsalted butter, flake sea salt, and fresh dill then blend with mixer and place into four 4-ounce mason jars.
P.S. It makes a great hostess gift! Do an assortment of flavors to hand out for Christmas!
~ Angela O'
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| Lake Travis, Texas |
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| Quack's Bakery in Austin, Texas |
One of my favorite Grab & Go breakfasts is half pint steel cut oatmeal cups. I make one or two batches each time, loading the half pint mason jars and stacking them in the fridge so that my husband and I can grab one before work or exercise! They are super easy and rewarding both when you are hungry and when someone at work comments on how cute/clever the cups are.
My preferential taste for steel cut oatmeal is Bob's Red Mill which can be found at Costco in large bags for a fraction of the leading grocery store cost and is naturally gluten free. I also store those large bags in giant mason jars!!
Ingredients:
Directions:
Make in the afternoon or evening, prior to the morning you want it. Place 2 cups water in medium sauce pan and reach boil. As soon as the water boils remove from heat and add the 1 cup of steel cut oatmeal and 1/4 tsp salt. Quickly stir the mixture and immediately place lid on sauce pot. Leave off of hot burner so it doesn't boil over. Do not remove the lid again as this recipe requires the heat and steam to cook the oats! Leave for 3 hours. After 3 hours open the lid and stir the oatmeal. You'll find it's complete. Some people leave in the pot overnight and call it "overnight oatmeal" but I don't have time for that! The whole point of having grab and go oatmeal is so that I don't have to fiddle with it in the morning before work. Now for the fun part! Take your empty 1/4 cup dry measuring cup and put two scoops of the oatmeal mixture in one half pint mason jar. At this time you can choose to mix add-ins with the oatmeal inside the jar or you may wait to add them in before you eat the oatmeal. Because I like my pecans crunchy I always add in my goodies just before consuming. However, my husband likes brown sugar in his oatmeal so it is safe to add that in early. Once you are done filling the jars, wipe the edges of the jar clean and seal with the lid and ring. Place in your fridge until ready to consume. One batch of this recipe will make 4 half cup servings of oatmeal. I like to double my recipe so that 8 half cup servings (8 half pint mason jars) are an easy grab for the two of us. When you are ready to eat your oatmeal take off the lid and ring and set aside, placing only the glass jar filled with oatmeal in the microwave. Caution the sides of jar will be very hot! Microwave for thirty seconds to one minute maximum. I find that the top of the jar where the lid screws on at tends to be cooler than the glass sides but to be safe just remove from microwave with towel. Stir you oatmeal with a spoon. Mix your add-ins! Yummy!!
With Angela O'
Earlier this week we received our very first community share agriculture (CSA) from Johnson's Backyard Garden. I was so excited that this was happening that I couldn't wait to get home to look inside the box and started pulling items out in the backseat of my car. Lame I know. For those of you who do not know what CSA is I'll give you a brief overview of the goodness that goes on. It is a local farming organization that grows organic produce and delivers the produce directly to your door or at a designated drop off location in your neighborhood each week. Additionally, Johnson's Backyard Garden (JBG) visits Farmer's Markets for those individuals who have not setup a CSA membership and would like to supplement their conventional grocery store produce from time to time. JBG started out as a small backyard garden here in Austin, Texas which was later transformed into a working garden and has been so successful that they now have a 20 acre farm and use regular volunteers each day to help get the produce picked, tagged, and boxed. When JBG first introduced a community share agriculture program in 2006 they only supplied to 30 families and now they supply to over 1000 families in Austin. That is amazing.
Additionally, JBG has added more farms in other Texas cities to provide fresh local crops to Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston. They have relationships with individuals and restaurants and from what I can tell seem to be just a good and down to earth awesome group. No pun intended but you must admit it is kinda cute.
So back to my CSA box! I'd always pondered about having food delivered. And... I've always been pretty skeptical about having full meals sent to my door step but then realized that produce was something that I could get behind. I'm not gonna lie, I'll admit that I can be pretty cheap about some so called luxuries and was definitely not so sure about a weekly commitment. Well, CSA ran one simple promotion for the New Year (a free bag of oranges) and I thought what the heck, let's try one 4-week commitment. It was super easy and I was super thrilled that I could justify the ORGANIC produce in my grocery budget. Just go to the website
and select CSA Membership. Choose your box size, how often you'd like for that box to be delivered, and whether you'd like it delivered to your home, office or neighborhood stop. There is a box for everyone. JBG offers individually sized boxes which are good for one person and large boxes which provide enough produce for up to 6 people. The boxes start at $21 per week and you have the option of adding on items like organic pasture raised eggs, coffee and various items like grapefruit.
Enough of the details, it's time to look at my box!
February 2, 2015 Small CSA Box
All of my friends that love Chipotle love their guacamole. I don't know a single person who doesn't. Anytime my friends come over to my house they also love my homemade guacamole! The first trick: Never add raw tomatoes to a good guacamole....it ruins it every time. The second trick: My guacamole recipe is the exact Chipotle guacamole recipe, handed directly down from the restaurant.
All, Chipotle has made their recipe available to the world right on their own website. Most don't know about it. So here I share!
Recipe Credit: Chipotle Mexican Grill at
https://chipotle.com/guac-recipe
THIS IS ALL YOU’LL NEED:
2 ripe Hass avocados (In the restaurant, we use 48 per batch, multiple times per day)
2 tsp lime juice
2 tbsp cilantro (chopped)
1/4 cup red onion (finely chopped)
1/2 jalapeño, including seeds (finely chopped)
1/4 tsp kosher salt
HOW TO DO IT:
1. Choose the right avocado. It should feel squishy yet firm (like the palm of your hand), and be a nice dark green color on the inside.
2. Cut the avocado in half and the remove the pit (carefully!)
3. Scoop the avocados and place in a medium bowl.
4. Toss and coat with lime juice.
5. Add the salt and using a fork or potato masher, mash until a smooth consistency is achieved.
6. Fold in the remaining ingredients and mix well.
7. Taste the guacamole (over and over) and adjust seasoning if necessary.
**Disclaimer: So that you know I made zero mistakes in blogging and editing of the recipe, I have copy and pasted it directly from the Chipotle Mexican Grill website. So if it doesn't taste right to you go back and reread their recipe and maybe add a little more of one of their ingredients.**
With Angela O'
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| Red & Black Gumballs, Red Candle Holders, and Red & Black Nerf Footballs in the Game Lounge |
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| Ribbon added to the everyday decor (Giant Human Sized Chess Pieces) |
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| The beginning stages of the dessert table. It's an easy build. |
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| The beginning stages of the dessert table. It's an easy build. |
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| The beginning stages of the dessert table. It's an easy build. |
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| The beginning stages of the dessert table. It's an easy build. |
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| Sweet Whipped Deviled Egg (Strawberries and Raspberries) |
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| Red Velvet Cake Balls |
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| Fior di Latte Burrata with Proscuitto & Heirloom Tomatoes |
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| Fresh Sliced Prosciutto |
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| Fresh Sliced Proscuitto |
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| Fontina Pizza with Oak-Roasted Mushroom, Carmelized Onion and Parmigiano Reggiano |
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| Bufala Margherita Pizza |
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| Panna Cotta with Golden Raisins and Sweetened Cranberries |
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| Snapshot of Dough Articles on the Wall |
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| Snapshot of Dough Articles on the Wall |
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| Snapshot of Dough Articles on the Wall |
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| Snapshot of Dough Articles on the Wall |
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| Snapshot of Dough Articles on the Wall |
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| Photo courtesy of www.goodreads.com of Jeff Hart's bookcover |
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| Enjoying that Strawberry Wine |
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| I'm quite proud of this photo moment that has been captured! |
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| photo credit: money.cnn.com |
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| Photo Credit: www.honeynutcheerios.com |
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| Photo Credit: www.honeynutcheerios.com |
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| Lance McInnes, Angela O' & Jack Fennel |
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| Chalkboard Sign right outside the store |
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| The best mashed potatoes. You should try a Pie Floater. |
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| Lance McInnes, Angela O' & Jack Fennel at my favorite downtown Whole Foods |
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| Now that's a Peach Pie |
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| Step 1: Get the real deal ingredients |
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| Mixing up the ingredients for the filling |
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| Gramma best kept secret....butter |
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| Sprinkled with cinnamon |