I guess I’ve got recipe contest fever! I’ve been entering any and every contest lately that I can find online. Some you enter and then won’t hear if you’ve made it as a finalist or won for months, others need your votes to get through. I entered Fisher Nuts recipe contest for the chance to win a trip to NYC, and meet Chef Alex Guarnashelli. I’ve watched her on Food Network for years, and she happens to be the Chef Ambassador for Fisher Nuts. All I know is that I would love to go to her restaurant in NY – it’s called Butter! Whoever wants to come with me, we can share the 28 day aged Tomahawk steak for two – it’s only $120. Ha!
Butter was actually the inspiration for this dessert. You all know I don’t make desserts very often, usually because they suck ass, or I forget the sugar (yup, that’s happened more times than I can count!) so at work I wrote down a recipe for what I thought would taste good. Shortbread cookie on the bottom, with chocolate coconut and honey roasted almond topping on top. The shortbread had a whole stick of butter – yowza! So what I wrote down in my recipe and what the final verdict ended up being was pretty different. The crust didn’t look right, so I kept adding things until I thought it had the right consistency. I really thought that once I tried to cut the bars after they cooled, that the shortbread would be all crumbly, but it cut well, like butter! And when I mixed the nuts into the chocolate coconut mixture for the topping, you couldn’t see the nuts anymore, so when they came out of the oven and it was still hot, I added another cup of chopped honey roasted almonds.
These were so good! Tony raved about them too, which is a HUGE two thumbs up for me! And they are simple to make too. So I believe the voting is until November 1, so at the end of each post, I’ll be reminding you to vote – you can vote 5 times in a day. No need to sign up, like anything on Facebook or even give them your email address. Thank you! You can click here to vote.
I did end up making the naan pizza bread for breakfast yesterday too – so good! And I took 1/3 of the amount of insulin this time and it worked fine. By lunch time it was 223 – right where I like it to be.
It was 55 and sunny yesterday, so I took advantage and walked outside instead of going to the gym. Before I know it, that will be my only option! The leaves are still gorgeous.
I walk in a subdivision not too far from my office because there isn’t much traffic. I saw this house for sale:
I looked it up when I got back to my desk – it’s only $2.9 million dollars – no big! Actually I saw the pictures and even if I had the money, I wouldn’t buy it – I didn’t like the kitchen at all. Ha!
The other day Courtney from A Life from Scratch posted a recipe for her Mom’s black bean soup. I LOVE black bean soup, so I thought I’d give it a try. One thing that didn’t dawn on me as I was making it was “damn, this makes a lot of soup!” 11 cups of water and 2 pounds of dried black beans! I easily could have cut the recipe in half, but I didn’t. That’s okay, because I know it will freeze well and I’ll have a soup to grab for lunch in the next couple weeks. The only changes I made was to leave out the onion, and I added 1 minced jalapeno for some heat. At work I accessorized it with a drizzle of my salsa verde, added blue corn tortilla strips and some cheese. Delish – thanks Courtney! I love that you can see my reflection in the spoon
I still have meat from the rotisserie chicken I bought, so I decided to make a chicken fried rice for dinner – still not as good as Tony’s, but it was delicious.
And today for lunch since I still have more chicken left, I am thinking of making a bbq chicken panini for lunch.
And I didn’t sync up my fitbit until last night, but I got all my steps in the last two days:
So thanks in advance for your votes – I appreciate it! Now make it a great day!
Where ever you live it is gorgeous!
I voted for you. Thanks for posting the link, that made it super easy to get the multiple votes in no time.
Used my five votes up today! 🙂 Good luck. Love your fall pics, too.
Thanks again for featuring the soup and YES omg it does make a ton. Like, an obscene amount. I guess that is why my mom always made it on Halloween – it fed a few blocks! 😉
Going to vote now!!
Voted! Go get ’em Vat! This is your time to shine!!!!!
I love that we can click all 5 of our votes at the same time and don’t have to remember to go back!!!
Black bean soup sounds good!!!
You got my vote!!
Like I said on FB, I’ll be voting! LOVE AG, and I would totally split the Tomahawk with you!
Love that you can still find a tree in your area with leaves. They started falling here last week and most of the trees are already half-bare. Some have just a few hanging by a thread. I don’t know if it’s me getting older or what, but it seems like the leaves used to turn colors and stay that way a lot longer before they fell off when I was a kid…
Yum, yum, yum – those shortbread bars look delicious! I think it’s great that you are entering all of these cooking contests. I got half of a pig from a local farmer so I’m planning to make your last recipe with some of the chops. With a baby at home, I don’t cook as much as I used to and I miss it. We had pork chops last night for dinner and he ate them too! He even had asparagus with us. 🙂 We’ve got a Nor’easter here so plenty of rain this week. Should be a nice weekend though and I’m planning to get out there and take advantage of the sunshine! Have a great day! 🙂
They make it so easy to vote! done! you’ve inspired me to shop for a fitbit!
Voted all five times! Whoop whoop! Those bars look incredible. I love black bean soup- I haven’t made it in ages. Need to add to the weekly menu.
Best of luck with the contest!
That yellow tree is gorgeous!
The bars look great–voted!