In The Kitchen: Chocolate and Avocado

I thought I would start a series of food I make here and there. I already have one recipe on my blog about Baked "Fried" Pickles (if you love pickles, you will love this recipe!). When I remember (and have time), I love taking pictures of what I make. I am one of those who enjoy taking pictures of food. I share them with my mom and my boyfriend. It's like I make them a part of meal? Now how sweet and inclusive am I?! LOL. Just kidding, just kidding. 

I thought it would be fun to share some of the things I make and recipes I try. I enjoy reading these kinds of posts and I hope you do too!

Chocolate covered strawberries

Funny thing is I used to HATE chocolate covered strawberries probably because I hate strawberries. I made these once for my coworkers and fell in love. Fun fact: I still can't stand strawberries by itself.

I was inspired to make this two weeks ago because I was craving them. And I just wanted one. I was at the mall and stopped by Godiva to buy one chocolate strawberry. One strawberry was $9.50. YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! It was one for $9.50 and 6 for $12.50. I could have bought 6 but the others would have gone to waste. I walked out of there thinking, Who the heck do you think you are, Godiva?! Call me cheap, but I would NEVER pay $9.50 for a strawberry dipped in chocolate.

The next day, I made some myself for under $9.50. And as you can see, I made more than one.

Banana walnut bread

I got this recipe from Sonia from Youtube's sccastaneda. She had a video sharing her banana bread recipe. I have been meaning to make it but all of my bananas would be gone before they had a chance to get overripe. The only change I made to the recipe is to add dark chocolate chips on top and to decrease the brown sugar from 1 cup to just a little less than 3/4 cup. 

My parents actually LOVED it! They are very hard to please when it comes to my baking saying everything is too sweet. The bread was perfectly moist and had the right amount of sweetness. My mom has even special ordered a batch for her office. YES!

Frozen chocolate peanut banana bites

I saw this on Instagram. My version is not as pretty as the original, but it sure was amazing! :)

Egg in avocado

Avocados have been so trendy lately! I've seen mashed avocado on toast (which I eventually tried and loved!) and I've been seeing this egg avocado bake. Totally weird idea, but it was pretty good. I would totally make this again, but I would probably gravitate towards the avocado mash. It was faster to make and I enjoyed it more.

Frozen coffee cubes

I am still trying to master the perfect iced coffee. It just doesn't come out like the coffee shops do. For starters, my coffee would always get diluted when I put in ice cubes. I tried the trick of freezing some coffee cubes (here, I froze about a small Styrofoam sized cup) to put into my coffee. I don't know what went wrong. The coffee was too bitter, but at least my it was not diluted?

Chocolate walnut clusters

With my leftover walnuts and dark chocolate chips from my banana bread, I decided to make some chocolate walnut clusters. So easy to make and you can control how chocolatey or how walnuty you want it to be. LOVE! It is sometimes hard to find just walnuts and dark chocolate, two of my favorite things. 

Here's how I made it:

I hope you enjoyed a look into my kitchen eats. If you have any amazing recipes to share or tricks on the perfect iced coffee, please do share! :)

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In The Kitchen: Baked "Fried" Pickles

Fried pickles are one of my most favorite foods!! I am a PICKLE MONSTER.

I LOVE pickles!!!

And when you combine fried-ness and ranch (I know, I know, not so good for you) to one of my most favorite foods, you get amazingess!!

I randomly discovered fried pickles after college at a bar. I never knew these things existed until then. They are soooo good, but soooo bad for you because they're deep fried and infused with sodium.

I love them so much but I wanted to be able to eat them and not feel totally guilty.

While looking up cooking videos of how to make them, I came across Baked "Fried" Pickles. I was so excited by this!! After failed attempts of not getting them crispy enough, I finally got myself to buy the magic ingredient! Panko! I know I "needed" it for that crunch, but I just never remembered to buy it until recenty.

And because of Panko, I've mastered the baked fried pickle!

Here's my process:

There are plenty of recipes online. This post isn't meant to be a real recipe post, but more just me sharing my obsession with pickles, my process, and an opportunity to look back at my pickle post. Haha. Talk about pickle love!

I use dill spears. I don't like sweet pickles. Dill for the win! And I don't make more than 3 spears at a time. I think 3 is good enough. I pat them as dry as I can get them. I cut them in half for the drenching process (and to make them last longer and make me feel like I'm eating more. LOL)

My working station - I took this picture after I started so that's why it looks a bit messy. I have a bowl of one beaten egg with a few teaspoons of milk. In one plastic bag, I have Panko. In the other bag, I have flour seasoned with garlic salt, cayenne pepper, and red pepper flakes. I do enjoy foods with a kick!

My process: Dip in flour, dip in egg, dip in Panko, and repeat once more

After 15 minutes

Put in the oven until golden brown, flip if necessary, and ta-da!

Pickle power! Haha

Here's the YouTube video I used as a guide. The woman is pretty hilarious:



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