Mediterranean Feast

Great minds think alike is a phrase used far to often between my sister Kathleen and I. We always find each other blogging about the same thing, or texting each other about something the other one was also thinking. We constantly find each other on the same wavelength.

Saturday night was my last night at home and my sister and I wanted to cook a big meal before I came back to school. Instead of waking up to see we both posted about our meal on the same day we decide to tag team the post. We cooked up a big Mediterranean feast with a falafel salad and baba ganoush. I'm posting about the falafel and Kathleen is taking care of the baba.

If you don't know, falafel is a traditional Mediterranean dish made from chickpeas and spices, then formed into a ball and fried. My falafel didn't quite come out as planned. I found an authentic falafel recipe, but I think you have to be an authentic Greek to get falafel like they do. When we went to pan fry them they started to fall apart. Although, we were still able to savor a few to top our salads with. Despite their appearance the taste was great. 

You can find the falafel recipe here.

Our salad consisted of cucumber, grape tomatoes, kalamata olives, red onion, feta and topped with a tahini dressing.

We used this recipe for our salad! 

The salads turned out great and were just like my favorite falafel salad from Saturn Grill.

I topped mine with sriracha to kick it up a bit. And because I really love sriracha.

Check out Kathleen's post here to see more on our baba ganoush. Baba ganoush is basically hummus made with eggplant. The eggplant is roasted then blended with tahini. We served ours with big slices of pita and cucumbers. We also topped it with pomegranate seeds, not sure why, but that's what it showed in the picture so we went with it. We followed this recipe.

How pretty does this table look? Our Mediterranean feast was a success! Dinner was followed with numerous episodes of Gilmore Girls and a little game.

p.s. Make sure and check out Kathleen's post to read more about our feast!

xo annie

30 in 30

I did it! If you follow me on Instagram you probably saw my obsessive food instas over the past month. I already love annoying people by posting pictures of my food, so when one of my friends jokingly asked me if I could post 30 food pictures over our Christmas break, I turned it into a challenge. 

I personally had so much fun doing it and surprisingly got a cumulation of support along the way. Several times I had people ask me to take a picture of them with their food so it could be {14/30} or so on! 

Here is a collection of all 30 food grams! Head over to my Instagram for details about each picture.

Don't think this is the end of my food Instagrams, but I promise it won't be as excessive!

xo annie

Bites of My Life

Last week consisted of finishing my internship, eating and cooking and taking lots of pictures of food, finally learning calligraphy, and savoring the last few minutes at home! I'm all moved back to school and actually really excited about it. 

-The best dish ever. Mom and I made Ina Garten's feta baked shrimp for dinner last Monday. 

-Lazy Thursday called for an afternoon on the couch watching The Great Gatsby.

-Grilled cheese goodness at The Mule in OKC. 

-Second insta of this salad because it's that good. Kathleen and I met for a "business" meeting and our favorite salad Thursday afternoon.

-Celebrating the sassiest but best 21 year old!

-Greek yogurt, cooked quinoa, raspberries and pomegranate seeds. I love subbing quinoa for granola.

-Planning on posting this recipe at some point, but for now, here is the link for the tastiest monte cristo wrap!

-I had the best time on Saturday learning the basics of calligraphy by the fabulous Lauren from Brown Eye Blue Eye. Finally got to check learning calligraphy off my bucket list! A full post on the class will come later this week.

-A Mediterranean feast for my last night at home. Recreation of the beloved falafel salad and baba ganoush!

-Last thing I baked while at home. My yummy snicker doodle bars to bring back to friends! Recipe here.

Lot's of fun posts coming up!

xo annie

Few of My Favorite Things

" I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel soooo bad!"

Going along with my New Year's resolution of maintaining happiness and working to change any bad mood to a good mood, I'm going to start a new blog series were I share a few of my favorite things a couple times a month.

First up, my all time favorite movies. They have been my favorite movies for forever! I could watch these a million times and never get tired of them! I've seen them so many times I can quote almost every line and feel like I am a part of the movie. They are all romantic comedies and have a lot of the same actors. I stick to what I like.

1. Father of the Bride Part 2 (The best sequel there ever was)
"Mother and daughter pregnant togeeeether!" 

I'm partial to this movie because my parents got the idea to name me Annie after seeing the first Father of the Bride. Anyway, it is my all time favorite movie and always will be.

2. Because I Said So

A story about an overprotective mother trying to find a date for her daughter. With three quirky sisters and their crazy mom it reminds me of my family, although we are much more sane than these girls.

3. It's Complicated

I've watched it the past three nights, it's just that good. It makes me want to move to Southern California and open a store like Meryl Streeps bakery!

4. Dan in Real Life

"I don't want to go with the pig, face!" I know it doesn't make any sense, but it is one of my favorite movie quotes. 

5. You've Got Mail

Last but certainly not least. You've Got Mail is a Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan classic. Without doubt it makes me crave fall and a bouquet of sharpened pencils.

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Annie

Brown Butter Thumbprint Cookies

These beauties were first made by the lovely, Lindsay at Fleur De Sel. They have been patiently waiting on my "to bake" list over Christmas break. I decided it was finally time to make them at about 11:30 on Saturday night. I had been watching Food Network all night and suddenly had the urge to bake. These cookies have 4 ingredients and are so easy to make!

You can use any kind of jam or fruit preserves you want. I was lucky we had this delicious stuff lying around from Christmas. This yummy raspberry and pomegranate jam is all the way from Australia, kudos to sister Claire for bringing it home!

First step in making the cookies is browning the butter. If you haven't browned your butter yet, you haven't lived. The smell is reason enough to do it. Lucky for you, I like to simplify everything and discovered this quick trick on how to brown butter in the microwave so you can cut the time in thirds. No onto the rest of the recipe

Brown Butter Thumbprint Cookies
yields about 30 cookies (can be easily halved)

Ingredients:
16 tablespoons of unsalted butter (2 sticks)
1 cup of sugar
2 cups of flour
1/2 tsp. salt

Directions:
Cut up your butter and place it in a microwave safe bowl, then cover with a plate to avoid it from splattering. Microwave on high for 5-7 minutes until golden brown. Refrigerate or freeze your butter until it solidifies again. 

Once your butter is firm, beat with sugar until light and fluffy. Add flour and salt slowly until combined. {My dough was slightly crumbly, so I added a few tablespoons of milk and it came together perfectly. This may not happen, but if it does, know you can add some milk and they will still turn out}.

Using a 1 in. cookie scoop, scoop balls of dough onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Press your thumb into the middle creating the perfect thumbprint cookie! Refrigerate dough, on the baking sheet, for at least an hour or throw in the freezer for 5 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Take cold dough out of the fridge and scoop a small amount of jam into the cavities. **If you are filling your cookie with lemon or lime curd, wait until after the cookies are baked to fill.

Bake for 14 minutes until perfectly golden brown around the edges. Let cool on the baking sheets then enjoy!

Like I said, I made these guys at about midnight on Saturday. I baked them, then went right to sleep without having one. I woke up the next morning to a half eaten plate of cookies....

Apparently I live with a bunch of cookie monsters. However, these cookies are gooooood, so there are no excuses needed.

Annie