Well it has certainly been awhile ya’ll. I have to say, being pregnant has certainly knocked me off of my feet literally for the past two months and I haven’t been posting as much as I would have liked, due to the fact that every smell and word about food made me run away or feel nauseated. I still have my moments, but today was the first time in awhile that I had inspiration to cook something fresh and seasonal. I had a craving for some fresh homemade bruschetta with those little pearly mozzarella things and some balsamic drizzled over it with some crusty bread… so I got cooking and came up with this easy cheesy recipe. It is to die for and I warn you now it will be hard to keep your hands and mouth off of it. You’ll be lucky if anyone else in the house gets a bite. I’m going downstairs now as I say this to get another slice of bruschetta before I start uploading the photos!

So, now that we have that out of the way (mmm this is so good!), I’m not sure how frequent I will be posting recipes in the upcoming months, but hopefully good things will come and this nausea will soon pass and I will have new energy for sharing some recipes. For now, I leave you all with this trusty recipe for my chopped bruschetta… when all else fails and its too hot and humid to eat anything else, you can’t go wrong with this. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

You will need:
1 loaf of french bread or a large french baguette
8 Roma tomatoes
1-2 large cloves of garlic
5-6 fresh basil leaves
1 package of Bel Gioioso fresh Mozzarella pearls
Balsamic vinegar
extra virgin olive oil
kosher salt
black pepper

Step 1: Rinse and chop Roma tomatoes and place in a medium size serving bowl or plastic bowl, whatever you have on hand and don’t have to bend over to pick up.

Step 2: Mince the garlic cloves and add to the tomatoes.

Step 3: Break apart the Bel Gioioso Mozzarella pearls and then add them to the tomato mixture.

Step 4: Pick 5-6 large basil leaves and rinse them. Then pat dry with paper towels. Stack leaves and roll up lengthwise. Cut diagonally with a knife and spread strips apart with fingers. Then roughly chop strips and add basil leaves to the tomato mixture.

Step 5: Add the vinaigrette in this order – olive oil, balsamic vinegar, kosher salt, black pepper. Drizzle ingredients over the top and then mix with a spoon until all the ingredients are well coated with the mixture.

Step 6: This is the best part…now slice the french bread into thick slices and top with a heaping spoonful of the mixture. Then enjoy it. I recommend covering the bowl with plastic wrap and marinating for a few hours in the fridge before serving. Also if you want to be more fancy you can toast the baguette slice in the oven and then top with the bruschetta mixture. But, in my pregnant world, this worked just fine cold and without toasting the bread. Enjoy!

A year or two ago I went to grab my guilty pleasure drink from Starbucks. My all time favorite drink, the caramel raspberry frappuccino. If you haven’t heard of this drink, it’s because it isn’t on the menu. My husband got me into this drink when we started dating and it still stands as one of my favorites when we make a Starbucks trip. Anyway… I’m not here to talk about frappuccinos, so that was a bonus. Oh,yes…I remember what I was saying now…so on that one day about a year or two ago when I was grabbing my frappuccino I saw they had some free Starbucks recipe cards for some of the items they feature in their refrigerated case. The recipe I picked up was for the banana walnut bread, which I happen to really enjoy on occasion. I was curious to see how close the recipe actually came to tasting like their banana bread. I figured if they were giving recipes out for free there was no way it was going to be THAT close to the real deal. Although I like walnuts, for some reason I really wanted chocolate in my banana bread when I decided to try out this recipe… and sister let me tell ya… there is NO turning back… the chocolate made the first cut. I LOVE this recipe! I add a bit more buttermilk and vanilla to the recipe than it calls for and it turns out just the way I like it. Turned out the free starbucks recipe ended up being a keeper! Now, I would like to share my favorite banana bread recipe with you all. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Chocolate Chip Starbucks Banana Bread
2 c. flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 egg
1 1/8 c. sugar
1/2 c. canola oil
1/2 c. buttermilk
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
3 ripe medium-large bananas (mashed)
3/4 – 1 c. of mini chocolate chips ( I like the nestle brand!) Continue reading

We’ve all had the garlic bread with the “garlic salt” technique.. and I admittedly still use it often to this day. I still love garlic salt garlic bread, but lately I decided to try a more “grown up” version and let the real flavors of garlic enhance the bread itself rather than that imitation taste. It is an extremely quick and simple recipe, there are no surprise ingredients…and it pairs well with so many different meals; or it can be that ‘fancy bread’ side you use when company comes over.

Seasoned Garlic Bread
1 loaf of French or Italian bread from the bakery
4 Tbsp. butter, softened to room temperature
4 Cloves of garlic
Kosher salt
Dried basil flakes
Dried oregano flakes