Mission Sweet Tea

My current location is in the back seat of an '04 Honda Civic with my cousin, Angela and our grandmother on the way to North Carolina.. My cousin is moving down there for school and we are helping her settle in this week. We left about a half hour ago and I am not looking forward to the many hours of driving that are ahead of us. Luckily I have some 'Taste of Italia' magazines and my iPhone to keep me occupied.
However, I am excited for one reason.. While in NC I am on a self proclaimed mission.. My mission is to find the best Sweet Tea in Raleigh. I have an unhealthy obsession with Sweet Tea and enjoy trying new flavor additions at home, so this idea came naturally.
I hope to update this every time I order a tea on my trip, but I only have my iPhone (no laptop... :( ) so it might be a tad difficult. I'm so excited!

Stay cool in this crazy summer heat! I'm hoping the tea will cool me down from the moving and cleaning that will be occurring..

I just got an iPhone yesterday and I wanted to test out the camera and mobile upload capabilities.. doesn't look too bad for a camera phone picture, huh?
This is quite possibly my favorite dish ... Sun dried tomato pesto with linguine. Yum-o!

Upcoming Posts!

Not surprisingly, I haven't posted in an eternity... although, I have been thinking about which recipes to post (eventually). Upcoming recipes/posts will include:

• Granola!
• Cinnamon Rolls
• Hummus Off!
• Rice Pilaf (my current food obsession)
• More cupcakes (Fourth of July ones for sure)
• Food dehydration
• Revisiting Highland Orchards... got to pick some more blueberries!
• Wild raspberries in our backyard
• Our home garden
• & More!

Until then, please enjoy this adorable picture of my doggy:

Playing with his frisbees!

Oh yeah, and this mouthwatering picture of my grandmom's Lebanese salad.

yummm! (click for way better resolution)

The Chester County Cookbook - Ways to Eat Locally & Sustainably

Eating Locally & Sustainably in Chester County - A Cookbook

West Chester Restaurant Festival

     This post is certainly long overdue. I haven't been keeping up with my blog very much.. which makes me sad. I love baking and food, but honestly haven't been able to put any time into the blog. (Which I hope will change)
     The West Chester Restaurant Festival was back on September 19th, about a month ago. It was a beautiful and sunny fall day and the crowds were just as crazy as last year. I'm not much on crowds, but I will bear them for some good food.

A small look at the rather large crowd at the Festival.

This year I went with my lovely roommates and we had a lot of fun perusing the various vendors and sampling tons of food. They had booths for all sorts of things; from religious booths, to jewelry and clothes and of course, food. I don't have much to say about the event, because I honestly believe the sites and food speak for themselves. So I am just going to post a bunch of photos from the day. Enjoy!

Limoncello Ristorante, a wonderful restaurant serving Southern Italian cuisine.

Funnel Cakes!

An Vanilla Bean "Upcake" or reverse cupcake, frosted on not one, but three sides.

Some of the restaurants participating in the festival.

Yummm.. bruschetta!

Cupcakes!!!

Sweet Potato Fries: Quite possibly the best snack ever.

The best way to end the day, a coffee and vanilla ice cream float.

Yum Yum. Zucchini Bread!

Mmm mmm mmm. Zucchini Bread.. Truly, it sounds like one of those foods that would make you turn up your nose... a summer squash in a cinnamon based bread? Why?! Now, I actually love zucchini, so adding it to bread doesn't seem all that bad. But you don't even taste it! It just makes it super moist and best of all, a little healthy. However, there was one aspect that made me cringe a little. And that was adding chocolate chips into the mix. Now chocolate and zucchini definitely doesn't sound like a match made in heaven. But I couldn't have been more wrong. I actually prefer the parts with tons of chocolate chips in it (semi-sweet chocolate, not milk chocolate chips. I made that mistake once.).

I found multiple recipes for Zucchini bread on the internet and found it very hard to choose just one. So I ended up combining a bunch of them and making my own (and found a recipe for a wonderful crunchy topping!). So...

Here's the recipe I use for Zucchini Bread.

Ingredients for bread:

* 3 eggs

* 1 cup vegetable oil

* 2 cups white sugar

* 2 cups grated zucchini

* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

* 3 cups all-purpose flour

* 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

* 1 teaspoon baking soda

* 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

* 1 teaspoon salt

* 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Ingredients for topping:

* 1 cup brown sugar

* 1 cup all-purpose flour

* 2 tablespoons butter

* 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour two 8x4 inch loaf pans.

2. In a large bowl, beat eggs until light and frothy. Mix in oil and sugar. Stir in the shredded zucchini and vanilla. Combine flour, cinnamon, soda, baking powder, salt and chocolate chips. Stir this into the egg mixture. Divide batter into the prepared pans. Mix all topping ingredients together and crumble on top of the batter prior to baking.

3. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until done.

85 Cupcakes, 120 Cookies, and 25 Oreo Truffles later...

Finally.. someone asked me to bake for them again! Yay!

My neighbor asked me to bake for her daughter's graduation party, she wanted cupcakes, cookies and oreo truffles. Her school colors were maroon and gold (except sadly, maroon wasn't really happening.. so I ended up with red and yellowish). But the flavors and decorations were all up to me.

This was the third grad party I baked for, including my own, so I already had graduation themed cookie cutters from last year. Except sadly, the caps apparently look like Texas and the shooting stars look like chubby Lisa Simpsons.

(Shooting star cookie or Lisa Simpson? You decide.)

I love baking for other people, I suppose it's nice to hear from people other than your family that your baked goods are really good.. (Your family has to say that they like your food, right?)

I ended up baking White, Chocolate and Red Velvet flavored cupcakes topped with Confectioner's Sugar and Chocolate Fudge Frosting. I had never made Red Velvet cupcakes (or even ate one.. so this was very new to me.. cupcakes with no butter? eek! haha) Therefore, I decided to use Paula Deen's Red Velvet Cupcake recipe. I figured, Paula Deen is always synonymous with yummy tasting food because of the copious amounts of butter she uses, so her cupcakes must be good!

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
• 1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 tablespoons red food coloring (I ended up using a lot less...)
• 1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 (12-cup) muffin pans with cupcake papers.

- In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In a large bowl gently beat together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla with a handheld electric mixer. Add the sifted dry ingredients to the wet and mix until smooth and thoroughly combined.

- Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake tins about 2/3 filled. Bake in oven for about 20 to 22 minutes, turning the pans once, half way through. Test the cupcakes with a toothpick for doneness. Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting.