Whole Wheat Apple Pecan Buttermilk Waffles with Lavender Honey Butter

There's nothing like a Sunday with my family gathered around the table sharing in fresh baked waffles. 

Always a favorite with my husband and children.. but this new recipe utilizes whole wheat flour to give it a nuttier more satisfying bite.. as well as a healthier one too!

I love flavored butters and the addition of lavender essence was fun and fanciful at the same time. Perfect for the turn of weather and preparations for Spring! You can use any essential oil.. just remember they are concentrated and you don't need much at all.  If you do happen to make a purchase of oils.. it's nice to have lemon and peppermint on hand too. You can add them to a cake mixture or buttercream icing. You'll love how unique your recipes will be when you start playing with flavors, essences and extracts. You bring a whole new level of individuality to your cooking! 

Hope you enjoy! Buon Appetitio!

Laurie

Food Photography & Styling Challenge | February | Vegetable

Welcome to the February edition of the Food Photography and Styling challenge. We are a group of 14 woman who meet on the 20th of each month to share our styled food photo’s. Each month we have a specified theme. This month our challenge comes in the way of "Vegetables". Our presentation photo has to be a “diptych”. Two photo’s side by side, raw and cooked. Wow.. Another challenge to stretch my ability not just as a chef, but photographing with attention on light, color and style. I shot my vegetables.. sooo many times! Really, how hard can it be shooting veggies? Well, they weren’t all that easy, my recipe changed after the first day of shooting. I had originally planned my shoot around the recipe. Bad idea. My recipe was a Pizza Ratatouille. So many wonderful vegetables and herbs in that recipe. But way too many to just focus on one and not overwhelm the viewers eye. The next day I chose one vegetable. It happened to be the veggie that held up the most to the abuse of being tossed and banged around during my previous day’s shoot. Tomatoes, zucchini, squash, eggplant.. They all looked a little worse for wear with scratches, dings and dehydration from going in and out of the refrigerator. But onions. Garlic. Shallots. Still perfectly firm and always perky and fresh looking. I had already made around 10 individual sized pizza doughs. So I had to stick with my original pizza idea. I LOVE LOVE LOVE caramelized and roasted onions and shallots. So the idea of creating a roasted onion, garlic and shallot pizza was only enhanced with the idea of adding caramelized and roasted apples drizzled with a balsamic glaze and seasoned with black ground pepper, red pepper flakes and course sea salt. I also improvised with a beautiful wedge of gorgonzola cheese and Merlot Bella Vitano cheese by Sartori. This pizza combination was out of this world.. And when I get a chance I’ll post the recipe for those of you with daring palates.

Above is a collage of a few hits and misses as well as food preparations for the day. The gals and I all joked around saying we wished we had photographed our kitchen. I think it'a safe to say the whirl wind blew in and Mr.Clean is welcome to be a guest at my house anytime soon! In the collage you can see another pizza creation. It's the DMC rendition of a Pizza Margherita. I roasted tomatoes with shallots, onions and fresh leeks.. layering it on to the crust with fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese. My younger kids preferred this one, sans the leeks.. but today my son and his friend came by and I was pleasantly surprised at their enjoyment of the roasted onion and apple version. Mama was a happy girl!

I am so excited to send you off to view my friend Jennifer of  Jennifer Grant | Editorial and Fine Art Photographer.  She is a true artist.. and I look forward to each time she shares a post on her blog and web site. This woman's photography is GORGEOUS and she has accolades to boot! Make sure you journey through her pages.. you'll be glad of the adventure! And please be sure you go through the blog circle and leave some love for these gals. They all worked SO hard this month.. and I'm so excited.. that so far.. two months in we have had a complete circle with all the gals present! That's AMAZING.. This challenge is not just fun..but it's SO rewarding. Love you gals!!!! 2 months down.. 10 more to go. Whoot! :)

Orzo Pasta with Roasted Parsnips, Carrots and Potatoes

I'd love to call this my "Peter Rabbit Pasta Dish".. because as I was grabbing vegetables from my refrigerator yesterday it occurred to me that if I had a household of bunnies they would be very happy crowd.
It was for my son that this recipe came about. He is a vegetarian who also is borderline diabetic. So yesterday when he came home early from school, looking faint and pale-ish I grabbed what I had as far as veggies go and whipped this dish up. It had such beautiful flavoring. I have never used parsnips in my pasta dishes.. but with the herbs and pesto all the veggies melded so well together.

Orzo Pasta with Roasted Parsnips, Carrots and Potatoes

Pasta
1/2 - 3/4 lb. Orzo Pasta ~ cook according to manufacturers directions.
*Note ~ I salt my water with approximately 2-3 Tbsp regular salt. I also taste my water to make sure it’s not too salty, or under salted. This ensures that your pasta won’t be bland.

Roasted Veggies
2 Parsnips
2 Carrot
3 Small White Rose Potatoes
6 Asparagus Spears (thin ones)
4 Roma Tomatoes seeds removed and chopped
5 sprigs thyme leaves removed
5 Basil Leaves chiffonade

Olive Oil Marinade
3/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp. prepared Pesto (store bought kind is fine)
2 Cloves Garlic thinly sliced
1 Shallot thinly sliced
Fresh Cracked Black Pepper to taste
Sea Salt to taste
1/2 tsp. Red Pepper Flakes
Parmesan (always the best quality you can afford) for grating over pasta


Preparations
Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Cook your pasta and set aside.
Line a cookie tray with parchment paper or heavy duty tin foil.
Clean and cut up all your vegetables. Place in a bowl.
Whisk together all of the marinade ingredients. Toss over vegetables to coat well.
Lay vegetables on prepared cookie tray. If there is extra oil marinade drizzle it over vegetables.
Roast in the center of a preheated oven for approximately 20 - 30 minutes. The vegetables should be tender and caramelized. They are SO yummy this way!
Toss vegetables into prepared Orzo pasta. Put onto a heat proof serving platter. Sprinkle around a cup of parmesan cheese over the top.
Put back into the oven for 10 to 15 minutes till cheese melts and starts to get golden. Keep an eye on it, all ovens are NOT created equal.

Enjoy!!
Buon Appetito, Laurie