Insanely Easy Homemade Ricotta.. Oh and I won an Award!!

First I will start off with the blog award since that is more exciting than making cheese. A big, HUGE thank you to Ruth from Spring of a Curiouseed and Maggie from Kitchie Coo for awarding me with the coolest award around town. Please visit their blogs. They are awesome. And funny. Did I mention funny? Anyway, this award is awarded to up and coming bloggers with less than 200 followers. Thank you for making my day ladies!

Now.... time to pass it on to five blogs. I would love to give the following blogs this award!
Oh Cake
Texanas Kitchen
What Would Jessica Eat?
Oh Shine on
Quest for Delish

Now, for the recipe!!
Can I tell you how exciting it is to make your own cheese? I could have put thirty question mark/exclamation points after that sentence to show you how excited I am over this. Who knew making your own cheese was so easy? I found this recipe on the blog Tasty Kitchen, which features step by step directions and pictures to help you along the way. Dear God, I bought a gallon of milk for this. i wanted to make sure I did it right so I didn't ruin it!

Superbowl Video Special: BBQ Chicken Tacos & Blue Cheese Cole Slaw

BBQ sauce.Beer.Blue Cheese. Three of my favorite things. Throw it all together in a Mexican classic and you have a sure fire Super Bowl delight that will wow all of your guests. I first saw this recipe on Closet Cooking. I love the idea of BBQ chicken and blue cheese together. This would also be yummy with buffalo chicken. Check out my video with Three Desert Films on how to make them!

Blueberry Lemon Power Muffins

I am a huge fan of the muffin recipes from Cookinglight.com. They are usually really flavorful and healthy. I adapted this recipe from their Lemon Blueberry Muffins.  I really enjoy having breakfast pre-made for me so I can just grab them and go in the morning. This would be a really yummy recipe for a brunch also. You could even use mini muffin tins and make tiny muffins! Actually maybe that is a bad idea.... you may eat like 15 because they are so small. Either way, if you can resist not having a dozen mini muffins make them!

The Nest's Recipe Swap: Moroccan Spiced Spaghetti Squash

Well folks, it is time once again for The Nest's Recipe Swap hosted by A Taste of Home Cooking! The theme this time around was healthy dishes. I was assigned with Moroccan Spiced Spaghetti Squash, which I got from Jessica and her blog The Jey of Cooking. I was super excited about this recipe because I love Moroccan spices and the play on sweet and savory. First off, when I made this my condo smelled like a Moroccan bizarre. It was amazing. Secondly, it was so easy to prepare. You can cook the squash in the oven or microwave. Since I have started up MBA classes again, time is of the essence. Microwave it is... 

Make Your Own Takeout: Sticky Orange Chicken

Sticky.Sweet.Delicious

Hooray for healthy non-msg ridden Chinese food. Now, don't get me wrong. I am all about Chinese food from time to time. I crave Chinese food often so if I can cook it at home then that is a plus. The only problem I have with this is that most times my version of Chinese food isn't really that comparable to food you find in restaurants. That is...until now! 

WIAW& Toby's Gluttonous Saturdays

Toby w. his cheat day list

So for WIAW this week I wanted to introduce you all to what my husband Toby eats on Saturdays. Toby has been reading the book Four Hour Body. In the book that says if you eat super healthy all week you can eat whatever you want one day a week. If you do this, you will crave those "bad foods" less because you know you can eat them one day a week. Also since you are working out and eating healthy all week, your body will spike your metabolism with the high amount of calories.. bla bla bla. I don't want to bore you, nor quote this guy. Nor do I know if this even works but, really this day entertains me and Toby loves it. We got about 5-7 inches of snow on Saturday in Rhode Island so our food sources were limited. Toby and I planned to go to a restaurant called Fat Bellies ( yeah great name) so he could get a Philly cheese steak sandwich, but the snow filled roads stopped us in our tracks. No really, we made it to the highway and turned around.

Chopped Apple Salad with Toasted Walnuts, Blue Cheese & Pomegranate Vinaigrette

This recipe is in my Bar American Bobby Flay cookbook that I made the chicken cutlets from.This is a great cook book. I highly recommend it. I was introduced to this recipe by my friend Katie who made this for a get together at her house. By get together, I mean a medium came over that talks to dead people came over to do readings for Katie and her friends. Great times. Katie said this salad was a big hit the last time she made it so she wanted to make it again.