TGI(my)F

Not to rub it in or anything, and truth be told I have a sh*t ton of work to do tomorrow. I am just lucky enough to be doing it from my own home.

Anywho. Wow today has felt like 3 days. So long and I am definitely ready for bed. But, let us do a little recap of all the fun and food I encountered today.

Breakfast:

I was out of both milk and soy milk this a.m. Booooo. So I had to grab a breakfast sans-milk, sorry oatmeal you will be missed. The replacements were a banana with peanut butter and half an 100 calorie Thomas English Whole-Grain muffin slathered in apple butter. It tasted great but does not even come close to sticking with me as well as oatmeal does. In fact, I believe about an hour after I ate my breakfast I was already hungry so I consume a clementine, although there is no pictorial evidence of such.

Lunch:

Leftovers as usual, would you honestly expect any less from me? Whole-grain rice with the leftover chicken Alexander Nick’s mom made for us on Monday. Does my plate look just a little too taupe? Kinda unappetizing when I take a second glance at it. But, I promise you it was quite tasty.

Was having quite the sweet tooth attach a little after lunch. So to satisy that nasty little guy I had a square odd triangle piece of Trader Joe’s 72% Dark Cacao. Loved it!

Snack Attack:

Yet again I had a grumbly tumbly around 3pm. Still was craving something sweet. (I blame this all-day hunger on not getting my oats in this a.m.) Yesterday when I was at Trader Joe’s I picked up two new Larabar flavors. Today’s flavor de-jour was Apple Pie.

While the bar looked and smelled quite appetizing, the end result when chewed in my mouth was a wee bit off. The flavor was just a bit odd, edible, but just a little odd. This Larabar is not my favorite flavor lets just put it that way.

But, what I did find better than the taste of this bar was the little excerpt on the back of the bar. It read, “Humm Food,”  it then went on to explain what Humm Food is. Reading this put a smile on my face and gave me a little afternoon break. Thanks Larabar!

When I got home from work today I definitely had a bug up my ass to make a recipe I had been holding onto for literally 7 months. Pecan Tassies were destined to baked in my house this afternoon. The recipe seemed fairly simple when explained by Martha herself.

Pecan Tassies

Ingredients

Makes 16

• FOR THE DOUGH
• 1/2 cup pecans
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) mascarpone cheese
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• Pinch of salt
• FOR THE FILLING
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Make the dough: Process pecans in a food processor until finely ground (you should have about 1/3 cup); set aside. Put mascarpone and butter into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until well blended. Add flour, ground pecans, and salt; mix just until dough comes together. Alternatively, stir together ingredients with a wooden spoon in a large bowl.
2. Roll dough into sixteen 1-inch balls, and press into bottoms and up sides of cups of mini-muffin tins.
3. Make the filling: Whisk the egg, sugar, maple syrup, vanilla, butter, and salt in a small bowl. Stir in pecans. Spoon about 1 1/2 teaspoons filling into each muffin cup.
4. Bake pecan tassies until crust begins to turn golden, about 15 minutes. Let cool completely in tins on wire rack. Unmold. Pecan tassies can be stored in single layers in airtight containers up to 3 days.

The first thing I did was to gather and measure the ingredients for both the dough and the filling. Below were the ingredients for the dough.

Only labor intensive part of the dough was grinding up the pecans. Thank goodness I have my mini-food processor. Love that little guy. We were done with the dough in a jiffy.

Next was the gathering of the ingredients for the filling of the pecan tassies. There were just a few more ingredients for the filling as opposed to the dough, but I was on top of it.

After I prepared the dough and the filling I realized I DIDN’T HAVE MINI CUPCAKE TINS! GRRRRR! I really hate when I am reading a recipe and I skim over the very important parts. Well, I was not about to go out and purchase mini-muffin tins just for this little experiment. I did know one lady who has every pan and kitchen gadget known to woman, Mom. Of course, Mom came to my rescue but I had to drive over to her house to pick the tins up. But first, I was determined to make it to kick-boxing this evening. So, the pecan tassies were put on hold till I arrived home from the gym good and sweaty!

Dinner:

After my hour of Les Mills Kick-boxing, I believe we did launch 36, and a quick jaunt over to my Mom’s I was on my way home and ready to eat.

Oh my word was dinner delicious this evening (plus it always seems to taste better when I do not have to cook it). Nick made yellow curry chicken breasts with white sticky rice and garlic tandoori nann. I have not had Indian food in a long-while and was definitely craving it. Trader Joe’s sold the chicken breast already marinating in the yellow curry sauce along with pre-made nann. Nick just had to cook the chicken in a skillet, throw the rice in the rice cooker and toss the nannn into the oven. And wha-la dinner was served.

Right after dinner it was right back to mission Pecan Tassie completion. After trail and error I came out with some not only delicious tasting but gorgeous little pecan tassies. So worth all the work. Now if I could only get Nick to slow down on the consumption of these little guys. I did indulge in one hot out of the oven and it really was awesome. I can not wit to share a few with my family and consume a couple more tomorrow.

But for now, Goodnight all!