thoughts of austin on my mind.

However, in other news, I made a delicious soup for dinner tonight with garlic toast.


Chicken Barley Soup


4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup of celery, chopped (3-4 stocks)
1 cup of carrots, chopped (4-5 medium sized)
1 package of baby bellas, sliced (I removed the stems)
2 tbsp. of olive oil
4 chicken breasts, roasted* and chopped
2 1/2 quarts of chicken broth
1 cup of barley, precooked or soaked overnight
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper


Heat the oil in a large soup pot over medium-medium high heat. Sweat the onions for a few minutes then add garlic. Add celery, mushrooms, carrots and salt and pepper until tender. Add cooked chicken, broth and bay leaves and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add barley, reduce heat to the lower medium side and cover. Let simmer for about 20 minutes. Side with toasted crusty bread rubbed with garlic!


*To roast the chicken, heat the oven to 400 F. Season each breast with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil on each side. Slap those breasts onto a foil lined baking sheet. Let roast for about 20-25 min and flip letting the opposite side roast for about the same time. You can use a meat thermometer or just cut open the breast to check for any rawness. I also precooked the barley during this time while I chopped up the veggies.

Not the most flattering soup picture, but you get the idea...

I have become the birthday baker...

Over the past year, I have taken it upon myself to bake friends tasty little numbers on their days of birth.  So far, I have done pretty well. The most recent:


Mini Cheesecake Cupcakes


1 1/2 Cups Graham Cracker Crumbs
5 Tbsp. Melted Butter
2 (8oz.) Packages of Cream Cheese (room temp!)
3/4 Cups of White Sugar
2 Eggs
1 Tsp. Vanilla


Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix the butter and Graham Crackers together by hand. Try to get the crumbs evenly coated. Line cupcake pans with paper liners. Use a tablespoon of crust filling in each cupcake. Use the back of the tablespoon to press crumbs down and halfway up the side. Then mix the cream cheese, sugar, eggs and vanilla until smooth and fluffy-ish.  Fill each liner pretty close to the top (the batter will barely rise). Bake for about 20 minutes, but check consistency at 15 min. The mixture should barely jiggle in the center and the edges should look slightly darker than the center. Let cool or they will be mushy! I also topped with a spoonful of strawberry jam, but any topping would do.

Another treat baked are the best cookies in the whole world and the recipe comes from Grand Central Bakery's cookbook:

Oatmeal and Raisin Cookies

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

2 sticks of butter (softened!)

1 cup white sugar

1 cup of brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

3 1/4 cup of old fashioned rolled oats

1 cup of golden raisins

Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Cream together both sugars and butter in a separate bowl until well mixed. Add eggs into the butter and sugar mixture one at a time as well as vanilla. Add dry ingredients in  3 parts and mix until well combined. Stir in oats and raisins until evenly distributed. (I have also used dried cranberries instead of raisins. Yum!) Form balls with teaspoons and drop on a greased cookie sheet. Then I flatten them with my hand to make them big and thin. Bake for about 8 minutes, until the edges are browned. The center will still look pretty squishy but then they stay soft. Let them sit on the cookie sheet for a few minutes out of the oven before removing them.