When Cooking and Computing Meet......

I felt like I was living under a rock when I first heard about Biscoff.  All of a  sudden bloggers were posting about Biscoff cookies and cupcakes and cakes and..... well...... you name it. And I had NO CLUE what they were talking about.  So of course I had to find it online and order it.  That is the normal response, right?  So Amazon came to my rescue and it a few days I was able to sample this new (to me) taste treat. And those are the perfect words - taste treat.  I tried the cookies first and they were good - naturally good with brown sugar and cinnamon baked into them.  Crispy and yummy.
But then I moved on to the spread and if I had not had a lot of self restraint I could have eaten spoonful after spoonful of the contents of the jar. Good thing I ordered two jars.  For the next few days I made toast for breakfast just so I had a reasonable excuse to pull out that delectable jar and savor it first thing in the morning!!  Pretty pathetic but very satisfying!!!

So next on my list was to actually experience  baking with it .  Trying the Biscoff Banana Bread with Biscoff Cookie Streusel from Two Peas and Their Pod seemed like the perfect candidate for me as it used the spread AND the cookies.  So if one form of Biscoff was good, two HAD to be even better!

The recipe was pretty straightforward and the ingredients were similar to basic banana bread, with the addition of the Biscoff!

Now if you cannot find it locally or do not want to order online, run don't walk to your nearest Trader Joe's and grab their Speculoos Cookie Butter (and it comes in crunchy now)-- it's a great substitution and more economical too.  Here is what you are looking for (and I forgot the brown sugar in the photo above so it was a good excuse for a second photo!)

One  thing I learned (and really should have known) is that when you do a streusel topping that is SO thick on top , you really should press it down into the batter so it stays in place when you turn the bread out of the pan.  I think next time I might try to put half of it in the center of the bread and the rest in top so more bites will be full of that cookie mixture - it was yummy!  But I wasn't too upset when I just HAD to clean up the crumbly topping that fell off,  and of course I sampled it... just a little!!  I knew instantly that this would be  a recipe I would try again.

Just look at that scrumptious topping - Biscoff cookies, brown sugar, butter and flour!

Fresh out of the oven - minus a bit of streusel on top!

Can you see how moist and wonderful it is??  Trust me!

And while I am talking about recipes, I would love to share my new kitchen companion with you.  I have been looking at tablets for a long time. I have the Kindle Fire which I really love and it's great to grab to read books, peruse cookbooks, or even answer email - but I couldn't actually "work" on it - at least not easily. With all of the blog recipes I am saving, I am creating quite a collection!

So to make life so much easier, I am welcoming the Sony Vaio Duo tablet into my life!

Oh how I love this toy!!  Yes I am a techie junkie too!   One of the best things is that I save all of my favorite blog recipes to Microsoft One Note.  And because my computer and tablet are all synced through Office 365, I can instantly pull up the recipe on my tablet and bake or cook to my heart's content!!  I love the ease of use and the convertibility and that I can do all that I need to do on it.  It's a perfect fit for me!

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Yumminess!!

While I was trying to figure out if I really wanted to start a blog, I spent a lot of time trying new recipes that were appearing on some of my favorite blogs.  That is another new fascination for me.  I have collected cookbooks since I was a young adult. I weed them out periodically, but I still cannot resist a new one.  I am a huge fan of Paula Deen, her sons, the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond,  and a variety of cooking favorites.I have been trying to stop buying the hard copies and put them on my Kindle Fire. So far that is working pretty well, but every now and then I just want to hold the book in my hands and turn the pages!

So the blogs have satiated my need for more recipes - they are sitting in my inbox almost every day!! Those that I think I might try or that intrigue me, I save to One Note.  If you have not used that program, you need to give it a try.  My friend Ducky got me hooked on it years ago and I am so grateful to her!  I now have virtual notebooks for all sorts of things and  of course one is now devoted to recipes.  I love having them so available so I don't have to go searching for something that sounded good a few weeks ago - I just have to find it in One Note.  It is an organizer's dream!!

I digressed - sorry.  Back to cooking. So one recipe that I could not get out of my head was from Iowa Girl Eats- Orange Skillet Chicken with Winter Fruit Salsa.  OH..... MY..... GOSH.......... that was so good!!!   It is an explosion of citrusy goodness in your mouth. The link to the recipe is above, but here is the short, simple version!!

Sear well seasoned chicken breasts in olive oil

Make an orange juice reduction sauce

And while the chicken is resting and the sauce is bubbling and becoming intoxicating, make the winter fruit salsa of chopped kiwi, orange slices, chopped, and pomegranate seeds.  It was my first time tasting pomegranate seeds and they were delicious.  And I used my diminishing supply of Honeybell oranges.  They are only available from FL one month of the year (January - I have them shipped as late as possible!) and each  one has the juice of a full glass of orange juice protected beneath that skin.  They are a must try - but you will have to wait til next year.

Here is the end result.....

Doesn't that look good enough to eat???  Trust me.... it is!!

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