West Elm Collaboration: Overnight Apple and Pear Cinnamon Morning Buns

I love Christmas morning at my in-laws' house (yes, my in-laws are rad and I'm so lucky!). I love making a cozy breakfast for everyone that we can eat in our jammies while opening gifts in front of a crackling fire. I'm super excited to collaborate with West Elm to share a recipe for Overnight Apple and Pear Cinnamon Morning Buns on West Elm's blog, Front + Main. Get the recipe here and see how we prepped and inhaled them at our house with my family. I will definitely be making these for Christmas morning!

+ See the full feature on West Elm's Blog
+ Photos except the 3rd and 4th ones are by Sarah Hebenstreit
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Favorites: Fall Cheese Plate with 34 Degrees Crisps

I've been prepping this week to host Thanksgiving at our home. It's my favorite holiday of the year and I love everything going on in the kitchen. On the menu this year is turkey (brining is key), roasted brussels sprouts with balsamic vinegar, butternut squash soup with ginger, homemade pumpkin pie with gluten free crust and Nick is making a homemade non-gluten free apple pie. Our family will be bringing cranberry sauce, salad, mashed potatoes and my mom's making shrimp fly lice (aka fried rice!). :)

I usually like to put out a cheese plate for guests to nibble on before dinner. Remember the fancy spread I put together last year with 34 Degrees crisps? I collaborated with 34 Degrees again to put together a simplified plate with just a couple of cheeses (I used Cambazola and Manchego from Whole Foods) and some flavorful crackers like the Toasted Onion, Rosemary and Cracked Pepper. Beautifully simple and a delicious start to a giant feast!

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Recipe: Best Granola Ever No. 2

Remember last year when I said this was the best granola ever? Well, not that I changed my mind, but I decided that I can have as many "best" recipes as I want. And this recipe is aptly named Best Granola Ever No. 2. With its crispy coconut chips, maple glazed pecans, Maldon sea salt (that salty sweet combo effect!), and crackly texture, this granola is seriously addictive. I may or may not have eaten an entire Ball jar of granola in one sitting.

Granola shards! I've decided I like crispy shards over chewy clumps.

The original recipe is so damn good but I modified this recipe slightly to eliminate refined sugar. My modifications include using half olive oil and half coconut oil, adding unsweetened coconut flakes for more coconut flavor, replacing brown sugar with coconut sugar, adding raisins and only stirring once during baking.

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Banchan Workshop No. 4

It was that time again--another opportunity to attend, pig out, oh and shoot photos for Banchan Workshop No. 4 hosted by Selina Lee of Skycreatives and Feastly. Remember Banchan Workshop No. 2 and No. 3? This time the workshop was held at the beautiful Feastly studio in San Francisco. With its flood of natural light and high ceilings, the space was a really nice backdrop for all the delicious food and fun guests.

Here are some of my favorite shots. Tons more details, photos and recipes on Skycreatives.

Love how Selina decorated with succulents for each guest sitting on top of Korean newspapers with white paint strokes.

Lots of goodies donated by the awesome Whole Foods Market Berkeley and Allegro Coffee from Whole Foods Market Gilman.

Look how cute my friends Nancy and Meg are!? ;)

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Selina doing her thing.

Um, drooling! I need to make this for my kids!

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DIY + Recipe: Thanksgiving Dessert Toppers

I made these easy Thanksgiving Dessert Toppers plus a yummy recipe for Layered Pumpkin Pie in Mason Jars. See the full post over on Oh Happy Day.

Recipe: My Favorite Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes (gluten free)

One of my favorite things to make on the weekends pancakes. Theo loves sitting on the counter and helping with the measuring, pouring and mixing of all the ingredients. I've been using this recipe for years and the pancakes always come out perfectly fluffy and delicious. Lately, I've adapted the recipe to be gluten free--they're still fluffy but swapping out the white flour with whole grain brown rice flour makes them healthier (um, so I could eat more!). Did the same thing with my Cardamom Coffee Cake and Carrot Muffins. The key to keeping these from deflating is not over mixing the batter.

I love eating these with butter, maple syrup and fresh berries. I usually keep any leftovers in the fridge and reheat in the microwave for a quick breakfast for the kids throughout the week.

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Recipe: Healthy Chocolate Pudding

The word "healthy" in this chocolate pudding recipe refers to a secret ingredient that you'd never guess -- avocado. I first learned about this recipe from Jennifer Tyler Lee of 52 New Foods at the Williams-Sonoma event I attended a while back. One taste and I was hooked! Luckily the recipe is in her book, The 52 New Foods Challenge, which I made one afternoon with the help of Lucas. Scroll down and you'll see Lucas' favorite part about making it!

Enjoy!

Yeah, I let Lucas do this.

And yeah, I let him do this too.

One tip I loved from Jennifer was not to hide any of the ingredients but let your kids make it with you and see everything that goes in it.

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Recipe: Oh Yeah, Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

It's been a few weeks since I've posted a recipe -- the last post was about these Soft Baked Pretzels. It's not that I haven't been baking and cooking away, but rather I've been trying to perfect my version of the best classic chocolate chip cookie. After numerous recipe testings and listening to feedback from my select group of cookie critics, I finally found "the one" that met all my chocolate chip cookie criteria -- crispy around the edges, on the thinner side but not flat, chewy in the center, not too sweet, a little salty, perfect chocolate to dough ratio, puddles of melty layered chocolate, good the next day, and most importantly, not cakey. I hate cakey.

The recipe comes from Ashley Rodriguez of Not Without Salt on Food52 (one of my favorite blogs -- have you seen their dreamy office kitchen workspace makeover on Remodelista?). I even tried altering the recipe just a bit to see if some of my favorite elements (espresso powder, semi-sweet chocolate chips, etc.) from other recipes would make this even better. But it is perfect as is according to me and my taste buds.

Puddles and layers and flaky salt -- oh yeah!

A few must do's to make this cookie perfect:
+ Use a high quality (it really makes a difference -- the cheap stuff doesn't melt/puddle the same or taste the same) dark chocolate bar such as Divine or Valrhona and chop it up. Don't think I'll ever go back to chips unless it's an emergency.
+ Don't overmix
+ Always refrigerate the dough
+ Always sprinkle that flaky salt on top before baking
+ Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for at least 5 minutes

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Banchan Workshop No. 3

A few weekends ago I had the opportunity to attend and shoot photos at the Banchan Workshop No. 3 at The Berkeley Kitchens hosted by Selina Lee of Skycreatives and Feastly. Remember Banchan Workshop No. 2 and how delicious and fun that was? I love Korean food!

If you missed this sold out class, Selina and Feastly will be hosting Banchan Workshop No. 4 (Korean Street Food) on September 26th in San Francisco. Sign up here.

Love these tea towels by Vintage Create Room

Fluffy rolled egg demo

Would love to try making these Korean meatballs with ground turkey.

How cute are these mini bibim bap bowls with quail eggs? I could have eaten every one of those bowls -- so good!

Dessert included almond petits fours by Cakes Made by M.E. and coffee by Blue Moby Coffee.

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Recipe: Soft Baked Pretzels (Baking with Kids)

A couple of weeks ago, I volunteered to make homemade soft pretzels with Lucas' preschool class. I made them last year as well and they were such a big hit with the kids and the teachers so I figured I would make them again. Plus, who doesn't love a soft baked pretzel, salty and dripping with melted butter?

Lucas helped me knead the dough in his jammies before heading off to school. He's a great helper in the kitchen -- remember how he peeled those Brussels sprouts? I let the dough rise for an hour while I got the kids ready and dropped off at school. The kids were super excited to make their own pretzels! They used their listening/following instructions skills to roll out their own dough and twist them into a pretzel shape. I dipped them in a baking soda/warm water bath (this gives the pretzels a nice golden-brown color) and then laid them out onto parchment paper on a tray. I used a Sharpie to write kids' initials next to their pretzel. The kids also had to be extra patient as the dough had to rise again for 15 minutes and then bake in the oven. When they were ready, the only complaint I heard was that they all wanted more!

Each pretzel was unique and they kids were so proud. I offered two dipping sauces, ranch and nacho cheese, but most kids wanted them plain with salt.

+ Click here for a printable PDF (Note: This recipe makes 6 pretzels but I quadrupled the recipe for the kids project)
+ Photos taken with my iPhone 5 (excuse the not-so-great quality of the photos -- I had flour and butter all over my hands and surrounded by 20+ preschoolers)
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