My Week via Instagram

Happy Monday – I hope everyone is having a fantastic 3-day weekend! I thought I would share with you another weekly recap via Instagram…

I tried several new beers this week, including Red Hook’s Winterhook, Widmer Brothers’ Brr Seasonal Ale and River Horse’s Oatmeal Milk Stout. My favorite was definitely the Oatmeal Milk Stout. It was dark, but not overly heavy, and had delicious hints of chocolate and coffee.

Top right shoes c/o Express

Saturday night, my friends and I saw the Gin Blossoms at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ. They played a great show! It was so fun to dance and sing along to their classics we grew up listening to, like “Hey Jealousy,” “Found Out About You” and “Follow You Down.”

And yesterday, my friend and I had a lazy and relaxed Sunday that involved a New Girl marathon, eating pizza and baking! She found a really simple recipe for Salted Nutella Peanut Butter Thumbprint cookies. There were only 5 ingredients plus Nutella and all you do is combine them in a bowl, then bake for 10 minutes. They were absolutely delicious! I love the combination of salty and sweet, especially when it involves Nutella!

I hope everyone is well rested and ready for the start of a new week!

If you liked this post, you may want to check out last week’s instagram recap.

Homemade Pizza

Being Italian (let’s face it…being American), my family loves pizza. We have pizza almost every weekend. It’s fast, simple, and delicious and feeds a lot of people. But we have a problem…there are no really good pizzerias by us (gasp!). The one that’s right down the street is hit or miss – sometimes you get a really good pie and other times, it tastes a little bit better than a piece of cardboard. And if we order from a different one, it’s at least a 10-15 minute drive, so by the time we get it home, its no longer piping hot. So we’ve come up with our own solution – homemade pizza. Now, you’re probably thinking that’s a lot of work to make the dough and then make and bake the pizzas, but it’s really not because we take a huge short cut – Boboli pizza crusts. All you have to do is add some toppings and pop them in the oven and they come out tasting better than the pizza crust at our local pizzeria.

Sunday night, we had family over for dinner. Being that the Holidays just ended and we all did a lot of cooking, none of us were in the mood for an intense meal and no one wanted to spend hours slaving away in the kitchen. So, we made Boboli pizzas. We made four different kinds – margherita, prosciutto with mozzarella, peppers and onions, and pepperoni. Once you have your pizzas made, pop them in the oven at 450° for 8 – 10 minutes.

I enjoyed a slice of margherita and prosciutto with a salad and Goose Island’s Christmas Ale!

The best part about homemade pizza is that you can make any kind you want. Boboli crusts also come in personal sizes, which is really fun when you’re having a party because you can turn it into an interactive pizza-making dinner party!

Stay Curious! xo…Alane

Fudgy Nutella & Sea Salt Cookies and Dark Chocolate Gingersnaps

This weekend was filled with Holiday parties, Christmas shopping (I finally started!), and baking! Every Christmas, my best friend and I get together at least once (let’s face it, we love food and baking so we try to do it as often as possible) and bake all day long. So yesterday was our first bake-a-thon and we decided to try out some new recipes – Fudgy Nutella Sea Salt cookies and Dark Chocolate Gingersnaps. I found both of them while browsing Pinterest a few weeks ago (yes, I’m a Pinterest addict).

We started off with the Nutella cookie recipe because it had to chill in the freezer for 10 minutes. The recipe only makes 12 – 14 cookies, which is clearly not enough, so we decided to multiply it by 6. For anyone who decides to try this recipe and wants to make 6 dozen cookies, buy two of the big containers of Nutella (I think they are 26 oz. each). You need a total of 6 cups, which is 48 oz. so the two containers will give you 52 oz. This recipe was very easy to follow – there are only 5 ingredients (nutella, brown sugar, egg, flour and sea salt) and all you do is combine the first 4 and then add the sea salt after the cookies are baked. I suggest using a stand mixer to mix the ingredients together, especially if you are thinking about multiplying the recipe. The dough gets very thick and fudgy with the Nutella and flour and the hand mixer we had could not stand up to it. Once all of the ingredients were mixed together, we chilled the dough in the freezer for 10 or 15 minutes (we didn’t really time it) and then made 1-inch balls on our ungreased cookie sheets. When it was time to bake, we put them in the oven at 350 for 10 minutes, but we discovered that they needed more time because they looked a little too fudgy in the middle. On average, we left each tray in the oven for about 12 minutes. Once they were done, we took them out of the oven and sprinkled sea salt on them. We then waited impatiently for them to cool…

Results: Deliciously chocolatey & chewy (almost like a brownie) and I love the combination of sweet and salty! I would definitely make these cookies again, especially because its such a simple and quick recipe that you can enjoy right away!

Next up were the Dark Chocolate Gingersnaps. This recipe had a more extensive list of ingredients, but overall, it was very easy to follow and pretty quick to whip up a batch… or two or three. Because this recipe only made 24 cookies, we multiplied it by 3 so, again, we would have 6 dozen cookies. I don’t really have any suggestions as far as this one goes. As I said, it was really easy to follow and we didn’t modify anything. We baked them for exactly 14 minutes, just as the recipe instructed, and they were perfect. The only thing we left out was the powdered sugar at the end. The cookies were going straight into containers and we didn’t want them to get messy, so we figured we would sprinkle powdered sugar over top when we serve them.

Results: Very gingery with just a hint of chocolate! I will have to try these alongside regular gingersnaps (I will be making my standard gingersnap recipe this weekend) and see how different they taste from one another. Again, although there were more ingredients, it was still a simple recipe that can be made in less than an hour.

So, if you’re looking for some different types of cookies this holiday season, I highly recommend trying one or both of these recipes! They turned out great, were very easy to make, and did not involve a lot of time.

Go get your holiday baking on (or eating, whichever you prefer :))!

Stay Curious! xo…Alane

Crochet Cowls

I recently taught myself how to crochet. I’ve always wanted to try it, but once I learned how to knit, I stuck with that. I have come across a number of knitting patterns, however, that have crocheted elements added to them. I also really like the way small crocheted flowers look as added decorations. So I thought it was time to teach myself how to crochet. It was a bit complicated at first; my hands were fumbling with the yarn and crochet hook, unaccustomed to the movements and tension. But, as with anything new, all it takes is some practice!

I really like crocheting. I haven’t tried anything really complicated yet, but it seems to be a bit quicker than knitting. I’m excited to whip up some more cozy cowls! I bought 4 different colors of yarn, including the blue one shown below, which is what I’m working on now.

P.S. Can you believe it’s the 1^st of December?! I don’t know where fall went, but I think we’ve officially moved into winter weather and are full swing into the Holiday Season. I hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas music, movies and decorations as much as I am!

Stay Curious! xo…Alane