pinterest - bloomin' onion bread

For the afore mentioned birthday shindig, I honestly felt that showing up with just one measly tray of delicious, amaze-balls s'mores bars was not gonna cut it. So back to pinterest I went. Except, everything of the appy persuasion that piqued my interest seemed to be sweet. Until I found this gem...





Say it with me: BLOOMIN. ONION. BREAD.

I will say without a doubt that this is, like, 10x better than the shit from Outback - a). bc it's baked, not fried, b). it has cheese! c). it will not make you take a mad dash to the bathroom within 27 minutes of consuming it.

So, start off with a nice, innocent loaf of sourdough. Don't sub out for wheat or some other "healthy" incarnation of bread - the sourdough flavor is key here.





Next comes the tough part. To mimic the whole bloomin onion "look", you're going to need to slice the bread in thin strips lengthwise (BUT DON'T CUT ALL THE WAY THROUGH), then turn it 90 degrees and slice some more. The second half is difficult, but this does not need to be a work of art, bc it will be demolished by hungry fingers soon.





Alright, once your bread somewhat resembles mine, break out the cheese. The recipe called for monterrey jack - well, I fucking hate that shit. So, Gouda it was:





Cut up that bad boy into little pieces and then carefully insert in between the gaps in the bread.

Once that tedious part is done, chop up about a 1/2 cup of green onions,





melt 1/2 a cup of butter in the microwave, mix the butter, green onions, and however many poppy seeds you want and drizzle it all over that bad boy.

(Confession: in my baking fervor, I confused 1/2 a cup of butter with 1/2 a stick, and ended up using only 1/4 cup of butter. It still turned out delish, so if the thought of going all Paula Deen with full sticks of butter brings on a pre-diabetic panic attack, fear not, this will still be delish.)





Preheat your oven to 350, cover this beauty in foil, and bake for 15 minutes. Then remove the foil and bake for another 10 mins, to crisp it up. Promptly inhale (but don't burn yourself).

(adapted from The Girl Who Ate Everything, via pinterest)

pinterest - delicious goat cheese basil honey walnut thing

I didn't get pinterest at first. It's like, "WTF, I don't want pictures of food, I want foooood!" Then, something in my peanut brain clicked and I realized the pictures were links and my heart went all pitter patter.

I've tried a few things so far from my pinterest boards (s'mores bars will be making a repeat showing this weekend, and I'll be sure to blog those), but so far, my obsession with this particular shnack has consumed my life.

The actual pin has a toasted english muffin, scattered with goat cheese, torn basil and walnuts, and then drizzled with honey. Since I am a ravenous beast, I would likely end up with walnuts on the floor and honey on my face trying to eat this creation, so I went all 5th grade here and created a roll up:





Behold - homemade tortilla straight from the Mexican bakery, scattered with delish-ness. Then, roll it up anddddd





POOF! Goat cheese/basil/honey/walnut magic in a handy, portable, edible container.

I have made this previously with naan bread, in an effort to achieve the wrap look, as well as mimic the bread texture/flavor from the original pin. It's good, but honestly, all that bread gets in the way of the true stars - all I give 2 shits about are the basil, goat cheese, walnuts and honey. So I've found the tortilla more to my liking.

Of course, you may be more, errr, dainty than me, and the English muffin may work out just fine. However, for the other hungry girls out there who devour their food in 0.6 seconds, the wrap is a worthy alternative.