Black Magic Brownies

May 15, 2015May 23, 2015 ~ Marlee And Christie ~ Leave a comment

These brownies will change your life, we’re not kidding. They’re so moist and chocolatey, and not overly sweet. When we make brownies we want to showcase the chocolate wonderfulness, so we use dark chocolate and coffee to highlight the chocolate flavor!

You can’t go wrong with these brownies, I mean, that’s why we call them MAGIC brownies. 😉

Ingredients

8 tbsp. unsalted butter, plus more for greasing
1.5 oz dark chocolate powder
1 oz milk chocolate powder
3 tbs of espresso (if powder, prepare as instructed on container and then add 3tbs it or brewed)
2/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla extract
¼ cup flour
¼ tsp. kosher or fine salt

Step 1:

Heat oven to 325°. Grease an 8″ x 8″ baking pan with butter or baking Pam.

Step 2:

Melt butter, then in a bowl, mix in chocolate and espresso. Stir until combined.

Step 3:

Add sugars (brown and white), then add the eggs and vanilla. Mix with a wooden spoon until batter is smooth.

Step 4:

With a rubber spatula, scrape batter into greased baked pan. Tap the pan on a hard surface a few times to release all the air bubbles. Doing this will create a smoother end result.

Step 5:

Bake for 33-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. But some crumbs are okay!

#TwoYoungLadiesTravel to Helena

May 14, 2015May 23, 2015 ~ Marlee And Christie ~ Leave a comment

We made it to beautiful Helena, Montana! We’ve decided for our drive home that we will make sure we don’t drive more than seven or so hours. After our Spokane to Edmonton drive, we realized as great as it is, we would rather enjoy the drive then wear ourselves down.

We left Calgary this morning and started our trek to Montana, but not before stopping at Dairy Queen for some soft serve. The past two times we went to Edmonton, all we wanted was a soft serve DQ chocolate dipped cone, and we FINALLY got one. Thankfully, we got one in Lethbridge, Alberta which was the last real town we passed through.

After we left Lethbridge, we headed South towards Montana. As we drove further and further South, we realized we were the ONLY car on the road, besides the occasional truck heading in the opposite direction. Almost two hours of driving, and it was just us and the open road. Totally picturesque! It actually started raining as we got closer to the boarder; the perfect day for a drive.

When we finally got to the boarder, we were so excited! We stopped inside the duty free store to buy Franny (Marlee’s mom) some more Coffee Crisps, and some other Canadian knick-knacks. Then we headed towards the boarder crossing. Thankfully there was only one car in front of us, and it took a total of ten minutes of waiting and talking to the border officer. We were so happy to be back in the United States!

We weren’t sure what to expect because neither of us have ever been to Montana, but it was absolutely beautiful! The air was so clean and fresh. We stopped the car at a rest stop ( a really nice one) and walked around enjoying the air and the rain. The smell of fresh rain and pavement is oddly comforting.

Once in Montana, we were on the 15 South which is called the Lewis and Clark Trail. Kind of a cool freeway to drive on when you think of all the history. We actually stopped at a scenic overlook, and just took in all the nature. It was so silent, even with the random passing cars. It was wonderful! We were both blown away by how beautiful Montana is. Even in the car, we could’t stop saying how beautiful the scenery was. We think we’re still at a loss for words to truly describe it’s full beauty. We’re sorry if we’re redundant!

Don’t we take beautiful photos?

Snoopy enjoying the scenery.

So much beauty.

We spent quite a bit of time discussing whether or not this was a mesa, plateau, or a butte. We think it’s a plateau or a mesa, which actually are kind of the same thing. But butte is more fun to say…because it sounds like butt. Obviously, you can guess who added that.

When we finally got to Helena we were so excited to see that right next to our hotel was a supermarket! We immediately checked in, and walked across the street to find dinner that wasn’t fast food.

As you can see, we were very happy to be in a market with real food. We walked up and down every single aisle. It was heaven. We can’t wait to get home and start cooking and prepping our web series for you guys!

More soon!

#TwoYoungLadiesTravel to Edmonton (then back to Calgary)

May 13, 2015May 23, 2015 ~ Marlee And Christie ~ Leave a comment

Greetings from Calgary!

For those of you following our road trip journey, we’re sorry we left you hanging after Spokane. When we left Spokane to drive to Edmonton and we’re expecting a nine hour drive. Well that didn’t happen. What we forgot to factor in was the fact that we entered MST and basically lost an hour, and we’d have to slow down to a snails pace when going through all those teeny tiny towns that no one’s ever heard of. The guys at the A&W we stopped at were THRILLED to see girls they weren’t related to. Sorry, but it’s true! haha. So, instead of taking nine hours, our drive was a little over 12 hours. YIKES.

You can imagine we were going a little stir crazy by the end of the day. And once we got to Edmonton it was jam-packed with seeing family, and cleaning out storage units. We barely had time to think, let alone write about our journey! So here it goes:

The first part of the drive from Spokane to the Canadian boarder through B.C. was stunningly gorgeous. The mountains were absolutely beautiful and the air was so clean. As native Angelenos, we’re not used to such clean air, it was almost too much to handle!

After almost 6.5 hours of driving, we finally switched in Crowsnest Pass. By this time, we were both pretty worn-out but we knew we had to keep going. We read that there was SNOW(something us Cali Gals don’t know how to deal with) coming and we didn’t want to be caught in that.

So we kept going, and all of a sudden the the beautiful mountains disappeared and we were surround by flat, farmland, and a giant sky with nothing for miles. No offense to Alberta, especially the drive from Calgary to Edmonton, but jeez, it is sooooo boring. We were both nodding off, eek. Even driving from Edmonton to Calgary today, we were both zoning out and having a hard time staying awake and it was only 3ish hours. But now that we are in our very nice hotel in Calgary, we are able to sit, not talk, and enjoy mindless TV and writing.

Okay, back to our journey: As we were driving into Edmonton there wasn’t a cloud in the big sky! It was beautiful. We thought the weather man must have been crazy; how could there be the chance of snow? Well, we arrived in Edmonton at the Cedar Park Inn, and the temperature was MUCH cooler than we expected. But still, didn’t look like it was going to snow.

(Does that look like snow to you?)

We went to sleep and the next morning we woke up to a freaking Winter Wonderland. Obviously, Edmonton didn’t get the memo that Spring was here. Our poor car, Snoopy, looked cold yet majestic in the snow. Probably the first and only time Snoopy will see snow.

Here’s Snoopy, covered in Snow. In May. WTF

A Winter Wonderland in May. Fun fact, minus this snow, Spring in Edmonton is basically Winter in LA.

Look at all that SNOW!!!

Two Young Ladies in the the Snow! Aren’t we adorable?

Little flowers covered by snow.

Over the week, we met up with many family members and had tons of meals, including a daily trip to Tim Hortons for coffee and Tim-Bits. Now, we’re going to be honest, a lot of the area we were in is a food desert (basically meaning there is nothing but fast food around), we found a few places that we liked, Moxie’s and Earls, but who knows how healthy it was for you. We were talking about how almost everything comes with fries. We need some green veggies STAT!

Anyways, we had some good meals and discovered a few new awesome things like Sesame Steak Sauce. At first we were concerned when we saw this white steak sauce coming out at a BBQ, but everyone swore that it’s amazing, so we reluctantly put it on our plates to be polite, like our fellow Canadians. It was love at first taste! Holy Smokes! We would have licked it off the plate if no one had been looking at us (Christie tried). So we decided we have to make it, so stay tuned for that and many other inspirations we got from this trip, coming up in the next few weeks. We promise you that you won’t be sorry.

UPDATE AS OF MAY 13

We’re heading back to the states today! Heading from Calgary to Helena, Montana! Canada it’s been real, but we will see you in a few months. Time to head back to the motherland!

Banana Oat Muffins

May 12, 2015May 23, 2015 ~ Marlee And Christie ~ Leave a comment

Finally! A non-lemon recipe! Today’s recipe comes from Running with Spoons, and we really, really, really, like this recipe. And it’s kind of healthy so that’s even more awesome.

There’s just something about the words: banana, chocolate and oatmeal that just sounds super comforting, and who doesn’t love healthy comfort food. These muffins are great for a quick morning breakfast or an afternoon snack.

Ingredients

1 Cup Greek Yogurt (Plain)
2 Very Ripe Bananas
2 Eggs
2 Cups Old Fashioned Rolled Oats (Quick is okay as well)
1/4 Cup Dark Brown Sugar
1 1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1 Cup Chocolate Chips
Cooking Spray

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 400°, then line your muffin pan with your cupcake liners. Using your cooking spray, spray the inside of the cupcake liners. I know this step seems weird, but if you don’t, the muffins will stick to the liner. TRUST US. We missed this step the first time we made them. We suggest using Pam Baking, it smells tasty 🙂

Step 2: Put the bananas, yogurt, eggs, oats, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda in a blender and blend until everything breaks down and is smooth.

Don’t be afraid of darker bananas! They have a wonderful banana flavor!

Step 3: Pour the prepared batter into the cupcake liners. You can also sprinkle the tops of the muffins with more chocolate if you wish.

Step 4: Bake for 15-20 minutes. The tops will be set and the toothpick will come out clean. These can be stored in an airtight container for up to a week.

Lemon Ice Cream

May 10, 2015May 23, 2015 ~ Marlee And Christie ~ Leave a comment

What’s this? ANOTHER lemon recipe? We’re sorry, but we bought so many Meyer Lemons we had to make as many recipes as we could.

Now here’s a fun story, after we made this and the ice cream was churning, we went to take a taste and realized we forgot to add sugar. So you could imagine our surprise when we went to taste it, and it was completely and totally bitter.

We added some bakers sugar, and it helped, but what we ended up having to freeze the ice cream, then let it melt completely and then re churn it. Despite our little flub, the ice cream was really quite delicious and we highly recommend this recipe.

And remember, DON’T FORGET THE SUGAR!

Lemon Ice Cream Ingredients

1 1/2 Cups Heavy Cream
1 Cup Whole Milk
3/4 Cup Sugar
2 Tablespoons Lemon Zest
1/8 Teaspoon Salt
6 Egg Yolks
3/4 Cup Lemon Juice

Step 1: Pour milk, cream, sugar, zest and salt in a medium sauce pan and bring to a boil. Stirring until all the sugar is dissolved.

Step 2: In a small separate bowl, mix together the egg yolks until smooth.

Step 3: Very slowly pour the hot cream/milk mixture into the yolk, making sure you are stirring constantly to prevent the eggs from curdling.

Step 4: Pour the egg/cream mixture back into the sauce pan and cook over medium low heat for 3-5 minutes and the mixture coats the back of the spoon. Remember to keep stirring constantly and do not let this mixture boil.

Step 5: Stir in the lemon juice and let cool on the counter until it’s at room temperature. Stir occasionally.

Step 6: Personally, we always make our ice cream base the day before we need it so it can chill overnight. This comes from tons of trial and error, but if you don’t have the time, chill in the fridge for at least 3 hours.

Step 7: Transfer the chilled mixture to the bowl of the ice cream maker and churn according to the manufactures setting.

Step 8: Freeze for at least four hours before serving. We served ours with…..LEMON CURD. Who needs chocolate sauce when you have lemon curd?!

Simple Vegan Ice Cream Base (Vanilla)

May 6, 2015May 23, 2015 ~ Marlee And Christie ~ 1 Comment

Usually the word Vegan scares us a little, but we’ve taken on the challenge a few times now to prove that we can make anything taste good.Today’s recipe is a Vegan ice cream base that you can either keep plain or add things like fruit, chocolate chips or whatever you want!

This ice cream is really flavorful and dairy-free, there is a hint of coconut because of the use of coconut milk, but it’s very milld and adds a lot of depth of flavor! Don’t be scared, we promise it tastes REALLY good.

We made it for a party, and it was a huge hit!

Simple Vegan Ice Cream Base

Ingredients

2 Cans Full Fat Coconut Milk (16 oz)
1/2 Cup Sugar (We used Unwashed Raw Sugar)
1 to 2 Tablespoons Agave or Honey
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Vanilla Bean (split open but not apart)
2 Tablespoons Corn Starch
1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract

Step 1:

Before you open your coconut milk, shake the cans really well to mix them up. Don’t forget this step, the milk tends to separate and can congeal together. Also, don’t be alarmed, we personally don’t think Coconut Milk in the cans smells very good. So don’t be freaked when it doesn’t smell great!

Step 2:

Pour 1 can of the coconut milk into a heavy bottom sauce pan. For the second can, reserve about 1/2 a cup in a small bowl and pour the remains into the sauce pan.

Step 3:

Add in the sugar, agave, salt and split vanilla bean.

Step 4:

Place on the stove over medium heat, and stir until the sugar has melted. Don’t forget to stir!

Step 5:

While the milk and sugar are heating, whisk together the corn starch and 1/2 cup of the milk. Slowly pour this mixture into the saucepan and whisk together. Remove the vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds and return the seeds to the mixture and discard the bean.

Step 6:

Keeping the heat a medium, thicken your ice cream base. Don’t forget to stir occasionally. This took about 7 to 10 minutes. Be careful to not let this mixture boil! When the mixture coats the back of the spoon, it’s ready! Pour in the vanilla extract and stir until fully incorporated.

Step 5:

Transfer the mixture to a heat proof bowl or jar (we love Mason jars) and let cool for at least an hour on the counter before transferring to the fridge to cool completely. Do not put a hot or warm mixture into your ice cream maker. For best results, let the mixture cool overnight.

Step 6:

When you’re ready to make your ice cream remove your base (which will be nice a thick, almost a pudding like texture) from the fridge and pour into your ice cream maker. For most ice cream recipes we always recommend following the manufactures instructions but for this particular recipe we saw best results between 10 to 15 minutes of churning!

Step 7:

Once your ice cream is finished churning, remove and transfer to a freezer safe container and freeze for up to three days. For best results, let freeze a few hours before using.

Vegan Ice Cream over Apple Crisp. It’s almost guiltless.

#TwoYoungLadiesTravel to Spokane

May 5, 2015May 23, 2015 ~ Marlee And Christie ~ Leave a comment

Greetings from beautiful Spokane!

We left Portland this morning but not before stopping at Voodoo Donuts!

The first part of the drive was stunning, we drove through Mount Hood National Forest. We’ve honestly never seen such a beautiful area. The tree’s were so green and lush, including a magical waterfall. We drove along a huge river which divides Oregon and Washington.

How green and beautiful is that?

After we passed through the National Forest, the drive became sort of stale. I mean, we thought the drive from LA to SF was boring, this part of the drive was so bland. There was nothing for hours! We finally stopped in Boardman, Oregon where there were literally four restaurants.

We stopped at a dinner called C & D Drive In and Bakery. It seemed like it was the safest of the the four restaurants. We had lunch and enjoyed sitting outside for a few minutes.

I (Marlee) of course ordered chicken tenders and Christie ordered a Hot Jack Burger, which included jalapeños and pepper jack cheese. It was surprising really tasty and fresh. Once we were done, it was back on the Old Oregon Trail Freeway (UMM AWESOME) and we finally hit Washington.

WHY SO MUCH BREAD?

We were both expecting something a lot more green considering it’s called the Evergreen State, but we were greeted with a lot of brown. We now refer to it as the EverBrown state.

As the drive dragged on, and as the GPS said we were closer and closer to our destination, the more concerned we became, it didn’t look like we were near any sort of civilization, but as we started going down a hill we finally saw the beautiful city of Spokane.

We’re leaving for Edmonton now, and will update when we figure out the internet situation. Thanks for following along!

#TwoYoungLadiesTravel to Portland

May 4, 2015May 23, 2015 ~ Marlee And Christie ~ Leave a comment

Hello again!

If you didn’t believe us, we told you we would be posting recipes! If you haven’t seen it yet, scroll down for a mouthwatering recipe for Meyer Lemon Curd Cake!

Anyways, we left Sac-Town this morning and headed to Portland.This leg of the drive was absolutely beautiful and we drove through Mount Shasta. First of all, absolutely beautiful. But also incredibly sad to see how low Shasta Lake was, we know California is in a drought, and we’ve obviously seen the pictures, but to see how low the water is in person? Yikes. Very sobering.

But isn’t that beautiful? And so green! AND SO MANY TREES! Do you know what else is crazy? That this was once all underwater. Mind blown.

After Shasta’s beauty, the drive was kind of boring, but then we hit Oregon and the drive once again became interesting. Like Shasta, Oregon is incredibly green and beautiful.

We have tons of photos similar to this one, but we will spare you so you don’t get bored by us.

On this leg we also encountered our first (and hopefully only) encounter of almost stand still traffic. Thankfully it only lasted for twenty minutes, and after eight hours, we arrived in Portland.

The area we’re staying in is really nice, but there are a ton of homeless people. Gross alert….we saw one taking an actual dump. Hello and welcome to Portland! Tomorrow before we leave for Spokane we’re going to hit up a couple of foodie places and they all revolve around donuts!!! Apparently two of the best donut places in the United Sates are here. A full report tomorrow peoples!

Meyer Lemon Cake

May 4, 2015May 23, 2015 ~ Marlee And Christie ~ Leave a comment

Another Meyer Lemon Recipe? You bet! We love those Meyer Lemons, we’re honestly considering buying a tree so we can have Meyer Lemons ALL THE TIME. Or whenever they’re in season…

Anyways, after we made all that delicious lemon curd, we needed to find recipes that utilized it. And making a mouthwatering lemon cake seemed like the best idea.

What we love about this cake is that there is no frosting and the cake is “naked”. And of course looks very rustic, especially when it’s hot in LA and things tend to get a little melty.

Today’s cake recipe was inspired by the Lemon Velvet Cake from Rock Recipes.

Ingredients

For the Cake:

1 1/4 cups AP flour (sifted)
1 1/2 cups Cake Flour (sifted)
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 baking soda
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup butter (softened to room temperature)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla paste or extract
2 teaspoons lemon extract
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
zest of two small lemons or one large lemon (zested)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Meyer Lemon Curd
Whipped Cream

Step 1:

Preheat the oven to 325°.

Step 2:

Using baking spray or butter, grease and flour 2 nine inch round cake pans. We use a cake pan with a “arm” so we didn’t have to place parchment paper at the bottom. If you don’t have a cake pan with an arm, place parchment paper at the bottom of the cake pans.

Step 3:

Sift together both of the flours, baking soda, powder, salt and sugar and set aside in a separate bowl.

Step 4:

In a stand mixer or using an electric mixer beat together the vegetable oil, butter, vanilla, lemon extract, and lemon juice. If using the a stand mixer, beat on a high speed with a whisk attachment until light and fluffy.

Step 5:

When the mixture is light and fluffy, add the eggs in one at a time.

Step 6:

Fold in the lemon zest.

Step 7:

Always starting with your dry ingredients, alternately mix in your flour mixture and buttermilk. Do not over mix the cake batter, as soon as their are no lumps pour the batter into the prepared cake pans.

Step 8:

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until the toothpicks come out clean. Allow the cake to cool for 10 minutes in the pans and then remove and let cool completely on racks.

To Assemble:

After the cakes have cooled completely, poke a couple of holes in the cake and pour some lemon curd on the cooled cake.

Prepare your whipped cream, once the cream is taking shape beat in two to three tablespoons of your prepared and cooled lemon curd. Once mixed, place in the fridge until cool. If your in a hurry, place in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Now, you can use the whipped lemon curd as the filling and the outside “frosting” or make a fresh batch of whipped cream for the top. We did the whipped lemon curd, and fresh cream on the outside. But it’s really up to you!

#TwoYoungLadiesTravel to Sacramento

May 3, 2015May 23, 2015 ~ Marlee And Christie ~ 1 Comment

Greetings from Sacramento!

We’re sorry we haven’t been posting very much, but we spent this week preparing for our EPIC ROAD TRIP! But don’t worry, that doesn’t mean we’ll stop posting recipes! We’ve saved a ton to post until we get home in two weeks. But until then, we will be posting from the road!

This morning we left LA and headed to our first stop Sacramento! This is first time I’ve been (Marlee) to Sacramento and the first time Christie’s been back since a class day trip in 5th Grade.

We couldn’t tell Peaches we were leaving. She always watches us leave and she gets depressed. She wasn’t impressed with us leaving today.

Here we are, two young ladies! At our first stop, a McDonald’s off the 5 freeway in Hungry Valley. We forgot our waters at home so we went in, peed and bought four bottles of water. We refused to succumb to unhealthy eating on this road trip.

See? That’s kinda of healthy. No pictured a bag of Bugles Chips….oops.

Any Walking Dead Fans out there, cause we found Terminus! Don’t worry, we didn’t eat what they were grilling.

Anywhoo, after six hours of driving, we arrived in California’s Capital. Super exiting. We walked around and saw the Capitol building, shown below in a lovely photo. There seemed to be quite a few proms going on that prompted hundreds of teens to take their pre-prom photos there.

Can we just say how happy we are to no longer be in high school? Like really, THANK YOU.

Beautiful building surrounded by a myriad of trees. We didn’t realize this, but Sacramento is “City of Trees”.

It’s also the city of “take a wrong turn and quickly end up in the ghetto”. As we naively turned right at the end of a block, Marlee noticed a homeless woman laughing at us, and a man who was standing in front of the sketchiest motel we’ve ever seen yelling profanities at us. We took that as a sign to get out quick.

Remember kids: always carry pepper spray and walk around with 911 ready on your phone when roaming Sacramento, you never know what the next corner holds.

Off to Portland tomorrow, we’re hoping we get to VooDoo Doughnuts! Stay Tuned!

Cultured Swines

Cookbook Lovers, Recipe Hoarders, Travelers, Sisters, Best Friends

Month: May 2015

Black Magic Brownies

#TwoYoungLadiesTravel to Helena

#TwoYoungLadiesTravel to Edmonton (then back to Calgary)

Banana Oat Muffins

Lemon Ice Cream

Simple Vegan Ice Cream Base (Vanilla)

#TwoYoungLadiesTravel to Spokane

#TwoYoungLadiesTravel to Portland

Meyer Lemon Cake

#TwoYoungLadiesTravel to Sacramento