Second Friday goes Italian!

We're back!

Have you missed us? We sure missed you and cooking! Well mostly cooking.... just kidding.

Ahem, so Second Friday was awesome to the max.  And of course it wouldn't be SF if the following happened:

1. We didn't take a whole lot of pictures

2. Some pictures are blurry

3. Missed out on some great photo ops

Get what we're getting at? The photo taking still needs some work but meh we'll get there.

 Ah the life of a lemon. So yellow. So mellow. So in need of a fellow. We didn't actually use lemons at all. Alixx just brought some over for Kelsey. 
That's what best friends do. 

 Back to cooking. 
So for appetizers we made toasted ravioli and caprese. But one at a time.  Beat up those eggs.
Kelsey is just way too fast for Alixx to capture in the picture. Hold still Kelsey!

 Then mix bread crumbs with parmesan and give it a good mix. 

 KELSEY!  

Basically dip a frozen ravioli in the egg, then in the bread crumb.

 Line em up and stick them in the oven.

 Once we had that all ready, we got the caprese salad going.  First things first, we got some balsamic boiling in a pan. You want that to reduce just a little to get it a little thick. 

 While that's going we cut up the tomatoes, since Kelsey's sisters were in town (a lovely surprise since it made Italian SF seem that much more authentic!) we cut the tomatoes up small enough to make them bite size appetizers. Same with the mozarella and basil.

 Awww yea! 

And those ravioli you ask? Simply divine. 

 Next the main course! We made chicken sausage with pasta. The recipe was provided by Kelsey's sister, Cass.  It was heavenly, it was magical, it was everything Italian food should be.

That did have to sit for a while but it let us get the side dish ready.
The side dish being antipasti salad, recipe again provided by Cass! 

 So throw some halved cherry tomatoes and mozrella pieces into a bowl and toss with some olive oil. 
Refrain from eating.

 Next mix some pesto and red wine vinegar.  See that basil in the background? That's from Alixx's garden. Please we beg you, plant some basil. Harvest that basil. Eat that basil. You'll thank us.

 Keep an eye on that sausage, make sure to stir every so often.  Alixx tried to catch Kelsey's lettuce chopping in action. So close.

 Kelsey found this fancy little pack of meat especially for antipasti salad! It worked perfectly. We used the whole package. That's the only way to do this.

Throw all that in and mix it up. You could try to refrain from eating, but it won't work. We promise.

Everyone dug in and loved the food (naturally) it was awesome sharing that Italian food with a big 'ol group of people!  Serve the meat sauce over some pasta and seriously try not to eat the whole pan.  The original anitpasti salad recipe says to make it more as a layered salad, but a chopped salad is so much easier! Especially for a big Italian family dinner.  

We're sorry we deserted you but we're back! Check back for updates!

We know what you're thinking...

We know, it's been a while but good things come to those who wait.

You've probably been wondering just where have we been?
And who are we? That's a secret we'll never tell, you know you love us. XOXO Gossip Gi-....

Wait, we took that one too far, you know who we are, and if our own blogs haven't explained our absence let us now do that.

Plain and simple?
Life is full of stuff.

Elaborate?
Man oh man has this year just gotten hectic!
Kelsey is busy with starting school at ASU! Plus if that wasn't enough she is still basically working full time.  She is kicking butt at college and most of her time is dispersed between working, school or studying. 

Alixx has been busy applying to med school and holding down a full time job.  Every second of her day seems to be already allocated to writing essays, researching colleges, and getting use to a buisiness casual wardrobe.

So please, be gentle with us. We'll finish posting our panini recipes. We'll update the fact that we celebrated Second Friday's first birthday. And we'll start posting some more delicious recipes. 

Just please, be patient with us.

You know you love us, 
XOXO SF Girls

Summer Veggies!

So keeping true to our theme of panini night, our side dish was grilled veggies! We absolutely LOVE grilled veggies so it seemed like the perfect thing to make! Plus we had a brilliant idea to make our own sauce to go over the grilled veggies. It was delicious! Let's dive in!

So first things first the sauce we made was a balsamic citrus vinaigrette.
Cast of characters: balsamic vinegar, honey, pepper, salt, nutmeg, orange zest and orange juice.

Put the balsamic in a bowl and add the honey. 

Next add the nutmeg, salt and pepper.

Then grab your orange and zest that baby up!

Juice the orange, don't worry about man-handling the orange, it truly is the best way to juice. 
We promise.
Once that's in there give a good stir and taste it. You can tweak the recipe if you want it a little sweeter but we were big fans!

Make sure you take a sushi break. 

Next for the grilling.

Veggies present and ready to be cut up.

That's what we're talking about! So colorful! So summery! So... so... lovely!

Nothing too fancy followed, we sprayed the panini with some butter spray to keep anything from sticking, and then added the veggies. 

Time will really depend on how soft or crunchy you want your veggies to be.

Is there anything better than grilled peppers? (The answer is: no.)

OOH!!

All done and the sauce allowed the veggies to not be drenched but just the perfect ratio of veggie to sauce.


Make this the next time you have a BBQ, it will be a huge hit! If not let us know. And we'll tell you your friends have questionable taste.
Just kidding... kind of.

June Second Friday

Our first summer Second Friday is quickly approaching and we've got such great ideas in store! The theme for this month is...


Panini Night!  


That's right, Kelsey and Alixx have been long time fans of panini grills and ever since Kelsey got her new one for graduation, the love of panini has increased exponentially! So we decided to go ahead and make everything on the panini, from the main meal, to the side dish, to the dessert! 


We'll be making some of our own recipes so be sure to check back! 

May Second Friday!

What a special one it will be! 


Friday morning, Alixx will be graduating with her Masters! 


Obviously Kelsey will be there to cheer her on and celebrate! Isn't it wonderful that this awesome, special occasion fell on Second Friday? It's fate. 


Second Friday will still be spent eating good food, Alixx just hasn't decided where she wants to go for lunch.  


We'll keep you updated on our Second Friday Graduation fun! 

Bacon-Wrapped Pizza Rolls

Not a whole lot makes sense in this crazy crazy world. But there is one thing you can count on, Bacon-wrapped pizza rolls. Hallelujah. 

Cast of characters: pizza rolls, and bacon. This is seriously the easiest, most delicious thing you will ever eat. EVER.

Line a baking sheet with foil.

Make sure your bacon is completely defrosted, but the pizza rolls themselves are frozen. Then just do what comes natural. Wrap them pizza rolls in bacon!

The first one. Aww!

Now we're really cooking. As you can seen we extreme rolled these bad boys up with an entire strip of bacon per roll. Hindsight not too great an idea. The bacon and pizza roll cooks much better when you only use about 1/3 of the strip per roll. Can't blame us for trying though.  
Math Time. 
So if 1 package of bacon brings an average of 12 strips. And each strip can wrap three pizza rolls. How many pizza rolls can you wrap in bacon?
Answer: 36 pizza rolls

All cooked and delicious! Warning: The smell wafting from your oven will cause extreme drooling.

Bacon-Wrapped Pizza Rolls

• 1 package of bacon (brings an average of 12 strips)
• Pizza Rolls

1. Defrost bacon a few hours before you are ready to cook.
2. Preheat oven to 425.
3. Line a baking sheet with foil.
4. Take pizza rolls out of the freezer and place on baking sheet.
5. Cut bacon into thirds and wrap around the pizza roll. (You can double or triple wrap the bacon but this causes some weird cooking issues.) 
6. Place bacon-wrapped pizza rolls in the oven for 10 minutes or until bacon looks cooked and smells like heaven.
7. Once done allow to cool then enjoy!

Makes 36 pizza rolls.

Oreo Balls

Need to make a fast, simple, cheap dessert? Look no further!

Cast of characters: 1 package of Oreos, 16 ounces of cream cheese, white chocolate chips. Sorry for the lack of photo on this one, but it's simple enough!

Take the Oreos, place in a bag and smash away.  It is quite the stress reliever, but don't bust the bag open! Then you'll have to eat Oreo's off the floor. We wouldn't judge though.

Once nicely crumbled, place in a mixer and throw in the cream cheese.  You are going to want to mix this thoroughly.  

Next, line a baking sheet with wax paper.

Nicely mixed! At this point shape ping-pong size amounts of the cookie mix and place on the wax paper.  Once you've used up all the mixture, place in the fridge, or freezer if you are in a rush, and allow to harden up.

Once you're ready, heat up the white chocolate chips in a saucepan.

Oh sweet white heavenly goodness. Now, this next step requires some trial and error.  You can do a number of things.
1. Place a toothpick in each Oreo ball to allow for dunking.
2. Drizzle white chocolate over Oreo balls.
3. Do a mixture of both.

Guess which one we did.

Oreo Balls

• 1 package of Oreos
• 1 16 ounce package of cream cheese
• 2 cups of white chocolate chips, or more if you feel so inclined

1. Smash up the Oreos!
2. Place smashed Oreos and cream cheese into a mixture and mix until thoroughly combined.
3. Line a baking sheet with wax paper.
4. Form ping-pong size balls with the cookie mix and place on the wax paper.
5. Place in fridge or freezer and allow to harden.
6. Melt white chocolate chips and dip Oreo Balls into the gooey goodness, or drizzle it all over.  
7. Allow to harden then enjoy with a tall glass of milk!

Now this recipe is super simple, but we here at Second Friday were thinking of new ways to make these. The most promising one? Place a caramel candy in the center, the kind that it gooey, not hard, like a Rolo! Could you imagine it? Definitely on our must make list! 

7 Layer Bean Dip

Ohhh 7 layer bean dip. How you make our hearts sing. 

Cast of Characters: refried beans, taco seasoning, red onion (not pictured), sour cream, Mexican shredded cheese, lettuce, salsa, and green onions.

Start by mixing 1 tablespoon of the taco seasoning into the refried beans. Then really try your darnedest not to eat the beans before they become the dip. 

Layer them out all smooth in the bottom of a bowl. 

Dice up some red onion, adding as much as you would like.  We didn't want the onion to over power any other ingredients, so we only added about 1/4 of it.

Scatter the onion over the beans.

Shred the lettuce. 

Slice and dice your olives. Then eat whatever is leftover in the can like we did. 
We roughly chopped the olives that were being layered, but made pretty slices to go on top as a garnish. 

Layer the olives. Aww yeeeeah. 

Then smother is with sour cream. Making sure it's all even and pretty. 

Then seriously smother it with cheese. Like so much that you can see NO sour cream. You won't regret it. 

Add the shredded lettuce.

Then plop some salsa on top! (Sorry for the weird color of this photo.)

And voila! Garnish with olives and green onion. Then let it chill for a while in the fridge. Then devour it with tortilla chips and don't regret it.  And it's pretty tasty the next morning over a fried egg. Just throwin' that out there. 

7 Layer Bean Dip

• 1 can of refried beans
• 1 tablespoon of taco seasoning
• 1/4 red onion, diced
• Black olives sliced, amount based on preference
• 1 cup sour cream, more if you fancy it
• Shredded cheese, amount based on preference
• 1 cup shredded lettuce
• 1 cup salsa
• Green onions and olives for garnish

1. Mix refried beans and taco seasoning together, and smooth it out on the bottom of a dish.
2. Dice up the red onion and sprinkle it evenly over the beans.
3. Slice up the black olives, you can add more or less depending on your own preference, and again sprinkle them evenly over the onions.
4. Add sour cream as the next layer, if you love sour cream, add the whole bucket. Not a fan? add a smidge.
5. Generously add shredded cheese on top of the sour cream.  Make sure everything is still nice and even.
6. Add the shredded lettuce.
7. Finally add the salsa and smooth it out.  Add chopped green onions and black olives as a garnish.
8. Place in the fridge for at least an hour, serve with tortilla chips, or a fried egg!