Wednesday, April 20, 2011

AMAZING Show



Last year I stumbled upon a show on ABC called Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. I was familiar with Jamie Oliver as the "Naked Chef" on the Food Network so I decided to check it out. I was hooked from episode 1. Last season, Jamie was in Huntington, West Virgina (home of Marshall University) to revolutionize the way Americans eat. He focused on the public schools as well as the community. It was extremely eye opening and totally changed the way that I looked at the food that I was eating. I've never looked at a chicken nugget the same way since.

Thank goodness the show was renewed for a second season. This time, Jamie is in Los Angeles and again is trying to educated the community, specifically the public schools. If you haven't seen the show, you MUST check it out. You can catch the first two episodes on either Hulu or ABC.com. He is meeting some major opposition and it will be very interesting to see how this pans out. While this season is a little high on the "drama" factor, the message is still there. We need to pay attention to what we are putting in our bodies.

-Erin

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Chocolate Chip Coffeecake


I like to eat coffeecake for breakfast. Over the years I've had many different kinds but one of my favorites is my mom's Chocolate Chip Coffeecake. I don't know where the recipe originated but I remember as a little girl that it was so much fun to get to eat chocolate chips for breakfast! The cake portion of this is coffeecake is moist and isn't overly sweet which leaves room for the sweetness of the chocolate chips. You can adjust the amount of chocolate chips to help control the sweetness. It's great with a cup of coffee or a glass of milk.

Chocolate Chip Coffeecake

1 c. sour cream
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 c. butter, softened
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs

Topping:
1/2 c. sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 c. chocolate chips (I use semi-sweet)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together sour cream and baking soda. Add remaining ingredients and mix until combined. Spread evenly 1/2 of the batter into a 9x13 baking dish. Sprinkle 1/2 of the topping mixture over the batter. I find the best way to do this is use a large spoon, get a big scoop of the mixture and sprinkle it over the batter. Make sure to get some along the edges. Add the remaining batter mixture and spread over. (Spreading batter on top of a filling is never easy. I've found that if you scope up the batter on a spatula and let the batter fall off in as a "ribbon" over the filling, you can cover most of area. Then you can gently spread in the small areas that didn't get covered.) Sprinkle the remaining topping mixture on the top. Bake fore 20-30 minutes. Let cool and serve.

Enjoy!