Music City Food and Wine Fest 2015

 

Today I had the pleasure of going to my first food and wine festival ever! Words really can't describe how much fun I had and I got to share it all with my wonderful boyfriend. This event was welcoming from the beginning when we walked in there was an awesome Infiniti display, got the chance to check out some dream cars! Each person was given an cute recyclable bag, a plastic wine glass, and a few Goo Goo Clusters..they were very tasty and I understand the cult following now.

Immediately upon arriving I saw this really awesome Iron Chef and one of the hosts of The Chew, you may have heard of him Michael Symon. So I ate some grilled chicken first, then bought one of his books which I plan on cooking my way through. I waited patiently in line like a giddy child waiting to see Santa, when my time came and I was so nervous. Then I met him, and he decided to talk trash about my 3-0 Bengals, but he was great despite his love for his Cleveland Browns...oops.

Whiskey Apple Crisp

A Few Hungry Girls

 

My inspiration for this recipe was pure whim. I bought apple pie spice about 2 weeks ago for no good reason likely because I really needed pumpkin pie spice and it was right next to it and on sale. Originally I was going to use Honey Crisp apples until a sale associate at Publix introduced me to SweeTango apples. They are a hybrid mix between Honey Crisp apples and Zestar apples, they aren't as large or shiny as our beloved Honey Crisp but I actually thought they tasted better plus they were $1.69 per pound cheaper.

I really love apple crisp and I personally think a brown alcohol almost always pairs well with apples. So I whipped about a shots worth of whiskey in my apples AND my whipped topping. Oops hope no ones gets too tipsy, just kidding after baking the alcohol gets cooked off and all that remains is the flavor profile. Let me tell you something... I really did my thang with this dish! Here's how I made it...

Ingredients: 

5 Sweetart apples

1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons brown sugar 

1/4 cup agave nectar 

1 tablespoon apple pie spice 

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup butter 

3/4 cup flour 

1/4 cup white sugar 

1 shot + 1 tablespoon whiskey 

1 tub fat free whip cream 

Almond Butter Cups

I absolutely love Reese Cups, but they are highly processed and likely not made out of 'real' peanut butter (this is purely my opinion with no credible facts to this), nonetheless they are awesome! I made my own peanut butter a few months ago and it was great, I wasn't able to make it creamy like the PB you purchase at the store but it was very good with some jam and on biscuits.

So this weekend I figured I'd try to make almond butter and see if it was the same or similar process as with peanuts! Also, as my palette matured I am now able to eat and enjoy dark chocolate. Please don't say that dark chocolate is 'healthy' it's still chocolate guys! On the good side dark chocolate does contain antioxidants that help fight free radicals, it is also a much deeper and rich flavor so you are able to eat less! But once you taste these almond butter cups you may need to eat more than a few!!