Shawna's Kitchen

cookies!

2011-12-14T09:36:00.000-06:00

Hi. It's been a while. Sorry I have been so absent, but my time has been spent in a very worthwhile way taking care of my baby boy. Now that he is older, and a little more self-sufficient I am hoping to be back more consistently. I have been cooking, I just haven't been taking pictures of what I cook. This is sad because I love to photograph food. So, I have two goals to share with you today.

Goal number 1: keep a camera in the kitchen so I can snap some photographs while I cook

Goal number 2: Bake every day until Christmas

Hopefully the combination of these two goals will give me a lot of new stuff to post in the near future! I have already baked chocolate meltaway cookies, jelly roll cookies, and brown butter butterscotch cookies. The reason that I am making this a goal is because baking is so relaxing to me, and I find myself overly stressed on a regular basis these days. trying to get out of the house and get stuff done with a 9 month old who hates the car in tow is no easy task. If I take time for myself to do something that I enjoy each day I am happier and better able to enjoy my son the rest of the day. So here is my goal, and I hope to be back with a lot of pictures and recipes for you when these two weeks of baking are over!

Mucho Mango Salso

2011-07-13T09:03:00.000-05:00

I am not usually a huge fruit salsa fan. I normally find it to be too sweet for my tastes, but Tim and I had about 8 mangoes, so I figured I would give it a go with a recipe from the Chevy's cookbook. I actually really liked this recipe. I don't know that I would choose it over a pico de gallo, or another tomato salsa, but as far as mango salsas go, this one is really good.

Mucho Mango Salsa
Recipe from Chevy's Fresh Mex Cookbook

1 large mango
1/4 cup finely diced red onion
1 1/2 teaspoons minced cilantro
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lime juice
1/2 teaspoon minced habanero (I couldn't find habanero peppers so I used a jalapeno)
2 tablespoons finely diced red bell pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt

Combine all ingredients, mix well, serve chilled.
I always think salsas taste best the day after you make them so I made this a day in advance. If you have time to do that I would recommend it. It gives all the flavors a chance to mingle a bit.

Black Bottom Cupcakes

2011-06-20T19:31:00.000-05:00

Early last week I got an e-mail asking if I could make 50 cupcakes for an event on Friday night. There are few things in this world that I love more than cupcakes so of course I wanted to take on the task. Given that I have a three month old baby at home I needed to find a recipe that would be relatively low maintenance. These also had to be transported to a different location so they needed to travel well. It just so happened that I had been eyeing these black bottom cupcakes that I saw on Smitten Kitchen a while back. They looked super easy and had no frosting so they would not be hurt by a ride in the car. I went ahead, multiplied the recipe by five and got to work. I am not sure if I did something wrong in my multiplication but I somehow ended up with a TON of extra cheesecake filling. So, I happily filled my mini muffin tin and made some delicious cheesecake bites. A nice bonus I must say!
The cupcakes themselves turned out deliciously! They have a rich chocolate base that is not too sweet, but perfectly chocolaty and a creamy cheesecake filling that helps the whole thing go down a little too smoothly. You may want to go back for seconds or thirds, and I promise, I won't judge you.

Black Bottom Cupcakes
Recipe from Smitten Kitchen

Filling
8 oz cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1 large egg, room temp
2 oz bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

Cupcakes
1 1/2 Cups all purpose flour
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
5 Tablespoons natural unsweetened cocoa powder (not dutch processed)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Make the filling:
Mix together cream cheese, sugar and egg until smooth. Fold in chocolate. Set aside.

Make the cupcakes:
Adjust oven rack to center position and preheat to 350 degrees.
Prepare a muffin tin with liners or spray the tin with oil.
In a medium bowl mix together the flour, brown sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl mix together water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla extract. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into it. Stir until just smooth and be careful not to over-mix. Divide the cupcake batter evenly into the cupcake tin. Spoon a few tablespoons of filling on top filling the openings almost completely.
Bake for 25 minutes, until the tops are springy and set. You can keep these at room temperature for 2-3 days, but they taste better cold. Store them in an air tight container.

To make cheesecake bites:
Take extra filling and pour into mini muffin tin. Bake for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees or until totally set. Store in freezer-they are delicious straight out of the freezer!

canning

2011-05-20T09:43:00.000-05:00

I am writing this in hoped that having this on the internet will hold me accountable. I don't want to get to the winter and have zero cans to show for myself again like last year. I have planned 1 canning day a month between now and September. Here are the dates: June 18, July 16, August 20, and September 10. Here are the things that I hope to can:
Strawberry jam
Strawberry Pinot Noir Preserves
Rhubarb butter
Apricot and Vanilla bean preserves
Blackberry Jam with lemon zest
Peaches inn Vanilla Syrup
Cucumber relish
Apple Butter
Tomato Sauce
Salsa

In reality I am sure that not all of this will get done, but at least I have my goals in writing. I am ready to can!

Chickpea Burgers

2011-05-19T18:07:00.000-05:00

I am not a big red meat eater. I do like the occasional steak, but regular beef burgers are not really my thing. I usually opt for a turkey burger or a veggie burger. I have been looking for a good veggie burger recipe for quite some time. It is hard to find one that stays together and has the right consistency. This recipe does a pretty good job on the consistency, and the patties do hold together well. The wheat germ on the outside gives these burgers a nice crispy exterior and a more moist interior.I really liked the flavor of these a lot, and they left me feeling satisfied but not overly full like a regular burger normally does.

Chickpea Burgers
Recipe from Eating Well

2 Tablespoons sesame seeds
1 tablespoon coriander
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons canola oil
4 scallions chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 15 oz can chickpeas
1 cup cooked brown rice
2/3 cup wheat germ
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
4 6 inch whole wheat pitas
8 slices tomato
1 cup baby spinach
4 tablespoons nonfat plain yogurt

Heat a small skillet over low heat. Add sesame seeds and toast until golden brown. Add coriander and cumin ad cook until fragrant-10 to 20 seconds more. Transfer to a plate and allow to cool. Grind with a mortar and pestal-or if you don't have one a ziploc and a heavy rolling pin worked perfectly for me. Set aside.
Add oil to the pan and heat over medium heat. Add scallions and garlic, cook until softened. Set aside.
Pre heat a grill or grill pan to medium high heat.
Coarsely mash chickpeas in a medium bowl. Stir in rice, 1/3 cup wheat germ, lemon juice, salt, pepper, scallion mixture and the reserved spice mixture. Mix well. Shape into 4 3/4 inch thick patties. Place the remaining wheat germ in a shallow bowl and dredge the patties in it.
Grill the patties until browned and heated through-about 3 minutes per side. Warm up the pitas in the toaster oven or microwave. Tuck the burgers into the pitas with tomato, spinach and yogurt.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011-05-11T08:31:00.000-05:00

Sorry there is no picture. I did not expect these cookies to disappear as quickly as they did. Even though this goes against all the rules of food blogging, I am going to post this sans picture. These cookies are so good, and I need to share them with you.
I made these cookies last week because I had a whole day with nothing to do and some ripe bananas in the freezer. I finally got my cooking/baking itch back and am really having fun with it again. Levi is on a good, consistent routine which helps me know when I will have time to make things, and that is a little easier on me.
I wanted to make banana cookies instead of just banana bread, or muffins because cookies are more fun. The chocolate chips make them super sweet and delicious! The texture of these cookies is really nice. They are a little sticky, but extremely moist and soft. I froze them for about a week before we ate them last night, but like all cookies, they held up great in the freezer.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Simply Recipes

1 Stick Butter, softened
1 Cup Sugar
1 Egg
1 Cup Ripe Bananas, mashed
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
2 Cups Flour
pinch of salt (only if using unsalted butter)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 Cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Pre heat your oven to 350 degrees. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat until fluffy again. In another bowl mix the mashed bananas with baking soda and let it sit for a few minutes. In yet another bowl, mix flour, salt, and spices. Add the banana mixture to the butter mixture and mix well. Then add in the flour mixture and stir until combined. Fold in chocolate chips.
Drop teaspoonfuls onto baking sheets and bake in preheated oven for about 13 minutes. These are great fresh out of the oven, but in case you can't eat all of them, let the rest cool on wire racks and then store in an airtight container.

Miso-Garlic-Roasted Tofu Caesar Salad

2011-04-26T10:51:00.000-05:00

I love Caesar salad, but have always avoided making it because you will not get this girl to touch anchovies in the kitchen. I found this recipe and knew right away I had my solution! The miso adds a nice rich flavor, and you don't really even notice that it is a fish-free version. I had a hard time finding the miso anywhere, but I ended up going to our local Asian market and getting it there. It was in the refrigerator section.
I have made this twice in the past two weeks, once with the tofu as our main dish, and once without the tofu as a side dish. I like it a lot both ways, but if there are going to be leftovers I would maybe leave the tofu out or keep it separate from the salad. It got a little soggy by the second day, and I just picked around it at that point. Either way this is my current favorite salad, and the fact that I have already made it twice is huge since I usually hate making salad. I give it two thumbs up!

Miso-Garlic-Roasted Tofu Caesar Salad
Recipe from Eating Well Magazine June 2011 Pg 52

Tofu

14-oz extra firm tofu, drained
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons miso
2 cloves garlic, minced

Croutons
4 slices italian bread, crusts removed, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
4 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

Dressing and Salad
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice
4 teaspoons miso
1 clove garlic, minced
8 cups torn romaine lettuce
2 cups torn radicchio
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees. Coat a large rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray.

To prepare the tofu: pat tofu dry and cut into small cubes. Combine the lemon juice, miso, and garlic in a large bowl. Add the tofu and gently toss to coat. Spread the tofu in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet. Bake on the upper rack of the oven, turning a few times during cooking, until browned, 20 minutes.

To prepare the croutons: Toss bread with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Spread in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake in lower rack of oven until crisp and brown-12-14 minutes. Shake the baking sheet at least once during baking.

To prepare salad and dressing: Whisk oil, lemon juice, miso, and garlic in a medium bowl. Put lettuce, radicchio, and croutons in serving bowl. Pour dressing over lettuce, and top with Parmesan. Toss to coat, and top with tofu.

Couscous Salad with Garbanzos and Vegetables

2011-03-03T15:13:00.000-06:00

This salad was delicious and surprisingly filling. I expected Tim to still be starving after we ate, but he said he was full. If Tim is full then that is a good indicator that this is a hearty meal. The recipe says to use whatever vegetables are in season. The original suggestion was cucumbers and tomatoes but since the tomatoes we have in the store right now are a far cry from real tomatoes I decided to go with red and green peppers. Those worked really well and I will continue to go that route until we get some good summer tomatoes in the markets. I felt like we were eating a light, fresh meal that reminded me Spring is on it's way despite the cold temperatures. It was nice to have a little taste of warmer weather in our kitchen, if only for one night.
One suggestion I will make when buying ingredients for this recipe is to go to Whole Foods or another store that sells grains in bulk to buy the couscous. It is way, way cheaper that way.

Couscous Salad with Garbanzos and Vegetables
**Recipe from the Chicago Tribune Good Eating Section

10 Oz couscous
2 Cups boiling water
1 teaspoon olive oil

Vinaigrette:
2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
5 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 Cups cherry tomatoes, halved
1 Cup diced cucumber
1/2 Cup garbanzo beans, rinsed, drained
1/2 Cup crumbled feta cheese
1/4 Cup sliced green onions
1/4 Cup chopped nuts, optional

Combine couscous, boiling water, and 1 teaspoon olive oil in large bowl. Stir with a fork and cover for five minutes. Fluff with fork and allow to cool.
Meanwhile, for vinaigrette, combine vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper in small bowl. Stir with fork until salt is dissolved and mustard is incorporated. Add the olive oil and whisk until combined. Remix before adding to salad.
Add tomatoes, cucumber, garbanzos, feta, onions, and nuts (if using) to the couscous. Toss. Add dressing and toss again.
Serve with hearty bread and butter.

Mesquite Grilled Steak Fajitas

2011-02-28T12:59:00.000-06:00

I am not a huge red meat fan, but since this meal was for Tim, I went with steak fajitas. This recipe uses skirt steak which is always a good start. The marinade is delicious, and I plan to use it a lot in the future, especially once grilling season is here! Just be sure to plan ahead as you are supposed to let the meat marinate for 6-8 hours. You can just mix it all up in the morning and by the time dinner time rolls around you will be ready to go.
Mesquite Grilled Steak Fajitas
**recipe from Chevy's Fresh Mex Cookbook

2 pounds skirt steak

Agua Negra Marinade
1 Cup soy sauce
2 Cups pineapple juice
2 tablespoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/4 cup fresh squeezed lime juice

Combine all marinade ingredients with a whisk in a mixing bowl. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.
Place the meat in a resealable container. Pour marinade over the meat, and make sure the meat is evenly coated. Marinate in the refrigerator for 6-8 hours.
Preheat grill. Place the beef on the grill and leave undisturbed until grill marks form, then rotate meat 90 degrees to create a second set of marks. After 2 to 3 minutes turn the beef to cook the other side. Transfer to a work surface and slice.
Serve with warm tortillas and normal fajita accompaniments. We had red rice, salsa, beans, and tomalito

Sweet Corn Tomalito

2011-02-22T12:15:00.000-06:00

If you have ever been to Chevy's you know this is the best part of the meal. It is the little clump of corn pudding served atop a corn husk. It is so sweet and so good. I always save it til the end and then savor every bite of it. Now that I know how easy this stuff is to make, I will probably be making it a lot more often. I also am thinking of working this into our Thanksgiving menu.

Sweet Corn Tomalito
*Recipe from Chevy's Fresh Mex Cookbook

6 cups fresh corn kernels (can also use frozen-just thaw and drain)
3/4 Cup milk
1/4 Cup butter
1/2 Cup prepared masa for tamales (or use dried masa harina and follow liquid ratio on package)
2/3 Cup sugar
3/4 Cup cornmeal
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 Cup milk

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Blend 3 cups of corn and the milk in food processor until smooth. Whip butter, masa, and sugar together in food processor for about 2 minutes. Add all ingredients, including pureed corn and the remaining corn kernels, and mix well. Pour mixture into a 9x13 pan and cover tightly with aluminum foil. Set the 9x13 in a large roasting pan filled with 3/4 inch of cold water. Bake for 1 1/2-2 hours, or until an instant read thermometer inserted in the mixture reads 175 degrees and mixture is set. Serve hot.

Big Flavor Black Beans

2011-02-20T13:27:00.000-06:00

I liked these beans, but thought that they could use a little more flavor. I turned the leftovers into soup by thinning with a little water. I added more salt and another tablespoon of Chipotle puree and let it cook until heated through. This was much more flavorful, I really liked it! I served it with a little sour cream. When tomatoes are in season you could also top it with fresh pico de gallo.

Big Flavor Black Beans
*recipe from Chevy's Fresh Mex Cookbook

2 Cups dried black beans
3 quarts water
3/4 Cup yellow onion, diced
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon chipotle puree (I will add extra but adjust to your liking) **see note below**
1/3 Cup ketchup
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons salt
**for chipotle puree use a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce and puree in food processor.

In a large stock pot soak the beans in the water overnight.
When you are ready to cook, add the remaining ingredients, except the salt, to your stock pot and bring to a boil. Stir, reduce heat, and simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours-until beans are cooked to desired done-ness. They should still have a bit of a bite to them, but be mostly tender. When the beans are cooked through, add salt and cook for another minute or so. Serve warm or cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days.

Chevy's Red Rice

2011-02-19T08:30:00.000-06:00

For Valentine's Day I made our whole dinner from the Chevy's cookbook. Tim loves Chevy's so he was very happy with the meal. Their recipes are fun to make, and allow me to use ingredients that I don't always think to use and that is always fun for me. The next several posts will be recipes from that meal. I want to start with the red rice because that is always my favorite. Every time I have made it I have not been able to stop eating it! It is so flavorful, and has just enough spice-and you can adjust this level to fit your tastes as well. It is easy to make, but tastes like you slaved over the stove all day. Try this next time you are serving Mexican food.

Red Rice
**Recipe from Chevy's Fresh Mex Cookbook
6 beefsteak or 8 plum tomatoes
1 Tablespoon chopped cilantro
2 Cups water
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
2 teaspoons chipotle puree **see note at bottom**
2 teaspoons salt
1/3 Cup canola oil
2 Cups long grain white rice
1/2 Cup chopped yellow Onion

**For chipotle puree buy a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce and puree in food processor until smooth**

In a heavy skillet over medium-high heat char the tomatoes until the skin splits and they become aromatic. Transfer to blender or food processor and puree. Stir in cilantro and set aside.
In a large saucepan combine water, pureed tomatoes, garlic, chipotle puree, and salt. Bring to a boil. Heat the oil in another large saucepan or dutch oven over high heat until just before oil begins to smoke. Add rice and stir to coat. Saute until most of the grains are bright white or slightly brown 7-10 minutes. Add the tomato mixture to the rice and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, cover, and let stand 10-20 minutes until rice is cooked. Fluff with fork and serve warm.

Nutella Brownie Bites

2011-01-12T18:47:00.000-06:00

These only have three ingredients. I was skeptical too, but I had a large quantity of Nutella that I figured was better baked and shared rather than me eating it by the spoonful day by day. These actually tasted better than I expected them to. They had a subtle Nutella flavor, and a moist consistency. They were not show stoppers, but were nothing short of yummy. A satisfactory way to indulge your sweet tooth a little bit. Dessert of the home-made variety definitely doesn't come any easier than this. I topped mine with leftover caramel which added a little more flavor and made them more moist. The original recipe tops the brownies with crushed hazelnuts, so do whichever you please.

Nutella Brownie Bites
Adapted from Savory Sweet Life
Makes 12 brownie bites

1/2 Cup Nutella
1 Large Egg
5 Tablespoons flour
topping of your choice-crushed hazelnuts, or caramel sauce works well

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Grease a mini muffin pan

Mix Nutella and egg until smooth. Add flour and stir until blended. Spoon into muffin pan. If you are using nuts as the topping, add them now.

Bake in preheated oven for 12 minutes. If using caramel, use your finger to make a small indent in the top of each brownie. Spoon a small amount of caramel in the indent. Allow to cool slightly and serve. Store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature.

Pearl Couscous with Shrimp

2011-01-03T10:17:00.000-06:00

I have been trying really hard to add more protein to my diet. I am normally perfectly happy to eat all sorts of fruits, vegetables, and lots of carbs, but meat doesn't usually cross my mind. It's not that I don't like meat, it's just that it is not the first thing that I think of when planning our meals for the week. Now that I am in my third trimester of pregnancy it has come to my attention that I am supposed to seriously increase my protein intake. I was probably eating less than enough to begin with, so I am really trying to be intentional about eating the protein- filled foods that I know I need. This week is the first in my new protein rich life. On our menu this week are 2 meals that include meat/fish. This is already a big improvement so I am starting off strong!
We had this couscous for dinner tonight alongside a burnt carrot salad with garlic chips and goat cheese. I love couscous but hadn't made it in a long time, so I really enjoyed this. The nuttiness of the couscous adds a nice solidity to the dish, as the rest of the flavors are pretty subtle. The shrimp and zucchini add a nice texture. This was a nice healthy meal that leaves you feeling satisfied but not weighed down after a couple weeks of excessive holiday eating. The couscous came together easily, but looks beautiful and tastes great. Use Israeli, or pearl couscous. It has a chewier texture than traditional couscous.

Pearl Couscous with Shrimp
*Recipe from The Chicago Tribune

8 oz Israeli (Pearl) Couscous
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/2 red onion, chopped
1 yellow squash, or zucchini, diced
1/2 pound raw, peeled, deveined shrimp, cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 Cup shredded fresh parmesan
2-3 Tablespoons fresh cilantro or chives
1/4 teaspoon salt

Cook couscous as directed on package. Meanwhile, heat oil in a non-stick skillet. Add onion and cook until golden-about 5 minutes. Add squash and cook, stirring, about 3 minutes. Add shrimp and cook until shrimp turns pink-about 2 minutes.

Place couscous in a serving bowl. Stir in shrimp mixture. Stir in cheese and cilantro. Season with salt.

Salted Caramel Thumbprint Cookies

2010-12-13T21:15:00.000-06:00

What could be wrong when you have salted caramel? Nothing. It holds true for these cookies for sure. You expect a mouthful of overwhelming sweetness when you bite into these, but the salty flavor sneaks in there and completes the flavor profile in an amazing way. These are also super easy so you really have no excuse not to make these right away.

Salted Caramel Thumbprint Cookies
**Recipe from A Cozy Kitchen

Cookies:

1 1/2 Sticks unsalted butter, softened
1/2 Cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 Cup all purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

Caramel:
1/2 Cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/4 Cup heavy whipping cream

To make cookies:
Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Mix in vanilla. Separately sift together flour and salt. With mixer on low speed, add flour mixture to the creamed butter and sugar. Mix until dough comes together. Place on a sheet of plastic wrap, flatten into a rectangle, wrap up in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees F when you take the dough out of the fridge. Roll the dough into 1 1/4 inch balls and place them on an ungreased cookie sheet. Lightly press your finger into each cookie to make an indent. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until they are just golden. Let them cool.

While cookies are cooling make your caramel: combine sugar with 2 tablespoons of water in a saucepan and do not stir. Cook over medium-high heat, swirling as it begins to brown, until it has become a dark caramel. While the sugar is caramelizing, heat your cream either in a saucepan or in the microwave, until just warm. Take your caramel off of the heat and stir in your room temperature butter. Whisk until completely combined. Add warmed cream and whisk vigorously.

Once the cookies are cooled spoon a teaspoon of warm caramel into the indentation on each cookie and top with sea salt. These can be eaten warm and gooey or cold and set. Either way they are perfection.

Home Made Peppermint Patties

2010-12-13T15:37:00.000-06:00

These were amazingly good, and that's a good thing because they were a serious pain in the butt to make (and clean-up was a ton of work). Before I tasted them I vowed to never make them again. Then Tim and his friends came upstairs to test them out. They really liked them. I tried one and had to admit that they had a point. I was still defending my position on never making them, but they chose to ignore me and keep eating. Then, I took them to church the next day, and everyone loved them-even a friend who does not especially like the chocolate-mint combo. So now I think I will have to make them again. Probably only once a year, but that will be enough to appease Tim and everyone else who got to taste the glory of these little bundles of goodness. I think it is something you should try once. Have an extra set of hands around for the chocolate dipping phase-this gets really messy, and you have to move quick.

Peppermint Patties

*Recipe from Savory Sweet Life

Ingredients:
1 Can of sweetened condensed milk
5 1/2 Cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 Tablespoon peppermint extract
3 Cups semisweet chocolate chips
3 Tablespoons shortening

Combine sweetened condensed milk, peppermint extract, and 2 cups of powdered sugar in a mixing bowl, and mix on medium speed until well blended.
Add more sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, until dough is firm, and can be handled somewhat easily.
Using slightly wet hands (this helps keep the patties from sticking to you) roll the dough into 3/4 inch balls and place on parchment paper. Slightly flatten each ball. Put patties in the freezer for 30 minutes.
Toward the end of the freezing time get to work on your chocolate. Put the chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl and microwave in 30 second increments. Stir after each heating, and stop once chocolate can be stirred smooth. Stir shortening into chocolate.
Dip each patty into the chocolate to completely coat it. You will have to see what method works well for you. You can do this by placing the patty on a fork and dipping it, or by simply using your hands to dip and coat each patty. I found that the fork got caked with chocolate and peppermint so the extra chocolate could not drip off, and abandoned the fork pretty quickly. You have to work pretty fast, and return the patties to the freezer if they start to get too soft and sticky. This is why it is good to have an extra person around for this step. Place coated patties on parchment and allow them to set until they are dry to the touch. These are also delicious straight out of the freezer.

Yeasted Thanksgiving Cornbread with Cranberries

2010-12-08T11:24:00.000-06:00

Mmmmmh this was good. Maybe more of a dessert than a mealtime bread, but I happily ate it next to my turkey and mashed potatoes. The cranberry center is moist and refreshing next to all that heavy food, and I wouldn't mind seeing this at more family dinners. You can also bake up a loaf of the basic dough to have a plain "cornbread" that we all thought tasted more like sourdough, but was delicious anyways. The base dough recipe is supposed to make three loaves but I used all of it to make two: one plain, and one with cranberries. I think that is the way to go, and I plan to do this again soon.

**both recipes are taken from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a day**

Broa (Portuguese Corn Bread)
3 Cups Lukewarm water
1 1/2 Tablespoons Granulated Yeast
1/1/2 Tablespoons Kosher Salt
1 1/2 Cups Corn Meal
5 Cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

Mix the yeast and salt with the water in a 5-quart bowl (preferably the bowl to your stand mixer if you have a dough hook). If not, and 5-quart container will do.

Mix in the remaining dry ingredients without kneading, using a spoon, a 14-cup capacity food processor with a dough blade, or a heavy-duty stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. If you're not using a machine, you may need to use wet hands to incorporate the last bit of flour.

Cover (not air-tight), and allow to rest at room temperature until the dough rises and collapses, about 2 hours.

The dough can be used immediately after the rise, or it can be refrigerated and used within 10 days. The dough is MUCH easier to work with after it has been refrigerated.

When you are ready to bake your bread:
Dust the surface of the dough with flour and cut of a 1-lb (grapefruit sized) piece. Dust the piece with more flour and quickly shape it into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating a quarter turn as you go. Flatten and allow to rise on a cornmeal covered pizza peel for 40 minutes.

Twenty minutes before baking time, pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees F with a baking stone on the center rack, place an empty broiler tray on any other shelf that won't interfere with the rising bread.

Just before baking sprinkle the loaf liberally with cornmeal and slash a tic-tac-toe pattern in the top with a serrated knife.

Slide the dough onto the baking stone. Pour one cup of hot water into the broiler tray and quickly shut the door. Bake for about 30 minutes, until deeply browned and firm.

Allow to cool before slicing or eating. (You better hope Tim is not around if you want to follow that step).

Yeasted Thanksgiving Corn Bread With Cranberries

1 1/2 lbs broa dough (approximately one cantaloupe sized piece)
1/2 cup fresh cranberries or 1/3 cup dried
4 tablespoons Sugar
Zest of half of an orange
3 Tablespoons softened butter
12-inch cast iron pan

Dust the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour and cut off a 1 1/2 lb piece. Dust the piece with more flour and quickly shape it into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating a quarter turn as you go.

Flatten the ball with your hands to a thickness of 1/2 inch. Sprinkle the dough with cranberries, sugar, and orange zest. Roll up the dough-jelly roll style-to incorporate the filling. Shape into a ball again and flatten until it is about the size of your pan.

Grease a cast iron pan with butter, being sure to coat the sides of the pan as well, Place the dough into the pan. Allow the dough to rest for 1 hour and 20 minutes (just 40 minutes if you are using fresh, unrefrigerated dough),

Twenty minutes before baking time, pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees F and place a broiler tray on any other shelf that won't interfere with the bread rising.

Just before baking, heat the cast iron pan on the stove over medium heat for about 2 minutes-just enough to start caramelizing the bottom crust.

Place the pan on a rack near the center of the oven. Pour one cup of hot water into the broiler tray and quickly shut the door. Check the bread for browning after about 20 minutes. The baking time will depend upon the pan being used, but will probably be about 30 minutes. The loaf should be a rich yellow-brown when done.

Carefully turn the hot loaf out onto a plate or cut wedges directly out of the pan.

Honey-Preserved Clementines

2010-12-08T10:47:00.000-06:00

I am pretty excited about this. Clementines are one of those things that pop around once a year and disappear just as you are getting into the habit of enjoying them every day (at least once a day). They are delicious little, seedless, easy-to-peel beauties. They are bright. and festive, and easy to stick in a bowl as an edible centerpiece when you have friends or family over. This recipe gives the ability to preserve the delicious flavor of winter for a few extra months. I haven't been able to taste the results as I just made these last night and they have to sit in the fridge for about a week before you can eat them. They smell wonderful though, and this method supposedly transforms the structure of the clementine, making the rind ultra tender so that you can eat the entire thing. I cannot wait to pop this jar open next week.

Honey-Preserved Clementines
*recipe from Fine Cooking Dec '09/Jan '10
1 Cup Honey
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
5 Whole Cloves
2 Green Cardamom Pods
1 Cinnamon Stick
5-7 Firm Clementines cut horizontally into 3/4-inch slices
1 Quart sized canning jar with a lid

Thoroughly wash your clementines.
In a 4-qt saucepan, bring 1 cup water, honey, sugar, cloves, cardamom, and cinnamon stick to a boil over high heat.
Gently slip the clementines into the liquid without stirring. If any slices are mostly rind, place them rind side-down. Return liquid to a full boil and then reduce heat to low. Cover, and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove the pan from heat, cover, and set aside for 8-12 hours.
Spoon and gently pack the slices into your quart jar. Bring the syrup to a boil over medium-high heat, boil 3 minutes to concentrate the flavors. Pour syrup over the slices to cover and discard any extra, Cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate for 1 week before eating. These will store in your refrigerator for up to 3 months.

Serving Suggestions:
Stir into yogurt
add to frosting for a cake
use as a topping for ice cream
stuff into cored apples before baking
add to beef stew
add to lamb tagine
use in a stuffing for roast turkey, chicken, or duck

Home Made Potato Chips

2010-11-20T09:51:00.000-06:00

Yes, you can make potato chips without a deep fryer contrary to what Tim seems to think. These were so easy to make using a mandolin with the thin slice attachment and a baking stone. These are also delicious, and crispy!

What you'll need:
Potatoes (I used gold potatoes, but you could use russet as well)
olive oil
coarse salt

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.

Scrub your potatoes well, but leave the skins on. Slice potatoes very thinly. Brush a thin layer of olive oil over a couple of baking stones (the number of baking stones you need will depend on how many potatoes you have so do this as you go).

Lay potato slices on the baking stone in a single layer and so that none of the potatoes are touching each other.

Bake the potato slices for about 10 minutes. Pull them out, flip them over,
and return them to the oven until crispy. This will be another 10 minutes probably. You want to keep a close eye on them. I was multi-tasking so some of mine burned.

Spinach and Feta Quiche

2010-10-13T19:49:00.000-05:00

One of the saddest things about pregnancy is that you are advised against eating soft (aka the best) cheeses unless they are cooked through. This means that, as a result of my love for soft cheese, I have been making a lot of hot dishes with my beloved feta, goat cheese, etc. Here is one example of this in action. Don't be scared or think that you cannot make a quiche. This is so easy, all it requires is a little time. Even the crust is fool-proof. On that note-I say this every time, but please do not do this recipe the injustice of serving it over a store-bought pie crust. It will save you about a half hour if you do, but you will be sacrificing all of the flavor and instead you will be eating a delicious filling surrounded by cardboard. Ok, that's all of the judgment and lecturing that you will get out of me tonight. Thank you for listening. One other word of caution: Eat this with something healthy like carrot sticks, or a light salad. This will help you to feel better about this delicious, butter-laden decadence that you are about to eat.

For the crust:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
3-6 Tablespoons ice water
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter or Shortening

For the spinach and feta Filling:
2 Tbsps olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 medium yellow onion, diced
8-12 ounces fresh chopped spinach
8 ounces feta cheese
1 cup milk
nutmeg to taste
salt and pepper to taste
2 egg yolks
3 eggs

To make the Crust:
-Mix the flour and the salt together in a medium bowl.
-Cut the butter into the flour and salt mixture until it resembles coarse peas -Drizzle the ice water over the top of the dough starting with 3 tablespoons and adding more as needed
-mix the dough until it starts to come together. Form the dough into a disk and refrigerate for 30 minutes
To make the filling:
-Preheat the oven to 375 degrees f.
Do this while the crust is refrigerating-It will take you about 30 minutes.
-Heat the olive oil over medium heat
-Sweat the onion and garlic in the olive oil until the onions are translucent
-Add the spinach to this mixture and continue cooking until the spinach is just cooked, not completely soggy and wilted. Remove from
the heat.
-Crumble the feta into the spinach mixture and mix together. Set aside to cool. -Pull your pie dough out of the refrigerator and roll out on a lightly floured board to the size you need for your pie plate
-Place the rolled out dough in the pie plate, place the spinach mixture in the dough.
-Beat together the eggs, yolks and milk. Add a little bit of nutmeg, fresh ground pepper. Pour this mixture over the spinach/feta mix in the pie shell and mix together with your hands carefully so as not to puncture the crust.
-Flute or fold the edges of your pie crust . You can either bake this now, or chill until you need it.
-Bake for about 45-60 minutes, or until brown on top and the eggs have set up.

Cabbage Soup

2010-09-30T20:34:00.000-05:00

First I have to apologize for the horrible pictures lately. I have been using our point-and-shoot camera since dinner usually isn't ready til after dark and my Flash is currently being repaired. So, hopefully that issue will be resolved soon, but bear with me for now.
Now, on to the soup! I love cabbage, and I love soup. If I could eat soup every day I would. Tim hates cabbage, and is okay eating soup about once a week in the colder months to entertain my love for it. I never buy cabbage because I know Tim won't eat it, but it's not my fault if our CSA box contains a big head of it. We already paid for it so we may as well eat, that's my argument! The fact that I love cabbage soup and have never been able to make it is just an added bonus. Tim ate the soup with no complaint, and said it was not as bad as he expected. I count that as a success. Baby steps.
This was not a sweet and sour cabbage soup as I seem to be averse to sweetness infringing on my savory lately. This was a basic, hearty soup with a beef broth base and lots of other chunky veggies. The cabbage cooks down to a meaty consistency which I loved and We were both stuffed after one bowl. I served this with a toasted piece of sourdough. Tim topped his with Swiss cheese (of course). We both walked away full of healthy foods.

Cabbage Soup:
Adapted from: http://southernfood.about.com/od/cabbagesoups/r/blbb640.htm

2 medium onions, sliced
a few tablespoons of olive oil (enough to coat the pan)
2 cans of beef broth
1 head of cabbage, torn or coarsley shredded
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
2 tomatoes chopped
1 teaspoon dried dillweed
1 teaspoon salt
pinch of black pepper

Heat oil in a dutch oven and add onions. Cook until tender. Add broth, cabbage, potatoes, tomatoes, and carrots, and enough water to cover. Bring to a boil. Add seasonings and reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 2 hours.

Delicata Squash and Feta Risotto

2010-09-23T20:52:00.000-05:00

This was a perfect combination of sweet and tangy. The delicata squash has a very sweet flavor that would be too much for me on it's own, but the feta balanced it out well, and added enough tang to keep things interesting. Lately I have been averse to sweet meals that are supposed to be savory. For some reason I have very little taste for sweetness and all I want are heavy, comforting carbs. I have been seen picking dried cherries out of my stuffed squash and just throwing them out. Something my normal self wouldn't ever do. The sweetness of this squash though was perfectly appealing. Subtle, yet rich. I highly recommend this, though please, plan better than I did and do not do this on a 90 degree day. Thank you.

****I made this recipe up so as usual, amounts will probably not be exact.

2 delicata squash
1 tablespoon olive oil
2-3 cups arborio rice
5 cups chicken broth
1 container (about 6 oz) feta cheese
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly

pre-heat oven to 375
Halve your squash and remove the seeds. Place cut-side down on a baking sheet and bake for about 30 minutes, or until tender. Set aside.
Heat oil in a dutch oven or other large pan. Cook onion and garlic until tender. Add rice and cook, stirring, about 2 minutes. Add 1/2 cup chicken broth. Simmer and stir frequently until liquid evaporates. Repeat with remaining broth, adding only 1/2 cup at a time, until all liquid is absorbed and rice is tender, with a little bite. When you get down to about 2 cups of broth, put your feta cheese in a baking dish and stick it in the oven. Cook it until it is starting to melt and is slightly bubbly.

Once the rice and feta are cooked, scoop the flesh of the squash into the risotto and add the feta. Stir well, and make sure the feta is smoothed out. You may need to leave the burner on for a few minutes to make sure that the cheese is melted completely. Serve immediately.

What to do with a Pie Pumpkin

2010-09-08T20:39:00.000-05:00

The obvious answer would be to make a pie. But how do you get from the actual pumpkin to that canned stuff that you buy in the store? So easy you will not believe it. Simply cut the pumpkin in half. Remove the seeds and the stringy goop. Place, cut side down in a greased baking dish, cover with tinfoil and bake at 350 for 1- 1 and a half hours (til the pumpkin is very tender). It would be wise to do this while you are baking something else in your oven, or if you just want to warm up your house a bit :-)
Once the pumpkin is cooled a bit scrape the flesh into a food processor and process until smooth. You can now use this immediately or put it in a freezer container and save it til you need it.
Reasons to use real pumpkin:
it tastes better than canned stuff
it has not been sitting on a shelf for 12 years
you get a bonus of pumpkin seeds if you cut open a real pumpkin, and hey, you will be using the oven anyways!
It's fun to use pumpkins for something other than jack-o-lanterns, since ya know, they are food :-)

Fall=Applesauce+ode to Grandma

2010-09-08T08:20:00.000-05:00

Apples are one of my favorite foods. Throughout the year I like to dip them in peanut butter, honey, or enjoy them plain. I love the crisp sound that comes from biting into a big juicy apple. And I love making applesauce. This is one of the many activities that reminds me of my Grandma. I loved my Grandma like no other, and am always happy to bring back her memory at any opportunity. Every year she would make a ton of applesauce and share it with everyone in the family. Like me, my Grandma loved food, she loved preparing food, and she loved extending food as a gift to others. I am always grateful that she passed this passion onto me.
Applesauce is one of those things that takes hardly any talent, but it does take time. This year I tried a new method of prepping my apples. Instead of hauling out the slicer/peeler/corer, I simply washed them, cut them into chunks and put them into a huge pot. I later pulled out the skins with tongs. I had a hard time getting all of the skin out so I am not sure that the saved time was worthwhile, I will decide when I crack open the first jar.
I also never bother with smoothing out my applesauce by putting it in a food mill or blender. I like my food chunky, and Grandma's applesauce was always chunky, so I wouldn't change it!
You don't,as far as I know, have to add any extra sugar to apples to make them safe for canning. I like my applesauce less sweet, so after a few recipe references, I decided to try seasoning my sauce with honey and cinnamon this year. I really like the way it turned out. The honey adds a nice mild sweetness, and it still tastes closer to unsweetened than sweetened. Tim insisted on the addition of cinnamon, which is fine by me. The key is using a mixture of apples-I used Jonathans and Fujis-that are not too tart. Then, once the apples are cooked down into a sauce, taste it and see what you want to add. Go with your gut on this one, the fun is in the experimentation.
If you have never made applesauce before I would consult the Ball website http://www.freshpreserving.com/ for a tested recipe. This is a good way to make sure that what you are canning is safe. I did consult their website last night, just to make sure that I was on the right track.
I am excited for Fall to be here, I am sick of hot weather. I am enjoying the memory of my Grandma today as I still have the canning supplies out from last night. I am hoping to make more applesauce before the season is over.

Sorry for Being a Slacker

2010-09-03T22:00:00.000-05:00

So, sorry that I have not posted any new recipes since June. It's not that I haven't been cooking, it's just that I have not had a whole lot of extra energy these past few months. The reason behind all of this laziness is that most of my energy has gone into building a baby. That's right, I am pregnant-due in March. Most of my free time has been spent napping, but I hope that is soon to change. I have a lot of recipes to add so I hope to be on here catching up in the coming weeks!

Spinach and Feta Hummus

2010-06-27T20:53:00.000-05:00

Another item in our CSA box last week was spinach. A nice big bag over-flowing with crisp, green leaves. I could have easily gone the route of spinach salad, or spinach pizza but I wanted to try something different. After perusing the internet for different ways to use spinach I came across several recipes for hummus that used spinach. I had never thought to do this before but I figured I like hummus, I like spinach. How bad could it be? The result was a smooth, rich dip with a color reminiscent of guacamole. Tim says this may be his favorite hummus, and that guy has eaten his fair share of different hummus flavors, so he knows his stuff!

Spinach and Feta Hummus

15 oz garbanzo beans
2 tablespoons tahini
4 oz feta cheese
a big handful of fresh spinach
a small handful of sundried tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic
lemon juice to taste

Throw everything in your food processor and process til smooth. Serve with pita, veggies, or anything else you like to dip!

Curried kale with lentils and mango

2010-06-23T20:19:00.000-05:00

This is one of the delicious things that has been inspired by the CSA produce box. In my box this week I got a big, beautiful, green bunch of kale. Now, it's not like I have never eaten kale before, but it is definitely not on regular rotation in our kitchen. Plus, when I signed up for this weekly produce delivery I promised myself that I was going to find fun and different ways to use the ingredients that I recieved each week. I vowed not to waste anything, and to experiment even with the most seemingly boring of ingredients. The nice thing about the CSA that I joined (Simply Wisconsin) is that they send you an e-mail a few days in advance letting you know what will be in your box so that you can plan accordingly. This gave me a little time to search for fun ways to use kale. This recipe caught my eye, and I am so glad that I tried it! You know I am a sucker for beautiful food and this dish is bright and colorful, with great teture and depth. It also tastes great! I ever expected Tim to like Kale, but he ate it happily, and even packed some of the extras up in a tupperware for his lunch the next day. (I usually have to guilt him into taking leftovers that he is not interested in so that they don't go bad, but I did not say a word with this.) The curry powder adds a distinct flavor to otherwise boring kale, and the mango adds a nice sweet balance. Please try this whether you are a kale devotee or not. You will not regret it.

Curried Kale with Lentils and Mango
*Recipe from Tasty Kitchen poster Foodology

What you need:
1/2 Cup of lentils, rinsed and sorted
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
1 Medium Onion, thinly sliced
1 Shallot, sliced
1 cloce Garlic, minced
1 bunch Kale, washed, stemmed, chopped-be sure to remove the large ribs from the kale leaves because they are hard to chew
salt and pepper
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 whole lemon
1 mango, peeled and chopped into large chunks

Boil your lentils for 20-25 minutes.
While the lentils cook heat the oil in a large pot (I used my dutch oven and it was the perfect size). Add the onions and shallot and cook for about five minutes-until translucent. Add garlic, kale, salt, pepper, and curry powder. Cook about 2 minutes. Add the lentils and juice from the lemon and cook until kale is wilted, but still bright green in color. Once the kale is cooked, turn off heat and stir in the mango. We had this with lamb chops and it was the perfect accompaniment.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

2010-06-14T19:51:00.002-05:00

I have been wanting to try this method out for a while now. I have heard nothing but praise for this book. I love making bread, I love eating freshly made bread, I also work full time. I have always wanted to make all of our bread from scratch, but just have not found a good way to make that happen in real life. That is where this method comes in. I will not give away the whole technique, but the basic idea is that you mix up a big batch of wet dough in the beginning of the week. Each day you tear off a piece, shape it, allow it to rest a bit at room temperature, and bake it. The five minutes is actual hands-on time. The resting period is about 40 minutes and the baking time is 30 minutes. I managed to make a delicious loaf of bread today despite working a full day and dealing with getting my camera repaired. I had fresh bread on the table with dinner!
The authors insist that you start with their master recipe and become familiar with that before moving on to the other breads. The master recipe is very basic and makes it easy for you to focus on the method rather than on the ingredients.
The result: I was skeptical from the time that I mixed the dough yesterday. I knew that the dough was supposed to be wet, but should it be that wet? Then when I went to pull off my piece today I had the same thought. Yep, I guess it was supposed to be that wet, because once baked it yielded a moist, light, perfect loaf of bread with a thick, hearty crust. I am a complete novice when it comes to this method of bread baking yet I was able to pull bakery quality bread out of my oven on the first try. The book is also really cool because the first several chapters are dedicated to explaining the technique, how it differs from traditional bread baking, and why it works. I love learning this kind of stuff, so I had a lot of fun reading through that part.
I am excited to move onto the other recipes in the book and experiment with more flavors! This book is a definite keeper!

Lamb Chops with Pistachio Tapenade

2010-06-12T17:33:00.000-05:00

Oh. My. God. That is all that I have to say. Now I have to go eat more lamb.

Just kidding, I would not be so cruel as to leave you without the recipe to this heavenly dish.

Lamb is definitely one of my favorite foods, and it is by far my favorite type of meat. I always order it at restaurants, but this is the first time that I have made it at home. Lamb, you see, is crazy expensive, at least in my frugal little mind it is. I saw this recipe though, and I knew I had to at least give it a whirl. Next time I host someone for dinner, this is what I am making. It is simple to throw together, the meat melts in your mouth all the while hitting every taste bud with a delicious combination of nutty, salty, and fresh. Please make this. You will impress people immensely. And do me a favor. Serve this with a simple salad or green veggie. Do not make anything that will try to compete with this delicious meat. You will be sorry. Yes, that is a threat.

Lamb Chops with Pistachio Tapenade
*Slightly tweaked from Smitten Kitchen who slightly adapted it from Anne Burrell

1/2 cup pistachios, shelled and toasted
1/2 cup pitted green olives
2 tablespoons capers
1 clove garlic, smashed
2 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley leaves
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 lemon, zested
Fresh Lemon Juice
6 lamb chops
Salt

To make the pistachio tapenade: In a food processor combine the pistachios, olives, capers, garlic, herbs and puree. While the machine is running, slowly drizzle in olive oil until the mixture becomes a paste. Add the zest and pulse 1 more time, drizzling in more oil if necessary. Add lemon juice to taste. This just helps to counteract a little of the saltiness. It was a bit too much for me. Reserve until ready to use.
Cook your chops: Season your six lamb chops generously on either side with salt. Allow them to sit for 10 to 15 minutes before cooking.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Coat a large saute pan generously with olive oil and bring to medium-high heat. When the oil is hot but not smoking, add the lamb chops and cook for about 2 minutes on each side to brown. If the pan begins to smoke, lower the heat. The chops should be beautifully caramelized on both sides. Remove the chops to a sheet pan and top with the pistachio tapenade. Use all of it. I know it looks like a lot. Too much even. It's not. Trust me. Place in preheated oven and cook another 4 to 5 minutes for medium rare. I had to cook mine for way longer than 4-5 minutes. Probably closer to 10. Maybe my lamb chops were gigantic, but I would recommend checking the internal temperature after 4-5 minutes, and then continue cooking as needed until the internal temperature reaches 140 degrees F. Remove chops from oven and let rest for at least 5 minutes before serving.

Polenta Bread

2010-06-07T20:19:00.000-05:00

You really can't go wrong with this bread. It is simple, both in it's creation and in it's flavor. If you are scared of making bread on your own, this would be a great recipe to start with. There is really hardly any work involved, just be sure to allow time for one 45 minute-to an hour rise time.

The polenta flavor in this bread is so subtle and sweet. It is just a hint, like something you can almost put your finger on. The crumb is light and the crust is slightly harder than the crumb, but just barely. The bread is a great addition to a simple meal of salad, or as a snack after work. Try it lightly toasted with softened butter on top and a tiny bit of honey. It will melt in your mouth.

Polenta Bread

Recipe from Taste and Tell

2 cups warm water
2 teaspoons yeast
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup polenta (or cornmeal)
2 teaspoons salt
6 1/2 cups bread flour

In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast and sugar in warm water (around 100 degrees, or slightly warmer than room temperature). Let mixture sit until it bubbles slightly on top to show that the yeast has activated.

Combine polenta, salt and bread flour in mixer bowl fitted with the dough hook. Add olive oil and yeast mixture and mix well. Knead dough with dough hook for 8 to 12 minutes (the temperature of your kitchen will make the difference in the timing.) You know that the dough has been mixed enough when it clears the sides of the bowl and all ingredients are incorporated. Turn off mixer and let dough rest for 1 minute in bowl.

Divide dough into thirds and shape into loaves. Place on greased cookie sheets. Cover dough and allow it to rise until the loaves have doubled in size. This took 45 minutes for me. You know that your dough has doubled when you lightly press it with your finger and the dough springs back, but not all of the way-a slight indent will remain.

Bake for about 30 minutes at 300F.

Burnt Carrot Salad with Goat Cheese and Garlic Chips

2010-05-26T07:33:00.002-05:00

I have to say I am really really sorry that I do not have a picture of this. Work has been really busy, and I am lucky to get a home cooked meal on the table at all, so snapping some photos before we dig in is usually too much to ask right now. This was a gorgeous dish though. Bright orange carrots with little charred sections contrasted against leafy green arugula. Crumbled goat cheese and little golden chips of toasted garlic. This was a meal for those of us who appreciate the aesthetics of food as well as the flavor.
This was another one of those meals that I hesitated to tell Tim about in advance. My anticipated reaction from him went something like this: "You mean we are having burnt carrots and some lettuce for dinner? And the cheese cost you how much?" I expected that this would be too sophisticated for his simple, meat-and-potatoes palate. I under-estimated him, and the work that I have done to introduce him to good food over the last few years. Luckily, and surprisingly when we sat down with this beautiful salad accompanied by a slightly toasted piece of bread, Tim took his first bite and said "wow, this is good. I really like the carrots this way" and then I almost choked. But he was right. Something happens when you char carrots. It is so simple, but their sweet, rich flavor really comes out.
Now, I know this is really going to shock you, but what really made this salad for me was the garlic. It's flavor is quite subtle in relation to everything else. The toasting of the garlic chips really brought out the sweetness and balanced out some of the garlic's usual spice. Every once in a while you get a bite that has the subtle garlicky kick, and it is so good. Okay, you all know how much I love garlic so I will just give you the recipe.

Burnt Carrot Salad with Goat Cheese and Garlic Chips
Adapted from the Chicago Tribune Good Eating Section

1 C Extra Virgin Olive Oil
4 Cloves Garlic, very thinly sliced
2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
black pepper
8 Medium Carrots, peeled
1 Tablespoon chopped fresh Thyme, or 1./2 teaspoon dried
1 small bunch Flat Leaf (Italian) Parsley, leaves only
2 small bunches of Arugula, trimmed and rinsed
6 oz Goat Cheese

Heat oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until just golden, about 20 seconds. immediately remove and place on a plate layered with paper towels. Let the oil cool and pour into a bowl. Wipe out skillet.
Put vinegar in a small bowl and whisk in 5 Tablespoons of the garlic oil. Season with 1/4 teaspoon of the salt and pepper to taste.
Cut the carrots into rough sticks. Toss in a bowl with 3 tablespoons of the garlic oil , thyme, and remaining 1/4 teaspoon of salt and pepper to taste.
Heat the same skillet over high heat. Cook the carrots in a single layer. Cook until lightly charred on one side, 3-5 minutes. Turn and cook until lightly charred and tender on the other side, 2-3 minutes.
Toss the parsley and arugula with half of the vinaigrette on a large platter. Arrange carrots on top. crumble goat cheese over the carrots and top with the garlic chips. Drizzle the remaining vinaigrette over the salad. Serve with toasted bread.

Real S'mores Brownies

2010-05-09T18:12:00.000-05:00

I recently tried an impostor brownie. This brownie tried to claim that it was a s'mores brownie. This was a flat-out lie. This brownie had no graham and one measly marshmallow. Big fat thumbs down from me. Ever since that experience I have been craving a real s'mores brownie and we all know that if you want something done right sometimes you just have to do it yourself. Well, I have to say that this little experiment turned out to be quite delicious.
These brownies were a little better chilled than they were slightly warm. This made them less messy and gave them a more solid consistency. The marshmallows were a little hard to eat when they were still warm. They were also next to impossible to cut before they cooled all the way.
I used a brownie recipe that was supposed to go in an 8X8 pan, and made this in a 9X13 so that there was not chocolate overload. This is very rich, so I think that this was a good choice, but who am I to tell you how much chocolate to consume. I will not judge you if you do not thin out your brownie batter :-) I used my favorite brownie recipe which I will include below. Feel free to use whatever brownies you desire. The only changes I made to the brownie batter were:
I used 3 oz semi-sweet chocolate and 3 oz bittersweet chocolate to make them less sweet
I did not use nuts-there are no nuts in S'mores. Duh.

That's all

Real S'mores Brownies

1 1/4 C graham cracker crumbs
4 Tablespoons butter, melted
1 recipe brownie batter
mini marshmallows

Mix the graham cracker crumbs and the butter together. Use your hands to make sure that it is mixed well and that the crumbs are sticking together. Press this mixture into the bottom of a greased 9X13 inch pan.

Pour brownie batter over the crust. Bake this at 350 degrees until a clean knife inserted in the center of the brownie comes out with only a few crumbs on it. Turn your oven off and turn your broiler on High. Sprinkle an even layer of marshmallows over the brownie. Put this under the broiler and watch it closely. Once they start to turn a nice golden brown pull them out. Two minutes was the perfect amount of time for mine.

Allow these to cool completely before slicing. They can be stored in the freezer if you want to eat them slowly (in a freezer-safe container of course!) and thawed for a few minutes on the counter when you want to eat them.

Double Fudge Brownies
*Recipe from The Chicago Tribune Good Eating Section

3/4 C Flour
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, not dutch processed
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 C Chopped walnuts or pecans
1 tablespoon flour
6 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 C sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs

Pre heat your oven to 350 degrees. Prepare an 8X8 inch baking pan. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. Mix the nuts with the 1 tablespoon of flour. Melt butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Add the chocolate and cook, stirring, until chocolate is melted. Remove from heat immediately and stir in the sugar and vanilla. Mix well. Let this mixture cool for about 10 minutes.
Whisk the eggs into the chocolate mixture one at a time. Beat until smooth and glossy-about 2 minutes. Stir in the flour mixture and the nuts and mix until just combined.
Spread the batter into your prepared pan and bake until a tester inserted in the center of the brownies comes out clean. This should be 20-25 minutes. Cool pan on a wire rack for at least 1 hour.

Java-rubbed Chicken with Garlicky asparagus

2010-05-03T21:20:00.000-05:00

I saw the recipe for this chicken rub in last week's Tribune Good Eating section. I saw the word java and knew I had to keep reading. This rub is a good balance of a little sweet and a little spicy. It is a tiny bit too salty for me, so next time I will reduce the amount of salt, but other than that this is a definite keeper. This paired well with some fresh, lemony asparagus and a hearty slice of bread. A perfectly light and satisfying spring meal.

Java-Rub Chicken
***Recipe from the Chicago Tribune Good Eating Section
6 Tablespoons ground coffee
2 Tablespoons each: brown sugar, sweet paprika, coarse salt
2 teaspoons each: garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper
1 tsp each: ground cumin, ground coriander, unsweetened cocoa powder
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

Prepare a grill for medium heat. Combine the coffee, brown sugar, spices, and cocoa in a mixing bowl. Stir to mix.
Rub the chicken on all sides with the java mixture. Place the chicken on the grill and cook until heated through. 5-7 minutes per side.

I could tell that I was going to have extra of the rub, so instead of coating my chicken in the bowl, I spooned the rub out onto the chicken. This way I was able to save the extra and use it again later. This is probably not that novel of an idea, but it is worth mentioning so that you are not throwing these wonderful ingredients away for no reason!

Asparagus

This is very simple to throw together and it pairs great with most grilled meat
1 bunch of asparagus, cut up into smallish pieces with the tough ends removed
drizzle of lemon juice
3 cloves of garlic VERY thinly sliced
Put your cut-up asparagus into a bowl. Drizzle with enough lemon juice to coat. Stir in garlic. Put the asparagus mixture onto a heavy duty sheet (or two normal sheets) of aluminum foil. wrap it up nice and tight and place this right on the grill next your chicken (or whatever else you are grilling). Let this cook for 10-15 minutes. The asparagus will get nice and soft, and the garlic will produce a smooth, sweet flavor. This is a perfect way to celebrate Spring!

Cookies n Cream Cookies

2010-05-02T20:30:00.001-05:00

These cookies were good for the most part. I thought that they were a little dry, so in the future I would add less oatmeal and bake them for a shorter time, but all-in-all they were really good. I just realized that I left out the brown sugar from the original recipe, but I cannot imagine these cookies being any sweeter, so I don't think that I will add it in the future either. The combination of white and semi-sweet chocolate works really well, and the coconut adds some interest to some otherwise plain cookies. The cookies have a lot of texture due to the oats and the coconut, which I like a lot. This is a good twist on your basic cookie without adding any extra work. Who can argue with that?
The original recipe that I followed said to use a Cookies n Cream candy bar, but our grocery store didn't have them so I subbed in a combination of white and semi-sweet chocolate chips and that worked great! I wouldn't waste the money on the candy bars, just do it my way! :-) If you do want to disobey my request then simply sub in two cups of chopped Cookies n Cream candy bar for the chocolate chips. But I'm tellin' ya, it's a waste of money. Okay, do what you want, I don't care :-p
One more note on cookie baking, and then I will let you look at the recipe. I like to pull my cookies out of the oven a few minutes before they are actually done baking. I let them complete the baking process on the cookie sheets. This produces a much more moist cookie. People who see me do this often tell me that I am making my cookies the wrong way, or that they are not cooked all they way, blah, blah, blah. Then they try my cookies and they stop complaining. I highly recommend this method. All cookies made any other way now seem dry and over-cooked to me.
Okay, you may read the recipe now.

Cookies n Cream Cookies
Recipe adapted from Taste and Tell

2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened
1/2 C granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 C all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 C semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 C white chocolate chips
2 C old fashioned rolled oats
1 C sweetened coconut

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Cream your butter and sugar together until light and creamy. Add eggs and mix one at a time. Stir in vanilla.
Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl. Add and mix gradually to the butter mixture until combined. Stir in oats, chocolate, and coconut.
Drop batter in spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheets, or, my personal favorite, baking stones. Bake 16 minutes. (Watch them as they get close to 16 minutes, mine were definitely over-cooked at the 16 minute mark, but everyone's oven is different).

Tuesday Night Dinners

2010-04-21T20:46:00.000-05:00

We always try to eat light on Tuesday nights. We end up eating a lot for dessert because we meet up with a small group of couples from our church, so we try to save room for whatever goodies await us. Last week we tried this Israeli style salad for dinner, and we loved it. Of course I got the idea from my favorite cookbook-Simple In Season. You do not need a recipe for this, and I basically looked at their idea once and threw it together based on memory. It is so simple to throw together and you just feel good after you eat it. It brought me back to my visit to Israel several years ago. Meals were so simple there-you would grab a hard boiled egg and some fresh produce. Maybe some warm pita and be on your way. We decided to institute this as our Tuesday night meal until we get sick of it.

The amount of veggies that you use will depend on how many people you are feeding. This is enough for the two of us, plus a little extra.

2 Tomatoes
1 Cucumber
1/4 Large Sweet Onion
1 Small Green Pepper
2 hard boiled eggs
Fresh bread
Olive Oil
Lemon Juice
Salt and Pepper

Cut up all your veggies. I like to keep my veggie pieces pretty big, but cut them however you like. Put all of the veggies in a large bowl and drizzle with a little olive oil and lemon juice. Mix, taste, adjust. Season with salt and pepper. Serve in a bowl and top with a hard boiled egg. Serve with warm pita or a hearty bread.

The first time I made this I had some leftover cooked brown rice, so I added that. It was a good addition that made the salad a lot more filling. It was also a good way to use up that extra rice!

Bleeding Heart Bakery Red Velvet Cupcake

2010-04-17T09:00:00.000-05:00

This cupcake was just okay. The cake did not have a ton of flavor to it. The consistency was nice-light and airy. The cream cheese frosting was really good. If I could have just eaten the frosting I would have been much happier, and found the caloric intake to be more worthwhile. This was a very rich cream cheese frosting, but there was only a relatively thin layer of it on the cake so it was perfect.
The presentation-like everything else from BHB-was great! The top part of the cupcake was sliced open to make a space for the frosting. This not only looks awesome, but makes the cupcake much less messy to eat.
I would not buy this cupcake again, but I may look for other items at their bakery with this same frosting. Or maybe they should sell frosting shots. I would buy those.

Asparagus Soup

2010-04-13T17:01:00.000-05:00

I realize that this may not sound like the most appealing thing in the world. I hesitated to tell Tim that we were having it for dinner because I figured he would cringe at the thought. I am not a huge fan of pureed soups, so I was unsure of how I would like this recipe. Basically this was a toss-up and it turned out to be a good one. I am so glad that I tried this soup! Last night was a perfect soup night (many nights are perfect for soup in my opinion) I am suffering from some pretty evil allergies and it was cloudy and gloomy outside. The soup features one of my favorite spring veggies-asparagus. I love when those big, bright green stalks show up in the market looking so vibrant and delicious. The plain yogurt adds a wonderfully acidic balance to the flavor, and a few chopped and blanched asparagus tips make the soup seem less overwhelmingly beverage-like. I served this with whole wheat biscuits (recipe still under construction, but coming along smoothly) in order to make Tim happy. He actually seemed to like the soup a lot, which was a huge surprise to both of us!
I also love the color of this soup. It is almost a pastel green once the yogurt is mixed in-way more appealing than I imagined when I read the recipe initially.

Asparagus Soup
Recipe from Simply In Season

1 Pound Asparagus
2 Cups Water
1 Small Onion, chopped
1 Medium Potato, peeled and chopped
2 Cups Broth
1 Cup Dry Milk Powder
2 Tablespoons Flour
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/2 C Plain Yogurt

Cut off the tips of the asparagus and blanch until just tender but still crisp-about 3 minutes. Set aside and reserve the water.
Chop the asparagus spears and remove tough ends. Cook asparagus with the 2 cups of water, potato, and onion until tender-about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and cool for a few minutes. Pour this into your food processor or blender and puree until smooth.
Mix broth, dry milk powder, flour, and salt and pepper. Add this and the pureed soup into a large stock pot. You can add in your reserved blanching liquid here if you want to. I did, but you don't have to. If you are not going to use it here, you can toss it. Cook over medium heat until thickened. I cooked mine about 10 minutes to get it nice and thick. Do this to whatever consistency you desire. Throw your perfectionist tendencies out the window and do whatever you feel like, it's way more fun that way!
Grab some bowls and spoon some plain yogurt into the bottom of each one. Ladle hot soup over the yogurt and top with reserved asparagus tips. Serve with a hearty biscuit or home made bread. I hope that this soup surprises you as much as it did me!

Bleeding Heart Bakery- S'mores Brownie

2010-04-11T14:43:00.000-05:00

This was a good brownie. Rich, sweet, dense, moist. I would not, however, say that BHB is justified in calling this a S'mores brownie. There was only one little marshmallow on top and no graham that I could detect. It seemed to me to be a decent brownie with a random marshmallow that landed there on accident. When I think s'mores I think lots of gooey marshmallows with some crunch from the graham. If I was going to make a s'mores brownie (and now maybe I will, because I kind of want one!) I would make some kind of bottom crust with graham incorporated into it, a rich chocolate brownie-probably with some dark chocolate incorporated to balance out some of the sweetness- and then do a thin layer of marshmallows on top. I don't think that I would buy this brownie. It was good, but not great, and I am guessing that it is pretty pricey (most things from this bakery are). To me, a brownie is a brownie, and this one did not break that mold at all.

Spanikopita

2010-04-07T21:58:00.000-05:00

I have no idea if this is at all authentic. I really just guessed at the ingredients and ratios, and have no clue if this is like the real thing or not. It tastes really good. It is nice, fresh, and tangy. The idea came about when I made this spinach and ricotta pie. The filling tasted similar to Spanikopita so I thought I would try to turn it into that Greek pastry that I love so much. This recipe doesn't really resemble that pie too closely either, but it was the source of inspiration. This was my first experience with Phyllo dough. It was not as hard as I had expected, though it was a bit tricky to not tear the dough. I definitely had to throw a few sheets away because they were so badly torn. It did take a long time to assemble all of my triangles, but it wasn't bad.

Spanikopita

1 lb fresh spinach, cooked and chopped
6 oz feta cheese
5 oz creamy goat cheese
1 bunch of Italian parsley, chopped
Juice from 1/2 small lemon
2 sticks of butter, melted
1 package (2 rolls) of phyllo dough, thawed

Put all of the ingredients, except for the butter and the dough, into a medium bowl and mix well. I found it helpful to add my spinach while it was still warm in order to melt the cheeses and help everything to mix better. This can be made the day before. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Open up one package of phyllo dough and cover it with a damp towel. Remove one piece of phyllo, leaving the rest under the towel to keep the unused dough from drying out, and lightly brush it with melted butter. Lay one more sheet of dough on top of your buttered piece. Brush this one with butter too. Now fold the two sheets in half to make one long rectangle. place a scoop of filling onto one end of your rectangle. Roll it into a log shape, or fold it corner-to-corner to make a triangle. Brush both sides of the outside of the dough with butter and place on a cookie sheet. Repeat these steps with the remaining dough and filling.

I had used up all of my filling and still had a good amount of dough left so I made a few pastries filled with goat cheese and a tiny bit of honey. They were delicious as well. Really, what wouldn't taste good wrapped in layers of flaky dough and a lot of butter?

Once you are done rolling up all of your triangles, or whatever shape you pick, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Cook these until golden brown-about 30 minutes. In the future, I may try cooking them at a higher temperature for less time, but 350 degrees worked well too. Allow to cool slightly and dig in. Let me know what you think after you try them!

Verruca Salt Cupcake

2010-04-03T16:41:00.000-05:00

This cupcake from the Bleeding Heart Bakery was the perfect balance of salty and sweet. I love that sea salt has dominated the baking scene recently. A lot of times I find baked goods to be way too sweet, and I think that this is a fun way to counteract that. The cake part of this seemed to be a plain vanilla cupcake with a nice consistency and a simple flavor. It had a simple white frosting that was topped with a sprinkling of thick, crunchy sea salt. I like that this cupcake was not anything super complicated. It was a plain, normal cupcake with a nice little surprise on top. I would definitely get another one of these.

Cake Balls

2010-03-31T07:51:00.000-05:00

This was my first experience with Cake balls. I have read about them-they are the big thing right now it seems. From what I saw on blogs I imagined a thick coating of frosting with a light, crumbly cake filling. I thought they may be kind of bland and dry. To be honest I never really had a desire to try them. These Cake Balls from Bleeding Heart Bakery are nothing like that, and that is a good thing in my eyes. They are rich, and like the scones, very dense. The outer coating is a thin layer of frosting dipped in crushed nuts, coconut, sprinkles, or crushed cookie. The "cake" layer really seems more like fudge to me. Rich and moist, and no crumbles anywhere to be found. They were kind enough to give us a few flavors in our box-peanut butter coated in coconut, chocolate covered in nuts, and chocolate covered in cookie crumbs. I have only tried one so far, Tim has tried two, and they seem to be consistently yummy. Another two thumbs up for the Bleeding Heart Bakery. I am starting to wonder if I will dislike anything in that box of goodies.

Take A Hike Scones

2010-03-30T17:56:00.000-05:00

This is the first of my Bleeding Heart Bakery reviews. I have to say, based on this scone, I may be hooked. This thing was colossal. Tim and I could have split one, but they gave us two, so we each ate our own :-) The flavor balance was wonderful. Slightly sweet with a bit of molasses flavor. Densely packed with fruit and nuts. Crusty and hard on the outside with a soft, moist interior. This was a great scone. The texture was better than that of most scones that I have tried. It was not so dry that I felt like I needed to dip it in my coffee. I was able to eat it easily without it crumbling everywhere. The interior had an almost cake-like consistency-very dense, but smooth and moist. It had to be filled with nutritional value, although I am sure the portion size was totally out of control! The nuts and fruit make it feel like a satisfactory meal, and believe me, you will not be hungry after you eat this thing! I will definitely go back for another one of these, and I suggest that you get your butt in there and try one for yourself. Two thumbs up!

Bleeding Heart Bakery Reviews

2010-03-28T14:13:00.000-05:00

We recently bought a Groupon for a variety box from the Bleeding Heart Bakery. This box includes a lot of yummy stuff! I have never been to this bakery before. It is super cute and I have always wanted to go in and try it, but I have heard mixed reviews because it is definitely on the pricey side and some people do not think that the quality matches the price. Others have said that they love this place. Through this box I will decide for myself. The box includes 2 Take a Hike Scones, a variety of six cake balls, a Verruca Salt Cupcake, a Red Velvet Cupcake, 1 Lemon Bar, 1 S'mores Brownie, and 1 Rockie Road Brownie. The bar/brownies/scones are all gigantic! They look delicious, I can't wait to try them! I will dedicate a post per item to review and show you pictures. I can tell you already that they have their presentation down. Everything is very aesthetically pleasing, the color combinations are nice, and their in-store displays make you want to order one of everything.
Stay tuned for my reviews!

Nutella Infused Brownies

2010-03-26T08:08:00.000-05:00

In an effort to find another vehicle for my beloved Nutella I decided to experiment with making Nutella brownies. I did not want to simply mix the Nutella into the batter because I thought the flavor would get lost. I have also seen other people make a frosting out of the Nutella but I thought that that would be a bit much. I ended up piping the Nutella into already-baked brownies. This gives each brownie a little pocket of gooey Nutella. Pure decadence. These brownies are not for the faint of heart. If you don't really love chocolate you probably won't like them. But, if chocolate is your drug of choice you need to try these.
You can make these with boxed brownie mix or from-scratch brownies. We actually ,made them both ways, and both were good. I definitely liked the from-scratch ones better because they were less sweet and way more moist. But, if you are in a time crunch, or money crunch, and you want to dress up some plain, out-of-the-box brownies, this definitely works. We added chopped walnuts, and topped our brownies with Bittersweet chocolate. This works to cover up the holes from the Nutella and balance out some of the sweetness. I would definitely not recommend using semi-sweet or milk chocolate for the topping. These are way sweet as it is, and it takes a lot for me to say that.

Nutella Brownies

1 recipe prepared brownies
Nutella
Bittersweet chocolate pieces

Prepare your brownies. Put your Nutella into a frosting bag, or a Ziploc bag with one corner cut open. While your brownies are still warm pipe the Nutella into the brownies at equal intervals figuring that you will have one Nutella bite per brownie. If you are using a Ziploc, I would recommend making holes for the Nutella with a knife first and then squeezing the Nutella out of the bag into the holes. Sprinkle the bittersweet chocolate pieces in a thin layer on top of the brownies and place in a warm oven for about a minute. Watch them closely, and as soon as they look shiny take them out. Immediately spread the chocolate over the brownies in a even layer. The chocolate on top will harden while the brownies cool. Let them cool completely before cutting and serving.

Garlic-Roasted Chicken

2010-03-24T20:05:00.000-05:00

This recipe was so, so easy, and also very good. It felt like a bit of a fancy meal because it involved thick, crusty bread, smooth roasted garlic, and tender, juicy chicken. The meat was so moist and flavourful-even as a leftover for lunch the next day. We also used all the extra roasted garlic to make garlic butter. Just soften a stick of butter and stick it in the food processor with the roasted garlic. Yum!

Garlic-Roasted Chicken
*Recipe from The Food Network

2 Tablespoons extra virin olive oil
1 1/2 lbs chicken breasts
kosher salt, pepper
2 heads of garlic
4 sprigs of fresh rosmary
4 slices sourdough bread, toasted
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Heat oil in a large dutch oven over medium high heat. season the chicken breasts and place them in the dutch oven. cook until browned on one side-about 5 minutes.
Seperate the garlic into cloves but do not peel. Flip over the chicken and add the garlic and rosmary to the pan. Transfer the dutch oven to the preheated oven. cook until chicken is cooked through-about 20 minutes.
Place the bread slices on plates and top with chicken breasts. Add the vinegar to the dutch oven and scrape up the stuck on chicken pieces with a spoon. Add 3 tablespoons of water and simmer until sauce thickens-about 2 minutes. Pour the sauce and garlic over the chicken.

Sun Dried Tomato and Artichoke Hummus

2010-03-22T11:54:00.000-05:00

Sunday afternoon the same question always rolls around..."What are we gonna do for dinner?" Tim will say. I usually do not have anything planned for Sunday night, and usually end up throwing together some sort of pasta dish, or just eating cereal. Last night I decided to go with a good standby: Hummus. I had some sun dried tomatoes and artichoke hearts leftover from another dish, and I knew I wanted to use them up in an interesting way. Sun dried tomatoes are always good in hummus-I add them any time I can! I had never tried adding artichoke hearts though. They added a really nice flavor balance. Their tartness helped to make up for the fact that I did not have nearly enough lemon juice for my normal hummus recipe. Tim thought that they made the hummus smell funny, but I think it smells funny anyways. The color of this hummus was also more appealing than the normal beige color. It had a slightly red tint, and you could see small pieces of the tomatoes in there.

Sun dried tomato and artichoke hummus

1 15 oz can chick peas
2 tablespoons tahini
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 large cloves garlic
2 tablespoons chopped onion
4 pieces artichoke hearts
sun dried tomatoes-I am not actually sure how many I added...eyeball it.
good quality olive oil

Add all of the ingredients, except the olive oil, to a large food processor and blend until smooth. Drizzle in some olive oil and blend again. Keep adding olive oil until it is nice and smooth. Transfer to a bowl and drizzle some more olive oil on top. Serve with warm pita or pita chips and fresh veggies.

Mushroom, Spinach, and Ricotta Pie

2010-03-10T19:44:00.000-06:00

This pie is the epitome of comfort food. Three types of fancy cheese, Lots of vegetables, and butter all wrapped up in a soft, flaky, thick double crust. I enjoyed that this was a hearty, comforting dish with a little bit of elegance. The goat cheese adds a grown-up flavor to the pot pies we remember eating at Mom's table. I would definitely consider this company-worthy. I would probably serve it with a refreshing glass of iced tea and some fresh fruit.
This recipe does require some time, and the ingredients are a bit on the expensive side, but it is totally worth it. If cooking is your therapy, this is a good recipe to go to as it comes together a bit slowly. This is the first involved meal I have been able to make since we adopted Samson three weeks ago.

He is cute, but I missed spending a couple of hours in the kitchen winding down after work, and am glad to be back.

Wild Mushroom, Spinach, and Ricotta Pie

Adapted from the Chicago Tribune

2 Tblsp butter
1 lb fresh spinach, chopped
3 large leeks, very thinly sliced, white and light green parts only
20 oz mixed mushrooms, sliced- I used half baby bellas and half white mushrooms
2 large cloves of garlic, chopped
1/4 C water
2 eggs
8 Oz Ricotta Cheese
6 Oz soft goat cheese
1 Tblsp dried thyme
1 Tblsp fresh parsley, chopped
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 Tblsp lemon juice
1 C fresh grated parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp salt
pepper
1 recipe savory pie dough-recipe follows, chilled
***Please do not use store bought pie crust. It will severely diminish the deliciousness of this dish. Once you learn how easy home made pie crust is to make, and how much better it tastes, you will never even think of buying one of those flavorless, insanely expensive things that are sold in the grocer's refrigerator. Thank you.***

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a dutch oven over medium heat. Add the spinach and stir to coat. Cook for about 10 minutes, until the water is evaporated. Move the spinach to a bowl.
Melt the remaining tablespoon of butter in the dutch oven. Add the leeks, mushrooms, and garlic. Cook over high heat until the garlic becomes aromatic. You will have no doubt when this happens, it should take 1-2 minutes. Add the water and reduce the heat to medium. Cook until the vegetables are tender and the liquid is gone. This will take about 10 minutes.
while your veggies are cooking whisk together eggs, ricotta, goat cheese, half of the thyme, the parsley, nutmeg, lemon juice, and Parmesan. Season with salt and pepper.

Remove your dough from the fridge and divide it in half. Roll each half out to a 12-inch disk. Lay one disk into a 9-inch pie plate.
Spread half of the cheese mixture over the crust. Top with half of the spinach, and then half of the mushrooms. Sprinkle in the remaining thyme. Now layer the remaining spinach, then mushrooms, followed by the rest of the cheese. Place the second dough disk on top, remove the excess dough from around the sides and crimp edges together. Cut a couple of vents in the top of the crust and bake until golden brown-50-60 minutes.

Savory Pie dough
2 sticks butter, at room temperature
8 oz cream cheese
1/4 C half and half
1 tsp salt
2 2/3 C flour

Beat together the butter and cream cheese in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Stir in the cream and salt.
Stir in the flour gradually, mixing with a fork as you go. Handle the dough as little as possible so as not to make it tough. Shape the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate one hour-24 hours.

Deleece and A La Card

2010-03-06T18:49:00.003-06:00

We just ate at Deleece on Southport for the first time. If you live in Chicago I would definitely recommend this place. The food is delicious and the prices are not too high. They had a very wide selection on the menu. I had cavatapi with mushrooms and the most delicious tomatoes. There was truffle oil coating everything, and cheese. Oh, the cheese. My only complaint about this dish was that I would prefer a higher vegetable-to-pasta ratio. There was plenty of color and flavor, but I like my meals to be bursting with veggies whenever possible. I would still definitely order this dish again though. Tim had a stuffed poblano pepper. It had rice inside and was atop a bed of black beans. There was poblano sour cream and some tortilla strips for garnish. This was so good because it was not battered and fried like your typical chili relleno. Instead it was fresh, simple, and flavorful. You could actually taste the pepper instead of just tasting the batter and cheese. I love poblanos.
Here is the website for Deleece Definitely check this place out.
Since we are on the topic of trying new restaurants, I will tell you about one of my favorite purchases ever. We are on our second package of A La Card. If you like finding new restaurants that are smaller and owner managed, I would recommend this for sure. The pack is full of cards, each for a local restaurant, that are good for a calendar year, so all the cards expire on 12/31 of that given year. Each card gives you $10 off that particular restaurant, so you only have to use a few to get your money back. We go out at least once a week anyways, so it was a worthwhile purchase for us. We love looking through the deck and finding a new place to go that weekend. It's fun and exciting to always have a different place to try! It is also a great way to support local restaurants that you may not hear about otherwise. Some of our favorite restaurants were found through A La Card.

Summer Food, it's time...

2010-03-06T13:57:00.003-06:00

What better way to welcome a beautiful blue sky, relatively warm weather, and the begining of the weekend than with a big plate of s'mores? I don't know about you but the combination of crunchy graham, gooey mallow, and rich chocolate is enough to help me visualize myself at the lake in front of a fire roasting marshmallows. I am ready. I know there are still some cold days ahead, but I can taste Summer, and that is all that counts right now. We had a few friends over last night, I served a big plate of these. They disappeared very quickly. Even your worst enemy would fail to turn these babies down.

S'mores Cookies
Recipe from: Savory Sweet Life

You will need:
1 box of graham crackers
1 bag of chocolate chips
1 bag of mini marshmallow-I did not use the whole bag, only most of it.

Turn your broiler on high.
Cover a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Break your graham rectangles into squares and lay as many as you can in a single layer on the parchment paper. Make sure to keep them super close together with no gaps in between. Pour your marshmallows over the grahams and then your chocolate chips. Put this in the broiler for 5-10 minutes. Mine only took 5 but every oven is different. Keep a close eye on them to make sure the tops of the marshmallows don't burn. When they are done pull them out and top them with the remaining graham cracker squares. I did not end up using the whole box, so just go with what fits on your cookie sheet. Push the top layer of graham crackers down so that they stick to the marshmallows. When they have had a few minutes to set break them into squares and eat, or store in an airtight container.
We ate these the day after I made them, which I liked. They had hardened a bit which made them a lot easier to eat.

If you love s'mores there is no reason for you not to welcome the warmer weather with this recipe. It's simple and comforting. nothin' better!

Nutella Donuts

2010-02-23T14:58:00.010-06:00

Dangerous. That is what I would say about these if I could only use one word. I love donuts. I never allow myself to eat them because I know that I would loose all self control immediately if I did. I also love Nutella, and have been known to dip any number of things in it, including a big empty spoon, or my finger. I decided to buy the Nutella I needed for this recipe at Costco. "It is cheaper there" I tell myself. And it is...way cheaper. But really, I just wanted the larger quantity of Nutella. That said, I am wondering how many different ways I will come up with to use this deliciousness. I have already mixed it in with coffee ice cream. Result-spectacular. There will, no doubt, be more Nutella concoctions to come, and I will hopefully share a few with you all. I don't want to be the only fat-by-Nutella girl on the block.
Now, regarding these donuts. They are a perfect balance of crispy and light. A little brown on the outside, and soft and fluffy on the inside. The dough has a distinct lemon flavor which is a wonderful compliment to the Nutella. Lightly dusted with powdered sugar they are not too sweet to stop you from having two, or four. I had a couple for breakfast yesterday morning with an orange and coffee and I felt like I was on vacation.
My sister-in-law wanted to make a few plain donuts coated in sugar. The dough is definitely tasty enough to hold it's own without the filling, but I was not a fan of the sugar coating. It needs a simple glaze or to be dusted with superfine sugar. The granulated sugar added a texture that I really did not like.
Nutella Donuts
Adapted from http://www.bellalimento.com
You should go check out Bell' alimento's site right now. Her photographs are gorgeous, and she always has something tasty to share over there!

3 cups of Flour
2/3 cups Milk - room temp
5 tsp of Yeast
1/2 cup of Sugar
2 large fresh eggs
1 lemon - zested
4.5 tbsp Unsalted Butter -softened
1 jar of Nutella
Powdered Sugar
1 large container of canola oil
***We needed an extra egg white for brushing the outside of the dough, so be prepared for that just in case***

Mix your yeast with your milk in a small bowl. Make sure that the milk has been brought to room temperature, so as not to inhibit yeast activity. Mix flour, sugar, 1 egg plus 1 yolk, (reserve the extra egg white), lemon zest, and a pinch of salt into the bowl of your mixer. Pour in the milk/yeast mixture. Mix this on a med-low speed until your dough forms into a ball. Knead with your dough hook for 8-10 minutes. Mix in your butter. Now, place the dough on a floured surface and knead it by hand for an extra 8 minutes. Put your dough into a large, oiled bowl. Roll the dough around to grease it on all sides. Cover the bowl with a damp towel and let it rise until it has doubled in size. This should take about 2 hours, but if you need to leave it a bit longer (I did!) it is no problem!

After your dough has finished resting, knead it again by hand for 8 minutes. Roll out your dough to a half centimeter thickness on a well floured surface, and use a glass to cut out even circles. Continue this until all the dough has been used. Onto half of the circles place a teaspoonful of Nutella.

Use your reserved egg white to brush the edges of circles. Sandwich one Nutella circle with one plain circle and seal by pinching the edges with your fingers. Brush the outside with egg white.

Repeat with all dough circles. Allow dough to rest & rise again for 10 minutes.

While your donuts rest get your oil ready. Place a large dutch oven or soup pot on the stove and pour in 1.5-2 inches of oil. Heat the oil over a medium flame until the temperature reaches 360 degrees. Watch the oil, make sure that it does not heat-up too rapidly, and that it stays consistent once it reaches the desired temperature.
Place a few donuts in the pot at a time, make sure not to overcrowd the pot. Let them brown for about 1 minute and then flip them to cook the other side for 30 seconds. Remove them to a surface layered with paper towels and dust with powdered sugar. Repeat until all of your donuts are cooked. Allow to cool for a few minutes and dig in! They are best straight out of the pot, but are good the next day too as long as you put them in the toaster oven for a few minutes.

***A few notes*** Using a deep pot to fry these greatly eliminated oil splattery messes. There was virtually no mess from the oil, which made clean-up a breeze!
Do not be scared to make donuts, please! I was very nervouse before we started cooking them-thinking there would be a huge mess, or something would catch on fire. The whole process went very smoothly, and though it was time-consuming, it was relatively easy and totally worth it!

Christmas Present Delivered

2010-02-09T18:38:00.005-06:00

For Christmas this year Tim and I gave my parents a menu of food choices and a promise to make whatever they picked at an agreed-upon date in the near future. We promised that we would come to their house, prepare the meal in their kitchen, and do all the clean-up after the meal was over. This past Saturday was that date. Tim and I had a lot of fun buying the ingredients and preparing all of the food together, and it was fun to serve this meal to my parents. It was also so nice to be able to splurge on high quality ingredients because we were making this food especially for other people. My parents seemed to enjoy this treat, and I would definitely recommend this as a great gift option for your food-loving friends and family. It would be a great way to pamper someone who is too busy to treat themselves to a nice, fresh meal, or just someone who loves food.

The final menu selections were:

An appetizer of Mushrooms Stuffed with Brie

-recipe here

These were really simple to make, and tasted really good! They were a nice start to the meal as their flavor was not too rich. The brie added a nice smooth flavor to the mushrooms and the parsley and green onion topping added just enough of a bite to make it interesting. This was super quick to pull together, and would be a great snack for a party.

A main course of Seared Steaks with Blue Cheese and Caramelized Onions

-recipe here

These steaks have a rich, decadent flavor. The cheese adds a salty bite, but the large bed of caramelized onions adds just enough sweetness to balance it out. I am not a huge beef eater, but I love these.

The steaks were accompanied by Creamed Spinach

-recipe here

This side dish was rich enough to hold it's own against the steak. I am usually too health conscious to indulge in something like this on a regular basis, but I did enjoy it. It is a great balance to the steak with a little crunch from the spinach, and a creamy texture to help smooth out any leftover saltiness from the steak. This gave the meal a real steak house feel.

For dessert, my mom got something that she has been wanting to try since I originally posted about it in July. She shares my love for peanut butter and jelly, so she knew she had to have the PBJ cupcakes when she was picking her dessert.

-recipe here

If you like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, you need to try these. Comfort food goes to a new level with these babies. Add a big glass of milk and you are all set.

I also brought along some dark chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. These were not as good as the PBJ's but they were a good way to use up my extra peanut butter frosting. It would be a travesty to let that go to waste.

Savory Rice

2010-02-04T17:05:00.010-06:00

I finally decided that I needed to share this recipe with you. This is in regular rotation at our house, and Tim loves it, which is actually a huge surprise considering that it has no meat or potatoes in it. The real title of this recipe is Savory Rice Loaf, but I left the loaf part out because I think it sounds gross. I avoided trying this recipe at first because of the name, and I didn't want you to make that mistake and skip this post all together because of the name. This is a simple, healthy, and delicious dish. The flavor combination is really good and creates a wonderful base for many types of sauce. Last night I had this with black bean salsa, previously I have tried marinara sauce. I can imagine that it would also be good with a nice cream sauce, or even a meaty pasta sauce. There are so many places that you could go with this, and again, totally out of character for him, Tim always chooses to eat this plain, by itself, and is always completely satisfied by it. You could serve this as a side if it does not sound hearty enough for you, but we always eat it as a main course. It is great with a colorful salad.

Savory Rice Loaf
Recipe From More-With-Less Cookbook

Grease a loaf pan
Pre heat your oven to 350 degrees
Toss together:
3 eggs
1 1/2 C COOKED rice
1 1/2 C grated cheese- I always use extra sharp cheddar. The cheese adds a large amount of the flavor so be sure to pick a cheese that will add a flavor punch
1/2 C bread crumbs
1/4 C chopped celery
2 Tbsp chopped onion
2 Tbsp chopped parsley
2 Tbsp chopped green pepper
3/4 t salt
1 C milk
1/4 C melted butter

Pour into loaf pan. Place pan inside a larger baking pan that is filled with 1 in hot water. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour-until loaf is set in the center. Loosen loaf around the edges with a spatula and turn it out onto a platter. Serve plain or with sauce of choice.

No this is not gourmet food, but it is delicious and satisfying. I hope you will try it.

Mushroom and Garlic Ravioli

2010-01-25T16:23:00.008-06:00

For Christmas I received "The Pasta Bible" as a gift. I have now made two different types of pasta out of this book, and I would say both are better than store bought, hands down. This definitely requires time, as well as a love of food preparation, but I thoroughly enjoyed making it. The pasta dough recipe that we used this time is specifically made for stuffed pasta. It worked very well for us, even with a somewhat liquidy filling. We filled our ravioli with chopped, sauteed mushrooms, goat cheese, and sliced garlic. Fill yours with whatever you like: cheese, spinach, shrimp, etc. Experiment and do a few different flavors, this type of cooking is really an art so have fun with it.

Pasta Dough
No 3 from the Pasta Bible, pg 40

2 1/3 C all-purpose flour
2 eggs
4 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon salt

Sift the flour into a mound on your work surface. Make a well in the middle. The well should be fairly large so that it can hold all of the liquid ingredients. Break the eggs and egg yolks into the well. Add salt.

With a fork gently mix the eggs and salt together, and then begin to mix in flour from the outer edge. You have to be very gently during this part to avoid spilling your egg mixture out of the sides of your flour mound. Trust me, I learned this the hard way (of course...). Gradually incorporate more and more of the flour until a viscous (aka sticky/thick) paste forms in the center of the well. Now begin to work all of the flour on your workspace into the well. If the dough is still crumbly, or cannot absorb all of the flour, gradually add water until it becomes smooth and easy to work with. We ended up having to add a few extra tablespoons of water until it was the right consistency. After all of the water and flour are mixed in, roll the dough into a ball so that you can begin kneading it. Push out the dough with the heels of the hands, then form it into a ball again. Repeat this kneading action until the dough is firm but lightly elastic, and does not change shape when you remove your hands. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 1 hour.

We used a ravioli making set to make our ravioli.

After the rest period was up, we rolled the dough out to a pretty thin layer. Then we placed the dough over the mold, filled it with our filling mixture, and then placed another rolled-out layer on top. We repeated this process until all of the dough was used up.

To cook the pasta: bring a large pot of water to a boil. Drop in the ravioli and cook until they float to the top. With fresh pasta, this should only take a few minutes.

The end. Enjoy.

No Bake Oatmeal Cookie Balls

2010-01-02T17:05:00.004-06:00

"No bake" means you are basically eating a ball of cookie dough, so really, what is not to love here? I found this recipe on Taste and Tell's blog and immediately bookmarked it, knowing that some day I would need a quick, sweet recipe, and this fit the bill today. I have been super lazy all weekend, but needed to make something sweet for church tomorrow. This took hardly any effort, I had mostly everything in my pantry, and I didn't even have to turn the oven on (though I did have to find a place to squeeze it into my refrigerator between all of our leftovers from this past food packed week). When I say I had almost everything on hand, I mean that I was missing confectioner's sugar. It was insanely cold out and I could not convince myself to walk the 3 blocks to the store, so I substituted coconut instead. I had to add a tiny bit of honey to the coconut flakes to get them to stick to the dough, but it tastes great, and think I will always make them this way. I am not a huge fan of confectioner's sugar-coated cookies anyway because they are always messy and kinda dry, so I am happy that I substituted. But, try it whichever way you prefer, the kids and adults in your life will love you for it.

No Bake Oatmeal Cookie Balls
*Adapted from Taste and Tell

2 Cups rolled oats
3/4 Cup white sugar
3 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 Tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 Cup (or 1 stick) butter, softened
2 Tablespoons peanut butter
1 Cup powdered sugar or Coconut
drizzle of honey (if using coconut)

Combine oats, sugar, and cocoa in a large bowl. Add the water, vanilla, butter and peanut butter and use your hands to mix until all ingredients are incorporated, and you don't have any dry crumbs hanging out at the bottom of the bowl.
Roll dough into 1-inch balls and roll in confectioner's sugar or coconut. ***If you are using coconut, pour it into a bowl big enough to roll the dough in, and drizzle a little honey in along with it. Mix it up-if it is still not sticking to the dough, add a tiny bit more. Try not to add too much, as these are pretty sweet on their own. ***
Place finished cookies on a cookie sheet and chill for at least 20 minutes.

Jelly Roll Cookies

2009-12-21T15:43:00.009-06:00

Note: These are nothing like the more common jelly roll cake. I have never actually had one of those, but I imagine the taste and consistency being completely different.

A few years back my Dad's cousin Ivy flew in from Florida, and taught me how to make her Grandmother's jelly rolls. These are my Dad's favorite cookie, and for good reason. The cookie part is airy and slightly sweet while the filling is gooey enough to balance out any dryness in the dough. Of course, while I was learning the process of making these, I did not take any notes, so I was left only with the ingredient list. I have made these for my dad a few times since then, always having to guess at what the actual process was, and always with a satisfactory outcome, but not exactly the way Dad remembers them. This year however, I had a break through. I made them this past weekend for my Dad's birthday. I wrote down my process, and they turned out better than ever before. They received rave reviews from Dad, Mom, and Tim (Dad's opinion is the only one that I really count on these, because he is the only one out of the group that has tasted the originals). So, from now on I will know the process and not have to feel intimidated every time my Dad asks for these. I think I will be making them a lot more often!

Jelly Roll Cookies:
4 C of flour to start-you will probably need to add more as you work though.
1 C sugar
1 C oil
6 eggs
3 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt
large jar of preserves-Dad will only accept strawberry, but I like them with apricot as well.
Golden Raisins
Cinnamon and Sugar

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees

Mix flour, sugar, oil, baking powder, vanilla, and salt in a large bowl.
Add eggs, 1 at a time, and mix thoroughly before adding the next one. You will need to get your hands in there and mix everything up, so roll up your sleeves and wear an apron!
Add more flour very gradually until dough is a workable consistency. It should still be shiny but not too sticky to work with. Be careful not to make it too dry or it will not stay together the way you need it too. I ended up using about 5 cups of flour total.
This is what the dough should look like:

Divide your dough into 4 equal sections. Place one section on a well floured work space or pastry sheet, and set the rest of the dough aside.

Roll the dough out into a large circle, about 1/8 of an inch thick. You don't want it to be too thin because you don't want the dough to tear when you roll it up.
Spread a thin layer of jelly and make sure to leave an inch or so around the edges so that it doesn't ooze out when you try to roll it. Top the jelly with golden raisins and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

Roll up to make a long roll, gently pinch the seams together, and transfer to a baking sheet with the seam side down.
Repeat these steps with the 3 remaining pieces of dough. Bake for about 25 minutes, until the rolls are lightly browned.
Allow the rolls to cool completely and then cut each into 10 pieces. These are great by themselves, or with a big mug of coffee!

Challah

2009-12-14T11:53:00.006-06:00

I love to bake bread at all times of the year, but during the winter is when I really have the time to spend on a delicious loaf of bread. Plus, what is better than a warm slice of bread when it is chilly out side? As I was trying to decide what to make as my first loaf of bread this season, I came across a challah recipe in my America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. I have always wanted to make challah, but have also always been intimidated by it. My usual mantra is that delicious food does not have to be beautiful, and that came about because I am clumsy and usually do not end up with perfectly stylized food. I do need some practice on my challah braiding skills, but the flavor was right according to my father and his friend Harvey. Both of them know their challah, so I trust them. I added a little cinnamon and sugar to the glaze to add some sweetness, and that seemed to be a hit with the tasters as well. The bread was a bit denser than I would have liked, but that was probably due to me over-mixing, so I will have to play around with that.

Challah
*Adapted from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book Pg 113

***Remember to save the leftover egg white for the glaze

Dough:
1/2 C Warm Water (110 degrees)
4 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs
1 egg yolk
3-3 1/2 C all purpose flour
1 C sugar
1 envelope instant or rapid rise yeast
1 1/4 tsp salt

Glaze:
1 Large egg white
2 Tbsp water
cinnamon and sugar for topping

For the dough: Whisk the water, melted butter, eggs, and egg yolk together in a large liquid measuring cup. Combine 3 cups of flour, sugar, yeast, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. With the mixer on low speed, add the water mixture and mix until the dough comes together-about 2 minutes.

Increase mixer speed to medium-low and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. If after 4 minutes more flour is needed, add the remaining 1/2 C flour, 2 Tbsp at a time, until dough clears the sides of the bowl but sticks to the bottom.

Turn the dough out on a lightly floured surface and knead by hand into a smooth, round ball. Place dough in a large, lightly oiled bowl and cover. let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, 1-1 1/2 hours.

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide the dough into 2 pieces, one twice the size of the other. Divide each piece into 3 pieces, and roll each piece out into a 16-inch-long rope.

For the glaze and the braid:
Beat egg white and water together in a small bowl.

to braid:
take the ropes from the thicker piece of dough and pinch the ends together. braid these three strands together. Transfer this braid to the baking sheet and repeat the braid with the ropes from the smaller piece. Brush larger loaf with some of the glaze and top with a fair amount of cinnamon and sugar. Place the smaller loaf on top of the larger one, Take both ends of the loaf and tuck them under the larger loaf. Cover and let rise until nearly doubled in size-dough will barely spring back when lightly pushed with finger-45-75 minutes.

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Top with the remaining glaze and more cinnamon and sugar. Bake until golden and the center of loaf is at 200 degrees. 30-40 minutes. Rotate the loaf halfway through. Cool on baking sheet for 15 minutes, then transfer to wire wrack to cool completely.

Cookie Swap 2009!

2009-12-08T15:05:00.026-06:00

This past Saturday I hosted a cookie swap at my house. We had a lot of fun trying cookies and relaxing. The main idea was to share our favorite cookie recipes before all the Christmas and Hannukah baking begins. This way we can all add some new favorites into our cookie platters this year. We had a wide variety of cookies, and no duplicates! We were able to taste all the different types, and I e-mailed all the recipes to the participants so that they can use them all in the future. I also wanted to share all the recipes with you, and maybe get you excited for your holiday baking this year!

I apologize for the random blue lines at the bottom part of the post...I don't know where they came from, or how to get rid of them
Here 'goes:

Cranberry Cookies

½ C butter

1 C sugar

¾ C brown sugar, firmly packed

1 tsp vanilla

1/3 C Milk

1 egg

3 C sifted all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp baking soda

1 C mixed candied fruit, diced (optional)

1 Tbsp grated orange peel

2 ½ C fresh cranberries, coarsley chopped

½ C chopped nuts, optional

2 Tbsp orange juice

Cream butter, sugars and vanilla together. Beat in milk and egg. Sift and mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir into creamed mixture and blend well. Add candied fruit,

orange peel, and cranberries.

For each cookie, mound two level tablespoons on well greased cookie sheets. Space about 2 inches apart. Bake at 375 degrees for 15-18 minutes. Yields 3 ½ dozen.

Ricotta Cookies and White Butter Icing

Cookies:

½ Lb butter

1 C sugar

2 tsp vanilla

1 lb ricotta cheese

3 eggs

4 C flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together butter and sugar, then add next three ingredients, adding one egg at a time. Sift together flour, baking powder, and baking soda and add to butter mixture. Roll out and cut with cookie cutters, or drop by Tablespoons onto cookie

sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. You may ice the cookies if desired.

Icing

¼ lb butter

1 box confectioner's sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Mix together with mixer and add 1 teaspoon of milk at a time until proper consistency for spreading. If you like, tint small amounts of the icing with pink, green, yellow, etc. food coloring. Ice the cool cookies and dip them in coconut flakes or jimmies.

Honeyed Almond-Cherry Shortbread

For the macerated cherries

1 C dried cherries, roughly chopped

2 Tbsp dry sherry

1 Tbsp finely grated tangerine or orange zest

For the honeyed almonds

½ C honey

1 Oz. (2 Tbsp) unsalted butter

2 C lightly toasted sliced almonds

½ tsp coarse salt

½ tsp pure vanilla extract

For the cookie dough

8 Oz. (2 sticks) unsalted butter (softened)

¾ C confectioner's sugar

2 ¼ C all purpose flour

1 ¼ tsp coarse salt

Prepare macerated cherries: combine all ingredients in a medium bowl, and toss to combine. Let Stand for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Make the honeyed almonds: cook honey and butter in a medium

sauce-pan over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until fragrant and deep amber, about 5 minutes. Add almonds, salt, and vanilla. Stir to coat completely. Remove from heat, and spread on a parchment lined baking sheet. Let cool, about 30 minutes. Coarsely chop.

Make the dough: Beat butter and sugar with a mixer on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add macerated cherries, and mix until combined. Add flour and salt, and mix until dough comes together, about 1 minute. Add honeyed almonds, and mix until just combined.

Turn out dough onto a piece of parchment, and form into a 2 ½-by-16-inch rectangular log. Pressing edges with a ruler to shape. Wrap in parchment. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour or up to 2 days. Cut dough into 1/4-inch thick slices, and arrange on parchment lined baking sheets. Chill in refrigerator for 1 hour.

Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees. Bake until cookies are golden and set, 30-35 minutes. Let cook completely on baking sheets. Cookies can be stored at room temperature for up to 2 days.

Sugar Cookies

1 C unsalted butter, softened

1 C sugar

1 Tbsp vanilla

2 eggs

3 C flour

1 tsp salt

½ tsp baking soda

1 C sifted confectioner's sugar

2 Tbsp milk

multicolored nonpareils

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Blend in eggs and vanilla: mix well. Stir together flour, salt and baking soda; mix into sugar mixture until well blended. Chill 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Divide dough into quarters. Roll out one quarter on lightly floured surface to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into shapes and place onto cookie sheet.

Bake for 5-8 minutes or until cookies are barely browned at the edges. Cool on wire rack.

Mix together the confectioner's sugar and milk until smooth. Spread on cookies; sprinkle with nonpareils.

Lime Melt aways

¾ C unsalted butter, room temperature

1 C confectioner's sugar

finely grated zest of 2 limes

2 Tbsp fresh lime juice

1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract

1 ¾ C plus 2 Tbsp all purpose flour

2 Tbsp cornstarch

¼ tsp coarse salt

Put butter and 1/3 C confectioner's sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, and mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Add lime zest , juice, and vanilla, and mix until fluffy.

Whisk together flour, cornstarch, and salt in a bowl. Add to butter mixture, and mix on low speed until just combined.

Divide dough in half. Place each half on an 8-by-12-inch sheet of parchment paper. Roll in parchment to form a log 1 ¼ inches in diameter, pressing ruler along edge of parchment at each turn to narrow log. Refrigerate logs until cold and firm, at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove parchment from logs. Cut into 1/4-inch-thick rounds. Space rounds 1 inch apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake cookies until barely golden, about 13 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool slightly, 8-10 minutes. While still warm, toss cookies with remaining 2/3 C sugar in a resealable plastic bag. Cookies can be stored in airtight containers and room temperature up to 2 weeks.

Dulce De Leche Cookies

2 C all-purpose flour, sifted

¼ C confectioner's sugar, sifted, plus extra for dusting

½ tsp salt

1 C unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and softened

1 ½ C dulce de leche, at room temperature

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground cloves

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a food processor, combine flour, sugar, salt and butter. Pulse until dough comes together into a ball. If the dough is too sticky add a little more flour so that you can shape the soft dough into a ball. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20-30 minutes.

Sprinkle some flour onto your work surface and roll the dough 1/8 inch thick. Using a 2 inch round cookie cutter cut out the cookies and transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet. Bring the dough scraps together and gently press into a ball. Flour your work surface and re-roll the dough to 1/8 inch thick and cut out more rounds.

Bake the cookies until they are golden and firm, about 15-20 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely, about 25 minutes.

Place the dulce de leche in a small bowl and stir in the cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. Spread about 1 ½ tsp on the dulce de leche on the flat side of a cookie and sandwich with the flat side of another cookie. Place on a platter and dust with powdered sugar.

Ginger Snaps

1 C brown sugar

¾ C shortening

1 egg

¼ C light molasses

2 C flour

2 t baking soda

1 t ginger

1 t cinnamon

¼ t salt

¼ C quick oats

Cream shortening, and sugar. Stir in egg and molasses. Sift together the flour and spices. Blend these, together with the oats, into the creamed mixture. Chill until dough is easy to

handle. Shape into balls and roll in sugar. Place on a greased cookie sheet. Flatten with the bottom of a glass which as been dipped in sugar. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Makes about 4 dozen.

Butter Pecan Crescents

1 cup butter

6 T confectioners' sugar
1/2 t salt
2 cups sifted flour
1 cup chopped pecans
1 t vanilla
confectioners' sugar for dusting

sift flour once, measure and re sift w/salt. Cream butter until light & fluffy. Add conf. sugar & vanilla, blend well. Work in flour then add nuts. Roll into crescents and bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes. When cool, dust with conf. sugar.

Peanut Butter Candy Bars

MIX:
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 lb confectioners' sugar (2 cups)

ADD:
2 cups peanut butter (can use creamy or chunky)
1/2 lb melted butter

Mix all together and press into a 9 x 13 or 11x13 pan.

MELT:
1 (12 oz) bag chocolate chips* and 1 stick margarine

Can be melted in microwave or in a pan. Stir well, then pour over mixture in pan. Cool in refrigerator. Cut into 1 inch squares.

*May use a 6 oz pkg semi-sweet chips & a 6 oz pkg milk choc. chips.

Tastes like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

Butter Cookies

2 ½ sticks unsalted butter, softened

3 eggs

2 C sugar

1 tsp salt

3 C flour

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

Combine butter, eggs, sugar, and salt in a large bowl; stir with wooden spoon until smooth, about 1 minute. Combine 2 ¼ C of the flour and cinnamon in a medium bowl; add to butter mixture 1 cup at a time to make a soft, sticky dough. Sprinkle remaining ¾ cup of the flour on the counter; place dough on the flour. Knead, incorporating more flour just until dough is no longer sticky. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate 1 hour or overnight.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Remove dough from refrigerator; cut off a 2-inch piece. Re-wrap remaining dough and return to refrigerator. Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface to 1/8-in thickness. Cut shapes with cookie cutters. Transfer to parchment-lined baking sheets; bake until edges turn golden brown, 7-8 minutes per batch. Transfer cookies to wire wrack to cool. Repeat with remaining chilled dough.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 ½ C granulated sugar

½ C packed brown sugar

1/3 C unsalted butter

1/3 C shortening

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 ½ C all-purpose flour

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

½ C chopped nuts

16 oz chocolate chips

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees

Mix sugar, butter, shortening, egg and vanilla. Stir in remaining ingredients. Chill dough or drop by rounded teaspoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto greased cookie sheet. Bake until light brown, 8-10 minutes.

Cool slightly before removing from cookie sheet.

You may roll dough into a log, wrap in plastic wrap, and freeze for a month, baking as needed.

Oatmeal Fruit Cookies

½ C butter

½ C oil

1 C sugar

2 Tbsp honey or molasses

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla

2 ½ C rolled oats

1 ½ C whole wheat flour

1-1 ½ C diced dried fruit: cherries, blueberries, apricots, raisins, cranberries, currants

1 C grated coconut or nuts (chopped)

1 tsp baking soda

Pre heat oven to 325 degrees

In a a large bowl cream together butter, oil, sugar and honey or molasses until light and fluffy.

Beat in egg and vanilla.

Combine oats, flour, fruit, nuts or coconut, and baking soda in a separate bowl. Add to creamed mixture in 3 additions, stirring just until thoroughly mixed. Add a little extra flour if mixture seems too wet. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls on greased baking sheets.

Bake in preheated oven until just set, 18-20 minutes. Immediately remove from pans and place directly onto clean counter top or table surface. As soon as cookies are cook out into air-tight containers.

Wolverines

1 lb peanut butter

1 lb powdered sugar

2 c. graham crackers

1 tsp. vanilla

1 big bag chocolate chips

Cream the peanut butter and powdered sugar. Then add graham crackers and vanilla and mix. Form into balls, put a toothpick into the center of each one (this makes dipping easier later on) and place on parchment or wax paper in the fridge for at least a day. Once they are good and hard melt the chocolate chips and dip the bottom half of each ball into the chocolate. Place back on wax paper, remove toothpicks and refrigerate until chocolate hardens. Store in fridge.

Pre Thanksgiving Food

2009-11-24T08:47:00.002-06:00

Before any holiday that is centered around gluttony, I like to spend a few days making sure that I eat light and healthy. I usually don't even end up eating that much on holidays because I get full too fast, but I always intend to. I love food, and just thinking about all that comfort food in one place gets me to start thinking about the best strategy to be able to eat as much as possible in one meal. And then there's dessert. Oh the pies, cookies, and other random sweet treats gathered around the house. It's all too much for my food loving brain to bear! So anyways, the point is that this week I am making very light and simple dinners, so that if I happen to be able to eat as much as I want to on Thursday, I will not have to feel like a complete pig. Last night I made rice and beans. I used to make this a lot when I was in college because I was a vegetarian, and it is so cheap and easy to make. It is packed with veggies and is also really filling. It is not any sort of authentic rice and beans okay? It is just my own concoction of deliciousness, so don't be expecting Dominican Rice and Beans, or Cost Rican Rice and Beans. Those are all super delicious too, but that is not what I am talking about here.
All you will need is:
1 Tblsp olive oil
1 (15 oz) can of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 (15 oz) can of diced tomatoes, drained
1 small green pepper, chopped
1 half of a medium onion, chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
2 C cooked brown rice

Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Add onions, green pepper, and garlic. Stir to coat, and cook until tender. Add beans and tomatoes and cook until heated through. This should only take a few minutes.
Spoon bean mixture over the rice, and dig in. So easy, flavorful, and healthy. We usually have a little bit of the bean mixture left over, and it is great as a dip for tortilla chips or as a topping for many other things. Enjoy!

I plan to make hummus to eat tonight and tomorrow, also easy and healthy.

15 oz garbanzo beans or chick peas
2 tablespoons minced onion,
a few cloves of garlic, depending on how much you like-I add 3-4. You can add the garlic to the food processor whole, no need to mince it ahead of time.
7 tablespoons of lemon juice
a few teaspoons of good quality olive oil, (if you do not have good oil, just leave it out)
2 tablespoons of tahini.
Throw everything in your food processor and pulse until it is smooth. You can top it with fresh parsley if you want to. This will just add some color and a nice boost of flavor. Serve with fresh pita bread, carrot sticks and cucumber slices. Yum!

What are you pre-holiday eating strategies? Eat more or eat less? I am curious.

The Accidental Cookie

2009-11-18T15:48:00.006-06:00

I made these cookies completely on accident. I know, I know it makes no sense, unless you know me and how oblivious I can some times be. Then, it makes perfect sense. I was really trying to make the cookies on the neighboring page of my Simply In Season Cookbook. One of our favorite types-Oatmeal and fruit cookies. I still have to loosely refer to the recipe because I don't have a great memory and I have only made them a few times. I start throwing ingredients into a bowl according to the page that I am reading, and in the back of my brain is a voice saying "this does not seem right". Finally I take a step back and realize that I am in the process of making Sunflower Chip Cookies instead. These sounded pretty great too, and I happened to have everything on hand so I pressed 0n. They are delicious, and since they have only whole wheat flour, and only brown sugar, I keep telling myself that they are healthy, and a great source of protein too! This may or may not be true, but I am sticking with it! I am now addicted to these cookies, and have eaten almost all of them. Tim likes them, but thinks they are "too nutty". I still keep catching him with his hand in the cookie jar, so he must like them a little bit! :-)

Sunflower Chip Cookies
*recipe from Simply In Season pg 314

3/4 C Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 C Wheat Germ
1/2 t Baking Soda
2 T Dry Milk Powder
1/2 C Butter, softened
1/2 C Brown Sugar
1 Egg
1/2 t Vanilla
1 C Chocolate Chips (or substitute raisins)
1/2 C Roasted Sunflower Seeds
1/2 C Chopped Peanuts

pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees
Mix together the flour, wheat germ, milk powder, and baking soda. Set aside.
Cream together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in egg and vanilla. Stir in dry ingredients.
Stir in the chocolate chips (or raisins), sunflower seeds, and peanuts. drop by rounded teaspoons on a greased baking sheet, and bake for 8-12 minutes.
Easy and delicious, and if you ask me-healthy! I even had one after breakfast one day :-0

Mashed Potato and Black Bean Burritos

2009-11-04T19:13:00.005-06:00

One of my favorite restaurants, Irazu-a Costa Rican restaurant in Wicker Park, has an interesting vegetarian taco flavor. Mashed potato. Ever since the first time I went there I have wanted to try these tacos because it was such a unique idea to me. I finally ordered them a couple of months ago, and was not disappointed at all. It is simply plain mashed potatoes inside a taquito style shell. Nothing super flavorful, but simple and satisfying.
This week I was shopping for sweet potatoes to make a dish that is a staple in our house-sweet potato and black bean burritos. All of the sweet potatoes at our produce market were really gross, and my mind immediately went to the mashed potato tacos from Irazu. "Why not sub in mashed potatoes for the sweet potato cubes?" I thought. And so, I left with a gigantic 8 pound bag of baking potatoes (it was on sale for $1.50 and I am sucker for a good bargain!). I knew I would have to add a lot more seasoning than I normally do with the sweet potatoes because, let's face it...baking potatoes are just kind of bleh on their own. My result was a creamy, delicious burrito that leaves you feeling pretty full and has a touch of comfort food as a result of the mashed potatoes. Perfect for a cold winter, or fall, night.

Mashed Potato and Black Bean Burritos

6 small baking potatoes
cumin
chili powder
garlic salt
cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter
1 large (28 oz) can of black beans, rinsed and drained
1 15 0z can of diced tomatoes, drained
1 C grated sharp cheddar cheese
8 burrito size tortillas

Peel and halve about 6 small baking potatoes. Place them in a large pot and fill with enough water to cover the potatoes. Cover, bring to a boil, and simmer until potatoes are easily poked with a knife or fork. This should take about 10 minutes.
Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.
Use a hand mixer to blend mashed potatoes and butter. You want the potatoes to be significantly more dry than normal mashed potatoes because they are going to be mixed with a lot of other things. You don't want them to get too rich and over-power the dish. Add in some cumin, chili powder, cinnamon, and garlic salt to taste. I do not have exact measurements for this, but do it according to the flavors you like. Add some, mix it up, taste, repeat. You want the potatoes to be pretty well seasoned to provide a good base for all of the other ingredients.
You also want to cook your black beans before adding them to the burritos. After they have been rinsed simply throw them in a pan and cook them until they are heated through.
Spray a baking dish with cooking spray. Lay a tortilla flat and spread a thin layer of mashed potatoes in the center. Top with a scoop of black beans, then a scoop of diced tomatoes, then some cheese. Roll of the tortilla and place it in the baking dish, seam side down. Repeat this with the remaining ingredients. Put your burritos in the oven and cook for 30 minutes.
Take them out and allow them to cool for about 5 minutes.
This is an all-in-one meal, no need for any accompaniments, but if you want something else, stick with some good quality tortilla chips and some fresh salsa. This is a very heavy meal, so keep everything else simple.
Enjoy!

Basic Biscuits

2009-11-03T08:04:00.002-06:00

Tim loves bread. Shawna loves soup. I look forward to the colder months so that I can live off of soup. Tim has a black hole for a stomach and cannot quite wrap his brain around the idea of soup being his whole meal. So, out of guilt, I decided to make him some biscuits to go along with our soup. This seems to make him feel better about the meal, and I feel like I can enjoy my soup without worrying whether Tim is still starving. What a relief!
I believe the first round that I made were cheddar cheese biscuits with a hearty broccoli soup. Tim loved this. Last night I made lentil soup. Tim is not crazy about this soup because he thinks it is boring. I knew he was gonna need some biscuits to get through that meal! I made a basic biscuit recipe and just added a tablespoon, maybe a little more, of sour cream to the dough. This made them super moist. They spread a bit more while baking, so they were thinner than normal, but I thought they were really delicious. Tim also liked them, but thought that I should add both sour cream and cheese next time...can you tell the boy has Wisconsin in his blood???

Here is the basic biscuit recipe:
*from America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book Pg 27

2 C all-purpose flour
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1 t sugar
3/4 t salt
1 C butter milk -see note below-it will make your life easier
8 T (1 stick) melted butter, slightly cooled

*note* If you do not have buttermilk on hand, you can make soured milk out of 1 C of milk, 1 T lemon juice, and 1 T white vinegar. Let this stand at room temperature for 10 minutes at which point it should be thickened. I usually don't keep buttermilk in the house, so I find this to be really helpful.

If you want cheesy biscuits just add enough grated cheese so that it looks like it is evenly spread throughout the dough. I think I probably used a cup of grated cheddar cheese, but I didn't measure, so you should add a little bit at a time, stir, keep adding until it looks like you have enough. I am very precise, aren't I? :-)

If you want the sour cream biscuits add about a tablespoon of sour cream into your dough, and leave a little extra space in between biscuits on the cookie sheet because they spread more than the normal ones.

Adjust oven rack the center slot and pre-heat oven to 475 degrees. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray of line with parchment paper.
Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt together in a large bowl. In a separate bowl mix butter and buttermilk together until the butter starts to form small clumps. Stir the buttermilk mixture and the flour mixture together just until incorporated. You don't want to over-mix or your biscuits will be tough.
Use a greased 1/4 C measure to scoop dough onto cookie sheet. Bake until the tops are golden brown and crisp, 12-14 minutes. Rotate the pan halfway through baking.
Serve warm.

Sorry I don't have any pictures of these!

Seared Steaks with Caramelized Onions and Gorgonzola

2009-10-27T20:52:00.005-05:00

One day, a couple of years ago, I was surprised with an issue of Eating Well, addressed to me, in my mailbox. I never signed up for the subscription but by some happy accident I ended up with a two year subscription. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it, and sometimes go back and re-read the issues. Yes, I know, I have a bit of an addiction to anything food related. hey, at least it's not heroin :-) Anyways...........I happened upon this recipe for seared steaks and was instantly drawn in. As a former vegetarian, I do not always get super excited about red meat. I do, however, love a good steak once in a blue moon. I also love, love, LOVE Gorgonzola. Tim is not a fan of pungent cheese, but he went along with the operation due to the fact that it was on top of a big, fat, juicy, steak. This steak was delicious, yet simple. Elegantly served on a bed of caramelized onions, how can you go wrong? I served this with a very simple salad of spring greens, avocado slices, and heirloom tomatoes. Yum!

Seared Steaks with Caramelized Onions and Gorgonzola
*recipe from Eating Well December 2008. Pg 22

2 Tablespoons canola oil
2 Large onions, sliced
1 Tablespoon brown sugar (I may have added more than that...Tim made me do it!)
1/2 Cup reduced sodium beef broth (I used chicken broth because that's what I had on hand...still wonderful!)
1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 pound beef tenderloin (fillet mignon, or sirloin steak, about 1 inch thick),trimmed and cut into 4 steaks
1/4 Cup Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled

Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add brown sugar and onions and cook, stirring often, until brown and very tender. This should take 15 minutes. Add broth, vinegar, and 1/4 teaspoon salt and continue to cook until liquid is almost evaporated, about 3-4 minutes. Keep warm.

season both sides of the steaks with salt and pepper. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the steaks and cook until browned, 3-5 minutes. Turn them over and top with the cheese. Cook until cheese is melted and the steaks are the desired done-ness. This will be another 3-5 minutes for medium-rare. Serve the steaks with the caramelized onions.

Eating well is also kind enough to provide nutritional information for all of their recipes. Here is the info for this one:
338 calories, 16 G fat, 69 MG cholesterol, 11 G Carbohydrates, 36 G protein, 2 G Fiber, 468 MG sodium, 565 MG potassium.

Cinnamon Toffee Apple Pie Squares

2009-10-07T11:30:00.005-05:00

Wednesday is my favorite day of the week for the simple reason that on that day, I get to read the Good Eating section of the Tribune. I love the Good Eating Section. This recipe came from September 23rd's Good Eating. It is clear that the writers over there at the Trib are in full holiday mindset, and this recipe is a true Fall delight. I am hoping to make this again for Thanksgiving. Be prepared that this is no quick and easy recipe. It requires time, and a lot of peeled, cored, and sliced apples but it is so worth it. For someone who finds joy in the process of creating a beautiful and delicious dessert, this recipe is perfect. There is a thick crust on the bottom that wraps up the sides, a streusel top, and pounds of apples in the middle. This filling is simple, with just a bit of sugar and lemon added to highlight the flavor of the apples. The only thing that I changed was that I omitted the pecans in the streusel and used a cup of oatmeal instead. I am not a huge fan of the texture that pecans add to baked goods, but if you are a pecan lover go ahead and keep them, I am sure they add a delicious flavor. I know that if I am ever making these for my father-in-law, the pecans will be a must. For me though, the toffee added enough crunch while the oatmeal smoothed everything out. I also dusted the top with cinnamon to add some extra color.

Crust:

3 Cups all purpouse Flour
3/4 teaspoon Baking Powder
3/4 teaspoon Salt
1 Cup Vegetable Shortening, frozen and cut into small bits
2 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter, very cold and cut into small bits
1/2 Cup Water
3 Large Egg Yolks (don't throw the whites away-you can freeze them in ice cube trays and thaw them when you need them)
1.5 teaspoons Lemon Juice

Cinnamon Toffee Streusel

1 Cup Pecan Halves
1 Cup All Purpouse Flour
1/3 Cup Brown Sugar
pinch Salt
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/3 Cup Unsalted Butter, very cold and cut into small bits
1/2 of an 8 oz package of Toffee Bits

Filling:

4 Pounds Mixed Apples (Granny Smith, Golden Delicious) peeled, cored, sliced
1.5 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
1 C Granulated Sugar
3 Tablespoons Minute Tapioca
Grated Zest of 1/2 Lemon
1/4 teaspoon Salt

For the crust:
Put flour, baking powder and salt in to a food processor and process until well mixed
Sprinkle in shortening and cold butter and pulse until mixture resembles course crumbs.

Mix water, egg yolks and lemon juice in a small bowl. Sprinkle over flour mixture and process just until the dough gathers into a ball. Do not over-mix or the dough will become tough. Transfer to a large sheet of waxed paper and flatten into a large disc. Wrap and refigerate for about 30 minutes.

Roll the dough out to a rectangle that measures about 12 X 16 inches. Place the dough in a greased 9 X 13 pan and press it to make it even along the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Refrigerate.

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.

For Streusel:
Put pecans in food processor and chop coursely. Transfer to a bowl. Add flour, brown sugar, salt, and cinnamon to the food processor. Process to mix. Add the butter and pulse until mixture resembles course crumbs. Add to pecans Stir in toffee bits. Squeeze mixture into small clumps and set aside.

For Filling:

Put apples into a large bowl. Toss with lemon juice to coat. Stir in the sugar, tapioca, lemon rind and salt. Mix well.

Take your pan with crust out of the refrigerator and evenly spread apple mixture over the crust. Top with streusel to completely cover the apples. Bake for 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake until top and crust are brown, about 40 minutes. Place pan on a wire rack to cool, and serve when barely warm.

Butternut Squash? In Chili?

2009-10-06T09:31:00.002-05:00

Tim was craving chili and cornbread last week. Some one told him they were having it for dinner, and he immediately wanted some for himself. That same night, I talked to my sister on the phone and she said that she had just made her favorite chili recipe. She didn't know where it came from but that it was scribbled on a piece of notebook paper with a recipe for meatloaf on the other side. Those are the best kinds of recipes. So, she e-mailed it to me, and I used her base recipe to create a colorful, veggie-packed chili that was hearty but not overly meat-filled. I am not a huge fan of ground beef, so I usually make turkey chili but this one had enough other flavors in it that the beef was more of a compliment than a focal point. It helped that I had a lot of vegetables in my fridge begging to be eaten, but from now on, I will purposely buy them when I am making chili. Feel free to sub-in any veggies that you have, chili can be an experiment, that way it won't get boring!

1 lb Ground Beef (I used just under a pound which worked well when I added in all the extras) cooked, drained
2 (15 Oz.) cans of chili beans
2 large Green Peppers, Chopped
1 Medium Onion, Chopped
4 Celery Ribs, Chopped
3-4 large cherry tomatoes or small roma tomatoes, diced
1 Red Pepper, Chopped
1 Small Butternut Squash, peeled, cubed, pre-cooked (directions in recipe)
1 (8 Oz) Can of Tomato Sauce
1 envelope Chili Seasoning
3 Cloves of Garlic, Minced
1 (8 oz) package of Macaroni Noodles, cooked and drained
Cheddar Cheese, grated
Salt, Pepper

Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees.
Start with your butternut squash because this is the most time consuming part of the whole process. Cut off the top and the bottom with a sharp knife. Use a sharp vegetable peeler to get all of the skin off. Cut up the squash into small cubes. Spray a cookie sheet with olive oil, or other cooking spray. lay squash in the cookie sheet in a single layer and season with salt. Cook in a 400 degree oven for 12 minutes. Set aside.

While the squash is cooking, brown your meat and prepare all of your other veggies. Throw everything (squash last) except the macaroni, cheese, and salt and pepper into the crock pot. Add the squash last so that you can see how much you think you need. I probably added half of a pretty large squash. That was a perfect amount, but I just eye-balled it until it looked like it had a good ratio of ingredients. You can keep the rest of the squash in your fridge and use it with another meal because all the hard work is already done! Hurray!

Now that you have everything in the pot, turn it to low and let it cook for 6 hours. If you are using macaroni, stir it in after the cooking time is complete. I decided to leave the macaroni out just because there were already so many other things in this chili, I thought it may be too heavy. But, I do love chili mac, maybe I will try it next time. Season it with salt and pepper, and grate some sharp cheddar (or regular cheddar if you prefer) over the top of each bowl. Serve it by itself or with some good bread. Tim always needs to have cornbread with honey if he is having chili, but any hearty bread with some soft butter would do. Hope you enjoy it!

Rustic Plum Cake

2009-09-23T18:11:00.003-05:00

For my birthday I received several baking related books from my family. One of those books was America's Test Kitchen's Family Baking Book. The thing that I really like about this book is that it tells you the best way to bake, mix, roll, etc, and then they tell you why it is the best way. Their job is to experiment and find out what the best way to make the perfect baked good is and then share it with their readers. Isn't that awesome? I think it is. I feel like I am learning something and therefore my baking is productive somehow :-)

The first recipe that I chose to make from this book was a Rustic Plum Cake. It struck me because it is not your average, run-of-the-mill cake. It is a sweet almond cake with cooked plums on top. It is just sweet enough, but not too sweet. We brought it over to share with some friends for dessert. We each had 2 pieces and it was gone within a half hour. Let me tell you something: I NEVER eat two pieces of cake. Okay. This cake is good. Do you get it? It would be great with some vanilla ice cream too. Something to remember for the future, I guess.

Rustic Plum Cake

*Recipe from America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book Page 324

Makes one 9-inch round cake

3 Tablespoons Brandy (see note below)
2 Tablespoons seedless raspberry jam
1 Lb Italian plums, halved and pitted
3/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
1/3 Cup Slivered almonds
3/4 Cup All purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon Baking powder
1/4 teaspoon Salt
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces and softened
1 Large Egg, room temperature
1 Large Egg Yolk, room temperature
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract

*1 Tablespoon of water can be substituted for the brandy

Cook the brandy and jam together in a non-stick skillet over medium heat until it becomes a thick syrup. This should take 2 minutes. Remove skillet from the heat and place plums, skin side up, in the syrup. Return the skillet to medium heat and cook until the plums have released their juices and the syrup is thickened. This should take about 5 minutes. Let the plums cool in the skillet while you prepare the cake batter.

Adjust an oven rack to the center of the oven and pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9-inch spring form pan.

Place the granulated sugar and the almonds in a food processor and process until finely ground. Add flour, baking powder, and salt and pulse to combine. Sprinkle the butter pieces over the top and pulse until the mixture resembles course sand. Add egg, egg yolk, vanilla, and almond extracts and process until smooth.

Scrape the batter into your springform pan. Stir the plums around in the skillet to coat them with syrup. Spoon the plums over the batter, skin side down. I added a little of the jam mixture along with the plums, but the original recipe does not say to do this. I just felt it added a little more flavor to the top of the cake. Bake the cake 40-50 minutes,rotating the pan halfway through, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Run a paring knife around the edge of the cake to loosen it. Let the cake cool completely in the pan, about 2 hours. Remove the sides of the pan and transfer the cake to a serving platter. Beware, the cake will be sticky and difficult to remove from the spring form bottom, so be gentle with it.

Birthday Cake

2009-09-22T16:24:00.003-05:00

My Birthday was on Saturday. To celebrate we went out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants-Mana in Wicker Park-We had a nice, filling but light dinner and then came home for a decadent birthday cake. I of course picked a light dinner place on purpose because dessert is always way more important in my book.

A few months ago, I saw that Smitten Kitchen had posted a recipe for Espresso Chiffon Cake with Fudge Frosting . I immediately e-mailed the link to Tim and told him that I wanted this cake for my birthday. I was of course expecting that I would be making the cake, as I am the baker in the family. But, Tim offered to make it for me. He spent a good portion of his Saturday in a hot kitchen making this cake. He did a great job. This cake is rich with obvious flavors of dark rum, dark coffee, and sweet chocolate. How can you go wrong? Be prepared though, this cake is rich and very, very sweet. We had 6 people over for dessert on Saturday, and only half of the cake disappeared. You have to eat a small piece and savor every bite, otherwise it will just be overwhelming.
I do highly recommend this cake, and I will be making this in the future for sure!

Peanut Butter for a Good Cause?

2009-09-13T20:14:00.003-05:00

Tim and I are city dwellers and as a result we are constantly seeing people who are poor and hungry. It is impossible to ignore, and it is wrong to turn a blind eye to these people. I always feel helpless when I am sitting at a stop light and a man is walking from car to car begging for change. I never have any readily available money in my car, and honestly, I don't feel like my giving him a spare 15 cents is going to do him a whole lot of good. But, I do have a deep desire to do something that will help them, if even temporarily. Since I have a job that requires me to be driving for a good part of the work day, I think that I see this type of thing more regularly than a lot of other people do. What I have decided to do is pack a few peanut butter sandwiches in my car every day. This way, I have something handy to grab and hand to the person on the other side of my car door. I hope that these sandwiches will be a blessing to these people, and that they will satisfy their hunger for a time. I will use whole wheat bread so that the sandwiches will be a good source of protein and fiber. I am wondering how others of you have responded to these types of situations, and if you have any other ideas on how I should respond. I hope you will tell me if you have had any creative ideas in helping others in need. I hope to make this a long term commitment. I know it is small, but at least it is something.

Brown Sugar and Bacon Waffles

2009-08-22T16:29:00.005-05:00

Tim's favorite type of food in the world is breakfast food. He has actually requested that we do breakfast for dinner once a week. He LOVES breakfast! I knew ahead of time that we would be having breakfast for dinner last night, and was not in the mood for plain old pancakes or waffles. I started to think of what I could add to make the batter a little more exciting and the usual suspects of fresh fruit or chocolate chips just weren't doing much for me at that point. We had some turkey bacon in the fridge and I thought "why not put it in the batter instead of eating it on the side?" I ran this idea by Tim. He seemed a bit unsure, but up to the experiment. He is used to me getting random food combination ideas throughout the day, this is just how my brain works. This turned out to be really delicious. We have some work to do on translating our pancake batter to waffle batter, but everything else was perfect. For my pancakes I use a from-scratch mixture that you make ahead in bulk. This is easy because it is not any more work than using out-of-the-box mixtures, but tastes so so so SO much better. This is something Tim learned when he married me. He had never experience real pancakes before. He thought the boxed stuff was good and had no desire to try anything else, and then I fed him real pancakes and he knew he could never go back. If you are one of these people who normally eat pancakes that come from a pre-made mixture, please stop doing that. You are settling for sub-par pancakes. I will put the recipe that I use below in this post, I hope you will try it.

In order to transform your plain pancakes or waffles into Bacon and Brown Sugar goodness, do this:

Cook and crumble about 1/3 Cup of bacon. Turkey or Pork Bacon will work for this. Add this to your batter.

Add about 2 heaping tablespoons of brown sugar, some cinnamon, and a tablespoon of maple syrup to the batter. If you have real maple syrup, that is preferred, but you can use the fake stuff too. We did. We are cheap. Stir this up and carry on like you normally would.

Delicious. Not too sweet. Sweet enough, for sure. Add some butter, maybe some syrup if you prefer some extra sweetness, and dig in.

Basic Pancake Mix:
*Taken from: More-With-Less by Doris Janzen Longacre

for 2 lbs of pancake mix:

combine in a large bowl:
6 C flour
1 tablespoon Salt
6 tablespoons Baking Powder
6 tablespoons Granulated Sugar
2 C Powdered Milk

Mix well and store in an airtight container. When you are ready to use it, combine in large bowl:

1 egg (beaten first)
1 C Water
2 tablespoons Oil
1.5 C Pancake Mix

This will serve 3-4 people.

I replaced 1/6 of the white flour with soy flour to add some protein. Another option is to substitute 1/3 of the white flour with buckwheat flour, whole wheat flour, oatmeal, or rye flour along with cornmeal.

Almond Cream Croissants

2009-08-22T16:08:00.003-05:00

I got the idea for this recipe from a Tasty Kitchen subscriber named Onesassy.
I did make her Nutella Croissants and those were a huge hit. I was making a large number of these though and I wanted to add some variety. I had some cream cheese in my fridge and figured I could use that as a base for my other filling. We love almond extract in this family, so that was my first thought. I added about a teaspoon and a half of almond extract, along with about 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar to 4 ounces of softened cream cheese. It turned out great. It was very simple, and the flavor of the cream cheese still came through with a perfect after taste of almond. Yum! I will continue to experiment with flavors, but the Nutella and the Almond Cream are both keepers.

For the Croissants:

Use refrigerated croissant rolls, such as Pillsbury. If you are really ambitous make your own, but what is nice about these is how quick and easy they are. Each tube has 8 croissants in it.

Unroll the croissants and separate them into individual pieces. Add a tablespoon of filling to each and roll up like you normally would do. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 13-15 minutes-until just golden brown on top.
One container of Nutella was enough for 16 rolls and the 4 ounces of cream cheese was enough for 16 rolls. I used less than a tablespoon per roll of the cream cheese filling in order to make it go as far as I did, but eyeball it. This is not an exact science, there is definitely creative freedom allowed here.

Here are some pictures to highten your interest even more:

Blueberry Boy Bait

2009-08-17T16:54:00.007-05:00

I found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen's Blog. I immediately bookmarked it, and then, like I do with most recipes that I excitedly bookmark, I forgot about it for a while. This past weekend however I needed desserts for 2 separate occasions, and this fresh, unique cake popped into my mind. I was completely confident that it would be delicious, so I made two and used the same kind of cake for both events. I am glad that I made this decision because simply doubling this recipe was way less work than making two completely separate desserts, and it was delicious, so Tim and I did not mind eating it Saturday night and then again on Sunday afternoon. I used frozen blueberries because the ones at our local fruit market were not great this week. The frozen-ness did not affect the cake in any way. It was still perfect.

Blueberry Boy Bait

What you will need:

2 Cups plus 1 teaspoon all purpose flour
1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
1 Teaspoon Salt
2 Sticks of Unsalted Butter, Softened
3/4 Cup Light Brown Sugar
3/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
3 Large Eggs
1 Cup Whole Milk-I used nonfat powdered milk (mixed with water), because that is all I had and it did not seem to make a difference. The consistency seemed perfect to me.
1 Cup Blueberries
1/2 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 350 and place the rack in the middle of the oven. Grease a 13x9 cake pan.

Mix 2 Cups of flour, baking soda and salt together. Set aside. In a mixer bowl combine butter, 1/2 Cup granulated sugar and all of the brown sugar. Cream until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each. Add one third of th flour mixture, mix, then half of the milk, mix, then another third of the flour mixture, mix, the rest of the milk, mix, and the rest of the flour mixture, mix. In a separate bowl, mix 1/2 C of the blueberries with the remaining teaspoon of flour, and gently fold these, by hand, into the batter. Pour batter into your prepared pan.

For the topping scatter the remaining half cup of blueberries on top of the batter. Mix 1/4 Cup of sugar with the cinnamon and sprinkle this mixture on top of the berries. Bake 40-50 minutes (smitten kitchen says 45-50, but 45 was too long in my oven and I ended up with burnt edges. If your oven runs hot, try 40 minutes, and then check with a toothpick or clean knife) until toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. If you desire a little extra decadence, serve with french vanilla ice cream. yum!

These are the burnt ends that I cut off of the cake. They are still tasty, they just look ugly, so I cut them off and snacked on them myself :-)

A few Developments

2009-08-12T16:40:00.003-05:00

Vanilla Cranberry Shortbread

Last week I had a sudden urge to make some cookies. I haven't baked too much this summer because I don't like having the oven on any more than I need to when it is hot out, but Tim and I were both craving cookies, so I figured I'd better do something. Tim tried to remedy his craving a few weeks ago by making some good old fashioned chocolate chippers but he failed miserably. This only made him want good cookies even more. So, I went ahead and turned to what is probably my favorite type of cookie:shortbread. Pioneer Woman had also devoted a few posts to shortbread cookies and their versatility last week which only enhanced my cravings. She has some great ideas, so if craisins and vanilla are not your poison of choice, I bet that you can find something in her arsenal that would work for you. I whipped together a basic shortbread recipe, which consists of: 2 sticks of butter (if you use unsalted add some salt to the batter), 1 cup of granulated sugar, 2 cups of white flour, 1 cup of corn or potato starch. I added about a teaspoon of REAL (please use real, your friends will know if you don't) vanilla extract and a couple of small handfulls of Craisins. It was pure deliciousness. If you like shortbread, but have never made it you should do it once, because you will see just how easy it is, and you should have all of the ingredients that you need on-hand already. That is of course unless you don't habitually buy butter in mass quantities like I do. Then you may need to go out and get a package. But if you're like me and you feel the need to buy 4 packages of butter every time you are at the store, then you should be all set. Another great thing about shortbread: you can eat the dough raw because there are no eggs in it :-)
I have no pictures of these because I brought them along on a hiking trip and since they are so fragile, the leftovers were reduced to crumbs. Delicious, but not photographable.

Red Pepper Hummus:

This may not seem exciting to you but it was to me. I made hummus for dinner Monday night because I had some dental work done that afternoon and knew I would be needing to eat something soft for dinner. While I love hummus, it is a staple in our house, so it can become something similar to baked chicken or spaghetti. Yummy but somehow, boring. I had a revelation though-I decided to add some new flavor to our basic hummus recipe. All I did was add a little extra garlic, onion, and 1 small red pepper to the mix. It was so good that Tim has been saying how he wished there was more of it all week! Something so simple makes a mundane dinner way more exciting. We had it with the usual adornments-cucumbers, carrots, green pepper, black olives, and of course, toasted pita. In case you don't have a go-to hummus recipe, try this one:
15 oz garbanzo beans or chick peas, 2 tablespoons minced onion, a few cloves of garlic, depending on how much you like-I add 3-4. You can add the garlic to the food processor whole, no need to mice it ahead of time. 7 tablespoons of lemon juice a few teaspoons of good quality olive oil, (if you do not have good oil, just leave it out) and 2 tablespoons of tahini. Throw everything in your food processor and pulse until it is smooth. You can top it with fresh parsley if you want to. This will just add some color and a nice boost of flavor.

In other news, I saw Julie & Julia last night. It was such a fun movie, full of delicious looking food. It will make you hungry so have some popcorn handy! If you are a food-lover you will definitely enjoy the show!

Mexican Stuffed Peppers

2009-08-10T19:18:00.008-05:00

I love stuffed peppers, but most of the time they are way too heavy for me-especially in the summer. This recipe is great because they are totally vegetarian, they are super healthy, and they have a very unique flavor that you don't necessarily expect from stuffed peppers. These are not your Mom's stuffed peppers, that's for sure (although my Mom has made this recipe and enjoyed it thoroughly) Vegetarians and carnivores alike will love this hearty, protein-filled meal. Like many of my other posts, this one is from Simply In Season which is one of my absolute favorite cookbooks. If you like to find unique ways to use in season produce, this book is a must-have. Sorry for the shameless plug, but I could not live without this cookbook!

What you will need:
4 green, red, orange, or yellow bell peppers (I used 2 red, 1 orange, and one yellow just for visual appeal)
1/3 Cup chopped onion
1 jalapeno pepper (minced after seeds removed)-I left this out because I have very low tolerance for spice, I am sure it adds some good flavor if you like a kick though!
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Cups chopped tomatoes
2 Tblsp chopped, fresh parsley
1 Tblsp Fresh oregano
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1 bay leaf
2 Cups corn
1.5 Cups cooked black beans
1/4 Cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (please don't try to substitute the kind from the can. I beg you, it is just not the same)

What you need to do:

I suggest that you prepare all vegetables (rinse/cut/drain/etc) at the beginning, that way they are all ready to go when you need them.

As you can see, I used canned corn and canned black beans. It's okay to use convenience foods sometimes.

Cut Peppers 1/2 inch from the top and discard stem and seeds

Steam whole peppers in 1 inch of boiling water until tender. This will take about 5 minutes. Remove peppers from water and set aside.

In a large skillet saute onion and garlic in oil. Add tomatoes, jalapeno, parsley, oregano, cumin, salt and bay leaf and cook for about five minutes, until everything is tender.

Add the corn and black beans and simmer for 10 more minutes.. Place peppers in an oven-proof baking dish so that they are standing upright. Stuff with filling and add extra filling around the side or in between the peppers. The extra filling makes a great dip for tortilla chips! Cover with grated Parmesan cheese and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

mmmm....mmmmmm...mmmmmmmmmmmm.
*adapted from Simply In Season Pg 130. Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert

Apple Cheesecake Burritos

2009-07-27T15:53:00.010-05:00

I know what you're thinking: cheesecake burritos? Gross/weird/why/etc. I thought the same thing when Tim proudly announced that this was the dessert that he wanted for his birthday this year. He had never tried them, but after reading through the ingredients, thought they sounded tasty, and oh boy was he right. It is well documented that Tim's all-time favorite dessert is Apple Pie. He does, however have an adventurous spirit, and loves to experiment with things, so he tends to enjoy several variations on the standard, all-American version. He is not loyal to apple pie in it's original form, only to the apples, butter, sugar, and cinnamon. There are so many places you can go with this, and that is why every year for his birthday, and on a lot of other occasions, he gets a dessert of his choice, and he always picks some form of apple pie. I do not remember him ever requesting a standard apple pie; always something a little quirky, and a little surprising. A pie just like him. This recipe, like several others on this blog, comes from Apple Pie Perfect, and it is in the Pie On The Fringes Category.

Here is what you will need for this culinary adventure:

3 Oz Cold Cream Cheese
1 Tblsp Granulated Sugar
1 tsp Lemon Juice
2 Whole Graham Crackers
2 Tblsp Firmly Packed Brown Sugar
1/4 tsp Cinnamon (omit if using cinnamon grahams)
1 Tblsp Unsalted Butter
1 Golden Delicious or Other Firm Baking Apple, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2-inch chunks
Two 8- or 9-inch flour tortillas

Glaze:
1 Tblsp Unsalted Butter, Softened
Granulated Sugar

Put the cream cheese on a small plate and mash with a fork. Add the granulated sugar and lemon juice and mix well. Refrigerate.

Break up the graham crackers into crumbs. You can use a rolling pin or a food processor. I just used my hands and it worked just fine. I like to have some texture in my food.

Put the crumbs in a medium bowl and add brown sugar and cinnamon. mix well and set aside.

Melt butter in a medium sized skillet. Add the apples and cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until heated through and crunchy (not smooshy). This should take about two minutes.

Add the apples, getting all of the butter from the pan, into the bowl with the graham cracker crumbs. Mix well and set aside.

Preheat the broiler.

Warm one of the tortillas in the skillet for a couple of minutes. Just until it is flexible. Remove the tortilla from the pan and lay it flat. Spread half of the cream cheese mixture in the center, leaving room around the edges so that it does not ooze out when you roll it up. Spoon half of the apple mixture on top of the cream cheese.

Roll it up like a burrito and repeat with the second tortilla and the remaining fillings.

Place the burritos in a shallow, buttered baking dish with the seam side down. Smear softened butter and sugar on the top. I actually omitted the granulated sugar topping and used some extras from the graham cracker/cinnamon/brown sugar mixture as the topping. This was really good.

I love brown sugar.

Broil burritos (about 2-inches from broiler) for 2 minutes until the tops are golden brown. Watch them to make sure that they don't burn.

Cut in half diagonally before serving.

You may notice that there is a high tortilla-to-filling ratio. I was nervous about this when I first cut them open. I ended up being grateful for the extra tortilla though, because without it these may have entered into the "too sweet" category. Extra tortilla made it perfect.

The book did not specify whether to eat them warm or cold. We ate them cold, thinking that since it was cheesecake-like it may be gross warm. I think we made the right choice.

This makes 2-4 servings depending on whether you want to eat a whole burrito or half of a burrito. We split each burrito in half, and that ended up being good because they are very sweet, and half was just the right amount. It also made them last a whole extra day! I won't judge you if you eat a whole one though. Promise.

Greek Tomato Salad

2009-07-21T20:15:00.006-05:00

This salad was so refreshing after a week long vacation. In the past week I feel like I have eaten mass amounts of grease at every meal, and my diet was lacking good fresh food. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed every bit of grease that I consumed, but after a while I start to crave something healthy. While making this salad I was reminded of my Grandma. She was an amazing cook, who even wrote two cookbooks, but she used to make a great salad that was a staple at every meal that she hosted. The ingredients were different from this, but it was simple and versatile just like this one. This salad could accompany any number of entrees because of it's simplicity. It's bright colors also add a beautiful element to any meal! You know I am a sucker for pretty food :-) I upped the amount of garlic from one clove to three. I thought it was perfect, but this would definitely be too much for someone who does not LOVE garlic. I did not use the green pepper, only because our market did not have any good ones this week. It was good without it, but in the future, when possible, I will add it to have some extra crunch in there. I also only peeled half of the tomatoes because frankly, peeling tomatoes is slimy, messy, and just not very fun. I had a band-aid on my finger after the first tomato. It didn't seem to make a difference one way or the other, so I think in the future I will leave the skin on. It has a lot of the nutrients in it after all!

*Recipe from Simply In Season

Combine in a large bowl:
8 medium Tomatoes (peeled and sliced)
1 medium Onion (thinly sliced)
1 Green Pepper (chopped; optional)
1 Cucumber (chopped; optional)

Mix in a small bow:
2 Tbsp fresh Basil, Mint, or Parsley (chopped)
1 Tblsp Olive Oil
1 Tblsp Wine Vinegar or Balsamic Vinegar
1 Clove Garlic (minced, optional) In my opinion this should definitely not be optional...just my opinion...

Pour over the vegetables and toss lightly. Salt and Pepper to taste. Garnish with fresh cheese such as: shredded mozzarella or crumbled feta.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes

2009-07-06T19:07:00.004-05:00

Okay, okay, I know I have now posted multiple PBJ flavored desserts on here, but they really never get old. As I have said before, I LOVE peanut butter. It is probably my favorite food. I eat it at least once a day. This is just one more form in which for me to get my daily serving :-) These cupcakes got rave reviews from everyone who tried them, and they were easy to make, so next time you need a creative dessert that will really impress, I suggest you go with this one. It is different, and people are usually surprised (pleasantly) when you tell them what the flavor is.

Recipe Originally from Martha Stewart Cupcakes

Peanut Butter Cupcakes:

1 3/4 C All Purpose Flour
3/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1.5 Sticks Unsalted Butter, softened
1 1/3 C Sugar
2/3 C Creamy Peanut Butter (can use natural if desired)
3 Lrg Eggs at room temp.
1/2 C Sour Cream
1/2 tsp Vanilla

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees and line muffin tin with paper liners.
Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Reduce mixer speed to low and add peanut butter. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture.
Mix in sour cream.

Pour batter into lined baking tins and bake about 22 minutes, until clean knife, or other testing device, comes out clean.

Peanut Butter Frosting
(Don't be scared to make your own frosting. It is quick and easy, and way better than the stuff you buy at the store that has a shelf life of 55 years)

6 Oz Cream Cheese, at room temp.
1/3 C Confectioner's Sugar
1/2 t Salt
1 C Creamy Peanut Butter (do NOT use natural peanut butter for the frosting, it will not taste the same, and the consistency will be all wrong)
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 C Heavy Cream
1/2 C Jam or Jelly

Beat cream cheese and confectioner's sugar on medium speed until fluffy. Add salt and peanut butter, and combine. Beat in vanilla.

In a clean, and seperate bowl, whip heavy cream, using wire whisk attatchment, until medium-stiff peaks form. Fold into peanut butter mixure.

Spread frosting on cooled cupcakes, and top with a teaspoon-full of Jelly. I used Strawberry, you can use wantever flavor you like best.

Leek Quiche with Potato Crust

2009-06-30T19:08:00.008-05:00

I had never tried leeks before tonight. I have seen them in a lot of recipes lately, and heard rumors that they taste like a mild version of a green onion. I love onions, so I figured they couldn't be too bad. They are delicious. I plan to use them a lot more often now. They are mild, so they will be a great compliment to salads, and all sorts of things! I actually threw together a batch of potato salad tonight as well, and added some of the chopped leek to that. It was a great addition!

Okay, back to this quiche. It is really quite different from a lot of other quiches that I have tried. This is a good thing. I normally think of quiche as a very heavy, cheesy dish that leaves you feeling greasy and weighed down. This one was very light (with only 1 cup of cheese!) and had a great, mild flavor that leaves you feeling satisfied, but not over-stuffed. I love the potato crust, and will be trying it with other quiche varieties in the future. I used a rotary grater (Thanks Mom Mertens) that made grating the potatoes very painless. I suggest you find one of these, and never let it go! The only thing that I will change in the future when I make this quiche is that I will use two different types of cheese together. I will mix a mild cheese with a bit of a sharp cheese just to add a bit of punch to it. Other than that, it was perfect!

For the Crust:

3 C uncooked potatoes, coarsely grated
3 T Oil

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees.
Mix the potatoes and oil together and press into the bottom and sides of a 9 inch pie pan. Bake until just starting to brown, 15 minutes. Set aside.

For the Filling:

1. C Ramps or Leeks, chopped
1 C Cheese, shredded.
3 Eggs
1 C Evaporated Milk
1/4 t Salt
1/4 t Pepper

Chop up your leeks, and shred your cheese(if you buy it in brick form)

Layer the leeks, then the cheese inside your baked Crust.

Beat together the eggs, evaporated milk, salt, and pepper. Pour this mixture over the cheese and leeks.

Bake this at 425 degrees for about 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 25-30 minutes, until it is good and brown on top.

Now, this may look a bit burnt to you, but it is not. Believe me. The crunchy potatoes along the edge taste like hash browns. I guess they basically are. This was a huge hit with the man of the house. He loves hash browns.

Let the quiche cool for about 15 minutes before slicing and serving. Then, dig in!

Serves 4-6 people. Eat with fresh fruit, and a cold glass of iced tea. Perfection. Enjoy!

Homemade Granola Bars

2009-06-02T19:09:00.012-05:00

Do you love granola bars, but hate that most of the store-bought varieties have high-fructose corn syrup in them? And, the ones that don't, well those usually cost an arm, a leg, and your first born child? Well my friend, fret no more. I have a solution for you. These granola bars require less effort, and less hands-on time than it takes to run to the store and buy a box of the pre-made ones. And, they are healthy, and dare I say, tastier than the boxed ones we all know and love. I found this recipe here: Granola Bars
The original recipe is well-written and easy to follow. I did not change a thing, so I will allow you to follow her recipe, and I will simply taunt you with pictures :-)

Eat your heart out:

Spring!

2009-05-31T15:28:00.003-05:00

I am a sucker for beautiful produce.

yum!

Roasted Potatoes

2009-05-21T08:19:00.013-05:00

I threw some roasted potatoes together to go with our dinner of turkey burgers last night. Tim loves red potatoes, and so I bought a bag, and this is what I decided to do with them:

3lbs of red potatoes
Kosher Salt
Pepper
Fresh Chives
Dried Parsley
1/4 C Basil Olive Oil
Fresh Minced Garlic

You will notice in the above list of ingredients that only two things have an exact amount. Those are the important ratios, just do everything else to taste. I definitely made this up as I went along, so I would encourage you to use whatever flavors you like, omit anything you don't like or don't have on hand.

Pre heat your oven to 400 degrees

Scrub and halve your potatoes. Some red potatoes can be pretty big, so quarter those. Your main objective here is to get them all to be about the same size so that they cook evenly. They should also be somewhere close to bite size.

Put the cut potatoes into a large bowl and pour in the 1/4 C Olive Oil. Our olive oil has basil in it, and it is really really good, but you can use regular olive oil as well, it won't make a huge difference.

Now you are going to add in all of your seasonings, and toss the potatoes until they are evenly coated.

I am not sure what you call the garlic tool pictured above; it was a very early birthday present from my mom and my sister, and I have used it almost every day since i got it about 2 weeks ago! You get a lot more usable garlic-per-clove and it has a much better flavor than normal minced garlic.
Do you see those beautiful chives in there? I chopped those off of a chive plant that is sitting in my kitchen window, courtesy of my mother-in-law.
I have a great family that encourages my love for feeding people :-)

After you toss everything together and it all looks like it is mixed evenly, spread the potatoes on a cookie sheet, the kind with raised edges, so that the oil does not spill off, and toss 'em in the oven for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, take the potatoes out and mix them around, put them back in for another 10 minutes. Now take them out, and check if they are done. How will you know they are done? They will be brown and crispy on the outside, and soft on the inside. If you cannot easily stick a fork through them, they are not done. If needed, stick them in the oven for one more 10 minute round, they should be done after that. If you are waiting for the rest of the meal to be prepared, turn the oven off and leave the potatoes in the oven with door closed until you are ready to eat. This will keep them warm.

Here is what our dinner looked like, on a beautiful spring evening:

Here we are, well minus me, eating our dinner outside. Yay!

From Left: Anna, Brian, Tim, and Joka in the background
Brian and Anna are recently engaged. Be excited for them!

And then the guys cleaned up while I leisurely stood by taking pictures. This never happens. It was really nice

I wish every night could be like last night. The end.

Frozen Apple and Peanut Butter Cloud Pie

2009-05-17T21:48:00.015-05:00

This pie just won the Pie-Making Contest at our church. I have a cookbook with 100 Apple Pie recipes in it. Apple Pie is Tim's absolute favorite dessert, so this book is a very important one in our house. I was originally looking for a good basic apple pie to make, so as not to stand-out, but simply to make sure we had enough pies in the contest. However, I came across this recipe, and I could not pass it up. Apples and Peanut butter are my favorite afternoon snack, and I have this snack at least a few times a week. So, when I saw this combination in pie form, I had to try it! It was every bit as amazing as I had expected. Not as healthy as my normal apple-peanut butter snack, so unfortunately I cannot eat it several times a week, but this is one I will keep around to impress people with now and then :-)

Recipe from Apple Pie Perfect

Graham Cracker Crust:

10 whole graham crackers
1/4 C firmly pack brown sugar
1/4 t ground cinnamon
Big pinch of salt
5 T unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly butter a 9-inch pie pan.
Break up crackers coarsely and process them in a food processor, along with the brown sugar, until fine. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and add the cinnamon and salt. Add the melted butter and incorporate. Mix until the crumbs are evenly moistened.
Spread the crumbs evenly and loosely in a pie pan. Press the mixture into the bottom and then up the sides.

You don't have to get the crust all the way up the sides, but try for at least half-way.

Bake on the center rack of the oven for 8-10 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack before filling.

Apple Layer:

2 T unsalted butter
3 Firm-Textured apples (such as golden delicious or northern spy) Peeled, cored, and sliced.
1/4 C granulated sugar
1 t lemon juice
2 T confectioner's sugar

Peanut Butter Cloud Layer:

1 C Heavy Cream
one 8-OZ Package of cream cheese, softened
1 C Smooth peanut butter
3/4 Granulated sugar
1/2 C firmly packed light brown sugar
2 t vanilla extract
2 Lrg Egg whites

To prepare the apple layer, melt the butter in a large pan. Stir in the apples and granulated sugar and cook over medium heat, stirring often, until almost tender, about 5 minutes.

Stir in the lemon juice and confectioner's sugar and cook, stirring for one minute longer. Remove from heat and scrape the apples into a bowl or plate and let cool thoroughly.

When the apples have cooled, spoon them into the crust.

If there is a good amount of juice, use a slotted spoon and reserve the juice. Put pie in the freezer. If you have saved juice, wait until the pie has been freezing for 20 minutes, then spoon the juice over the pie.

To make the peanut butter cloud layer, use an electric mixer to whip the heavy cream until it holds semi-firm peaks. Cover and refrigerate.

'

Using the mixer, beat cream cheese and peanut butter until smooth. Gradually add in the sugars, then the vanilla. The mixture will be lumpy, like cookie dough.

Add the whipped cream to the peanut butter mixture, slowly blending them together until smooth.

Now, I want to stop here and point something out. At this stage we have a peanut butter whipped cream. If you are any where near as much of a peanut butter fanatic as I am, you will have a very difficult time not stopping, getting a spoon, and finishing off this concoction right here and now. Don't do it. Take a spoonful and taste it. It is glorious. It will taste amazing on top of that frozen apple pie, so don't sell it short by ending it's life here.

Clean and dry your beaters, and bowl if you are using a stand mixer. Make sure you get them completely clean because we will be whipping egg whites next, and if there is any fat left on the bowl the egg whites will not whip correctly. Beat the egg whites until they hold stiff peaks.

A stiff peak is when the egg whites will stand up in a peak without folding over at all. If the tip of the peak dips over, it is a soft peak, and you are not quite there yet.

Fold the whites into the peanut butter mixture with a rubber spatula until evenly blended. Spread the mixture over the apple layer and smooth with a spoon.

Freeze the pie for about 15 minutes, cover it loosely with aluminum foil and freeze for at least 5 hours more. Remove the pie from the freezer 15 minutes before slicing it.

Seriously, this pie is amazing, and really fun to make. That is all I can say, I hope you will make it.

Poppy Seed Roll

2009-05-17T21:12:00.011-05:00

I have never eaten/seen/made a poppy seed roll in my life, until yesterday. This was Tim's requested dessert as we were having family over to celebrate his being baptized today. I wanted to make him something special, so I did my best to create this concoction with no prior knowledge of what it should look or taste like. I think it was a success, unless everyone who ate it was lying to me. I thought it tasted pretty darn good, I will do this again for sure.

I started with a sweet bread dough, I used my favorite recipe, you can follow this one, or use your own favorite if you have one.

For the Poppy Seed filling you will need:

1 Can Solo Poppy Seed Filling
Butter for Dotting

Sweet Bread Dough (from the cinnamon bread recipe in Simply In Season):

1/4 C Warm Water
1 T Dry Active Yeast
2 C Whole Wheat Flour
1 C Milk, scalded
3/4 C Orange Juice
1/2 C Sugar
1/4 C Oil or Butter
1 Egg
1 T Orange Zest
1.5 t Salt

4.5-5.5 C Bread Flour

Combine warm water and yeast in a small bowl. Stir to dissolve.

Combine whole wheat flour, scalded milk, orange juice, sugar, oil or butter, egg, orange zest, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Mix well. When cooled to luke warm, add yeast mixture. (make sure the large mixture is cooled enough because otherwise you will kill the yeast, it is very temperamental!)

Add enough bread flour (this is the 4.5-5.5 C) to make a soft dough. Knead 8-10 minutes until smooth. Place in a greased bowl, turn to grease both sides (this will prevent a hard layer from forming on the outside of the dough). Cover with a damp cloth and let rise until doubled in size. you will know that it is doubled in size when you lightly press the dough with your finger and the indentation remains in the dough. This will take about an hour and 15 minutes. After the dough has doubled, punch it down and divide it in half. Roll or stretch each half into a rectangle about 15 x 7 inches.

This is where you add your filling. If you are using poppy seeds, grab a can of Solo Poppy Seed Filling,

use half of the can on one half of the dough, and the other half on the other (duh, right?)

Dot this with butter,

and roll it up like a jelly roll (from the short end). Cover the rolls again and let rise until they are doubled, again.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

Place the rolls on greased cookie sheets, and make slices in the dough as if you are cutting it into pieces, but do not go all the way to each end. The best way to show this is with the picture below:

Bake these in preheated oven for about 30 minutes. Let cool on the pan for 5 minutes and then remove and cool on a wire rack.

If you want to make this into Cinnamon Bread instead of Poppy Seed, simply use a mixture of 1/3 C Sugar and 1 T Cinnamon for the filling. Eliminate the butter dotting and do not slice the dough once it is rolled up. Allow it to rise the second time as described above, but do the second rise in loaf pans and bake in loaf pans as well. Both are wonderful, and you should try them. They make great gifts, and people are always impressed with home-made bread :-)

This is What Happens When I Get Creative

2009-05-03T13:13:00.013-05:00

I made two things for the Cafe at church today. Neither of my initial plans for said recipes worked out the way that I intended. The first was a Key Lime pie, suggested by my sister-in -law, for the promotion of the Pie Making Contest that we will be having in a few weeks. The second was cucumber sandwiches. Both seem easy enough, right? Well they were until I got creative, and thought I could make them all cute and exciting. I tried to make a meringue to top the key lime pie with. I have never made a meringue, but have read several sets of instructions, so I thought, I, being the talented baker that I am, can easily pull this off. Wrong. My "meringue" was sad, flat, and ultimately ended up "wilting", or being separated from the pie by a layer of liquid. The pie itself is absolutely delicious, but there is no way that I can serve that to anyone other than my husband, and other people who I am confident know that I am a good baker. So, Tim is happy because he got a free pie out of the deal, and he could care less what it looks like. I ended up going to Tony's and buying a pie to serve at church. No one seemed to care that it wasn't home-made. I will share the pie recipe with you, because I do highly recommend it. I will make it again, probably without the meringue, until I have practiced enough.
The problem that I had with the cucumber sandwiches was that I wanted to make them with the Pampered Chef Cut and Seal. This did not work because the cucumbers were too thick, and the bread started tearing. So, I just decided to for-go the idea and make them like normal sandwiches. Not as cute, but they still almost all disappeared, and I kept hearing people say how good they were! I was bummed though because I have been desperately searching for a time/place to use this tool since my Mom gave it to me in December. My next attempt with these will be peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which I think will work well. I will keep you posted on that. I am also going to give you the "recipe" for these, if you can even call it that. It is so simple, but it is a great snack, super easy, and pretty healthy. It is something you should know how to do in case you need to make a simple appetizer or snack and don't have a ton of money or time to spend.

Key Lime Pie

14 OZ Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/2 C Key Lime Juice (I used fresh squeezed because every recipe that I consulted said that it is way better. It is a lot of work though, so if you want to do this quickly, you can use ready-made juice)
1 t Grated Lime Zest
2 Egg Yolks
1 Egg

Graham Cracker Crust
1 1/3 C Graham Cracker Crumbs
5 T Butter
You can use a pre-made crust if you want to. I bet no one would notice, I just have a guilt-complex about serving store-bought foods...

Meringue
2 Egg Whites
4 T White Sugar

To make the crust, combine graham cracker crumbs with butter until evenly moistened.

Press into the bottom of a prepared Pie Pan, and bake in 350 degree oven for 10 minutes. This is called baking blind. It makes it so that the crust does not get all soggy when you add the filling to it. Baking the crust by itself allows it to get more firm, and it holds together a lot better this way. You can eliminate this step if you really want to, and if you plan to serve it from the pan that you are baking it in, but I still would recommend it.

To Make the filling, combine sweetened condensed milk, lime juice, and zest in a medium bowl. Mix in egg yolks and whole egg. Pour over crust, cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

To make the meringue, beat egg whites in a large glass or metal mixing bowl until foamy. Gradually add sugar and continue beating until whites for stiff peaks. Spread meringue over pie, covering completely.

Bake in 350 degree oven for 15 minutes. Chill before serving.

Here is what happened to my meringue...

First of all, you can see that it looks nothing like meringue should look...it is all flat and gross. It also cracked when I took the pan out of the oven. I was using a silicone pan., and it bent a little when I was getting it out, so that just made it look worse...
I think I failed to whip the eggs long enough, and supposedly the wilting of the meringue is due to un-dissolved sugar, which means that I did not add the sugar gradually enough. I have to keep practicing this technique, and Tim will probably have a lot of screwed-up pies to eat while I learn the process. If anyone has any tips on this, let me know!

Here is what my failed cucumber sandwiches looked like...

The bread got all ripped on top, oh well. Here is what I did instead:

I sliced my cucumbers pretty thick, because then you can use one per "sandwich" which is a lot easier than trying to layer the cucumbers. That can get pretty messy when you go to eat them because they are all slippery.

Spread Miracle Whip or Mayonaise on a slice of white bread. Layer 4 cucumbers on top of that.

Spread Miracle Whip/mayonaise on another piece of white bread and cover your cucumbers. Cut this sandwich into 4 individual sandwiches, and there you have it. Make as many as you want. Super easy, nutritious, and delicious! what else could you ask for?

All dressed up and ready for church.

I just thought this one was cute :-)

Huevos Rancheros

2009-05-01T16:39:00.007-05:00

I found this wonderful recipe on Smitten Kitchen's blog. It is delicious, healthy, colorful, and extremely easy and quick (which is very important when you are famished after a long day of work!) I get to the famished point very quickly as my blood sugar tends to fall fast and hard at which point I can think of nothing other than avoiding the inevitable migraine by eating anything and everything I can get my hands on. So, this is a perfect meal for one of those times, and any other time you want something delicious and simple. I do believe that I could handle this recipe, even at that pre-migraine stage; that is just how simple it is. Without further ado, here is Smitten Kitchen's recipe for Huevos Ranchero's:

For the fresh salsa topping you will need:

2 Large, Fresh, Ripe Tomatoes
1/2 Large White Onion, peeled and minced
3 cloves minced, raw Garlic (if you are not a huge fan of garlic, you may want to use less. I found this amount to be quite desirable which may say that it would be too much for most people)
1 Habanero or Jalapeno Pepper stemmed, seeded, and minced ( I left this out because I do not like anything spicy and Tim has a deep hatred for jalapeno peppers)
1/4 C Cilantro Leaves
1 T Fresh Lime Juice or 1 t Red Wine Vinegar
Salt and Pepper to taste

Mix all of the ingredients in a large bowl and let stand at least 15 minutes before serving to allow all of the flavors to combine. Smitten Kitchen suggests using this within a few hours. I snacked on the leftovers the next day and they were still delicious.

And now for the main event, here is what you will need for the Huevos Rancheros:
6-inch Corn Tortillas
some Shredded Cheddar Cheese
Eggs
Salt and Pepper
Black Beans

There is not an exact amount of any of the above ingredients because you can make as many or as little of these beauties as you want.

Heat a tortilla in an oiled pan. When it is golden brown on the bottom, flip it over. Sprinkle some shredded cheddar cheese on the browned side and allow it to melt. You can use as much or as little cheese as you want to. I gave Tim extra because he is a cheese addict. Break an egg over the tortilla. Season with salt and pepper.

It is okay for the egg to spill over the edge of the tortilla. You are just going to cover it with salsa and all sorts of other goodness, so who cares what it looks like!

When the egg is about halfway set, flip it over again. This is the fun part. You don't have to do it perfectly, or even well. I am a terrible flipper. I always make Tim do all the pancake flipping in our house because I am not even close to careful enough. I love this recipe because I can finally do the flipping! So, pick it up with a big sturdy spatula, and flip it over knowing that this is not going to look beautiful whether you are a perfectionist or not. Cook it for a few minutes on this side to let the egg finish cooking, and stick it on your plate. Repeat this process to create as many huevos rancheros as you need to satisfy the hungry crowd that has gathered as a result of the tasty smell coming from your kitchen. Top it with your fresh salsa, or you can use jarred salsa if you do not want to make your own-it will just be a little more liquidy/messy that way. Add sour cream, guacamole, and whatever else you like. Serve with black beans and tortilla chips, or if you're me, put the black beans on top of you Huevo Ranchero, and dig-in.

This was also delicious with a Goose Island Summertime Brew. I highly recommend the combination if you are a beer lover.

Help me decide!

2009-04-29T08:07:00.002-05:00

I am making a pie this weekend to promote a pie-making contest that we will be holding at church in a few weeks. I cannot decide what type of pie to make that will be the most taunting and make people most excited for this event. Can you please tell me what your favorite pie is, and point me in the right direction? I will blog about the process of whichever one I choose, so feel free to suggest one that you want to learn how to make. I am up to the challenge :-)