The Domestic Engineer

Date Squares

2011-08-10T11:47:00.000-07:00

I'm back! I know you have all missed me. (haha!) I have a handful of tasty recipes that are husband approved to share. I must apologize for by absence as the last few weeks have just flown by!

Today I bring you a recipe for Date Squares. After leaving Costco with a tub of dates, I knew immediately that I wanted to bake something with them. I scoured a bunch of recipes but never really found one that would be AWESOME. Then I turned to my faithful King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion. Goodness, I adore that book. Well, they had a recipe for date squares, but alas it also wasn't quite what I wanted. What is a girl to do? Make up her own recipe! And here we are. :)

These bars are sweet, crumbly and everything that is good in the world. With my constant need to snack (34 weeks tomorrow) I wanted something that was at least somewhat good for me. These don't have a whole lot of sugar, so I do let myself feel good about eating them. :) Plus! The crumbly yumminess consists largely of flour and oats. Good things, indeed.

Date Squares
recipe by me!

Filling:
4 c. (loosely filled- no cramming!) chopped dates
1 c. water
1/2 c. brown sugar
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 tbl. lemon juice

Crumbly Crust:
2 c. oats
2 c. flour (all purpose or whole wheat or combo)
1 c. packed brown sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon (optional)
pinch of salt
2 sticks of butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease your baking dish. (I used a 7.5" x 11.75" pan- but a 9x13 will work in a pinch- may need a little less time baking)
To make our filling, combine all filling ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring to distribute everything evenly. Once it reaches a boil, turn down the heat so that it is just simmering. Stir occasionally until all of the liquid seems to be sucked up and you have a lovely glob of sticky dates. Set aside to cool while making the crust.
In a large mixing bowl, stir together the first six ingredients until thoroughly combined. Pour the butter over the dry ingredients and gently stir with a fork. Think about how you toss a salad, coming from the bottom of the bowl and moving up, gently. We don't want one huge chunk, but rather streusel consistency where all of the dry ingredients seem to be moistened.
Dump half of the crust into your greased pan and press into an even layer across the bottom. Spread the date filling over the bottom crust, evenly. Now sprinkle the remaining crust over top the dates. Do not press this layer down. It ensures a tasty crumbly top!
Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the top is turning golden (a little less for those 9x13 pans!). Once done baking, let cool for a little while before cutting into it so that it doesn't all fall apart completely. I was able to wait an hour. That gave it time to firm up a little, but still was warm and gooey. Enjoy!

Linked up at:

Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Monday Blog Hop at Santa's Gift Shoppe
Hearth & Soul Hop at The 21st Century Housewife

Snicker Cookies

2011-06-30T09:18:00.000-07:00

As anyone who knows me can probably say, I love dessert.It is no wonder why most of my posts are about the sweeter things in the culinary world.
So this recipe comes from my mom's kitchen. She makes these cookies at Christmas time for her friends and our family. From my experience, everyone that has ever tried them, loves them. And you will soon see why.
I decided to make them this time of year because I needed a special dessert for an event. Cookies this good shouldn't just come once a year.

Snicker Cookies
(honestly don't remember where my mom found the recipe- from an ad?)

2 sticks butter (softened)
1 c. creamy peanut butter
1 c. light brown sugar
1 c. granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
3 1/2 c. all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 package (about 13 or so ounces) Snickers Brand Miniatures, unwrapped
1c. chocolate chips

Combine the first four ingredients until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs one at a time until fully incorporated. Then mix in the vanilla.
In another bowl combine the flour with the salt and baking soda. Mix this into the butter mixture just until combined. Cover the dough and chill for at least a couple hours.
Remove the dough from the fridge and scoop out about a tablespoon at a time. Take a piece of dough and form a ball around a Snickers with it. I ended up using more like a tablespoon and a half for each cookie, my personal preference. Repeat until all of the dough or all of the candy is gone.
Place the balls on a greased cookie sheet a good inch and a half to two inches apart because they will spread. Bake in a 325 degree oven for about 10 to 12 minutes or until they have begun to look dry and firm. Let them cool for 3 to 5 minutes on the baking rack before moving to a cooling rack to completely cool off. If they don't get to sit on the rack, they will just crumble. (Not always bad since you can just eat the pieces as you go)
Melt your chocolate chips, if desired and drizzle over the cookies.

Linked up with:

Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Hearth & Soul Hop at A Moderate Life

Innkeeper Pie

2011-06-06T16:28:00.000-07:00

So far in my pregnancy I haven't had too many strong cravings. One thing that I have always had and continue to work with is my sweet tooth. I love dessert. I love being able to make dessert at home for myself, my husband and for friends and family.
One such dessert that is pretty easy to put together and tastes amazing is this Innkeeper Pie. It comes from a cookbook my mom has. I have been making it for years and can't remember exactly where it hails from. I think a Hershey's cookbook?
Anyways. This dessert is a pie and a cake. Together. In all of the best ways possible. I thoroughly enjoy it, and so did my husband.

Innkeeper Pie
(from a Hershey's cookbook?)

1 pie crust- homemade or store bought
2/3 c. sugar + 3/4 c. sugar
1/3 c. cocoa powder
1 c. water
1/3 c. butter
2 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract, divided
1 c. all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. shortening (I like plain ol Crisco)
1/2 c. milk
1 egg
1/2 c. shopped nuts (pecans or walnuts work best, I think)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
In a medium saucepan, stir together 2/3 c. of the sugar, the cocoa powder and the water. Over medium heat, bring the mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally for one minute. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter and 1 1/2 tsp. of the vanilla until both are fully incorporated. Set aside.
In a small bowl, stir together the flour, the remaining 3/4 c. sugar, baking powder and salt. Add in the shortening, milk and remaining 1 tsp. of vanilla. Stir just until combined. Add in the egg and mix well to combine.
Spoon the batter into the prepared crust. Stir the chocolate mixture a bit and gently pour over the cake batter. Sprinkle the nuts over top the whole thing. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean and dry. Cool slightly and enjoy!

Linked up with:

Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Hearth & Soul Hop 51 at A Moderate Life
Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum
Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home

Coffee BBQ Rub

2011-05-24T11:12:00.000-07:00

Grilling season is upon us. At least it is here, in California. I just graduated college last week and am working on a couple projects that need to be finished this month. Otherwise I have been having more free time.
My pregnancy cravings vary from day to day. I wouldn't even call them all "cravings" really. It's more of what sounds tasty versus what gives me the dry heeves (spelling?). Grilling has been a great way to get some flavors I haven't had a ton of lately (although let's face it, I married the BBQ master and he grills any month of the year).
For our first meal cooked entirely on the grill, hubby made shish-a-bobs. Well, I strung them up and he cooked them. My mom used to make these a lot and I LOVE the marinade she used. So I called my parents house to realize I didn't have all of the ingredients nor the time to marinate the meat. I was hungry NOW. Not later. :)
Plan B was to find a nice rub for the meat. I whipped up a rub loosely inspired by one I saw in a recent Woman's Day magazine and it was delicious. I really had no idea that I could play with flavors like this so well. I consider myself more of a sweet tooth. And you will see that it totally shines through in my rub. :D
I don't have a name for it (yet). But I wanted to share it amyways. Any name ideas are more than welcome!

BBQ Rub

2 tbl. brown sugar
1 tsp. ground coffee
1 1/2 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. fresh ground black pepper

Combine everything and rub it on the meat. This recipe doesn't create much, so scale it up if necessary.
It's really nice to let the rub sit on the meat for a half hour or so in the fridge before cooking if you have the time. Then grill it up! Enjoy!

Linked up with:
Tasty Tuesday! at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam

Super Easy Pineapple Upside Down Cake

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

Last week I wanted to make pineapple upside down cake as a thank you to some people for taking care of my rabbits. I had some pineapple slices in the fridge leftover, but not a whole lot of butter.
My usual recipe calls for a homemade yellow cake, which is very delicious. But I found an easier (and much faster) way to make a very delicious cake that tastes homemade.

Super Easy Pineapple Upside Down Cake

1/2 c. unsalted butter, melted
2/3 c. packed brown sugar
1 can sliced pineapple in juice(or freshly sliced pineapple)
1 box yellow cake mix + all the stuff to prepare it
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat the oven to whatever the cake box recommends.
Combine the butter and brown sugar until fully incorporated. Spread evenly on the bottom of 2 9-inch round cake pans or 1 9x13inch cake pan that has been lightly greased. (I would avoid 8inch rounds because they don't hold as much volume as the 9inch ones do, so your cake would probably overflow.)
Prepare the cake mix as directed, except also mix in the cinnamon. With this step, you could easily substitute some of the water needed for the cake mix with some of the pineapple juice if you are using canned pineapple.
Lightly pat the pineapple pieces dry and arrange them however you like on the bottom of the pan(s). Try to keep them from touching so cake can ooze between all of the pieces. If you are making a 9x13, you could easily use a whole can of pineapple, but with the round pans not as much will be needed.
*I like to slice the pineapple rings in half and circle them around the round cake pans that way. When I use a 9x13 pan, I like to keep the rings whole.
Divide your cake batter between the pans, being careful to pour in slowly to not displace the pineapple. Bake as directed on the cake mix box. Once done, let sit on the counter for about 5-10 minutes to partially set, then invert onto your serving tray or plate. If the cake cools completely in the pan, removing it later will be much more difficult and less pretty.
Serve it as is, or with a dollop of whipped cream. Enjoy!

I linked up with:
Santa's Gift Shoppe Monday Hop

It's been a while!

2011-04-27T09:18:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody! I know it's been awhile since I have posted anything. It has been in part due to my serious lack of cooking these last few weeks. I have family in town from out of state- so my mom and aunt have been making bulk of the meals. I just eat. :)
Earlier this month one of my rabbits developed an abcess in his mouth and required surgery and daily care to heal up from that. He is healing up from the sugery, but still requires twice daily antibiotics to fight off any bacteria that want to make his mouth a home. So much bad stuff for such a good little bunny!
This is also the end of my semester, thus the bigger projects are due around now.
It has definitely been one crazy month! Please stick with me- as all of the hub-bub dies down I am hoping to get back into the swing of things.
On a side note! If anyone wants to guest post a delicious recipe (dessert or something to go along with the weather warming up) please shoot me an email. :)

Cranberry Orange Scones

2011-03-28T14:22:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody! I am finally back with a recipe. And boy is it a good one. First, I thought I would explain a little bit of where I have been.
I have been sick as everybody knows. And I think it's starting to clear up because I can taste again. Haha. However, I was a different kind of sick before this head congestion thing struck. Good ol morning sickness. That's right! Hubby and I are going to have a baby! While m/s was kicking my butt, I didn't do much cooking and wasn't interested in lots of food I usually am- so I didn't really feel qualified to write any food related posts. Well now I am on the track back thanks to food cravings (and less aversions, thank God).
Lately I had been thinking about making something with the dried cranberries in my cupboard. Then the other day while spending time with a friend at a coffee shop, the barista was passing out samples of cranberry orange scones. Yum. I've had these before and they are totally one of my favorite scones. Okay, cranberry orange scones it is.

This morning I began searching for a good reciple- preferably one that I already had all of the ingredients for. Then there it was. I had everything it needed in my kitchen. It was go time. I followed the recipe exactly. There really was no need to deviate from such a simple recipe. Glad I didn't because boy are those scones yummy! And they are literally fresh from my oven right now. I just finished eating my first scone while writing this paragraph. :)

Cranberry Orange Scones
recipe by Brown Eyed Baker

1/4 c. granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp. orange zest
1 1/2 c. + 2 tbl. all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
a pinch of salt (I forgot to add this since I was hungry for some scones and in hurry!)
3/4 c. dried cranberries
1 c. heavy cream
1 tbl. melted butter
some more granulated sugar for sprinkling

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper or a silpat baking mat.
With your fingers, rub together the granulated sugar and the orange zest in a large bowl until everything is all nice and incorporated.
Add in the flour, baking powder and salt and mix together thoroughly. Mix in the cranberries.
Add the heavy cream and stir until combined. Lightly knead the dough on a lightly floured surface just until everything is combined. Too much kneading leads to a stiff and less light and fluffy scone.
Now you can pat the dough into a 8-inch circle and cut said circle into 8 even wedges. Place the wedges on the baking mat a couple inches apart. I like the look of round scones (that then puff out with the rigid edges) so I divided my dough into 8 portions and formed them into slightly flattened balls and placed them on the baking sheet.
Brush the tops of the scones with the melted butter and lightly sprinkle with the granulated sugar. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until they have puffed and are starting to gain a light golden brown color.
Allow to cool on a baking rack and enjoy. Yumm!!

I have linked up here:

Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Hearth & Soul Hop vol. 41 at A Moderate Life
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple

Make Mine Chocolate

2011-03-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

Since I am still sick and starting to regain the ability to smell and taste (there was about a week there where I couldn't smell or taste a darn thing- really makes food blogging difficult!) I want to write about something very close to my heart.
Rabbits.
I realize this may sound weird for some of you, so let me give you a little history about me. Time to open up on the world wide web (kinda freaky).....
Growing up, I always had cats. I loved cats and I still love cats. Animals were always treated as a part of the family. They were spoiled, they went to the doctor and above everything else, they were and are loved.
Having pets always filled my heart with happiness. I know I'm not the only one that feels this way because as I got involved with the veterinary field I got to meet others that felt the same way I do about their pets- dogs, cats, rabbits, horses, yada yada yada.
I cannot wait until I can work in a veterinary setting to improve the life of animals, and by doing that, improve the life of the people who love them.
Okay, so how does all of this relate to rabbits you ask?
This story begins May of 2009. My at the time boyfriend and I were taking a walk around his neighborhood when he spotted a little brown rabbit- definitely not a wild jack rabbit- hoping along in someones yard next to a small family walking in the opposite direction of us. He asked if it was their rabbit, but it wasn't They had no clue it was even following them. So I walked up and scooped up the bunny into my arms. He didn't try to flee. He wasn't all skin and bones. Just a cute little rabbit that didn't know what was going on, probably looking for something to eat. Boyfriend and I walked around the entire neighborhood knocking on doors to see if anyone was missing a bunny- but those that answered declined. At this point it was getting dark and there was no way I was going to just set the little rabbit back down on the ground and walk away. I was instantly attached.

Just relaxing on the floor

Sammy grooming me

We brought the bunny back to my boyfriend's house because I had cats back at my parents place where I lived and I knew that predator animal wouldn't mix with prey animal very well. At least not initially.

We decided to keep Sammy and as soon as possible brought him to the vet. He was about 4 months old or so. Quite possibly someones baby Easter bunny that they decided they didn't want anymore and just set "free". I began studying up about rabbits immediately. I wanted to make sure that I was able to give our new little rabbit everything that it needed. Growing up with cats is a lot different than rabbits.

I have since learned so much about rabbits and how good of a house pet they really can make. But one thing has always been a soft spot for me- people that buy rabbits for young children, only to realize that a rabbit actually does requite some work and usually DON'T like to be held and then surrender them to a shelter to be euthanized or just set free in the backyard. It frustrates me to no end.
I see my little Sammy, and now also my little Daisy Marie and can't imagine how someone would not want to learn about and give them a great home. Sammy is very loyal. The little boy follows me around when he is out during play time. He gets back into his hutch with ease when it's bed time, and even likes to play chase.
Daisy is a little feisty girl. She loves her play time, but is still a little shy.
Here is where Make Mine Chocolate comes in. This website helps to inform anyone who is thinking of becoming a rabbit owner for the first, or third, or whatever time a little about what you are actually getting yourself into. Then the reader can decide if they would rather just have a chocolate bunny for Easter than a real life one.
Rabbits really do make wonderful pets. They each have different personalities like cats and dogs. Speaking of, they can (with some training and supervision) get along just fine with most cats and dogs.
Now that I have two bunnies of my own, I honestly can't imagine life without rabbits!
If you, or anyone you know is thinking about bringing a cute little bunny into your home for Easter, or for whatever reason, please check out Make Mine Chocolate and really think about the decision! :)

Other great rabbit resources:
My House Rabbit
House Rabbit Society
Rabbits Online- Forum

If you have any rabbit related questions, please send me an email. I'm not a vet, so I don't have all of the answers, but I would love to help if I can. :)

Baby Daisy next to a mug

Fortune Cookies

2011-03-08T11:54:00.000-08:00

Happy Mardi Gras to everyone!! I don't have a recipe for King Cake, but I have another quick and fun recipe for everyone to try.

I love fortune cookies. It's always so fun after going out for Chinese to sit around the table with friends and hear the fortunes that each other received. I had no idea how easy they were to make until my high school foods class when we got to make them one day. Years later I can still remember how much fun I had making them and so I wanted to share the recipe with you. I don't know where this specific recipe came from- it was probably one of those just passed out in class and somehow all these years later I managed to keep it.

You could easily write up fortunes of your own- or even some announcement you would like to make on small stripes of paper and stick them in the cookies when you fold them up.

Since we are now in the year of the rabbit, I thought it would be nice to show pictures of my babies.

Sammy

Daisy

Yes, I have been looking for a reason since I started the blog to stick pictures of my rabbits in here. Since we are making fortune cookies and it's the year of the rabbit- what a better opportunity? :)

Fortune Cookies

1 egg white
1/8 tsp. vanilla
pinch of salt

1/4 c. all purpose flour

2 tbl. granulated sugar

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and grease a cookie sheet- or put down one of those handy silicone mats. Also have out a muffin tin as this will be what we set the cookies in to cool off and harden up.

Mix together the egg white and the vanilla until foamy. Sift in the remaining ingredients and blend together thoroughly.

Place a heaping teaspoon of the batter on the cookie sheet in three or four places- about four inches apart. Thin out the batter into a bigger circle with the measuring spoon. You want to be able to just barely see through the batter.
Bake for 5 minutes until the edges just start to turn golden and the top looks dry.
Take them out and fold in half so you have a half circle, then take the two points and pull them together. (This would be the perfect time to slip in your paper fortune.)
Set the cookies in the muffin tin to finish cooling- they won't harden up as much as the cookies you get at the restaurant, but they will be very tasty.

Once you have made a round of the cookies, you can adjust the amount of batter on the cookie sheet as well as the thickness you spread the circles into to your liking. More batter = bigger cookies. :)

I have linked up at the following places:

Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum

Buttermilk Pralines and Chocolate Covered Almond Clusters

2011-03-01T13:08:00.000-08:00

Today is the last night for my decorating basics class. I'm still on the road to getting better from this cold. I really really dislike coughing. I think I have done enough of it in the last three days that I shouldn't need to for the rest of the year.
So to celebrate the last day of my cake decorating class, I thought I would post about some tasty candy that is good any time of the year. I made this around Christmas time- but they would be just as great for Easter or even a birthday. Make up a bunch and wrap them individually for Halloween.
The first recipe I found on bhg.com (Better Homes & Gardens) while looking for something to do with the buttermilk I had in the house. The second came from Food Network a long long time ago. I actually have it hand written on the back of some piece of paper somewhere in the kitchen. Luckily, the recipe is super easy with very little ingredients.

Buttermilk Pralines makes about 3 dozen or so
(recipe from bhg.com)

2 c. packed brown sugar
1 c. buttermilk
2 tbl. butter
2 c. pecans, slightly chopped (you want to have lots of big pieces)

Spray the inside on a heavy 2 quart saucepan with nonstick spray. Combine the brown sugar and buttermilk in the pan and cook over medium high heat until the mixture comes to a boil, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Carefully attach a candy thermometer to the pan and lower the heat to medium low. Continue cooking and stirring occasionally until the thermometer reaches 234 degrees F, or soft ball stage.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and add in the butter, but don't stir. Let the mixture cool until the thermometer reaches 150 degrees F. Once cooled down, take out the candy thermometer and quickly stir in the pecans. Doing this will further cool down the mixture, so you have to work quickly from here. Beat the mixture with the wooden spoon untul the candy feels like it's thickening, but still looks glossy.
Drop the candy by tablespoonfuls (smaller if you desire) onto wax paper a couple inches apart because the mixture will spread a little. If the mixture in the pan begins to stiffen before you can finish scooping it out, mix in a couple drops of hot water at a time until the consistency you need returns. Let the pralines cool until set and then store in an airtight container.

Chocolate Covered Almond Clusters
(The amounts are estimates. You can use more or less almonds, more or less chocolate as desired)
recipe adapted from Food Network

1/2 c toasted slivered almonds
24 individually wrapped caramels, quartered
1 c. chocolate chips

Spray a mini muffin tin with nonstick spray and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Divide the almonds among 24 muffin wells (less wells if you want more almond per each candy).
On top of the almond slivers, place 4 of the pieces of caramel. This amounts to one caramel per candy. If you overfill the wells with almonds, the caramel won't be able to reach all of the almonds.
Pop the pan in the oven and watch carefully. About 5 to 8 minutes and the caramel will be melted. If left in the oven too long. it will all burn. Remove from the oven and let the candies cool just until hardened and easy to handle.
Melt the chocolate over a double boiler or in the microwave. Dip each almond cluster in the chocolate with a couple forks and set on some parchment or wax paper to harden. Store candies in an airtight container.

Linked up with:

Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
Mouthwatering Mondays at A Southern Fairytale
This Week's Cravings at Mom's Crazy Cooking

Soda BBQ Sauce

2011-02-25T11:10:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone!! My, my it sure has been a while. So much for my new years resolution, right? Things have been busy over here in my neck of the woods. I am finishing up school and preparing to graduate in May.
Note: Just because a class is online, doesn't make it automatically easier. Just easier to forget about sometimes.
I'm also taking a Wilton Cake Decorating class with hopes to be AWESOME in the very near future.
So aside from the normal routine and my last semester of schooling (ever?) I have been feeling kinda sick lately. Some sort of head/nose/throat sort of thing. I would love to say "it's going around", but unfortunately I don't know anyone else right now with similar symptoms. Let me just say that I am TIRED of coughing and having a sore throat.

So here I am, back in lovely bloggy-land. I have missed it. I wanted to bring with me a tasty recipe to welcome Spring in with (now that we're getting some rain here in Cali, naturally- whatever!).
This recipe is pretty versatile. Use whatever soda you want (strawberry cola is probably gross- but you won't know until you try it!) I left out the steak sauce from the original recipe because we never have that stuff in our house. Feel free to add some if you want. Start with a little and taste it. You can always add more!
I also like some sweetness in my BBQ sauces, so if you are like me with that, add in a tbl or 2 of brown sugar. Yummy!

Soda BBQ Sauce
(adapted from a recipe from the Barbeque Bible Sauces Rubs and Marinades)

1 c. soda
1 c. ketchup
1/4 c. worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. onion flakes
1 tsp. garlic powder or flakes
1/2 tsp. fresh ground black pepper

Combine all of the ingredients in a medium sized nonreactive saucepan and slowly bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring everything to mix well. Reduce the heat to keep the sauce at a simmer and reduce it by a quarter. So, 3/4 of the original volume should be left. Use right away. We loved it over brisket, but chicken would be delicious too!

Buttermilk Bread

2011-02-01T10:07:00.000-08:00

Has anyone ever taken a walk down the bread aisl at the store and seen how many different kinds of bread there is available? So many! Not to mention the fancier brands cost a ton for just one loaf!
My favorite kinds of bread from the store are the potato bread and the buttermilk bread. The only time I ever buy the stuff is when it's on sale. Not anymore!
This recipe actually came out of a need to use up some buttermilk. You see, I bought a half gallon on sale (cheaper than a quart). I thought it would be interesting to see what all I could come up with. This recipe isn't completely my own, I found it at food.com and just slightly tweaked it.
What I really loved was not only that I got to use lots of the buttermilk I had, but I also had all of the rest of the ingredients in the house! The dough is made in the bread machine (baked in your oven) for added convenience. Surely, you could mix up the dough and let it take the first rise without the machine, but I really enjoyed being able to push start and go about my business.
So if you love buttermilk bread, or just have some extra buttermilk in the fridge, give this recipe a try. Makes for some good PB&J sandwiches. (Or just good snacking!)

Buttermilk Bread yields 1 loaf

(recipe slightly adapted from Food.com)

1 1/4 c. buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. honey
3 tbl. unsalted butter
3 c. all purpose flour
1/4 c. powdered milk
1 tsp. sugar
2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast (or one of those packets)

Let the buttermilk come to room temperature. Add all of the ingredients to your bread machine in the order the manufacturer desires. For me, it's usually liquids first, then the dry goods, always ending with the yeast.
Set the machine on a dough cycle. We don't want to bake it, just make the dough.
When the bread machine has finished, remove the dough and on a lightly floured surface shape into a log that will fit into a 9x5inch loaf pan. Spray the pan with nonstick spray and place the log in. Let it rise in a warm place until doubled*. Bake the loaf in a 325 degree oven for 20-30 minutes or until it's nice and brown on the outside, watch it to make sure it doesn't burn. Enjoy!
*When the house is cold, I like to let my yeast doughs rise in the oven. I turn the oven onto it's "warm" setting while making the dough, and turn it off once it comes to temperature. Turn the oven light on, as that keeps a nice gentle warm for the yeast!

I have linked up at the following parties:

Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
All Things Domestic at Crazy Domestic
Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Hearth & Soul Hop vol. 33 at A Moderate Life
Decidedly Health or Horridly Decadent Blog Hop at ceo a's draiocht

Stacia's Steak, Spinach and Pasta Dish

2011-01-24T12:52:00.000-08:00

One of my resolutions for this year was to cook healthier food. It's not that I didn't cook healthy before, it was just that "healthy" wasn't on the top of my mind when making dinner. Now, I am putting more effort into thinking dinner through before hand, to try and figure out ways to keep lots of flavor, and make it good for our bodies.
The inspiration for this dish came, like so many other dishes, from watching Food Network. Specifically, Rachael Ray. I think she is fun and has lots of great recipes. This one, however, isn't hers. It's mine. :)
Anyway, she was grilling up portobello mushrooms for sandwiches (yum). I printed the recipe and actually ended up changing the whole marinade up so much it can't even be called the same recipe anymore. I thought it was great on the mushrooms. Well, my husband doesn't really care for mushrooms, so the recipe took another twist with the addition of beef in place of the mushrooms. It's also no longer a sandwich. (I discovered how good it was without the bread when I ate the leftovers the next day).
I am so proud of what I came up with, and I just know that you will love it too! Not to mention, that this recipe is also super versatile. You can switch out the beef for chicken or portobello mushrooms. You could also mix up the veggies to include ones that you like. I usually use whatever is fresh and in the fridge. I have pasta as part of this, to make it work for dinner. If you want to whip it up for lunch, you could certainly leave that out, just don't make as much sauce.

Stacia's Steak, Spinach and Pasta Dish

for the marinade:

1 tbl. veggie oil

2 tbl. mustard (I have been using plain yellow)

2 tbl. worcestershire sauce

1/4 c. red wine vinegar

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes (optional)

1 lb. steak, cut into thin strips (I have also used tri tip and cross rib roast for this- just make sure to cut against the grain)
Veggies of your choice, I like:
1 yellow onion, sliced into half rings
2 med. carrots, sliced 1/4inch thin
1-2 bell peppers, sliced thin
1 stalk celery, sliced thin (I don't really care for the stuff, but it works in this!)
small head of broccoli, cut into bite sized florets
half of a normal sized bag or prewashed baby spinach, or two big handfuls

ingredients for the marinade again, (leave out the chili flakes to keep it less spicy) plus:
1 1/2 tbl. cornstarch
1/3 c. water
salt& pepper to taste
1/2 lb. small pasta (macaroni, shells, rotini)

Mix up all of the ingredients for the marinade and put the sliced up steak in it to marinate for an hour or two.
When you are ready to start making dinner, bring a large pot of water to a boil to prepare the pasta.
In a large pan or skillet, begin cooking your onion, bell pepper and celery in a little bit of oil until the veggies are nice and soft. Should take a few minutes on a medium/med-low heat. Drop the pasta and add the broccoli to the pan of veggies. Cook, stirring for a couple of minutes to get a little brown on the broccoli. Pour about 1/4 c of water into the veggies and quickly put a lid on the pan. This will steam the broccoli to make sure it is cooked thoroughly. After a couple minutes have passed, the broccoli should have taken on a lovely broght green color. Move all of the veggies to the outer rim of the pan once the remaining water has evaporated and dump the steak in the middle. Don't move it around too much, we want it to brown nicely. Flip over the meat. It won't take long to cook. Add in your spinach and mix everything together so that the spinach wilts.
Mix together all of the ingredients that you used for the marinade again, plus the cornstarch and water this time. Now you have made the sauce.
Drain the pasta and dump into the veggies, pour the sauce mixture over everything and cook, stirring constantly so that the sauce coats everything as it thickens up. Season to your liking with salt and pepper. Serve immediately. Enjoy!

I have linked up here:

Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Delicious Dishes at itsablogparty.com
Hearth & Soul Hop vol. 32 at A Moderate Life
Frugal Food Thursday at Frugal Follies
Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum
Beat The Winter Blues at Goodbye City, Hello Suburbs!

Perfectly Simple Dark Chocolate Tart

2011-01-17T10:23:00.000-08:00

To continue on my theme of chocolate desserts, I bring to you this rich chocolate tart. I know what you may be thinking, and no, these last three decadent desserts were not in my house at the same time. There was no overlap, at all......Thank goodness.
This dessert comes from a tasty little cookbook of mine called Luscious Chocolate Desserts. So far everything that I have made from this book has turned out fantastic. This tart, is certainly no exception. But be warned, it is only for the chocoholic. The party I made this for had lots of people, and I still ended up keeping half of it because it is so rich that everyone only took small slices. (May also be because there were so many other delicious desserts there, and you can't fill up on just one.)
However, if you are looking for a relatively quick and easy to put together dessert, this is definitely one to keep in your arsenal. With so few ingredients, The only thing that I changed was the kind of chocolate I used for the filling. There really wasn't anything else for me to change about it. Although, next time, I may add just a touch of ground cinnamon to the filling. I love how cinnamon and chocolate compliment each other so nicely.

(my apologies for the poor picture quality. It was nighttime and all I could get was glare)

Perfectly Simple Dark Chocolate Tart serves at least 12
(recipe adapted from the awesome book, Luscious Chocolate Desserts)

Crust:
1/2 c. powdered sugar
1/4 c. toasted walnuts, cooled (you can toast your walnuts in the oven at 350 for a few minutes, or stovetop, just keep an eye on them because they'll burn quickly)
3/4 c. flour
1/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. cold, unsalted butter, cut into smaller pieces

Filling:
6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped (or any combination of the two that you like)
1 c. heavy cream
6 tbl. unsalted butter
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Lightly grease a 11-inch tart pan with a removeable bottom. (one that has sides that go up at least a couple inches) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a food processor, blend together the powdered sugar and walnuts until the walnuts are very fine. Add the flour, cocoa powder and salt, blend just until it's all incorporated. Now add the butter and pulse just until the mixture starts to clump together a bit in the machine. Turn it off and press some between your fingers, if it sticks together, you're ready. Pour the dough into the tart pan and press down evenly to form a crust over the bottom and about an inch and a half to 2 inches up the side. It's going to shrink down just a bit when baking.
Bake the crust for about 15 minutes, or until it begins for pull away from the sides of the pan. It may take a few minutes longer. Let the crust cool.
Now onto the filling. Melt together the heavy cream and chocolate in the microwave. Starting at 30 seconds, then moving onto 10 second incriments. Alternatively, put the bowl of chocolate and cream over a pot of lightly simmering water. Whisk until all of the chocolate is melted and the mixture is nice and smooth. Whisk in the remaining ingredients for the filling. (Note: if the chocolate mixture is really really warm, I recommend that you should temper your eggs first with a little of the chocolate mixture)
Pour the warm filling into the crust and pop back into the oven. Bake for about 12 minutes. The filling should appear set all around the outside, but just a little jiggly in the center. Transfer the tart to a wire rack and cool completely. When you are ready to serve, remove the rim of the pan, gently and set on a cake stand, or whatever you plan to serve it on. Dust with cocoa powder if desired, and enjoy!!

Linked up with:

Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Delicious Dishes at itsablogparty.com
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace

Triple Chocolate Indulgence

2011-01-10T15:23:00.000-08:00

I am going to share with you something I am very proud of. I have been thinking for a long while what to call it. Chocolate comes in three distinct forms (four if you count the pirouettes) in this elegant cake. It is decadent, rich, moist and very delicious. If you don't like chocolate, this is definitely not for you. I thought of my friend, Barb when making this because I know she, too, loves chocolate. :)
This cake was for a New Years Eve party. There was going to be a dessert competition and I wanted to show off my best. Chocolate was not just an option, it had to be the main attraction. And so I came up with this lovely chocolate concotion.
While there was no official voting, I do think that this cake would have, stick with me here, taken the cake. Ha! With two layers of homemade Devil's Food cake, homemade dark chocolate mousse and a delicious chocolate ganache encompassing the entire thing, how could anyone go wrong?
When you make this cake yourself, you can certainly use a store bought cake mix, but I really think the mousse and the ganache need to be homemade to get the best flavor. As for the Pirouettes, they are optional. You can definitely leave the cake as is with the ganache, however, I haven't met a single person that doesn't like Pirouettes. Plus, they come in a few different flavors, something for everybody.
My chocolate mousse is very good. I have made it so many times for so many reasons and everybody loves it. It does use uncooked egg whites, so get your eggs from someplace you trust, and try to make sure they are very fresh. (Save those yolks for zabaglione or chocolate lava cakes!) The recipe is also versatile in that you can use the good baking chocolate, or half of a normal sized bag of chocolate chips.
The ganache is super easy to put together and oh so good. Chill it and pipe into eclairs, or warm up and put over vanilla ice cream.

Instructions:
First make the cake, since it needs to cool completely. Once it has cooled, trim up the tops if they aren't very flat. I just left mine as is, a little rounded-ness never hurt anyone.
While those cakes are cooling, make the ganache. Put one cup of the finished ganache into the fridge to firm up. Leave the rest out at room temperature.
Once the cakes are cool, make the chocolate mousse. This recipe makes about twice as much as you need. However, if you decide to make a triple decker cake (double the cake batter recipe and split it between 3 pans) the extra mousse will come in handy. Hubby and I just ate the rest of it as is.

Now we can begin putting this bad boy together. Put on of your cake layers on a cake stand, top of the cake side down (this helps eliminate that top bulge). Spread on desired amount of mousse. Place other cake layer on top of that and make sure you have enough mousse to ensure no gaps along the sides.

Mix up the room temperature ganache a bit and then begin spreading it all over your cake, starting with the top and moving downward. I recommend using an offset cake spatula for this. Don't worry about how pretty the sides are if you are going to stick pirouettes on it.

Once you have completely covered your cake with ganache (this should have used up all, or just about all of the room temperature ganache), stick your pirouettes (1 normal sized can, pirouettes cut in half) onto the cake. Your chilled ganache should be nice and firm now, so put that into a decorator bag fitted with a large star tip and pipe some stars on the top. I put 12 on because the cake is pretty rich and the standard 8 slices would have been way too big.

Homemade Devil's Food Cake
(recipe modified off of the Softasilk box)

1 c. sugar
1 stick, unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 egg
1 1/4 c. cake flour (I like Softasilk)
1/2 c. dutch processed cocoa powder, or unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 c. + 2 tbl. buttermilk

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 2 9-inch round cake pans.
Beat together the first three ingredients, scraping down the bowl as necessary, until light and fluffy. Mix in the egg until completely incorporated. Combine in another bowl the cake flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Beat the flour mixture alternating with the buttermilk into the butter. Scrape down the bowl and beat for another minute to get it nice and smooth.
Divide the batter between the two pans and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Flip the cakes gently onto cooling racks and allow to cool completely.

Dark Chocolate Mousse

6 ounces dark chocolate (or whatever chocolate you have on hand)
1 1/2 c. heavy cream
3 egg whites
2 tbl. sugar

Melt the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl, and then leave out while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
Whisk the heavy cream in a chilled mixer bowl until stiff peaks form. Set aside until needed.
Put the egg whites in a very clean mixer bowl. Any little fat molecules will prevent the whites from holding up as a meringue. Whisk together until soft peaks form. With the mixer on, slowly add the sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.
Here is where you have to work fast. Quickly whisk one quarter of the whipped cream into the chocolate. If you don't work fast enough, the chocolate will just cool and harden. (in which case, pop in the microwave for 5-10 seconds and try again. Once that is all nice and incorporated, carefully fold in the egg whites and the remaining whipped cream. Refrigerate until ready to use. Store in an airtight container in the fridge.

Semisweet Chocolate Ganache
(recipe slighty adjusted from the book, Death by Chocolate)

1 c. heavy cream
2 tbl. unsalted butter
2 tbl. granulated sugar
12 ounces semisweet chocolate (1 bag or 2 cups of chocolate chips)

Heat together the heavy cream, butter and sugar in a small saucepan over a lower heat. Stir together until everything is incorporated, but do not allow to boil. Put the chocolate into a medium sized bowl and pour the cream over top. Allow this to stand for 5 minutes, then gently stir until smooth. Allow the ganache to cool to room temperature. (Any leftover should be refrigerated)

Enjoy! :)

I am joining the fun at:

Monday's Blog Hop over at Santa's Gift Shoppe
Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Hearth & Soul Hop vol. 30 at A Moderate Life
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Decidedly Healthy or Horridly Decadent Blog Hop at ceo a's draiocht

Dark Chocolate Fudge Cookies

2011-01-04T15:13:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to everyone out there! I hope everyone had a fun and safe new years eve and day. I went to a party on New Years Eve. Not just a normal, wait for the ball to drop, kind of party. This one had a dessert competition. My kind of party, right? I made a delicious chocolate cake- more on that later (insert shameless plug here)
I know lots of people talk about making resolutions this time of year. From the ones I have heard, they seem to be based around eating better and exercising. Well, one of my resolutions is to work out more consistantly, but also to get a recipe posted up here at least every week. With that, I would also like to make more bloggy friends.
My first recipe of the year isn't a "healthy dish", exactly. Just remember portion control. A sweet treat every now and then, in moderation, isn't a bad thing. I would be a very unhappy camper if it was a bad thing. This cookie recipe comes out of the cookie saga I have mentioned before. My husband likes to have a few cookies packed in his lunches for work, and he usually prefers chocolate chip. Chocolate chip is good, but it just bores me after a while, so every now and then I like to change it up. I found this delicious recipe in a cookbook that my mom-in-law gave me called Death By Chocolate. (Part of that cake I mentioned earlier is from this cookbook also!)
We found these cookies to be absolutely delicious! They are moist and oh so chocolately. The drizzle on top is completely optional, but makes for a nice presentation. Give these a try and they might just become your go to cookie recipe!

Dark Chocolate Fudge Cookies makes about 3 dozen
(recipe from the book, Death By Chocolate)

1 1/2 c. all purpose flour
1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa (yes, I wrote that right, unsweetened)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, broken into 1/2ounce pieces (I like Baker's chocolate)
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, broken into 1/2ounce pieces (I like Baker's chocolate)
1 1/2 c. packed brown sugar
12 tbl. unsalted butter, softened
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 c. semisweet chocolate chips (optional, but highly recommended)

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. If you don't have a sifter, just mix them together with a whisk to keep it all nice and light.
Melt the semisweet and unsweetened chocolate together over a double boiler or in the microwave. Stir until smooth and let sit at room temperature until ready.
Mix together the brown sugar and butter with an electric mixer until nice and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl and mix some more to ensure everything is incorporated. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing at medium speed. Scrape down the bowl after each egg is mixed in. Mix in the vanilla extract.
Add the melted chocolate to the mixer and beat just until it is all mixed in. Scrape down the bowl. Add in the flour mixture as well as the chocolate chips and mix just until incorporated.
Portion out the cookies into rounded tablespoons on a cookie sheet about two inches apart. Bake for 7 to 10 minutes. If the cookies are bigger, they will need more time. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
Optional: Melt about 1/2 c. of chocolate and drizzle over the cookies.

Linked up with:

Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
All Things Domestic at Crazy Domestic
Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Hearth & Soul Hop vol. 29 at A Moderate Life
Delicious Dishes at itsablogparty.com
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Tasty Tuesday at A Beautiful Mess
Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum
Fat Camp Friday at Mangoes and Chutney

Something Special From Overstock.com!

2010-12-22T11:26:00.000-08:00

This year I think I did most of my Christmas shopping online. It's also usually my preferred method of getting other gifts and various things year-round.
I know some people out there like to shop in the stores because they don't think internet retailers are that much more affordable, or maybe because they think shipping the item alone will cost an arm and a leg. I am here to say, or rather, type, that Overstock.com really doesn't fall into either of those catagories!
I know this from oh so personal experience. When looking for a nice wedding band for my husband just last year and earlier this year we looked ALL over. We looked in jewelry stores, both online and in person, and any other possible place else we could think of. The best ring we found was in Overstock's selection of Wedding Rings. The band we ended up choosing looks great on him, and more importantly really stands up to being worn by someone who works with his hands a lot. We had such a pleasant experience shopping for and purchasing that ring that Overstock is now one of the first places we always look online when shopping for just about anything.

When looking for a gift for my parents this year, I spent a lot of time online just looking for something that they will both enjoy, of course I looked at Overstock.com. This site has low prices on just about anything you could be looking for, and what's best is that the entire order ships for just $2.95, no matter how big your order may be.
I can't say what I did order for my parents because it's not Christmas yet, and I don't want to spoil it. :)
I can tell you that I did look in Bedding & Bath and Bedding Ensembles for their gift initially.

I am a big fan of Gift Baskets. All of the themed items in a basket (or some other creative container) wrapped up in cellophane just looks so nice and presentable! I definitely considered some of these when shopping for a certain man in my life. There are more than just the traditonal options here, Overstock also has dinner of the month, dinner and movie of the month and pasta of the month gift options. How fun is that!?

Overstock.com will also ship certain items in time for Christmas if you order by noontime EST on the 23rd. Just look for the red gift box below an item on the website to know what will make it home in time.

And as a nice holiday time bonus, Overstock would like to offer my readers a 10% discount on all items* using the code 121745 at checkout. The code doesn't expire, however is only good once, so make sure you order everything you need!
For those interested in purchasing electronics there is also something special for you. Use promo code 202234 to get free shipping.
*The 10% discount does not apply for movies, books or electronics

All the ideas and opinions expressed are my own. No monetary compensation was received for doing this post, however, I was provided with a discount code.

Lime Meltaways

2010-12-20T07:32:00.000-08:00

You know the hard thing about not writing my blog posts soon after making a recipe? The problem is that I look on my camera and occasionally see something tasty I made and can't remember for the life of me where I put the dang recipe.

I have a nice collection of recipe books (most of them being dessert or chocolate oriented because, let's get straight to the point, dessert is almost always my favorite part of a meal.) I also have a box of recipe cards and small clippings. Then, there is my recipe binder. This is something I started waaaayyyy back in my sophmore year of high school. I took a foods class and the teacher had us keep a folder with the recipes we made in the class. I thought this was a wonderful way to keep track of all the recipes I print out. Let's face it, I print out lots of recipes. So my recipe folder eventually turned into a recipe binder, which has just somewhat recently been upgraded to a larger binder.

I do keep my recipe binder organized. I used every page divider I could find in the house. I think the largest section is devoted to recipes I would like to try. After that, desserts and other treats definitely takes the cake.

Anyways, let's get focused now. I got up early this morning while my husband got ready for work. I am a morning person, although you could probably never tell by how hard it is for me to wake up sometimes. I decided long ago that getting up early helps me make sure I get things around the house taken care of because *this* is when I am the most productive, by far. So I ate some breakfast, checked my email and here we are. Found my camera and went back into the memory looking for a recipe to write about, today, it's going to be Lime Meltaways.

Mine were actually more like Key Lime Meltaways, but regular, plain 'ol limes will work just fine for this application. Hubby and I stumbled upon a key lime tree and gathered about half a dozen to a dozen or so. I juiced lots of them for the recipe, and let me tell you what a pain it was! I didn't even get half of the juice I needed, but luckily, I have key lime juice in the fridge. I have been able to find it in stores with the regular lime and lemon juice.

These cookies were worth the work. As the name states, they seem to just melt away in your mouth. I think I might try the recipe with lemon juice sometime. Yummy!

Lime Meltaways

(Recipe slightly adapted from marthastewart.com)

12 tbl. unsalted butter, room temperature

1 c. powdered sugar, divided

finely grated zest of 2 or 3 limes

2 tbl. lime juice

1 tbl. vanilla

1 3/4 c. plus 2 tbl. all purpose flour (this is 2 c. minus 2 tbl. if you want to look at it differently)

2 tbl. cornstarch

In a mixer bowl, whisk together the butter and 1/3 c. sugar until nice and fluffy. Add in the zest, lime juice and vanilla, beat again until nice and fluffy.

In another bowl, mix together the flour and cornstarch (or just add it to the butter mixture like I did) and add to the butter mixture. Beat on a lower speed until everything is nice and combined.

Divide the dough into two equal portions. Roll each portion into a 1 1/4inch log in a piece of parchment paper. Stick the logs in the fridge for at least an hour, up to overnight to chill and firm up.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a couple cookie sheets with parchment, or lightly grease with nonstick spray, or even use a silpat baking mat (so many options!!). Take one of the logs from the fridge, remove the parchment and cut into 1/8 inch thick pieces. Place the pieces on the baking sheet about an inch apart- these shouldn't spread too much while baking. Then do the same with the other log of cookie dough.

Bake until they are just turning golden around the edges, between 5 to 10 minutes. Keep an eye on them, because it can happen fast. Move the cooked cookies to a baking rack to cool slightly. Once they are all on the rack, it's time to dust them.

Put the remaining 2/3 c. powdered sugar into a resealable sandwich bag and place a few cookies at a time into the bag and toss gently to coat. Put the coated cookies back on the rack and repeat until all of the cookies have a nice dusting of sugar. Enjoy!!

Linked up with:

Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Tuesday at the Table at All The Small Stuff
Foodie Friday at Designs By Gollum
Countdown to 2011 at Finding Joy in my Kitchen

German Chocolate Cake

2010-12-06T11:15:00.000-08:00

Boy, has it been a while since I posted! Life got busy fast, all starting with Thanksgiving. A few weeks ago, hubby and I wanted to have a German-themed dinner. We had homemade brats as the entree, and I made a delicious German chocolate cake, but I don't know that this cake is actually of German, origin, though. What I do know is that I do not like coconut. And it's not just a texture thing, the flavor just doesn't jive with me. Lots of people do like it, and I got RAVE reviews on the cake.
You'll notice that the recipe makes 3 9-inch rounds of chocolate cake, but my finished product is 2 layers. Well, I cut the frosting to 2/3's so I could have one cake layer for myself. Yum!
I have to say, even if you don't like coconut, you should at least use the cake portion of this recipe, because it is divine! I was eating it without frosting of any kind. I even found myself returning to the kitchen for a piece of it! Yummy!!

German Chocolate Cake (serves: a lot!)

(recipe from Joy of Baking)

Cake:

4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

2 1/4 c. cake flour

3/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 c. hot coffee or boiling water

1 c. buttermilk

1 1/4 c. unsalted butter, room temperature

2 1/4 c. granulated sugar
5 eggs
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour 3 8- or 9-inch round cake pans, line bottoms with parchment.
Melt the chocolate either in the microwave, slowly, or in a double boiler on the stove. In another bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In yet another bowl, combine the coffee and the buttermilk.
Now, in the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter until it is nice and creamy. Add in the sugar and beat until nice and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Make sure the first is completely incorporated before adding in another. Scrape down the sides of the mixer bowl and add in the vanilla, mix.
Mix in the flour mixture and the buttermilk mixture, alternatively, starting and ending with the flour mixture. (1/3 flour mixture, half buttermilk mixture, 1/3 flour, half buttermilk, 1/3 flour). Mix ONLY until everything is incorporated. Slowly mix in the melted chocolate.
Divide the batter among the 3 cake pans, and smooth the tops out. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let cool on wire racks.

Frosting:
1 1/4 c. pecans
1 c. granulated sugar
1 c. evaporated milk
3 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1/2 c. unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 1/2 c. flaked coconut
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the pecans on a baking sheet and bake just until you can smell them. Don't leave the immediate area because they can and will burn. Burnt pecans are not tasty. Coursely chop the toasted pecans.
In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, milk, egg yolks and butter. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly. When the mixture begins to boil and thicken, remove from the heat and mix in the pecans, vanilla and coconut. Let it cool until spreadable, then spread onto the cooled cake. Enjoy!

I have linked up with the following parties:

Potluck Sunday at Mommy's Kitchen
Tuesdays at the Table at All The Small Stuff
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
Hearth & Soul Hop vol. 26 at A Moderate Life
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam

Bread Bowls

2010-11-21T07:31:00.000-08:00

Recently a friend of mine and I had lunch at La Bou. I really like this place. I wish there was one closer to me. Their dill sauce is simply amazing. More on that when I figure out how to make it for myself!
She had a salad and I had a bread bowl filled with this tasty spicy thai chicken soup.
I had never had a bread bowl before, and after having this one I KNEW I had to make them at home. They are too delicious and fun NOT to make at home.
My husband was going to make his delicious chili, and what a perfect ~~excuse~~ reason to make bread bowls!
I first searched my cookbooks for bread bowl recipes. I know there has got to be some basic bread recipe out there that you can form into this round loaf, but not being that experienced in bread making, I wanted to make sure I found a recipe that was suited for bread bowls. Hard on the outside and soft in the center.
The bread itself doesn't have a ton of flavor, but that's what the soup (or chili!) is for. If you want to add flavor to the bread, go for it. Try some dried spices.
I divided the dough into 6 portions (per lots of the reviews) and they were the perfect size for a dinner serving of chili. Divide into 8 if you want them a bit smaller.

Bread Bowls (makes 6 bowls)
(adapted this recipe from allrecipes.com)

2 (.25oz) packages active dry yeast (4 1/2tsp total)
2 1/2 c. warm water
1 tsp. salt
1 tbl. sugar
2 tbl. olive oil
7 c. all purpose flour

In the bowl of a stand mixer, dissolve the yeast in the water. Let sit until nice and creamy looking (about 10 min). Add the salt, sugar, oil and 4 cups of the flour and mix with the paddle attachment until everything is thoroughly combined. Add the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, scrape down the bowl as necessary.
Switch out the paddle attachment for a dough hook and knead until the dough comes together and is smooth and elastic.
Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, move it around to cover with oil. Cover the bowl with a towel or a piece of plastic and set in the oven along with a large cup of hot water (to provide steam). Let rise for 40 minutes, or until doubled.
Punch dough down and divide into 6 even portions. Lightly grease two cookie sheets and sprinkle lightly with cornmeal. Roll the dough pieces into balls and set them apart on the cookie sheets. Cover again with towels and back into the oven. Reheat the cup of water if it's not hot anymore. Let rise 35 minutes or so, or until they have risen to about twice their original size.
Bake in a 400 degree oven for 25-35 minutes or until they have turned a lovely golden. Allow the bread to cool on a baking rack. Slice off the top 1/2inch of the bread, or cut an upside down cone out of the top. Pull out all of the insides but about an inch of shell. Fill with your soup or chili. Enjoy!

Linked up with:

Sunday Recipe Swap at Remodelaholic
Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Delicious Dishes at itsablogparty.com
Dr. Laura's Tasty Tuesday at whoislaura.com
Hearth & Soul Hop vol. 24 at A Moderate Life
Tasty Tuesday at A Beautiful Mess
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed With Grace
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam

Cake Batter Ice Cream

2010-11-14T07:04:00.000-08:00

I know, I know. It's cold outside. But big time ice cream lovers will eat this stuff rain or shine!
On a trip to Wisconsin in September for a wedding, Hubby and I stopped at a cute little cafe and tried their cake batter ice cream. It was delicious!
Let me explain. Who doesn't like licking the bowl clean when making cake? I know that some people frown on it because there is raw egg in the batter.
So here is the perfect solution. The egg used in this recipe is all cooked. And yet, when served, it has the same creaminess that cake batter does, and the SAME taste. It's great. I think next time I'm going to try a chocolate version. Or maybe just mix cookie crumbs in it.
Did I mention that a certain vanilla wafer compliments this ice cream wonderfully? Try it out! This would be a fun twist for a child's birthday. Top with some sprinkles and a birthday candle and ta-da!

Cake Batter Ice Cream
(recipe from allrecipes.com)

1 c. milk (I used low fat and none could be the wiser!)
1/2 c. granulated white sugar
2 egg yolks, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 c. heavy whipping cream
1 c. yellow or french vanilla cake mix

Whisk together all of the ingredients in a medium saucepan until everything is well blended. Turn the heat to medium-low and cook until the mixture reaches 160 degrees F, keep whisking to make sure nothing on the bottom burns. The mixture will be nice and thick when it reaches the right temperature. Remove ice cream base from the heat and refrigerate until it's well chilled. Make sure to press a piece of plastic onto the surface of the base to prevent a skin from forming.
Once chilled, pour the ice cream base into your ice cream machine per the directions of the manufacturer. Stick in a freezer safe container and freeze for a couple of hours to firm up.
Note: This ice cream freezes up firm, so take out of the freezer 10-15 minutes before youy plan to serve it.

I linked this recipe up at:

Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Delicious Dishes at itsablogparty.com
Dr. Laura's Tasty Tuesday at whoislaura.com
Tasty Tuesday at A Beautiful Mess
Hearth and Soul Hop vol.23 at A Moderate Life
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed With Grace
Whatcha Makin Wednesday at Scrapaddict4sure
Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum

Apple Chips

2010-11-07T07:39:00.000-08:00

Tis the season for apples! So many varieties appear at the grocery store. Tourist spots like Apple Hill get a mad rush of people that loves apples (or so I hear).
Hubby's parents dropped off a couple paper grocery sacks of apples from their yard. Wanting to preserve them, I stumbled upon this recipe by Food Network's Alex Guarnaschelli.
Yes, we do have a food dehydrator. I had no problem drying these out in the oven since it only gets up to 200 degrees F. Plus, I don't much care for cleaning the dehydrator's racks.
These apple chips were really easy to make. The hardest part is waiting for them to soak in the sugar water then wait for the oven to cool off and them to be ready. Good flavor, and good color all remains. I'm not sure how it would be with less sugar, but with apples on sale, it couldn't hurt to try!

Apple Chips
(recipe by Alex Guarnaschelli)

2 cups water
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 or 3 lemons
2 small- medium apples washed and tried(I used one small and one medium, filled my cookie sheets perfectly)

In a small pot, bring the water and sugar to a slow boil, stir to dissolve the sugar. Remove from heat and let it cool.
Core the apples and then slice them thinly with a mandoline. Leave those skins on! It adds a nice pop of color to the finished chip.
As you slice the apples, dribble some lemon juice over them to keep from browning (oxidizing). Once they are all sliced and the sugar syrup has cooled off, pour the syrup into a baking dish (I used one a little smaller than my 9x13in. Place the apples in gently, make sure they are covered by the sugar syrup. They will have to overlap, that's fine, just make sure there is syrup between the pieces.
Let them sit for a few hours- or overnight.
The next morning, preheat the oven to 200 degrees F. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. Very lightly dry the apple slices on a paper towel then lay them out in one layer- not touching. Bake for 1 hour, or until crispy. Turn off the oven and leave the apple chips in there until everything has cooled off. This will ensure they have dried out.
Store in an airtight container, or just eat them! Enjoy!

This wonderful recipe is linked up at:

Made By You Monday at Skip to My Lou
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Delicious Dishes at It's a Blog Party
Dr. Laura's Tasty Tuesday at WhoIsLaura.com
Tasty Tuesday at A Beautiful Mess
Tuesdays at the Table at All The Small Stuff
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam

Best Tortellini Soup

2010-11-01T07:13:00.000-07:00

I like to decide what is going to be for dinner as early into the day as possible. There is just something about being organized and prepared that I enjoy so much. There is also the fact that it takes some time to defrost whatever protien we will be chowing on.
So one morning I get a text from Hubby requesting tortellini soup. Not only that, but he already had a recipe in mind that was tried and true (from a friend at work). With the weather cooling off, soup sounds great. Not only that, but I haven't ever made this kind before and it looks great!
I did some internet searching for similar recipes, but honestly, none of them sounded as good as this one. And it sure was yummy. I forgot to take pictures because we dug right into the stuff. :)

Tortellini Soup
(modified by Stacia)

1 to 1 1/2 pounds bulk Italian sausage
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 cups beef broth
2 cups water
1 1/2 tsp. italian seasoning
2 big carrots, half inch slice
1 14.5oz can diced tomatoes (with juice)
1 15oz can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 16oz package tortellini (mine were roasted chicken, but whatever flavor you want will be fine)
salt & pepper

In a large pot or dutch oven, cook the sausage and onion over medium to medium high heat until the onion has softened and the sausage is cooked through. Drain off as much fat as you can (or want).
Add the broth, water, italian seasoning and carrots. Bring everything to a slow boil and cook for about 10 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and uncooked tortellini (mine were frozen at this point). Cook until the tortellini have cooked through. Season with salt and pepper as desired and serve up (garnished with parmesan if you're into that kind of thing)

Linked up with:

Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
Tuesdays at the Table at All The Small Stuff
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Hearth and Soul Hop vol.21 at A Moderate Life
Delicious Dishes at It's a Blog Party
Dr. Laura's Tasty Tuesday at Who Is Laura
Tasty Tuesdays at A Beautiful Mess
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace

Pepper Vinegar

2010-10-25T09:54:00.000-07:00

Being a California girl, I wasn't really sure what pepper vinegar was when I first stumbled upon a recipe for it.
How did I stumble across a recipe for pepper vinegar? Well, in anticipation of planting a variety of hot pepper plants, I began searching for recipes to utilize them. Why grow 6 different hot peppers with no plans to USE any of them?
When I first found this recipe I was intrigued, to say the least. I looked up other versions of pepper vinegar. I remembered going to St. Louis for a couson's wedding and seeing a bottle of what must have been -pepper vinegar- in a Steak and Shake. Hmm...so these people were onto something that I wasn't.
These pepper recipes were part of why I started blogging when I did. I wanted to document recipes that I tried and made up. Some have been good, some have been not so good. But this pepper vinegar has been great.

Hubby and I have put it on stuffed bell peppers and on pasta. There are definite plans to put some on pizza next time we make that too. It's peppery- that's for sure, but not as hot as you might think it should be since it has cayenne peppers in it. It's also vinegar-y (sp?), go figure. Perfect replacement for the bottled hot sauce we had sitting in the fridge. As you can see in one of my pictures, we dumped the hot sauce in favor of some pepper vinegar. The other bottles are those small wine bottles you find in the store in packs of 4. I love using those when a recipe calls for about a cup of wine- no need to open up a whole bottle!

Any bottle you want should work, so long as you can wash it well and the neck is wide enough to shove peppers through. Take also into consideration how well it pours. We found those wine bottles don't pour as easily as we would like. It's all worth it though. :)

This pepper vinegar needs to sit in the cupboard or the fridge for 2 weeks, ideally before use. This gives the vinegar time to absorb that yummy flavor. And now that the weather is starting to cool off (at least around my parts), it's time to figure out what to do with all of those last peppers before the cold destroys them! This recipe is perfect!

Of course, you could just go to the grocery store and grab some peppers there. Bring the bottle you plan to use (empty!) so you can get an idea of how many peppers you'll need.
Onto the recipe...

Pepper Vinegar

(recipe from MostlyCajun.com)

Hot peppers (cayennes, serranos, jalapenos, etc.)

Distilled white vinegar (Try apple cider vinegar for a fun twist!)

bottles (clear is fun so you can see the peppers inside)

Wash, and sterilize in a hot water bath if you so desire, the bottles and lids (and a funnel).
Wash the peppers and let dry, or gently dry with a towel. Cut off the stem and slice in half (or in quarters if a half is too big to fit through the neck of the bottle).
Stuff the peppers into the bottle. You want them to all fit in nicely, but not too snug because otherwise, the vinegar won't be able to get around all of them. You can get creative here and put the peppers in different orders to make fun patterns. I found a chopstick was very handy in getting the peppers right where I wanted them. Make sure there is empty space in the neck above the peppers. This ensures they can all be covered completely with vinegar.
Warm up some vinegar. You have to estimate how much you'll need. If you are making several bottles, I recommend following the directions here on how he heated up the vinegar. Since I did one or 2 small bottles at a time, I put some vinegar in a glass liquid measuring cup and popped in in the microwave for 45 to 60 seconds.
Pour the vinegar into the bottles with the help of a funnel. Once the tops of the peppers are covered, oh so gently shake the bottle to release any air pockets. Fill up some more, but make sure to leave some head space in the top.
These little beauties need to sit away from direct sunlight for at least 2 weeks. Put them in a cupboard or in your fridge. I'm making some for Christmas gifts. Yum!

Linked up with:

Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Hearth & Soul Hop #20 at A Moderate Life
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
Foodie Friday at Designs By Gollum

Strawberry Shortcake Scones

2010-10-24T13:02:00.000-07:00

You remember my Strawberry Bread, don't you? You don't? Okay, go ahead and read it. I have time. :)

Back to my 2 containers of strawberries that needed use. I found a delicious looking recipe for Strawberry Shortcake Scones at Fancy Frugalista. Having a bunch of strawberries and the desire to expand my scone repertoire, these were perfect. I love that they use NO cream. Perfect since I didn't have any.
These are great, and definitely best fresh and warm. Yummy!
The recipe calls for strawberry juice. My strawberries weren't willing to give up much, even after a sprinkling of sugar. So I just used what I had and filled up the rest of the way with milk. It worked. They were great.
I halved the recipe for hubby and I, if you have quite a few people to feed, go ahead and make the full batch.

Strawberry Shortcake Scones
(recipe from Fancy Frugalista)

2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 c. + 2 tbl. granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. room tempterature butter, cubed
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
strawberry juice + milk to equal 1/3 cup. (half and half is ideal, but more milk than juice is just fine)
1/2 c. chopped strawberries (mix in some sugar and let sit to get juice)

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet.
Mix together the first 4 ingredients. Then blend in the butter until it's pea sized.
In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, vanilla, juice and milk. Mix into the flour mixture just until moistened. Gently mix in the berries. Put the dough onto the cookie sheet and form into a 8-inch circle. Score into 6 to 8 slices and bake 25-30 minutes. I think you could also divide the dough into 6 to 8 pieces and put them on the cookie sheet and bake them that way. They may night take as long to bake, so keep an eye. Let cool a bit and enjoy!!

Linked up with the following awesome parties:

Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale

Strawberry Bread

2010-10-17T14:53:00.000-07:00

Strawberries were on sale cheap at one of our local grocery stores and I wanted to get a couple containers for strawberry shortcake. Unfortunately, the yellow cake I was planning to use as the cake molded. Like the day after we bought the strawberries.
So, with two containers of strawberries, it was time to get creative. I made strawberry shortcake scones (more on that later), cool and easy strawberry pie (that's dessert for tonight), and a lovely strawberry bread.
I found the recipe at allrecipes.com, but made so many changes that there isn't a whole lot linking it back to the original (which I don't have the link for anyways).

I don't know about anyone else, but warm strawberries doesn't sound very good. However, it's time to get over that feeling and have some yummy bread. The bread is great warm, but also tasty at room temperature. It's incredibly moist and soft. Yum.
I left the nuts out of the recipe because hubby isn't a big fan of them in bread, but feel free to add some in if it's your sorta thing.

Strawberry Bread one 9x5inch loaf

1 1/2 c. all purpose flour
1 c. granulated sugar
sprinkle of cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 c. + 2 tbl. veggie oil (or try substituting applesauce- and let me know how it works!)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 c. strawberries, pureed
1 c. strawberries, chopped
1/2-3/4 c. chopped pecans (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9x5inch loaf pan.
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. In a smaller bowl, blend together the oil, eggs, vanilla and pureed strawberries. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir just until everything is moistened. Gently fold in the chopped strawberries and pecans.
Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near the middle comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for about 10 minutes before turning the loaf out of the pan to cool the rest of the way. Slice and enjoy!!

Linked up with:

Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Hearth and Soul Hop vol. 19 at A Moderate Life

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

2010-10-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

There is just about always fresh cookies in the house. Hubby likes them for his work lunches, and I like making them for him. He is a simple guy, and usually likes just plain old chocolate chip cookies. However, with all of my cookbooks, and blog following, I want to change it up from time to time. Hubby is fine with that, and we do usually end up going back to the old standby of chocolate chip.
This week at my internship worksite, someone brought in the staff pizza and cookies. I chose a huge chocolate crinkle cookie, and at that moment knew I had to make some of my own at home.
I searched and searched my cookbooks for a recipe to no avail. My mom makes something similar around Christmas time, but the recipe must be over at her house. Off to the internet I went. I searched "krinkle" and "crinkle" and came up with loads of recipes. Some included melted chocolate, some required refrigeration time, some had good reviews and some had mixed reviews. After looking at a few I knew that I wanted one that used cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate and preferred to find one that didn't require any refrigeration time because I prefer to start and finish a recipe in one standing.
Enter here the Williams-Sonoma website. I have a few of their cookbooks, of which I am very very pleased with. This recipe had great reviews (I love the recipe websites that let people review them. SOOOOO helpful!). And the weird thing is - I followed the recipe EXACTLY this time. Crazy, huh? They are delicious. Hubby even enjoys them in his lunch. Win-win! They are definitely going on my Christmas cookie list.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies makes 24-30 cookies
(recipe from Williams-Sonoma)

1/2 c. powdered sugar (you may need just a bit more)
1 2/3 c. all purpose flour
1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 c. granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease two cookie sheets.
Put the powdered sugar into a bowl and set aside- a cereal bowl works great for this.
In another bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.
Now, in a large bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter and granulated sugar until it's nice and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla.
Gently mix in the flour mixture until it's all combined.
Using a tablespoon, or a melon baller, scoop out the cookie dough and roll it into balls. Put the balls in the bowl of powdered sugar, a few at a time, and roll them around until completely coated. The powdered sugar does seem to stick better when the dough is cool. Place the powdered sugar covered cookie dough balls (they look like donut holes) on the cookie sheet, a couple inches apart and bake for 10 to 12 minutes until they have puffed and cracked.
Let them sit on the cookie sheet for just a moment, then move to a cooling rack to finish cooling. Enjoy!

I have linked up at:

Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Tuesdays at the Table at All The Small Stuff
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Hearth and Soul Hop vol. 18 at A Moderate Life

Apple Strudel Bread

2010-09-29T11:16:00.000-07:00

Apples are coming back in season (or maybe they are just on sale where I live). The other day, Hubby bought a few Granny Smiths. I knew immediately that I wanted to make or bake SOMETHING with these apples. There wasn't enough for a pie, so that was out of the question for now. I began my search for recipes online. I think I must have found what I was looking for from my Better Homes and Gardens email list. I was looking at a bunch of their Fall recipes when I found one for Apple Strudel Bread. I followed the recipe exactly, except for a few minor changes.
First, I used all purpose flour instead of bread flour because it's what I have. It worked just fine.
Next, I used only 2 apples. I don't think it added up to the 3 cups the recipe asked for, but it worked well because..
Lastly, I only rolled out the dough to 17x14 inches because that's how big my largest cutting board is.
This bread is so delicious! A whole (huge) loaf has lasted me and the hubby several days, and I can safely say that I am not tired of it yet. Usuallu having something that many days straight will get me tired of it. Not this. I am not a big raisin fan, but I added them in anyways, and let me tell you that all of the lovely filling components go so well together with the lovely sweet yeast bread.
Oh, and that yeast bread. It's made in the bread machine! How much easier could that be?? You can certainly make it by hand, no doubt about that. But I love all of the free time this gave me.

Apple Strudel Bread
(recipe slightly adapted from bhg.com)

3/4 c. milk
1/3 c. butter, cut up
1 egg
3 1/4 c. all purpose flour
1/3 c. granulated sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. active dry yeast
3 tbl. butter, softened
2 med-large apples, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 c. packed brown sugar
1/2 c. raisins
4 tsp. all purpose flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
optional glaze (I didn't think it was necessary): 3/4 c. powdered sugar + 1/4 tsp. vanilla + milk

Add the first seven ingredients to your bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select dough cycle. When the cycle is over, punch down the dough and let it rest for 10 minutes.
Line a large cookie sheet or baking dish with foil. (I didn't line my cookie sheet with foil, and ended up with that delicious brown sugar goo all over the bottom of my oven.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a rectangle (17x14 worked for me, but 24x12 would give you a bigger loaf). Brush with the softened butter.
To make the filling, mix together the apples, brown sugar, raisins, flour and cinnamon. Spoon the filling on the middle third of the dough, lengthwise. Another option is to shingle the apple slices all the way across and drizzle the sauce and raisins over that. Make sure to leave about 2 inches on either side so it can be sealed up.
Roll the whole thing up like you are making cinnamon rolls. I ended up just folding the top third over the apples, then the bottom third of the dough over that. Pinch all of the ends and place on your baking sheet/pan. Cover and let it rise in a warm place for about 45 minutes. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30-35 minutes. Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack.
Mix together the glaze ingredients if desired. The amount of milk is up to you and how thin or thick you want the glaze to be. Drizzle over the bread once cooled.
Slice up and enjoy!!

I have linked up with:

Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple
Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum
I'm Lovin It Friday at Tidy Mom
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
Hearth & Soul Hop vol. 17 at Frugality and Crunchiness with Christy
Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff

Taco Seasoning

2010-09-24T08:44:00.000-07:00

My husband made guac several days ago, and to eat guac, one uses tortilla chips. Well, now we are left with half a bag of tortilla chips. What is a person to do? The first thing I thought of was taco salad. I haven't had it in a while, but the parts list is pretty simple and flexible. We used tortilla chips, kidney beans, romaine lettuce, a mexican salad dressing, sauteed onions and bell peppers, sour cream and of course, ground beef.
The ground beef needed to be seasoned, that much was certain. So while scouring the internet yesterday for taco salad recipes to see if there were any parts I missed, I noticed several used taco seasoning packets. After making my own ranch dressing mix, I knew there had to be a homemade version that would be both delicious and wallet friendly.
I finally found one with superb ratings here. Let me just say right here that I really like Food.com (formerly recipezaar.com) partially because of ratings that other people like me post. Lots of people will post about any changes they made, or if the recipe was just all around horrible. I know not everybody has the same tastes, but when 20 people all comment saying they added one thing, you have to go with it. :)
I took my taco seasoning recipe to the kitchen and scaled it down to 1/4 of the original. I left all of the ratios the same except using 2 teaspoons of cumin because I was far too lazy to figure out what a quarter of 3 tablespoons was, and try to measure it with standard measuring spoons. It was still delicious, I assure you.
So, if you are one of those people that uses a lot of taco seasoning, feel free to make the whole recipe. I didn't want to use the last of the paprika in the house, so I scaled it down. Either way, it's tasty.
I feel that how much you add to ground meat is up to you too, I did about a teaspoon to almost a pound of ground beef and it was just perfect for us. You may like it kicked up a bit more. Whatever makes you happy.

3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon 4 tablespoons = 1/4 cup

Taco Seasoning
recipe from food.com

1/2 tbl. paprika
1/2 tbl. dried onion flakes (ground down in a mortar and pestel
1 tsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. chili powder
2 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tbl. (about 3/4 tsp) garlic powder
1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
heaping 1/4 tsp. dried oregano
1/8 tsp. coriander

Combine all of the ingredients and add as much or as little as prefered to the ground meat of your choice.

I linked this recipe up at:

Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
Hearth and Soul Hop #16 at Frugality and Crunchiness with Christy

Super Easy Potato Wedges

2010-09-20T09:56:00.000-07:00

This recipe is oh so simple to throw together. Everyone that has come over and tried them absolutely loves them. Crispy on the outside, moist and soft on the inside. And what could be easier than just a few ingredients and a few steps?
These potato wedges can be seasoned with whatever flavors you like. It's really fun to make each potato a different flavor.
If you are only using a couple potatos, then the toaster oven makes the job even easier. I haven't tried putting any more than 2 potatoes worth of wedges in the toaster oven because you don't want the wedges to touch while baking, and my toaster oven baking pan isn't big enough for any more.
There is no frying involved, and no par-boiling the potatoes or what-have-you. Just wash, slice, mix and bake. Easy cheesy! (You could top them with some shredded cheese fresh out of the oven if you like!)

Super Easy Potato Wedges (1 potato per person)
recipe inspired by and adapted from Ina Garten

1 medium to large Russet potato per person serving
about 1 tbl. olive oil (or veggie oil) per potato
1-2 tsp desired seasonings per potato(rosemary & garlic is our favorite, but cajun is also good. It's really whatever flavors you like)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Thoroughly wash your potatoes- they do grow in dirt after all. Slice them in half lengthwise and then slice each half lengthwise again into either thirds or quarters depending on how big the potato is. I like them to be about 3/4 inch thick. Thinner will cook faster and be crispier, while thicker will be more moist in the middle.
Put the potatoes in a bowl and drizzle over the oil and seasonings. Move everything around with your hands to ensure that every part of every wedge is covered. The oil you put in here is going to be what's keeping them from sticking to the pan. If you don't think there is enough oil or seasoning, just add more at this point.
Lay the wedges out on a baking sheet with cut sides down and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and flip each of them to their other cut side and bake another 10 t0 15 minutes or until they are as cooked as you prefer.
Serve warm with something to dip them in. Ranch would be good, but I like plain old ketchup. Yum!

I have linked up with:

Recpe Swap Sunday at Remodelaholic
Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Hearth & Soul Blog Hop vol. 15 at Frugality and Crunchiness with Christy

Mozzarella Stuffed Jalapenos

2010-09-10T09:45:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I decided this year to try growing a variety of hot pepper plants. Instead of just the usual bell peppers and jalapeno. The pepper plants were actually part of the reason I started this blog. I wanted to document my pepper creations. And with 6 different peppers, I was hoping for some fun creations!
Well, 2 of the plants aren't producing quite like I had hoped for. Never the less, our jalapeno plant is packed full of peppers. That's where this oh so simple idea came from!!
Be careful when slicing the peppers in half and scooping ou the seeds and membrane. I used to not think much of it- not with jalapenos, then I reiceved all of the warning I will ever need. A small squirt from the pepper got into my eye. I know what pepper spray must feel like, ladies and gentleman, and it is NO GOOD! ( I plan to use gloves and safety glasses when all of my cayenne peppers are ready!)
Since this recipe is really more of a guideline, I don't have any specific measurements. Fell free to doll it up as you wish.

Mozzarella Stuffed Jalapenos

fresh jalapenos
mozzarella cheese sticks (or a small block of mozzarella)
bread crumbs (I used plain, but seasoned would be tasty)

Wash the jalapenos and slice them in half lengthwise. Using a spoon, scoop out all of the insides- its those seeds and membrane that make the pepper hot! Be careful not to flatten out the jalapeno, we need it's shape to stuff it. You can cut the top part off if you want, just to make sure all of the hot part is gone (I didn't cut the top off, so mine were pretty hot).
Take your chees stick and slice it into small strips that will fit into the jalapeno. Sprinkle some bread crumbs over the top- as much as you like. Put the peppers on a foil lined baking sheet (easy clean up!) and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 5 minutes or so, until the cheese has begun melting and the bread crumbs are sufficiently browned. Keep an eye on these, they will go quickly! Enjoy!
Note: I used my toaster oven for this and it worked PERFECTLY for something so small!

Linky parties!!!:

Made By You Monday at Skip To My Lou
Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
Sunday Recipe Swap at Remodelaholic
Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday featured @ At the Well
Topsy Turvy Tuesday at I'm Topsy Turvy
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Delicious Dishes at It's a Blog Party
Hearth and Soul Blog Hop # 14 at Frugality and Crunchiness with Christy

Roasted Green Beans and Onions

2010-08-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

With our green bean plants somehow still producing, I found myself in need of a recipe. None of this just boil and eat them business. I turned first to my Taste of Home cookbook that my momma gave me for Christmas. I found the perfect recipe. (Perfect partially because I had everything on hand)
Hubby and I both really enjoyed the dish- but feel free to change it up to your taste. Don't put garlic in if you don't like it. Add more onion if you love the stuff. You get my drift.

Roasted Green Beans and Onions about 4 servings
(adapted from a recipe in Taste of Home)

3/4- 1 lb of green beans, ends snapped off and washed
1 small onion, thinly sliced into rings (or half rings if you're like me)
2 garlic cloves, sliced thin
1 tbl. red wine vinegar
1 tbl. olive oil

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. (I used my toaster oven here)
Bring a pot of water to a boil and blanch the beans for approx. 5 minutes or so. Their color will become more pronounced, but still be firm. Drain.
In a medium sized bowl, combine the beans with the remaining ingredients and mix until everything is covered in oil and vinegar. Place on a greased baking dish. Spread out a little bit- too much spreading and things will burn quickly.
Bake for 10 minutes and check. If you want it more cooked, stir and pop back in the oven for another 5 minutes of so. After 10 minutes, the beans and onions were plenty cooked for my taste. Enjoy!

I have linked up this delicious recipe at:

Sunday Recipe Swap at Remodelaholic
Potluck Sunday at Mommy's Kitchen
Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
Topsy Turvy Tuesday at I'm Topsy Turvy
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Delicious Dishes at It's a Blog Party

Cocoa Meringues

2010-08-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

Hello, hello! I must apologize for the lack of posts recently- I haven't been making many perfected recipes worth posting about. This one, however, is a winner.
Remember that creme brulee I made? Remember how it doesn't use egg whites?
The more I get into "fancy" type desserts- custards and such, the more egg whites I end up with on hand. What does a girl do with extra egg whites? Try another meringue cookie recipe, of course!!
These cookies are chocolately, light, and not that bad for you either! Everybody that tried them liked them. And in a sealed container- they were still good a couple days later.

Cocoa Meringues

3 egg whites

3/8 tsp. cream of tartar

dash of salt

1/4 c. + 2 tbl. granulated sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 c. + 2 tbl. powdered sugar

3 tbl. unsweetened cocoa

Preheat oven to 200 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, beat together the egg whites, cream of tartar and salt with a whisk or balloon whisk attatchment of a stand mixer. Beat until soft peaks have formed, then slowly add in the granlulated sugar while still beating. Continue beating the egg whites until stiff and glossy peaks have formed. Keep an eye on this to make sure they aren't overbeaten!

Sift together the powdered sugar and cocoa powder, then fold into the egg whites along with the vanilla extract. Drop the meringue on the cookie sheet by large teaspoonfuls. (Alternatively, you can load up the meringue into a piping bag with a larger tip and pipe the meringue onto the cookie sheet.) Bake for 1 1/2 hours (90 minutes) and then turn off the oven, leaving the cookies inside to cool for at least 3 hours or up to overnight if you baked them in the evening. After cooling, store the cookies in an airtight container to keep them as fresh as possible and enjoy!

I have linked up at the following parties:

Tuesdays at the Table at All The Small Stuff
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
Tuesday Tastes at Crazy Daisy
Two for Tuesday #11 at Frugality and Crunchiness with Christy
Topsy Turvy Tuesday at I'm Topsy Turvy
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Delicious Dishes at It's a Blog Party

Creme Brulee

2010-08-16T09:43:00.000-07:00

Can you believe that I never had creme brulee until just earlier this year? A couple friends of mine are big fans of it, and when we learned it was the dessert special of the night at the restaurant we met at for dinner, there was no getting around having some! It was delicious.Creme brulee is decadent, smooth and just plain fun. The crystalized sugar layer on top is fun to gently tap, then to crack to get to the lovely custard beneath.
Next time hubby and I had dinner with these friends we all four walked to the grocery store and bought creme brulee ice cream. Also delicious. I had to try making it sometime. The creme brulee, not the ice cream.
Alas, I don't have one of those spiffy hand-held torch things that you caramelize the sugar with. I have heard of people using their broilers, but that doesn't sound fun or ideal. It was then that the hubby tells me he has a welding torch. Nothing huge, but certainly bigger than the little hand held ones at the cooking stores. Perfect!
The recipe was a lot easier than I hoped for. With only a few ingredients- the only thing that really matters is following directions. The outcome is very tasty. Very very tasty. We had those creme brulee loving friends over again and I made this recipe for them. What a hit. Everybody loved it. Yum!
Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures- but a quick internet search would surely give you plenty of ideas.
I used Alton Brown's recipe- and found that it makes more than he says. (That or I give smaller portions?) Anyway- I half his recipe and it makes 4, instead of the 3 it should. Whatever. Hubby then cooks the sugar layer on top and it's done! Alton would be proud that we used the welding torch- not buying a uni-tasker! Hehe.

Creme Brulee serves 4
(adapted from Alton Brown)

2 c. heavy cream
1 vanilla bean, split and the insides removed
1/4 c. sugar (vanilla sugar if you got it) + more for topping them
3 egg yolks (use the whites to make meringue cookies!)
hot water

Heat the heavy cream and the vanilla bean (and insides) in a saucepan over medium high heat and just bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let sit for about 15 minutes. Remove the bean and discard (or rinse off, allow to dry and stick in a containter of sugar to create vanilla sugar)
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the 1/4 c of sugar and the egg yolks until the sugar is fully incorporated and the yolks begin to lighten in color just a tad.
Slowly pour the cream into the yolk mixture, whisking constantly as you go to prevent scrambled eggs from forming. We want dessert here, not breakfast. Pour your liquid into four 7-8 oz. ramekins and set those ramekins into a cake pan or roasting pan and fill the roasting pan (not the ramekins!!!) with enough hot water to just come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake for 40-45 minutes. The costard will still tremble and wiggle a bit in the middle- that's just fine.
Remove ramekins from the water bath and refrigerate until comepletely cool- a few hours to overnight.
Alton says to take the creme brulee out of the fridge 30 minutes before you want to serve. I usually forgot to, and it worked out just fine. Right before serving, sprinkle with a couple tablespoons of sugar and shake slightly to spread the sugar into an even layer. Safely using a torch (or your broiler), caramelize the sugar on top until nice and browned and bubbly. Let sit for a minute for the sugar to harden. Serve and enjoy!!

Linked up at:

Made by You Monday at Skip to My Lou
Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
Market Yourself Monday at Sumo's Sweet Stuff
Topsy Turvy Tuesday at I'm Topsy Turvy
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
Tuesday Tastes at Crazy Daisy
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Delicious Dishes at It's a Blog Party
Two For Tuesdays at Frugality and Crunchiness with Christy
Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum

Sweet Roasted Tomatoes

2010-08-09T09:26:00.000-07:00

My hubby plants a lovely garden every year. I'm convinced he can grow just about anything if he wants to. Tomatoes are something that he grows and we seem to have a lot of. The season starts for us with a few tomatoes. Then we have a bunch.
This poses an interesting challenge for me. What all can I incorporate tomatoes in besides sauces? And, is it possible to have a side dish of just tomatoes, prepared somehow? Yes.
With a bunch of roma tomatoes in need of being eaten, I went to foodnetwork.com. I remember seeing on there a recipe that involves roasted veggies tossed in pasta. Tomatoes must have their own recipe somewhere as the star, right? Yes! Ina Garten has a delicious recipe for roasted tomatoes posted.

I whipped up the dish along with my pre-planned menu of sweet and spicy pork ribs and wine and garlic sauteed mushrooms. Everything went together perfectly! The tomatoes were far better than I thought they would be. I could see this recipe being prepared for a party, or maybe even a way to try to get kids to eat tomatoes since they are a bit sweet.
I made a few changes to the recipe to suit my needs. Feel free to look back at Ina's version as well as mine and prepare how you wish!

Sweet Roasted Tomatoes serves: about 4

12 roma tomatoes, halved lengthwise, cored and seeds removed (easy to do with a spoon)
2-4 tbl. olive oil
1-2 tbl. balsamic vinegar
1/2-1 tsp. garlic powder
1-2 tsp. sugar
salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Arrange the tomatoes, cut side up on a baking sheet, in one layer. Drizzle olive oil over tomatoes. You may not need all 4 tbl, it really depends on how big your tomatoes are.
Drizzle balsamic vinegar over the tomatoes. Then sprinkle the garlic powder and sugar over the tomatoes, and as mush salt and pepper as you like.
Bake for 25 minutes. (I used my toaster oven and it worked perfectly) The tomatoes will flatten out and look burned- but that's just the balsamic vinegar, don't worry. Serve warm or at room temperature.

I have linked up here:

Mommy's Kitchen
Made by You Monday at Skip to my Lou
Just Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative
It's Party Time Thursday at Pony Tails & Fish Scales
Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
I'm Lovin It at Tidy Mom
Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum

Thai Green Curry Chicken

2010-08-02T16:11:00.000-07:00

I love Thai food. I had two best friends when I was in elementary & primary school that were Thai. With that said, Asian food is one of the scariest things I can think of to try and attempt MYSELF in the kitchen.
But I wanted to try making green curry like I have had in Thai restaurants. It's delicious. Before going to the store, I did what I always do when getting ready to attempt a dish I'm not familiar with- google it. I looked at lots of recipes. But I secretly hoped that the jar of green curry paste at the store would have a recipe. Lots of brands these days have recipes utlizing their products printed on the product or at a website. This was just the case when I found Thai Kitchens green curry paste. There was an oh so simple recipe printed on the jar. Armed with the paste. fish sauce and a can of coconut milk, I headed home.
When I got home, I decided to check out the vendors website. Low and behold, there were lots more recipes there. I ended up doing a mix between the recipe on the curry paste jar and this one.
The final dish was amazing. I thought it tasted just perfect. Hubby didn't care for the jasmine rice it's served on- so next time I'll make some plain rice for him. I feel so much less threatened by Asian cuisine now!
I know I bought the curry paste. But do you know what all is in that stuff? Lots of things I have never seen at my local grocery store, that's for sure. (lemongrass, galangal, and certain chilis just to start) Plus- I wouldn't know how much of what to put in. The premade curry paste is such an easier alternative. Delicious too. :)
*note* The amount of fish sauce and curry paste you will need may vary depending on the brand you choose, as well as the potency desired. Start will a low amount- you can always add more.

Thai Green Curry Chicken serves 4
(adapted from Thai Kitchens)

1 14oz can coconut milk (I used lowfat)
1/3 c. chicken stock
1/4 c. julienned fresh basil leaves
2 tbl. fish sauce (Thai Kitchen brand)
1 tbl. green curry paste (Thai Kitchen brand)
2 tbl. brown sugar
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped into 1 inch pieces
1 large (or 2 small) carrots, sliced into 1/2 inch pieces
1 medium onion, cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 c. frozen or fresh peas (optional)
1-2 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces.
Jasmine rice

Mix together the coconut milk, chicken stock, basil, fish sauce, curry paste and brown sugar in a large saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce down to low and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add in the chicken and all of the vegetables (whatever combination of veggies you prefer). Simmer the whole mixture over low/medium-low heat until the chicken is cooked through and the carrots are tender. About 10-15 minutes.
Serve over rice. Enjoy!

I have linked up this tasty recipe at:

Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
Topsy Turvy Tuesday at I'm Topsy Turvy
Delicious Dishes at It's a Blog Party
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple
Strut Your Stuff at Somewhat Simple
It's Party Time Thursday at Ponytails & Fish Scales
Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum
I'm Lovin It at Tidy Mom
Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home

Mushroom Orzo

2010-07-28T09:51:00.000-07:00

I love mushrooms. I love them BBQ'ed, roasted, sauteed, baked on pizza- whatever. I like the flavor and texture that they bring to the table. Literally.
Hubby doesn't feel the same way. And that's just fine with me. I just add them here and there to my food and everybody is happy.
And then I found a Tasty Kitchen recipe for Creamy Mushroom Orzo and wanted to try it. Having never cooked with orzo prior to this recipe, it definitely intrigued me.
I followed the recipe almost exactly the first time. The only change I made was substituting more chicken broth for the wine. When do I ever seem to follow a recipe the whole way through the first time? Okay- maybe with breads. Anyways.
The dish was very tasty. I felt that it needed a higher mushroom to orzo ratio, though. So next time, and subsequent times afterward, I continue to add much more mushrooms.
The verdict? Even hubby likes this dish. It makes a great side to just about anything. It can serve about 6- but we usually just finish the whole pan ourselves. :)
Another little thing I love about this dish is that you add all of the liquid to the pan that you need to cook the orzo. None of this boiling it then draining it business. Which is ideal since I don't have a sieve, and don't want to use a bunch of cheesecloth everytime I want orzo.

Mushroom Orzo serves 6
adapted from Tasty Kitchen

2 slices of bacon
1 small onion, chopped
1 1/2 c. sliced mushrooms
1/2 c. uncooked orzo
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tbl. butter
1 can chicken broth (I prefer reduced sodium)
salt & pepper to taste

Cook the bacon in a medium sized frying pan until done. Remove and reserve. (Or just eat while cooking the rest of the dish). You should have about 2 tbl. of grease; if not, add some oil or butter.
Over medium heat, cook the onions and mushrooms in the bacon grease until the mushrooms soften and t he onions start to become translucent. Add in the orzo, garlic and butter. Stir around until the butter has melted and the orzo is completely mixed in and coated.
Pour the can of chicken broth in the pan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat a bit and simmer until the liquid has been sucked up and the orzo is soft. There may be a little liquid still in the pan, but after the heat is turned off and the pan sits, the liquid will soon be no more. Season with salt and pepper to your taste and enjoy!

I linked up this tasty recipe at:

July's Side Dish Showdown at Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice
Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple
It's Party Time Thursday at Ponytails & Fish Scales
Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum
Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
I'm Lovin It at TidyMom
Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Two for Tuesday vol. 8 at Frugality and Crunchiness with Christy
Tuesday Night Supper Club at Fudge Ripple

Chicken Won tons

2010-07-21T07:39:00.000-07:00

I am a fan of oriental cuisine- but a little intimidated when it comes to making it. I have looked and looked at recipes of won tons for one that looked easy for me to make.
I once made a sweet and sour sauce that was just horrible. I couldn't eat it, it was so gross. Not sure what went wrong. Anyway.
I do like cooking with won ton wrappers. They are just so fun for some reason. Like little pieces of flexible pasta, just waiting to be molded and flavored and baked, fried or steamed!
I found a recipe that looked easy enough (not sure where because I copied down a list of ingredients and kind of made it up from there). The important thing for me in this venture was working with ingredients I have on hand AND am comfortable cooking with, i.e. I know the flavors and what jives and what doesn't jive. Make sense? Hope so.
These won tons were reaaallllyyy good. Hubby and I ate All. Of. Them. THe carrots brought out a sweetness that I enjoyed- but you can add in some finely chopped celery (about 1/4 c) and tone it down a bit. I also think it can be improved upon by eating them with a sauce. I'm not ready to try making sweet and sour yet- and was too lazy to go buy a premade sauce. Sweet and sour is my favorite, but I think hoisin would also be lovely with these.
The ingredients I am using can be switched out to your liking. Since the chicken is precooked- I recommend tasting the filling before forming the won tons to make sure its something you like.

Chicken Wontons (makes 40-ish)

1 chicken breast, cooked and chopped into tiny pieces
1/3 c. shredded carrot (I used one small/med carrot)
1/4 c. finely chopped celery (optional)
1/4 c. finely chopped onion
4 tsp. soy sauce
4 tsp. sherry
1 tsp. lemon or lime juice
1 tsp. ground ginger
40 won ton wrappers (or 10 spring roll wrappers, quartered)
non stick spray
water

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with non stick spray.
Mix together the chicken, carrot, celery, onion, soy, sherry, lemon juice and ginger. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired.
Place a teaspoon on the center of each wrapper and lightly dampen the edges of two adjoining sides. Bring the other two sides up and seal- forming a little triangle. You can pull the two opposite points together and have something like a tortellini, or just leave as is.
Place won tons on cookie sheet, and spray them with cooking spray. This enables them to get nice and crispy in the oven.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until wrappers begin crisping up.

I have linked up over at:

Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple
Just Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative
Made By You Monday at Skip to my Lou
Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
Potluck Sunday at Mommy's Kitchen
Tuesdays at the Table at All The Small Stuff
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Delicious Dishes at It's a Blog Party
Topsy Turvy Tuesday at I'm Topsy Turvy
Tuesday Tastes at Crazy Daisy
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace

Snickerdoodle Bars

2010-07-19T13:16:00.000-07:00

Feels good to be writing another post. Life has been busy lately and so I haven't had much time to sit down and write! I really need to make a stockpile of posts to have on the ready. Someday. Anyways.
A few days back, one of my hubby's friends was coming by for dinner and I wasn't sure what to make for dessert. I love having a dessert when company comes over because it's a great excuse to have sweets. Not only do I feel that it's the part of the meal that I'm best at making- but we aren't stuck eating a whole pan of brownies by ourselves. Although, how bad would that really be? :)
I looked in my recipe binder in the section marked off as "haven't tried" and looked for a simple and easy dessert to whip up. I found a recipe for Snickerdoodle Bars. The recipe was super quick to throw together- even while prepping for dinner! A 13x9 inch pan of these may seem like a lot for a group of three, but they are SO tasty that they won't last long. No worries there!
The recipe is from Betty Crocker. I think I must have gotten it from being on their email list. I find email lists like these to be worthwhile because they often have menu ideas for all sorts of occasions- and the ones run by something like Betty Crocker sometimes even have coupons. What's the worst that can happen? You don't like the recipe- then trash that email! Easy-cheesy! Here is the original recipe. I didn't change much except halving the glaze because it was way more than I needed.

Snickerdoodle Bars

2 1/3 c. all purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 c. butter, softened
1 1/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
(Cinnamon Filling)
1 tbl. sugar
1 tbl. cinnamon
(Glaze)
1/2 c. powdered sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1-2 tbl. milk

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and spray a 9x13inch baking pan with nonstick spray.
In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. In a large bowl, beat the butter until creamy. Beat in the sugars until fully incorporated. Then beat in the eggs, one at a time until fully incorporated. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients.
Spread half of the batter on the bottom of the baking pan. Mix together the cinnamon filling ingredients and sprinkle evenly over the batter in the pan. Dollop the remaining batter in teaspoonfuls over the cinnamon filling. Don't worry about it not completely covering the filling- everything will spread out in the oven and have a great marbled look.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool completely then mix together the glaze ingredients (adding more milk if it's too thick- or more sugar if it's too thin). Drizzle over the bars and enjoy!

I liked up over at:

Mouthwatering Mondays at A Southern Fairytale
Just Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tuesday Tastes at Crazy Daisy
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed With Grace
Delicious Dishes at It's a Blog Party
Topsy Turvy Tuesday at I'm Topsy Turvy

Green Bean Bundles

2010-07-13T06:48:00.000-07:00

When I first saw a recipe over at http://www.ourbestbites.com/ for Bacon Wrapped Green Bean Bunndles, I knew I had struck gold. I found the recipe as green beans were plentiful in the backyard, but was out of bacon! Bummer, I know. By the time we bought more bacon, the grean bean plants had seemingly given up for the summer. That's when one of my local grocery stores put green beans on sale.
Yes! Green bean bundles, here I come!
The original recipe calls for a pound of green beans- but with only 2 of us, I used less. Used as a side dish to most anything, this recipe can feed as many people as you like, one bundles per person.
Each bundle is about 10 to 12 green beans. I like using a number better than a weight since I don't use a kitchen scale and it makes it easier for me to scale up or down depending on how many are over for dinner.
The sauce for the green beans seemed weird for me as I was cooking it. The combination of onion and garlic seemed fine enough- but butter and rice vinegar? That seems weird. Make sure your face isn't over the pan when you add in the vinegar unless you want your sinuses cleared! The sauce was tasty though. Very tasty- I ate some of it without any beans. The sugar and onions give it a sweetness, while the vinegar tones it down a bit and the browned butter gives it a nuttiness (It's true- those food network people are right about browned butter!). And as the hubby said- the beans make it nutritious and the bacon makes it AWESOME. What vegetable can't bacon make better? (Not that green beans needed it- buy hey!)
So my only changes to this recipe was lowering the amount of beans and changing the sauce recipe just a tad. I lowered the amount of butter, which in the end makes less sauce than the original- perfect for my smaller amount of beans.

Green Bean Bundles (serves 5)
http://www.ourbestbites.com/

1/1 lb. fresh green beans (50-60 beans)- ends trimmed off and washed
5 slices of bacon
1 1/2 tbl. butter
1 tbl. minced red onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbl. sugar
1 tbl. rice vinegar

Preheat oven (or toaster oven!!) to 400 degrees.
Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Once the water reaches the boil- add in the green beans and blanch for 2-3 minutes. Take the beans out of the boiling water and dump into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking.
Divide thebeans into 5 bundles and wrap each one with a slice of bacon. Use a toothpick to secure it and lay it on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10-15 minutes until the bacon has cooked through.
Torwards the end of the baking tim- start making the sauce. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium low heat. Add the onion and garlic and stir around for 2-3 minutes until the butter bubbles up a bunch and starts turning brown. Add the sugar and vinegar and immediately take the sauce off of the heat. Stir everything around to dissolve the sugar and serve on top of the bundles. Just remember to take out the toothpick before eating! Enjoy!

This tasty side dish is linked up at:

Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Tuesdays at the Table at All The Small Stuff
Tuesday Tastes at Crazy Daisy
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
July Side Dish Showdown at Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice
Delicious Dishes at itsablogparty.com
Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple
It's Party Time Thursday at Pony Tails & Fish Scales
Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum

Chocolate Mousse Pie

2010-07-06T08:57:00.000-07:00

A while back I bought a bag of Hershey's Special Dark chocolate chips with plans to make cookies or something with them. Instead, I noticed a recipe on the back of the bag for Decadent Truffle Bottom Pie. This pie looks so good! However, I decided to make something different; using ingredients I had on hand. I also didn't want to bake in the middle of summertime- so something had to be done about that.
This pie is definitely for chocolate lovers. It's rich and oh so chocolately- I'm sure because of the use of dark chocolate instead of milk or semi sweet. It makes a great summer dessert because it's served cold and would be great with some vanilla ice cream.
You can play around and use a chocolate graham cracker crust if you are seriously craving your chocolate. Or maybe add some chocolate cookie crumbs crumbled in the middle.
So here we are, my version of a Hershey's recipe.

Chocolate Mousse Pie serves 8-12
adapted from Hershey's

1 premade graham cracker crust
2 c. mini marshmallows
1/2 c. milk (low fat is fine)
2 c. Hershey's dark chocolate chips (1 12oz bag)
3/4 c. heavy whipping cream
sweetened whip cream for topping (optional)
Chocolate cookies for garnish (optional)

Put the marshmallows and milk in a large microwave safe bowl and heat up on medium power for one minute. Stir until smooth. Microwave for an additional 30 seconds at a time on medium power if necessary.
Once smooth, stir in the chocolate chips until they have thoroughly melted and are smooth. Microwave another 15 seconds at a time on medium power until the mixture can be stirred smooth.
Take 1 cup of this delicious chocolately mixture and spread it onto the bottom of the pie crust. Let the remaining mixture cool to room temperature.
In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer (or by hand if you're super tough), whisk the whipping cream until it's stiff. Fold in about a third of the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture until thoroughly incorporated. Then, fold in the rest of the whipped cream and spread this mixture in the pie crust and refrigerate until serving. Top with sweetened whipped cream if desired. Enjoy!

Linked up at the following parties:

Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
Tuesday Tastes at Crazy Daisy
Tuesdays At The Table at All The Small Stuff
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
All Things Domestic at Crazy Domestic
Recipe Share Party at The Harrigan Howdy
It's Party Time Thursday at Pony Tails & Fish Scales
Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple

Beautiful Blogger Award

2010-07-02T14:25:00.000-07:00

Jasey over at Crazy Daisy gave me the Beautiful Blogger Award! I am touched to recieve my first award out here on blog-land! Thank you, Jasey for thinking of me! It makes my day! :)
Everybody else- you should check out Crazy Daisy. She posts a weekly party, Tuesday Tastes for all of you cooks out there. Each week we vote for our favorite recipe, and one tasty dish walks away the winner!

Anywho- onto the rules for this award:
1. Thank the person who gave you this award.

2. Share 10 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 10 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic!
4. Contact the bloggers you've picked and let them know about the award.

So ten things about myself-
1- I am newly married and LOVING it!
2- Hubby and I have 2 pet rabbits. They are my babies. No joke.
3- I love cooking- but dessert is my favorite thing to make.
4- I am addicted to crafts. Sewing. Cross Stitch. Knitting. Scrapbooking.
5- I am seriously thinking about adding quilling to my list of crafts.
6- I am the 2nd oldest in my family. And somehow the 2nd shortest.
7- Blogger is the first thing I sign onto when I get on the computer.
8- I don't like coconut. I also don't care for most cheese. So far ricotta, mozarella and jack are fine by me.
9- One of my pet peeves is open blinds or curtains after sunset. It just irks me.
10- I am by no means a green thumb. It's frustrating. And yet- I consider myself to be great with animals. Go figure.

I would like to pass the Beautiful Blogger Award onto some of my fellow bloggers that I think are just great!
1- Kristin at Delightful Country Cookin' (She currently has a great giveaway going down. Check it out!)
2- Dawn at Beat Until Fluffy
3- Cinnamon Girl at Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice
4- Megan & Steph over at Crazy Domestic
5- SnoWhite atFinding Joy in My Kitchen
6- Rachel at A Southern Fairytale
7- How Does She?
8- Jerri at Simply Sweet Home
9- University of Cookie
10- Cindy at Skip To My Lou

Thanks everyone!

Strawberry Lemonade

2010-07-02T06:43:00.000-07:00

My first time attempting to make strawberry lemonade was last summer, I believe. It didn't turn out so well. I tried mixing all of the predicted ingredients- lemon juice, water, sugar and strawberries. But it was gross.
The sugar didn't dissolve.
The strawberries were diced and floating in the juice- adding no flavor to the drink, just looking gross.
I hadn't used a recipe because I figured that something SO self explanitory as strawberry lemonade SHOULDN'T need a recipe. Boy was I wrong! It's funny how some of the simplest, tastiest food and drink do need a recipe.

(The picture does not do it justice, at all)

This year I was determined to try again. Hubby and I had a ton of strawberries from the produce store and lemons like nobody's business from his parents.
This time I armed myself with a recipe. I don't remember where I found it since I looked through a bunch of them- but either way I came up with a recipe of my own in the end. :)
This time the lemonade was tart yet sweet. Everything I want in lemonade. The strawberries imparted their flavor and gave the lemonade a little extra thickness that I really enjoyed. (You can strain the seeds if you don't want extra thickness) Anyway- hope you enjoy this delicious summertime beverage!

Strawberry Lemonade serves about 6
recipe - The Domestic Engineer

1 1/2 c. sugar, divided
4 c. water, divided
2 1/2 c. fresh strawberries, halved and big ones quartered
1 c. fresh lemon juice

Combine 1 c. of the sugar and 1 c. of the water in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Let mixture come to room temperature.
Puree the remaining berries with the remaining sugar and 1 c. of the water until smooth. (At this point you can strain the mixture if you desire)
In a pitcher combine the simple syrup (water and sugar), strawberry puree and the remaining 2 c. of water. Stir and refrigerate until it's chilled and you're thirsty! Enjoy!

I have linked up my recipe at:

I'm Lovin It Fridays at Tidy Mom
Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum
Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
Remodelaholic
Potluck Sunday at Mommy's Kitchen
Just Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative

S'mores Scones

2010-06-28T06:48:00.000-07:00

I have been on a s'mores kick lately. Okay, maybe it's not a kick as much as a love for this flavor combo. I mean, where can you go wrong with chocolate and marchmallow melted together between two pieces of graham cracker? That's right. You can't go wrong. It's delicious. So on one of my hunts for s'mores related recipes, I came across this one at Baked Perfection. It looked simple enough compared to other scone recipes. There aren't any eggs. No serious method. Just combine all of the dry stuff and mix in the cream and ta-da! Scone dough.

When I was planning my tea party, I knew I had to have these. It was one of the first recipes I decided on making. What a better way to try a new recipe than when friends are coming over? They'll tell you their honest impressions of it.

And the recipe was great. Everyone liked it, especially my hubby (who wasn't at the tea party, don't worry). The crushed graham crackers gave the scones a delightful texture as well as added flavor. I can't think of a better way to incorporate graham crackers into this recipe!

I changed up the recipe from Baked Perfection just a bit to make it easier for myself. Check it out!

S'mores Scones (makes about 15)

1 1/4 c. flour

1 1/4 c. finely crushed graham cracker crumbs

3 tbl. sugar

1 tbl. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 c. chocolate chips

3/4 c. mini marshmallows

1 1/4 c. heavy cream

1/4 c. chocolate chips, melted (optional)

powdered sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 400F and grease a cookie sheet.

Mix together the first seven ingredients in a bowl. Pour in the heavy cream and mix it together JUST until combined. Using your hands, roll the dough into 1 1/2-2 inch balls and place on cookie sheet. The dough will be sticky, so you can flour your hands if you like.

Bake for 9-11 minutes. The scones will be beginning to brown. Remove from cookie sheet and cool on a baking rack. Once cool, drizzle with chocolate and sprinkle powdered sugar over top to make it look nice. You can see that I didn't do that. I ran out of time.

I linked my recipe up with:

Just Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative
Motivate Me Monday at Keeping it Simple
Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
Recipe Swap Sunday at *Remondelaholic
Tuesdays at the Table at All The Small Stuff
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
Tuesday Tastes at Crazy Daisy
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple
Recipe Share Party at Harrigan Howdy
It's Party Time Thursday at Pony Tails and Fish Scales
I'm Lovin It Fridays at Tidy Mom
Foodie Friday at Designs By Gollum
Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home

Lemon Curd and a Tea Party

2010-06-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

This past Monday afternoon I had a small get together with three of my friends at my house. The idea was to have a light lunch, delicious desserts and refreshing beverages with a few great people.

Having never planned a tea party or ladies lunch or what-have-you before, I started thinking about the tea party that my mom-in-law threw for me and how much fun it was. I also befriended Google as a trusted source for information.

(shortbread cookies)

I never really did come up with a theme for the party until the morning of when I decided to go simple and summery (is that a word?).

(S'mores Scones)

Working with what was around the house, I used a nice cream colored tablecloth along with simple white plates and green jacquard napkins. I found cute magnets at Michael's that doubled both as place markers and favors.

Having just come back from the hubby's parents place, there are a bunch of lemons in the house. I think they dress up the table nicely.

(Chicken Salad Sanwiches and Spinach Vegetable Soup)

Now onto the food! The four of us had chicken salad sandwiches and Spinach Vegetable Soup for lunch. There was strawberry lemonade and peach iced tea as beverages. And dessert included peanut butter cookies, s'mores scones, and shortbread cookies with lemon curd.

My friend over at delightful country cookin' was at the party and brought her Spinach Vegetable Soup. It was delicious! I think it totally blew my sandwiches out of the water! Go by there and check out her post on the party!

The S'mores Scones and Strawberry Lemonade will be making their appearances on here shortly. I feel that each of them deserves their own post. Partially because I love to organize things into their own little places.

I found this recipe while looking for tea party ideas. Lemon curd is just one of those things you think of when you think "tea party". The only problem is that I really don't like only using egg yolks. Especially when a recipe calls for 6 of them. I mean, I can realistically only make so many meringue cookies. The beauty of the recipe I found at Joy of Baking is that it uses the whole egg. It's great. Kristin even noted that it's a bit lighter than normal lemon curd. But if it's not light enough for ya, then you can fold in some whipped cream and there you go!

Oh, lemon curd. What can't you do with the stuff? It was wonderful on my shortbread cookies. It would be great spread on some scones. I'm even thinking about making a yellow cake and having this be the filling. YUM!

Here is the original recipe for the lemon curd. The only think I did different was leave out the lemon zest because I'm not crazy about the idea of finding lemon zest in my teeth throughout the day. But that's just me. Anywho- here we go!

Lemon Curd (makes about 1 1/2 cups)

(adapted from joyofbaking.com)

3 eggs

1/3 c. fresh lemon juice (use the real deal stuff here!)

3/4 c. granulated sugar

4 tbl. unsalted butter, cut into 4 to 6 pieces

Whisk together the first 3 ingredients in a stainless steel bowl set over a pot of just simmering (not boiling) water. Whisk it constantly until the mixture thickens up to the consistency of sour cream (this should be 160degrees F). This takes about 10 minutes, but don't worry, your patience will be rewarded.

Once it has thickened up, take it off the heat and pour through a strainer to get out any possible egg lumps. Or, if you're like me and don't have a fine mesh strainer just continue with the recipe! Whisk in the butter one piece at a time, waiting until the previous piece is completely melted and incorporated before adding more. Once done you should immediately cover the lemon curd with a piece of plastic wrap and allow to cool. Don't worry, you can place the plastic right on the curd. Once cooled, you can serve as is, or chill and serve later. Enjoy!!

I have linked up my awesome party to these awesome parties!

Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum
I'm Lovin It Fridays at Tidy Mom
Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
Delicious Dishes at itsablogparty.com

Cream of Broccoli Soup

2010-06-21T06:37:00.000-07:00

This broccoli soup was so much better than I had hoped for. It's one of those recipes that looking at the ingredients you just know it will be good. But I had no idea it would be this good.
It all started with a bag of broccoli. Hubby and I don't usually buy bags of the stuff this huge but it was super cheap and already prebagged at a local produce place we frequent. One of the rabbits LOVES broccoli, but he doesn't get it fast enough to use the whole bag up in time so I began my quest to find a recipe that uses a lot of broccoli.
I searched "broccoli" at Tasty Kitchen and found lots of soups and salads, but this soup really stood out with it's simplicity (and lack of cream!). We tried the recipe last night and loved it! It was VERY easy to put together and tastes great on it's own, or with sour cream on top. I hear that the cheese was good on top too.

Rebecca of Foodie With Family has this recipe in one of her posts. It's great- she even has a super easy recipe for crème fraîche! This soup makes a great side dish or first course to dinner. Enjoy it on its own or topped with whatever makes you all happy inside. Next time I might try some crumbled bacon on top! Yum!

Cream of Broccoli Soup serves 6
(recipe from Foodie with Family)

1 tbl. butter
1 small onion, diced
4 c. fresh or frozen broccoli, cut up (stems and florets, please!)
1 medium russet potato, peeled and 1/2 inch dice
4 c. broth or water (I used 1 can of chicken broth and filled the rest of the way with water)
salt and pepper
sour cream, cheese, crumbled bacon (optional)

Melt the butter in a large stockpot over medium heat. Add the onions and let them sweat until they are tender. Make sure to stir from time to time and even turn down the heat if you have to to make sure they don't brown.
Add in the broccoli, potato and liquid. Raise the heat to medium high and bring the soup to a simmer. Partially cover the pot and simmer for 25 minutes- turning down the heat a tad if it starts to boil.
Remove from the heat after 25 minutes or when the veggies are tender. Let cool for 10 minutes, then puree the the soup in a blender or with an immersion blender. Add salt and pepper to your liking (I stuck with pepper only and it was wonderful!)
Garnish the dish with whatever tickles your fancy and enjoy!!!

I linked this recipe up at:

June's Side Dish Showdown at Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice
Motivate Me Monday at Keeping it Simple
Just Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative
Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
Tuesday Tastes at Crazy Daisy
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Delicious Dishes at itsablogparty.com
Strut Your Stuff at Somewhat Simple
Recipe Share Party at Harrigan Howdy
It's Party Time Thursday at Pony Tails & Fish Scales

Chicken Marsala

2010-06-14T06:39:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I decided to make Chicken Marsala. I've had it before, but have never tried making it. Hubby was all for it, so I began looking at different recipes from the internet, my cookbooks, and even the Marsala bottle. The main ingredients for all were Marsala, chicken broth and chicken that is dredged in flour. Most also had sliced mushrooms. Yum. With so little ingredients, the recipe could be wonderful or a total flop.
Well, I am very happy to say that the recipe I put together was wonderful! The chicken was super tasty and sweet! We ate ours over pasta because that lovely sauce cannot be put to waste. Very good.
This dish is definitely best the first day. Right after it's made, it's wonderful. The next day it's good- but not as good unfortunately.

Chicken Marsala serves 4
recipe by Stacia

2 chicken breasts, halved lengthwise
salt & pepper
1/4 c. flour for dredging
olive oil
8 oz mushrooms, sliced (whatever kind you like- I used button mushrooms)
2 tbl. unsalted butter
1 c. low sodium chicken broth
1 c. sweet Marsala

Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper and then dredge in the flour. Let them sit while a skillet with enough olive oil to coat the bottom warms up over medium heat.
Cook the chicken, a couple pieces at a time as to not crowd the pan and lower the heat dramatically. This should take about 3-5 minutes per side depending on how thick the pieces are and how hot your burner gets. Go ahread and check the thickest part of each when you think it's done- I almost ALWAYS do that.
Once the chicken is done cooking, add the butter and mushrooms to the pan and lower the heat a little. Cook the mushrooms down until they begin to soften up. If you lose moisture in the pan to cook the mushrooms, add a little of the broth instead of adding more butter or oil.
At this point, I sprinkled a couple tablespoons of the leftover flour over my mushrooms as to thicken up the sauce more in the end, but that is completely optional. If you do add some flour, stir it around to make sure it doesn't just clump to a few mushrooms.
Add the Marsala and the broth, keeping the heat on medium low. Stir everything around and make sure to get all of the good browned bits on the bottom from the chicken.
All that's left is to cook down the broth and mushrooms for a couple minutes, then add the chicken back in while the sauce finishes up. Cook until the sauce reduces by about half and thickens up a little. Enjoy!

I have linked this recipe up at:

Motivate Me Monday at Keeping it Simple
Just Something I Whipped Up hosted this week at DillyDally and Flitter
Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
Delicious Dishes at It's a Blog Party
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Tuesdays at the Table at All The Small Stuff
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
Tuesdays Tastes at Crazy Daisy
Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple
Recipe Share Party at Harrigan Howdy
It's Party Time Thursday at Pony Tails & Fish Scales
I'm Lovin It at Tidy Mom
Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum

Strawberry Sorbet

2010-06-10T06:45:00.000-07:00

Last weekend the hubby and I bought some strawberries at a local produce place. The container had 6 very full pints of the ripe berries and boy were they tasty! After making trifles with some of the strawberries, I wasn't sure what to make with the rest. We really didn't want them to go bad, and that would be fast approaching with how ripe they already were.
Hubby suggested strawberry ice cream. So we looked in the manual that came with our ice cream maker for a recipe and ended up looking at the sorbet because it didn't need any heavy cream (something that we didn't have). The recipe in the manual, however had both sugar AND corn syrup. I knew there had to be a better way. So I searched the internet to find a better sounding recipe, and at http://www.joyofbaking.com/ I found a simple and tasty looking recipe. After a couple small changes, the deed was done and we have a very lovely, tasty and refreshing strawberry sorbet!

Strawberry Sorbet
(adapted from Joy of Baking)

2/3 c. water
2/3 c. sugar
5 c. strawberries, hulled and the big ones halved
1 tbl. lemon juice

In a small saucepan, heat up the water and sugar over medium low heat. Stirring until the sugar dissolves. Turn off the heat and let come to room temperature. This makes a simple syrup that we will use to sweeten up the sorbet with.
Puree the berries in a blender or with an immersion blender. At this point you can strain out the seeds if you like, but I left mine in. Add the lemon juice and mix together.
Once the simple syrup has cooled off to the point it isn't hot anymore, mix it in with the pureed berries and refrigerate until the liquid has become refrigerator temperature.
Now, following the directions of your ice cream maker, pour in the strawberry goodness. My sorbet was done in 25 minutes. At this point it will be the consistency of soft serve. Eat it now, or put in a freezer save container and freeze until ready to serve. Enjoy!

This tasty recipe is linked up at:

It's Party Time Thursday at Pony Tails and Fish Scales
Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple
itsablogparty.com!
Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum
Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
I'm Lovin' It Fridays at Tidy Mom

Easy Caramelized Onions

2010-06-08T06:43:00.000-07:00

The first time I had these onions was when my at-the-time-boyfriend-now-husband made carne asada for me. Mmmm mmm good! Now we make them to top hot dogs, brats and burgers. I think they would be great on a grilled pizza or even as a side dish- I know I've eaten them without anything but a fork!

This recipe is super duper easy with the ingredients being things that lots of people have on hand. They take a little bit of time- but it is well worth it!

Since this recipe is pretty much a canvas, it can be added to with the addition of spices or other liquids. Oh the possibilities!!

I do use beer to caramelize the onions. The beer cooks WAY down and the sugars in it get all yummy. But if you prefer not to use the stuff, you can probably sub in some chicken broth and about 1 tbl. or so of brown sugar.

How much of the beer you use is also up to you. You can use just half of one on a single onion, or use the whole bottle of you have enough time to really cook it down. You can also get 3 or 4 onions into just one bottle's worth of liquid.

Easy Caramelized Onions

1 onion (per every 2-3 people), sliced into half rings
6oz-12oz beer (whatever you have on hand should work- but try to stick with pale ales and lagers- I like Bass for this)
1 tsp. lemon juice (optional)
fresh ground black pepper (optional)
other spices like cumin (optional)

Put your onion slices into a saute pan- more onions = bigger pan. Pour the beer over the onions and add whatever spices you like to it.
That's right! We don't need any oil or butter for this!
Turn your heat up to low/ med-low and gently simmer the onions until the beer reduces down to a syrupy consistency and eventually isn't apparent at all. Make sure to stir occassionally at first and then more as the liquid evaporates to make sure the onions don't stick and burn.
Serve over hot dogs, burgers, pizza, carne asada- or just eat it on the side!

My recipe is linked up at:

June Side Dish Showdown!!!
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tuesday Tastes at Crazy Daisy
Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays at Blessed with Grace
What's On The Menu Wednesday at Dining with Debbie

Sugar Donut Muffins

2010-06-04T06:36:00.000-07:00

In honor of National Doughnut Day (today), I thought I would post about a super tasty and super easy recipe I found over at Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice.
I stumbled upon the recipe for Sugar Donut Muffins one day and saved it to my computer for later use. Later use happened two days ago and boy was it good. I followed the recipe, only changing that I made all of the batter into mini muffins, which is noted in the recipe as being a great way to ensure that whatever you coat them in will be in every bite. Plus, they are so cute in mini form! I also didn't dip them in melted butter before adding the sugar as I was in a hurry. They came out just fine without the butter.
I coated all of mine in cinnamon sugar. But powdered sugar, or even a nice glaze (make that chocolate glaze!) would be great also!

Sugar Donut Muffins
(from Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice)

3/4 c. sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 c. all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg (I left this out so I could have more freedom later with flavorings)
1/4 c. vegetable oil
3/4 c. milk (low fat is just fine!)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tbl. butter, melted
1/2 c. sugar (plus 1 tbl. cinnamon if you want cinnamon sugar)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a muffin tin or a mini muffin tin with vegetable spray.
In a large bowl, beat together the sugar and the egg until light in color. It won't take long at all.
In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Mix it all together.
Add the flour mixture to the egg and sugar blend along with the oil, milk and vanilla extract. mix everything together and divide evenly among the muffin cups, filling each of them 3/4 full. (Should make about 10 normal muffins or 32 mini muffins)
Bake 15-18 minutes for normal muffins or 13-15 minutes for mini muffins. Test doneness with a toothpick.
After the muffins come out, brush them with butter and roll in sugar.

This recipe is linked up at:

I'm Lovin' It Fridays at Tidy Mom
Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum
Saturday Blog Showcase at All That Splatters
Just Something I Whipped Up Monday at The Girl Creative

Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

2010-06-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Memorial Day, and the end of Memorial Day weekend. The hubby wanted to take advantage of the long weekend and do a lot of grilling. On Sunday we decided to have hot dogs, potato salad and homemade dinner rolls.
After finding this super easy whole wheat dinner rolls at Finding Joy in My Kitchen, I knew that I could have them ready super fast and that I could even form some of the rolls into hot dog buns!
Plus, they are whole wheat and don't have a ton of sugar. Where could you go wrong? I don't know.
I didn't have enough whole wheat flour for the whole thing, so I ended up using 1 c. whole wheat and 2 c. all purpose. They were quite tasty none-the-less!

Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls (from Finding Joy in My Kitchen)

1 1/2 tbl. active dry yeast
1 c. + 1 tbl. warm water
1/3 c. oil
1/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. salt
3 c. flour (any combo of whole wheat and all purpose you like. Or all of one or the other)

In a mixer bowl, dissolve the yeast in the water. Allow to sit and bubble up for 3-5 minutes. Then add in the oil, sugar and salt. Mix it together a little bit.
Next, add in the flour (I already had a dough hook on my mixer at this point), one cup at a time until all is added.
Knead by hand or with the dough hook for 3-5 minutes until a nice, easy to work with dough has formed. You may need to add a bit more flour to make the dough nice and easy to work with.
Divide the dough into 9-12 sections and roll into balls or form into logs for hot dog buns. 12 makes smaller rolls, and 9 makes larger ones. I was able to make 4 hot dog buns with half and 6 dinner rolls with the other half. Very tasty.
Put your formed dough pieces onto a greased cookie sheet. Cover and let rise in a warm place for about 20 minutes. Then bake in a 425 degree oven for 8-10 minutes until they are golden on top. Be careful not to overcook them!!
Enjoy!

I have linked up these rolls at:

Just Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace
Tuesday Tastes at Crazy Daisy
Tuesdays at the Table at All the Small Stuff
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
It's Party Time Thursday at Pony Tails & Fish Scales
Recipe Share Party at Harrigan Howdy
Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple

Crock Pot Chicken Mole

2010-05-27T10:14:00.000-07:00

Mole is really good stuff. My mom and I used to like getting it at a local Mexican restaurant near our house until they closed up shop.

Fast forward several years without mole. I have seen recipes for it in books, chefs make it on Food Network, but never got around to making it myself because the ingredient list looked daunting. Not to mention spicy.

My momma would be proud!

Now to the Williams-Sonoma cookbooks we recieved as wedding presents. Two of them have recipes for slow cooker mole. The thing is, the recipes couldn't be more different. One has dried chiles, and the other just spices. One chicken and the other turkey.

I decided to make the recipe without the dried chiles. I didn't want to spend the extra money on them, and the store didn't have the kind I needed anyways. Only one problem, the recipe called for a couple of turkey breasts. I guess it isn't really a problem since I don't have any problem with changing out ingredients for recipes on the first shot. I had 6 more chicken thighs that I didn't use after making the Chicken Tagine.

The spices look like a lot. Believe me, they look like a lot. I measured them all out in the measuring spoon I used to measure the almonds (you'll see) and it seems like a lot. Especially the chili powder. But it really isn't. The cinnamon and cumin balance out the chili powder really nicely. I wouldn't even say that the dish was "spicy". Although next time I would really like to try it with the dried chiles!

Chicken Mole

adapted from Williams-Sonoma

6 chicken thighs, bone-in/skinless

1/4 c. flour for dredging

olive oil

2 small/medium) yellow onions, chopped

1/2 c. slivered almonds (these are different from plain old almonds, they have been blanched)

1 tbl. chili powder (trust me on this one!)

1 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 14.5oz can diced tomatoes, drained (I like the low sodium kind)

1 1/2 oz bittersweet chocolate (I had semi-sweet bakers chocolate and it worked just fine! You could also sub chocolate chips, I'm sure)

1 tsp. dried oregano

salt and pepper

1 14oz can chicken broth (again, I prefer the low sodium kind)

Cooked rice (optional)

First things first, I like to dredge the chicken in flour and brown it on both sides before adding it to the slow cooker. It's completely optional, but I would like to think it brings another depth of flavor and texture to the party. So, if you want, dredge the chicken in flour and then brown both sides in a skillet over medium/med-high heat and then stick them in the crock pot.

Now, onto making the oh-so-tasty sauce. In a frying pan or saucepan, or whatever you want, put about 3 tbl of olive oil and heat it up over med-high heat. Once the oil has warmed up, add the onion and the almonds. Stir it around and saute until the almonds have browned. Don't let it sit there untouched or the almonds will burn quickly! This step adds a nice toasty-ness to the almonds!

Once the almonds have browned and the onion started to turn translucent, add in your chili powder, cinnamon and cumin. Stir it around until it's nice and fragrant. Now add your diced tomatoes, chocolate, oregano, some salt & pepper and about half of the chicken broth. Stir everything around until the chocolate has melted completely.

In a food processor or blender add your mixture (a little bit at a time, as the mixture is very hot and we don't want to redecorate the walls!) and blend until it's all nice and smooth. This is the part that I really enjoyed having an immersion blender for. It's a beautiful thing, really. Once everything is blended and back in the pan, stir in the rest of the chicken broth and bring to a simmer. Stir it all around and let it simmer for a couple of minutes. Remember, the sauce won't thicken up much in the slow cooker since the lid is on and no steam can escape.

Add the oh-so-tasty sauce to the slow cooker and move the chicken around a bit so that every bit of it is covered. Cover the slow cooker and turn it on low. This will take about 2 hours to cook. (Maybe longer if you didn't brown your chicken?)

Take the chicken out after the 2 hours and shred it all up. Stir it back into the sauce and serve over cooked rice.

Note: This recipe makes a bunch of mole. It can feed 4, with leftovers. What to do with those leftovers? Roll up some mole in flour tortillas and cover with monterey jack cheese and bake in the oven until the cheese has melted and everything has heated through. (375 degrees for 20 min or 350 for about 30)

I liked up this tasty dish at:

Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple
Recipe Share Party at Harrigan Howdy
It's Party Time Thursday at Pony Tails & Fish Scales
Foodie Friday at Designs By Gollum
I'm Lovin It Fridays at TidyMom
Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
Friday Food at momtrends
Weekend Wrap Up Party at Tatertots and Jello
Easy Recipe Saturday at Woman Who Do It All
Potluck Sunday at Mommy's Kitchen

Chocolate Yummies

2010-05-25T06:38:00.000-07:00

I have been on a search for a recipe that incorporated the three basic s'mores flavors for a couple weeks when I discovered this recipe at the Kellogg's Rice Krispie's site.

The recipe is super duper quick and easy to make, and very fun to eat. I really like the fact that there are all three distinct flavors I was looking for- the graham cracker, the marshmallows and chocolate.

The only change I made to the recipe was halving the peanut butter in it since I was looking for more of a s'mores type of thing. But you could put all of it in there if you are a peanut butter person. Peanut butter and chocolate go really well together!

Chocolate Yummies
adapted from Kellogg's Rice Krispies

Graham crackers- I find that one of the packages in the box is about enough
2 1/2c. mini marshmallows (yes, they have to be the small kind)
1 pkg (2 c.) chocolate chips
2/3 c. light corn syrup
3 tbl. butter
1/4- 1/2 c. peanut butter (I used the smooth kind, but you can use whatever you have)
3 c. Rice Krispies

Coat the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray and line the bottom with graham crackers. Break them up into smaller pieces to fit in and cover the entire bottom.
Sprinkle the marshmallows over the graham crackers in an even layer. Microwave the entire thing for one minute or until the marshmallows have puffed up. (You could stick it under the broiler for more of the toasted taste!)
In a micromave safe mixing bowl, add the chocolate chips, corn syrup and butter. Microwave for 1 1/2 minutes, stirring the mixture every 30 seconds.
Mix in the peanut butter thoroughly, then stir in the Krispies until everything is well blended. Spread the mixture (carefully) over the marshmallows and refrigerate for at least an hour until the whole thing has firmed up.
Now you can cut it up into tasty little bars! Enjoy!

This recipe has been linked up at:

Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Tuesdays at the Table at All The Small Stuff
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed With Grace
Tuesday Tastes at Crazy Daisy
Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple
It's Party Time Thursday at Pony Tails & Fish Scales
Recipe Share Party Thursday at Harrigan Howdy
Foodie Friday at Designs By Gollum

Homemade Pita Bread

2010-05-23T14:02:00.000-07:00

I was first introduced to pita bread by my friend Dave when he introduced me to how wonderful hummus is. I later spotted a recipe over on Delightful Country Cookin' for Homemade Pita Bread. The recipe looked very simple- having only 6 ingredients!

Who doesn't like fresh baked bread?

I mean really?

That's right. Everyone loves fresh baked bread.

And this recipe couldn't be easier! Plus! It goes with just about anything!!!

You can tear it up and enjoy it with your favorite hummus....

Or you can stuff it with Chicken Tagine

Or you can cover it with pizza sauce, some cheese and your favorite toppings and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes and have a mini pizza.

Or stuff it with those pizza ingredients and bake and have a calzone!

The possibilities are endless!!

Homemade Pita Bread

2 1/4 tsp. yeast

1 1/2 c. warm water

1 tbl. sugar

4 c. all purpose flour

2 tbl. olive oil

1 tsp. salt

Dissolve your yeast and sugar in only 1 cup of the warm water. Allow the yeast to bubble up for a few minutes.

Put the last three ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer.

Add the yeast mixture to the bowl and knead with a dough hook for about 10 minutes. The dough will probably be a bit dry, so add some more of that water, 1 tbl at a time until a nice sticky-to-the-touch dough forms.

Put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl and cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled. This part can take anywhere from 1 hour to 2 hours- so be patient!

Once the dough has risen, shape it into 10 even sized balls and roll each ball into a 6-7 inch circle. Let the cirlces rest for 10-15 minutes while you preheat your oven.

Preheat the oven with a cookie sheet inside at 500 degrees. Be careful if you usually use nonstick cookie sheets, as some of them aren't designed to handle that high of a temperature!

Take the cookie sheet out of the oven and put some parchment on it to prevent sticking, then 2 or 3 dough circles or whatever fits. Bake for 3 to 6 minutes or until the circles have puffed up and turned golden. Let cool on a rack or towel. Don't stack them immediately or they can turn soggy because they are still hot and will just steam.

Enjoy!

I have linked up this recipe at:

Just Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative
Saturday Blog Showcase at All That Splatters
Made By You Monday at Skip To My Lou
Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
Market Yourself Mondays at Sumo's Sweet Stuff
Made It Monday at The Persimmon Porch
Motivate Me Monday at Keeping It Simple
Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Tuesdays At The Table at All The Small Stuff
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed With Grace
Tuesday Tastes at Crazy Daisy

Chicken Tagine

2010-05-20T22:12:00.000-07:00

Let me start this off by saying how much I enjoy Williams-Sonoma cookbooks. After receiving my first at my bridal shower, I put some on my wedding registry and we received most of them! Awesome!
Also, how awesome are slow cookers? I mean really. Put all the ingredients inside, turn on, and dinner is ready later. It's wonderful.
I made this Chicken Tagine for my parents once when they came over soon after the wedding. Hubby found it to be a bit too lemon-y, so I cut back a little this time and I think it was better.
With a few more tweaks, like the addition of onion and bell pepper because I had them in the fridge and NEEDED to use them soon, the recipe came out great.
I served the whole thing with homemade pita bread (will be my next post), roasted red bell pepper hummus (didn't come out right, unfortunately) and some couscous. Yummy!

Chicken Tagine
(recipe adapted from Williams-Sonoma Slow Cooker)

1/4 c. flour
salt & pepper
6-8 chicken thighs, bone in & skin removed (the original recipe has the skins on, but they end up all soggy after slow cooking for a couple hours)
olive oil
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 can chicken broth (I prefer low sodium)
1/2 c. chopped parsley (optional, but it brings nice color to the party)
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
2 14oz cans of diced tomatoes, drained
1 onion, sliced
1 green bell pepper, sliced (mine were about 3/8 inch wide pieces)
1 lemon, cut into 8ths
1 15oz can garbanzo beans, drained
cooked couscous (optional)
pita bread (optional)

First step is to sprinkle the chicken thighs with salt and pepper, then dredge them in the flour. By doing the salt and pepper first, it ensures even coverage. This recipe makes a lot of sauce, so you can keep it at 6 thighs, or go all the way up to 8.
Heat up a skillet over medium/medium-high with a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Brown both sides of the thighs, going a few at a time so the pan doesn't get crowded. We just want some nice color, not to cook them all the way through. Once they are browned, place them in the slow cooker.
Now we make the sauce. Add the rest of the flour you used to dredge (might need to add a little more if you are cooking more thighs) to the warm skillet along with the cumin and cayenne. Stir it around until the flour and spices are fragrant and absorbed into the remaining oil. Add the can of chicken broth to the skillet and bring to a boil. Make sure to stir it around to get up all of those tasty browned bits left in the pan!
Add the broth mixture to the slow cooker along with the parsley, garlic, tomatoes, onion and bell pepper. Swish it all around a bit to get it in between those thighs.
Tuck a few pieces of lemon around in the slow cooker between thighs. If you have a really juicy lemon, add less. If you like the nice tang than citrus brings, add more. I had juicy lemons and added 3 pieces.
Cook on high heat for 1 1/2 hours (or low for 4). Stir in the garbanzos and cook for an additional hour.
Serve over a bed of couscous(top photo). Or, you can take the chicken out, shred it up and mix it with some of those tomatoes and garbanzos and some couscous and stuff it in a pita. talk about TASTY! (photo in middle of page)

This delicious dish is linked up at:

Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
I'm Lovin It at Tidy Mom
Foodie Friday at Designs By Gollum
Weekend Wrap Up Party at Tatertots and Jello
Putluck Sunday at Mommy's Kitchen
Sunday Showcase at Under The Table and Dreaming

Easy Bean Dip

2010-05-18T09:04:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this picture DOES NOT do the dip justice in the least. But boy is it sooooo good!
The hubby and I had some leftover chips and cannellini beans from our taco night. Not having any more tortillas or meat for tacos, I saw fit to make a bean dip. I hadn't had bean dip in yeaaarrrsssss.
Taking some inspiration from Stephanie O'Dea and her use of the CrockPot Mini Dipper- I knew I wanted to make a warm bean dip. Yummy.
This recipe is really more of a parts list that can be changed around to suit your tastes.

I used up the rest of my cooked cannellini beans (about a cans worth) and added in a can of low sodium black beans...it's what I had in my cabinet other than garbanzo beans, which I thought would be weird. Definitely not going for the hummus flavor here. Not yet.

So to my 2 cans worth of beans I added an 8oz can of tomato sauce. Heated the whole darn thing up in a small saucepan and added some various seasonings. In my case, garlic powder, cumin and pepper. Just a little at first because you can alwasy add, but cannot take away!
Blend all that goodness up in a food processor, blender, or in my case- the immersion blender! What a fun tool! Taste for seasonings and serve.
I put my dip in the little dipper to keep it warm- but this stuff is great right out of the fridge.

Easy Bean Dip

2 cans worth of beans (black, white, whatever you like!), drained (I prefer low sodium)
1 8oz. can of tomato sauce (I prefer low sodium)
seasonings! cumin and some lime juice would be great.
                  some chili powder for kick
                   garlic and lime juice
                   italian seasoning
                   you're only limited by what's in the cabinet!

Combine everything in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook just long enough to warm everything up. Then blend it all until smooth, or chunky, or whatever you like. Check the seasonings and add more if desired!

I linked my dip up to these awesome parties:

Tuesday Tastes at Crazy Daisy
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at BlessedwithGrace
Tasty Tuesday at Beauty and Bedlam
Strut Your Stuff Thursday at somewhat simple
It's Party Time Thursday at Pony Tails & Fish Scales
Recipe Share Party at Harrigan Howdy

Banana Fudgesicles

2010-05-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

What's better than a nice cool treat on a warm afternoon? What frozen confection brings you back to childhood? And what's a tasty way to use up some very ripe bananas when you're tired of banana bread?
I'll tell you. It's banana fudgesicles. :)
Last summer I began my search for popsicle molds. I didn't find them, but luckily the hubby and I recieved a pack of 6 as a wedding present. Yay!
Now that the weather is warming up, I knew it was time to break out the popsicle molds and make something tasty. What is tastier than chocolate? Not a lot. What goes great with chocolate that I happen to have a few of? Bananas!
The banana makes it healthy, right? ;)
I found these fudgesicles to be so nice and refreshing on a warm day! The chocolate is just strong enough that it compliments the banana perfectly, and I am so glad I didn't have to make more banana bread!
My recipe makes 6 popsicles. Each hold about a half cup of popsicle goodness. You can use small dixie cups with posicle sticks, or even double it up to make a bunch. Yum.

Banana Fudgesicles

2 tbl. cornstarch
sprinkle of salt
1 1/2 c. milk
1/4 c. light corn syrup
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
heaping 1/2 c. chocolate chips
1 very ripe banana, mashed up good.

Mix together the first five ingredients in a saucepan. Once combined, bring to a boil over medium heat and stir for one minute, or until the mixture has thickened up. Congratulations, you just made a really quick and easy pudding.
Turn off the heat and stir in the chocolate chips until they have melted completely. Then mix in the maches banana.
Like a good gravy, this stuff will thicken up fast as it cools down. You can put piece of plastic wrap over it, touching the surface to prevent a skin from forming and stick it in the fridge if you don't want to make the fudgesicles right away. Otherwise, fill up your molds or dixie cups with the pudding. Stick the tops on the molds, or put plastic wrap over dixie cups and stick a popsicle stick through the plastic wrap. The plastic helps to hold the stick upright.
Freeze for at least four hours and enjoy!
Note: If the fudgesicles don't come out of their molds easily, run a little warm water around the outside and they should pop right out.

I linked this recipe up at:

Friday Food at momtrends
Weekend Wrap Up Party at Tatertots and Jello
Potluck Sunday at Mommy's Kitchen
Sunday Showcase Party at Under The Table and Dreaming
Made By You Monday at Skip To My Lou
Just Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative
Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
Motivate Me Monday at Keeping it Simple
"You're So Crafty" Monday at Miss Crafty Pants
Market Yourself Monday at Sumo's Sweet Stuff
Marketing Mondays at Trendy Treehouse
Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays at BlessedwithGrace
Tuesday Tastes at Crazy Daisy
Tasty Tuesday at Beauty and Bedlam
Strut Your Stuff Thursday at somewhat simple
It's Party Time Thursday at Pony Tails & Fish Scales
Recipe Share Party at Harrigan Howdy

Pork Chop Piccata

2010-05-12T18:02:00.000-07:00

I like to follow along with Pioneer Woman's blog, and have my own account over at Tasty Kitchen. One day, Ree submitted a delicious chicken piccata recipe (here). I made it and the hubby and I both really enjoyed it. Recently, however, I had found myself wanting that tasty piccata sauce. Short on chicken, I decided to use some boneless pork chops. Hey, pork is the other white meat, right? So I followed along with the recipe for the most part, changing a couple things here and there to suit our tastes. And voila!
It was delicious! VERY delicious. I made the recipe with only 2 chops, but still made the full amount of sauce, that way I could have it over pasta for lunch the next day!

Pork Chop Piccata
(adapted from Pioneer Woman's Chicken Piccata)

4 boneless pork chops (1/2-3/4inch thick)
1/4 c. flour
salt & pepper
4 tbl. butter
4 tbl. olive oil
3/4 c. white wine (I like using those cute 4 packs of wine that equal up to a full bottle- use 1 sm. bottle here)
1 can chicken broth
Juice from 1 lemon (I'm used to big and juicy lemons, you may need to use 2 to get more juice)
3/4 c. heavy cream
slurry of 2 tbl. cornstarch and 1/4 c. water (optional)
cooked spaghetti

Sprinkle the chops with salt and pepper, then dredge in the flour.
Heat up a skillet over medium heat along with half of the butter and half of the oil. Cook two of the chops, until browned and cooked all the way through. Then put the rest of the butter and oil in the pan and cook the remaining chops. Set aside someplace to keep warm.
Pour into the skillet the wine, chicken broth and lemon juice. Cook over medium heat until it has reduced by half, scraping up all of the tasty browned bits on the bottom. Season with some salt and pepper.
Reduce the heat to low and add in the cream. Cook and stir until the sauce has thickened up a bit.
At this point, if you want the sauce to be more like a gravy, add in the slurry and watch it thicken up!
Taste the sauce and add more lemon juice if you want more tang, more cream if you want less tang.
Serve sauce over the chops and some spaghetti!

This recipe is linked up at:

Recipe Share Party at Harrigan Howdy
Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple
It's Party Time Thursday at Pony Tails & Fish Scales
I'm Lovin' It Fridays at Tidy Mom
Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum
Ultimate Recipe Swap at lifeasmom.com

Fresh Strawberry Cake

2010-05-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day!!!

I get emails from various recipe websites (bettycrocker, recipezaar, etc) with different season inspired recipes. Recently, on of my Recipezaar emails was advertising a very delicious sounding fresh strawberry cake.
Not having fresh strawberries, but rather strawberries that were fresh last summer and frozen quickly via the use of dry ice (thank you Alton Brown), I thought it appropriate to use those.
The only things I changed to the original recipe were the glaze and a some of the methods. It turned out absolutely delicious. My hubby loved the texture of the cake- all thanks to the use of cake flour instead of all purpose. (But if you need to, you can substitute 1 cup less 2 tbl all purpouse + 2 tbl cornstarch for eash 1 cup of cake flour. The texture really does make it worth it to go get a small box of cake flour at the store, though!)
The fresh glaze on top was just sweet enough to accent the cake. Another great thing about glaze is that you don't have to try and make a perfect frosting job. Glaze looks GOOD when it dribbles down the side of the cake. :)

Fresh Strawberry Cake

Cake:
2 1/4 c. cake flour
1/4 tsp. salt
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 c. unsalted butter (1 stick), softened
1 1/2 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 c. fresh (or frozen!) strawberries, thawed and mashed

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder.
In another bowl, cream together the butter and eggs. Then add in the vanilla. Blend. Then blend in the eggs, one at a time until fully incorporated.
Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture in batches, alternating with the mashed strawberries.
Beat it all for 2 minutes.
Pour the batter into two greased and floured 8- or 9-inch round cake pans. (you could use a 9x13, but the bake time will vary)
Bake for 25-30 minutes (I used 9-inch pans, and 25 minutes was just perfect)
Turn out the cakes onto cooling racks.
Start making the glaze.

Strawberry Glaze
1 c. mashed strawberries
1 1/2 c. powdered sugar
2 tbl. melted unsalted butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract.

Mix together all of the ingredients. (Note: If you used frozen berries, and they are still cold, warm them up a bit before adding the butter or it will just firm up up again.
Put the first layer of your cake (still warm) on your serving platter. Poke holes in it with a toothpick or skewer. Drizzle some glaze on top and using a spatula, move it around to make sure the cake sucks it all up into those holes.
Put the top layer over the bottom, and do the same thing. You can save the extra glaze to serve with individual pieces, or wait until the glaze has sucked up into the top layer and add more- repeating until it's all gone.
Wait until cake has cooled completely to eat. Enjoy!

This delicious cake is linked up with:

Made By You Monday at Skip To My Lou
Mouthwatering Monday at A Southern Fairytale
Just Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative
Foodie Friday at Designs By Gollum
Motivate Me Monday at Keeping It Simple
Market Yourself Monday at Sumo's Sweet Stuff
Tasty Tuesday at Beauty and Bedlam
Tuesdays at the Table at All The Small Stuff
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at BlessedwithGrace
Tuesday Tastes at Crazy Daisy
Recipe Share Party at Harrigan Howdy
Friday Favorites at Simply Sweet Home
I'm Lovin' It Fridays at Tidy Mom

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

2010-05-05T14:46:00.000-07:00

Wow, two posts in one day. If you haven't already, check out my recipe for Flour Tortillas.
I like watching Food Network, and occasionally when I see a recipe that strikes me, I save it with plans to try it sometime.
This is the case with this salsa. I was watching Tyler's Ultimate and he was making chicken enchiladas with a roasted tomatillo salsa. It looked tasty. And when putting together my Cinco de Mayo dinner menu, I thought about trying it. Problem is that the weather is getting warmer in these parts and I didn't want to heat up the whole house baking off some enchiladas. Not today anyways. So I settled on just using his roasted tomatillo salsa recipe to go along with my Flour Tortillas and a few other things to make some tasty chicken tacos later. Yum.
I changed the recipe up a little to suit the tastes of me and my husband. After all, we are the ones that plan to eat it.
First thing to do is roast about a pound of husked and washed tomatillos, a jalapeno (instead of 2), one white onion in quarters and a garlic clove (instead of 4, only because I don't have much left). Pour some olive oil over the veggies and move them around a bit to cover. It really helps them to roast better.
Roast everything in a 400 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. Times like these I really like my toaster oven. It does the work without heating up the whole house. And I must say that the kitchen smelled wonderful while those veggies were roasting!
Once everything is roasted, toss it all in a food processor with some parsley (instead of cilantro- we just don't like that stuff), cumin, salt and lime juice. Pulse until its salsa consistency- however it is you like it.

This salsa is really good! I was eating it with a spoon. Some more garlic could be nice, but I don't think I would change a thing with it!
The notes of lime go really well with chicken.....or even some tortilla chips! I'm sure it would be great in Tyler's Ultimate Chicken Enchiladas.

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa
(adapted from Tyler Florence)

1 pound of tomatillos, husked and washed
1 jalapeno
1 white onion, quartered
1 clove of garlic
1 tsp. cumin
1 tbs. lime juice
1/3 - 1/2 c. parsley
a sprinkle of salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Put the first four ingredients on a baking sheet and drizzle some olive oil over them. Move them around to get everything coated.
Stick the pan in the oven and roast the veggies for 12-15 minutes. The tomatillos will start to split open when they're done.
Stick the veggies into a food processor along with the rest of the ingredients and pulse until it's the consistency of salsa- however it is you like it!

This recipe has been linked to

Just Something I Whipped Up @ The Girl Creative
Recipe Share Party @ Harrigan Howdy
I'm Lovin' It @ Tidy Mom
Foodie Friday @ Designs By Gollum
Friday Favorites @ Simply Sweet Home
Friday Food @ momtrends

Chevy's Flour Tortillas

2010-05-05T14:44:00.000-07:00

After going to Chevy's a little while back with my hubby, I re-realized how much I like their tortillas. I am a flour tortilla gal, and Chevy's has some great ones. I was impressed to find they posted the recipe on their site: "Famous Flour Tortillas"
I decided to make them at home, and they were both easy and super tasty. Now the recipe is a staple and we will (probably) never go back to the store bought kind.
The recipe is written using a mixer, but for something as quick and easy as this, I just use my hand and a wooden spoon.
Mix together 3 cups of flour with 1/2 tsp of baking powder and a little salt. Then, add 1/4 c of vegetable shortening and cut it in (I just used my hands) until you can hardly tell it's there anymore. Then add 1 1/2 c. of warm water (from the tap is fine) and mix it all together. You can keep using your hands, but I found the dough was loose enough to use a spoon.
Wrap up the dough in plastic wrap and let it sit on the counter for 20 minutes to rest. This is a good time to clean up. :)

After 20 minutes have passed, divide the dough into 8 portions and form into balls.
You can roll out each ball into tortillas all at once, then cook them all. Or, if you want your tortillas faster, like me, you roll one-cook it, roll another while the first is cooking-then cook it....so on and so forth.

Heat a cast iron griddle to medium heat and coat with veggie spray to use. Place a tortilla on it. It will cook fast, so keep an eye on it.When it starts to puff up, it's about ready to flip.
Check the bottom side for doneless to your liking, flip, and when done put on a plate covered with a towel.
I like to keep mine in the microwave covered. It seems to keep them warm for a little while longer.

Yum! These are part of my Cinco de Mayo dinner tonight! Make some tacos or burritos of your own with these tortillas and some Roasted Tomatillo Salsa!

Chevy's Flour Tortillas
(adapted from Chevy's)

3 c. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
dash of salt
1/4 c. vegetable shortening
1 1/4 c. warm tap water

Mix together the first three ingredients.
Cut the shortening into the flour mixture until you can hardly see it anymore.
Mix in the warm water with a spoon until everything comes together. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let sit on the counter for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, divide the dough into 8 pieces. On a lightly floured surface, roll them out into tortillas.
Heat a cast iron pan or griddle to medium heat and coat with cooking spray. Cook tortillas one at a time, checking when they begin to really puff up. Flip and cook on the other side. Shouldn't take more than a couple minutes total.
Keep cooked tortillas warm on a plate covered with a clean dish towel.

This recipe is linked up at

Tuesday Tastes @ Crazy Daisy
Recipe Share Party @ Harrigan Howdy
Just Something I Whipped Up @ The Girl Creative
I'm Lovin' It @ Tidy Mom
Foodie Friday @ Designs By Gollum
Friday Favorites @ Simply Sweet Home
Friday Food @ momtrends

Roasted Red Pepper and Mushroom Risotto

2010-05-04T10:03:00.000-07:00

Last night was my first attempt at making risotto. I must say, that I have been wanting to make it since a friend came over and made a super tasty carrot risotto one night.
Anyways, after buying a pound of arborio rice, just enough to try it out, I immediately set out in search of the perfect risotto recipe. Something that would be flavorful and creamy.
I introduce you to: the original recipe.
I did stray....quite a bit...from the original. Partially because I didn't have all of the ingredients. Partially because I wanted to make sure some other flavors played a part. And partially because I seem to ALWAYS change up a recipe- even on the first time around. :)
So the journey begins with all of the prep work. I adore having everything I need sitting out, waiting it's turn. I also am a big fan of cleaning as I go. I really value all of my coutner space, and for some reason it's easier for me to work when it's all nice and cleaned up.
First, get all of the liquid that you will be adding to the rice ready. This includes half of a 12 oz. jar of roasted red peppers. (The original recipe called for all of it- but I didn't want the flavor to be too strong, and I also wanted to use the other half for something else later.)
Put the red bell and some of the liquid from the jar in the food processor and give it a blitz until it is all chopped up. You want to see pieces of the pepper, but not get a huge bite. Add that to a medium sized pot.
Also into the pot goes a can of chicken broth plus about 2 1/2 to 3 cups of water.
Next step in the food prep is to dice one onion. Put that in a large pan and let it wait for you.
Back to the food processor. Chop up a carrot and a half and put that in the processor along with 2 cloves of garlic. Blitz it until it's all nice and fine. Not mush. Just fine. Then add that to the onion in the pan. The carrots add a nice sweetness to the dish. Something that I realized when my friend made his carrot risotto, and part of what won me over with this recipe.
Now add a couple handfuls of chopped mushrooms. White button mushrooms would be good. I happened to have baby bellas. Next, pour in a couple tablespoons of olive oil and cook on medium low/low for 20-30 minutes until the onions turn translucent and begin to caramelize. Stir it around occasionally so it doesn't stick or develop hot spots. This is called sweating. You may need to add a couple tbl of water at some point if the mixture dries out too fast on you. We don't want to burn the veggies on high heat, just get all of those lovely flavors to emerge on a lower setting. Yum.
Once they have all caramelized a bit, turn that pot with your stock and red pepper onto medium. We don't want to boil it, just get it nice and hot. I didn't even bring mine to a simmer, just kept it hot. Once it was hot, I turned the stove down a bit so it wouldn't boil.
Okay, here is where the real fun begins. Add 4 tbl of butter to your veggies. Once it has all melted, add 1 1/2 cup sof arborio rice. No, not regular long grain white rice. Arborio. There just isn't any substituting for this starchy grain.
Stir the rice around (still on that med low/low heat) for a minute or two until each grain is coated in buttery goodness. Now you can begin adding in that tasty broth one cup at a time.
Once a cup (I used a ladle that I think is just under a cup) has been added, stir it all around until the liquid has been absorbed. The stirring is supposed to help release the starch from the rice, thus creating a creamy texture.
And repeat. Keep going, adding a cup of your broth and stirring until it is all soaked up by the rice. About half way thru the pan of broth, start tasting your rice right BEFORE adding more liquid to see if it's done.
What's done? The rice should have a bit of a bite. Al dente. It should not be crunchy.
I ended up using all of my liquid up, but you may need more, you may need less. There is really no telling until you try.
Here is where you can add in some seasonings if you wish. Pepper is always a favorite. Lots of people like grated parmesan on their risotto (which adds a salty flavor, also). I stuck with pepper and some salt. I don't like parmesan. Don't hate.

The recipe was a total success. My wrist was getting tired of the stirring by the end, but of was it worth it. This recipe makes a great side dish, and makes a lot. The beauty of it is that I have leftovers! Yay!

Roasted Red Pepper and Mushroom Risotto

2 tbl. olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 handfuls of slices mushrooms (white button, baby bellas, whatever you like)
2 cloves garlic
1 1/2 carrots, chopped into 1 inch pieces
4 tbl unsalted butter
1 1/2 c. arborio rice
1/2 of a 12oz jar of roasted red peppers
1 14oz can chicken stock (I prefer low sodium)
2 1/2 - 3 c. water
salt, pepper, parmesan

First, puree the roasted red pepper in some of its juices until it's in small pieces. Pour into a medium sized pot and add the chicken stock and water.
Rinse out the food processor and add the carrot and garlic. Blitz until its chopped up fine. Put carrot mixture into a large frying pan. Add onion and mushrooms to the pan along with the olive oil.
Cook the veggies on med low/low heat for 20-30 minutes until the onions turn translucent and begin to caramelize. Don't try to rush it, you'll burn those small pieces of carrot and garlic! Add some water if it begins to dry out before it's caramelized.
Torwards the end of the caramelizing, turn the heat on under the pot of stock to medium. Get the liquid nice and hot, but not to a boil. A simmer would be fine. Turn down the heat as necessary to keep from boiling.
Once the veggies are caramelized, add the butter and let it melt. Once melted, add the rice and stir around for a minute or two until each grain is coated in the buttery mixture.
Now begin adding the hot stock mixture to the rice mixture one cup at a time. Make sure to keep stirring the rice and veggies around to help that arborio rice release starch. Do not add more liquid until all of the previous liquid has been absorbed.
About half way through the broth, start testing the rice for proper texture right before you would add more liquid. The rice should be al dente, but not crunchy.
Add in desired seasonings. Pepper is great, and a lot of people like parmesan.

This recipe is linked up with:

With the "Anything Goes" theme, my recipe has been added to May's Side Dish Showdown

Meringue Cookies

2010-05-03T10:19:00.000-07:00

My mom gave me this amazing cookbook last Christmas. It has become one of my favorites, my all around go to book. It is the Taste of Home Cookbook. I love how organized it is with all of the different tabs, I like the sheet protectors (they must have known how messy I can get while cooking), I likehow they have multiple variations for some pretty classic recipes- but for some reason, I really like that they have seperate sections for "quick breads" and "yeast breads". But not only that, desserts are broken up into "desserts", "cakes", "cookies and bars", "pies and tarts", and "candies". Ask my hubby, I really like organization.
As Alton Brown says, "Organization will set you free".
Anyways, After making creme brulee (more on that later), I had some extra egg whites, and my hubby suggested I should make meringue cookies with them. What a good idea! First, to find a recipe. And who was there for me? The Taste of Home Cooking Cookbook. Sigh. It's really awesome, isn't it.
The recipe looks pretty much exactly like meringue for a lemon meringue pie- one of my favorite pies to make, so I figured that it should be a pretty easy task.
Let egg whites sit out for 30 minutes to come more to room temperature.
Beat the egg whites, vanilla and cream of tartar until soft peaks form in a metal or glass bowl. It is important you don't use plastic because plastic easily scratches and these scratches hold things like fat which don't allow egg whites to stiffen up when beaten.
Then, slowly add in sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form. (check this page out on beating egg whites)
Here is where I started to stray from the recipe before me. My book had 2 cookie recipes, both with 1/4 cup of sugar per egg white- the meringues at this point were pretty much the same in both recipes. However, one recipe says to bake teaspoon sized cookies at 250 degrees for 40-45 minutes, then let sit in the oven for 1 and 1/2 hours after you turn it off. The other recipe says to bake at 250 degrees for 30-35 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack.
You can guess which route I took. I baked them for 35 minutes and put them on cooling racks. They were super tasty. Very light, with a hint of vanilla. Later that evening, I put them in a zip top bag, and the next morning they were a bit more soft than before. I think the combination of being piled together, and any moisture in the air didn't work out for them. I put them all back on a cooling rack, and soon they were just fine again.
I think next time I'll follow the other recipe. Bake for 40-45 minutes, turn of fthe oven and let them sit in it for another hour and a half. It really ensures that they dry out and don't end up sticky or mushy.

Meringue Cookies

3 egg whites
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/8 tsp. cream of tartar
1/8 tsp. salt
3/4 c. sugar

Preheat oven to 250 degrees
Set out egg whites in a bowl for about 30 minutes before using so they can come to room temperature.
Beat the egg whites, vanilla, cream of tartar and salt on medium speed until soft peaks form.
Turn the speed up to high and gradually add the sugar, about a tablespoon at a time. Beat until all of the sugar is dissolved and you have lovely stiff peaks.
Drop the meringue by rounded teaspoons about an inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet.
Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until firm to the touch. Turn off the oven and leave those meringues in there with the door closed for another hour and a half.
Take out your meringues and let them cool on wire cooling racks.

This recipe is linked to Mouthwatering Monday!

Pizza Pinwheels

2010-04-30T15:49:00.000-07:00

This is based on a recipe that I found from multiplydelicious while searching Tasty Kitchen for a recipe to use up some buttermilk we had in the fridge. The original recipe, Cheesy Pizza Scrolls looked absolutely delicious!
So I decided to make it, and change it up a bit to fit the ingredients I had, because quite frankly, I didn't feel like taking off my cozy slippers and going to the store, and because I prefer mozarella to cheddar. The two biggest appeals to this recipe was that first, it used more than a couple tablespoons of buttermilk (great since we had a bunch left), AND, the dough wasn't a yeast dough. I tried making a loaf of honey wheat bread the night before, and something didn't work out right. The finished product was quite dense to say the least. So I definitely didn't want to mess with yeast breads for a little while.
So the cooking began with the prepping of all the ingredients. (I didn't take pictures because I wasn't planning on writing about it. But the tasty smell while it was baking sure did change my mind!) I started making a simple pizza sauce with things usually in the cupboard- tomato sauce, tomato puree and a variety of seasonings that I thought would go well together.
I decided that since this was going to be my dinner, that I would add some more toppings to it- shredded chicken and chopped yellow onion (one of my favorite pizza toppings).
For the chicken, I drizzled some olice oil on it, sprinkled some salt and pepper, then baked it in the toaster oven for 25 minutes on 350 degrees. Let it cool, then shredded it up.
I shredded a bunch of mozarella. I like the way it looks and spreads better shredded than blitzed in the food processor.
Finally, time to make the dough. I get all of the dry ingredients mixed, and go to get my buttermilk that I had been searching and searching for recipes that called for it. And guess what...it was no good. It smelled kind of the same, but it was chunky. So, I used some regular milk spiked with about a tsp. of lemon juice.
Mixed, kneaded and rolled the dough out. Then covered it with some of the sauce, (saving the rest for dipping, or some spaghetti later) onion, chicken and cheese. Then the whole thing is rolled up like a cinnamon roll, and cut into 9 pieces. They are set, cut side up, in a greased 8x8 or 9x9 baking pan, and topped with even more mozarella.
They are then baked at 400 degrees for 25 minutes. I really like baked dishes in part because it gives me time to clean up all the mess from preparing the dish. Unlike most stove top prepared food where it usually needs some consistent attention, and there are lots of dishes left for after dinner- the time I like to just relax with my hubby.
Twenty-five minutes later, dinner was served...

(Best food picture of mine yet? I think so)

This recipe makes for a great appetizer, or even a dinner if served with a size salad. Yum!
Check out the original recipe, especially if you like cheddar! Cheesy Pizza Scrolls

Pizza Pinwheels

Dough:
2 c. all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. sugar
sprinkle of salt
1 c. buttermilk (or regular milk spiked with a tsp of lemon juice)

Sauce:
1 8oz can tomato sauce
1 6oz can tomato puree
1/2 tsp. italian seasoning
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes (optional, but I like the little kick of heat)
dash of pepper
1/2 tsp. sugar

1 1/2 cups shredded mozarella cheese, plus extra for sprinkling on top
Shredded chicken (I used almost a whole breast's worth)
Chopped onion (about 1/4 of a normal sized onion)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Mix together all of the sauce ingredients in a small bowl.
Shred the cheese into another bowl, if not already shredded.
To make the dough, combine all of the dry ingredients. Make a well in the center and add in your buttermilk. Mix it all together until it's one glob of dough. Turn it out onto a lightly floured board and knead until it's smooth. Roll out the dough into a 12x12in square.
Spread some of your suace onto the square, leaving about 1/2 inch on the side farthest from you sauce-less. Add your chicken and onion- or whatever toppings you want- just not too much, remember, we have to roll this up on top of the sauce. Then top with your cheese.
Start rolling the dough up like you would when making cinnamon rolls, starting with the side closest to you. Keep rolling until its all done- notice that some of the filling spreads when it's rolled? That's why we left the very end empty.
Cut your roll into 9 as-close-to-equal portions as you can and place in a greased 8x8 or 9x9 pan with the cut side up. Top with some more cheese if you so desire and bake for 25-30 minutes.

This recipe is linked to Foodie Friday!

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

2010-04-28T18:29:00.000-07:00

I like bananas. I don't like banana flavored things, and I usually don't like warm banana things. Ew. Having said that, I do like banana bread. And what a good way to use up over ripened bananas than some tasty bread? I started using a recipe out of an older Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, and changed it up a bit to suite the tastes of my husband and I.
Always read a recipe all the way through BEFORE starting anything. This recipe has helped me learn that.
The first step is to mix together 1 cup of flour (which happens to only be part of what the ingredients list calls for), sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Next you add in some mashed banana. The recipe originally asks for 1 cup. I find one average sized banana to be too little, so I usually use two- regardless of how much it really is. I have found that 2 average sized bananas is pretty perfect. I know, I'm a rebel. And, I know, you are supposed to measure everything with baking. Well. Oh well. :)
Along with the banana, add some butter or shortening (I have been known to usually use shortening because I don't have any butter softened when I decide to make banana bread), and milk. Mix this until till blended, then on medium speed in a mixer for 2 minutes. (I love my KitchenAid. A lot.) After this, add in the remaining flour and the eggs. Beat until blended. Then, add in 1/4 to 1/2c of chocolate chips. Mini would be adorable, but regular is usually what I have on hand.

Mmmmm... :)
Grease 3 mini loaf pans or one 8x4x2in loaf pan. Distribute the batter evenly and bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes (mini loaf) or 55-60 minutes (big loaf).

Test with a toothpick. If said toothpick comes out clean, then your bread is done. Cool for a few minutes in pans, then remove bread from pans and cool some more on a cooling rack.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

1 3/4 c. all purpose flour, divided
2/3 c. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
pinch of salt
2 average sized bananas, very ripe, mashed
1/3 c. shortening or softened butter
2 tbl. milk
2 eggs
1/4-1/2 c. chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
In a large mixer bowl, combine 1 cup of flour, the sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix together.
Add the mashed banana, shortening or butter and the milk. Mix on low speed just until blended, then on medium speed for 2 minutes.
Add the eggs and the remaining 3/4 c. of flour. Mix until blended. Add the chocolate chips and mix until blended.
Distribute between 3 greased mini loaf pans or one 8x4x2 greased loaf pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes for mini loaves, or 55-60 minutes for large loaf; or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Cool in pan(s) for 5-10 minutes, then remove to cool completely on a wire rack.

This recipe has been linked up at Make Ahead Meals For Busy Moms!!

Mexican Rice

2010-04-27T15:11:00.000-07:00

So, I'm new to this whole blog thing. It seems a lot like writing a journal and posting it on the web for the world to see. Of just anyone interested in what's going on in your head. Creepy.
Anyways, after much thought and some gentle persuasion from my friend Kristin, (Delightful Country Cookin' <---Look! I'm already bringing others into my blog! Hehe. ) I decided to give it a go. I will admit that I was hesitant at first because I don't usually take pictures of my cooking, and I secretly want to write a cookbook someday and have it actually sell.
But here we are. Last night I made Mexican Rice. It's a recipe, or a method that my friend Veronica's mom told me several years ago. It's the first thing I have cooked that I remembered to take a few pictures of during the process. :)
First, I took some plain long grain white rice and dropped it in a skillet with about a tbl or so of olive oil. Turned the heat to medium and started to brown the rice- making sure to stir or you'll have burned rice! (This would be the time to add some chopped onion or garlic if you feel like jazzing it up some more)

Once it has browned up a bit, add some tomato juice (or that canned tomato sauce) and some water. This is 2/3 C rice and I added about 1/2c of tomato juice and 1c of water. I know, I know, that's more liquid than usually needed for making rice. I can't explain it, it just works best this way. I also put some fresh cracked black pepper in at this point. Pepper is a great spice!

Stir the rice around a bit to make sure none of it is sticking to the bottom of the pan. When it reaches a simmer again turn the heat down to low and cover it. Let it cook for about 6 to 8 minutes. No peeking! Peeking lets out steam, which we definitely DO NOT want because the rice won't have enough liquid to finish cooking!

When it is done, fluff it up with a fork and serve. It's great in burritos. We had it as a side along with some bbq chicken, broccoli salad and garlic bread. Yum!

Enjoy!

Mexican Rice (serves 2-4)

2/3 c. uncooked white rice
1-2 tbls olive oil
1/2 c. tomato juice (or one of those small cans of tomato sauce, and just add water to equal up 1 1/2 c. total)
1 c. water
pepper

Put rice and oil in a skillet and turn the heat up to medium. Cook the rice, stirring as you go, until it begins turning nice and brown. Add all of the liquid and pepper to taste. Be careful as the skillet is hot and the liquid is going to bubble a bunch when added! Stir everything together and wait for it to come to a simmer. At that point, cover and turn the heat to low. After 6-8 minutes of no peeking, you will have some tasty rice!

This recipe is linked to Tasty Tuesday and Tuesdays at the Table